Same Same but Tech

Welp. Here we are with a bittersweet episode of Same Same but Tech: it’s the Season Two wrap up show. And after travelling up, down and all around the technosphere, what a season it was! From the highest of highs to the pits of despair, our guests brought us into their worlds, building technologies that are moving and shaking the foundation of culture and bringing us into the future, one brilliant analogy at a time. And while the good times always have to come to an end eventually, we thought we’d like to keep the party going for one more supercut to remind you, dear listeners, of how much awesomeness we had along the way. With a docket including: plant based meat, AI art, space tourism, virtual beings, NFTs (and more!), there’s a bit of ear candy for each one of you out there. So buckle up and put that car in drive, because we’re hitting the road. It’s the clip show! Hosted by Máuhan M Zonoozy, Head of Innovation at Spotify, Partner-alum at BCG Digital Ventures, and NYC-based angel investor and entrepreneur. Powered by BCG Digital Ventures.

Joined by O.G. startup whisperer, Brad Feld, Co-founder of Techstars and Managing Director of the Foundry Group, we dive into the startup soup. This latest wave of startups is boooooming. Money is pouring in as startups as the pandemic actually births or accelerated many - from audio social networks to video conferences to ghost kitchens! But anyone who’s tried before knows how hard it is to actually start a company. It takes funding, confidence, and a team that can make it happen. But how does this all come together? In this episode of Same Same but Tech, we track the story behind the startup who went from parking lots to a “proximity as a service” revolution. We’ll get the inside scoop of all the ups and downs from REEF Technology Co-Founder, Philippe Saint-Just. You might just walk away with the emboldened drive to go start your own venture. To the moon! Hosted by Máuhan M Zonoozy, Head of Innovation at Spotify, Partner-alum at BCG Digital Ventures, and NYC-based angel investor and entrepreneur. Powered by BCG Digital Ventures.

The deepfakes are coming! The growing trend of AI manipulated media has been racking up views and making everyone from Tom Cruise to Nancy Pelosi say things they’ve never said before, blurring the line of trust in what’s actually real and what’s altered on the Internet. In this episode of Same Same but Tech, we go deep with a startup called Lyrebird, who revolutionized an audio deepfake technology called voice cloning. Co-Founder and Head of Research Kundan Kumar gives the inside look at how they developed their voice clones and shook the internet in 2017 with a demo featuring a faked conversation between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Are we heading towards a future of distrust and suspicion for everyone we see and everything we do online? Has a voice clone already taken over hosting duties for this very podcast? We might just have to run a deepfake detection program on Mauhan to find out. With expert insight from MIT Media Lab Professor, Pattie Maes and Research Assistant, Pat Pataranutaporn. Hosted by Máuhan M Zonoozy (or is he a deepfake too?), Head of Innovation at Spotify, Partner-alum at BCG Digital Ventures, and NYC-based angel investor and entrepreneur. Powered by BCG Digital Ventures.

WTF is an NFT? Why are they worth so much? And what do they have to do with internet cats and the NBA? All of these questions and more answered on this edition of Same Same but Tech. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital assets that can be bought and sold on the public ledger of the blockchain. In this episode, we trace the story of the rise of Dapper Labs, who’ve been on the front edges of advancing NFTs. In 2017 they started Cryptokitties, an NFT marketplace offering a digital den of kittens that are cute, unique and collectible. We’ll talk to Dapper’s CEO Roham Gharegozlou about how they evolved from novelty kittens to huge trades on NBA Top Shot, a highly lucrative market for NFT collectibles and highlights from the NBA’s hottest players. The age of the NFT is upon us, but before you shell out your hard earned crypto coins, is this latest blockchain trend a bubble? Or are we on the cusp of a paradigm shift -- where digital and physical items now hold the same value? With expert insight from Devin Finzer CEO of OpenSea, one of the biggest NFT marketplaces operating today. Hosted by Máuhan M Zonoozy, Head of Innovation at Spotify, Partner-alum at BCG Digital Ventures, and NYC-based angel investor and entrepreneur. Powered by BCG Digital Ventures.

What will the future of celebrity look like? Here’s a scoop on the tiger beat: The next teeny-bop sensation might be a bot. No, we’re serious. An entirely new era of stardom is upon us, and the pop stars of the future are going to be, well, a little less human. All the instagram glitz and TikTok glam of today’s influencer culture without the human flaws? That’s the promise of the latest mind-blowing innovations in virtual beings technology. And what is a virtual being you ask? We’re going to answer that question by smashing the barrier between real and surreal and introducing you to Lil Miquela, a singing, dancing, live streaming sensation, and one of today’s hottest digital stars. On this episode of Same Same we talk with Nicole de Ayora, Chief Content Officer at Brud, the startup that introduced Lil Miquela to the masses. We’ll also hear expert analysis from Edward Saatchi, Founder and CEO of Fable Studio. Hosted by Máuhan M Zonoozy, Head of Innovation at Spotify, Partner-alum at BCG Digital Ventures, and NYC-based angel investor and entrepreneur. Powered by BCG Digital Ventures.

Since the pandemic drove the world indoors and “Work From Home” became the new mantra, a host of voice-first social networking apps like Clubhouse have busted through the interwebs and into our airpods, creating a buzz around Social Audio as the next frontier of social media. This week on Same Same, we track the rise of Clubhouse with one of its most prolific users: musician Axel Mansoor, who for the last several months was the literal face you see on the app icon. He started the Lullaby Club, one of the app’s most popular communities. The FOMO driving users to sign up for the invite-only app is real, but will the Social Audio trend last beyond lockdown? We’ll also get insight from Silicon Valley analyst Jeremiah Owyang on the future of this new audio-only mindset. Hosted by Máuhan M Zonoozy, Head of Innovation at Spotify, Partner-alum at BCG Digital Ventures, and NYC-based angel investor and entrepreneur. Powered by BCG Digital Ventures.

How much money would you pay to go to space? With Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, and Blue Origin throwing billions at launching tourists into space, that question is less hypothetical than you’d think. This week on Same Same, get the inside track on what it takes to get into orbit and how it will shift our galactic perspective with guests Raphael Roettgen, space investor and founder of E2MC Ventures, and Richard Garriott, a video game pioneer and serial entrepreneur who risked everything he had to get to space. Hosted by Máuhan M Zonoozy, Head of Innovation at Spotify, Partner-alum at BCG Digital Ventures, and NYC-based angel investor and entrepreneur. Powered by BCG Digital Ventures.

Is AI-generated artwork “real” art? Is an artist using a computer a “real” artist? What is “art,” anyway? According to our guests, Dr. Ahmed Elgammal and Hugo Caselles-Dupré, generative art using AI is just like using a camera in the 1850s. As the popularity of AI-generated art grows, so does the debate of what is - and isn’t - considered art. Listen to the story of the team at Obvious, the creators of the first piece of generative artwork ever to be auctioned off at the venerable Christie’s Auction House. Hosted by Mauhan M Zonoozy, Head of Innovation at Spotify, Partner-alum at BCG Digital Ventures, and NYC-based angel investor and entrepreneur. Powered by BCG Digital Ventures.

Imagine trying to change a habit people have had for thousands of years: eating meat. That’s the human-engineering challenge ahead of the makers of plant-based meat -- create a burger that saves our climate, tastes incredible, and convinces humanity to trade in their beloved burgers for something . . . well, green. The story of the Impossible Whopper, from test kitchen to drive-thru. Hosted by Mauhan M Zonoozy, Head of Innovation at Spotify, Partner-alum at BCG Digital Ventures, and NYC-based angel investor and entrepreneur. Powered by BCG Digital Ventures.

Season 2 of Same Same but Tech is en route with stories about how technology is changing every element of our culture - from commercial space flight to AI-generated art to plant-based burgers.