Radio Live - Podcasts - Keen On America - 01.20.23: That Was The Week in Tech

01.20.23: That Was The Week in Tech

Author: Andrew Keen January 21, 2023 Duration: 19:44

Podcast episode

Keen On America

Keen On America is a sharp, fast-moving podcast hosted by author and commentator Andrew Keen. Known for asking impertinent questions, Keen cross-examines some of the world’s most thoughtful voices on politics, economics, history, culture, the environment, and technology. Each episode digs beneath headlines and hype to uncover what is really shaping America today and how those forces connect to global change. Listeners can expect challenging conversations rather than easy talking points, as Keen presses guests to explain not just what is happening, but why it matters and what might come next. Whether you are trying to make sense of polarized politics, rapid technological disruption, or shifting social norms, this show offers a bracing, critical lens. Tune in and listen episodes of Keen On America to hear Andrew Keen interrogate the ideas and assumptions that define contemporary American life.

In his weekly round up of tech news with Keith Teare, the author of the That Was The Week newsletter, Andrew imagines the possible "dawning of a new era" in Silicon Valley. For the week of January 20, 2023, Keith and Andrew discuss the future of Google search, a possible Apple virtual reality headset in 2023 and, the way in which ChatGPT is about the transform the world.

More episodes

Episode 2493: David Rieff on the Woke Mind

10.04.2025 Duration: 42:38

It’s a small world. The great David Rieff came to my San Francisco studio today for in person interview about his new anti-woke polemic Desire and Fate. And half way through our conversation, he brought up Daniel Bessner…

Episode page

Episode 2492: Daniel Bessner on how Trump is a natural outgrowth of FDR

10.04.2025 Duration: 38:15

Liberals won’t like it, but according to the Seattle based historian and podcaster Daniel Bessner, Trump’s wannabe imperial presidency is a “natural outgrowth” of the centralized power of the FDR presidency. In a provoca…

Episode page

Episode 2491: Richard Kreitner 0n 6 Jews, 7 Opinions and the American Civil War

08.04.2025 Duration: 42:26

Question: What was the position of 19th century American Jews to the Civil War and Slavery? Answer: Complicated. Very complicated.Painfully and, in some ways, shamefully complicated, according to the historian Richard Kr…

Episode page

Episode 2490: Stephen Witt explains the rise of NVIDIA and its relentless CEO Jensen Huang

07.04.2025 Duration: 45:53

Stephen Witt’s last book was entitled How Music Got Free. His latest, The Thinking Machine, a history of NVIDIA and its CEO Jensen Huang, might have been called How Intelligence Got Expensive. It’s about NVIDIA’s role in…

Episode page

Episode 2489: Gianna Toboni on whether Death Row Prisoners have the Right to Die With Dignity

06.04.2025 Duration: 37:29

Should death row prisoners have the right to demand to be executed? In her debut book The Volunteer, Bay Area journalist Gianna Toboni exposes the absurd bureaucratization of the American death penalty system through the…

Episode page

Episode 2488: Diane Coyle on Measuring the Good Life

06.04.2025 Duration: 32:29

How to measure the good life? According to Cambridge University’s Professor of Public Policy, Diane Coyle, quantifying progress doesn’t involve traditional economic metrics. In her new book, Measure of Progress, Coyle di…

Episode page

Episode 2487: Keach Hagey on Sam Altman's Superpower

04.04.2025 Duration: 1:01:25

Keach Hagey’s upcoming new biography of OpenAI's Sam Altman is entitled The Optimist. But it could alternatively be called The Salesman. The Wall Street Journal reporter describes Altman as an exceptional salesman whose…

Episode page

Episode 2486: Bethanne Patrick on how our Facebook generation has gotten the Gatsby we deserve

03.04.2025 Duration: 38:25

According to the LA Times book critic Bethanne Patrick, every generation gets the Gatsby it deserves. And our generation, the social media generation, has gotten it with Careless People, by the Sarah Wynne Williams, Face…

Episode page

Episode 2485: Paul Rice on why Tariffs are dumb

02.04.2025 Duration: 40:26

It might be Liberation Day today, but according to Paul Rice, founder of US Fair Trade and author of Every Purchase Matters, Trump’s tariffs are dumb. Rice firmly distances Fair Trade from Trump's controversial trade pol…

Episode page

Episode 2484: David Masciotra on how every day has become April Fools Day in Trumpian America

01.04.2025 Duration: 40:59

Happy April Fools, everyone! Although, according to cultural critic David Masciotra every day in Trump 2.0 America is now April Fool's Day. KEEN ON AMERICA regular Masciotra argues that the new Trump's administration rep…

Episode page

Episode 2483: Peter Wehner on the ethical darkness that has fallen upon America

31.03.2025 Duration: 53:13

This is an important interview. I’ve always thought of the political essayist Peter Wehner as representing the conscience of conservative, religious America. Wehner, who writes both for the Atlantic and the New York Time…

Episode page

Episode 2482: Is AI really about to change the publishing industry?

30.03.2025 Duration: 44:45

That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare believes that the publishing industry is about to be dramatically swept away by AI. I’m not sure. Here, for example, is Anthropic ‘s (Claude) 100 word summary of this week’s KEEN O…

Episode page

Episode 2481: Jonathan Rauch on The Resistance to Trump 2.0

29.03.2025 Duration: 35:17

Has Signalgate triggered a credible resistance movement to Trump 2.0? Brookings scholar and Atlantic columnist Jonathan Rauch isn’t particularly optimistic. He discusses the emerging resistance from law firms, media, and…

Episode page

Episode 2480: Dr Andy Lazris on how Big Pharma controls the American healthcare system

28.03.2025 Duration: 42:38

This isn’t exactly the radical message one would expect from a primary physician from Columbia, Maryland. But according to Dr Andy Lazris, co-author of A Return to Healing, Big Pharma wields an iron grip on the American…

Episode page

Episode 2479: Brian Goldstone on the 4 million invisible homeless workers in America today

28.03.2025 Duration: 41:04

Amidst all the chaos and hysteria of Trump 2.0, some things in America never change. As the Atlanta based journalist Brian Goldstone notes in There Is No Place For Us, America’s “invisible” working homeless population ha…

Episode page