TechZing is an informal bi-weekly chat show aimed at entreprenures and hackers interested in creating their own web app startup. The show is both educational (with practical advice) and conversational.
227: TZ Discussion - Download This!
Just and Jason talk about Udi coming to America, whether Justin should use the $$ framework for Digedu, Justin's theory on show titles, the role of talent in reaching the highest level's of success, the last Catalyst session, the TechZing bulletin board, Jason and Guyon's solution to the Uber hackathon, how Upverter is coming to the Pasadena Science & Technology Expo and how Jason is going to attend the upcoming Upverter / YC hardware hackathon, how Jason was quoted in the press, how Justin picked up high-paying consulting work, the logo for Jason's secret project, why Jason thinks it's time to learn Go if you're a consultant, the Zerigo DNS service, how Justin is using NewsBlur's RSS API, the Splittsville and MarkITx iPhone apps, why Tony Stark is the ultimate engineering role model, and an update on the AnyFu recruiting process.
226: TZ Interview - Ivan Savov / The No Bullshit Guide to Math & Physics
Jason speaks with Ivan Savov about his new book, The No Bullshit Guide to Math & Physics.
225: TZ Interview - Gabriel Weinberg / The DuckDuckGo Step Function
Jason speaks with show favorite, Gabriel Weinberg, about how he's managed the growth of DuckDuckGo from 1,000 searches per month to 50 million.
224: TZ Discussion - Your iFactory Future
Justin and Jason discuss Jason's new iPad keyboard from Logitech and the Zag iPad keyboard, Justin's past life in Ireland and England, his first computer and how he became a musician, the pre-history of the Khan Academy, the crazy story of the Virtual Irish Pub and how Justin met his wife, Justin's idea for creating videos for Catalyst, PostalPix's search for a CTO, a guy in Shenzen who's printing circuit boards, a DIY Bioprinter, the future of 3D printing and how automation is wiping out middle class jobs, the future of self-driving cars, the continual rise of TSLA, what it was like to work with Steve Jobs, his love for product development and his obsession with secrecy, the conclusion of Fringe (don't worry - no spoilers) and Jason's favorite quote of the series, Jason's lunch with the director of STEM education for the Pasadena Education Foundation, the power of math and science and how to sell it to kids, the idea for creating a Catalyst hackathon and getting the Upverter guys involved, an update on the outsourced AnyFu recruiting effort, Jason's success outsourcing sys admin work on Freelancer.com, the What Would Rob Walling Do t-shirt, how Jason has been getting a lot of email asking him for advice about high-frequency trading, making the transition from doing project work to getting paid for advice, and the story of how Justin recently became a CTO.
223: TZ Interview - Zak Homouth / Upverter
Jason speaks with Zak Homouth, one of the three founders of Upverter, a web-based solution for designing, simulating and manufacturing circuit boards.
222: TZ Discussion - Getting Even on AnyFu
Justin and Jason talk about what's happening with AnyFu, why Jason does a lot of stuff and how he gets it done, why Jason has soured on partnerships, how the Gmail interface kind of sucks, why Justin link spammed Jason, AdoptTogether - the Kickstarter for adoption, the Catalyst challenge / point system, methods of running Node.js in conjunction with Apache and PHP, managing long running Node.js processes using Upstart and Monit, the tradeoffs of different Linux distributions, some upcoming interviews, the latest underwhelming TL;DR service, Jason Calacanis' Launch Ticker, the monitoring / validation service that Jason wrote for the Uber dispatching system, considerations when exercising startup options, why Jason wants the new Logitech Ultrathin iPad cover / keyboard, the research suggesting that stating your goals publicly will increase your likelihood of achieving them, and the controversy surrounding Derek Sivers' claims on subject.
221: TZ Discussion - Everything.com
Justin and Jason discuss Justin's important meeting in Chicago, why SQL is agile, how FriendFeed used MySQL to store schema-less data and when normalized data will hurt you, Justin's experience with Uber, how Jason works with the Uber engineering team as an off-site contractor and how they scaled the Node.js-based dispatching system, Gabriel Weinberg's thoughts on orders of magnitude, how Justin is working with Udi on Digedu and why they chose the new PHP framework Laravel, why Jason wrote a RESTful API for Catalyst in PHP and why he thinks building web apps in Node.js is usually more trouble than it's worth, the upcoming Catalyst point system, the possibility of creating a WordPress pluggin for Pluggio, how Jason bought an Arduino at the local Radio Shack and while there heard about a local hardware super hacker who built a long distance surveillance microphone, the difference between Raspberry Pi and Arduino, how a judge dismissed a dealers' lawsuit against Tesla's retail stores, why Jason thinks Hacker News needs a prerequisite reading list, why Justin is worried that we're all getting stuck in our own social media silos, why you should pay attention to power law distributions and why you should look for things you can scale.
220: TZ Discussion - Give It a Go
Justin and Jason discuss email etiquett, Justin's workout progress, skiing vs snowboarding, CJ's thoughts on Catalyst Class, Jason's plans for Catalyst Academy and his difficulty in getting MongoDB to work on AppFog, why Jason feels that doing more things makes him more productive and his plan for launching multiple projects, Justin's experiments with paid advertising and Jason's argument for why statistics is not destiny.
219: TZ Discussion - Confessions of an Overcommitter
Justin and Jason talk about how Justin bought the percentage of Pluggio he didn't own, what Buffer did right and what can be learned from their success, why Jason moved on from Appignite, what's happening with AnyFu and why Jason doesn't consider Catalyst to be a startup project, why it's better to focus on process rather than on specific goals and how small wins build momentum, the importance of engaging in deep work and the difficulty of getting small things done, the difference between trading and investing and why Jason wouldn't use an investment advisor, why Iceland is succeeding and Ireland is struggling, how AngelList is allowing accredited investors to invest in startups online, the uncovering of Intellectual Ventures 2,000 shell companies and how EFF's Patent Project got a half-million dollar boost from Mark Cuban and 'Notch', what's been working and not working with Catalyst, Jeff Bezos' regret minimization framework, and finally why it's good to do things.
218: TZ Discussion - Red Helium
Justin and Jason talk about Justin's idea for doing a catch-up show, foosball and table tennis, why Justin renamed $$ as Jefferson, the push and pull between product designers and developers, Jason's new travel hack and his recent trip to San Francisco, the talk he gave at Catalyst Class and his tour of Cambrian Genomics, why Jason is introducing robots into Catalyst, the progress being made by the kids and the possibility of having them program virtual battle bots, how John Humphrey helped Jason secure an expiring domain name, Colby's backflip off a swing, how SpaceX was awarded their first military contract, why Jason thinks single founders can succeed and the fallacies about the advertising business model, the idea of getting more people to recruit experts for AnyFu, Justin's experience working with Udi Mosayev and Bill Gross, and why the show must go on.
217: TZ Interview - Rob Walling / HitTail, Drip and So Much More
Justin and Jason talk with Rob Walling about his recent success with HitTail, his new project, Drip, and other assorted startup topics.
216: TZ Discussion - Warp Speed
Justin and Jason talk about how Jason's mail was stolen, some of the limitations with Phone Gap, the engineering salaries of Silicon Valley startups, the ridiculous cost of housing, Jason's idea for gamifying personal finance, incentivizing kids with cash, how NASA's Advanced Propulsion Physics Lab is working on the possibility of a warp drive, the new matter created by the Large Hadron Collider, how an advanced alien race (if they exist) might not be all that interested in communicating with us, Jason's Freakonomics and Singularity Summit binge, the future of 3D printing, the meaning of life without money, Micho Kaku's vision of the world in 2030 and what he envisioned a phone would do and look like, why Jason still hasn't purchased a backup system, how Brendan Dunn is making five figures a month off a bootstrapped product, whether or not to do interviews, a new approach to recruiting AnyFu experts, how to explain functions to kids and the possibility of using a combination of both a challenge system and personal projects in Catalyst, Jason's idea of how to explain advanced mathematical algorithms without using mathematical notation, Jason's bizarre knee problem and finally how a provision in the House-passed NDAA bill would overturn the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 prohibiting the U.S. government from using propaganda against it's own citizens.
215: TZ Discussion - Time vs Money
Justin and Jason discuss their Thanksgiving holidays, how Jason stopped by a Tesla SuperCharger station, Elon Musk's talks at Oxford, the National Press Club and Pando Monthly, various diversification strategies and the idea of putting more money into AnyFu, investing in yourself versus investing in others, Jason's zombie killing strategies, how Megaupload got screwed, Justin'sarticle on his Splitsville app, Jason's love / hate relationship with Titanium, whether a developer can be trained in three months, the tradeoffs of building challenges into the Catalyst IDE, how to speed up a slow Mac and Justin's recommended backup strategies.
214: TZ Discussion – The Madness
Justin and Jason talk about why taking multiple shorter vacations is usually better than taking one long vacation, Justin's plans to create an Udemy course, the latest on Catalyst, Colby's madness, Justin's personal training sessions, how to choose health insurance, the GOP's flip flop on copyright, Romney's IT fail, Nate Silver's prediction methodology, the Obama campaign's analytics team, the programming games Check iO and RoboNode, how Tesla won Motor Trend Car of the Year, the variance in home prices across the country, whether programming can be commoditized and why it's important to make a name for yourself, Hailo Cab vs Uber, the Uber profiler Clouseau and the dividends it's paid for scaling Uber's dispatching system, the science fiction web series H+ and Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome, the TV series The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad, how sixteen Fisker Karma's blew up because of Hurricane Sandy, why Jason wants to buy the Model S, how $75,000 is the happiness tipping point, how Pluggio is the little engine that could, and hints about Justin's next project.
213: TZ Discussion - Why Elon Musk is Having the Best Week Ever
Justin and Jason discuss Justin's trip to Ireland and the UK and Rob Walling's visit to Pasadena, the latest version of the Catalyst IDE and the power of gamification, AppFog's free plan for Node.js, ActivityHero and the potential future of Catalyst Academy, Justin's thoughts on hiring for experience, how Justin resolved Pluggio's cascading query problem, Jason's idea for an Uber prize and scaling Uber's Node.js-based dispatching system, why you should CallTheseGuys.com if you need a website built, how computer science graduates are the least employable in the UK, how SpaceX completed the first delivery trip to the International Space Station and the Tesla Model S was voted car of year, the History Channel's show The Men Who Built America, Jason's investment strategy for 2013, and why Justin and Jason are both long Rob Walling.