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The Brave Technologist

Brave Software

Technology is reshaping society—but how are users included in the conversation?

The Brave Technologist explores how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Web3 are influencing our lives, our choices, and our collective future.

Unlike many tech podcasts that focus on hype and disruption, this show puts users at the center of the conversation. Each episode features thoughtful discussions with technologists working to ensure that innovation serves the public interest. How are these tools impacting users? And how can we ensure that technology is developed with transparency, accountability, and the public good in mind?

We're going deep with founders, builders, policy makers and researchers to explore the worlds of privacy, AI, crypto, digital rights, algorithmic accountability, and everywhere else where cutting edge technology impacts our daily lives.

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Wednesday · 23 min· Video
How Nevada Runs Its Government Like a Technology Company
Cisco Aguilar, Nevada's Secretary of State, shares what it's like to run a government office with the discipline of a technology company, and discusses how that mindset led Nevada to overhaul both its statewide voter registration system and its business filing infrastructure at the same time. He explains how the state survived one of the largest cyberattacks in US history without its systems being touched, and why he refused to hand over Nevada voters' personal data to the federal government. Key Takeaways: How Nevada survived a major cyberattack by turning to the private sector rather than waiting for federal support Why Cisco refused a federal request for Nevada voters' Social Security numbers, birthdays, and driver's license numbers How Nevada consolidated 17 separate county voter systems into one statewide platform in just 14 months What happened when Nevada's old business filing system went down for an entire month and what the Orion system is designed to prevent Why centralized systems can actually protect privacy (rather than threaten it) Guest Bio: Cisco Aguilar serves as Nevada's Secretary of State. As Secretary, he is focused on three major principles: modernization, innovation, and transparency. With an understanding of the office as a technology company, he has spearheaded two major projects to overhaul the state's business licensing and elections systems. As an entrepreneur, he understands that time spent navigating red tape and complicated systems means less time invested in your business. Leveraging emerging technologies, he seeks to make Nevada the best place in the country to do business. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin
October 21 · 19 min· Video
Novo Nordisk: The Risks of Over-Governing AI
Margi Sheth, Head of AI Governance & Enablement at Novo Nordisk, shares what it takes to build AI governance inside one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world. She explains how pharma's long history of bioethics gives organizations a strong compass for navigating AI decisions; why governance that feels like a checkbox will always get bypassed; and why the field of AI ethics needs people from every background. Key Takeaways: How pharmaceutical companies balance the ethical obligation to accelerate medicine with the obligation not to compromise patient safety What other industries can learn from pharma's method of adopting AI across multiple global jurisdictions with different regulatory requirements Why the stakes of AI governance in healthcare go beyond fines, and how that shapes the way Novo Nordisk approaches regulatory preparedness Why having people from diverse backgrounds (not just technical expertise) in the room is essential when AI governance decisions get made Guest Bio: Margi Sheth is the Head of AI Governance & Enablement at Novo Nordisk. She's an AI ethics champion within the pharmaceutical industry, previously serving as Senior Director of Data Policy and AI Governance at AstraZeneca. She specializes in building operational governance frameworks for large global organizations, navigating the practical and ethical complexities of AI adoption. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
October 14 · 26 min· Video
Why US Crypto Needs Laws, Not Just Friendly Regulators
Cody Carbone, CEO of The Digital Chamber, shares what the digital asset industry has been fighting for in Washington, and explains why clear, durable legislation is the only thing that can give builders, developers, and investors the confidence to operate in the United States long-term. He breaks down what the CLARITY Act does for builders who have been operating without legal certainty; how the stablecoin market responded when the GENIUS Act passed; and why the current regulatory environment is insufficient. Key Takeaways: What the CLARITY Act does for developers and token issuers How personnel changes at the SEC and CFTC shifted the regulatory environment for digital assets What the passage of the GENIUS Act demonstrated about the relationship between regulatory clarity and market growth Why durable progress in digital assets requires legislation that can withstand changes in administration, not just favorable appointments Guest Bio: Cody Carbone is the CEO of The Digital Chamber, the world's largest digital asset and blockchain trade association, representing the industry in Washington with the White House, Regulators, and Capitol Hill. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
October 7 · 37 min· Video
Building Zcash to Last a Hundred Years
Mark Henderson, Engineering Manager at Shielded Labs, shares what it looks like to build privacy infrastructure on a hundred-year time horizon. He also breaks down two of Shielded Labs' most significant technical bets: the Network Sustainability Mechanism, and Crosslink. Mark makes the case that financial privacy and surveillance-based business models are structurally incompatible—true privacy means building systems where the choice not to look is enforced by the protocol, rather than a company promise. Key Takeaways: How Zcash is planning for long-term sustainability beyond its fixed 21 million coin supply What Crosslink could bring to Zcash by combining proof-of-work with a proof-of-stake finality mechanism Why Zcash's renewed momentum reflects growing demand for privacy-focused technology Why financial data is behavioral data, and how it can be used for profiling and influence Why truly private systems need privacy built into the protocol rather than relying on companies to protect user data Guest Bio: Mark Henderson is the Engineering Manager at Shielded Labs, where he obsesses over permanence. He works on the privacy infrastructure meant to keep Zcash secure for a zillion years: the Network Sustainability Mechanism, the dynamic fee market, and the Crosslink consensus upgrade. All are designed to protect invariants on the Zcash blockchain (such as the hard 21-million supply cap). Mark is also a polymath who runs a 4,000-piece art catalog powered by AI visual search, and he treats privacy, art, and AI as the same puzzle in different clothes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
September 30 · 36 min· Video
The Barista Knows Your Salary: The Hidden Cost of On-Chain Payments
Howard Wu, CEO of Provable and Shield Wallet, makes the case that full, on-chain transparency was never a design principle—it was a limitation that mainstream finance cannot build on. He draws a direct line from the internet's switch from HTTP to HTTPS to where crypto needs to go next, and argues that the biggest obstacle to private stablecoins isn't the technology. Instead, it's the assumption that compliance and privacy are fundamentally at odds. Key Takeaways: Why on-chain transparency creates broken user journeys for everyday payments, payroll, and institutional trading How zero-knowledge proofs enable compliance without risk of traditional KYC data collection What distinguishes the Shield Wallet's approach to privacy from that of a standard crypto wallet What Howard predicts will be mainstream by 2030 that almost no one in the industry is building for today Guest Bio: Howard Wu is the CEO of Provable and Shield Wallet. He's also a founder of the Layer-1 blockchain, Aleo. His contributions to zero-knowledge proofs and elliptic-curve cryptography have been adopted across the industry, including by protocols such as Ethereum and Zcash. Howard graduated from UC Berkeley with a research background in cryptography, computer security, and verifiable computing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
September 23 · 27 min· Video
The Fund Structure That Could Replace the ETF
Juan Leon, Senior Investment Strategist at Bitwise Asset Management, returns to the show to share how much the convergence of traditional finance and on-chain infrastructure has accelerated since our last conversation—and what the data behind that shift actually shows. He breaks down why vaults represent the next evolution in fund wrappers beyond ETFs; what distinguishes sustainable on-chain yield from the opacity that drove past cycle failures; and where AI agents fit into the future of institutional asset management on blockchain rails. Key Takeaways Why vaults are emerging as the next evolution in fund structures and how they compare to ETFs What separates sustainable on-chain yield from the products that failed in previous cycles How AI agents and blockchains are symbiotic, and what guardrails need to exist before institutions delegate real financial decisions to these agent/blockchain pairings Why the distribution opportunity in tokenization is being underestimated Guest Bio: Juan Leon is the Senior Investment Strategist at Bitwise Asset Management, where he helps lead research, product and strategy development, and fund and index management, and also supports sales and client relationships. Prior to Bitwise, he was a Portfolio Manager at U.S. Global Investors, managing equity and fixed-income funds, and designing quantitative investment strategies. Before that, Juan was a Financial Analyst at Rackspace Technology where he contributed to financial planning and analysis. He is a graduate of Trinity University, double majoring in Political Science and Economics. Juan also earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation from the CFA Institute. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
September 16 · 24 min· Video
Why Meta Threw Out the Interviewing Playbook
Danit Nativ Navon, Senior Software Engineering Manager at Meta, unpacks how the company became the first major tech firm to build AI-enabled coding interviews. She breaks down the process of rethinking what engineering interviews actually measure (now that AI can write the code itself), and explains why the leadership qualities that matter most now look nothing like the skills these interviews were originally built to test. Key Takeaways: How to tell the difference between a candidate who's simply good at prompting from a genuine AI-native engineer What a viral interview-cheating tool revealed about a much deeper flaw in traditional coding tests Why leadership qualities are becoming more valuable to engineers in the AI era How company culture ends up being the real safeguard for privacy and safety Guest Bio: Danit Nativ Navon is a Senior Engineering Manager in Meta's Applied AI division, with two decades of experience and an academic background in Computer Science and Neuroscience. At Meta, she pioneered AI-enabled coding interviews, making it the first major tech company to adopt AI-native evaluation for engineering talent. She also coaches leaders through AI-driven change and helps new hires to integrate AI skills into Meta's engineering environment. A self-described late adopter who chose to evolve rather than fall behind, Danit now helps others step confidently into the AI era. Her global journey across Israel, Singapore, Mexico, and London informs her practical, people-first approach to engineering leadership. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
September 9 · 40 min· Video
How a Solana NFT Project Landed on Amazon Prime
Andrew Pelekis (CEO of HEEBOO) and Nicholas Cabana (Co-Founder of Claynosaurz and Chief Creative Officer at HEEBOO), break down how a Solana-based digital collectibles brand and a small team of Hollywood animators grew into an entertainment franchise now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. They unpack the decision to give 15% of company equity back to collectors; how selling products funds content production; and why treating fans as co-owners (not just customers) became their unlikely path to overcoming Web3's biggest adoption hurdle. Key Takeaways: Why short-form content became the deliberate first move for Claynosaurz, long before the existence of any long-form series How giving equity away to early collectors solved a problem most brands don't realize they have What it takes to get kids excited about digital collectibles without ever mentioning crypto Why obsessing over token price charts can undermine a community's long-term value How pairing streaming with digital collectibles could turn passive viewing into something interactive Guest Bio: Andrew Pelekis is the CEO of HEEBOO, the studio behind the Claynosaurz entertainment IP. He leads the company's efforts to turn Claynosaurz from an internet-native community and digital collectible project into a broader entertainment franchise, including its recent expansion onto Amazon Prime Video. Nic Cabana is the Co-Founder of Claynosaurz and Chief Creative Officer at HEEBOO, where he leads the creative vision behind the Claynosaurz universe. He's focused on building an entertainment IP that brings together storytelling, community, and emerging technology in new ways. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
September 2 · 23 min· Video
Beyond the Yield: What Staking Is Really About
David Kinitsky, Chief Corporate Development Officer at Everstake, shares what distinguishes this cycle of enterprise crypto adoption from every previous one, and why the shift matters. He explains why staking is a foundational infrastructure play, not just a yield product; what institutional due diligence on staking looks like in practice; and why the prevailing narrative around tokenization misidentifies the real unlock. He also lays out a longer-term thesis: that AI agents will eventually manage personalized financial portfolios for everyday people at the level currently reserved for the most sophisticated wealth management clients. Key Takeaways: What's different about this cycle of enterprise crypto adoption Why staking matters beyond yield, and the role validators play What institutions require before allocating significant capital to staking Why tokenization's most important unlock is programmability and composability How AI agents could extend institutional-grade portfolio management to everyday users Guest Bio: David Kinitsky is a seasoned executive with 15+ years of experience in the financial and technology sectors, including 12+ years in crypto. He is currently the Chief Corporate Development Officer at Everstake, after previously helping to launch a streak of industry innovations and business successes at Kraken, Circle, Fidelity, Grayscale, and SecondMarket. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
August 26 · 33 min· Video
Why Non-Dollar Stablecoins Might Strengthen the Dollar
Navin Vethanayagam, Chief Brain of IQ and Co-founder of KRWQ, unpacks his "Stablewoods" theory: why non-dollar stablecoins like KRWQ, the first Korean won stablecoin, may end up reinforcing dollar dominance rather than challenging it. He also breaks down how IQ.wiki's AI editor SOPHIA—and their agent AIDEN—turned a static blockchain encyclopedia into living infrastructure. Key Takeaways: What the "Stablewoods" theory says about non-dollar stablecoins Why Korea's restricted currency has created a hidden opportunity most stablecoin builders have overlooked How Bretton Woods history predicts where stablecoins are headed next What the global financial map could look like in a decade if regional stablecoins end up reinforcing (rather than challenging) U.S. monetary power Guest Bio: Navin Vethanayagam is Chief Brain of IQ and the Co-founder of KRWQ. IQ is building a more intelligent financial system, from leading stablecoin infrastructure and autonomous AI agents to the world's largest blockchain encyclopedia. IQ recently launched KRWQ, the first Korean won stablecoin, and previously launched IQ.wiki, the world's largest blockchain encyclopedia. IQ.wiki is managed by AI editor SOPHIA, and its data is used to train AIDEN, an AI agent for crypto communities. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
August 19 · 20 min· Video
What Binance.US Is Betting on Next in American Crypto
Steve Gregory, CEO of Binance.US, shares what it actually takes to bring a compliant crypto exchange product to market in the US. He explains how his background as a compliance lawyer shapes the way he leads product decisions; why the US crypto user has been underserved on leverage and derivatives for too long; and how Binance US is quietly positioning itself as a bridge between DeFi and the world of centralized exchanges. Key Takeaways Why compliance-first product development actually speeds delivery What the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act have unlocked for US crypto exchanges How Binance US is approaching the tension between privacy and KYC requirements Why the next wave of crypto adoption won't come from DeFi power users What the US crypto market keeps getting wrong about what customers actually want Guest Bio: Steve Gregory is the CEO of Binance.US, a leading U.S. digital asset exchange. Prior to joining Binance.US in the spring of 2026, Steve was the CEO at Currency.com and has held compliance roles at CEX.IO and Gemini. Binance.US is America's home to buy, trade, and earn digital assets. As a compliance-first, U.S.-regulated exchange, Binance.US offers secure and reliable access to the world's most popular cryptocurrencies. The platform is an industry leader with low fees, an advanced trading engine, strong platform stability and security, and a robust compliance framework. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
August 12 · 25 min· Video
The Enterprise AI Mistake Most Companies Will Regret
Joel McKelvey, VP of Product Marketing at Glean, shares why the enterprises winning with AI right now aren't the ones chasing the latest model—they're the ones who got their context layer right first. He explains why AI has moved from experimentation to company-wide production almost overnight, and why the biggest mistake enterprises are making is one they'll only recognize in hindsight. Key Takeaways Why the model you're running matters far less than the context you're feeding it How to think about AI ROI across three levels: individual, team, and organization What actually breaks employee trust in AI agents Why being model-agnostic is the best future-proof decision How fear of AI disappears quickly once employees get firsthand experience of a productivity win Guest Bio: Joel McKelvey is VP of Product Marketing at Glean, where he helps organizations turn AI initiatives into practical, metrics-driven business transformation. He brings more than 30 years of experience across engineering, marketing, and strategy, with deep expertise in AI, machine learning, analytics, and data architectures. His work focuses on how enterprises move from experimentation to execution using AI agents, enterprise search, and trusted data foundations to improve productivity, decision-making, and customer and employee experiences. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
August 5 · 21 min· Video
Why Most Enterprise AI Projects Never Make It to Scale
Natalia Konstantinova, Lead Enterprise Architect in AI at Natwest, shares why most enterprise AI projects don't fail because of the technology, they fail because organizations skip the foundations. She also explains how responsible AI and scalable AI have converged, and why you can't achieve one without the other. Key Takeaways: Why most enterprise AI projects stall before scale What software engineers consistently get wrong about AI reliability Why governance actually accelerates delivery How to make AI transformational rather than just another digital tool Guest Bio: Dr Natalia Konstantinova is Lead Enterprise Architect for AI at NatWest Group, where she leads the strategic adoption of AI across the enterprise. With a PhD in Information and Language Processing and a background spanning academia, industry, and innovation, she specialises in AI strategy, enterprise architecture, governance, and responsible AI. Natalia is passionate about helping organisations translate complex AI technologies into scalable business value, and is a recognised voice on the future of AI in highly regulated industries. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
July 29 · 41 min· Video
The Global Fight for Free Speech Starts With a Hamster
Preston Byrne, Tech & Free Speech Lawyer at Byrne & Storm, P.C., shares how a small American imageboard became the first test case for whether foreign governments can legally force American companies to comply with their censorship laws on American soil. He breaks down why the UK's Online Safety Act can't actually be enforced against US companies with no British presence; how a picture of an AI-generated hamster became a more effective legal strategy than a hundred-page brief; and what the proposed GRANITE Act would do to permanently close the loophole foreign regulators have been exploiting. Key Takeaways: Why the UK's Online Safety Act can't legally be enforced against American companies What the GRANITE Act would do what current First Amendment protections can't How 98% of companies comply with foreign censorship demands they have no legal obligation to follow Why responding to Ofcom with a hamster worked better than a formal legal letter Guest Bio: Preston Bryne is a technology lawyer with Byrne & Storm, P.C., and a Senior Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute in London. Preston is the architect of the GRANITE Act and the Adam Smith Institute's Freedom of Speech Bill, an effort to launch a coordinated, transatlantic legislative response to foreign censorship enforcement. He was appointed to the Legal Advisory Council of the UK's Free Speech Union in 2025. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
July 22 · 22 min· Video
How to Know When Personalization Becomes Creepy (AI Summit LDN)
Dr. Mohsen Ghasempour, Chief AI Officer at Kingfisher, unpacks why the most dangerous thing a company can do with customer data is use all of it. He explains how a global, multi-brand retailer can draw the line between personalization that feels helpful and personalization that feels like surveillance. He also discusses why AI success is ultimately an execution problem rather than a technology problem. Key Takeaways: What the "comfort test" is and how Kingfisher uses it to decide whether a personalization decision has gone too far How global retailers are resolving the tension between centralized AI infrastructure and brand-level autonomy Why legal and compliance teams are now embedded in AI development from the start What it will look like when AI stops being a distraction and starts being invisible infrastructure Guest Bio: Dr. Mohsen Ghasempour is a distinguished expert in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) with a solid academic foundation, holding a PhD in Computer Science. Currently, Mohsen serves as the Chief AI Officer at Kingfisher, where his leadership contributes to the advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies within the organisation. With over 15 years of experience as an accomplished data scientist and visionary leader, Mohsen has consistently harnessed the power of data to drive strategic decision-making. Prior to his role at Kingfisher, he held pivotal positions in leading technology and retail organisations, including The Hut Group (THG) and Shop Direct. In these roles, he spearheaded cross-functional teams to implement cutting-edge Machine Learning and AI solutions, resulting in measurable and transformative outcomes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
July 15 · 18 min· Video
What Counter-Terrorism Taught the NFL About Cyber Risk
Kam Karaji, Director of Cyber Security & Risk Management at the NFL, shares what 13 years in counter-terrorism and criminal intelligence taught him about protecting high-stakes environments, and discusses how that thinking now shapes security across five countries and 70,000-person stadiums. He explains why a venue full of fans is really just a very large computer, and why the data a fan hands over the moment they buy a ticket is more time-sensitive than most people realize. Key Takeaways: How the NFL manages fan data across different legal jurisdictions, and why that data becomes time-sensitive the moment the league leaves a country Why the biggest security investment leaders should be making right now isn't in technology How a single piece of player misinformation can trigger a chain reaction from betting markets to a club's bottom line Why a stadium full of fans is really a cybersecurity problem (and what happens when that computer gets hacked) Guest Bio: Kam Karaji leads cyber security and risk management for the NFL's international programme, protecting games, venues, and people across Europe, the Americas, and beyond. Before moving into the corporate world, he spent over thirteen years in law enforcement as a police officer and Bronze Commander, working in criminal intelligence, counter-terrorism and international firearms training with the UK's National Crime Agency (service that earned him gallantry recognition for the protection of the British Royal Family). Today his focus is the human side of security in an increasingly automated world. As AI reshapes how organizations assess risk, train teams, and defend themselves, Kam is interested in where the technology genuinely helps and where it quietly creates new blind spots. His guiding belief is simple: confidence without control becomes chaos, and without people, none of it works. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
July 8 · 26 min· Video
How a 200-Year-Old Bank Deploys AI Agents
Andy McMahon, Principal AI Engineer at Barclays, shares how a 200-year-old bank is deploying autonomous agents inside one of the most heavily regulated environments in the world. He argues that observability and kill switches matter more than raw capability, and that the real test isn't whether the AI works in a demo, but whether it can fail safely in production. Key Takeaways How a major bank is giving AI agents real autonomy while keeping them bounded inside strict permission structures Why "could I build this" is the wrong question for engineers to ask Some of the current bottlenecks that slow down agentic payments Why most companies are racing to deploy agents without tracking what those agents actually do once they're live Guest Bio: Andy McMahon is Principal AI Engineer at Barclays, a guest lecturer at Oxford University, and author of the book "Machine Learning Engineering with Python." He trained as a theoretical physicist, but has spent his career making production AI systems that are safe, governed, and genuinely valuable in some of the most regulated and risk-controlled environments in the world. He has strong opinions about what AI engineering is, where it's going, and what separates the hype from the work that actually matters. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
July 1 · 22 min· Video
LIVE FROM THE AI SUMMIT LDN: Inside Sony AI's Bet on Open Research
Fred Gifford, Strategy Lead and Sr. Product Manager at Sony AI, shares how his team is building knowledge graphs from academic literature to predict new biomedical relationships and accelerate drug discovery. He explains why Sony AI publishes so much of its research openly, what he got wrong about AI therapy when writing his novel and why he believes accountability for AI's ethical failures still lags dangerously behind the pace of the technology itself. Key Takeaways: Why specialized AI tools are losing ground to all-in-one chatbots and what that means for the personal data we hand over What it actually takes to build an ethical dataset from scratch and why most image data used to train AI didn't His experience of writing about AI therapy years before chatbots became a mental health solution for millions Why Sony AI is choosing to open-source its work This episode was recorded LIVE at The AI Summit London Guest Bio: Fred Gifford is an AI strategy lead based in London. He has spent the past 5.5 years at Sony AI applying frontier AI research to solve challenges in gastronomy, AI Ethics, and biomedical. He is also an author under the pen-name Fred Lunzer. His debut novel, Sike, was published by Macmillan / Celadon last year, and focuses on a young couple navigating life with an AI therapist. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
June 24 · 22 min· Video
Pandora: How Much Freedom Should a Shopping Agent Have? (AI Summit LDN)
Riccardo Arnaldi, Agentic AI Product Manager at Pandora, shares what it actually looks like to build and scale a brand-facing LLM shopping agent live with millions of customers. He explains why too much autonomy is a liability, how a deterministic routing layer keeps the AI from going off-script, and why traditional QA teams had to rebuild their processes from scratch. He also breaks down a real customer interaction that exposed the gap between automation and appropriate human sensitivity, changing how the team handles frustrated users. Key Takeaways Which metrics Pandora uses to measure success of Gemma, their customer-facing AI agent What breaks when traditional QA processes meet agentic products, and how testing an agent differs from testing software How a brand's voice gets engineered into an AI agent, including exact words it's allowed to use and the persona it borrows What a frustrated customer's outburst revealed about the line between automation and human sensitivity Guest Bio: Riccardo Arnaldi is a product manager with 6+ years' experience building and iterating on digital products through data, experimentation, and AI. Currently, he owns end-to-end development and strategy of LLM-based shopping and customer support agents at Pandora. Previously, he drove X60M+ DKK in incremental revenue by scaling Pandora's website and CRM personalisation programme from the ground up across 7+ markets. An Italian based in Copenhagen, Riccardo is a sports lover and guitar strummer, and is always on the lookout for the next great travel destination (with hype-worthy local foods). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte
June 17 · 30 min· Video
AI Is Now Buying Cars and Negotiating Better Than You
Zach Shefska, Founder & CEO of CarEdge, shares how he and his father (a 43-year auto industry veteran) turned a broken, opaque car buying process into a transparency-first business powered by AI agents that now negotiate deals on behalf of consumers. He also explains how data collected from over 100,000 agent driven negotiations is reshaping what buyers can know before they even walk into a dealership. Key Takeaways: Why the car buying process is structurally designed to work against both consumers and the salespeople serving them and what's starting to change How AI agents are negotiating real car deals, including the first-ever agent-to-agent transaction between a buyer's AI and a dealership's AI Why the biggest frontier AI models keep getting car buying wrong and what a purpose-built data harness requires Guest Bio: Zach Shefska is an entrepreneur, creator, and consumer advocate best known as the co-founder and CEO of CarEdge. He partners with his father, Ray Shefska (a 40+ year auto industry veteran), to level the playing field for car buyers by providing transparent negotiation strategies, data tools, and AI-driven car-buying agents. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this Show: The Brave Technologist is here to shed light on the opportunities and challenges of emerging tech. To make it digestible, less scary, and more approachable for all! Join us as we embark on a mission to demystify artificial intelligence, challenge the status quo, and empower everyday people to embrace the digital revolution. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a curious mind, or an industry professional, this podcast invites you to join the conversation and explore the future of AI together. The Brave Technologist Podcast is hosted by Luke Mulks, VP Business Operations at Brave Software—makers of the privacy-respecting Brave browser and Search engine, and now powering AI everywhere with the Brave Search API. Music by: Ari Dvorin Produced by: Sam Laliberte

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