Marketplace Tech
1,048 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 18 hours ago - ★★★★★ - 1.2K ratingsMonday through Friday, Marketplace demystifies the digital economy in less than 10 minutes. We look past the hype and ask tough questions about an industry that’s constantly changing.
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Episodes
Viruses don’t discriminate, but health care often does
July 28, 2020 09:50 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBA recent study looked at how artificial intelligence is used to determine treatments and care. It found that many of the algorithms used in medicine use race as a variable, and that is a problem. Molly speaks with Leo Eisenstein, a physician at NYU and Bellevue hospitals, and one of the authors of the paper, as well as with Dorothy Roberts, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who wrote a book about race in science and medicine.
The tech behind the search for a COVID-19 vaccine
July 27, 2020 09:40 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBThis week on “Marketplace Tech,” we’re reporting on the innovations that will help us transition to a post-pandemic future. A lot of hopes are pinned on a vaccine for COVID-19. And there are, in fact, a lot of efforts on that front. Some combine the old ways of making vaccines with new techniques. Molly Wood speaks with Safi Bahcall, a biotech investor and author.
Social media takes baby steps in dealing with hate speech. Time to grow up?
July 24, 2020 10:15 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBOnline hate speech has gone way up since the police killing of George Floyd in May. Hate speech in the form of inflammatory posts has increased by nearly 40% around the country. And while Facebook continues to advocate a relatively hands-off approach to speech, Twitter this week took down thousands of accounts related to the conspiracy group QAnon, saying it will take action on accounts that could “lead to offline harm.” Molly Wood speaks with Dipayan Ghosh, co-director of the Digital Platfo...
What do Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have in common? One big congressional hearing.
July 23, 2020 09:51 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBEven in the context of all the things that are happening in the country right now, Monday is going to be a pretty big day. The CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google will testify before the House Judiciary Committee as part of Congress’ antitrust investigation. It’s the first time all four have appeared together and the first time Jeff Bezos has shown up. But like congressional hearings that have come before, it’s probably going to be a mess. Molly Wood speaks with Cecilia Kang, who cove...
It’s a lot harder to get out the vote during a pandemic
July 22, 2020 10:13 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBPolitical strategists and organizers are trying to find new ways to reach voters and potential voters while social distancing. Which is tough because research shows that in-person interactions are usually the most effective technique. Now, organizers are turning to the old idea of a turnout captain — a local volunteer who whips up voting interest — combined with targeted data and, sometimes, apps. And they’re finding that combination can really work. Molly speaks with Marketplace’s Kimberly ...
An Instagram account is exposing influencer inequality
July 21, 2020 09:36 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBTalking about how much you’re paid can make for an awkward conversation, but Adesuwa Ajayi is asking just that of social media influencers. Ajayi started the Influencer Pay Gap Instagram account to highlight the fact that Black influencers are routinely paid less than white influencers, even when they have similar numbers of followers or the same reach. Jack Stewart spoke with Ajayi, whose day job is managing influencers at the talent agency AGM.
The pandemic has been a chance to sell the cloud
July 20, 2020 10:18 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBAs the coronavirus swept around the world, work and education moved to the cloud, with video meetings and online document sharing. Our leisure time relied on cloud servers to stream TV shows and movies. There are a few big companies that stand to benefit. Amazon, Microsoft and Alibaba are the big cloud providers. Google is a relative upstart, but it’s now rolling out new services for businesses as fast as it can. Jack Stewart speaks with Owen Rogers, a research director with S&P Global Marke...
The global economy relies on sharing data across borders. An EU decision could disrupt that.
July 17, 2020 10:36 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBThe European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that the way thousands of companies share personal data between the U.S. and Europe. They use something called “Privacy Shield,” which isn’t an app. It’s a set of legal rules to moving information back and forth. But the court ruled that doesn’t do enough to protect European’s data from the U.S. government. I spoke with Adam Satariano, a European technology correspondent at The New York Times. He says it’s hard to tell exactly what happens n...
Contracts between Big Tech and the military can fly under the radar
July 16, 2020 09:42 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBGoogle made a new push for more defense work this week, with an approach to cloud computing it thinks should appeal to government customers. Until now, Google has mostly sat those lucrative contracts out, in part because it’s faced pushback from some employees. Other tech companies have, too. But new reporting shows Big Tech is doing a lot more defense and law enforcement work than perhaps was realized. I spoke with Jack Poulson, a former senior research scientist at Google. He now runs the...
Shipt gig workers boycott new pay algorithm
July 15, 2020 10:07 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBIf you were hoping to get shopping delivered via Shipt today, you may be out of luck. Shipt, which is owned by Target, pays gig economy workers to deliver goods from brick-and-mortar stores to consumers’ homes around the country. Those workers aren’t staff, so they don’t get a salary or hourly wage. They’re paid by the job. Shipt is now planning to expand its use of an algorithm to determine how much they get paid. It’ll take into account a lot of factors, like how busy a store is and how ba...
Apps like Robinhood make investing easier. Maybe too easy.
July 14, 2020 10:00 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBMaybe you’re one of the more than 10 million people who’ve set up an account on Robinhood, the highest-profile example of apps that say they’re increasing access to the stock market by making trades free. Critics say they’re “gamifying” trading, with psychological nudges and push notifications that encourage frequent, and potentially risky, trades. There are few controls or limits for users who may be inexperienced. Jack Stewart speaks with Vicki Bogan, founder of Cornell University’s Instit...
Restaurants are dying, but their ghosts are delivering your food
July 13, 2020 09:49 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBIn the before times, starting a restaurant was a big investment — location, tables, chairs, utensils, branding, marketing and hiring employees. Now, with predictions that 25% of small restaurants could close because of the pandemic, entrepreneurs are finding that all you really need is a kitchen, an online menu and a way to deliver food. Which is usually through a delivery app. Uber’s plan to buy Postmates for more than $2.5 billion is in part a bet on food delivery in at least the near pand...
What would it take to moderate a platform as big as Facebook?
July 10, 2020 09:50 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBCivil rights experts say Facebook doesn’t enforce its policies against hate speech consistently. Facebook has said it’s difficult, if not impossible, to actually moderate content on a platform as big as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp combined. Molly Wood speaks with Spandi Singh, a policy analyst at New America’s Open Technology Institute.
How is bias built into algorithms? Garbage in, garbage out.
July 09, 2020 09:47 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBIn facial recognition and AI development, computers are trained on massive sets of data, millions of pictures gathered from all over the web. There are only a few publicly available datasets, and a lot of organizations use them. And they are problematic. Molly speaks with Vinay Prabhu, chief scientist at UnifyID. He and Abeba Birhane at University College Dublin recently studied these academic datasets. Most of the pictures are gathered without consent, people can be identified in them and t...
What is venture capital doing to change its mostly white culture?
July 08, 2020 09:51 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBFor years, the venture capital industry has been pressured to be more diverse and inclusive — invest in and hire more women and people of color. In the past month, Molly Wood has talked with Black startup founders and investors about what it takes to drive real change in tech, and they say it’ll take work from big Silicon Valley firms and the big institutions that invest in those firms. She asked Ilya Fushman, a partner at Kleiner Perkins, what Kleiner is doing to improve representation at S...
The days of unlimited pandemic internet are over
July 07, 2020 09:47 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBMarketplace has been looking at how, in the middle of this pandemic, the internet is everything. Access and cost are problems for many, but what about data? Many broadband providers limit how much data subscribers can use each month; go over, and there are extra fees. Some lifted these caps at the start of the pandemic, but now those are coming back. Molly Wood spoke with Tom Merritt, host of the “Daily Tech News Show” podcast.
Tech companies should make it someone’s job to think about ethics
July 06, 2020 09:49 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBFrom hate speech to privacy, to labor and biased algorithms, society is reckoning with the power of technology and how it affects our lives. Molly Wood speaks with Emanuel Moss, a researcher at the nonprofit Data & Society and author of an upcoming report called “Ethics Owners.” It argues that data-driven tech companies should be creating specific positions for people whose entire job is to think about policies and product development with ethics in mind. Basically, a person who is hired to ...
The technology behind the discovery of a new blue hue
July 03, 2020 10:44 - 4 minutes - 11.8 MBThroughout human history, the color blue has been a conundrum. Now, an Oregon State University lab is pushing color science forward. Researcher Mas Subramanian discovered YInMn blue, the first new blue pigment discovered since Thomas Jefferson was president and one of the most vivid blue colors ever created. Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Jes Burns reports.
Content creators look for more fan support as brands pull back ad spending
July 02, 2020 10:42 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBYou aren’t seeing ads from hundreds of brands on Facebook and Instagram right now because companies froze their advertising over how Facebook handles hate speech. That’s on top of a drop in advertising due to the pandemic. For online creators, the drop in advertising is even more of a push to diversify their revenue sources and support themselves without relying on sponsorship or ads.
Ethical hackers are busy stamping out bugs during the pandemic
July 01, 2020 09:42 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBThere are a lot of juicy targets for hackers these days, with millions of people working from home and companies working on valuable COVID-19 drugs. One of the ways companies fight attacks is to try to fix bugs in their software before they can be exploited. They do it by hiring ethical hackers. Molly Wood speaks with Jesse Kinser who works as the chief information security officer for the precision health care company LifeOmic. She also moonlights as a hacker, finding jobs using the crowdso...
When immigrants come to the U.S., investments often follow
June 30, 2020 09:56 - 11 minutes - 11.8 MBThe Trump administration put a temporary freeze on new foreign workers that come here through the H-1B visa program. The administration argues that if the U.S. stops the flow of immigrants, there will be more jobs left for Americans in this recession. But researchers say the policy may backfire, because when immigrants go to a new country, they frequently bring new ideas, start companies and attract new investment money. Molly Wood speaks with Zeke Hernandez, a professor of global strategy a...
Why the racism in facial recognition software probably can’t be fixed
June 29, 2020 10:02 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBIt’s been proven that facial recognition software isn’t good at accurately identifying people of color. It’s also known that police departments around the country use facial recognition tools to identify suspects and make arrests. And now we know about what is possibly the first confirmed wrongful arrest made as a result of mistaken identification by software. The New York Times reported last week that Robert Williams, a Black man, was wrongfully arrested in Detroit in January. Molly Wood sp...
If the internet was a utility, could more cities provide it?
June 26, 2020 09:38 - 9 minutes - 11.8 MBIn this country, internet access comes from companies. And in many states, those companies have lobbied for laws that prevent cities from building their own infrastructure to provide access. But some cities have. A decade ago, Chattanooga, Tennessee, laid fiber to every business and home in the city to prevent power outages and offer internet access to everyone. Molly Wood speaks with Katie Espeseth, vice president of new products at the city’s electricity and internet utility.
Want affordable, abundant internet access? Competition’s the key.
June 25, 2020 09:23 - 10 minutes - 11.8 MBAll this week, we’ve been looking at internet access, cost, infrastructure, and today, competition. Actually, the almost complete lack of competition. More than 129 million people in the U.S. only have one option for broadband. Is that a government problem or a free market problem? Molly Wood speaks to Susan Crawford, a law professor at Harvard and the author of the book “Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution — and Why America Might Miss It.”
Gaps in internet access: Low-income, communities of color most left out
June 24, 2020 09:28 - 11 minutes - 11.8 MBAll this week, Marketplace Tech is doing a new series called “The Internet Is Everything,” where we look at access, infrastructure and cost. That question of cost comes down to competition, infrastructure and whether telecom companies have invested in bringing service to where you live. Molly Wood speaks with Mignon Clyburn, a former member of the Federal Communications Commission. She says we have to acknowledge that race and poverty play a role in where companies decide to offer access.
Mapping internet access: no clear data on haves and have-nots
June 23, 2020 09:41 - 9 minutes - 11.8 MBThis fall, the FCC is planning to award up to $16 billion to increase broadband availability across the country. But the data the FCC is using to decide where broadband is most needed is wildly inaccurate, even by the agency’s own admission. Host Molly Wood speaks with Nicol Turner Lee, who researches technology access as a fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. She said the pandemic has made the mapping problem even more obvious.
The pandemic has shown us that the internet is everything
June 22, 2020 09:39 - 3 minutes - 11.8 MBInternet access is the ultimate essential service. But, like so many things in this country, access is not equal. This week, host Molly Wood starts a new series called “The internet is everything,” starting with listeners’ personal stories.
What happened to coronavirus contact tracing on our phones?
June 19, 2020 09:27 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBEarlier in this pandemic, Apple and Google joined forces to help create a shared underlying technology for digital contact tracing apps. But at least in the United States, they haven’t caught on. Apple and Google’s tech only work with apps developed by government health authorities. And almost no states have developed those apps. Marketplace’s Jack Stewart speaks with Ina Fried, chief technology correspondent for Axios.
Can working from home help employees speak out against racism?
June 18, 2020 10:19 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBThere’s a national conversation going on about race and inequality, and that includes at work. A lot of companies are holding internal listening sessions to start to address systemic racism. And because of the pandemic, many of those tough conversations are happening via videoconference. For some, it may be easier to have tough conversations from the comfort of their own home. Marketplace’s Jack Stewart speaks with Kira Banks, a professor of psychology at Saint Louis University, where she ru...
In automated warehouses, robots’ reach exceeds their grasp
June 17, 2020 10:11 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBAmazon, along with other online retailers, has seen a massive increase in demand in the past few months. The company has also faced accusations about its working conditions being unsafe, especially during this pandemic. The coronavirus has accelerated the push to automate warehouses, but the technology isn’t quite there yet to improve conditions for human workers. Marketplace’s Jack Stewart speaks with Ken Goldberg, a professor of industrial engineering at the University of California, Berke...
How to prepare our communications for the next natural disaster
June 16, 2020 11:04 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBOur computers and cellphones are an increasingly huge part of how we work, socialize and even organize protests. In a natural disaster, those communication tools become even more important but often less reliable. That’s particularly an issue for first responders, who are soon going to have to start dealing with this year’s inevitable hurricanes and wildfires. Marketplace’s Jack Stewart speaks with Craig Fugate, a former FEMA administrator who now consults for goTenna, one of the companies w...
Hacktivism on the rise in wake of national protests
June 12, 2020 22:15 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBHacktivism, or computer hacking as activism, is in the news again with the group Anonymous claiming responsibility for a cyberattack on the Minneapolis Police Department this month. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood interviews M.R. Sauter, assistant professor at the University of Maryland and author of “The Coming Swarm: DDoS Actions, Hacktivism, and Civil Disobedience on the Internet,” for a dive into the history and tactics of so-called hacktivists.
Tech companies scrap facial recognition products
June 12, 2020 10:43 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBAfter largely ignoring demands from civil rights groups, tech giants IBM, Amazon and Microsoft have put moratoriums on sales of facial recognition technology to law enforcement agencies as protests against police brutality continue.
Lots of industries are bad at diversity. But tech stands out.
June 11, 2020 10:16 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBBig tech companies and investors have a bad track record when it comes to hiring, investing in and retaining people of color. Especially Black employees. Host Molly Wood speaks with Tiffani Ashley Bell, an alum of the Y Combinator startup accelerator and founding director of the water nonprofit the Human Utility. She wrote the Medium post “It’s Time We Dealt With White Supremacy in Tech” and originated the phrase “Make the hire. Send the wire.”
Can 15,000 moderate the content of 2 billion?
June 10, 2020 10:22 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBPressure is growing on social media platforms to intervene more against misinformation, hate speech and other content. A new report says a big barrier, especially at Facebook, is that content moderators are mostly outside contractors and there aren’t nearly enough of them. Host Molly Wood speaks with Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, who wrote the report.
Climate change isn’t going anywhere, and investment could soon rise
June 09, 2020 10:54 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBWhile people around the country deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and protest for police reform and racial justice, the climate is continuing to change. The U.S. just experienced the warmest May on record. A U.N. report last week warned that mass extinctions are happening far faster than expected. While climate change solutions are on the back burner for now, they’re as urgent as ever. Host Molly Wood speaks with Seth Bannon, a founding partner at the venture firm Fifty Years.
From BlackPlanet to Black Twitter, the evolution of Black voices on social media
June 08, 2020 10:17 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBAs protests over police brutality and systemic racism continue, social media is a tool for organizing, amplifying and arguing. Yes, it can often be a racist dumpster fire. But, experts say that a big, messy public square might actually be the best place to create political change. Host Molly Wood speaks with Omar Wasow, who is a founder of the social media site BlackPlanet, an early place for online Black expression. He’s now a professor at Princeton studying race and protest.
You may have heard this before: Venture capital investing is not very diverse
June 05, 2020 10:22 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBThe past few days have seen a few commitments from established venture funds to support founders of color. SoftBank launched a $100 million fund; Andreessen Horowitz launched a $2.2 million fund to support founders from “underserved” communities, with a plan to expand it to $15 million over time. But honestly, that’s not that much. Host Molly Wood speaks with Sarah Kunst, the managing director of Cleo Capital.
Social media unites and divides us. How should we respond?
June 04, 2020 10:03 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBAs people all over the country protest the police killing of George Floyd, social media has become the medium for amplifying marginalized voices, organizing and reporting events. It’s also where President Trump and other politicians are responding. Bots and bad actors are swarming social media with misinformation, yet these platforms often spark awareness of injustice in the first place. Host Molly Wood speaks with Nicol Turner Lee, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Black founders want tech companies to do more than donate
June 03, 2020 10:03 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBThe protests happening around the country over the police killing of George Floyd are emblematic of longstanding racial divisions. That certainly includes the tech industry, which is notorious for its lack of diversity in hiring and investing. Host Molly Wood speaks with tech startup CEO Jim Gibbs about one suggested solution: Hire people of color or wire them investments.
Police can track protesters even after the demonstrations end
June 02, 2020 10:05 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBPolice departments have a lot of surveillance tools to identify protesters and looters, from camera technology to drones, license plate readers to the facial recognition tool known as Clearview AI. In some cases, these technologies can help keep the peace, but they can also be used to find organizers and even arrest protesters after the fact. There aren’t a lot of rules. Host Molly Wood speaks with Saira Hussain, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
How can we respond to mass protests if we can’t agree on what’s happening?
June 01, 2020 10:40 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBProtesters demonstrated in dozens of cities across the country over the weekend, sparked by the alleged murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer last week. But depending on what people saw on social media about the protests, they may have completely different ideas about what happened. Host Molly Wood speaks with Zeynep Tufekci, author of “Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest.”
The regulation that helped build the internet may be in trouble
May 29, 2020 10:02 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBThe debate over how social media platforms deal with content hit a new peak this week after Twitter fact-checked several of President Donald Trump’s tweets. That prompted Trump to sign an executive order trying to limit platforms’ legal protections. Currently, under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, internet platforms aren’t legally responsible for most content posted by users. Host Molly Wood speaks with Jeff Kosseff, author of “The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet,” ...
Mental health care in a time of social isolation probably involves an app
May 28, 2020 10:34 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBCOVID-19 has opened up a conversation about remote therapy, but online mental health care goes way beyond talking to a therapist over video chat. App analytics companies say downloads of mental health and wellness apps are up almost 30% since the pandemic began. These include therapy services, but also meditation apps like Calm and Headspace. Do they work, and how is your data handled? American Public Media’s mental health reporter, Alisa Roth, takes a look.
Demand for mental health apps is spiking
May 28, 2020 10:34 - 5 minutes - 11.8 MBCOVID-19 has opened up a conversation about remote therapy, but online mental health care goes way beyond talking to a therapist over video chat. App analytics companies say downloads of mental health and wellness apps are up almost 30% since the pandemic began. These include therapy services, but also meditation apps like Calm and Headspace. Do they work, and how is your data handled? American Public Media’s mental health reporter, Alisa Roth, takes a look.
Public health officials stuck using faxes to track the coronavirus
May 27, 2020 10:20 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBTech has helped in the fight against the coronavirus, but there’s a bottleneck when it comes to contact tracing: public health departments. These government agencies are chronically underfunded, and some don’t have the right tech to get medical data quickly. Host Molly Wood speaks with Dan Gorenstein, co-host of the health-care podcast “Tradeoffs,” about trying to track the spread of the virus with fax machines.
Europe’s data-privacy law turns 2. Has it actually made our information safer?
May 26, 2020 10:23 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBThis week marks two years since Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation went into effect. Companies spent millions of dollars on GDPR compliance, and people expected fines so big they’d put Big Tech out of business. That didn’t exactly happen, but what has the GDPR meant for consumer privacy? Host Molly Wood speaks with Jessica Lee, a partner with the law firm Loeb & Loeb who specializes in privacy.
Some people are making bread in quarantine. Others are making TikToks
May 25, 2020 10:46 - 4 minutes - 11.8 MBTikTok has been in the news for its new CEO, who was poached from Disney, and for the record labels who think the service should pay more to publishers and artists for song rights. And there have been calls to ban it in the U.S. over its Chinese ownership and security fears. But its popularity keeps growing.
Restaurants and apps are fighting over fees. Is delivery too cheap to support both?
May 22, 2020 10:46 - 7 minutes - 11.8 MBMost restaurants right now are open for delivery or pickup only, and that means a lot of them are relying on third-party delivery services like Grubhub, DoorDash or Uber Eats. Those services can charge significant fees to restaurants, and some restaurants complain those fees are unsustainable. Some cities have capped those fees and now the delivery companies say the caps are unsustainable. Host Molly Wood speaks with Venessa Wong, a senior reporter at BuzzFeed News.
When ventilators break, iFixit can help
May 21, 2020 11:12 - 6 minutes - 11.8 MBVentilators, dialysis machines and mechanical beds are more important than ever. That equipment, of course, breaks down. And some manufacturers restrict access to repair information, so hospital technicians can’t just fix things themselves. Molly Wood speaks with iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens, who just launched a public database of medical-equipment repair manuals.