Biz Please

Every. Single. Projection. They were all wrong. Alex Hazlett, deputy east coast managing editor for Mashable, and Vastan Dhar, professor at the Stern School of Business and the Center for Data Science at New York University, join to chat about the role of data in our elections and our daily lives – and why you have to be careful about what you trust.

Avi Flombaum, dean of the Flatiron School, joins us to talk about why he's trying to help more people learn to code. While other professions contract, there's still a shortage of software engineers, a lucrative profession. Codwing, however, isn't just about work. Flombaum talks about why learning how computers work will be important to understand the world around us.

The tech philosophy of "move fast and break stuff" doesn't hold up so well when talking about education. So how do startups work in the education tech field? Brian Grey, CEO of Remind.com, talks about his company's efforts to create a safe place for students, teachers and parents to communicate — and the broader changes that are coming to education.

The computer, the smartphone....the city? Matthew Harrigan and Charles Bonello, co-founders of NYC-based startup accelearator Grand Central Tech, talk about why they see major metropolitan areas as the next big thing in tech. 

Kerry Flynn and Jason Abbruzzese break down the AT&T and Time Warner mega deal. Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson joins to discuss what this means for consumers, and what kind of future AT&T is trying to prepare for.

Apple, Google, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio...and now Amazon! The ecommerce giant has launched its new streaming music service, and it's the cheapest yet. The Mashable business team gets together to talk about whether they'd give it a shot, and where the streaming music industry is headed.

How do you find humor in an absurd election? Bloomberg's Matt Negrin joins to talk about his experiences at some of the biggest political events of the year. Negrin's videos have provided some much-needed comic relief by providing an on-the-ground perspective of what has been a truly weird era in U.S. politics.

We loved our conversation on Facebook Live with Carl Bialik so much that we ripped the audio and put it up here. We talk about the problem with online polls and the media's challenge to cut through the noise. Later on, Kerry and Jason talk Snapchat and Yahoo's data breach.

"It's our belief that Africa is the largest pool of underutilized brainpower in the world," says Jeremy Johnson, the CEO and co-founder of Andela, on this week's episode. He joins to talk about why his startup has been attracting so much attention -- and why technology appears yet to make a major difference in education.

We've been hearing about self-driving cars for a while, and it's still going to be years before they're widely available. But make no mistake -- self-driving cars on on the road as we speak. Mashable business reporter Kerry Flynn went to Pittsburgh where she rode in the cars that are already picking up passengers. She gives us her first-hand account.

Apple has Siri. Amazon has Alexa. And that's just the start. Charles Jolley, CEO of Ozlo, an AI-driven personal assistant, talks us through the ins and outs of the new wave of artifical intelligence, where it's headed and why you shouldn't be worried about a Terminator/Matrix-inspired future.

Podcasting has exploded in the past couple years as shows like Serial and the growth of smartphones have put the format into almost everyone's pockets. Karl Rosander and Måns Ulvestam, cofounder of podcast platform Acast, join to talk about the industry, where it has been and where it's headed.

Luis von Ahn sold a company to Google and received a MacArthur "genius grant." Then he founded Duolingo, which has become one of the most popular language education services in the world. He joins to talk about why humans and computers together can do more than when they work on their own. 

Corey Ford, managing partner at media startup accelrator Matter, joins us with a few entrpreneurs to talk about media startups -- and hear pitches from some of the founders in his most recent class. 

Facebook's head of product design lucas Woods joins Matt Petronzio and Kerry Flynn to talk about how the social network is making products to help people in emergencies. Kerry and Jason also start off with a quick analysis of Uber's big move in China. 

You're terrible at investing, and you wouldn't be much better with a time machine. Don't believe it? Spencer Jakab of the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street joins to talk about his new book "Heads I Win, Tails I Win," which breaks down why you need to stop futzing with your retirement savings and just enjoy the ride.

Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for the Washington Post and the former public editor of the New York Times, talks about why Facebook's role as a media company is undeniable and what the growth of livestreaming means for journalism. 

Esports have moved from the fringe to the mainstream, now attracting major sponsors and getting airtime on channels like ESPN. Joost van Dreunen, founder of gaming analytics firm SuperData, gives us the big picture of where esports are now and where they're headed. Later, Mike Sepso, now at Activision Blizzard Media Networks, talks to us about co-founding of Major League Gaming and the evolution of esports over the years. 

MailChimp CEO Ben Chestnut joins to talk about why email just won't seem to die despite having been around since the beginning of the Internet. We also talk about company culture, what his emaily inbox looks like and that infamous Serial intro. 

Antonio Garcia Martinez joins us to talk about what life is really like in Silicon Valley. His new book, "Chaos Monkeys," chronicles the sometimes absurd world of venture capital as well as the inner workings of Facebook, while also providing a larger issues plaguing digital media and the online ad market.