

Tech Talks Daily
Neil C. Hughes
If every company is now a tech company and digital transformation is a journey rather than a destination, how do you keep up with the relentless pace of technological change?
Every day, Tech Talks Daily brings you insights from the brightest minds in tech, business, and innovation, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways.
Hosted by Neil C. Hughes, Tech Talks Daily explores how emerging technologies such as AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, fintech, quantum computing, Web3, and more are shaping industries and solving real-world challenges in modern businesses.
Through candid conversations with industry leaders, CEOs, Fortune 500 executives, startup founders, and even the occasional celebrity, Tech Talks Daily uncovers the trends driving digital transformation and the strategies behind successful tech adoption. But this isn't just about buzzwords.
We go beyond the hype to demystify the biggest tech trends and determine their real-world impact. From cybersecurity and blockchain to AI sovereignty, robotics, and post-quantum cryptography, we explore the measurable difference these innovations can make.
Whether improving security, enhancing customer experiences, or driving business growth, we also investigate the ROI of cutting-edge tech projects, asking the tough questions about what works, what doesn't, and how businesses can maximize their investments.
Whether you're a business leader, IT professional, or simply curious about technology's role in our lives, you'll find engaging discussions that challenge perspectives, share diverse viewpoints, and spark new ideas.
New episodes are released daily, 365 days a year, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways around technology and the future of business.
Every day, Tech Talks Daily brings you insights from the brightest minds in tech, business, and innovation, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways.
Hosted by Neil C. Hughes, Tech Talks Daily explores how emerging technologies such as AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, fintech, quantum computing, Web3, and more are shaping industries and solving real-world challenges in modern businesses.
Through candid conversations with industry leaders, CEOs, Fortune 500 executives, startup founders, and even the occasional celebrity, Tech Talks Daily uncovers the trends driving digital transformation and the strategies behind successful tech adoption. But this isn't just about buzzwords.
We go beyond the hype to demystify the biggest tech trends and determine their real-world impact. From cybersecurity and blockchain to AI sovereignty, robotics, and post-quantum cryptography, we explore the measurable difference these innovations can make.
Whether improving security, enhancing customer experiences, or driving business growth, we also investigate the ROI of cutting-edge tech projects, asking the tough questions about what works, what doesn't, and how businesses can maximize their investments.
Whether you're a business leader, IT professional, or simply curious about technology's role in our lives, you'll find engaging discussions that challenge perspectives, share diverse viewpoints, and spark new ideas.
New episodes are released daily, 365 days a year, breaking down complex ideas into clear, actionable takeaways around technology and the future of business.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 14, 2022 • 26min
2007: BAE Systems is Making Sense of Quantum Sensing
Quantum computing is still a while away from widespread commercial application, but another technology could become available much sooner – quantum sensing. Quantum sensors can measure different physical properties, including temperature, magnetic field, and rotation, with extreme sensitivity. These sensitives give the technology distinct advantages for applications including communication, infrastructure monitoring, navigation, and radar. Henry White, Lead Technologist in Sensing at BAE Systems, joins me in a conversation on 'Making Sense of Quantum Sensing'? We discuss what the technology is in more detail, as well as the current and potential real-world applications of quantum sensing, such as threat detection in the military or at airports.

Jun 13, 2022 • 29min
2006: Coiled | Python for Data Science on the Cloud with Dask
Matthew Rocklin, the creator of Dask, the popular Python native distributed computing library. Matthew is also a founder and CEO of Coiled, which helps teams run Dask in the cloud. The past decade has seen a boom in several open source tools built specifically for data scientists. However, most of these projects struggle to gain wide adoption. Matthew is one of the few leaders in the developer tools space who knows how to build things that data scientists love. Matthew believes that for a data science tool to be successful, it must be human-centric. Data science is a diverse field. It should be easy for any data scientist to pick up a tool and quickly adapt it to their unique use case. Coiled is built on the success of Dask and is being used by thousands of data scientists and engineers in organizations like NASA, Capital One, Anthem Health, and the USAF to combat climate change, perform a credit risk analysis, and manage supply chains. Matthew shares his entrepreneurial path and offers tips on building a human-centric developer tool that thousands of developers will love. We dare to explore the future of distributed computing.

Jun 12, 2022 • 46min
2005: Merging Data Science With the Art of Food With Jack Li, CEO of Datassential
Jack Li is the CEO and founder of Datassential. He took a 2-man company in 2001 and created a global food and beverage digital research powerhouse that helps brands like Target Foods, Jack in the Box, and General Mills innovate with data. This is the company that predicted the rise of avocado toast and is helping restaurants and food service providers match new menu items with consumer preferences. Specifically, they focus on making food data more usable for these brands through digital tools. For example, one of their tools allows you to enter in a new menu item you're considering and see data on how likely consumers are to enjoy it, or how to alter it to improve its appeal. Jack joins me on Tech Talks Daily to discuss how he grew the company, how Datassential predicts food trends, and the practice of merging data science with the art of food. We talk about the tech behind food trend insights, the different models Datassential uses to judge the performance of certain dishes, and how these tools benefit its customers. We also discuss how technologies such as databases and algorithms are helping push restaurants, food service providers, and food brands into the next era and create targeted appeals to customers.

Jun 11, 2022 • 31min
2004: Developing and Integrating ML functionality Into Your Application
I recently discovered a company called Nykcel that develops an ML platform that allows anyone to develop and integrate ML functionality into their application quickly. So I invited Oscar Beijbom onto the podcast to learn more. He shares his story and some incredibly cool use cases that should give everyone listening to a little food for thought on the value this tech can offer. Oscar is the co-founder and ML lead at Nyckel. He has 20 years of experience shipping ML products for a wide range of products including self-driving cars, airbag bicycle helmets, coral reef monitoring, and microscopy. His academic work on deep learning has been cited over 5000 times and includes topics on object detection, domain transfer learning, and fine-grained visual categorization. We discuss how machine learning differs from artificial intelligence and how entrepreneurs can use machine learning to accelerate the growth of their companies. He also shares tips on how developers can improve the accuracy of their machine learning model.

Jun 10, 2022 • 34min
2003: Ronny Leber On Creating Events That Educate and Entertain
Many teams have been thrust into collaborating using video tools as hybrid working becomes the norm. But in a world of Zoom fatigue, how can you present yourself on video, and radiate energy, to garner the right attention? How can you create or host memorable live, virtual, or hybrid events? And what is the secret to building an emotional connection with your audience? Ronny Leber joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share his insights and expertise. Ronny Leber is a world-renowned keynote speaker, TV host, stadium host, and legacy coach who has entertained millions of people, live, and worldwide at major sporting events, corporate events, and seminars. He loves to motivate his listeners, fill them with momentum, and provide magic moments that enhance team-building skills and peak performance. Ronny specializes in working with high-level individuals to create their legacy and multiply their impact by helping them build an emotional bridge to their audience and create raving fans. "The reason why I do, what I do is simple: I love to entertain and inspire people in a positive way. I love to create "Magic Moments" to build a bridge between the audience and the protagonists and to create an emotional bond. Ronnie shares tips on performance preparation when thousands of eyes are all on you and how to get the most out of tech-based tools.

Jun 10, 2022 • 22min
2002: Commvault and Metallic - Protecting the Multi Cloud World
Whether supporting new remote workforces, overhauling legacy systems and applications, or combatting ransomware and other cyberattacks, IT organizations face new and evolving challenges to their business and their data. Corporate data has never been more valuable or vulnerable, and data security and management is a C-level business problem, not just an IT problem. Commvault (NASDAQ: CVLT) is on a mission to liberate business and IT professionals to do amazing things with their data by ensuring the fundamental integrity of their business. For 25 years, more than 100,000 organizations have relied on Commvault, and today, Metallic is accelerating customer adoption to modernize their environments as they look to SaaS for the future. Today's guest is David Ngo, who has been with Commvault for 24 years--his whole career. He shares his career trajectory and how he has seen the company change, such as launching a SaaS venture, Metallic, of which he is now CTO). We discuss how Metallic's conversations with customers are expanding—from IT operations and infrastructure to matters of security—forcing IT and Security teams to converge on their strategies.I also learn more about how Fiscal Year 2022 was the best in Commvault's history. The growth was driven by large deals and continued traction of SaaS offerings-–including Metallic. The past six quarters since Metallic has been available globally were a success, and this quarter, we crossed a milestone in ARR – reaching $50M.

Jun 9, 2022 • 39min
2001: How to Boost Your Crypto Portfolio Through DeFi
As crypto trading becomes increasingly prevalent, so too does the opportunity to maximize returns using various technology-driven tactics. One such tactic is the concept of yield farming, the process of using decentralized finance (DeFi) to maximize returns. Brad Yasar is the CEO, and Co-Founder of EQIFI, a decentralized finance (DeFi) investment platform powered by a regulated bank. Brad joins me on Tech Talks Daily to share how he and his team have created the EQIFI Yield Aggregator, harnessing the power of DeFi to generate steady returns across a range of digital asset classes. EQIFI's Yield Aggregator optimizes users' returns across multiple protocols by automatically identifying the most attractive yields based on risk tolerance levels and investment criteria. As a result, EQIFI's Yield aggregator has achieved 70% APY, trumping alternative DeFi platforms like Nexo, which generates 12% APY for its users. Brad demystifies the technology and potential profitability associated with yield farming and why crypto traders should consider utilizing yield farming tactics. Brad also discusses how to approach yield farming for those new to the concept.

Jun 8, 2022 • 28min
2000: How No-Code Tech Democratizes Access to the Digital Transformation
Trusted by over 15 million users worldwide, Jotform's forms and a suite of no-code tools are flexible enough for small businesses and robust enough for enterprises. Jotform helps organizations go from busywork to less work with forms that use conditional logic, accept payments, generate reports, automate workflows, and more. Jotform's products make it easy for any team to streamline its processes with 10,000 templates, hundreds of integrations, and almost 400 widgets. Jotform's Steve Hartert joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to explore how business owners can take advantage of no-code/low-code tech to grow their businesses and customer base. As a SaaS, cloud software, and B2B enterprise products and services expert, Steve discusses how no-code and low-code tech is democratizing access to software and results that weren't possible for small- and medium-sized businesses before. Steve also shares how this type of tech can empower small business owners to embrace digital transformation and take their businesses to the next level.

Jun 7, 2022 • 39min
1999: AttackIQ CEO Reveals How to Achieve an Assume Breach Mindset
Brett Galloway, CEO of AttackIQ, joins me on The Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss how security leaders can build a comprehensive defense-in-depth strategy to confidently report to their boards, auditors, and leadership teams the strength of their security posture. I ask why CISOs keep investing in more and more security controls when 82% of enterprise breaches that existing controls should have stopped weren't. Finally, we discuss why buying more silver bullet tools to combat evolving threats doesn't solve the underlying problem: how to be indeed confident in your defenses against adversaries. Brett expands on his belief that the only way to do so is by gaining data-driven visibility into what's working across your whole system, people, processes, and technologies by continuously validating them. Then, organizations can build a comprehensive defense-in-depth strategy to stop intruders from breaching their applications, networks, and clouds by automating adversarial emulation.

Jun 6, 2022 • 23min
1998: TEKsystems - Insights From the State of Digital Transformation Report
Ram Palaniappan, Chief Technology Officer, TEKsystems, joins me on the Tech Talks Daily Podcast to discuss its recent State of Digital Transformation report. The report found that leaders who strategically applied technology to enable business transformation thrived and further increased the gap between themselves and digital laggards. We discuss highlights from the report such as why 2 out of 5 organizations note that digital transformation initiatives fail to deliver the identified outcomes. As leaders continue to invest in all aspects of digital transformation, we also talk about how their expected return-on-investment is more immediate, with leaders expecting ROI in one to three years, compared to the laggards at three to five years. TEKsystems recognizes that each organization's road to transformation is rarely a straight line and collectively works with partners to map out attainable wins to identify a path to long-term success in total business transformation. 9 out of 10 organizations indicated that the skills critical to their workforce are also areas where they experience the most significant gaps. We explore how overcoming these gaps, albeit challenging, requires the development of creative talent strategies where companies can acquire new talent, upskill and reskill existing talent, and cultivate a future-ready workforce.


