Future Around & Find Out
by Dan Blumberg
Latest episode
Quiet Tech: Why the Future May Look More Like Dune Than Marvel
Quiet Tech: Why the Future May Look More Like Dune Than Marvel
About this podcast
* Winner of the 2026 Webby Award for Best Technology Podcast *
Future Around & Find Out helps builders think clearly about AI and emerging technologies, grapple with the implications, and decide what to build next.
Independent technologist and former NPR journalist Dan Blumberg speaks with founders, makers, and you to celebrate breakthroughs, call BS on the hype, explore how things might go sideways — and how we can steer the future in the right direction.
On Tuesdays, we interview the builders changing how we work, live, and play.
On FAFO Fridays, futurist Kwaku Aning joins Dan for a playful recap of the week in tech, including the amazing, the scary, and the strange.
You’ll also hear about innovations that too often get overshadowed by AI, including in deep tech, biotech, fintech, quantum computing, robotics, blockchain, and more.
Across it all, you’ll hear sharp takes on what comes next and what builders need to know now.
So let’s Future Around & Find Out together!
https://www.FutureAround.com
Episodes
The newest 20 of 133 episodes
- Quiet Tech: Why the Future May Look More Like Dune Than Marvel · 44 min · Episode 135"We all crave more humanity, more tactility, more contact with the real world. And AI done in the right way can be agentic and behind the scenes and be this kind of laid…
- Fable 5 Fallout: Now We Must Create an AI Review Process We Actually Trust | Ron J. Williams · 50 min · Episode 133Well, that escalated quickly! In the span of a few weeks the Trump administration went from AI regulation is dangerous and we will lose to China to an executive order calling for…
- Sam's Concepts of a Plan vs. Dario's Details for Our Future With AI · 27 min · Episode 132Sam Altman and Dario Amodei both published essays this week on the future of AI and what we must do so everyone benefits. One of them is literally titled "Our Plan." The other…
- An Iron Man Suit for the Mind: Rajiv Pant on "Synthesis Engineering" · 32 min · Episode 131Rajiv Pant thinks of AI as an Iron Man suit for the mind. Something you put on. That you fuse with. That takes you to greater heights — but could also make you incredibly dizzy…
- AI Regulation Arrives. Is US Government Ownership Next? | FAFO Friday · 44 min · Episode 130President Trump signed an executive order this week that “voluntarily” invites AI makers to share their most advanced models with the government thirty days before a wider…
- "It's cognitive uploading" | How Google NotebookLM's Steven Johnson uses AI as a second brain · 42 min · Episode 129Steven Johnson dreamed of building the ultimate research assistant. Now he's doing just that at Google, where he's the co-founder and editorial director of NotebookLM. It's one…
- The Pope Speaks Directly to Builders, Implores Us to "Disarm AI" · 27 min · Episode 128The Pope's encyclical on AI has a direct message for builders: every design choice reflects a vision of humanity. He's calling on developers to "disarm" AI — to resist the race…
- What's Our Plan If AI Really Does Take All the Jobs? We Should Probably Figure That Out Now · 34 min · Episode 127"It would be humanity's biggest ever unforced error." Silicon Valley has changed its tune. After years of warning us their AI was going to take all the jobs, the big AI…
- Oops! AI Titans Realize Predicting a Jobs Apocalypse Is "Unhelpful Marketing" | FAFO Friday · 30 min · Episode 126The AI narrative shifting… Jobs apocalypse? What jobs apocalypse!? Who said that was coming? There's been a noticeable shift from the AI titans recently. Turns out (shocker!) the…
- How AI Can Make You a Better Writer: Stop Letting It Write; Start Letting It Ask. | Jay Dixit (Socratic AI) · 32 min · Episode 125Jay Dixit helps writers improve their writing with AI. He doesn't recommend that AI write for you — he hates that — but he says it can be a great partner to pull ideas out and to…
- "Nice Model You Got There — Shame If Something Happened to It" | FAFO Friday · 30 min · Episode 124The Trump administration suddenly wants to review AI models before they ship. Anthropic just inked a massive compute deal with Elon Musk, who then posted that he "reserves the…
- Robots Don't Have to Be Creepy. Meet the Dancer Reimagining Them. | Catie Cuan (Founder & CEO, ART Lab) · 50 min · Episode 123Catie Cuan's dad was in the hospital, surrounded by machines that were supposed to help him. Instead they made him feel alienated and afraid. Catie, a dancer-turned-roboticist…
- The Goblin in the Machine | FAFO Friday · 34 min · Episode 122I don't think we pause enough to marvel at how freakin' weird AI is. Here's an actual instruction from OpenAI to its latest model: "Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons…
- AI doesn't do anything. We do. | Rumman Chowdhury on reclaiming agency and rejecting "moral outsourcing" · 54 min · Episode 121Rumman Chowdhury wants to remind you that “AI isn't doing anything.” We do things. AI is not to blame for layoffs or if you’re denied medical coverage. People are. Eight years…
- We Won a Webby Award! Who Could've Predicted That? And Are All Predictions Bunk Anyway? · 39 min · Episode 120We won the Webby Award for best tech podcast of 2026!!! I’m stunned! But Kwaku doesn’t like it when I say stuff like that, because as he reminds me in this “FAFO Friday” edition…
- "I Can't Believe It's Not Software!" Paul Ford on AI and the Asterisk* · 45 min · Episode 119So what even is “real” software anyway? Someone builds an app over the weekend. It works. It looks good. And then the search begins — for the asterisk. Security? Design quality?…
- We're a Webby nominee for Best Tech Podcast! Please vote! And here are the FAFO highlights the Webby's loved so much · 11 min · Episode 118Hey everyone... so, in case you haven't heard... this show, Future Around & Find Out, has been nominated for a Webby for best tech podcast! *** VOTE HERE…
- We Need Inventors. And Inventors Need Us. Pablos Holman on Finding and Backing Zero to One Builders · 31 min · Episode 117We live in a world where every crisis lands in your pocket the moment it happens. The result? We're more informed than ever — and somehow less capable of doing anything about it…
- The Moon, the Mythos, the Mayhem | FAFO Friday · 33 min · Episode 116Hey, great news! We’ve been nominated by the Webby Awards for best tech podcast! Voting is open now and we’re in second place for the popular choice prize. Just behind The Verge…
- Trust Is All That's Left: How AI Scrambles the Creator Economy | Jim Louderback Live from SXSW · 39 min · Episode 115Future Around & Find Out is a best technology podcast nominee! And with your help it could be a winner. The Webby Awards voting is open now. Please vote for FAFO! Thanks to AI…
