Weekly output: Tech Talks podcast, SpaceX Starship, AI data privacy, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, agentic AI, scaling AI, Trump scrubs NASA nomination

This week will be my fourth in a row with nights away from home–but since the first of those was something I did for fun, nobody should feel too sorry for me. Plus, last week’s trip for Web Summit Vancouver treated me to some beautiful mountain, water and city scenery. This week’s less-scenic trip is to Santa Clara, where I’m moderating three panels about… wait for it… AI at the TechEx North American conference.

I wrote an extra post for Patreon readers: a breakdown of my inputs and outputs from Google I/O as compared to two prior trips to cover Google’s developer conference.

5/26/2025: Education, Education, Education! The Biggest Lessons from Rio., Tech Talks

I joined this episode of the podcast that my conference pal David Savage does for his employer Nash Squared almost a month ago at Web Summit Rio, when I sat down in front of a microphone with David, Ingra Labs founder Nicole Ingra, and Koala CEO Benjamin Buthmann.

5/28/2025: On Ninth Test Flight, SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Survives Launch But Not Space, PCMag

Instead of taking some time to explore Vancouver after my late-morning arrival, I caught up on e-mail while waiting for my room to be ready, got in an interview for an upcoming story and then watched the livestream of SpaceX’s ninth launch of its gigantic Starship rocket–which proved to be almost as snakebit as the previous two test flights.

5/28/2025: Whose data is it anyway?, Web Summit Vancouver

My first of three panels at the summit had me quizzing Pamela Snively, chief data and trust officer at Telus Communications, and Amin Venjara, chief data officer of ADP.

5/29/2025: Bluesky Still Figuring Out How to Make Money Without Spamming You With Ads, PCMag

I left my schedule open Tuesday evening to see Bluesky CEO Jay Graber’s talk onstage, then finished writing it up early Wednesday morning after jet lag once again had me wake up before 6 a.m.

5/29/2025: The agentic era, Web Summit Vancouver

My panel with Josh Software co-founder Gautam Rege and Outreach CEO Abhjit Mitra, featured something I hadn’t seen before at Web Summit events: The countdown clock moved backwards. I found out afterwards that since the previous speaker had ended early, the stage producers opted to give us his stoppage time after seeing that we were having fun in our conversation.

5/29/2025: Building the new internet: Lessons in simplicity, security, and scale, Web Summit Vancouver

My third panel started 20 minutes after my second and on the same stage, leaving just enough time backstage for a quick sync-up with Tailscale CEO Avery Pennarun. He brought a somewhat cranky view of AI-industry hype that I appreciated very much.

5/31/2025: Trump Hits ‘Undo’ on Private Astronaut’s Nomination for NASA Administrator, PCMag

Maybe because I spent a large part of Friday offline in the sky, I couldn’t resist a chance to cover President Trump withdrawing his nomination of payments billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator–because writing that post also let me loop in readers about the brutal budget outline for the space agency posted Friday.