Jane Metcalfe on The Neobiological Revolution
05/03/22 • 47 min
1 Listener
Today’s guest is Jane Metcalfe, co-founder of WIRED and founder of NEO.LIFE.
In 1993, Jane and Louis Rossetto founded WIRED leading the charge in informing, education and exciting the world about the digital revolution – a term Lewis coined.
25 years later and Jane is doing it all over again with NEO.LIFE and what she calls the neobiological revolution. NEO.LIFE is a digital media and events company set up to explore the rapid developments at the intersection of tech and biology and how its marriage will shape the future of our species.
A serial entrepreneur, innovator and investor, Jane was also President of WIRED ventures, author of Neo Life: 25 Visions for the Future of Our Species and she also started a premium chocolate brand which was acquired in 2018.
In this conversation, we talk about feeling like a misfit, the genesis of one of the most important publications of our time and how it is inevitable that we will all become cyborgs.
Jane on Twitter / NEO.LIFE website
Buy Neo Life: 25 Visions for the Future of Our Species here
Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter
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As always, if you like the show, please do take a minute to write a review or hot the subscribe button so that you can be the first to hear all the new episodes before everyone else.
Image of Jane taken by Christopher Michel
Today’s guest is Jane Metcalfe, co-founder of WIRED and founder of NEO.LIFE.
In 1993, Jane and Louis Rossetto founded WIRED leading the charge in informing, education and exciting the world about the digital revolution – a term Lewis coined.
25 years later and Jane is doing it all over again with NEO.LIFE and what she calls the neobiological revolution. NEO.LIFE is a digital media and events company set up to explore the rapid developments at the intersection of tech and biology and how its marriage will shape the future of our species.
A serial entrepreneur, innovator and investor, Jane was also President of WIRED ventures, author of Neo Life: 25 Visions for the Future of Our Species and she also started a premium chocolate brand which was acquired in 2018.
In this conversation, we talk about feeling like a misfit, the genesis of one of the most important publications of our time and how it is inevitable that we will all become cyborgs.
Jane on Twitter / NEO.LIFE website
Buy Neo Life: 25 Visions for the Future of Our Species here
Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter
----------
As always, if you like the show, please do take a minute to write a review or hot the subscribe button so that you can be the first to hear all the new episodes before everyone else.
Image of Jane taken by Christopher Michel
Previous Episode
Ken Miller: Early PayPal, Elon Musk and Advising Jack Dorsey
Today’s guest is Ken Miller who was employee number twenty two at PayPal. Having originally joined Elon Musk’s X.com, Ken was in charge of anti-fraud which was a difficult job at the best of times, not least at the dawn of the internet. Ken spent seven years at PayPal dealing with everything from fraudulent accounts, the death of a much-loved colleague to the unceremonious ousting of then-CEO Elon Musk and even the Russian mafia.
In today’s conversation, Ken also talks to me about his upbringing and how that instilled a sense of grit and self-reliance which would serve him well at PayPal and beyond, as an entrepreneur himself.
This is a wide-ranging and fun conversation which I think you will really enjoy!
Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter
----------
As always, if you like the show, please do take a minute to write a review or hot the subscribe button so that you can be the first to hear all the new episodes before everyone else.
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Mentioned in the episode:
The Max that Ken refers to is Max Levchin
The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley
My interview with Jimmy Soni
Next Episode
Ayah Bdeir on Design, Engineering and Activism
Today’s guest is Ayah Bdeir, a Lebanese engineer, interactive artist, social activist, and founder and inventor of littleBits. Pioneering in the open source hardware space, littleBits is the easy-to-use electronic building blocks used by millions of kids all over the world and was acquired by Sphero in 2019. (The prototype also holds a place in the permanent collection at MoMA).
Growing up in Beirut, Ayah always had a deep love of design and engineering and focused her career making engineering fun whilst on democratising open source hardware to ensure tech education and innovation became accessible to all, regardless of age, gender or background. Her passion was always to make it accessible and encourage more girls to get excited about engineering.
She is also co-founder of the Open Hardware Summit, a TED Senior Fellow, and an alumna of the MIT Media Lab where she did her Masters.
In this conversation, Ayah and I discuss her passion for engineering and making it accessible, her call to activism in Lebanon and even, the significance of someone like Elon Musk owning Twitter and the impact it could have.
This is a wonderfully wide-ranging conversation which I thoroughly enjoyed and think you will too.
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Ayah Bdeir Twitter / Instagram / website
littleBits website
Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter
----------
As always, if you like the show, please do take a minute to write a review or hit the subscribe button so that you can be the first to hear all the new episodes before everyone else.
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