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 Abhijit 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.

#ADP #agenticAI #Bluesky #BritishColumbia #Canada #DavidSavage #JaredIsaacman #JayGraber #JoshSoftware #nasa #NASAAdministrator #NashSquared #Outreach #SpaceXStarship #Tailscale #Telus #Trump #TrumpTariffs #Vancouver #WebSummit #WebSummitVancouver

American apologies on Canadian soil

VANCOUVER

Between Americans and Canadians, the latter are supposed to be the people always apologizing even when unnecessary, but the last four months and change have not gone the way they’re supposed to between these North American nations. And coming from Washington in particular to one of my favorite countries for Web Summit Vancouver left me convinced that it was Americans’ turn to say “sorry” over and over.

In addition to his numerous other offenses, President Trump has treated Canada more shabbily than any president in my life, almost certainly in American history since President Madison made an invasion of Canada part of the U.S. strategy in the War of 1812.

Trump has slapped tariffs on imports from Canada based on the slanderous lie that Canada tolerates massive smuggling of fentanyl into the U.S. (Canada does not and suffers from that scourge too, as a walk Thursday night along some sketchy blocks of Hastings Street reminded me.) Trump won’t shut up about his deranged obsession with turning Canada into the 51st state; understanding that Canada consists of 10 provinces and three territories seems far beyond the president’s grasp, much less finding Nunavut on a map. He could not stop belittling the country and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even as Canadians began boycotting American goods and swung to the previously-doomed Liberal Party’s side, leading to a stunning win for the Liberals and Trudeau’s successor Mark Carney in April’s elections.

But nobody at this conference got on my case about any of this, even though they would have been more than entitled to do so. In particular, I could not have whined if I got yelled at by the Canadian attendees of Web Summit’s Collision conference in Toronto last year or in 2023 who had listened to me confidently predict that American voters would remember Trump’s crimes instead of returning him to the White House.

Even when I suggested in one of the three panels I moderated that a collaboration between Nvidia and the Canadian telco Telus to upgrade a data center in Quebec into a “Sovereign AI Factory” sounded like a new “elbows up” response to Trump’s thuggishness, Telus chief data and trust officer Pamela Snively assured me that this had been in the works for a while.

(Obligatory disclosure: Web Summit paid for my hotel and is reimbursing my airfare.)

I did not wind up apologizing onstage, but Fast Company tech editor Harry McCracken did just that early in an interview Wednesday of Bell Canada CEO Mirko Bibic. My fellow American and my editor at that publication noted what he called “this unprecedented time” and said he apologized for Trump’s annexationist delusions, saying “Canada is the best neighbor in the history of neighbors.” He’s right, and our country’s government is wrong. And I’m sorry too, Canada.

#51stState #Canada #elbowsUp #JustinTrudeau #MarkCarney #TrumpTariffs #TrumpVsCanada #Vancouver #WebSummitVancouver

Yesterday I was at #WebSummitVancouver helping a friend (in exchange for a pass). We were vibe debugging the demo early that morning. Then the rest of the day yapping to passers-by about https://baseweight.ai and https://videoscan.ai

Sometimes I helped guide the conversation from tech-explaining to asking-for-something, but mostly I part of the moral support posse

I was worried his demo was too simple. But we did more coding *that morning* than some exhibitors had done, period

Avery and Ivan just kicked off #WebSummitVancouver with a great talk on securing the future of AI. Vancouver has been a welcoming and great location and we are excited for the rest of the event!

If you are here, reach out and say hi! 👋