Privacy tech, crypto rails, internet freedom.
Priv8 Podcast is a technology interview show anchored in privacy, human rights, democracy, and decentralized networks. Derek E. Silva talks with guests about VPNs, DeFi, Web3 data, AI meeting tools, blockchain security, and the messy incentives behind modern tech.
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Priv8 Podcast is a technology interview show about who owns, routes, secures, and profits from the internet. Privacy is the recurring anchor. The show treats VPNs, crypto custody, Web3 data, and decentralized finance as practical responses to real failures in digital control. Derek E. Silva brings a direct, technically literate style to conversations with guests. He is comfortable asking product questions, but he also follows those answers into politics, incentives, user responsibility, and trust. The pace is talkative and guest-friendly. It still carries a skeptical streak, especially when the topic turns to crypto speculation, business media theater, or centralized exchanges. Episodes often begin with a concrete system: Sembly.ai applying AI to meetings, Injective Labs building DeFi tools, Syntropy rethinking internet routing, Ceramic Network working on permissionless data composability, or Diligence auditing Ethereum applications. From there, the show widens the frame. A conversation about generative AI becomes a discussion of speech chaos, summarization, and how AI enters the product stack. A DeFi episode turns into a reminder that being one's own bank requires actual custody habits. A routing discussion gets into BGP, relays, data centers, and why inefficient paths still shape online experience. The crypto reporting episode with Brady Dale brings in Terra, 3AC, regulation, and the strange arc of NFTs. Corey Johnson's appearance shifts toward startups, audio storytelling, and criticism of old business-news imagery. The 100th episode gives the show a more reflective mode, looking back at Orkut's original goals with Jay Freeman and Dr. Stephen Waterhouse. Across the sample, the show favors guests who can explain architecture and consequences in the same conversation. It is not a general consumer tech chat. It is closer to a running field report from the privacy and decentralization stack, with room for AI, journalism, startups, and internet governance. The strongest episodes work when a guest makes infrastructure feel legible without sanding off the complexity. The result is useful for listeners who want to understand privacy technology from the people trying to build it, and who do not mind candid opinions along the way.
Made for: Priv8 Podcast is for technically curious listeners who follow privacy tools, decentralized infrastructure, Web3, AI products, and crypto policy. It especially suits builders, security-minded users, and podcast listeners who want product mechanics alongside broader internet-freedom arguments.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by keeping privacy, human rights, technology, and democracy in the same frame while still asking concrete builder questions. It moves easily from VPN marketplaces and smart contract audits to crypto fallout, AI meeting summaries, and public-internet routing.
We join founders, CEOs, and thought leaders for a weekly dose of commentary on technology, privacy, human rights, and Internet freedom in the digital age. Hosted by Derek E. Silva
Internet traffic takes the scenic route; Derek E. Silva has a network builder explain the detour for you.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical discussion of generative AI as a useful new layer in the software stack.
Generative AI is treated here less as a replacement for existing tools than as another material in the product builder's kit. Artem Koren, co-founder and chief product officer of Sembly.ai, likens it to carbon fiber: powerful on its own, but most useful when it strengthens what…
Corey Johnson argues that audio can cut past business-news rituals to reach the real story.
Corey Johnson, founder of the Business Podcast Network and host of The Drill Down, argues that audio can tell business stories with more precision than the familiar visual shorthand of finance coverage.
A grounded conversation on self-custody, crypto's older ideals, and Injective's next steps.
Decentralized finance gets a clear, practical airing as Derek E. Silva speaks with Eric Chen, CEO and co-founder of Injective Labs, about Injective's work and crypto's long-running promise of personal control.
A grounded technical review of why public internet routes can be inefficient, and how Syntropy aims to improve them.
Syntropy's Jonas Simanavicius frames the public internet as something more adjustable than fixed, with routing choices that can be improved when traffic takes a poor path.
Plain-English privacy for a tracked world.
Privacy news with teeth and context.
Privacy law, pressure, and real-world judgment.
Cybersecurity where daily life meets power.
Privacy law with jokes left in.
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Corey Johnson says his career moved through Time Incorporated, Vibe with Quincy Jones, thestreet.com with Jim Cramer, CNBC’s Silicon Valley bureau, Bloomberg West with Emily Chang, Ripple, and the Business Podcast Network.
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Brady Dale, a crypto reporter for Axios and former reporter at The Defiant, Coindesk, Observer, and Fortune, discusses his book SBF, How the FTX Bankruptcy Unwound Crypto's Very Bad Good Guy, released May 9, 2023.
Jonas Simanavicius, co-founder and CTO of Syntropy, tells Derek E.
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