What’s behind the TBPN tech biz talk show

Ainsley Harris of Fast Company writes about TBPN, the daily talk show covering the business of technology.

Harris writes, “Podcasts devoted to business and technology are legion, but none mine Silicon Valley’s digital spaces with as much speed and attention. In the show’s early days, the jauntily coiffed Hays and 6-foot-8 Coogan would print out X posts and read them aloud. Both were startup founders themselves (Coogan cofounded Soylent and nicotine pouch brand Lucy; Hays founded funding tool Party Round), and they reasoned that the person behind the post would share the moment and, in the process, expand TBPN’s reach. More often than not, they were right.

“The show’s format has evolved—the polished set now includes, for example, a resonant gong that Coogan rings with flourish for fundraising news and exits—but the logic of audience engagement prevails. TBPN reports on hiring drama at the top AI labs, where certain researchers are celebrities, but it also identifies up-and-comers, announcing, for instance, the first person accepted into Palantir’s Neurodivergent Fellowship. When techie power couples get engaged, TBPN offers congratulations.

“Coogan and Hays were already familiar faces to many of their high-profile guests when they teamed up to record a show that they initially dubbed ‘Technology Brothers’ in late 2024, after being introduced by a mutual friend. Coogan had been experimenting with a documentary-style YouTube channel, growing it to nearly half a million subscribers (sample video: ‘Who Is Palmer Luckey?’). Hays had started a YouTube ad network in college.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.