Austin Tech Connect: The Podcast For The Austin Technology Ecosystem, Business Leaders, and Tech Entrepreneurs!
Austin Tech Connect is the go to podcast for all things Technology in the Austin, Texas region. The show is hosted by the CEO of Austin Technology Council, Thom Singer. For over two years this show has highlighted local tech leaders who make a difference in the Austin tech ecosystem. Each week Thom sits down with leaders in technology & business from the greater Austin area to explore success stories, business advice, and visions for the future of Austin Tech. The Austin Technology Council has been bringing people together and serving the local tech ecosystem for over 32 years. If you are looking for the "Whose Who" of the Austin Technology Community, you need to be listening to the Austin Tech Connect Podcast. The Austin Tech Community is vibrant ecosystem of companies, non-profits, universities, and government agencies that are committed to keeping Austin as a leading technology center. Over the past three decades the city of Austin, Texas has transformed from a college town that is the State Capital, into a fast growing tech center. Homegrown startups grow into international leaders, and many other companies have opened offices in Austin or moved their headquarters. The future of Austin is looking good and this podcast is the show that will expose you to the visionary thought leaders who are mapping out the path to tomorrow.
Episodes
In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer (CEO at the Austin Technology Council) sits down with Jacqueline Karlin for a conversation about the emerging AI marketplace and how artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape commerce.
Jacqueline talks about how the AI marketplace is an environment where buyer and seller agents increasingly interact on behalf of people and companies. They discuss th...
Heather Brunner, CEO of WP Engine, returns to Austin Tech Connect following her keynote address at the "2026 State of Tech Luncheon", presented by the Austin Technology Council and the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.
For those who missed Heather's keynote, this episode revisits the ideas, stories, and observations that made her presentation such an important look at where Austin tech has been and where it is going.
Heather shar...
The episode of Austin Tech Connect featured Siobhan Hanley, Territory Director for the US Midwest and South at IDA Ireland, discussing the organization's role in supporting global companies investing in Ireland.
Siobhan explains IDA Ireland's 80-year history and its evolution from attracting low-cost manufacturing to supporting high-tech industries like AI, cybersecurity, and cloud computing. She highlights the strong synergy betwe...
How AI Is Reshaping the Workplace
What happens when AI makes a team dramatically more productive? Do companies simply get more done, or do they begin rethinking how many people it actually takes to do the work?
In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer talks with Robyn Fuentes, President of Improving South Texas, about what companies are actually seeing as they im...
Fresh off the annual Technology Councils of North America (TECNA) conference, where the people running tech councils across the US and Canada compare notes, Austin Technology Council CEO, Thom Singer, looks at where Austin sits now. The city spent decades proving it belonged. That phase is over. But a mature ecosystem has a problem the scrappy one never had: momentum starts to feel automatic, and good people quietly assume somebody...
In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer sits down with Brett Hurt, one of Austin's most recognized entrepreneurs, investors, and technology leaders... and a recent inductee into the Austin Tech Hall of Fame.
Brett has founded and led companies, had major exits, invested in more than 150 startups, and helped shape the Austin tech ecosystem for decades. But this conv...
In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer (CEO of the Austin Technology Council) sits down with Ben Barnes, the former Texas Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House, for a wide-ranging conversation about leadership, public service, Texas history, resilience, and staying engaged in life at every age.
Ben's political career began when he was elected to the Texas House o...
Peter Zandan has been part of Austin's technology story since 1977... long before anyone was calling this city a tech hub. In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer sits down with the long-time entrepreneur and community leader (and recent inductee into the Austin Tech Hall of Fame) to trace that journey from the beginning. Peter shares what brought him to Austin, what kept him here, and how he went on to found multiple c...
Thom Singer sits down with Kathleen Lucente, founder and CEO of Red Fan Communications, for a conversation about how AI is rewriting the rules of brand visibility. Kathleen has spent nearly two decades advising B2B tech CMOs and founders on messaging, M&A communications, and crisis response.... and she's now watching AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Gemini replace the click-through search results that used...
In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer talks with Stephen Straus, co-founder and CEO of KungFu.AI, about what it really means to lead in the age of artificial intelligence. Stephen started KungFu.AI in 2017, years before ChatGPT made AI the topic everyone was talking about, and his perspective is shaped by seeing the early internet boom in Austin and now watching AI reshape every industry. The conversation explores why...
In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer talks with Jess Lowry, Laura Timmis, and Rachael DiGiovine of Mindful Collective about career transitions, layoffs, and the very real human impact of uncertainty in today's tech-enabled economy.
Mindful Collective is a community of practice that helps people stay active and connected while they explore what comes next, linking members to mentorshi...
The Austin Technology Council hosted the third annual Austin Tech Hall of Fame at the offices of Wise at The Domain in Austin, Texas. Two hundred members of the Austin tech community came together to honor the builders, founders, and leaders whose work laid the foundation of one of the most dynamic technology ecosystems in the world.
On this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer sits down with Skip Balch, founder and principal consultant at SalesHandicapper, for a wide-ranging conversation about sales, leadership, artificial intelligence, and the Austin technology community.
Bruno Spruth - CTO at Q.ant
In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer talks with Bruno Spruth, the newly appointed CTO of Q.ant, a German deep tech company expanding into the United States with its...
Some episodes of Austin Tech Connect are about startups, leadership, and innovation. This episode is about all of those things, but it is also about grief, courage, and purpose.
In this conversation, Thom Singer talks with Michael McCown, founder and CEO of H27 Technologies, about...
What does it mean when an top local leader in engineering says, "We don't hire engineers"?
In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer sits down with Balazs Barna, Head of U.S. Engineering at Wise, to unpack that statement and explore what engineering leadership looks like in an AI-driven world. Balazs explains that Wis...
In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer sits down with Dr. Nick Hallman, professor at The University of Texas at Austin, to talk about one of the biggest business questions of the moment, how companies are actually using AI, and whether they are measuring success the right way. Drawing on research conducted with KPMG, Dr. Hallman shares what his team...
In this episode of Austin Tech Connect, Thom Singer sits down with Taylor McHargue of Cushman & Wakefield. Taylor is a new board member at the Austin Technology Council, and is a good example of the next generation of people in the tech ecosystem that want to show up and help build the future for all.
In this interview we exp...
This episode of "Austin Tech Connect" (the official podcast of the Austin Technology Council) features a conversation between Thom Singer (CEO at ATC) and Paul O'Brien about Paul's new book "Startup Ecosystems."
Paul discussed his career journey from Michigan to Silicon Valley to Austin, where he has lived for 17 years working in public affairs for startup ecosystems. They explored how Austin's tech ecosystem has thrived thro...
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