Calm's Michael Acton Smith: "Dopamine-frazzled zombies"

The Times Tech Podcast

• Episode: Calm's Michael Acton Smith: "Dopamine-frazzled zombies"
• Website: The Times Tech Podcast
• Feed URL: http://rss.acast.com/dannyinthevalley
• Duration: 00:46:46
• Published: 2018-07-20 05:00

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Michael Acton Smith, co-founder of Calm, the hit meditation app, to talk about starting out with the idea five years ago (4:40), the rise and fall of his previous company Mind Candy (8:30), moving to San Francisco (13:20), trying to build a “moat” around around the app (14:45), how meditating is like jogging (16:45), why Calm uses the smartphone as the delivery mechanism (19:45), the death of boredom (21:15), creating a profitable business (23:30), why sleep is a growth industry (26:35), the science of meditation (28:10), trying to sell rocks as a child (33:10), setting up an Internet retailer in 1998 (35:40), why he thinks Calm is going to be a billion-dollar business (38:45), his plans to buy an island (41:35), and why the world’s top two meditation apps have been created by Brits (43:45).

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.