Podcast
The CTO Lens
Hosted by London Tech Leaders · EN
A fresh look at what it really means to lead technology in today’s fast‑changing world. Hosted by seasoned CTO and thinker David Crawford, and co‑host, experienced product leader Sophie Valentine, The CTO Lens blends candid conversations with industry leaders, covers the latest tech news, and includes a whole host of personal insights and practical leadership lessons for the modern technology executive. From navigating roles, to understanding team culture, AI, tech strategy, and real‑world challenges, each episode offers both depth and everyday relevance. Whether you’re a current senior leader or aspiring to this role, The CTO Lens gives you perspectives that cut through noise - with clarity, humour, and a human touch.
14episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Season 2: Episode 20 - What Nobody Is Telling Fractional Workers About AI (Season Finale)
3w ago01:30:10Tap to summarizeThe CTO Lens Podcast wraps up Season 2 with Episode 20 - and David and Sophie are going out with a bang. Twenty episodes in, they reflect on what they've covered, what's coming in Season 3, and why the world of tech leadership has never been more interesting - or more complicated.This episode covers Anthropic's Mythos model making headlines again - this time for falling into the hands of a Discord channel of curious hackers who really shouldn't have had access. Apple bids farewell to Tim Cook and welcomes John Turnus as the new CEO, bringing with him a refreshingly humble philosophy on leadership. There's also a juicy Apple bug fix that will interest anyone who's ever deleted a message they'd rather forget. David and Sophie also dig into the Google Cloud Next conference - new AI chips, a Workspace Intelligence suite and Gemini's enterprise agent platform - and ask whether Google has simply been asleep at the wheel or playing a very long game.On the Elon front, Tesla is upping its capex to $25 billion, millions of owners are facing unexpected hardware upgrades, and a Waymo car drove through a police cordon in North London - though there's a twist. David also makes the case for insourcing tech talent and asks whether the UK could build its own Silicon Valley if it really wanted to.The big conversation this episode is one that's been bubbling all season - what happens to consultants and fractional workers when AI makes them 10x faster? Should they charge more, less, or invent an entirely new model? David may or may not have accidentally invented one live on air.The mid-episode game returns for its season finale - who will clinch the title? And in the listener mailbag, the team tackle whether anyone can ever truly curate AI, and when - if ever - AI processing will run out of power.To give us feedback on the CTO Lens Podcast, you can complete this form: https://tinyurl.com/ctolenspodWe'd really value any comments you had to improve the podcast in any way.
Transcribe →Season 2: Episode 19 - Liz Kendall, Falling Robots and Data Teams Are More Important Than You Think!
Apr 2101:23:12Tap to summarizeThe CTO Lens Podcast is back with Episode 19, and this week David and Sophie are firing on all cylinders with a packed news agenda and a guest who really knows his way around a data pipeline.This episode covers Roblox's controversial facial analysis age checks - and whether that's really the best we can do for child safety online. The UK's AI minister Liz Kendall gets the David and Sophie treatment after it emerged she doesn't actually use AI in her job. Sweden's decision to ditch screens and go back to pens and paper in classrooms raises some uncomfortable questions about where tech actually belongs. Allbirds' spectacular pivot from eco-friendly footwear to AI compute infrastructure gets a thorough reality check. And Tinder and Zoom want to scan your eyeball to prove you're human - with Sam Altman's fingerprints all over it.David and Sophie also sit down with Shamim Mirzai, Head of Data Engineering and AI at Atheneum, for a grounded and genuinely fascinating conversation about how software, platform and data teams are evolving - who owns what, where the friction lives, and why your data engineering team might just be the most strategically important people in your organisation right now. Shamim brings decades of experience across banking, shipping, hospitality and tech - including a memorable stint at Mumsnet - and some refreshingly practical thinking on what it actually takes to make AI initiatives work at scale.And in this week's listener mailbag, David and Sophie tackle the questions keeping tech leaders up at night - do we still need project managers, who's accountable when AI writes bad code, and should engineers be paid more for doing 5x the work with AI? As ever, they don't always have the answers, but they're asking the right questions.Link for London Tech Leaders Upcoming Events: https://luma.com/londontechleadersLink for London Tech Leaders Engineering Summit: https://registration.crowdcomms.com/londontech2026
Transcribe →Season 2: Episode 18 - Claude Mythos, Molotov Cocktails and the Future of UX
Apr 1401:31:55Tap to summarizeThe CTO Lens Podcast is back with Episode 18, and this one's got plenty to dig into. David and Sophie are back in their respective remote setups - but that doesn't mean things are any less lively.This episode covers a cyberattack that forced Northern Irish school kids back into classrooms during Easter - and raises a bigger question about the risk of centralising all your tech on a single supplier. OpenAI's four-day week proposal gets the David and Sophie treatment (spoiler: David is not convinced). There's also Sam Altman's home targeted by a molotov cocktail, the Claude Mythos rumour mill - including a rogue AI that allegedly emailed its own engineer - and a new company called rentahuman.ai that might just be the most honest business model in tech right now.Sophie sits down with Milena Nikolic, Founder of Heywa Labs, for a fascinating conversation about what "agentic" actually means, why text-in text-out is just the beginning of AI-native product design, and why brands should be very worried about becoming just a line in someone else's table. Milena brings serious credentials - over a decade at Google and four years as CTO of Trainline - and some genuinely fresh thinking on where UX is headed.And in this week's listener mailbag - a new segment - David and Sophie tackle the big questions: Will AI take our jobs? Are CTOs the CEOs of the future? And can you really defeat big tech by just... stopping? Plus the mid-episode game returns with a humbling round of "How Old Am I?" featuring child tech prodigies that will make you question everything you've done with your life.Link for London Tech Leaders Upcoming Events: https://luma.com/londontechleadersLink for London Tech Leaders Engineering Summit: https://registration.crowdcomms.com/l...
Transcribe →Season 2: Episode 17 - "Nobody Told Us It Was Going to Cost This Much"
Apr 901:08:49Tap to summarizeThe CTO Lens Podcast is back with Episode 17, and this week's edition is packed! Oh, and yes - this week's episode was filmed in person. David and Sophie are confirmed humans. This episode features China's obsession with an open-source AI tool nicknamed "the Lobster" (aka Claude), Anthropic's token costs spiralling out of control - and an accidental leak of 500,000 lines of source code, plus a two-brother team on track for $1.8 billion in revenue with no big team, just AI. David and Sophie cut through the noise on the week's biggest tech stories.We also bring you an exclusive pre-recorded conversation with David and Justin Reock (Deputy CTO at DX). Both dive deep into AI adoption inside engineering teams - what's actually working, what the data really shows, and why enterprises are quietly outperforming startups on AI productivity. And the question circling every engineering org right now from our disaster diaries; Are we actually building a better team with AI, or just avoiding the harder conversation about what we really value? This week's diary entry hits close to home.Link for London Tech Leaders Upcoming Events: https://luma.com/londontechleadersLink for London Tech Leaders Engineering Summit: https://registration.crowdcomms.com/londontech2026
Transcribe →Season 2: Episode 16 - The CTO's Dilemma: Prove ROI from AI & Prove You Still Have a Future Job
Apr 101:08:10Tap to summarizeThe CTO Lens Podcast is back with Episode 16, and this week's edition is packed!Meta vs. Google in court. AI reshaping video production. A Lloyd's Bank data breach update. David and Sophie cut through the noise on the week's biggest tech stories.Then things get really interesting. We're bringing you an exclusive fireside recording straight from our London Tech Leaders event - a razor-sharp conversation on ROI from AI with Lyubomira Dimitrova (Senior Technology Leader) and Scott Eivers (CEO, Datatonic). Don't sleep on this one.And the big question everyone in tech is quietly asking? Will the CTO role even exist in 3 years? OakNorth Bank's own Tom Harris gives his take (taken from the panel session at the same event) - and David and Sophie don't hold back with theirs.Plus, don't forget the mid-episode game (which this week is titled 'Around the World 🌍').Link for London Tech Leaders Upcoming Events: https://luma.com/londontechleadersLink for London Tech Leaders Engineering Summit: https://registration.crowdcomms.com/londontech2026
Transcribe →Season 2: Episode 15 - How Do Technology Leaders Drive Change for the Future Workforce
Mar 2401:18:28Tap to summarizeIn this week’ episode of the CTO Lens Podcast, David and Sophie begin by discussing the week's latest news, including budgets for AI and Quantum Computing, books being written using AI, Pokemon Go and Amazon’s new smart phone!Both then (as part of the leadership segment) discuss the future of the technology workforce, including the responsibilities that senior leaders have, how education may need to accommodate AI in a better way and what does the future workforce actually look like in 5-10 years from a technology standpoint.The episode concludes with the mid-episode game (titled Name That University) and a disaster diary entry all around effective objective setting!Link for London Tech Leaders Upcoming Events: https://luma.com/londontechleadersLink for London Tech Leaders Engineering Summit: https://registration.crowdcomms.com/londontech2026
Transcribe →Season 2: Episode 14 - How Is AI Reshaping The Software Development Lifecycle?
Mar 1701:16:14Tap to summarizeIn this week’ episode of the CTO Lens Podcast, David and Sophie begin by discussing the week's latest news, including delayed Royal Navy deployments, airport face scans, bank apps showing other users' transactions and much more!Both are then joined by Andrew Murphy (Head of Engineering and Product at Wickes) to discuss how AI is reshaping the software development lifecycle. Andrew offers some fantastic insights into the pros and cons of recent AI implementation, how leaders are engaging with AI, and how he foresees the effects of AI in three to five years time (amongst a whole host of other informative conversation). The episode concludes with the mid-episode game (titled Battle of the Blanks) and a disaster diary entry which covers accountability at C-Suite level.Link for London Tech Leaders Upcoming Events: https://luma.com/londontechleadersLink for London Tech Leaders Engineering Summit: https://registration.crowdcomms.com/londontech2026
Transcribe →Season 2: Episode 13 - Is The CTO Role Now More Strategic Than Technical?
Mar 1001:14:10Tap to summarizeIn this week’ episode of the CTO Lens Podcast, David is back and joins Sophie to discuss the latest in tech innovations and news.Both share insights on leadership, strategy, and the evolving role of technology leaders in organisations. From understanding the importance of strategic thinking to the future skills needed for CTOs, this episode offers valuable guidance for tech leaders aiming to make a broader impact.The episode concludes with the mid-episode game (titled Buzzword or Baloney) and a disaster diary entry which covers team conflict.Link for London Tech Leaders Upcoming Events: https://luma.com/londontechleadersLink for London Tech Leaders Engineering Summit: https://registration.crowdcomms.com/londontech2026
Transcribe →Season 2: Episode 12 - Building The Fastest AI Machines on Earth
Mar 301:12:05Tap to summarizeIn this week’s episode of the CTO Lens Podcast, Sophie Valentine is joined by guest host Samantha Burrows, in an International Women’ Day week special.They explore the significance of culture in leadership, especially for women+ in tech, and continue with news on the ethical implications of AI in defence, the future of AI and its potential economic consequences, innovative AI projects in the civil service, and some light-hearted tech updates.They are also joined by Jeremy Adcock and Josh Silverstone of Hartley Ultrafast. They are building the world’s fastest decision making machines, bringing artificial intelligence to the scale of single nanoseconds for the first time. This was a fantastic conversation and one not to be missed. Find out more here: https://hartleyultrafast.com/The episode concludes with the mid-episode game and Sophie and Sam discuss what International Women’s Day means to them.Link for London Tech Leaders Upcoming Events: https://luma.com/londontechleadersLink for London Tech Leaders Engineering Summit: https://registration.crowdcomms.com/londontech2026
Transcribe →Season 2: Episode 11 - Practical Cases of AI Working
Feb 2401:16:32Tap to summarizeIn this week’ episode of the CTO Lens Podcast, David Crawford and Sophie Valentine discuss various topics including social media court cases, recent AI trials and tribulations, and the emergence of Seedance, an app that can be used to generate Hollywood style videos.They are also joined by Otto Hilska (CEO of Swarmia) who shares insights on engineering effectiveness and the integration of AI tools in organisations, highlighting the importance of teams and the role of AI in enhancing productivity.The episode concludes with the mid-episode game and rather than a disaster diary entry this week, Sophie and David discuss the top five roles they would choose to build the perfect tech team in 2026. Link for London Tech Leaders Upcoming Events: https://luma.com/londontechleadersLink for London Tech Leaders Engineering Summit: https://registration.crowdcomms.com/londontech2026
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