Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai has made it a priority to increase the availability of broadband internet access across America. The way to do it? Cutting regulations and increasing competition, according to him. He joins us from Washington, D.C. to explain why he thinks a free market will close the digital divide. 

Hundreds of companies are racing to build self-driving cars, and one piece of technology is essential to all of their efforts. It’s called LiDAR, an acronym that stands for light detection and ranging. It uses lasers to sense distances to an object and turn those distances into a 3-D representation of the environment. So it’s how a self-driving car sees the world around it. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood visits Silicon Valley startup Luminar and its founder and CEO, 22-year-old Austin Russell. The company hopes to become the parts provider for automakers for LiDAR self-driving technology.

Hurricane Irma is a Category 5 storm that made landfall in the Caribbean this week and may hit Florida this weekend. The National Weather Service uses National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite images to get a sense of how strong the storm is and where it’s going. However, the Trump administration is proposing budget cuts to those agencies. We discuss the critical images NOAA is capturing and what would happen if meteorologists received degraded satellite imagery.

Venture capital touches all of us in some way, from our retirement portfolios to inventions we use. Yet many of us don’t really know how venture capital works. So on Marketplace Tech, we’re going to look into that, starting at Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. It’s a quiet little office park where hundreds of millions of dollars change hands each year. Venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson has an office there. He has been working in the industry for more than 20 years and is one of the founding partners of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. We talk with him about the ins and outs of Silicon Valley investing. 

One topic we’re going to be examining on this show is who has access to life-changing technology — and who doesn’t. We’re calling this series “Evenly Distributed.” That’s from a quote by the legendary science fiction writer William Gibson, the author of books including “Neuromancer” and “The Peripheral.”  The quote is: “The future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.” To kick off the series, we talk with William Gibson about the intersection of tech, money and access. 

The central question of the net neutrality debate: how much regulation should there be over how providers of internet service deliver the stuff we consume online? And what rules should there be to make sure they don’t  slow down or charge more to deliver that stuff?  The man at the center of the free internet controversy is Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. On today’s show, new Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood asks Chairman Pai about whether it’s time for  Congress to come up with a solution. 

It’s the last day Ben Johnson will be hosting Marketplace Tech, and to celebrate his time on the show, we’re going to look back at some key moments. From conversations with Neil deGrasse Tyson about alien life to reporting about the visibility of minorities in the tech industry, take a listen to what we’ve tackled over the past few years. Plus: Starting tomorrow, Molly Wood will take over as the new voice of Marketplace Tech. Check back here for the latest episodes. 

Sometimes your smart speaker might mishear your command and offer up something decidedly…inappropriate. Which is why Amazon is introducing a layer of parental control on its Echo. On today’s show, we’ll talk with Oren Jacob, the CEO of the computer conversation startup PullString, about what this announcement means for companies like his. Afterwards, host Ben Johnson plays his final Silicon Tally — the game where we try to stump each other with numbers from the week’s news — with Tobin Low, a former Marketplacer and the co-host of the LGBTQ podcast Nancy.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reportedly approached Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about a partnership between their two voice assistants. This could be great for consumers, but what’s in it for the two tech giants? James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester James, explains how each has what the other wants. Afterwards, we’ll discuss the app Zello — a social radio app that’s being used in evacuation efforts — with CEO Bill Moore.