Hi everyone. Welcome to the A6 and Z podcast. I'm Sonal and today Michael and I are interviewing

John Markoff, the longtime New York Times technology and science reporter who's been covering

the evolution of technology Silicon Valley, both inside and outside Silicon Valley, for over the past

three decades. He wrote his first book in over a decade that just came out this past week,

Machines of Loving Grace,

the Quest for Common Ground between humans and robots.

And that's what we're going to talk about today.

John, welcome.

Thanks for joining the A6 and Z podcast today.

It's really nice to be here.

So Michael and I were excited to have you in the A6 and Z podcast today because you have

been a longtime journalist and chronicler

of technology and how it's evolved and also have been observing Silicon Valley. And until now,

those two things have been completely conflated. We're curious to hear your vantage point on

what's changed so much for you. Like what surprised you the most in that time frame?

Well, you know, I actually grew up in Silicon Valley.

I mean, the sort of the, my street cred is I played in the Hewlett household when I was a kid in kindergarten in first grade.

And I was the paper boy at the houses where Steve Jobs and Larry Page lived.

I like to say, there goes to the neighborhood.

So, you know, I grew up with a very different Silicon Valley than the one we have right now.

And actually, you know, what surprises me, I guess, if you're, it's actually the geographic shift.

I mean, Richard Florida about a year ago did this wonderful bit of research where he

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