We’ve been having fascinating conversations with wonderful guests on WB-40 since we started the show back in 2016.
WB-40 is essentially an excuse for us to have a chat with interesting people
WHo are we?
WB-40 was set up in 2016 by Matt Ballantine and Chris Weston as an experiment to ask the question “What do you need to know to manage technology?”
In 2024 we expanded the roster of hosts to also include Julia Bellis, Michelle Minnikin and Lisa Riemers. Find out more about all our hosts here.
We have an audience of about 500 people for each show, and a vibrant Signal community running alongside. Most of the listeners appear to be broadly in the world of tech, but we haven’t asked them that question directly.
The name WB-40 comes from the founders’ family name initials, and the often flawed goal to make each show about 40 minutes long. It is in no way associated with any oil-based lubricant. The dolphin is called Blocky, for reasons that are lost in the mists of time.
Who are our guests?
All sorts of people have been on WB-40. We’ve had technologists, social scientists, artists, consultants, recruiters and even someone who trains people to be better managers with a stable of horses. We are just interested in hearing people’s perspectives on the world, and the world of work.
The show is conversational. None of us are trained media professionals, but we are all curious about people and love asking questions.
What’s involved in being a guest?
We try to record on a Monday evening from 7.30pm UK time for about an hour. Matt then does his editing magic and we usually have the show published by 11pm. If you’d like to be on the show but Monday evenings are a problem, we can almost certainly find a time that suits you.
We use a recording platform called Squadcast. To take part you will need a PC or Mac running the Chrome browser and a reasonable internet connection. You’ll also need a pair of headphones. Ideally a headset with microphone. Or even more ideally a nice condenser mic with a pop shield.
Squadcast allows us to see each other through video, but none of the video is recorded. If there’s anything in the recording that you’d rather not get published, just let us know and we’ll edit it out. Swearing on WB-40, however, is big and clever.
I’m In! How do I get involved?
Just drop Matt a line at matt@stamplondon.co.uk
Anything else?
If you do come on the show, then we ask one favour of our guests – to record the show outro.
It’s not hard – you just need to say something along the lines of the following:
Thank you for listening to WB 40.
You can find us on the Internet at WB 40 Podcast Dot Com,
and on all good podcasting platforms.”
