Sitdown interview with Blake Scholl 3 days after filming Boom Supersonic's 3rd flight test.
Interview with the @ridevalo team where we go in depth on hydrofoiling, reimagining mass transport logistics, and being a great team member at a deep tech startup.
While filming with Neo in my apartment I sat down with VP of AI @ericjang11 to learn about 1X's approach to robot intelligence and his his curiosity around immortality.
0:00 Intro
1:27 1X Overview
2:12 Eric's Origin
5:15 Why humanoids?
11:30 Supercomputers & deep learning
12:45 World models
14:21 Neuromorphic computing
14:40 Immortality
20:15 Robotics at Google
21:35 Skepticism of humanoids
27: 00 Joining 1X
31:20 Benefits of LLMs
33:50 Training models
35:30 Tele-op to autonomous
43:30 Data quality vs. quantity
47:00 How to train your robot
50:50 Data sponge
53:30 The 1X team
54:45 Safety
57:45 A lab in the cloud
59:26 Bio advancements
1:03:54 How does your brain work
1:06:14 Conway’s law
1:08:45 Eric’s favorite sci-fi
1:10:50 Life philosophy
After filming our S3 with 1X (https://youtu.be/2ccPTpDq05A) I sat down with Founder &CEO Bernt Bornich to go deeper on 1X's truly ambitious manufacturing plans. If you'd like to support our work, and look like a million bucks, you can buy our first ever S3 Episode Tee here for 7 days only: https://saturdaystartupstories.myshopify.com/products/s3-episode-53-tee-1x-technologies 0:00 Intro 1:16 Why humanoids? 5:40 AI transfer of knowledge 8:40 Power of scale 9:50 Heritage of Eve 11:50 Tendron drives 18:35 Letting robots experiment 22:00 Designing for safety 25:07 Intelligence diversity 27:45 Moravec’s paradox 32:50 Difficulty of reasoning 35:40 Training models & data 40:40 Humanoid ecosystem 42:50 You can’t retrofit cost 46:30 10x every year 56:30 Hire for who you are 57:50 Be nice 1:00:00 Trust your intuition 1:05:50 2040 1:07:50 Bernt’s favorite Sci-Fi 1:09:09 Individualism 1:12:00 Life philosophy
Astranis just announced a new round of funding, led by A16z, to build more satellites! I sat down with John Gedmark, CEO of Astranis, to talk about how they'll use this $200M of capital and the future of building in America and space 🇺🇸🛰️🛰️
0:00 I used to work here 1:02 Mission of Astranis 3:54 GEO? (Sci-fi) 8:43 Childhood to college 14:30 Silicon Valley for space? 19:14 Founding Commercial Spaceflight Federation 22:07 Why GEO is hard 24:42 Meeting Ryan, CTO 28:18 COVID story 32:40 Early days 35:53 How to raise $750M 47:08 Astranis + US Government 51:15 Manufacturing learnings 53:40 US vs China 58:16 War in space 1:01:18 Astranis longterm vision 1:03:58 Why? 1:05:28 Current life philosophy 1:06:20 1 year of S3
Interview with CEO and cofounder of Arbor Energy, Brad Hartwig for Episode 51 of S³
From training to be an astronaut, leading him to founding Arbor — how we'll soon build faster than regulatory can keep up with and how we can fix it.
I sat down for an extended interview with cofounders @4TristanS @bennbuilds to talk in depth about @reflectorbital — If you're building for new space, in high school/college, or trying to figure out what to build, you should watch this!
From working at Google, Microsoft, early at SpaceX and Relativity, Ed Mehr has always been forward-thinking about the future of manufacturing. Now, he's building it at Machina Labs — I sat down with him to learn more after filming Episode 49 of S³.
From launching SpaceX's 1st rockets, to realizing the need for mobile-nuclear reactors, and founding Radiant — here's my interview with CEO and Cofounder of Radiant, Doug Bernauer for Episode 38 of S³
Interview with Laura Demming & Hunter Davis for Episode 47 of S³ featuring Cradle
0:00 What is Cradle?
2:18 Laura & Hunter’s backgrounds
9:39 Timeline to reversible cry
13:04 Next milestone
15:33 Sci-fi inpsiration
18:35 3 Body Problem
21:10 More builders
24:38 How do you think?
29:39 Getting people into bio
31:25 Where in the future would you go?
32:55 Current life philosophy
0:00 What is Fuse?
1:16 Background (pre-potato guns)
3:22 Founding at 19, why?
4:13 Why fusion?
5:47 Energy transportability
6:43 Potato guns
8:38 Main Fuse facilities
11:01 Intense Fuse culture
12:27 Why?
14:01 Fixing bureaucracy
15:28 How do you think
16:45 Learnings
20:06 US vs China in fusion
21:52 Deep tech issues
23:30 The S³ problem
26:52 Current life philosophy
0:00 Intro
0:43 Notes on the wall
2:50 What is Daylight
6:12 Duality
7:58 Why?
12:17 Biggest learnings
15:18 What to do in life
19:00 Kink?
23:52 Hardest technical challenge
26:20
31:00 Should we inspire people?
35:11 Current life philosophy
Interview with CEO & Cofounder of Forward Adrian Aoun for Episode 44 of S³
0:00 What & why is the CarePod?
3:21 A career in AI
6:01 Future of AI
7:47 The Google Problem
12:42 Larry Page’s right hand man
15:08 First principles thinking
17:16 Founder learnings
19:57 I wanted to start a police force
22:35 The future of society & AI
25:39 Inspiring people
29:34 How do you think?
31:28 Current life philosophy
Interview with CEO & Cofounder of Hermeus AJ Piplica for Episode 42 of S³.
0:00 What is Hermeus
0:57 Why go fast?
5:09 Founding inspiration
10:16 Planning something big
15:50 First 6 months
18:44 Pain of building
21:45 Mental models for speed
24:41 Why haven’t we done this yet?
28:25 Keeping high speed travel
32:15 What to build
34:58 Current life philosophy
Interview with roboticist, fine fashion maker, 3D-weaving inventor, CTO & Cofounder of unspun Kevin Martin for Episode 42 of S³
0:00 Oops, it’s dark now
0:32 What is unspun?
3:08 My dad crashed an F-16
4:08 K-pop, robots
6:52 Meeting cofounders
9:13 Inventing 3D weaving
11:08 Catching up to China
12:26 Founder learnings
16:22 How do you think?
18:15 Inspiring Gen-Z, maybe?
23:22 Future of robotics
26:33 How do we distribute automation wealth?
28:31 Current life philosophy
Interview with quantum maxer, e/acc founder, thermodynamic pioneer, CEO & Cofounder of Extropic Guillaume Verdon for Episode 41 of S³
0:00 What’s behind you? 1:29 What is Extropic? 4:08 Young Gill 7:12 Why Extropic? 11:25 Secret quantum lab experience 13:05 How does Extropic work? 16:20 Hardest technical challenge 17:50 Quantum & silicon strapping 20:56 Why decentralize AI 24:00 Doomerism 25:48 E/acc vitality 28:13 Regulatory capture 30:32 Founder learnings 31:36 How do you think? 33:23 What does deep tech get wrong? 35:53 How do we inspire people? 37:22 Current life philosophy
Interview with founding member of Oculus, hardware-pioneer, and CEO of Framework, Nirav Patel.
0:00 Breaking into Framework HQ
1:11 Experience at Apple
2:05 Becoming employee 0001 at Oculus
3:20 What worked for Oculus?
4:30 Founding Framework
6:32 GTM for Framework & Linus
9:48 Advice for hardware
12:22 Nirav on AI Hardware
15:36 Raising little, huge impact
17:00 Hardest technical challenge
18:33 Emerging research/tech
19:06 How do you think?
20:26 Master plan
22:01 Consumer Hardware mistakes
23:12 Why Consumer Hardware?
23:48 Helpful founder resources
25:17 Branding for Framework
27:08 Framework manufacturing story
24:45 Fundraising is hard
35:45 Judging Consumer Hardware
36:47 Current Life Philosophy
Interview with carbon-carbon printer, artificial solar sun schemer, space robotics guru, and future-space pirate Cole Nielsen-Cole, CTO of Orbital Composites.
0:00 Founding inspiration
4:53 Similarity between drones & satellites
6:20 Why Carbon Fiber is hard
9:42 Heat treatment for rocket nozzles
14:38 Cole’s artificial sun
16:59 List everything you’re doing
21:28 What first inspired you?
24:44 More projects
27:58 Orbital & Artemis mission
30:39 Why care about Mars?
35:10 How do you focus?
36:14 Hardest challenge
38:17 What does deep tech get wrong?
40:26 The inspiration problem
42:56 How do you think?
46:55 Why build hard things?
Interview with Loyal CEO and Founder Celine Halioua for Episode 37 of S³. 0:00 Dogs! 1:05 Celine’s founding inspiration 5:37 Research vs. spinning out 7:20 Celine’s superpower 8:20 Hardest technical challenge 10:14 Can bio revolutionize? 15:32 Stories from raising 18:56 Bio vs Hardtech vs Software 21:38 How do you think? 24:14 Founder learnings 26:38 Solo vs Cofounding 27:23 What deep tech gets wrong 32:01 Current life philosophy
0:00 Casey’s background 6:52 Casey’s Mars map 8:08 Terraform inspiration 15:04 Vision quest 17:32 Hardest technical challenge 19:35 How do you think? 24:48 Exciting future tech/research 31:11 Uncommon question 35:03 Inspiring the world 38:26 Current life philosophy