How do you talk about a product before anything like it exists? How do you guide the engineers building it and the marketing department who has to sell it? As co-creator of the iPod and iPhone, founder of the learning thermostat Nest, and with over 300 patents to his name, Tony Fadell is a serial entrepreneur who now focuses on investing. He tells Azeem Azhar how he uses opinion-based decision-making in his work, and why thinking like a product manager helps drive radical innovation.

Carbon recycling takes our polluting carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and, with the help of bacteria, turns them into ethanol. This can replace oil as the basis for carbon-based chemicals industries (e.g., fertilizers, plastics, clothing, health and beauty products, etc.), as well as offering sustainable fuel and animal feed. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech, joins Azeem Azhar to share her vision of the future where greenhouse gases provide a core contribution to our sustainable life.

Quantitative hedge funds, which rely on the work of employed mathematicians to develop complex trading strategies, are nothing new. But what if the mathematical work is outsourced to anyone, via a contest where the best predictions are rewarded with cryptocurrency? Richard Craib, founder of Numerai, explains to Azeem Azhar how his $70 million fund uses collective intelligence to perform well, despite the turmoil in the markets.

Hydrogen has long been hyped as a fuel of the future. It’s abundant and its waste product is water. But it’s only recently that the availability of cheap renewable energy has allowed hydrogen to be produced competitively without the use of fossil fuels. Azeem Azhar speaks with Raffi Garabedian, co-founder and CEO of Electric Hydrogen, to explore the market opportunity and roadmap to wide adoption of “green hydrogen.”

From The Jetsons to Back to the Future, flying cars are a staple of popular science fiction. German start-up Volocopter is working to turn that fiction into reality. Volocopter’s CEO Florian Reuter joins Azeem Azhar to explore how this radical new transport could transform our cities. They also break down the steps required to fulfill his vision of creating a door-to-door taxi service to rival Uber, via autonomous electric helicopters.

Web3’s ability to attach value and incentives to almost every part of human activity has radical implications not only for how businesses engage with their customers, but also for how people can self-organize to drive social change. Web3 investor and analyst Packy McCormick makes the case, in conversation with Azeem Azhar, that an optimistic outlook rooted in market dynamics can enable new sustainable businesses that operate for the public good.

As the gaming industry evolves to meet the challenges and opportunities of Web3, could it drive the mass adoption of crypto? Amy Wu leads investment, M&A, and gaming initiatives at cryptocurrency exchange FTX. She speaks with Azeem Azhar about how she evaluates crypto and Web3 as an investor, how she expects the gaming landscape to change in the next two years, and why the community that comes with NFT ownership is more important to her than potential profit.

What is the metaverse, how will we use it, and why might the financial innovations of Web3 and blockchain technology be crucial to its success? Citi’s Ronit Ghose, one of the world’s foremost analysts of technology’s influence on financial innovation, returns to the podcast to discuss how money will function in the metaverse.

Venture capitalists offer their investors outsized financial returns in exchange for taking on considerable risk. But what if that risk includes backing products where the economics of the end market aren’t clear? Moreover, what if the companies being supported have the non-financial goal of tackling climate change? As more money than ever pours into climate tech, Azeem Azhar speaks with Shayle Kann, a partner at Energy Impact Partners, about the challenges of investing in the net zero economy.

Today’s cancer therapies are difficult, expensive, and slow to create. But the combination of new computing and new biological technologies is leading to a better understanding of the human immune system, with the goal of offering a better class of cancer therapies. Azeem Azhar speaks with Immunai co-founder and chief technology officer Luis Voloch about how AI is unlocking the secrets of the immune system and opening new avenues for novel cancer treatments.

This episode is a special preview of the new podcast, What’s Your Problem? from Pushkin Industries. What’s Your Problem? explains the problems really smart people are trying to solve right now, from creating a drone delivery service to building a car that can truly drive itself. Jacob Goldstein, former host of Planet Money, talks with entrepreneurs, executives, and engineers about the future they’re trying to build – and the problems they have to solve to get there. In this preview, Jacob...

Danish start-up Seaborg Technologies has a blueprint for the future of power that uses a new type of nuclear reactor that is safe, can be manufactured quickly, and deployed on barges to any location worldwide. Seaborg CEO Troels Schönfeldt talks to Azeem Azhar about how the future of power stations could be sailing to your town soon.

We could soon be living more of our lives in immersive virtual worlds, but what will that look like and how will it affect us? New York University professor of philosophy and neural science David Chalmers discusses what the metaverse might offer us, the moral quandaries it could pose, and what our rights there might look like.

As war returns to Europe, General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command (whose remit included military intelligence, special forces, and cyber), joins Azeem Azhar to explore how technology is changing warfare and why we must take a more active role in stewarding peace. (This episode was originally broadcast on October 23, 2019.)

Many experts expected Russia’s war with Ukraine to be accompanied by a large-scale cyberattack, but that hasn’t yet materialized. Azeem Azhar speaks to Robert Hannigan, the former head of GCHQ (the UK’s equivalent to America’s NSA), to find out how the conflict is playing out in cyberspace and what might happen next.

Technology is making traditional agriculture more efficient, but farming still has its problems. It takes a huge amount of land and can be energy- and water-intensive. In addition, produce needs to be transported to customers, often over great distances. Daniele Modesto, CEO of ZERO Farms, explains the role building upward will play in the future of farming and why his technology could be used to produce more than just food.

Science is getting better at re-engineering micro-organisms for all kinds of uses, from better medical treatments to more durable materials. But there are still hurdles to overcome, including scaling. Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks was one of the first billion-dollar companies in the synthetic biology space. The NYSE-listed company uses machine learning and automation to coax biology to work at industrial scale. COO Reshma Shetty talks to Azeem Azhar about the company’s technology, business...

Eighty percent of urban trips are less than two miles long. So why do so many of us make them in big, inefficient, and expensive vehicles? Micromobility analyst Horace Dediu joins Azeem Azhar to discuss why many more of us will soon be getting around cities on electric scooters, bikes, and buggies and how that could change our lives for the better.

Seventy-five percent of the total value of US companies that have floated since 1995 has been created by venture-backed firms, including Alphabet, Facebook, and countless others. But how did an obscure investment strategy become the engine of modern innovation and where might it go next? Sebastian Mallaby, author of an excellent new book, The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss the history (and future) of venture capital.

Nutritional science has long been one-size-fits-all. Advice on a healthier diet has long been generic, failing to consider the huge variance of our bodies. ZOE is trying to change that by combining new research on our microbiomes with AI and machine learning. The healthtech startup offers dietary advice tailored to an individual’s microbiome – the unique makeup of microorganisms present in our gut – to change the way we  eat for the better.

The workings of the brain have long puzzled scientists and philosophers, but the last twenty years have been a golden age for consciousness research. Neuroscientist Anil Seth explains his theories on consciousness and why unlocking the secrets of our mind will transform medicine, AI, and virtual reality.

Companies of all sizes and sectors have committed to net-zero emissions targets, but getting there is not straightforward. Measuring carbon dioxide output is tricky, carbon markets are fragmented, and the quality of offsets varies hugely. Michelle You, co-founder and CEO of Supercritical, is on a mission to help companies better measure, reduce, and remove carbon emissions – and her first target is the tech sector.

Some people see cryptocurrencies as speculative assets with no real utility at best, a Ponzi scam at worst. For others, they’re the future of money. Do Kwon, founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, the company behind the Terra blockchain, discusses his vision for a decentralized financial ecosystem with Azeem Azhar.

Azeem Azhar sets out his vision for 2022 and shares the trends that he thinks will change our world this year. Some changes are hurtling down the pike, like the growth of Web 3.0 and the metaverse, while others are rumbling along more slowly: the continued dominance of Big Tech and the tireless march of artificial intelligence.

As 2021 draws to a close and Covid cases spike, it’s easy to think not much has changed. But in between pandemic waves, we’ve made major progress in science and technology. And that progress gives us clues about how the future might play out. Azeem Azhar reflects on the tech trends we’ve seen this year and key shifts in industry and society that are changing cities, the labor market, and the superconductor business.