Reviving Forgotten Technologies: How Airships, Supersonic Flight, and Geothermal Energy Could Transform Our World (Eli Dourado, Head of Strategic Investments at Astera Institute)

Speaker A: How did someone who foresaw their career in academia originally find their way through to a supersonic flight company and tech investing? Speaker B: Initially, it was like sort of fear, right? It was fear that I was going to be stuck doing the same thing over and over again. And then when I changed focuses and nobody stopped me, it was really empowering. Speaker A: I think it was maybe in 2016 that you write this paper, Make America Boom Again, about supersonic flight. How did you become interested in that? Speaker B: I was very interested in the Great Stagnation, and supersonics is like the poster child for that.

We had Concorde, it existed. And then now here we are, Concorde is gone. We're all flying at subsonic speeds. It's not just stagnation, it's the great regress. Speaker A: You also are one of the first people in tech and tech adjacent crowds that I think I've seen write about Joseph Tainter and civilizational collapse, which I think now is becoming something that people are thinking about more and talking about more. How are you feeling about the complexity of our society today and how it may jeopardize us in the future? Speaker B: If we can actually get to a point where people really feel like their lives are rapidly improving year to year, that the middle class and lower middle class isn't just suffering while other people are getting rich.

That is the thing that's going to make our society flourish. Having broad-based growth is the answer to the problem. Speaker A: Hey, I'm Mario, and this is The Generalist Podcast. As the saying goes, the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed. Each week I sit down with the founders, investors, and visionaries who are living in the future. To help you see what's coming next and understand it more clearly. Today I'm speaking with Eli Dorado, the head of strategic investments at Astera Institute. Eli has a remarkable track record of writing ideas into reality.

His research has directly influenced policy changes that resurrected supersonic flight and sparked the creation of new airship startups. Speaker A: Hey, I'm Mario, and this is The Generalist Podcast. As the saying goes, the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed. Each week I sit down with the founders, investors, and visionaries who are living in the future. To help you see what's coming next and understand it more clearly. Today I'm speaking with Eli Dorado, the head of strategic investments at Astera Institute. Eli has a remarkable track record of writing ideas into reality.

His research has directly influenced policy changes that resurrected supersonic flight and sparked the creation of new airship startups. Speaker C: Before joining Astera, Eli worked as a regulatory hacker at Boom Supersonic and has spent his career reviving forgotten technologies that could transform our world. Speaker A: In our conversation, we explore why airships could revolutionize global logistics, the untapped power hidden deep in the earth, how reading regulatory fine print might be the secret to unlocking an industry, and why AI might not deliver the productivity revolution that everyone expects it to. I walked away from this conversation with a fresh perspective on forgotten technologies that have the potential to reshape transportation and energy, plus a clearer view of why breakthrough innovations often require someone willing to dig into the details.

This is a new podcast, so if you enjoy today's episode, I hope you'll consider subscribing and joining us for some of the incredible conversations we have coming up. Now, here's my conversation With Eli. Speaker C: This episode is brought to you by Brex. Fred Adler, the influential venture capitalist of the 1970s, was known for displaying decorative pillows in his office that featured a signature business philosophy: "Corporate happiness is positive cash flow." In today's post-SERP environment, Adler's wisdom feels particularly relevant as founders need to make every dollar work harder. That's exactly what Brex delivers.

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More than 30,000 companies, including 1 in 3 US venture-backed startups, trust Brex to help make every dollar count toward their mission. Join them at com/mario. Speaker A: Eli, it's amazing to have you here. I have been a long admirer of your writing and public thinking and yeah, some of the wild but plausible views of the future that you have advanced over the years. So, uh, excited to chat about all things, uh, airships and, and more. Uh, and thanks so much for being here. Speaker A: Eli, it's amazing to have you here.

I have been a long admirer of your writing and public thinking and yeah, some of the wild but plausible views of the future that you have advanced over the years. So, uh, excited to chat about all things, uh, airships and, and more. Uh, and thanks so much for being here. Speaker B: Well, my pleasure. Uh, those are some of my favorite topics, so always happy to chat. Amazing. Speaker A: Well, you've had such an interesting career sort of traversing policy and tech, and maybe just to sort of set the stage a little bit, I'd love to talk a little bit about what led you to your current spot.

Um, but to even start, let's, let's talk about what your current spot is and what you do for Astra. Speaker B: Yeah. So I'm, uh, head of strategic investments at Astera Institute. Uh, Astera is a large, uh, private foundation, uh, founded by Jim McCaleb that's focused on sort of advancing really transformative technology and science. And so in this role, you know, most foundations have somebody whose job it is to, you know, give grants, you know, that's like the slot I fill. The difference at Astera is that we will do grants and investments and we're open to like lots of things in between.

So the philosophy here is that, you know, if you do a grant, you lose 100% of the money 100% of the time. And if you do an investment, even if it's like, maybe like on paper, it's a bad investment, like you, you know, expected term value terms, like you get some of your money back some of the time. And so you can put your thumb on the scale and maybe make technologies advance faster while still recycling capital and being more efficient. So that's kind of the philosophy here. And, um, And that's, uh, my job is to sort of lead that and, and think through, uh, the technologies and, and investments, both like grant-making investments and, and, you know, equity investments and other, other capital deployments that we might want to do.

Speaker A: Amazing. Well, uh, I'm always reminded of how little I know about, uh, many of the topics I discuss with people on this podcast, even if I think I might. And, uh, I'm glad to start with an immediate shibboleth, which is that it's Astra rather than Astra. So there, there you go. Yeah. In terms of the way that you think about these investments, like, you know, are you very flexible in terms of the size and the stage and the type, or, or how have you sort of thought about the right way to do this?

You know, I don't know if impact investing is really the right frame, but it's maybe sort of has a little bit of, of that flavor to it. Speaker B: Yeah, I, I think we are unusual, unusually flexible, unusually risk averse, or risk, uh, risk tolerant rather. Um, and you might say that there's actually like two spots in particular in the capital stack where it's hard for new technologies to, or maybe three spots. So like the, so there's like the basic science stuff before it can become a company. It's hard for, for people to get capital.

There's like, that was like maybe like first check early startup, uh, times that it's, it's, it's really hard. And then there's like Later stage, there's like a valley of death round at some point for a lot of like capital intense things. And so, so those are all like 3 different stages. And, you know, I think we're, we're open. It doesn't have to be those, those particular 3 stages, but I think of those as like particular times where we could be catalytic and, and, you know, make an investment or a, you know, a grant or an equity investment that really changes the game for the project.

Right. And, and that hopefully crowds in other capital as well from. Other sources and, you know, let's, let, you know, let's the, the project lead or the founder, like, you know, let, let them shoot their shot. Right. And, and, and let's, let's, let's give this technology a shot and see if it works. Speaker A: That's amazing. Speaker B: Uh, yeah. Speaker A: I mean, obviously as venture has become bigger and bigger and more and more crowded, capital availability, uh, is not usually the problem, but I think you're right that there are always these moments when, you know, uh, venture is maybe quite scarce, uh, in these valley of death rounds or, or super duper early or science risk, you know, these pieces.

So that's like a super valuable place to be sitting. In terms of the technology, are there certain areas that you've been sort of like especially excited to invest in or spend more time learning about for potential future investments? Speaker B: The biggest, uh, sort of areas for us right now at Astera is, you know, energy, which I kind of have a background in, uh, space, AI, of course, because, uh, it's the, that's the, the, um, biggest thing going on right now. And then, um, The other thing that we're kind of focused on is neurotech.

So, uh, with, with sort of the, the lens that, you know, this is going to be important in the era of AI, right? Like, like being able to have humans keep up and really flourish in, in an age of powerful AI. Speaker A: Amazing. Well, uh, I'm sure we'll talk about some of those different pieces as we go along, but yeah, to set the stage a little bit, how did you end up in this seat? And, uh, you know, particularly how did someone who maybe foresaw their career in academia originally, find their way through to a supersonic flight company and, uh, and to, you know, tech investing?

Speaker B: Yeah, I've always kind of followed my interests, uh, throughout my career and have always really run away from being pigeonholed in any one thing. So, um, yeah, I recall, um, and being in grad school teaching undergrad, so I taught undergraduate economics for 3 semesters. And I remember the second time I taught intermediate microeconomics, I was like, well, I did a lot better this time than I did the first time I taught, but I can't imagine doing this over and over again for 30 years. Right? Like, like, I mean, it just sounds terrible.

So that sort of mindset of like, I actually maybe don't want to just rest on my laurels, like same, same thing. Like, so I ended up at the Mercatus Center. And had some initial success right off the bat doing some international telecom stuff. And, you know, I'd go to the same, to these different, you know, ITU and internet governance meetings. And you kind of see the same people at different, you know, different city, different place on the planet, uh, you know, different hotel bar, but same crowd. And, you know, I kind of would see these people who had been doing the same thing for 30 years, and it sounded not fun.

So I really sort of adopted, you know, initially it was like sort of fear, right? It was fear that I was going to be stuck doing the same thing over and over again. And then when I kind of like changed focuses and nobody stopped me, it was really empowering to be able to do that. And, and so I've just sort of adopted that mindset. And so I, you know, I have had sort of a, what I would call like a meandering career, but, but it's, It's, it's been really rewarding to be able to, you know, follow, follow my interests, like sort of pay attention to like my own emotions about like how I feel about what I'm working on and try to really, uh, align, you know, I always, I think a lot about like aligning my, uh, system 2 brain with my system 1 brain, right?

So the rational brain with the monkey brain, and if the monkey brain like really wants to be working on something else, like maybe I should find a way to get the rational brain to also get to work on that thing. And you know, the, with the, with the sort of the thesis that your best work is gonna to be when they're both, uh, when both of those brains are trying to do the same thing at the same time. So I've really just tried to adopt, you know, sort of an attitude of, uh, freedom to, freedom to choose what I'm working on for, you know, I think you do have to go deep at times, obviously, but, uh, but, you know, something like on the order of like a 5-year period, uh, it's fine to like work on this thing for 5 years and then, um, and then be like, well, what's What's the most interesting thing for me in the world right now?

And should I go do that and change in that way? And so, um, yeah, when, uh, so earlier this year, uh, I got an email from Kate Hall, the CEO at Astera, and she was just like, you know, hey Eli, we're hiring for these roles. Do you know anyone who'd be good? And, and the job I ended up accepting, I, I just kind of emailed her back and was like, you know, this role feels like it could be really interesting. So, you know, let's talk. And so kind of went from there, but it, but it is, it was, yeah, just, just sort of following, uh, sort of that, that, uh, interest level and emotional, uh, component.

Speaker B: Yeah, I've always kind of followed my interests, uh, throughout my career and have always really run away from being pigeonholed in any one thing. So, um, yeah, I recall, um, and being in grad school teaching undergrad, so I taught undergraduate economics for 3 semesters. And I remember the second time I taught intermediate microeconomics, I was like, well, I did a lot better this time than I did the first time I taught, but I can't imagine doing this over and over again for 30 years. Right? Like, like, I mean, it just sounds terrible.

So that sort of mindset of like, I actually maybe don't want to just rest on my laurels, like same, same thing. Like, so I ended up at the Mercatus Center. And had some initial success right off the bat doing some international telecom stuff. And, you know, I'd go to the same, to these different, you know, ITU and internet governance meetings. And you kind of see the same people at different, you know, different city, different place on the planet, uh, you know, different hotel bar, but same crowd. And, you know, I kind of would see these people who had been doing the same thing for 30 years, and it sounded not fun.

So I really sort of adopted, you know, initially it was like sort of fear, right? It was fear that I was going to be stuck doing the same thing over and over again. And then when I kind of like changed focuses and nobody stopped me, it was really empowering to be able to do that. And, and so I've just sort of adopted that mindset. And so I, you know, I have had sort of a, what I would call like a meandering career, but, but it's, It's, it's been really rewarding to be able to, you know, follow, follow my interests, like sort of pay attention to like my own emotions about like how I feel about what I'm working on and try to really, uh, align, you know, I always, I think a lot about like aligning my, uh, system 2 brain with my system 1 brain, right?

So the rational brain with the monkey brain, and if the monkey brain like really wants to be working on something else, like maybe I should find a way to get the rational brain to also get to work on that thing. And you know, the, with the, with the sort of the thesis that your best work is gonna to be when they're both, uh, when both of those brains are trying to do the same thing at the same time. So I've really just tried to adopt, you know, sort of an attitude of, uh, freedom to, freedom to choose what I'm working on for, you know, I think you do have to go deep at times, obviously, but, uh, but, you know, something like on the order of like a 5-year period, uh, it's fine to like work on this thing for 5 years and then, um, and then be like, well, what's What's the most interesting thing for me in the world right now?

And should I go do that and change in that way? And so, um, yeah, when, uh, so earlier this year, uh, I got an email from Kate Hall, the CEO at Astera, and she was just like, you know, hey Eli, we're hiring for these roles. Do you know anyone who'd be good? And, and the job I ended up accepting, I, I just kind of emailed her back and was like, you know, this role feels like it could be really interesting. So, you know, let's talk. And so kind of went from there, but it, but it is, it was, yeah, just, just sort of following, uh, sort of that, that, uh, interest level and emotional, uh, component.

Speaker A: That's amazing. Yeah. I find that most of the interesting people that I end up meeting have had some version of a slightly peripatetic path. Uh, maybe it isn't, you know, all for their entire career, but at least some portion where they really sort of stretch the boundaries of what maybe they anticipated they were going to do. And I love that framing of sort of giving yourself a bit of a boundary for it, like the 5-year period sort of stops you from being a dilettante, but also allows you the freedom to jump between things.

I think it was maybe in 2016 that you write this paper, Make America Boom Again, about sort of supersonic flight. How did you sort of become interested in that as a canvas for some of your thinking? And it did sort of then take, I don't know if it was a full 5 years, but a good chunk of your life, uh, that followed. Speaker B: Yeah, so kind of the backstory there was that I had been doing this more internet policy, internet governance, IP, um, kind of policy at the, at the Mercado Center.

In 2014, uh, I, my, my boss left and I got promoted, so I became the director of the program. And as part of sort of my, my new reign, uh, there, I said, well, I'm gonna like do less of this telecom stuff and I'm gonna do, uh, I was gonna, I decided I wanted to do some drone research. So drones were kind of early then. Speaker A: Yeah. Speaker B: There wasn't like a really like mature, uh, drone industry there that then that could, could lobby for itself or anything like that.

So I thought I could do some interesting drone policy work. And so I did, I did, did some, a couple interesting papers and, you know, got to present my research at NASA and, and all that stuff. And then I kind of. Was talking to my research assistant and I was like, you know, I think I've done everything I want to do on drones. Like, let's brainstorm, you know, we, we have this like hard-won FAA knowledge now that we've, we've kind of worked up the learning curve. Let's think about what else we could do that's like FAA related.

And so we had a few ideas, but like the clear winner was supersonics. And I think supersonics were particularly interesting because As you know, I was very interested in the Great Stagnation of, you know, why, why we had not been growing very fast since 1973. And the, you know, supersonics is like the poster child for that because it's not only that we have stagnated, we've regressed. Yes. You know, we had Concorde. It existed. We— people flew Mach 2 across the Atlantic every single day. And then, you know, now here we are, you know, several years later.

Concorde is gone. Uh, and, and, you know, we're all flying at subsonic speeds. And, and so it's, it's, it's not just the Great Stagnation, it's the Great Regress, right? Like, and, and, uh, so I thought, like, it seems like the, the best place to get started if you're really serious about ending the Great Stagnation is look at the areas where we're regressing, actually, like negative productivity growth. And if you can, can fix those. Then, then you're on your way maybe to solving the broader stagnation question. Speaker A: Yeah. Speaker B: There wasn't like a really like mature, uh, drone industry there that then that could, could lobby for itself or anything like that.

So I thought I could do some interesting drone policy work. And so I did, I did, did some, a couple interesting papers and, you know, got to present my research at NASA and, and all that stuff. And then I kind of. Was talking to my research assistant and I was like, you know, I think I've done everything I want to do on drones. Like, let's brainstorm, you know, we, we have this like hard-won FAA knowledge now that we've, we've kind of worked up the learning curve. Let's think about what else we could do that's like FAA related.

And so we had a few ideas, but like the clear winner was supersonics. And I think supersonics were particularly interesting because As you know, I was very interested in the Great Stagnation of, you know, why, why we had not been growing very fast since 1973. And the, you know, supersonics is like the poster child for that because it's not only that we have stagnated, we've regressed. Yes. You know, we had Concorde. It existed. We— people flew Mach 2 across the Atlantic every single day. And then, you know, now here we are, you know, several years later.

Concorde is gone. Uh, and, and, you know, we're all flying at subsonic speeds. And, and so it's, it's, it's not just the Great Stagnation, it's the Great Regress, right? Like, and, and, uh, so I thought, like, it seems like the, the best place to get started if you're really serious about ending the Great Stagnation is look at the areas where we're regressing, actually, like negative productivity growth. And if you can, can fix those. Then, then you're on your way maybe to solving the broader stagnation question. Speaker A: And so for folks that maybe didn't follow that pocket of the Great Regression, let's say, what were the things that you discovered that were driving this?

Yeah, the step backwards when it came to flight speeds and, and how did it sort of inform the way that you were thinking about what needed to happen? Speaker B: Yeah. So I think that the biggest problem with supersonics is that there was a ban on supersonic flight over land in the US that was instituted in 1973. And, you know, this allowed modes of supersonic flight like Concorde, where you are, you know, flying transatlantic. You're only going supersonic when you're over the ocean. So there's no sonic boom problem that people get exposed to.

But the problem with this is that an airliner is actually like a really hard place to enter a new market, like, you know, in aviation market, you're talking, you know, 100 passengers on Concorde, you know, huge, you know, hundreds of thousands of pounds of maximum takeoff mass. And that is just— that is just really hard. One way to think— I learned about this later, but like one way to think about it is that, you know, the complexity of an aircraft program is exponential with, with takeoff mass. So, so it's actually like, you know, a small airplane is much, you know, is like significantly less complex to develop and bring to market than a, than an airliner.

What the overland ban did was it cut off the natural entry point for supersonic aircraft, which was smaller planes, right? Like, like, you know, business jets or, you know, maybe something even smaller than a, than what you'd normally think of as a business jet. And business jets, they, they can't, they don't have the option. You don't have the option in that market of being like, well, we're going to build a business jet that's only for, Transatlantic or something like that, right? Like, people, you know, they're not going to buy a business jet, they're not going to pay a premium for a business jet that, uh, speeds them up like 25% of the time, which is kind of the, the percentage of miles that go over the ocean.

So, so it need— it needs to work all the time, right? And so our take, uh, in writing that paper was, look, the, the overland ban is like the original sin here. It prevented that, cut off, truncated the market and so you have to go for the really hard airliner move instead of, uh, instead of, you know, the natural, like, okay, we're going to, we're going to, what we're going to do is we're going to enter the market as a, a small business jet, you know, and then, and then perfect the technologies that will scale up.

And then we're going to build something a little bigger, you know, maybe a large business jet and then, and then maybe a small airliner. And then, and then, uh, you know, you can get up to something Concorde size and maybe Concorde was even too big. For the market in general. Um, but if you, if you allow people to iterate and, and perfect the technologies in, in sort of a, sort of a bite-sized way, then they can, they can work their way up the curve. And that's how you get technology to progress.

Speaker A: And what was the theory behind that sort of initial 1973 ban? Was it a pure noise pollution, uh, issue? How did you sort of like think about that, that aspect of things? Speaker B: Yeah, it was, it was mostly noise pollution. There was this element also of it, um, where the Europeans were leading in supersonic technology, right? So they had, they developed Concorde through, you know, Concorde was developed, um, by a consortium of, um, countries, right? It was British and French government flight, you know, essentially a treaty between the two countries to develop this aircraft together.

And then that company became Airbus, right? Like, so that is, that's how Airbus started. And so the, the US had this, uh, program, uh, since, you know, the Kennedy administration of, you know, well, well, the Europeans are developing Concorde, it's going to go Mach 2. And we had this, uh, this other program, Kennedy was like, it's got to go faster and it's got to be bigger. Right. And so, uh, so it was going to be like, you know, 300 seats and Mach 2.7. And that brought in titanium and Congress, you know, allocated money for it.

And Boeing got the contract. And, and so they got pretty far along in, in development as the Boeing 2707, you know, just got to the point where the costs were exploding and eventually Congress pulled funding. And, and that was around that time that FAA also did the overland ban because just like, well, like, we're losing in this, so we don't want to— we don't want to help it along. But then, you know, like almost every country in the world copied the ban. So, you know, including the Europeans. So it wasn't— you know, I think mostly it is just like a legitimate noise issue.

Like Concorde had a sonic boom of 105 PLdB. It's pretty loud. We definitely know how to make it softer today through shaping the aircraft differently. And having a smaller aircraft also helps. But Yeah, that is sort of a confluence of those two factors. Speaker A: Fascinating. And, uh, it's, it's sort of writing that paper that then sort of brings you into the private sector with Boom Supersonic, where I think you've described your work as being a regulatory hacker. What did that mean functionally? And, and what was it about Boom that you felt like, hey, actually this is a really interesting take on it?

Or, you know, maybe the sort of right-first-principles approach to this problem? Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think I, you know, just I got a call from, uh, the Boom CEO one day and he was just like, hey, we really like what you're, you know, I had talked to him for writing my paper and stuff like that. And he was just like, we really like what you're doing at Mercatus. Like, we, would you like to do that more? Like, would you like to do more of that and, and, and come do it?

And I, uh, of course I said yes. The situation when I got into the company was, um, that on landing and takeoff noise, there was no supersonic-specific standard. And the FAA's position was, you know, okay, we might consider a supersonic-specific standard at some point, but until we do, you're stuck with the subsonic landing and takeoff noise standard. And that just, you know, our position was that just didn't work for a supersonic airliner. You have to have narrower engines, right? Because at cruise speed, you know, these big, giant, high bypass ratio turbofans, you know, they create a lot of drag, right, at Mach, you know, Mach 2 speeds, uh, or, or even less.

And then, and then the other problem is the, uh, the wing aspect ratio, right? You have, you have these sort of like, like, uh, you don't have long wings, you have like, like delta wing kind of configuration. So that means you need more thrust at takeoff too. Um, so those, those two like physics-based, you know, challenges or limits. Meant that, um, you, you cannot be quieter, uh, you know, with, with sort of today's, uh, fixed cycle engines, you cannot be quieter on takeoff than a, you know, you're going to be louder than a, than a supersonic airplane.

My job coming in was like, okay, figure this out. Like, like how, like how do we get, you know, FAA to, you know, move, move off of this position and, and, and change it. So, uh, we tried like a lot of different things, uh, you know, kind of Tried to leverage relationships in the White House. We got Congress, we, you know, in Congress and talked to a bunch of people. Like we eventually found a couple senators that were willing to be sort of champions for us on this issue and sort of passed some stuff in committee.

Um, that never became a full law, I think, but it was enough to show like FAA that we had some political support. So basically the story here is we're just like throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks, right? It's, it's. It was just trying, trying a bunch of different things. And then the thing that finally ended up working, uh, surprisingly was something that we were doing on the international front. Uh, so there was a deadline of December 31st, 2017 for under international rules that if you certify, if you applied for TITE certification before that date, then you were grandfathered into a laxer subsonic standard than if you were, uh, if you applied after it.

And, and there, and there was no time limit for how long certification had to take. So my, my thing was like, look, this is crazy, but we should, we should probably just apply for type certification this year so that we've, you know, there's, there's at least an interpretation that, you know, if worst comes to worst, we fall under this standard internationally. And so, you know, kind of previewed that with our FAA colleagues and they were like, well, that's crazy because, part 36, you know, the noise standard like only gives you 5 years from when you apply, uh, that it, that it holds.

And I said, well, okay. And so then I went back and I looked, read it carefully. And, and as I was reading the rules, I figured out like actually nothing here technically applies to Supersonics. Um, and so, uh, so I kind of, uh, made, followed up with them and made a bit of a legal argument. That like this actually doesn't apply to us right now. And so, and so, you know, your current policy stance isn't like supported by, by the regulatory code. And, and so they're like, well, okay, we'll talk it back and take it back and talk to our lawyers.

And then a few months later, they, yeah, they issued a legal opinion saying like, okay, lots of people are looking at supersonic flight now. Are, you know, we've, we've taken the opportunity to review the law and, you know, given that we've We've given this review, like we find that like the current noise standards don't apply and like, it will be our job to like make a new, uh, new standard for each applicant if we don't already have a standard, uh, that's generally applicable. So, uh, so that was kind of the, the breakthrough is just sort of following this path, like pulling the thread kind of as far as it went and, and, and, um, uh, creating a little, you know, political pressure on the FAA, but then there was also just like a circumstantial time pressure thing because like they actually had a, an applicant at that point, even though it was, you know, way, way premature, uh, we were technically an applicant for a type certification.

And, um, that kind of forced them to really look at the issue square in the face. And then they realized like, oh, actually, like legally we can't, you know, we, we, we, we can't really do this. And also because of all the pressure, it was kind of like, well, we don't want to, we actually do, would, would like to, um, loosen up a little bit. Speaker A: I love getting into the nitty-gritty on it because, you know, I do think it's so difficult to resurrect a technology like this where you are opposing also sort of the incumbent stance in some respect.

And it's always fascinating to me to hear that like so much of these unblocking moments is literally someone just sitting down, reading the thing from scratch and being like, hang on, uh, actually, is this really what it says? Um, and so obviously there are lots of other pieces that you're talking about too, and, you know, the political angle. Uh, but, you know, I think of the story that is in Isaac's book on Elon, certainly about him sitting and plugging in the, you know, raw costs into a spreadsheet for a rocket.

Uh, and just like having someone actually sit down and do those things that seem like someone must have done this, but actually, you know, you need someone to do that. And, and, uh, you know, so much comes from it often. Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think going back to like primary sources is, uh, is like, it's such a power move. Like you, you, you kind of understand the issue at like much greater detail if you can, if you can start at that sort of the, the prime, you know, in, in, in policy and regulatory work, like going back to like the authorizing statute and then like reading like the regs and, and making, understanding really like how they apply, like a lot of people surprisingly don't do that.

And it's just like, you know, it's like a lot of, lot of alpha in doing that. Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. Um, I'm sure folks have seen some of the, you know, headlines over the past year plus around Boom Supersonic, but for those folks who maybe haven't, like, you know, it's really exciting to see how the technology has progressed. What's the sort of state of the art in, in where, you know, returning the boom to America is these days? And, you know, how do you think it plays out over the next few years?

Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. Um, I'm sure folks have seen some of the, you know, headlines over the past year plus around Boom Supersonic, but for those folks who maybe haven't, like, you know, it's really exciting to see how the technology has progressed. What's the sort of state of the art in, in where, you know, returning the boom to America is these days? And, you know, how do you think it plays out over the next few years? Speaker B: Yeah, on the, on the policy side is really exciting. The administration did an executive order basically saying, you know, we're going to repeal the overland ban and we're going to, you know, replace it with the noise standard, which is kind of what I've always said we should do.

You know, back to that 2016 paper, like that was, that was our position. So it's really exciting. And, you know, so Boom is going to market with an airliner and still like sort of targeting that Concorde market. So they're not really designing what I would call like a low boom aircraft. Speaker A: Yeah. Speaker B: They are, uh, targeting now an operating regime where they, you know, they fly, you know, Mach 1.1, 1.2, depending on atmospheric conditions. You can fly that fast and not have a boom that reaches the ground, which would be— that would— that's like something that's enabled by this recent policy change.

Speaker A: Wow. Speaker B: Um, and then, and then, you know, there are, uh, other entrants in the market that are pursuing you know, initially more of a DOD route, you know, I'm thinking of, uh, Hermeus and Astromechanica, and they are doing a DOD route, but then with the idea of like, you know, once they, they perfect the technology, they'll do, uh, airliners as well. And then, you know, we'll see, it was, I, you know, we'll see if anybody does a, um, a low boom aircraft. That's, you know, it's the thing that I wanna see that's, you know, that would enable you to fly, you know, between New York and LA or whatever in, 2 hours or something like that, it would be a game changer, I think.

Speaker A: Yeah, that would be a dream. Why do you think no one has taken that approach? Speaker B: So one of the, one of the lessons of Boom is that it's like really, it is really capital intensive to do an airliner first, right? So everybody has seen that, you know, I would say that sort of the next gen companies, you know, Hermeus and Astromechanica in particular, they've kind of looked at that and they've seen like the defense market as a better bridge, uh, for, for their purposes. So, so they're, they're looking at like, well, if we're trying, you know, instead of doing an airliner, let's focus on defense first and there's money there and, you know, we can get stuff flying.

The Defense Department doesn't care about the low boom design. And to be clear, like, there is an aerodynamic tradeoff with the low boom design, right? It's so you end up paying higher fuel costs if you do a low boom design. So it doesn't make sense to do a low boom design on spec. you, you need to do, you need to like have a real plan, uh, for, for, you know, what's, what's the aircraft. So I think, you know, at some point, you know, even, you know, I, I would be surprised, you know, if, if there's, you know, an Overture V2, uh, from Boom, that it would probably be, I would, I would assume it would be a low boom aircraft.

And, you know, depending on what, what these other guys build, uh, you know, could, could also potentially be. a low boom, uh, design. Speaker A: Well, uh, one of the through lines I think of your career, you know, despite it spanning a lot of sectors, is that you manage to write things that, uh, make it into reality with sort of an amazing impact. Your words per, uh, flight craft is extremely high. And so, you know, you write another piece which sort of deals with the aviation space, which is something that, uh, I remember reading it at the time that it came out and thinking, you know, that is a you know, a kind of a wild idea, uh, and, and not doing much with it in, in my own head, but other people did.

Um, and so I'm talking about, uh, the cargo airships could be big piece, which I think is maybe 2023. How did your mind sort of jump from sonic, supersonics to, to airships and, and the sort of potential in, in the resurrection of this modality? Speaker A: Well, uh, one of the through lines I think of your career, you know, despite it spanning a lot of sectors, is that you manage to write things that, uh, make it into reality with sort of an amazing impact. Your words per, uh, flight craft is extremely high.

And so, you know, you write another piece which sort of deals with the aviation space, which is something that, uh, I remember reading it at the time that it came out and thinking, you know, that is a you know, a kind of a wild idea, uh, and, and not doing much with it in, in my own head, but other people did. Um, and so I'm talking about, uh, the cargo airships could be big piece, which I think is maybe 2023. How did your mind sort of jump from sonic, supersonics to, to airships and, and the sort of potential in, in the resurrection of this modality?

Speaker B: I guess it was in 2019. At that point, I was already thinking about leaving Boom. Uh, and I was sort of like, well, what would be next? Right? Like, or what, what's the, what's, you know, what else, you know, again, like having, having like a lot of hard-won experience in the aviation sector, I was, I was, I was thinking about things like, oh, what would, what would be the next thing to do? And I came across this idea of, um, of airships and, and like, you know, once you start thinking about the physics of airship scaling, it becomes very seductive, right?

Like that there's a, a square cube rule, so the volume increase increases with like length to the third power, and, and the drag increases with length to the second power. So it's, you know, if you double the, um, the size of the airship, the length of the airship, let's say one dimension, um, then you get a, an increase in lift-to-drag ratio. So your, your economic performance and your, your, your, uh, technical and, and economic performance of the, of the airship gets better as it gets bigger. Uh, and so the, the logical conclusion here is like, it should be really, really big, right?

Just massive. Speaker A: Yeah. Speaker B: Yeah. And so, you know, having, having had the experience at Boom of, you know, we, we, we did this capital-intensive, uh, you know, company, you know, had just finished our Series B, or, you know, it's like, okay, that, that seems like a thing worth exploring. So after I left, I, um, I just started, um, making phone calls to people, um, basically. So I talked to people working on other airship programs and, and tried to understand the market. At first I was like, I thought, well, maybe what I should do is start an airship, a cargo airship airline, just like buy somebody else's airship.

And then, and then quickly realized like no one's building the right thing. You know, there's only 25 airships in the world. Wow. Uh, something like that. So, so if you see, if you see like the Goodyear Blimp, you're seeing like 4, 4% of the world's airships, uh, right, right there. Speaker A: I love that. Speaker B: So, uh, so it's not, there wasn't a lot, uh, uh, going on. And so I quickly realized like, oh, we would have to build our own. Uh, and, and, and then started to think about like, what would that look like?

You know, in the meantime had taken and taken a job at, uh, at another think tank, Center for Growth and Opportunity. Um, but still like sort of like. Was, was tinkering with this in my mind. And I was at a, uh, I was at a conference and, uh, you know, gave a talk on something else. I think I gave a talk on geothermal energy or something like that, but there was a, there was a prompt at the, at the end of the conference. It was like, what's, what's an institution or thing that should exist in the world that doesn't?

And I kind of wrote down, you know, giant transatlantic or transpacific cargo airships. Some people like came over and were talking to me with it. And one of the, one of them was this guy, Ian McKay. And, uh, he works for Gates Ventures and, and runs his own lab there. And we just started talking and really hit it off. Like, I, you know, had never met him before that weekend. Um, and, uh, you know, we became friends, but, but, uh, along with my other friend Matt Sattler, we just started to like explore, you know, what this space would look like and could it be done.

And, and we ended up hiring, uh, some engineers to do a parametric study of what this could look like, so sort of loose performance capabilities and, you know, how big, you know, let's say you wanted to do 500 tons at this speed and so on, like what kind of airship would you need? And so we got answers on that. And ultimately we kind of decided, look, we probably, you know, this probably can't be done. You know, the margins are small. We were, we were, we still had it. Were laboring under a wrong idea of like what the market would look like.

Speaker A: Yes. Speaker B: Yeah. So we were kind of thinking there was no real market, right? Speaker A: So you had to sort of imagine it. Speaker B: Right, right. But, but we, we, we kind of, we kind of, uh, you know, we thought our reasoning at the time was, you know, most cargo in, in the US, it doesn't go by, you know, slow, you know, boats or anything like, like even, even intercoastal or, you know, like, uh, you know, up rivers or stuff like we, we have waterways in, in the US, especially in the eastern half.

A lot of cargo could go that way. It doesn't, right? The, the, the, the market, it's too slow, you know, it's super cheap, but it's too slow. And we could do a lot more domestic air cargo, right? Like we have airports and, and it's too expensive. It's nice and fast, but, uh, people don't do that. What do they do? They do trucks, right? Trucks, trucks have like most of the, uh, most of the domestic cargo. And so if you could do something across an ocean where roads don't exist and that has truck-like economics, right?

Like truck, truck delivery times and truck costs. Like you would take the lion's share of the transoceanic market. And, and that's what we were thinking about. And so we were sort of baselining, you know, you really have to hit like trucking unit economics. And we just thought like, yeah, you could maybe do it, but it's like not huge, not a huge margin to that. And you, you know, it's, it is, it is like super capital intensive. So it's like, it's like super capital intensive project to get like maybe a small win.

Right. And so we were just like, uh, like maybe if you squint, like there's something here, but, um, but it's probably not something like that we're going to do. So let's just write it up and put it online and, and kind of let people see it. And so, uh, so we did that and that was that's the blog post that ended up getting a lot of eyeballs. So, um, amazing. And then, and then I'm sure you know the, the rest of the story, which is that somebody else figured out that, uh, the, the economic story was wrong.

So yes, I definitely want to get to that. Speaker A: I want to, um, before we do, do you remember like what it was that sort of nerd sniped you about airships even to, to begin with? Like, was it, I don't know, were you reading a steampunk book or, or, you know, learning about, you know, the Hindenburg or, you know, one of these old aviation, uh, maybe pioneers. How did you sort of like even, how did that even cross your mind? Because it's not something that I think most people were even vaguely thinking about.

Yeah, no. Speaker B: So I think, um, probably initially heard about the idea from this guy, uh, Nathan Smith, who I went to grad school with. Um, and he, he was really obsessed with it. He had no like startup experience, no aviation industry experience, but he was just sort of obsessed with it. Like people had been talking about like airships for, you know, to, in Canada for like the mining operations, like supporting mining operations or something like that. And somehow he was, he was, got associated with somebody who was working on that.

And, but then just like sort of here, and the thing that really, yeah, I think I've already mentioned it, but the thing that really struck me was this square cube scaling law. It was just like, oh, it's a thing that makes sense, but it's— you've got to go big. It doesn't make sense to do it subscale. And sort of my experience at Boom was, um, the subscale prototype is really, uh, really valuable, right? Like, the— as, as you know, Boom has, you know, yet to build an airliner, but they've built a subscale demonstrator, uh, XB-1, that has already flown and has already, uh, flown supersonic.

And as I mentioned, like, like, the smaller, uh, aircraft are much simpler. much simpler engineering programs. And so the normal move that you want to do in aviation, which is build a subscale demo and then scale it, you can't really do that, right, with airships, because like, if you're subscale, you're losing most of the performance. And just sort of observing the industry, seeing like, oh, everybody's doing these things that are just like, you know, too small. If you're building like a 20-ton payload vehicle, You cannot, you're not going to hit any sort of unit economics that are, uh, that are attractive to anybody.

Um, and so you really have to go, uh, significantly bigger. Speaker A: Why do you think this was an idea that, you know, went so viral for lack of a better framing? Like, why did it capture people's imaginations quite so much? Speaker B: The reason it kind of works or worked, um, is that you can kind of understand it. Right? Like you can kind of understand, you can kind of see the logic, right? I think that this sort of square cube factor is, is something that like you can explain to somebody and they can really get it in a very short amount of time.

And, um, and they feel like they've learned something and then it's kind of, then the rest of it is just like, well, yeah, why doesn't this exist? This would be, this would be, uh, this would be really great. So it's kind of like one of these like interesting, like technical tricks that is like highly accessible. And so they can understand it like on a relatively deep level. Like fairly quickly. Mm-hmm. Speaker A: Uh, why did we lose that technology or forget that technology? I think, you know, most people do sort of associate it with the Hindenburg, but that's not really the story.

Speaker B: No, I think it's just airplanes got too good for transporting people. Airships are, I think, way too slow. Um, airplanes are faster. Um, you know, particularly, you know, after World War II, we had, you know, pressurized cabins, you know, higher flying altitudes, like much, much faster speeds. You know, basically, you know, had the jet, you know, jet engine, jet aircraft by the 1950s. And it's just, yeah, by then it was, it was over, right? It was just, you know, nobody, no, you know, the, the, the Graf Zeppelin, did do an around the world trip, you know, like a luxury, luxury trip, around, around the globe with, you know, multiple stops and you could go and multiple.

Yeah, it's like a cool trip. But like, that's not transportation. That's like, uh, that's like a, a pleasure cruise, uh, really. And, um, for most things, like, people— that's not what people, uh, value. So it's, is, is too slow for transporting people. There was not really enough margin, I think, at that time to transport cargo. It doesn't make sense to transport cargo, you know, that way in, you know, say the 1940s, 1950s, because I think, I think a real key enabler for cargo will be autonomy. So being able to not, you know, being able to like sort of delete everything on board that is intended to like support human life.

Um, so getting rid of the, you know, you need multiple crews on board if you, if you have like a 5-day or 7-day journey, uh, on one of these. So, so you have all these beds where people need to sleep, kitchens, you have to have catering, you know, all these things, you can just delete them. If you can, if you can either remotely pilot it or have it be autonomous or semi-autonomous. Um, and, and that I think is it, the key enabler to bring this back. Speaker A: And just to give folks like a, a sense of, of the speed, you know, what is the, I think, what is it?

I think 3 or so, so days to go from East Coast to, to London, let's say New York to London, or? Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. You could do that. Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Got it. So yeah, you're, You're certainly much, much faster than it would take to drive, but you're much, much slower than it would take to jump on a traditional plane. Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you can, you know, if we had Concorde back, it would be 3 hours, right? Speaker A: Yes, right, right. Okay, great. And let's, yeah, let's talk about how it came to life because that is sort of maybe the most exciting part of all this, that someone found what you had written and sort of ran with it in a really exciting way.

Speaker B: Yeah, so Jim Kutra found the post, just was kind of curious about it, like started a spreadsheet, you know, kind of to hear him tell it. He just sort of started thinking about what are all the systems. So he had, you know, experience at SpaceX. He was then at Hyperloop and sort of, you know, chief engineer at Hyperloop. And so he had a lot of experience like building like complex transportation systems. And so he was just thinking about what are all the systems you need on board? You know, and then can I put like cost bounds on it and performance bounds on it?

Right. And so he was just kind of like looking at it from that perspective and starting a spreadsheet. And he kind of came to the conclusion that, yeah, you could definitely build this. And then he also, because he had sort of the like logistics experience being at Hyperloop, he had the insight and the realization that actually you, you, um, don't need to match trucking unit economics. If you are delivering cargo from Asia to the US, like if you're doing it today on a container and in a container on a airplane, that's still like roughly like a week, uh, service.

Speaker A: Why is that? Speaker B: So it's, it's all the handling that has to happen. Um, because you're not literally point to point, right? So, so if you think about Um, you know, you're booking, you're booking this service. It's like, well, you have your goods in a warehouse and then somebody, some trucker has to come and like take them and, and put it, take it over to the airport and then it goes into another warehouse and then, you know, maybe somebody has to inspect it and then it goes on to gets loaded onto the airplane and then the airplane does it and then you have to repeat the whole process on the other side.

Um, and so his idea was. Let's, let's do true point-to-point, uh, service with Airships. And so, you know, basically it's like customer site, Airship flies over, lowers down a crane, picks up the, the boxes, uh, puts them on board. And then, um, maybe you have a milk run, so you're, you're picking up cargo from multiple customers like in the same city. And then, and then you, you make the, the transit, uh, in, you know, say 4 5 days across the Pacific, and then, and then you do the milk run on the other side, right?

So, so you drop off at a bunch of customer sites there, and that is less time across the Pacific or, you know, like sort of end to end. But it's also like many fewer people like touching your stuff, your goods. And so many fewer opportunities for like theft or other, other kinds of problems that are just like, you know, ubiquitous in this kind of trade. And if something does go wrong, you know who to blame. Right. And so, so the, you know, having, having like accountability, you know, because it's just one party that's taking it across, like, you know, you know exactly who to blame and who not to do business with in the future.

Right. And so, so being accountable is actually good for the industry. Realizing this, You know, he kind of came to the conclusion, actually, you could do this with pretty fat margins. And, uh, if you can do it with fat margins, then it's, that makes sense to do it, uh, as a startup. Yeah. So he, so he got an intro to me and, and connected with me and we started talking and, uh, met up in person and validated the idea with a customer, a potential customer. Um, and kind of heard the feedback that we heard was like this, this solves every pain point I deal with, uh, on a day-to-day basis, like importing, uh, goods from, uh, Asia to the US.

And, um, and so it was just, it was like, okay, well, we, we definitely wanna take a swing at this. So, um, yeah. So, so he started the company. Uh, I was, uh, one of the first investors and yeah, the, the have just been, uh, going from there. Speaker A: Amazing. Um, yeah. Is it the case that sort of certain paths, I don't know what the right terminology would be, um, work better? Like you mentioned sort of Asia to the US, like, is it sort of something about the, the amount of checkpoints and handling that make that, you know, especially attractive?

I imagine there's some, you know, obviously you're not going to do it from next door to each other, but is that like particular set of, uh, yeah, obstacles make it particularly attractive? Speaker B: The reason, the way, the reason that's like a pretty lucrative market is that there's just a lot of volume of of trade done and you're kind of stuck, you know, there are no roads, so you can't do trucks. Yeah. I mean, I think the things to sort of think about, uh, the interesting, interesting, like dimensions to think about are like wind.

So if you can, if you can, um, if you can plot a course where you're, the wind is at your back, right. You can, you can actually improve the unit economics further. Um, and including things like. You know, if you're doing a round trip, you know, it might be that you take like one path across and then you're picking, you know, you're picking up goods from the US to go to Asia, which, which does, contrary to popular opinion, like that does, that does actually happen to some degree. You know, it is, it is less, but assuming you can get, you know, maybe charge less for that route, but then you take a different path, you know, maybe it's more southerly path.

for that so that you could get the wind at your back again. Um, so it brings back like a form of sailing, which is interesting, right? Like you're, you're, you're riding the winds. Um, and, and it becomes, you know, a little faster and a little bit more economical, uh, if, if you adjust for that. But there's, yeah, I mean, there's, there's tons of routes for this, uh, all over the world. Um, you do have to watch out for sort of the higher mountain ranges. So I know when we were looking at it, it's like you want, you want to like probably avoid Rockies, Himalayas, Andes.

But other than that, like, I guess Antarctica too is like quite high. But, but, you know, not a lot of reason to do that. So, so, so avoiding, avoiding like high mountain ranges could be important because these things don't cruise at like really high altitude. and it, you could, you could do it. You would just have less payload available. Speaker A: I imagine one of the trade-offs you make is that they are a bit less robust, uh, when you talk about sort of like going over these mountain ranges. Is that a fair assumption or is it actually sort of like, that's not the case necessarily?

Speaker B: They definitely have different limitations than, than airplanes. And one of them is, is cruise altitude. Like you're not going to be, you know, if you're, if you're fully, you know, fully loaded airship, it doesn't make sense. This is all like in part design trade-offs is also like, like it's just sort of like the thing that's economical to do means that you would have some of these limitations. But, um, yeah, and people, people, um, do design, have designed airships to fly much higher. Um, so, but just, it probably doesn't make economic sense to do that for this application.

Speaker A: You mentioned a little bit earlier, you know, one of your interests is also energy and you've also been quite, I think, active in sort of like investigating geothermal energy. How did you sort of come to that as, as something worth spending time on, and where are the opportunities there today? Speaker B: I was at, I was at a conference and met Bob Metcalfe, who, who created Metcalfe's Law, right? Like, you know, early, early invented Ethernet and was one of the early internet pioneers and was just chatting with him.

And he was like, well, what are you working on now? And he said, well, I'm working on geothermal. Which I thought was surprising. Um, but, uh, just, you know, he kind of talked to me about it and then I mentioned it to somebody else and somehow there was an introduction to, um, his, his colleague at the time was, uh, this woman, Jamie Beard, who's just a force of nature. And she was working on, um, just sort of supporting the, the sort of broader, broader industry, you know, really, really coming from a climate angle.

And so I got to know Jamie a bit. And then decided to do some work on the policy side, right, for CGO. And along the way, I sort of did my survey of the industry and kind of, you know, who are the different companies and, you know, and so on. And, you know, got excited by it, ended up, you know, giving a few talks and I did a blog post on it. Um, and then also ended up making an investment in a geothermal company, uh, Quaise. But yeah, just sort of all this stuff like really felt organic at the time.

Just sort of just followed like one interesting tidbit trail, uh, you know, trail and just follow the thread again. Speaker A: What did Bob Metcalfe tell you about geothermal energy that you were like, huh, this is worth spending more time on my side, or like, I understand why this person is, is dedicating their brainpower to it right now. Speaker B: I, you know, I, I, I forget, I forget the, the details, but I mean, the thing that struck me was, okay, like Iceland gets a lot of their power from geothermal.

And if you just go a little bit deeper, everywhere is Iceland, right? So like, like, you know, everywhere has the geothermal resources of Iceland. It's just, it's just covered by, you know, an extra few miles of rock. Um, and it's fairly easy to imagine, like, we'd get, like, drilling cheap enough and good enough to basically exploit that. Um, you know, the temperature at the center of the Earth is as hot as the surface of the sun. So it's, it's, there's, there's plenty of heat. There's plenty of, plenty of heat, plenty of energy in the Earth.

Um, and, and, um, yeah, and then, and then I started looking into it and just the, um, you know, sort of the the resource size is just, is just so, um, massive. It's 15,000 yottajoules or something like that, where like yotta is like the SI prefix for like 10 to the, I don't know, 27 or something like that. Uh, it's, it's, it's just like, it's, it's, um, it's just a massive amount of energy that is stored thermally, like in, in the earth, uh, in, in relatively, you know, shallow parts of the Earth.

So if you could, if you can drill for cheap, you know, into the, into the crust and, you know, you don't even have to go, go that deep, right? You know, something like 20 kilometers. If you could do that anywhere, you would have basically unlimited, unlimited thermal resources to draw upon. Wow. Speaker A: Fascinating. And is it the case that really the economics of the drilling are the major bottleneck? Speaker B: I mean, there's, there's other things, a few other things too, right? But, but yeah, that's, that, that to me is, is the, is the big unlock, right?

The better you get at drilling because we, because we know that it works in Iceland, right? Like we know that, you know, so, so the other piece of it would be, you know, the other sort of expensive CapEx piece is like the conversion equipment, right? The steam turbines and so on. Right. And that's also the efficiency of that is going to be dependent on the temperature. Of the steam that you get out, right? So higher steam, higher steam temperature is like higher efficiency as well. So those are kind of levers that you could pull on.

But the big one that I think could, could improve is, and that has been improving, is drilling economics. So if you can, if you can drill deeper, faster, you know, companies like Fervo have really been mastering sort of these like drilling like laterals with in geothermal conditions. So drilling, you know, to the side while, while in hot rock and using drill bits that are, you know, substantially similar to those that are used in the, you know, oil and gas industry, but just really optimize, you know, increasingly like manufacturers have started to optimize for geothermal conditions.

So harder rock, rock, hotter rock, you know, higher shocks, like you need like more motors that are slightly more powerful, et cetera. And if you kind of make those optimizations, like it can get pretty good. And really it is building off of the success of oil and gas in the sort of shale gas revolution. Right. And so, so building off of that success and getting better at drilling is, is sort of the key thing. Speaker A: You know, it strikes me that one of the sort of through lines of your, of your work is, you know, discovering these sort of overlooked or forgotten technologies that, you know, deserve our attention again and, you know, deserve another look.

Are there things at the moment that are maybe earlier in that sort of progression from forgotten to, to remembered that you think are worth taking a look at again? Speaker B: Well, I'm always, I'm always thinking about something. So, um, Yeah. So, uh, one thing I'm thinking about right now is, uh, titanium metal. So if you, you know, it's really hard to think of a material that is like higher performance, uh, than, than, uh, titanium for a lot of things. So, you know, higher, you know, strength to weight ratio than steel or aluminum or magnesium and, uh, really nice thermal properties.

So it doesn't, you know, it doesn't, um, expand in heat. So, um, very much so. So you could. You know, if you were building a Mach 3 airliner, you would might want it to be made out of titanium. And if you look at the cost, it's just, it's right now, it's just crazy. So the, I like to use the idiot index idea. So this is an Elon Musk thing, which is just like a thing within SpaceX. It was like, let's look at a component or something and let's see what the price is on the market.

And then what would it cost? You know, what does it cost from a raw material standpoint to make it, you know, in terms of energy and materials? And then what is the multiple? What, you know, between that? And if it's, if it's, if it's high, we're going to make it, we're going to insource it. Yes. And if it's, if it's low, we're going to outsource it. Right. Well, with, you know, you can use that concept for other things too. But like, just, just as a comparison point, like the idiot index on steel is like less than 2.

So, so like the price of steel is, is, you know, between, between the energy and the ore, like, like less than double the energy and the ore, right? With titanium, I think it's 42. Wow. No way. Um, so it's, it's, it's just like much, much higher. And, you know, in part that's because of like how it's made right now. It's made in still in batch processes. So there's no like continuous process for how you make it. Um, there is. No, um, there have just haven't been as many optimizations. You know, steel is just so ubiquitous.

Like, there's thousands of grades of steel, right? And, and, and, and it's all been optimized for different things, and, and the, the process has just been so perfected. With titanium, there's like way, way fewer, um, the market is so much smaller, and that has limited the amount of attention that's gone into like really scaling and optimizing that process. And if we could, if we could figure out like a really great process for it and get, you know, if you could get the idiot index on titanium down to 2, you, you know, we would make a lot more things out of titanium.

Speaker A: Wow, that is fascinating. Uh, well, I hope you write about it if you haven't already. I don't think I've seen it, but you know, before we sort of wrap up, I do want to talk about, you know, one of these other subjects, particularly sort of through the lens of some of the technologies that are happening today. You've written a lot about the Great Stagnation, and we've talked about it earlier. Um, but you've also sort of talked about it a little bit in the sense of some of the heretical thoughts you have on AI and the fact that we may not really see some of these amazing technologies translate into productivity in the way that we expect.

What is sort of the, the principles behind that and, and how do you feel about that idea today? You know, maybe a couple years after you, initially sort of posed that question. Speaker B: You know, sort of as AI has gotten really hot, I'm obviously like excited about it and I've, I'm a user of AI and I see that it's, it's getting very powerful. But I think, I think me, my bottom line is like, I don't want people to be complacent. Um, and I think that there's like a lot of people who think like, okay, AI is here or it's coming or it's inevitable and therefore the economy is going to go gangbusters.

Right. And, and, and. Problem is solved and we don't, we can like sit back and just like watch this happen. And my view is much more different, which is that like, no, it takes, it's going to take like a lot of work and insight and stuff to like fully leverage that. And to, you know, especially in some of these spaces where it is a physical, the physical world, not the world of atoms, not the world of bits. This is like very much like not an automatic process, right? It's, it's a process that requires entrepreneurship and hard work.

And it requires overcoming a lot of other obstacles, like regulatory barriers and so on. So that's sort of like where I, that was like my initial reaction. And I think it's still like something that I believe. I think that, yeah, I don't know what I think right now. I guess I think more or less, I think more or less what I, what I thought then, but But, uh, yeah, maybe, maybe, um, in some ways the progress was— has been maybe slightly faster than I expected it to be. But then also I think I am approaching it now and I'm wondering if like transformers are not going to be enough, right?

Like it's, you know, the, the— we are hitting, starting to hit some limits on, on how good AI could be. You know, at Astera we have an internal AI lab, uh, interestingly, so we, we are sort of like exploring ideas that are a bit orthogonal to what's happening in the big labs, neuroscience-inspired structures and ideas. And maybe we need some sort of trick there that is still missing to really get to really competent AGI. And then you also just need a lot of engagement with actual, um, the industry that you're, you're trying to apply the AI to.

I'm not currently anticipating, you know, this sort of, you know, 30%, uh, economic growth that some people, uh, have been saying we're going to get just because AI is going to, you know, substitute for all labor or something like that. Speaker A: Yeah, we have more, more work before we're, we're anywhere close to that is sort of what you're saying. You, you also are one of the first people sort of in, in tech and tech adjacent crowds that I, I think I've seen write about Joseph Tainter. And sort of civilizational collapse, which I think now is becoming something that people are thinking about more and talking about more.

Maybe before we sort of go into the wrap-up questions, maybe you can give us a sort of précis on that idea first, and how are you feeling about the complexity of our society today and how it may jeopardize us in the future? Speaker B: You know, you can think about it as like we're trying to do a lot of things, uh, you know, in particular, um, sort of politically, we're trying to do a lot of things. We, you know, we, we, we have this like very complex governing structure. We have like a very large, um, administrator class, uh, uh, whether that's government administrator or things that are just like downstream of, of, you know, government administra— in government policy, you know, uh, compliance officers and so on.

And I think the real risk that I took away from the Tainter book is that people become very jaded and they become very disloyal, or, you know, like, like they don't, they don't perceive like a, a need to be loyal to the current state of affairs. Right. So, so the, the example, you know, an example that we, we know from Roman history is that the Roman countryside, right? They were, they were just like laboring under these high taxes. They're kind of like, they didn't see like a benefit to them. And so the barbarians come in and they, they like welcomed the barbarians.

You know, they, they, they took the perspective that you're coming in, like, I'm not going to fight you. Like, come on in. Like, like, and they just, then they just let the, the barbarians come through. And, and that, that is ultimately what, um, led to the collapse of Rome, right? It's the sort of defecting from, uh, from, from like sort of caring about the well-being of the polity, right? And I think, you know, that is the thing that I worry about, um, as we've had 50 years of stagnation, as sort of that stagnation has been really lopsided, right?

Like we've had like rapid growth in, uh, you know, the tech industry, you know, software industry, uh, computers, AI, Um, but not really anywhere else. You get this sort of like, so I think people feel really negative about it, right? Like, and they feel, they feel really, really disaffected. And, um, and, and, you know, there's gonna come a problem someday that is in some way analogous to the barbarians and, and people are just gonna be like, yeah, I don't care. Like, like I don't, I don't wanna stand up for the current system.

I don't wanna fight. For it. And, and that's, you know, then the problem comes, right? So it's, it's, it's, um, it doesn't have to be literal invaders. It could be, it could be something else, right? But just like, you know, society exists to solve problems. And if we just eventually decide, no, I'm fed up with solving these problems, you know, sacrificing anything at all for the sort of continued existence of society. And, you know, I'm just going to not contribute to this to solving this problem. And that's what leads to collapse.

And so I do think like the goal of ending the Great Stagnation, like sort of getting really rapid productivity growth and progress in the sort of a broad-based swath of the economy, every, you know, everything like, like all the things that have been stagnating, right? Like healthcare, transportation, etc. Like all those stagnating industries, if we can, if we can actually get to where, you know, a point where people really feel like their lives are just rapidly improving year to year and that, you know, middle, you know, the middle class and lower middle class, like, isn't really just suffering while other people are just, are getting rich.

Like that is the thing that's going to make our society flourish, you know, having, having broad-based growth. Is the thing that is, is the answer to the problem. Speaker A: Agreed. Agreed. Well, with that, let's move into sort of our, our few little wrap-up questions. Uh, we always like to end with a few abstract, more philosophical questions. And so to, to start off, if you had unlimited resources and no operational constraints, what is an experiment you would like to run? Speaker B: One thing I've been thinking a lot about is antimatter.

Um, so antimatter I think is the most expensive substance we have. So we've, we've made less than a gram of it on Earth. And, and it costs about $1 trillion a gram to make. And it's like wildly inefficient. So like the wall plug efficiency of antimatter is like 1 part in 10 billion or something like that. So it's just, it's just huge amounts of energy and very, for very low amounts of like embodied energy in the antimatter. The thing that I want to try, I think someone should try, is collecting antimatter instead of making it.

So if you, if you go into, into space, there is an antimatter flux. So, so you, so you do, you get like sort of gamma rays and stuff interacting with, you know, particles and magnetic fields and stuff. And it does like make antimatter that, that, you know, exists for, you know, for some period of time. And what you could do is you could launch a power source, right? And create a collector. So if you had like, say, a 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor in orbit at a, you know, say 1,000-kilometer altitude orbit, you could maybe capture something like 3 kilowatts worth of antimatter.

So, you know, you kind of, if you kind of do that, Uh, you know, so instead of making antimatter, spending a lot of money to make antimatter, just collect it where it already is. Scavenge it. Scavenge it. Exactly. And, and if you did that, um, you know, maybe you could create enough to create some, some interesting, uh, propulsion system for, uh, for spaceships. It would still take a long time at sort of those power levels that I was talking about. But, and then, and then, uh, sort of the nearest term propulsion system you can make is made, is not just a pure antimatter drive, although that would be awesome.

But you could do something like antimatter-catalyzed fusion. So using antimatter to sort of kick off a fusion process, that would be like a near, you know, reasonably near-term way of getting like a really awesome propulsion system that would let us zip around the solar system. You know, I think this is like possible, you know, over the period of like a couple decades. Wow. So if I, yeah, if I, if I, if I could just do that, I would, I would want someone to do that and I would want to support that.

Speaker A: People always have good answers to this question in general, but I think that's my favorite. That is, um, so interesting, uh, and is going to send me down a number of, uh, Google search and Wikipedia. Speaker B: And so you can actually, you can actually harvest it even more efficiently if you're willing to go to Jupyter. So Jupyter, you could probably, you could probably, um, get over 100% efficiency in terms of, of your, you can get like 500% efficiency or something like that for collect 5 times as much as the, your power source.

Speaker A: Fascinating. Speaker B: Okay. Speaker A: Um, well it will, we'll circle back in 20 years to do a podcast about that one. Final question. If you had the power to assign a book to everyone on earth to read and understand, what book would you like to unders— uh, to assign to folks? Speaker B: One that I loved that was really influential on me was, uh, Finite and Infinite Games, uh, James Carse. Speaker A: Hmm. Great choice. Love that book. Speaker B: Yeah, it's a, it's a, a lot of people have already read it, but, uh, but, uh, it's, it is great and it just sort of, you know, crystallized for me like what we're all doing here.

Right. And, and, and, um, sort of being able to see, see the world through that lens and, and, and, you know, my own life through that lens of, of, you know, what we're really trying to do is just like keep the game going and it's, it's very beautiful. And, and we're not trying to play like a game where you're trying to get final victory over somebody else. Right. And, and, and, and, you know, he doesn't even make the argument directly in normative terms. Right. He's just sort of outlining like, these are the two kinds of games you can play.

And by the end of the book, it's like obvious which one you want to play. Speaker A: Yes, it is a perfect place to end. Um, thank you so much, Eli. This was so lovely and, uh, so interesting. Speaker B: My pleasure. Thanks so much for the, uh, great conversation. Speaker A: Thank you. That's it. Speaker C: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Generalist Podcast. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast app. Ratings and reviews help others discover these discussions, so if you enjoyed the conversation, I'd be grateful if you could take a moment to leave one.

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