Podcast -

I’m on a mission to make the future as awesome as possible. I want to understand the biggest problems in the world & learn about the technologies that could help us solve them. I make The Deep Future Podcast so you can learn from the same conversations that I do.

What is TechBio? – Aneil Mallavarapu

Pablos is joined by Dr. Aneil Mallavarapu, a venture capitalist investing in the frontier of TechBio.
Anti-inflammatory Airpods – Dr. Eric Leuthardt

Pablos is joined by Dr. Eric Leuthardt, inventor and founder at Aurenar.
CreateMe Robots Make Clothes – Cam Myers

Pablos is joined by Cam Myers, founder of CreateMe.
Jensen’s Law

Pablos makes the case for Computational Maximalism.
Newlab is the Deep Tech Epicenter – Scott Cohen

Pablos is joined by Scott Cohen, co-founder of Newlab.
General Solicitation Rules for VC – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about the cloak and dagger marketplace of raising a venture fund.
Classic Rock, the Secret of Roman Concrete – Admir Masic

Admir Masic is the scientist who discovered how the Romans built the Pantheon.
You Must Buy a Ninja Creami – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about the most important kitchen toy.
Robots that See what You Mean – Avi Geiger

Avi Geiger is founder of GroundLight, a toolkit that helps robots understand what humans are telling them to do and connect that to what they see around them.
I’m a Perplexity Junkie – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about how to jettison Google.
Electric Motortoys – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about electric toys you can ride.
Mega SSN Leak – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about the massive leak of social security numbers this week.
Robot Massage is Alive! – Eric Litman

The first robot that can give you a great massage is just coming out of beta testing in NYC. You can book it and try yourself. I did! This is a conversation with Aescape’s founder, Eric Litman.
NVIDIA Math – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about the imminent scale of computation on Earth.
Securing Physical Infrastructure at Idaho National Labs – Wayne Austad

Pablos is joined by Wayne Austad, CTO, National & Homeland Security at Idaho National Labs.
Cremation Diamonds – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about turning your dead relatives into diamonds..
Nuclear Reactor Fuel at the Idaho National Labs – Nicholas Woolstenhulme

Pablos is joined by Nicholas Woolstenhulme, a Nuclear Reactor engineer at Idaho National Labs.
CAD World Game – ØF

Two nerds and an Australian architect bullshitting about turning CAD software into a giant world simulating video game.
Nuclear Reactors at Idaho National Labs – Ahmad Al Rashdan

Pablos is joined by Ahmad Al Rashdan, a Nuclear Reactor engineer at Idaho National Labs.
College Experience Alternatives – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about alternatives to college that would provide some of the same benefits.
Chaos Computer Club of Germany – Frank Rieger

Pablos is joined by Frank Rieger of Germany’s Chaos Computer Club for a conversation about hacking and activism.
LinkedIn is D＆D – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about LinkedIn basically being Dungeons & Dragons for squares..
Massagebot 5000 Part I – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about robots that can give a good massage.
Psychedelics in Science ＆ the Origin of Life – Bruce Damer

Pablos is joined by Bruce Damer, a scientist discovering the origins of life on Earth as well as a pioneer in using psychedelics for science.
Amino Acid Anal Bead Toy for Kids – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about making amino acid Legos that kids can plug together to make proteins. This turned into a completely unrelated conversation about delivering personalized pharmaceuticals.
Genome Sequencing for Kids – Robert Green

Pablos is joined by Robert C. Green, a medical geneticist and physician-scientist, who co-founded Nurture Genomics.
Industrial Ouroboros – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about feeding the output from one industrial process as the input for another.
Hardware is Hard – Dan Shapiro

Pablos is joined by Dan Shapiro, inventor of the game Robot Turtles and CEO at Glowforge, the most advanced desktop laser cutter.
Nuclear Reactor Kickstarter – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about using X-PRIZE and Kickstarter to get nuclear reactors built.
Black T-Shirt Review – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about their search for the ultimate black t-shirt.
A Thousand Words for a Picture – Rob Angel

Rob Angel is the inventor of Pictionary. You have played this game. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t. He Invented the game in 1985 and started manufacturing it in his studio apartment in Seattle, and then literally went out onto the streets, trying to sell it to people face to face. Since then, 38 million…
YouTube of Alexandria – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about a decentralized YouTube.
Cybersecurity for LLMs – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about adapting cybersecurity to LLMs.
An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything – Garrett Lisi

I’ve got a real soft spot for heretics and people who carve their own path outside of the institutions and societal norms and things that everyone is so pressured into because it creates this echo chamber and there’s these cookie cutter outcomes, it’s not conducive to getting to new ideas, it’s not good for figuring…
E-ink Everywhere – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about E-ink T-Shirts. Recorded on March 13, 2024
Materials for Biomimetic Robots – Rob Shepherd

I’ve gotten to spend a little bit of time with Rob Shepherd over the years. He’s working on soft robotics and all the different kinds of materials advancements that could really help us make robots that are more naturally integrated into the world. Things like polymer colloidal suspensions as inks for 3d printers so they…
Mother of all Tattoos – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about augmented reality tattoos. Recorded on March 13, 2024
3D Printing Meth on the Moon – Lee Cronin

Lee Cronin is a true mad scientist. He’s a professor of chemistry in Glasgow, where he also founded Chemify. This is a company that has invented a new type of approach to accomplish chemistry, very analogous to using the tool chain that we use in computers and then adapting that to chemistry. Recorded on March…
Killer Cap – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about an augmented reality baseball cap. Recorded on March 13, 2024
Mother of all Annotators – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about being able to annotate everything. Recorded on March 13, 2024
New Senses for Humans – David Eagleman

If you ever get the chance to hang out with David Eagleman, first of all do it. The first thing you’re going to notice is that he’s extremely nice, fun, outgoing and very friendly. He’s lit up in the brain and he’s prolific, he’s doing a zillion different things and he’s still somehow nice enough…
Mother of all Bug Trackers – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about a worldwide bug tracker. Recorded on March 13, 2024
Brain Music made with Neuroscience — John Vitale

Music producer & sound engineer John Vitale is creating music to help people optimize brain states. After co- founding Focus@Will, where he designed music and soundscape channels for flow state he moved on to found Brain Music Labs Where he’s crafting new ways to use entrainment based music and media for reducing stress, anxiety, and cravings…
Fingers for Robots – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about robots getting some of mammals’ greatest hits. Recorded on February 4, 2024
Hacking the Brain – Moran Cerf

A true polymath, Moran started out in the Israeli military, in one of their elite intelligence units. Then ended up working as a hacker in computer security. And to this day is still in demand for that, but he had a weird experience when Francis Crick told him to junk hacking and get into working…
Internet Random Mail Reader ＆ Nipple Detection – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about stunts on the internet. Recorded on February 4, 2024
Autopsy of a Failed 3D Printer Company – Riley Knox

Riley Knox is an entrepreneur that I met when I was hanging out in Austin, Texas, and I was just truly impressed with him, his energy, his outlook, his technical approach to building these companies that are hard. He had this company called Accelerate3D that he built to advance 3D printing for manufacturing, make it…
Lashbot5000 ＆ Miyagibot – ØF

Two nerds bullshitting about possible robots. Recorded on February 2, 2024
Knowledge Graph vs. LLM – Bryon Jacob

Years ago, I got to be an advisor for this company called data.world, and at the time, they were just getting started on helping figuring out how do you converge all the data sets that are in the world and help people work with them and combine them and share them. They built this thing…
AI Beyond Deep Learning – Ryad Benosman

One of the things that’s on the verge of excitement and annoyance for me is the way that Artificial Intelligence work has all kind of converged around deep learning. Deep learning is amazing and super powerful, and we’ve gotten a lot out of it, but what it has done is, both attracted a lot of…
GyroGlove – ØF

Short episode where Ash & Pablos marvel at this ingenious invention called the GyroGlove that can ameliorate the jittery hands of folks with Parkinson’s disease. If anyone can introduce us to the inventor, Dr. Faii Ong, we want to get him on the podcast! Recorded on February 4, 2024
Postmodernist Cuisine – Chris Young

Well, if you ever got tired of listening to me, talk. Today’s the day when you just get to hear from my buddy, Chris Young, because I wound him up and clicked go, and he just talks, and it’s great. He has so much, interesting experience and amazing insights. So Chris Young, if you don’t…
Mixtapes: a Lightweight Plan to Save the Internet – ØF

Pablos: People are pissed off about social media all the time. They think that Facebook is making people vote for the wrong person. It’s still very difficult to find somebody who thinks they voted for the wrong person because of Facebook, but they think everyone else did. Never mind that, there’s this kind of, uh,…
Primer on Fusion Reactors — Bob Mumgaard & Steve Renter

This is a conversation with Bob Mumgaard and Steve Renter, founders of Commonwealth Fusion Systems in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So these guys spun out of MIT. An incredible, ambitious, company to figure out how to commercialize fusion, and it’s really the first fusion company in the world that has been able to show publicly that they…
LLMs are Superstition – ØF

Pablos: So what happens right now in scientific research is, if you’re going to do a research study on something, like “are M&Ms is bad for you?” It’s impossible to do that study. You have to be very specific and ask a much more fine grained questions like ” how many M&Ms does it take…
Pioneering Computer Graphics & Animation – Richard Chuang

Part of what I love about getting to create a podcast like this is sharing conversations I’ve had with some of these extraordinary people that you just never hear about otherwise or never get to meet. They’re working behind the scenes, inventing new technologies that become part of our lives. And they’re out of the…
Whisp Subvocal Input – ØF

Pablos: Here’s one of the things I think is a critical area of invention that remains unsolved, but it’s definitely a part of the future. So if you’re using an iPhone anywhere in the world, cultures vary. I’ve been working with this guy in Venezuela on a project. I text him on WhatsApp and then…
Coffee ＆ Cement – ØF

Pablos: There’s this idea that was just published that you could produce concrete and make it stronger by adding charred coffee grounds to the mix. And this is some research out of Australia. So concrete, if it’s not obvious, is like the most used material on the entire planet, aside from oil, which we burn.…
Science Historian — George Dyson

I got to know George Dyson 23 years ago. When we started Blue Origin, one of the really cool and unusual things that happened is we hired a historian. We hired George to be there at the beginning and kind of see where this all began. We thought – not just because of hubris –…
Smart Traffic Lights – ØF

Here’s the dumbest thing in the world. You pull up to an intersection, the light is red, there’s no one else in sight and you have to sit there and wait for it to turn green. Traffic lights are the dumbest thing in the world. And this is insufferable because right now, if you, if…
Samy is My Hero — Samy Kamkar

This is probably the conversation I had in mind when I decided to start this podcast. Samy Kamkar is an old buddy of mine, a genius hacker. When you guys hear me praising the minds of hackers and how brilliant they can be and how they think, Samy is the example in my mind that…
Primer on Nuclear Reactors — Nick Touran

Today we get to hang out with my buddy Nick Touran. Nick is a nuclear engineer who’s focused on the practical deployment of clean, renewable, carbon free energy. I met Nick when we were both working at the Intellectual Ventures Lab. He is on the TerraPower team, and even though we don’t discuss the TerraPower…
Helium Airships (Short)

Short opinion piece about these helium airships and the need to preserve helium. Back before there were memes as we know them, the meme for a disaster was the Hindenburg. The Hindenburg was this giant Zeppelin, an Airship filled with hydrogen gas that’s lighter than air. Like a helium balloon. So it would just float…
Top Sleep Doctor’s Brain Dump – Michael Breus, Ph.D

Sleep is the most natural process that you can do other than breathing. Like breathing, we don’t need technology to help us sleep. The reason many people don’t sleep is because of what’s between their ears – their mental stability, anguish, or stress. Do you fall asleep easily or does the slightest noise wake you…
Urban Transportation ＆ the Truth about Garbage — Assaf Biderman

About two billion people that are going to move into cities by 2050 and with that growth, the demand for efficient transportation is going to increase dramatically. In an era where we’re already seeing inefficiencies in urban mobility having a massive impact on the economy, public health and environmental health, it’s hard to imagine a…
Reimagining Entertainment, Work ＆ Education — Brent Bushnell

Brent Bushnell is one of the most positive people I know. He’s created Two Bit Circus to reimagine how the newest developments in computing technology can shape the future of entertainment, work, education and human interaction. Brent grew up in the house that built Atari and has been a lifelong hands-on maker that brings a prototyping…
Kids Building Dyson Swarms — Levi Hurt

Probably whatever you were doing with your life as a kid isn’t as cool as building a Dyson swarm. 12 year old Levi Hurt has already decided to devote his life to doing so. Levi is a delightful kid. It will warm your heart to hear his curiosity and excitement about these ideas. Even with…
Exosomes, Stem Cells, Ketamine ＆ VR — Dr. Melissa Selinger

My friend, Dr. Melissa Selinger is a Doctor of Neuropsychopharmacology who has done actual research on using psychedelics and virtual reality for treating things like depression, anxiety, and PTSD. A huge frontier where there are all kinds of potential, and very little actual scientific research has been done here so far. It’s an exciting frontier…
Sex on Demand for Women — Saundra Pelletier

There’s this kind of pattern you can see sometimes, when you dig behind very successful projects, a lot of times there is some woman who is dead set on making it happen. And for a lot of them, she’s working behind the scenes and you don’t find out until you get real close, what’s really…
Diving Deep into the World of Computer Hacking & Becoming a Hacker — Riley Eller

One of the things I get asked the most about is questions about how to be a hacker and how to learn hacking skills. And I think there’s a few people I know who really epitomized what that’s all about, and we’ve had pretty deep journeys and in their lives and their careers about about…
Into the World of Genomics ＆ Entrepreneurship — Adina Mangubat

Today we get to hang out with Adina Mangubat, a friend of mine that I know from a salsa dancing, and also hanging out with computer hackers. She’s probably the youngest founder that I know. And she’s been running her company for almost a decade since starting it in college at age 22 called Spiral…
Video Games: Optimized Learning Environments — David Edery

David Edery is a buddy of mine who I think you guys are really going to love. Dave is one of the co-founders he’s the CEO of Spry Fox, which is a unique game development studio here. They’re based here in Seattle, but they have people spread out. They made Alphabear, Steambirds, Triple Town, and Realm…
Building the Right Thing at the Right Time – Jeremy Bornstein

One of the things I really like to be able to do is go track down some of the friends that I’ve made over the years who have grown up with technology and grew up with computers as kids hackers, computer programmers, people who eventually became engineers and just pick apart their experience. A lot…
Unboxing the Crypto Toolkit – Ben Laurie

Hey guys, today we get to hang out with Ben Laurie who is one of my all time favorite geeks. You’re running code right now that Ben wrote. He built ApacheSSL, which is probably like half of the web servers on the internet that are secure running that code. He maintains OpenSSL, which is in…
The Future of Modern Photography – Steven Sebring

Steven Sebring is an artist, photographer & inventor. This is a guy who’s invented new technology and advanced the art of photography with the tools that he’s built in a world-class fashion. By his own admission, he is not a technical guy, but when you see what he’s built, you’re going to be blown away.…
Can Robots be Artists? — Hod Lipson

Today, I spent some time with Hod Lipson who is a professor at Columbia University. In fact, we recorded this episode right out in front of the university with crying babies going by and kids playing in the park. So it’s a little noisy, but I’ve been inspired by Hod for a long time, because…
Hot Seat: Pablos Interviewed by Bill Scannell

This is an unusual episode where my old buddy Bill Scannell actually interviews me. Mostly this is a way for people who don’t know me very well to get a sense of who I am and how I think and where I come from. A lot of it’s really about my philosophy and what informs that. Bill…