Core Memory

America has a new steel company, which is sort of a weird thing to write in 2025.It’s called Hertha Metals, and it’s based in Houston. It’s also run by a woman named Laureen Meroueh, who is this week’s guest. As far as we can tell, Meroueh stands out as the first female to start and run a steel producer.Meroueh grew up as something of a child prodigy in Florida and went on to earn a PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT. She then invented some of the processes that make Hertha different from traditional steel producers.Hertha relies on natural gas and hydrogen instead of coal to make high-grade steel. Its process is potentially cleaner, simpler and cheaper than the approaches used by the traditional steelmakers that have been around for more than 150 years. The start-up is already producing one ton of steel per day and is now looking to prove that it can make much, much more and compete head-to-head against the major steel players.In this episode, we get into how Hertha’s process works, the steel industry overall, why the U.S. needs this type of technology and how Meroueh ended up as a steel magnate.Our show is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

One must not feel sorry for Mark Chen. He gets paid very well to work in one of the most exciting fields imaginable.That said, as OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer, he has the difficult job of picking the company’s research priorities and of dealing with OpenAI’s employees begging him for more, more, more GPUs to power their work. This is a hectic gig, and, if you believe that AI will do all the things that AI companies promise it will do, then an awful lot of pressure and expectation is on Chen’s shoulders.We recently spent almost two hours with Chen talking about his job, his background and his fierce competitive streak. (I’ve seen the man play poker. He takes it very seriously. He’s also proven willing to counter Mark Zuckerberg’s personal soup deliveries to AI researchers in order to court and retain talent.) And, of course, we got into the future of AI.This conversation took place just a couple of days after Google released Gemini 3, and we spent some time on how OpenAI plans to counter this new, powerful model.We think you’ll get to learn a lot more about Chen’s personality and motivations in this episode. Enjoy!Our show is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Pablos Holman has one of the most-watched TED Talks of all time, and that’s sort of the least interesting thing about him.For the past 30 years or so, Holman has been traveling amid the most inventive and eccentric tech circles. He grew up in the wilds of Alaska and turned into a hacker extraordinaire. He helped start the rocket company Blue Origin with Jeff Bezos and sci-fi author Neal Stephenson. And he helped Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold, and Edward Jung create an invention factory at Intellectual Ventures.If you like our stories, videos and podcasts, please do subscribe. All of this stuff takes a team to produce, and we could use your support.These days, Holman is running a venture capital firm that scours the world for the biggest ideas from wild-eyed inventors missed by others. He published a book this year that captures some of his thoughts on invention and where our civilization is heading.In this episode, we dive into the book, Holman’s bizarre career and the future of science and research and development. I think you will be surprised and entertained.Our show is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

In December of 2024, the Chinese start-up DeepSeek shocked the world with the release of an AI model that appeared much cheaper to make and run than those from its American rivals. The company also open sourced its AI, meaning it released the blueprints of its model to the public.Our guest this week is Misha Laskin. His start-up Reflection AI looks to be the prime counterweight to DeepSeek and a host of other open source Chinese models. Laskin argues that open source models can be just as good as the models developed by the likes of OpenAI, Google and Anthropic and that the West needs this to be the case.Reflection has raised $2 billion and is valued at $8 billion, although the figures in AI have become so lofty as to almost feel meaningless at this point. That said, the company was able to raise so much money because of the pedigree of its team with a number of engineers, like Laskin, coming from DeepMind.I have, in full confession, not been paying enough attention to open source models and the ways in which the Chinese models seem to have become the basis for a lot of corporate work in the US. Laskin dug in deep on this topic, and hopefully you’ll feel more up to speed after listening to the episode.You can find the Core Memory podcast on all major platforms and on our YouTube channel. Enjoy!Our show is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Well, I wrote a book and made a movie about this week’s guest, so he must be fascinating. (Otherwise, I wasted six years of my life.)Will Marshall has done things beyond supplying me with material. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Planet Labs. For those who don’t know, Planet changed the aerospace industry forever by lowering the cost of satellites and proving that they could be mass produced. It has surrounded the Earth with hundreds of satellites that photograph and analyze all our planet’s landmass every day.Go on. Sign up. We bring you these people for free. Help us, help you. In this episode, we get into Planet’s history, what these satellites do and why they’re so important.Marshall is a deep thinker on many areas and has lived in an unconventional manner. So we also get into much, much more, including the communal house scene in the Bay Area, what Marshall sees as the three major shifts that will occur over the next decade and how he balances his idealism with being a capitalist.In conclusion, Marshall is fascinating. I did not waste six years of my life. And When The Heavens Went on Sale makes for a great Christmas present.Seriously. Let’s make the world smarter.Our show is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Over the past week or so, Elon Musk has started hyping up the launch of the long-, long-awaited Tesla Roadster 2.Musk appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast last week and said he hoped to unveil the car before the end of the year. (When it goes on sale is another story.) He suggested the car might fly. (Okay?) And he said that it would almost certainly be the most memorable launch of any product in history. Which is a very Musk thing to say and - also in keeping with Musk - possibly true.At the Tesla shareholder meeting today, Musk again promised to wow with the Roadster 2 unveiling. This promise came in response to a shareholder who asked if he could, in fact, have the first Roadster 2 VIN. “Well, I guess it’s according to whoever put down their deposit in that sequence,” Musk said.Well, we are here with a special podcast to reveal exactly who stands to get the first Roadster 2 off the line – the investor Konstantin Othmer.I ran into Othmer rather by coincidence this week, and he happened to be holding the receipts that show he wrote the first Roadster 2 check for $200,000 back in 2013.This episode has some wonderful early Musk and Tesla tales plus the whole Roadster 2 backstory. Enjoy!Our show is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Joshua Steinman spent four years (2017-2021) working for President Trump and had a very broad remit. He shaped all cyber, telecommunications, cryptocurrency, and supply chain policy.It’s fair to say the Washington press corps did not adore Steinman. He was often portrayed as a young, brash Silicon Valley-type who bubbled over with ambition and lacked the usual political decorum.Despite how the press corps felt, Steinman did important work on several fronts. Before and during his time in Washington, he helped create deeper ties between the U.S. military and Silicon Valley in a bid to modernize the technology at the Defense Department’s disposal. He also sounded repeated alarms about how vulnerable the U.S. infrastructure is to cyber attacks, particularly those originating in China.These days Steinman runs Galvanick, a company aimed at hardening the technology infrastructure of industrial companies and operations.Steinman is opinionated and then some. In this episode, he will claim that Trump is among the smartest humans on Planet Earth. Some of you will be okay with this. Some of you will hate this. I look forward to your comments.Beyond Trump, we get into Steinman’s unusual career, the state of U.S. military technology and security, the cyber Cold War between the U.S. and China and a host of other light topics. Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is available on all major platforms, including Apple, Spotify and YouTube. Our show is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Celine Halioua and her company Loyal are on track to deliver a drug next year that could help dogs live longer.Loyal’s therapy is aimed at senior dogs (10+ years of age) that weigh more than 14 pounds. It’s a pill that the dogs will take daily and that’s designed to extend the dogs’ lifespan by at least a year. To get to this point, Loyal conducted a massive clinical trial with 1,300 dogs, and the FDA has liked what it’s seen so far.Halioua joins the podcast this week to chat about her unique approach to cracking the longevity field.Loyal has been betting that it will be easier to prove that longevity drugs work (and get regulators on board) by starting with dogs instead of humans. The company has been testing promising longevity compounds and now has three therapies in its drug pipeline aimed at our canine friends.I’ve known Halioua for several years now. She’s one of the deepest, most pragmatic thinkers in the longevity field and approaches her work without the hype and false promises that often accompany some of our live forever gurus.We get into her life, her work, some of the oddities of running a company in San Francisco and what it’s like to be in bio-tech during the great AI hype era.Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

We know that there are trillions of dollars’ worth of minerals sitting on the ocean floor. The big question is whether humans should start hoovering them up.Our guest this week is very much Pro Hoover. He’s Gerard Barron, the head of The Metals Company, which has spent years preparing to become a major player in the seabed mining industry. The company has found a spot in the Pacific Ocean that’s full of black, baseball-sized nodules rich in nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese. In short order, The Metals Company plans to send vehicles down to gather the nodules up and then refine them.We work hard to bring you these guests. Please subscribe and help support Core Memory. Thanks!The pro case here is that the nodules are quite literally sitting atop the ocean floor. You don’t need to burrow into the seabed and wreak the usual environmental havoc associated with mining. You don’t need people laboring under dire conditions. And these nodules are so mineral rich that you don’t need the typical amounts of refining to get at the good stuff.The con case is that we don’t know a ton about what goes on down there on the ocean floor in terms of animal life. Us humans could be triggering yet another environmental catastrophe on our way to harvesting what we desire.Barron is well aware of the criticisms against seabed mining. John Oliver, among others, has gone hard at him and The Metals Company. And Greenpeace thinks Barron might be Satan.Meanwhile, the U.S. very much wants to become a seabed mining power, as it attempts to blunt China’s dominance in critical minerals and rare earths. And, of course, the modern world depends on things like nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese, and seabed mining looks like a very efficient way to get more of them.We get into the pros and cons of this new field in gory detail on the pod. Some of you will be satisfied with Barron’s philosophy. Some of you won’t. In either case, you’ll come away better educated on the history of this industry and the technology driving it.Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Jed McCaleb grew up in Arkansas where he lived in a cabin in the woods that had no electricity or running water. Now, he’s a billionaire building a space station and funding some of the world’s most adventurous science.America remains a thing, I guess.McCaleb, 50, has been at the center of several major technology movements. Back in the peer-to-peer glory days, he released the eDonkey application for music and file-swapping and had the pleasure of being sued by the major record labels. Then, in 2010, he launched the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange, which dominated the crypto world until it turned into a story of mega woe.A couple of years later, McCaleb developed the Ripple protocol before moving on to build yet more crypto innovations. This work made McCaleb fabulously well-to-do. (He’s worth $3 billion . . . if you believe Forbes.)McCaleb has used his fortune to back a number of start-ups and philanthropic endeavors. When Elon Musk pulled out of supporting OpenAI, McCaleb helped backfill the financial vacuum. He’s also been a major investor in Max Hodak’s Science Corp., which is developing brain computer interface technology and in the rocket maker Firefly Aerospace.McCaleb’s real blockbuster investment is Vast Space. The start-up is building a commercial space station designed to be the successor to the International Space Station, which is very much on its last legs. McCaleb says he’s prepared to put $1 billion of his fortune into Vast to make sure it happens.My conversation with McCaleb travels across these various tech eras. He comes off, at least to me, as an oddly down-to-Earth guy for someone who invests in such a variety of wild ideas.Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

We have a proper treat this week. Core Memory special correspondent Eryney Marrogi comes on the pod.Marrogi is a scientist and soon-to-be doctor who has followed the rise of the gene editing tools at humanity’s disposal. He wrote a piece for us a couple of months ago on “Baby KJ,” the child who received a customized, life-saving gene therapy in record time. Now we get into what Baby KJ means for the future of gene therapies.The gene therapy field is advancing quickly but remains costly and technically complex. Marrogi breaks down how hopeful people should be – or not – that new techniques can be applied to more than super rare, single gene problems.We also get into the ups and downs of the DIY Bio movement, Marrogi’s work creating gene-edited mosquitoes and the vaping crisis he sees with America’s youth, who are taking in unfathomable levels of nicotine.Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

In the 1970s, scientists created the first wiring diagram of a worm brain. To do this, they sliced up a worm, imaged the slices under microscopes and then reconstructed a map of the worm’s neurons and their synaptic connections. Wonderful. (It was 302 neurons and really a map of the worm’s central nervous system.)We haven’t come terribly far since then. It took until 2024 for scientists to create a full map – aka a connectome – of an adult fly brain (140,000 neurons) and researchers now dream of completing similar work for a mouse brain and one day perhaps a human brain with its 80 billion neurons and one trillion connections.The belief is that if we have a proper wiring diagram of the brain, we will understand the brain and how it works much better.Things have been slow and hard because mapping something like a mammalian brain requires a lot of laborious work, tons of computing power and some method for labeling all the neurons and their connections in a comprehensible and useful fashion.E11 Bio was founded in 2021 to try and develop new techniques for mapping brains faster and cheaper. And today marks a big moment in the organization’s history. The E11 Bio team has published a paper – in conjunction with loads of high-profile contributors – detailing the success of its techniques. (There’s much more info on E11’s web site here and here.)In very simplified terms, E11 can put viruses in the brain that carry proteins to neurons. Those proteins then distribute markers across the neurons that make them light up in different colors under a microscope. This technology has made it much easier to find individual neurons and trace their connections.E11’s co-founder and CEO Andrew Payne was kind enough to come on the podcast to discuss the organization’s work and its brain mapping process. We also got into why this all matters, the challenges ahead and where neuroscience and artificial intelligence overlap.Enjoy!If you care about science and this type of in-depth reporting, please subscribe and support our work.The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

In this episode, Dan Wang comes on the show to discuss his new book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future.I’ll start by noting that the book is fantastic, and you should read it. It’s a well-researched, vibrant account of how China became dominated by its engineering culture. The country has displayed an unmatched ability to build over the past forty years, and Wang traces the scale of these accomplishments in detail. He also documents how pervasive this engineering mindset is by diving into the one-child and zero-Covid policies, and the brutally efficient ways they were carried out.Subscribe to the Core Memory podcast here and on all major podcast platforms.Wang contrasts China’s engineering-first culture with the US’s regulation-first culture. China’s top politicians are mostly engineers. The US’s top politicians are mostly lawyers. Wang argues that the US once built like China until the 1960s came, and the US began regulating itself into a collective torpor.As you’ll find in the book and hear in our discussion, Wang is not a China propagandist. Far from it. He offers a sober look at the pros and cons of both China and the US and points out that the two cultures have remarkable similarities.In this episode, we explore the book and much beyond it, discussing what hope, if any, the US has of competing against China in the coming century.Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

This week, we bring you the story of California Forever in all its “never told before” glory.For the past eight years, Jan Sramek and a group of wealthy investors have been buying up land in Solano County with the hopes of creating a great new city in Northern California. All told, the California Forever group has spent $1 billion to acquire 68,000 acres (100 square miles) in an area about halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento. Their goal is to create a community of 400,000 people who can live and work together and to make it possible for California to manufacture more of the things that it invents in state.The Czech-born Sramek became consumed by the idea of founding a new city after experiencing California’s well-known problems – expensive real estate/lack of housing, long commutes in heavy traffic, loss of manufacturing jobs and skills, and over-regulation – firsthand. And, sort of insanely, he decided to try and do something about it. He set out to see if California still had the will and the way to make a shining new city.(TL;DR: In this episode, Sramek tells the full story (for the first time) of how California Forever was created and pushed forward, including the incredible lengths he had to go through to keep the project secret. We, of course, also get into much of Sramek’s reasoning for wanting to dedicate his life to this project and why he cares about trying to help California thrive.)Sramek managed to convince an all-star cast of investors to buy into his plan. California Forever is backed by the likes of Patrick and John Collison, Michael Moritz, Laurene Powell Jobs, Marc Andreessen, Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman. Together, these people bought up the Solano County land in relative secrecy over the course of about six years and have set to work putting in the regulatory structure needed to get building. Their current plan includes not just the city itself but also nearby manufacturing and shipbuilding hubs.The project has, naturally, run into controversy. People have grumbled about the billionaires being up to something shadowy. Others have complained about building on land historically used for ranching and about potential environmental concerns. At one point, local politicians even suggested that perhaps China was buying up the land so that it could spy on Travis Air Force Base. For a while, it appeared that the naysayers might win and stall California Forever indefinitely. But the combination of a second Donald Trump election and the widespread feeling that California is over-regulating itself into oblivion have injected new life and enthusiasm into the California Forever effort. Many people and politicians in Solano County are now looking to join up with the project and help make it happen.Not everyone will agree with me here. This is natural. But, for me, California Forever represents an existential moment for the wonderful state that I call home.Nowhere on Earth do people have it better than Californians. But we are on the verge of the greatest economic self-own in history if we can’t learn how to build and develop and do big things again. We must get out of our own way and create a system that allows for hope and optimism and the notion of creating a better future.Building a picturesque city where people can live close to their jobs and manufacture the products that they invent on underutilized land should not be controversial. It should just happen.If we can’t let something like California Forever flourish, we’re signaling that California has lost its way, its spirit and its ability, and this strikes me as profoundly sad.The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Most of you have not heard of Axon Enterprise. But there it is – a $57 billion company that has reshaped pretty much every police department in the United States. (San Francisco being the major exception.)Rick Smith founded the company in 1993 and turned its major invention – the TASER – into a blockbuster product. Smith hoped the taser would lessen cops’ inclination to grab their guns by giving them a non-lethal option for dealing with dangerous situations. In more recent years, Axon has moved into body cameras, drones and software and data systems used by police forces.Core Memory is a reader-supported publication. We need your help to do what we do.The taser was never going to be without controversy, and Smith and Axon have found themselves under scrutiny time and again. John Oliver recently spent thirty minutes on a taser takedown and mocked Smith. In 2023, Reuters also went at Axon, accusing Smith of making up the company’s founding story, over-paying his executives and maintaining an “unusual” workplace culture. (In this podcast, Smith answers the founding story accusations for the first time with a journalist.)Despite the digs and plenty of lawsuits, Smith has spent three decades on this singular quest of changing the nature of policing. Axon can point to plenty of data that show tasers have reduced officer shootings, and body cams have added transparency to the actions of both cops and criminals.In its next turn, Axon hopes to build taser-equipped drones that can be used to assess and deal with incidents. Smith has even talked about using these types of drones to patrol schools and protect against active shooters – yet another controversial idea.In this episode, we get into the history of Smith and Axon, how the company’s technology works, all of the controversies and where Axon is heading.Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Cathy Tie has been having an eventful year.First she co-founded a company determined to gene edit animals and build literal unicorns. Then she held a wedding ceremony in China with Dr. Jiankui He - the controversial scientist who spent three years in prison for performing gene editing procedures on twins. And then, in May, we brought you the story of Tie being banned from China with government officials apparently not liking the idea of her teaming up with Dr. He romantically and/or professionally.Well, Tie is back in the U.S. now and has just started the Manhattan Project – a start-up that unapologetically seeks to perform gene editing on embryos to block them from inheriting diseases. It’s controversial and then some just like Tie herself.In this exclusive podcast, Tie discusses her plans for the Manhattan Project, her whirlwind 2025 and her efforts to push the bio-tech field into a new era.Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Into the brain we go.Sumner Norman, the co-founder and CEO of Forest Neurotech, comes on the show to take us on a journey across the history and future of brain implants. We start with the first experiments prodding the body and mind with electricity and end up in mind uploading land. Along the way, we cover many of the major brain-computer interface technologies and advances.Norman has a unique perspective in this field. He’s a mechanical engineer by training but can talk neuroscience with the best of them. I’ve always found him to be realistic and fair with his assessment of various brain-computer interface approaches.Forest Neurotech makes a brain implant that uses ultrasound to analyze the mind. The company argues that its approach allows it to see more of what’s happening in a brain than electrode-based implants - from Neuralink, Synchron, et al. - that can only probe the small areas where they sit next to neurons. It has been running trials with its implant in a bid to help doctors and patients better understand the nature of mental disorders.In a fascinating turn, Forest has started to detect "covert consciousness" in comatose patients who are otherwise completely unresponsive. The people appear to be able to hear and interpret what is being said around them. This is both comforting and not.The ultrasound approach that Forest helped pioneer is now starting to look like a thing with other start-ups using similar techniques.Beyond Forest, we get into the economics of the BCI industry, its promises and limitations and, of course, cover much sci-fi ground.Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Well, here we go. Bryan Johnson has come to the pod.You have likely heard an interview with Johnson before, since he’s become such an object of love, hate and fascination among the media over the past couple of years. That said, you will not have heard an interview like this with Johnson.I was covering Johnson’s exploits in the brain-computer-interface and health fields in-depth before anyone else. Back then, my editors and others often seemed to think too much ink was being spilled on the man. But, in January of 2023, I wrote the story that turned Johnson into an overnight sensation, and, well, people just could not get enough Johnson after that.Alongside the director Chris Smith, I also made the film Don’t Die on Johnson and his longevity pursuits for Netflix.Over the course of reporting on Johnson for so long and doing the film, I’ve gotten to know our world-famous vampire quite well. So, we tried to go in some more personal directions - erections, cults, smoking toads - with this interview and to chart Johnson’s evolution from someone Silicon Valley shunned to resident longevity guru and blossoming cult leader for some futuristic religion. Johnson also speaks at length for the first time about his decision to pull away from the Blueprint business and his struggles to figure out what’s next for his Don’t Die movement.Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform. Like thousands of ambitious, innovative companies, we run on Brex so we can spend smarter and move faster. And you can too. Learn more at www.brex.com/corememoryThe podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

For the past few months, The Wall Street Journal’s Bob McMillan has been writing a series of stories on fake North Korean workers who have infiltrated American companies. In this episode, we break the whole situation down with McMillan, who is a longtime friend and a top-notch security reporter.The short of the tale is this: North Koreans hop on LinkedIn and other job sites and pose as American remote workers looking for gigs. Once they get hired, the North Koreans then recruit Americans to help them deal with some of the job mechanics like submitting tax paperwork and running company laptops from inside the US.McMillan has found some Americans who are managing dozens of laptops at their homes on behalf of these North Korean workers. Each morning, the American patsy wakes up, turns the laptops on, and then logs their North Korean workers into their jobs. It’s a practice now known at laptop farming.The North Koreans tend to be pretty good workers! That is until they start siphoning off money and intellectual property for the Great Leader.Last month, Arizona resident Christina Marie Chapman pled guilty to wire fraud and other crimes linked to this scheme. Per the Department of Justice, Chapman “was sentenced today to 102 months in prison for her role in a fraudulent scheme that assisted North Korean Information Technology (IT) workers posing as U.S. citizens and residents with obtaining remote IT positions at more than 300 U.S. companies. The scheme generated more than $17 million in illicit revenue for Chapman and for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea).”All told, the DoJ reckons North Korea has pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars from its network of laptop farmers. McMillan writes about it all here. If you’re an employer on the lookout for one of these fake remote workers, you’ll want to scan for Kevins in your organization who are really into the Minions. We explain in the episode - promise. Enjoy!The Core Memory podcast is made possible by the genius investors at E1 Ventures. We’re not sure if E1 is into the Minions or not, but they are into investing in great companies. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

We are awash in longevity tests and services. There are ones that measure your blood, others that measure the quality of your DNA and others that check on your gut and brain. You can Blueprint, Viome, Function Health and on and on.To figure out how at least one of these longevity programs actually works, we decided to have Dugal Bain-Kim from Lifeforce on the pod.As you will notice, the dude is jacked and does indeed seem quite healthy.Lifeforce provides - for a montly fee - a lot of what a decent national healthcare system might do in a different universe. It sends a phlebotomist to your home to take a blood draw and performs a wide range of tests on the sample. It then puts you in touch with a medical team for some health counseling and tries to identify areas that will help you become a better you.Instead of doing this once, you repeat the cycle every three months and try to push what the company calls your Lifescore ever higher.Bain-Kim is not a doctor and comes from the business world, and two of Lifeforce’s co-founders are Tony Robbins and Peter Diamandis. Robbins obviously has a reputation as a self-improvement guru, and some of Diamandis’s ventures center on selling optimism. The company also offers supplements and other products. This combination of things will put some people off.That said, Lifeforce also has a deep medical bench, and there’s real – and ever-improving - science backing up its measurements and therapies.I’m broadly excited for services like Lifeforce but also fearful that consumers have little means of judging these various programs and separating the good stuff from the snake oil.We touch on all of these issues and much more in the show. Have a listen and judge for yourself.This podcast is made with support from the fine people at E1 Ventures. Your company will almost certainly live longer with E1 Ventures on your cap table. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe