My first interview with Max Lobovsky @MaxLobovsky, cofounder & CEO of Formlabs @formlabs. Formlabs is the most successful 3D printing startup in the United States. Timestamps: 0:07 Why there’s a graveyard of 3D printing companies 0:59 Starting Formlabs 4:31 Being sued by the largest 3D printer company in the world 8:08 Forging a great company culture 11:38 Creating the Form 1 23:41 First fundraising round 28:00 Having a superpower 30:07 Identifying undiscovered talent 33:50 Positioning the company to win 37:59 Raising too much money 45:43 How to deal with problems 48:47 What’s going on in Ukraine 51:08 China becoming a global leader 55:08 Bell Labs

My first interview w David Zagaynov @DavidZagaynov, co-founder & CEO of Poseidon @poseidonaero. 0:05 Cargo and logistics 2:28 Starting with a ground effect vehicle 3:48 Why certification is so difficult 6:52 Flying a plane by mid 2026 10:07 Crashing into a lake 16:15 Working on planes during WWI 21:26 Drone regulation 24:19 Heron & Egret 25:34 Decreasing cost per flight ton-mile 30:59 Finding warehouse space 39:57 What won’t change over the next 10 years 47:50 Building airports

My first interview with Saif Khawaja @khawajasn, Cofounder & CEO at Shinkei @ShinkeiSystems. Shinkei is building fish harvesting robots with the goal of reshoring America's seafood supply chain while radically improving the quality & shelf life of the fish we consume. Their Poseidon robot is scaling the traditional Japanese ike-jime method for killing fish which is humane and preserves texture, flavor, and freshness. 0:42 Fish processing vs harvesting 4:51 Creating Seremoni 8:30 Expanding through word of mouth 9:19 Starting Shinkei 12:47 First few iterations of Poseidon 16:49 Celebrating fisherman 21:59 Helping fisherman make more money 25:47 Why he started Shinkei 27:09 First deployment 29:56 Following your intuition 32:01 Finding the right cofounder

First interview with Justin Fiaschetti (@jcfiaschetti), cofounder & CEO at Inversion (@InversionSpace). Inversion is building autonomous reentry vehicles that enable precision cargo delivery from space in under an hour. 0:46 Delivering cargo from space 3:14 Inversion’s first mission 8:14 Engine malfunction 11:58 Testing process & product iteration 16:51 Focus on what’s not going to change 23:02 Why mass to orbit matters 26:15 Behavior shift over time 39:37 What the last 20 years would look like if we didn’t have aircraft 44:23 Why they’re vertically integrating everything 50:55 Early days at Inversion 1:01:17 Find great people then unblock them 1:04:06 Making things happen faster 1:08:04 Figuring out the right leadership style 1:10:59 What he loves about being a CEO

First interview with Saurav Shroff (@SauravShroff5), co-founder & CEO of Starpath (@StarpathSpace). We talk about what it takes to build a self-sustaining city on Mars, creating rocket propellent production plants on the Moon and Mars, and selling solar panels to satellite companies. 0:40 Inputs to create a self-sustaining city on Mars 3:53 Creating rocket propellent production plants 6:21 How much a Nasa rover costs to build 8:02 Building solar panels 15:51 Scaling Starship production 17:56 Why it’s important to make life multi-planetary 24:16 Starting Starpath 26:53 Creating the first 10 Starpath rovers 31:20 Rover testing 33:09 How to simulate Martian soil on Earth 35:11 What if SpaceX didn’t exist 40:14 Keeping fast iteration loops as you scale 49:19 How many Starships it takes to make Mars viable 1:02:43 What are Starpath’s biggest risks 1:11:31 Finding talent that’s aligned with the mission 1:15:30 Living on Mars 1:18:46 Idiot index in the space industry

First interview with Kyle Doerksen, founder and CEO of Future Motion and inventor of Onewheel (@RideOnewheel). 0:15 How Onewheel started 4:14 Launching on Kickstarter 9:02 Finding the right suppliers 11:20 Getting rejected from YC 13:40 Juicero 15:24 Figuring out how to not lose money 24:48 Testing the board 27:09 Creating Onewheel racing 31:37 Designing an intuitive experience 33:38 Early prototypes 36:45 Scaling challenges 40:51 Building a product that’s designed to take abuse 43:54 Repairability 52:30 Incorporating customer feedback 56:03 Expansion over the coming years 1:00:05 Production hell 1:02:38 0 to 1

First interview with Mitch Lee (@dontmitch), cofounder & CEO of Arc (@ArcBoats). Arc is building electric boats. 0:30 Building an electric boat 3:34 From v0 to first shippable product 6:20 Why start an electric boat company 7:57 Advantages of not using diesel engines 13:30 Showing customers around the factory 15:57 Scaling to three boats a week 20:24 Production hell 23:16 Actively trying not to vertically integrate 28:55 Why cargo ships & cruise ships will be hybrid-electric 36:30 Iterating on the product while improving the build process 41:59 Having a great cofounder

First interview with Bryon Hargis (@hargsb), cofounder & CEO of Castelion (@CastelionCorp). Timestamps: 0:26 Hypersonic missiles 3:21 Sunday morning drive in the mountains 4:24 Why being relentless is so important 6:12 Getting kicked continuously 12:41 Passion for the mission of the company 18:19 Traditional aerospace vs SpaceX 26:53 How SpaceX tests & iterates 32:12 Starting Castelion - why reputation matters 38:58 Missile field testing 45:35 Showing employees company’s financial position 52:21 Having cofounders that will let you know when you’re screwing up 55:55 Finding the right cofounders 1:04:13 Paying it forward 1:07:30 Using comedy to cope with adversity 1:10:30 Luck 1:12:37 Operating in a resource constrained environment 1:17:26 Doing business with the government 1:33:47 Focusing on one product vs branching off into multiple products 1:36:36 Production hell 1:41:49 Expect something WILL go wrong 1:43:54 Forgetting to celebrate the wins 1:45:03 Working through unknown unknowns 1:52:27 Getting stopped by endangered desert shrimp

First interview with Alexis Rivas (@alexisxrivas), founder & CEO of Cover (@coverbuild). Why it takes longer to file permitting paperwork than to actually build a home, custom homes vs traditional housing developers, how Cover will scale to 10k+ homes a year. 0:30 Why there’s housing shortage in the US 5:07 Housing developers vs custom homes 7:21 From starting Cover to building the first home 10:10 Learn by building 13:16 Beginning with ADU’s (Accessory Dwelling Units) 15:48 Focusing on the biggest fire 18:25 Why onsite assembly is the bottleneck 21:15 Why so many housing startups have failed 24:38 Cover’s building process 26:22 Why the permitting process takes longer than the actual home building process 35:47 Building codes: subjective vs objective 41:32 Biggest unexpected problems 49:28 How Cover will scale to 10,000+ homes a year

First interview with Pari Singh (@paritheengineer), founder & CEO of Flow (@Flow_Engineer). 0:00 Pivoting from rocket engines to software 4:44 SpaceX's design process 12:22 How hardware teams will work in the future 14:51 What happens if China and the US go to war 20:57 Regulation 23:05 Future of war: networked autonomous systems 31:40 Agile vs iterative 34:47 Starting Flow 44:31 Figuring out the right path to build the company 49:09 Increasing scope until your underestimated 1:01:14 Building a special forces culture

First interview with Jim Belosic (@jimbelosic), founder & CEO of SendCutSend (@sendcutsend). 0:44 Manufacturing in the United States 3:48 Building trust with suppliers - beer test 5:47 Fun coupons 9:54 Don't save money - be frugal not cheap 14:39 Marketing by creating a magical customer experience 16:02 How SendCutSend started 18:28 Starting with almost no money 21:05 Negotiating on terms instead of price 24:04 Creating a delightful customer experience from day 1 27:51 Building a moat while competing with China 32:58 Understanding how your business is evolving by walking the floor 36:55 Dealing with chaotic customers 40:35 Hiring your customers 47:03 Winning lifetime customers 52:05 The gaslight launch & SendCutSend’s secret menu 56:08 Learning from other industries 58:35 Sam Walton & Les Schwab 1:01:24 Focusing on things you can control 1:05:52 Never run out of inventory 1:12:32 “What can Jim do?” 1:17:29 How Jim thinks about risk 1:26:09 Self-funding the business 1:29:06 Hiring problem solvers & experimentalists 1:37:18 Creating a company where people actually want to work

San Francisco: The Frontier City Laurence Allen (@laurence1allen), Sam D'Amico (@sdamico), Jason Carman (@jasonjoyride), Michael LaFramboise (@LaFrogman), & Will O'Brien (@willobri) 0:37 Introductions 2:49 Why they started their companies 15:40 Building a future you actually want to live in 23:38 Storytelling & narrative aircover 26:43 Future of appliances 32:37 Building in China vs America 37:04 Overpaying software & AI talent 44:16 AI cult houses 46:35 Silicon Valley’s cultural shifts over the last 60 years 54:07 What’s wrong with SF 58:34 Turning Presidio Golf Course into the next Kowloon Walled City 1:04:37 Resetting regulations so we can actually build things

First interview with Bernt Børnich (@BerntBornich) founder & CEO of 1X (@1x_tech) Designing robots that are pleasant to live with, managing expectations with early adopters, scaling Neo production. 0:25 Designing a humanoid robot that’s pleasant to live with 3:30 Living with Neo 5:31 How people form attachments with robots 8:41 The quantum serial number 10:23 What’s gone wrong during testing 12:19 When the robot became useful 15:39 Inefficiency in society 19:02 How Bernt got interested in humanoids 21:22 Starting 1X 26:28 Biggest scaling challenges 28:40 Managing expectations with early adopters 30:03 Getting Neo’s into homes

Second interview with Jason Carman (@jasonjoyride) founder & CEO of Story Creating Planet - Story's first short film, building the Nike for technology, starting work on a trilogy. 0:37 Creating Planet 7:18 Story inspires science, science makes story real 11:50 Building the Nike for technology 14:51 The full production story for Planet 30:45 Collaborating with legendary directors 33:31 Hiring great people to do great work 37:15 Production mode 38:28 Deep tech company vs art company 40:18 Transitioning from s3 to making movies 44:57 Starting work on the trilogy

First interview with Ian Laffey (@ilaffey2) CEO & cofounder of Theseus Flying drones in GPS-denied environments, experiences in Ukraine, making decisions on intuition. 0:26 Flying in GPS-denied environments 8:40 Strapping an Android phone to a drone 16:55 Why delays are so painful 20:51 Making decisions on intuition 32:54 Building trust in Ukraine 39:05 Being earnest 41:02 “What is f*ing me the most?” 48:47 The danger of unknown unknowns 58:53 Understanding a problem before bringing people in 1:05:57 Building a team of people who give a sh*t 1:12:34 First time going to Ukraine 1:19:49 Creating a checklist 1:23:49 Hiking the Appalachian trail 1:37:34 From first prototype to nine nines of reliability

First interview with Daniel Francis, Founder & CEO of Abel Police "We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy." Ride alongs, police chases, crime data is massively misreported. 0:19 What Daniel says about the allegations 0:25 Thoughts on backpacks and merino wool 1:58 Police chases 3:58 How to ask a cop to do a ride along 6:03 Seeing a guy get hit by a train 7:50 Alcoholism in China 11:09 Why police conferences are great 12:36 What Abel does 17:19 Body cam footage 22:30 Spending 3 months in China 26:50 Being alone in Japan 30:02 Expanding to all 18,000 police departments 33:10 How body cams have changed policing 40:37 Trying to sign on SFPD 48:04 Making American cities safe 50:18 Why crime data is extremely misreported 54:43 Going on ride alongs to understand police problems 1:09:43 Impact of the marginal officer on violent crime 1:12:13 Future products 1:17:19 Being paralyzed at 15 *At 20:22 the math is wrong: 1,600 x $50,000 is $80M not $1B

First interview with Mike Grace, Co-Founder & CEO of Longshot (@LongshotSpace) Space cannons, getting to Mach 25, history of German weapons. 0:27 Jules Verne 4:01 History of massive German weapons 7:55 Gerald Bull - Project HARP 11:01 Why isn’t Elon working on space guns 15:14 Cost of a kg to orbit over the last 30 years 18:50 Cost per kg with a space cannon 21:50 Getting to Mach 4.2 23:42 Going from Mach 5 to Mach 15 26:15 Heat shielding 31:07 Finding a 20km stretch of land for space launch 34:39 Making the space cannon rapidly reusable 37:59 Early iterations & what went horribly wrong 43:19 Old navy gun testing facility 45:20 Building the test site in the desert 55:41 Opening up the solar system 1:04:46 Almost going bankrupt three times

First interview with Noor Siddiqui (@noor_siddiqui_) Founder & CEO of Orchid Embryo screening, genetic diseases, moral panic around reproductive technology. 0:24 Embryo screening 3:00 Orchid babies 5:02 Genetic diseases 12:29 Agonizing over things that don’t really matter 14:14 How much embryo screening & IVF costs 17:29 Winning the genetic lottery 20:51 History of IVF & sex selection 26:04 Most meaningful experience building Orchid 27:57 Making sure people have information on embryo screening 31:44 Patients recruiting IVF centers to use Orchid 33:52 Wall of love 37:45 How much things have shifted in the last 5 years 39:55 Moral panic around reproductive technology 49:37 First IVF clinic that signed on 51:32 Healthcare companies have bad incentives 56:11 Staying optimistic

First interview with Michael LaFramboise (@LaFrogman) Co-Founder & CEO of Aurelius Directed energy weapons, drone swarms, future of warfare. 0:44 Using $1M missiles to shoot down $1K drones 5:37 Counter-drone laser systems 9:09 Directed energy weapons 13:04 Autonomous systems vs autonomous systems 17:30 How lasers work 18:37 Drone terrorist attacks 24:31 Staying ahead of China 27:17 History of lasers 38:59 Going from one system to thousands 42:39 The Chinese are unbelievably impressive 45:57 Countering satellites in orbit 54:45 Becoming ultra aggressive 1:00:18 Experimentalist vs theoretician 1:06:51 Early life 1:11:35 Building an open-source car company 1:14:14 Getting disqualified from flight school 1:26:10 Taking big leaps 1:30:22 Sleeping in a pod 1:33:17 Starting to reach escape velocity 1:39:04 Having a superpower

WTF is happening in El Segundo?! Isaiah Taylor (@isaiah_p_taylor), Augustus Doricko (@ADoricko), Ted Feldmann (@teddyfeld), Cameron Schiller (@cameron62s), Zane Mountcastle (@zanemountcastle), Soren Monroe-Anderson (@soren_ma) 0:24 WTF is happening in El Segundo?! 5:34 What's shifted since the party bus 10:03 Winning in meaningful ways 15:24 Think bigger & build in the real world 19:12 Own the atoms 21:52 Abstracting away from the physical world 28:59 Attracting great talent to work on important missions 33:03 Why Gundo worked 37:18 Intermission 37:25 What's gone wrong in the past 18 months 59:23 Pressing on the gas as things start scaling 1:10:04 Why it's important to have a community & group of peers 1:14:32 Why fight for America