Technology

Forecast 2050

Interviewing the thinkers and doers shaping the world of 2050. Hosted by Nebular General Partner, Finn Murphy.

Latest Episodes:

Why China Is Baffled by America’s AI Race | Yi-Ling Liu Oct 15, 2026

Show notes

Silicon Valley frames AI as a race against China to reach AGI. In China, almost nobody thinks that way.

Journalist Yi-Ling Liu, author of The Wall Dancers and journalist in residence at the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, joined me on Forecast 2050 to explain how China actually sees AI, the “permanent underclass” that predates automation, demographic collapse and the Chinese silver economy, and the Christian origins of the transhumanist movement.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/why-is-silicon-valley-obsessed-with

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

02:58 Superintelligence Is Not China’s Goal

08:06 The Pre-AI Permanent Underclass

11:00 The Tech-Government Revolving Door

17:05 Lying Flat

19:57 Christian Singularity vs. Daoist AI

26:06 Overcoming Censorship

32:10 The TikTok Ban

36:58 Chinese Perceptions of the West

46:16 The Silver Economy

Yi-Ling Liu is a journalist in residence at the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, former China editor at Rest of World, and author of The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet.

Yi-Ling on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yi-ling-l-89799783/

Yi-Ling on X: https://x.com/yilingliu95

Website: https://www.yi-lingliu.com/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.

We Need Revolutionary Military Change | Ex-CIA Chief David Petraeus Oct 08, 2026

Show notes

General David Petraeus believes we need draconian change to prepare for the age of autonomous warfare.

A retired four-star general, Gen. Petraeus commanded U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and led U.S. Central Command before serving as director of the CIA. I sat down with Gen. Petraeus to discuss the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, how autonomous drones and weapons will fight the wars of the future, and the new big ideas we need to keep the world stable for the next 25 years.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:57 Commanding Autonomous Systems

04:55 Revolution, Not Reform

11:21 Inside the Death Zone

19:17 America Is Unprepared for Future Wars

23:41 A New AI Military Service Branch

35:12 The UK Will Lead Military Innovation

42:02 The War for Truth

49:19 The Big Ideas for the Next 25 Years

54:15 The Leaders of the Future

David Petraeus is a former CIA Director who commanded U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is now a partner at KKR and the Chairman of its Global Institute.

General Petraeus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpetraeus/

Thanks to the Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project for the maps in the interview: www.understandingwar.org and www.criticalthreats.org.

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City. Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Can AI Talk To Whales? | Project CETI Founder David Gruber Oct 01, 2026

Show notes

The real reason AI was given to humans is to communicate with animals, according to David Gruber. A marine biologist and National Geographic Explorer, he is the founder of Project CETI, a global effort of more than 50 scientists across eight disciplines working to decode the communication of sperm whales. In this episode of Forecast 2050, I sit down with David to discuss the prospect of an interspecies dialogue and the seismic implications it will have for all of us, whales included.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/can-ai-talk-to-whales-project-ceti

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:48 David's Journey

12:30 An Interspecies Dialogue

17:14 Sperm Whale Language & Culture

23:48 The Breakthroughs Yet to Come

27:49 The Whales Are Yappers

31:03 Sperm Whales Have Accents

39:47 Verifying a Whale Translation

42:13 What Success Looks Like

47:32 Saving the Whales

David Gruber is a marine biologist and National Geographic Explorer who founded Project CETI, a team of more than 50 scientists using AI to decode how sperm whales communicate.

David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-gruber-b003871/

Project CETI on X: https://x.com/ProjectCETI

Project CETI on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/projectceti/

Project CETI Website: https://www.projectceti.org/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

'Claude's Priest': Fr. Brendan McGuire on Shaping AI for the Common Good Sep 24, 2026

Show notes

Fr. Brendan McGuire believes that we still have an opportunity to align AI for the common good, though time is running out. A Silicon Valley executive turned Catholic priest, Fr. Brendan has spent decades as a confidant to the people building frontier technology, and was one of the external contributors to Anthropic’s Claude Constitution.

In this episode of Forecast 2050, Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy sits down with Fr. Brendan to discuss Pope Leo XIV's encyclical about AI, Magnifica Humanitas, why AI needs to learn forgiveness, whether AIs have souls, and why we probably have less than a year before recursive self-improvement to ensure these models benefit humanity.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/father-brendan-mcguire-claudes-priest

Transcript: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-11-fr-brendan

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:45 Silicon Valley Tech Exec to Man of the Cloth

08:10 We Need Smart AI Regulation

11:46 The Pope's Warning: Don't Build a New AI Tower of Babel

19:10 Why AI Needs to Learn Forgiveness

27:26 What Hugging Face Shows About AI Morality

31:56 Do AIs Have Souls? Would We Baptise An Alien?

40:06 Watching Others Die Puts the AI Doomers In Perspective

44:20 Why Anthropic Asked the Church for Help 53:39 AI Doesn't Have to Be Winner-Takes-All

58:23 We Have Less Than a Year to Shape AI's Morality before RSI

01:02:23 Tolkien Morality vs Game of Thrones Brutality

Fr. Brendan McGuire is an engineer turned Silicon Valley executive turned Catholic priest at St. Simon Parish in Los Altos, CA. He is an external contributor to Anthropic's Claude Constitution.

Fr. Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frbrendanmcguire/

St. Simon Parish: https://stsimon.church/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Forecast 2050 Season 2 Trailer Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

Forecast 2050 Season 2 has arrived with a brand new set of conversations with the thinkers, founders, and investors shaping the next 25 years.

Hosted by Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy.

Guests:

Fr. Brendan McGuire

David Gruber

Gen. David Petraeus

Walter Goodwin & Sir Robin Saxby

Yi-Ling Liu

Laura Kreidberg

Patrick McGee

Francesco Sciortino

Adrian Woolfson

Francis Fukuyama

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Forecast 2050 on X: https://x.com/forecast2050

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Enveda's Radical Vision for the Future of Medicine | Viswa Colluru & Pablo Lubroth May 06, 2026

Show notes

Enveda Founder and CEO Viswa Colluru believes we have been looking for new medicines in the wrong places for decades.

In the Season 1 finale of Forecast 2050, I sat down with Viswa and Pablo Lubroth, VP of Special Projects at Enveda, to discuss why 9 in 10 drugs fail in clinical trials despite Big Pharma spending $276 billion in annual R&D, how AI is finally unlocking 99% of nature's chemistry that we've haven't been able to read, why the incentive structure of biotech capital markets is actively bad for patients, why insisting on understanding how a drug works actually slows down drug discovery, why aging may not be inevitable, and why mental health is going to be the defining medical crisis of the next 25 years.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/3dc95f79-4a7e-4c80-9630-970c1e6e2117

Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/beb7222d-efd1-472b-85be-09d7a7faf1a5

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:09 The Quintessential Problem With Drug Discovery

04:57 Pablo’s Journey to Enveda

06:29 Insisting on Understanding Biological Mechanisms Slows Down Drug Discovery

09:39 Science Has Been Divorced From Human Experience

12:22 Scientific Reductionism Has Not Led to Better Drugs

19:31 Lessons Learned From Big Pharma Missing Out On GLP-1s

22:11 Capital Markets Disinventivize Risk-Taking and Harm Patients

28:12 How to Prioritize Which Illnesses to Cure

33:38 Prediction and Prevention is a Better Strategy Than Treatment

38:27 Drugs to Make Us Limitless Like Bradley Cooper

42:53 Aging is Not Inevitable

43:34 Everyone Has a Chinese Peptide Guy

50:13 The Loon Shots for 2050

52:39 Mental Health Will be The Biggest Challenge for 2050

54:46 The AI Revolution in Medicine

Viswa Colluru is the Founder & CEO of Enveda, a clinical-stage biotech company using AI to discover new drugs from nature. He built Enveda from $55K of personal savings into a unicorn with over $500M raised and multiple assets in clinical trials. Before founding Enveda, Viswa was the first Innovation Scientist and Product Manager at Recursion Pharmaceuticals. He holds a PhD in immuno-oncology from UW-Madison.

Pablo Lubroth is a VP of Special Projects at Enveda and the Co-Founder & Editor of Decoding Bio. He previously built and led the biotech practice at Hummingbird Ventures and co-hosts the annual AI x Bio Summit at the NYSE. Pablo holds degrees in Neuropharmacology and Biochemical Engineering from UCL and an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge.

Viswa on X: https://x.com/viswacolluru

Pablo on X: https://x.com/pablolubroth

Enveda: https://enveda.com

Decoding Bio: https://www.decodingbio.com

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Building the Next Great American City | Esmeralda CEO Devon Zuegel Apr 29, 2026

Show notes

Devon Zuegel believes America has been building cities wrong for decades. She grew up spending summers in Chautauqua, an intellectual community in western New York where four generations of her family shared a household and she knew her neighbors better than the ones at home in California. Now she's building a village called Esmeralda 90 minutes north of San Francisco to prove that formula can be replicated.

I sat down with Devon in San Francisco to talk about harnessing urban planning as a powerful technological force for good, age-segregation in America and the impending population crisis, and why we need more incredible cities popping up across the country over the next 25 years.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/8bcb1293-d2f5-4c6c-a133-8a6d0826b839

Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-7-devon-zuegel?r=25ihqz&triedRedirect=true

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:07 Chautauqua Inspires Esmeralda

03:02 Cities Are A Technology

06:33 The Autonomous Vehicle Takeover

10:02 The New Multigenerational Society

13:29 American Colleges Make the Economy Dynamic, but Break Up Families

17:39 Remote Work and the Expansion of the Metropolis

19:55 A Real Alternative to the Suburb/City Dilemma

22:21 Real Life Is The Classroom

26:04 Esmeralda’s Open Door Policy

27:59 Making Cities Worth Living In

32:51 The NIMBY Problem

35:10 The Digital-Physical Divergence

38:29 The Cities That Have Gotten It Right Before

Devon Zuegel is the founder and president of the Esmeralda Institute, where she is building Esmeralda, a village of the future just 90 minutes north of San Francisco envisioned as a Chautauqua for Silicon Valley.

Devon on X: https://x.com/devonzuegel

Devon’s Personal Site: https://devonzuegel.com/

Esmeralda Institute: https://esmeralda.org/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Rule Britannia? How the UK Wins the AI Era | Matt Clifford & Ian Hogarth Apr 22, 2026

Show notes

Matt Clifford and Ian Hogarth believe Europe is roughly a decade behind the United States in building the technology companies that will define the next era. But they also believe that the gap can be closed, and that the UK and Europe could even leapfrog America, if political leaders and the public make fundamentally different choices.

I sat down with Matt, co-founder of Entrepreneurs First and architect of the UK Government's AI strategy, and Ian, co-founder of Plural and Chair of the UK's AI Foundation Model Taskforce, to talk about what Europe needs to do to save itself from stagnation. We get into why Europe's risk aversion is a bigger threat than American superiority, why career politicians won't survive in the new multipolar world, and why the pro-growth movement is losing the culture war — and how to win it back.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/2dc713af-826a-43dc-a2ad-91ad00ee6134

Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/00092f0e-3f30-473f-a773-d560724b3dc5

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:01 The Compounding Effect: Why the US Is Winning

03:50 Jumpstarting European Growth

06:48 We Must Risk Failure to Succeed

09:30 Crisis as Catalyst

12:21 The Multipolar Moment

14:31 AI Nationalism

18:41 Career Politicians Won’t Survive the New Global Order

21:32 The Apollo Moonshot for the UK

25:26 The UK Has a De-Growth Cultural Problem

28:32 Growth ≠ Good

33:55 Prediction Markets as Gambling Companies

36:23 Political Leaders Should Not Be Neutral About the Good Life

37:41 UK and Europe: Geography as Destiny

39:33 The Next Pendulum Swings for Europe

Matt Clifford is the co-founder and Chair of Entrepreneurs First, the world's leading talent investor, and Chair of ARIA, the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency. He authored the UK Government's AI Opportunities Action Plan and served as the Prime Minister's Adviser on AI. He was named to the TIME100 list of most influential people in AI and was awarded a CBE for services to AI in 2024.

Ian Hogarth is co-founder and partner at Plural, an early-stage venture capital firm, and served as Chair of the UK Government's AI Foundation Model Taskforce. He co-founded Songkick and was named to the TIME100 list of most influential people in AI in 2023.

Matt on X: https://x.com/matthewclifford

Ian on X: https://x.com/soundboy

Matt's Website: https://www.matthewclifford.com/

Ian's Website: https://www.ianhogarth.com/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

Dimming the Sun to Save the World | Stardust CEO Yanai Yedvab on Solving Climate Change by 2050 Apr 15, 2026

Show notes

Yanai Yedvab thinks we need to completely overhaul the infrastructure of humanity to avoid a climate disaster, and we can't afford to wait the 70 years it’ll take to wean off fossil fuels. Before founding Stardust, Yanai spent nearly three decades in Israeli nuclear research, ending up as deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.

Stardust is developing reflective particles to disperse into the upper atmosphere that will buy us the several decades we need to transition into a low-carbon economy. We sat down in New York to talk about how the technology works, the dangers at stake if we do nothing, and Yanai's radical optimism in spite of everything.

Stardust Publication on Safety: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/science

Stardust Publication on Ethics: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/guiding-principles

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/191c8d8c-50a1-42d4-a44e-03e618b9d359

Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/c04e6ebb-d1e8-4cbf-97d3-fee104f21536

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:10 From Nuclear Physics to The Climate Crisis

04:01 The Failure of Climate Activism

05:28 How Solar Reflective Technology Works

09:12 The 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo

12:01 The Montreal Protocol and How to Negotiate in a World at War

16:03 Buying Time: Weaning off Fossil Fuels Will Take 50-70 Years

18:55 Data Centers, Fission, and Fusion

19:59 Preparing for Emergencies the Israeli Way

23:40 Radical Transparency: The Only Way To Gain Trust

27:05 Persuading the Policymakers

33:05 Unlimited Ambition is What Will Save the World

35:10 Stardust Will Unlock Quantum Leaps in Weather Prediction

36:54 Stardust in 2050

40:20 Why Stardust Has to Be a Private Company

45:32 Optimism for the Future is Rational

Yanai Yedvab is a nuclear physicist, former deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, and the co-founder and CEO of Stardust, a solar geoengineering company.

Stardust: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/

Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.

Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12

Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/

Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.

Head to nebular.vc for more info.

The Technologies That Will Remake Civilization by 2050 | Casey Handmer Apr 08, 2026

Show notes

Casey Handmer thinks we're living through the most consequential 25 years in human history, and that human civilization is just getting started.

I sat down with Casey in Los Angeles to discuss how China's dominance in solar energy deployment should be a wake-up call for the West, why antimatter is the only rocket fuel that makes interstellar travel possible, and how slowing down aging may be the best solution to plummeting birthrates across the planet. For Casey, the balrog in the deep isn’t demographic decline, but a climate catastrophe that swallows every coastline on Earth.

Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/6c52cb7a-572b-4f5f-8bf9-70fdaf14cf98

Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/17c9604e-f38b-41a3-9068-eaf69d9f5575

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:53 The Solar Revolution

03:43 AI is a Supersonic Tsunami

06:00 Civilization Is Just Getting Started

08:46 Intelligent Life in the Universe

12:03 The $40 Trillion Ticket to Space: Antimatter

20:57 Space Exploration by 2050

22:09 Mitigating The Climate Catastrophe

27:53 Terraforming Mars vs Terraforming Venus