Sunshine in a Bottle – Danielle Fong 2/5
Jul 28, 2026
Show notes
Most clean-energy stories start with batteries. Danielle Fong starts with thermodynamics and photons. Lightcell is her attempt to turn heat straight into light and usable power.
In part two, she walks through energy density, the physics of light-emitting heat engines, and why the hard path might still be the only path that scales.
Teenage Physicist to Cleantech Crash – Danielle Fong 1/5
Jul 27, 2026
Show notes
Danielle Fong started in physics young, then walked straight into one of the hardest problems in energy: storing power at civilizational scale. LightSail made her famous and the cleantech bust made the lessons permanent.
In this episode, we go back to the beginning — Canada, physics, the bet on compressed-air storage, and the collision between deep technical ambition and a market that wasn’t ready.
What is TechBio? – Aneil Mallavarapu
Sep 21, 2025
Show notes
Dr. Aneil Mallavarapu is leading Humain Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm focused on TechBio. We recorded a conversation together live in San Francisco with an all star audience of friends. At the intersection of biology and AI, there’s something game changing going on and TechBio aims to capture this. Aneil and his partner, 23andMe co-founder Linea Avey are both early pioneers in TechBio so learning from them is a real treat.
Thanks a ton to Brady Forrest from Ignite for hosting this event.
Anti-inflammatory Airpods – Dr. Eric Leuthardt
Aug 30, 2025
Show notes
Dr. Eric Leuthardt is a top neurosurgeon. Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, he is also one of my favorite inventors. Years ago, we worked together at the Intellectual Ventures Lab on a helical brain surgery tool and origami patches for aneurysms. These days, he is the founder of Aurenar, which has developed a vegus nerve stimulation device that can keep people alive in the ICU. Deep Future is one of their first investors.
CreateMe Robots Make Clothes – Cam Myers
Aug 16, 2025
Show notes
CreateMe is pioneering robots to make clothes. Cam Myers is the founder and in this conversation, we get to pick apart all kinds of things about what they are doing to make this possible.
About Cam
Cam Myers is CEO and Founder of CreateMe, a company revolutionizing apparel manufacturing through automation and sustainable practices. Cam was born in New Zealand, and eventually moved to the United States in 2009 to pursue greater opportunities in the business world. He went on to found CreateMe in 2019, with the mission to redefine how clothes are designed, made and sold in the 21st Century. Cam currently holds 25 patents.
Prior to CreateMe, Cam was on the founding executive team for Group Commerce (now merged with NimbleCommerce), and previously held roles at DoubleClick and Allen & Company. Cam holds a BA with Honours and a Masters of Art in History from the University of Cambridge, and received his MBA at Northwestern University.
Newlab is the Deep Tech Epicenter – Scott Cohen
Oct 05, 2024
Show notes
If you are any kind of deep tech founder, or an early stage, deep tech investor, this is a required episode. You need to know about Newlab. It’s one of the most special things in the entire deep tech ecosystem. Scott Cohen is one of the cofounders along with David Bell. They built this thing over the last decade or so in the Navy Yard in Brooklyn partly as a civic project.
This is a place where hundreds of startups that are doing very difficult, very ambitious deep tech projects have gotten their start. It’s a community that’s helped each other out. Scott is one of the most soulful guys I know. He’s just trying to help create an environment where these things can thrive.
And I’m so proud of him and what he’s done. I think more people need to know about Newlab. It’s one of my favorite things whenever one of our companies gets involved in Newlab. When you decide that you want to leave your job and go work in a deep tech startup, you should just check out the menu at Newlab.
There’s so much we talk about. By the end, you will really understand Newlab. You’ll believe in them and what they’re doing. You’ll want to be a part of it.
Towards the end of this episode, we also talk about the coolest, newest thing that Deep Future is, working on.
Classic Rock, the Secret of Roman Concrete – Admir Masic
Sep 20, 2024
Show notes
For 2,000 years, there’s been this incredible mystery in material science: how do the Romans build the Pantheon? It’s made of unreinforced concrete, in a seismic zone. After they built it, nobody’s been able to figure out how they did it for two millennia. Until last year when Admir Masic, scientist, professor at MIT showed the world, publishing in the journal Science, showing exactly how the Romans did that.
Cement is the most used material on the entire planet. Between 8 and 13 percent of global CO2 emissions are associated with making cement. Obviously, the most used construction material. We now know – thanks to Admir – how to make cement that lasts virtually forever, use less of it, use less steel, it doesn’t cost more, you can make it in any cement plant, and the kicker is it’s about 20 percent less CO2.
So this is a major breakthrough, Admir is the founder of a company called DMAT, which is commercializing this. I’m so proud to be one of their first investors with the Deep Future Fund.
I couldn’t find a more delightful human to hang out with all year long. Admir’s an amazing guy. He started his life out in Bosnia, became a refugee as a teenager in Croatia during the Bosnian war, and then managed to somehow, go get educated in Italy. Then he became, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Germany before becoming a professor at MIT, where he is now studying all the things that you can do with cement and other amazing things we can learn from material science in antiquity. We spend a lot of time talking about cement, but I promise it’s interesting.
We also spent some time talking about Admir’s childhood growing up, as a refugee in Eastern Europe and it’s such a soulful conversation. I’m so thrilled to share it with you guys and I hope you’ll share it with your friends because everyone can get some inspiration from this story.
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