Core Memory
Episodes
Is The Era Of AI-Designed Drugs Actually Here? - EP 50 Josh Meier and Jack Dent
24 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We have been talking about computer-aided drug discovery for well more than a decade. It used to be the case that start-ups pitched their ability to u...
The Next Step Toward Understanding The Nature Of Intelligence - EP 49 Sebastian Seung
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Well, here we are. It’s brain uploading time.As we’ve just reported, famed neuroscientist Sebastian Seung has created a new start-up called Memazi...
Attacking Cancer With Code And Winning - EP 48 Jake Becraft
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jake Becraft was working on mRNA way before it was cool.In fact, Becraft’s advisors at MIT told him trying to develop therapies with mRNA would be a...
America Has A Steel Start-Up. Yes, Really - EP 47 Laureen Meroueh
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
OpenAI's Research Chief On The Soup Wars, Poker And The Next Models - EP 46 Mark Chen
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 Res...
The Famed Hacker Trying To Find The World's Best Inventors - EP 45 Pablos Holman
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 s...
The Open Source AI Model For The West - EP 44 Misha Laskin
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
Aliens, AI, and Saving the Planet - EP 43 Will Marshall
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 h...
He Bought The First Tesla Roadster 2 In 2013 - EP 42 Konstantin Othmer
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 podcas...
Trump's Cyber Czar on China's Infiltration of America - EP 41 Joshua Steinman
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joshua Steinman spent four years (2017-2021) working for President Trump and had a very broad remit. He shaped all cyber, telecommunications, cryptocu...
She's Here To Make Dogs (And Then Humans) Live Longer - EP 40 Celine Halioua
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 do...
Now We Shall Mine The Oceans - EP 39 Gerard Barron
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
He's Building A Space Station For $1 Billion - EP 38 Jed McCaleb
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The State Of Gene Editing - EP 37 Eryney Marrogi
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 h...
We Shall Finally Map The Brain - EP 36 Andrew Payne
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
China Builds, The US Regulates - EP 35 Dan Wang
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Can California Ever Build Again? - EP 34 Jan Sramek
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 w...
The Man Who Changed Policing In America - EP 33 Rick Smith
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
She's Ready To Gene Edit Babies - EP 32 Cathy Tie
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The History And Future Of Brain Implants - EP 31 Sumner Norman
27 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 futur...
Life Beyond Blueprint - EP 30 Bryan Johnson
20 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
How North Korea Infiltrated American Companies With Fake Tech Workers - EP 29 Bob McMillan
13 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 infiltrat...
The Company Putting A Score On Your Life - EP 28 Dugal Bain-Kim
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 chec...
The Forrest Gump of Silicon Valley - EP 27 Leslie Berlin
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s guest is Leslie Berlin, the author, historian and executive director of the Steve Jobs Archive.My first encounter with Berlin’s work h...
The Iranian Scientist Leading America’s Nuclear Rebirth - EP 26 Kurt Terrani
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our guests this week are Kurt Terrani, an Iranian-born nuclear scientist, and Tommy Hendrix, a Green Beret turned venture capitalist, and they arrive ...
Her Multi-Billion Dollar Quest to End Disease - EP 25 Priscilla Chan
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ten years ago, Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg vowed to aim almost all of their billions at a singular goal: “to cure, prevent and manage all...
Spaceplanes Are Upon Us - EP 24 Stefan Powell
09 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last November, Dawn Aerospace broke some aerospace records. Its spaceplane – the Mk-II Aurora – hit Mach 1.1 on its way to climbing to 20km faster...
The Child Prodigy Teaching Other People How To Learn
02 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Hsu has been something of a legend for most of his life.In 2007, The Seattle Times published a story documenting Hsu’s graduation from the Un...
Fixing American Science Funding
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week on the Core Memory podcast – we fix American science and advance civilization.We were joined by Anastasia Gamick and Adam Marbleston from ...
The New Era of Consumer DNA Tests
18 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s guest is Kian Sadeghi, the founder and CEO of Nucleus. Sadeghi has everything you want in a controversialish bio-tech CEO. He’s a coll...
An AI Engineer Is Here, and It Might Redesign the Physical World - EP 20 Paul Eremenko
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The news here is that Paul Eremenko has a new start-up called P-1 AI.Eremenko is billing P-1 as one of the first stabs at building an AI engineer. The...
The Future of Money - EP 19 Zach Abrams
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
More than a decade ago, someone I respect told me to go meet these young, Irish brothers - Patrick and John Collison. The brothers had started a small...
Anduril and Meta Make Peace to Make War Together - EP 18 Palmer Luckey
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Palmer Luckey has come on the Core Memory podcast today to deliver some full-on shocking news. (And top tips on raising children as well.)As you’ll ...
Peter Beck on Rockets, Dinner with Elon and the Future of Space
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The facts are these: Peter Beck is the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, and Rocket Lab is an absolute beast in the aerospace world. It has launched more...
He Comes Promising AI Freedom For All
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Back when I first began covering technology in the early 2000s, my favorite thing to write about was open source software. I was young and idealistic,...
The Company Trying to Reprogram Aging
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
First. The news.The bio-tech player New Limit has raised $130 million from just about the fanciest assembly of smart, rich people imaginable. Nat Frie...
A Brain Researcher's Bid to Make Digital Twins of Humans
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this month, Nature published some of the results from a multi-year effort to better understand the visual cortex of mice.The work took place u...
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on the Evolving Future of Humans
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong joins the pod to discuss crypto, crypto, crypto.Well, not really.Everyone asks Armstrong about crypto all ...
Chris Kemp on Astra's Comeback, Rockets and Drones from Space
04 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve seen HBO’s Wild, Wild Space or read When the Heavens Went on Sale, then Chris Kemp needs no introduction. Kemp is one of the stars in bo...
Dwarkesh Patel Wants People to Learn Things
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We flipped the tables on Dwarkesh Patel this week and turned the podcaster into the podcastee.Over the past few years, Patel has made a name for himse...
The First Bungee Jump, Space Weapons, Lunar Landers and Airships: Al Weston Has Done It All
20 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A few years ago, I caught wind that Sergey Brin had started funding an airship start-up called LTA (Lighter Than Air) Research.After hitting up some s...
Engineering Brains - EP 09 Max Hodak
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Few figures in Brain Computer Interface Land can match Max Hodak’s output over the past decade.He helped start Neuralink in 2016 and then went on to...
Consciousness in the Quantum Realm
07 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For the past decade, the scientist Suzanne Gildert has been working to imbue robots and AIs with new skills. She co-founded a pair of start-ups - Kind...
On Steve Jobs, Drugs, AI, Risk and the Enduring Magic of Silicon Valley
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t meet your heroes unless your hero is John Markoff. For he is as good as billed.No one has broken more stories about the technology industry or...
Because Sometimes a Chicken Sandwich Needs to Get to Space
21 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Several years ago, KFC did something ridiculous. It hired a giant, stratospheric balloon maker called World View to put its Zinger Chicken sandwich in...
The Start-up Making IVF and Egg Freezing Faster and Less Awful
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dina Radenkovic has set out to reshape women’s health.Gameto, her start-up based in Austin, has spent the last four years working on stem cell engin...
Fly Another Day: The Daring, Thrilling, and Misguided Life of a Test Pilot
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we’re joined by the test pilot Elliot Seguin to learn what it’s like to put your life on the line on a regular basis. Unlike most...
Life After Extinction: Bringing Woolly Mammoths Back Via Artificial Wombs
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fresh off closing a $200 million funding round, Ben Lamm from Colossal Biosciences - now valued at more than $10 billion - joins Core Memory - now val...
Keller Rinaudo Cliffton on Zipline's Drone Delivery Journey from Blood to Burritos
26 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A few weeks ago, I went out to Zipline’s test facility in Half Moon Bay, California for a dinner and to see their delivery drones in action. I was n...
Joe Betts LaCroix on Longevity and Building and Destroying Things
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Altman has placed a few very large bets. There’s OpenAI, of course, and Helion Energy for fusion; World (fka Worldcoin) for finance and identity...