The Generalist
Episodes
Why One Superintelligence Is More Dangerous Than a Thousand (Vincent Weisser, CEO & Co-Founder of Prime Intellect)
24 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Much of the fear around AI centers on misalignment – the idea that powerful systems might act against human interests. Vincent Weisser worries about...
Why Robots Still Struggle With Simple Tasks (And What Might Finally Change That) | Karol Hausman, Co-Founder & CEO of Physical Intelligence
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Karol Hausman is the co-founder and CEO of Physical Intelligence, a robotics company building a general-purpose “AI brain for the physical world.”...
America’s Electric Power Grid Is Broken. This Startup Is Trying to Fix It. (Zach Dell, co-founder & CEO of Base)
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, America’s electrical system has rewarded utilities for building more infrastructure, not for lowering costs. The result is a grid that ...
Everyone Is Betting on Bigger LLMs. She's Betting They're Fundamentally Wrong. (Eve Bodnia, Founder & CEO of Logical Intelligence)
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Eve Bodnia is the co-founder and CEO of Logical Intelligence, which is developing energy-based reasoning models (EBMs) as an alternative to large lang...
How Bolt Survived An 85% Revenue Crash And Became Europe's Ride-Hailing Champion (Markus Villig, Founder & CEO)
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In 2013, on an Estonian island of just 10,000 residents, a teenager borrowed €5,000 from his parents and decided to take on Uber. Twelve years later...
The Private Company Bringing Nuclear Enrichment Back to America (Scott Nolan, CEO of General Matter)
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Roughly 20% of the U.S. power grid runs on nuclear energy. A quarter of the fuel behind it is headed toward a hard stop. In this episode, I sit down w...
Programming Sunlight: How Reflect Orbital Is Building Satellites to Redirect Light From Space (Ben Nowack, Founder & CEO)
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Most energy conversations start with scarcity. This one starts with abundance. Sunlight powers nearly everything on Earth, directly or indirectly. And...
Nothing’s Carl Pei on Building a $1B Smartphone Company, Why He Left OnePlus After 10 Days of Retirement, and Why He Thinks About Death Every Week
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Carl Pei is the founder of Nothing, the consumer electronics company known for its distinctive transparent design language across smartphones and audi...
Why Being a Generalist VC Is a Competitive Advantage | Aydin Senkut (Founder and Managing Partner at Felicis Ventures)
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Two decades ago, Aydin Senkut was a first-time fund manager with a thin track record to show prospective backers. LPs didn’t believe a solo GP, espe...
Joey Krug on Prediction Markets, Crypto Treasuries & the Next Era of On-Chain Finance (Partner at Founders Fund)
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Prediction markets are no longer a fringe curiosity. They are becoming one of the most revealing instruments in modern finance. Platforms like Polymar...
How a Solo Founder is Reshaping Global Finance (Parth Garg, CEO of Aspora)
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 2022, Parth Garg woke up in Bangalore to discover that his co-founder had fled the country and emailed their investors to tell them t...
How Do You Build a New Singapore? Inside Próspera’s Bet on Private Governance | Erick Brimen (Founder and CEO)
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if you could redesign the rules of society? Not tweak the margins, but start over entirely. That’s the question driving Erick Brimen, founder a...
Why Psychedelics Might Be the Breakthrough That PTSD Patients Need | Kevin Ryan (The Godfather of NYC Tech)
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Often called the godfather of NYC tech, Kevin Ryan is one of America’s most influential entrepreneurs and investors. He co-founded MongoDB, Business...
The Trillion-Dollar AI Hardware Opportunity | Navin Chaddha (Managing Partner, Mayfield)
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Navin Chaddha has spent three decades at the forefront of innovation—first as a founder, and now as managing partner at Mayfield, one of Silicon Val...
Biological Time Travel: How Cryopreservation Could Transform Medicine | Laura Deming (CEO & co-founder of Until)
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From a child prodigy in a genetics lab to building a company that can pause life itself, Laura Deming has made a career out of chasing time. At just e...
"This feels like 1996": Why a16z's Martin Casado believes the AI boom still has years to run (General Partner)
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Casado has lived through multiple tech waves—first as a founder, now as a16z’s leading voice on AI and infrastructure. He helped pioneer so...
How to be Agentic in the Age of AI | Cate Hall (CEO of Astera)
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cate Hall is the CEO of Astera, a private foundation focused on AI risk and frontier technology. Before leading Astera, Cate’s unconventional career...
Maintaining Human Intelligence in the AI Era | David Krakauer (President of the Santa Fe Institute)
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Krakauer is a leading complex systems researcher and the president of the Santa Fe Institute, a unique institution dedicated to studying complex...
Building Beautiful Homes with Robots: The Future of Construction | Salar al Khafaji (CEO and Founder of Monumental)
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Salar al Khafaji is the CEO and founder of Monumental, a company building autonomous robots that assemble buildings, starting with its bricklaying sys...
What Makes Something Alive? Assembly Theory and the Origins of Life | Sara Walker (Theoretical Physicist)
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sara Walker is a theoretical physicist who studies the origins of life and the author of Life as No One Knows It. As AI prompts us to rethink what con...
Reviving Forgotten Technologies: How Airships, Supersonic Flight, and Geothermal Energy Could Transform Our World | Eli Dourado (Head of Strategic Investments at Astera Institute)
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Eli Dourado is Head of Strategic Investments at Astera Institute, a foundation funding transformative science and technology across energy, aerospace,...
Inside General Catalyst’s $1B+ Bet on Fixing Healthcare | Hemant Taneja (CEO and Managing Partner)
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hemant Taneja is the CEO and Managing Partner of General Catalyst, a venture capital firm that has evolved into what he describes as a "strategic...
The Future of Crypto: Stablecoins, AI Integration, and the Path to Mass Adoption | Jesse Walden (Founder and Managing Partner at Variant)
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jesse Walden is the founder and managing partner of Variant Fund, an early-stage crypto fund backing projects like Uniswap, Phantom, World, Morpho, Fl...
The Evolution of AI Agents: Navigating the “Fog of AI” in Rapidly Changing Foundations | Stanislas Polu and Harrison Chase
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What’s next for AI agents, and how will they change the way we work? In this conversation, Stanislas Polu (CEO of Dust, formerly research at OpenAI)...
The Decade of Data with Tomasz Tunguz
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tomasz Tunguz has spent almost two decades turning data into investment insights. After an impressive run at Redpoint Ventures, where he backed Look...
Why the Real Computer Revolution Never Happened | Alan Kay & Anjan Katta
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I'm thrilled to share this very special episode of The Generalist—one I've been looking forward to for a long time. Today, we tackle one of ...
No Rivals
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s podcast is a little different. Instead of a new interview, you’ll hear Part I of “No Rivals,” The Generalist’s definitive four-part ...
Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity: Lessons from AI, Pandemics, and Nuclear Threats | Toby Ord (Author of "The Precipice")
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How close are we to the end of humanity? Toby Ord, Senior Researcher at Oxford University’s AI Governance Initiative and author of The Precipice, ar...
Are We Alone In The Universe? Sara Seager on Exoplanets, Venus, and the Hunt for Alien Life (Astrophysicist and Planetary Scientist at MIT)
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why search for life beyond Earth? For MIT astrophysicist and MacArthur Genius Fellow Sara Seager, it’s not just a scientific question—it’s a dee...
Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading | Nadia Asparouhova (Writer and Researcher)
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Some ideas spread like wildfire. Others vanish before they take root—too strange, too threatening, too forgettable. In this episode of The Generalis...
Creating Stars in a Bottle: The Race to Commercialize Fusion Energy | Vinod Khosla & Bob Mumgaard
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
While the world fights over chips, one company is building the power supply to run them all. In this episode of The Generalist, I'm joined by Bob ...
The Semiconductor Century with Chris Miller (Author of “Chip War”)
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What really determines success in the age of AI? Is it better models or broader reach? Chris Miller, author of the bestselling book Chip War, explains...
How Anduril Is Reimagining the Defense Industry: Faster Tech, Ethical AI, and a New Kind of Deterrence | Trae Stephens (Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Anduril)
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when you apply Silicon Valley’s speed and innovation to reinvent defense technology? Trae Stephens, co-founder of Anduril, is running t...
The Substack Playbook: Inside The $650M Platform Rewriting Media, Trust, and Creator Economics | Chris Best & Hamish McKenzie (Co-Founders)
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In a world where attention is fragmented and algorithms rule the content landscape, Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie are taking a radically different ap...
Lessons from 20 Years of Venture Capital: Roelof Botha (Managing Partner and Steward at Sequoia Capital)
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sequoia Capital is synonymous with outstanding performance, backing companies like Apple, Google, Airbnb, and Stripe. In today’s episode, I chat wit...
Shrinking the Gap Between Sci-Fi and Sci-Fact: Josh Wolfe (Co-Founder of Lux Capital)
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Josh Wolfe is a co-founder of Lux Capital, where he funds the kinds of ventures that change everything: think gene-edited pig organs and technology th...
How AI Will Enhance Human Potential, Not Replace It: Reid Hoffman
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Science fiction has long warned of AI's dark side. Think: Robots turning against us, surveillance, and lost agency. But in this episode of The Gen...
Introducing The Generalist Podcast
31 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to The Generalist – a podcast about the future brought to you by Mario Gabriele. This isn’t your typical innovation podcast. Each week, we...