Rebuilding the Chemical Supply Chain with Sean Hunt

Today, Kyle Harrison, general partner at Contrary, sits down with Sean Hunt, co-founder and CTO of Solugen, to talk about how the company is reinventing chemical manufacturing from first principles. Sean explains why traditional chemical supply chains are fragile and carbon-intensive — and how Solugen’s modular, carbon-negative Bioforge model could reshape industrial production.

We discuss the dynamics driving demand for domestic chemicals, how tariffs are creating new opportunities, why reusing abandoned infrastructure is critical for scaling manufacturing, and how Solugen thinks about licensing its technology in the future.

We also covered Discord’s CEO transition, Flow’s latest funding round, Elon Musk’s $20 billion xAI fundraising talks, and Apple’s push to manufacture more iPhones in India.