In this engaging conversation, Ben Reinhardt, founder of Speculative Technologies and former NASA researcher, discusses the disconnect between tech entrepreneurs and philanthropy. He critiques traditional philanthropic models while advocating for innovative funding approaches to support foundational research. Ben highlights the vital role of materials and manufacturing in technological progress and proposes a four-phase roadmap for deploying speculative technologies. The nuances of trusting credentials and fostering collaboration across sectors for breakthrough innovations are also explored.
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insights INSIGHT
Speculative Technologies' Mission
Speculative Technologies aims to bring awesome technologies into the world by removing constraints.
They focus on a four-stage process: roadmapping, de-risking, building, and deployment.
insights INSIGHT
Startup Incentives and Overlooked Steps
Startups often overlook roadmapping and risk assessment due to pressure from investors.
This pressure pushes them towards niche applications, hindering their full potential.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Improving Startup Practices
Startups could improve by using tranches and milestones, similar to biotech.
This involves negotiating funding based on clear milestones and de-risking experiments.
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The Road is set in a world that has been devastated by an unspecified cataclysmic event, resulting in the extinction of nearly all life on Earth. The story follows an unnamed father and his young son as they travel south along the road, carrying their meager possessions and a pistol with only two bullets. The father, suffering from a worsening respiratory condition, is determined to protect his son from the dangers of their new world, including cannibalistic marauders. Along their journey, they encounter various survivors, some of whom are cruel and others who show kindness. The novel explores themes of love, survival, and the preservation of humanity in a world devoid of hope. Ultimately, the father's health fails, and he dies, but not before ensuring his son's safety with a new family who may offer a chance for a better future[2][3][4].
The Status Game
Will Storr
The Hypomanic Edge
The Link Between (a Little) Craziness and (a Lot) of Success in America
John D. Gartner
In this book, Gartner argues that hypomania, characterized by heightened energy, creativity, and ambition, has been a driving force behind many of America's most innovative and successful individuals. He examines historical figures such as Christopher Columbus, Alexander Hamilton, and modern-day entrepreneurs like Ted Turner, suggesting that their hypomanic tendencies contributed to their remarkable achievements. Gartner also emphasizes the importance of managing hypomania to prevent it from escalating into full-blown mania, and advocates for recognizing and nurturing the positive aspects of this condition rather than stigmatizing it.
The Beginning of Infinity
Explanations That Transform the World
David Deutsch
In this groundbreaking book, David Deutsch argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the universe and that improving them is the basic regulating principle of all successful human endeavor. The book takes readers on a journey through various fields of science, history of civilization, art, moral values, and the theory of political institutions. Deutsch explains how we form new explanations and drop bad ones, and discusses the conditions under which progress, which he argues is potentially boundless, can and cannot happen. He emphasizes the importance of good explanations, which he defines as those that are 'hard to vary' and have 'reach', and argues that these explanations are central to the Enlightenment way of thinking and to all scientific and philosophical progress.
What Works on Wall Street, Fourth Edition
The Classic Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time
James P. O'Shaughnessy
In this book, James P. O'Shaughnessy presents a detailed analysis of various investment strategies that have historically outperformed the market. He challenges conventional wisdom by using back-tested data to show that strategies combining value, size, momentum, and quality factors tend to achieve higher returns with manageable risk. The book covers a wide range of topics, including price-to-book ratios, dividend yields, buyback yields, and multifactor models, providing insights into how these strategies can be implemented to enhance investment performance[2][3][4].
Ben Reinhardt is the founder of Speculative Technologies “a nonprofit industrial research lab that’s working to unlock a wonderful, abundant future through technologies that don’t have a home in other institutions.”
He has previously worked at NASA and Bay Area startups/VC firms, founded a startup building robotics for eldercare, and helped entrepreneurs start companies in Singapore. Oh, and he has a Ph.D. in space robotics from Cornell University and is one of the few people with a B.Sc. in history!
Ben, who brings his expertise in emerging technologies to the OSV advisory council, joins the show to discuss why tech people don’t do philanthropy, when to trust a credential, why there aren’t more government moonshot programs, why academia is beholden to the new, and MUCH more!
I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. For the full transcript, episode takeaways, and bucketloads of other goodies designed to make you go, “Hmm, that’s interesting!”, check out our Substack.
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