Core Memory

This week’s guest is Naman Pushp, the founder and CEO of Airbound.
Pushp is all of 21 years old and trying to build an aerospace giant in India. His company, Airbound, produces carbon fiber to create very lightweight, very efficient aircraft used for the moment to deliver small packages of cargo around the country. Pushp’s core thesis is that the aviation industry has not been aggressive enough with its use of carbon fiber and that he can uses materials advances to outflank drone delivery companies first and then perhaps create a new class of planes for humans too.
These are big hopes and dreams and very big claims! And the company has a long, long way to go. But this is all to be expected.
I recently visited Airbound’s headquarters and test sites in Bangalore and came away rather impressed with Pushp and his team. They’ve built two versions of their aircraft, and we watched dozens of them fill the skies. The machines take off vertically and then zoom off like airplanes. They’re quiet, and they can hover.
Pushp is a self-taught engineer who learned how to build things with carbon fiber by watching YouTube videos and then began constructing aircraft in his teenage bedroom. He got into Carnegie Mellon but skipped university to build Airbound instead. He’s bright and (very) confident.
He’s also representative of a new era in Indian technology. Some of the country’s brightest, most ambitious youngsters are opting to stay at home and to try and build hard tech companies that do real innovation, as opposed to mimicking what has happened elsewhere.
We get into ALL of this on the podcast. And this marks the start of a series of videos, podcasts, and stories we have coming on the rise of the Indian tech scene. I’ve already managed to anger a large swath of the Indian venture capital industry with this story and am sure to anger others as we go on this journey.
SPONSOR
The wonderful people at Brex helped make these stories from India possible. You can catch a taste of the adventures here.
I’ve worked at large companies like The New York Times and Bloomberg, and their expense systems were terrible. Brex’s expense management systems, by contrast, are fantastic. AI agents run around taking care of tons of stuff for you and give you back your time.
Your company should switch to Brex to make life better for everyone. Find out more here.
TIMESTAMPS
CHAPTERS0:00 Intro6:01 Replacing Roads With Aircraft7:37 Designing Around Carbon Fiber14:23 Taking On Drone Delivery21:29 From Deliveries to Passengers23:09 Aircraft From a Bedroom32:38 From Project to Company37:53 Choosing Aircraft Over College41:11 Why Build in India?48:13 Life With Instant Delivery52:28 India's New Hardware Generation1:01:48 Why Skip Defense Contracts?1:04:35 Democracy and Getting Things Built1:07:40 India Between America and China1:13:18 Can Carbon Fiber Get Cheaper?1:21:44 The Trouble With Scaling



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Neal Stephenson came on the podcast. What else do I have to tell you?
The man has a weird mind portal into how technology will develop and has influenced generations of nerds. As a result, I seem to have spent my career covering things that Stephenson predicted in his best-selling books.
He’s out with a new book now, D: Heavy Water, which served as a lovely excuse to get Neal on the show.
In the episode, we talk space, brain computer interfaces, swords, Hollywood and much more. Oddly, Stephenson says that the rapid development of AI caught him off guard. Go figure.
Anyway. Living Legend. Go listen and watch.
SPONSOR
Some of you will be wondering, “Is this episode sponsored?”. Yeah, it is. By the wonderful people at Brex.
I’ve worked at large companies like The New York Times and Bloomberg, and their expense systems were terrible. Brex’s expense management systems, by contrast, are fantastic. AI agents run around taking care of tons of stuff for you and give you back your time.
Your company should switch to Brex to make life better for everyone. Find out more here.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro1:53 D and the Atomic Race4:34 Inside the Book Tour8:21 AI Caught Him Off Guard11:09 Is This the Singularity?15:27 AI's Manhattan Project Moment28:32 Brains, Bodies and Words38:31 What Actually Worries Neal40:11 Can Fiction Inspire Progress?49:56 Why No Snow Crash?55:06 Jane Austen Meets Fortnite1:03:21 Inside Early Blue Origin1:13:43 Rockets, Guns and Giant Towers1:20:36 Why Radical Rockets Struggle1:23:05 Swords and Selective Technology1:27:15 Can AI Fix Education?1:32:31 Storytelling Versus Predicting the Future



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

We’re heading into fighter jet territory this week with Zach Shore (CEO) and A.J. Piplica (Co-Founder and Executive Chairman) of Hermeus.
Founded in 2018, Hermeus has set out to make supersonic and even hypersonic jets that can fly themselves. They’re part of this new wave of defense startups trying to prove that the U.S. can still produce technological marvels in a timely and not criminally expensive fashion. Hermeus’s planes would be a new breed of fighter jets that can use their speed and autonomy to carry out missions without putting pilots at risk.
We conducted this interview with Shore and Piplica a couple of months back at Spaceport America just ahead of a test flight of Hermeus’s Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 plane. I’m pleased to tell you that the plane did indeed go supersonic, and it was awesome to behold. We’ll have a video on the experience soon on our YouTube channel.
This interview covers Hermeus’s journey, the state of the U.S. defense industry, plane design and how the U.S. hopes to keep pace with China in areas like hypersonic flight.
Hermeus’s planes are remotely piloted for now, but it has partnered with Anduril to give its aircraft autonomous mission capabilities. For hypersonic flight, it’s developing a fascinating hybrid engine design intended to switch from a turbine to a ramjet midair.
Hermeus achieved supersonic flight on Mk 2.1’s third test flight and is betting it can keep building and testing new prototypes much faster than traditional defense contractors. You can see its planes and timelines here.
SPONSOR
Some of you will be wondering, “Is this episode sponsored?”. Yeah, it is. By the wonderful people at Brex.
I’ve worked at large companies like The New York Times and Bloomberg, and their expense systems were terrible. Brex’s expense management systems, by contrast, are fantastic. AI agents run around taking care of tons of stuff for you and give you back your time.
Your company should switch to Brex to make life better for everyone. Find out more here.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro3:39 Supersonic With Nobody Aboard6:21 Building an Aircraft Company17:02 From Turbines to Ramjets22:18 The Unmanned Bomb Truck30:25 Will Passengers Fly Hypersonic?31:56 America's Flight Testing Bottleneck40:08 Who Actually Flies It?45:12 Rebuilding the Skunk Works47:06 China and America's Aerospace Bet



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

Our guests this week are Andrew Kiguel and Matt McMullen from Realbotix.
Realbotix makes humanoid robots that actually look like humans. McMullen, who founded the company, has spent years refining the animatronics and materials needed to create lifelike machines. His past creations have received tons of media attention both because they’re striking and because they veer into companionship and sex territory.
Lars and the Real Girl? Yep, that’s Matt’s work.
Realbotix, though, is an attempt to take the technology in a different direction. The company has made AI-infused bots that it wants to put to work out in the world. The bots could greet guests at hotels, provide information at hospitals or perhaps tutor students at schools. The Realbotix bots can carry on conversations and use vision systems to recognize people and take in their surroundings.
We conducted this interview in Las Vegas where Realbotix has its headquarters. In a future video on our YouTube channel, which is awesome and you should subscribe to, I head out into Vegas with a bot named Aria, and we have a delightful afternoon together.
Some of you will think these robots are weird. And I get this.
I will, however, add that most of the humanoids out there are very boring. Companies have focused on what the robots can do rather than what they look like. The folks at Realbotix, by contrast, have put a lot of time and energy into trying to figure out how humans and robots will interact and progress together. We get into all of this on the show.
SPONSOR
Some of you will be wondering, “Is this episode sponsored?”. Yeah, it is. By the wonderful people at Brex.
I’ve worked at large companies like The New York Times and Bloomberg, and their expense systems were terrible. Brex’s expense management systems, by contrast, are fantastic. AI agents run around taking care of tons of stuff for you and give you back your time.
Your company should switch to Brex to make life better for everyone. Find out more here.
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro3:31 Robots Built for Conversation5:58 An Artist Builds a Robot15:31 Faces You Can Swap23:40 What Does a Robot Cost?26:17 Giving the Robot a Personality28:32 The RealDoll Question33:32 Can Robots Ease Loneliness?43:52 Hotel Clerks and Robot Tutors46:41 Hands, Eyes, and Memory56:31 Escaping the Uncanny Valley1:04:41 China and the Robot Bubble1:09:24 How Unfiltered Should AI Be?



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe

This week’s guest is Brent Underwood, the proud owner of Cerro Gordo Mines.
That’s right. In 2018, Underwood bought the ghost town of Cerro Gordo, located near Death Valley in California, and its old mining operations for $1.4 million. This was a legit crazy thing to do. But, here we are eight years later, and Underwood has turned his sidequest into his mainquest, and he now has a booming YouTube channel in which he documents life at Cerro Gordo. This includes exploration of the mines and Underwood’s attempt to restore the ghost town into a habitable site that people can visit.
You will notice (if you’re viewing instead of just listening) that the set for this podcast is awesome. That’s because we went to visit Underwood a couple of months back for this podcast and for a video that will be coming out on our own booming YouTube channel.
We spent a couple of nights at Cerro Gordo, living in an old miner’s house, and we explored the grounds with Underwood.
As you’ll hear in this episode, Cerro Gordo was a long-running silver mine and, at its peak, had 4,000 people living in the mountains and working the many miles of mines. It’s quite well preserved. You can see the old brothel, theater, and store. And Underwood has been rebuilding the American Hotel that once served as the centerpiece of the town.
Underwood does crazy things at Cerro Gordo. He’ll lower himself down the main mine shaft and then spend days underground. He’s used his exploring to help build out the history of Cerro Gordo and wrote an amazing book about Cerro Gordo and his adventures. You should probably buy it and read it.
We obviously get into all of the above with Underwood, who is a wonderful storyteller and a good dude.
SPONSOR
Some of you will be wondering, “Is this episode sponsored?”. Yeah, it is. By the wonderful people at Brex.
I’ve worked at large companies like The New York Times and Bloomberg, and their expense systems were terrible. Brex’s expense management systems, by contrast, are fantastic. AI agents run around taking care of tons of stuff for you and give you back your time.
Your company should switch to Brex to make life better for everyone. Find out more here.
Timestamps
0:00 Intro4:53 How to Buy a Town11:29 The American Hotel Burns17:36 History Meets the YouTube Algorithm22:46 Five Days Below Ground28:29 The West Was Brutal33:33 Who Actually Got Rich?40:37 Where the Water Went44:31 California Versus the Hotel49:14 Can a Ghost Town Live?


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.corememory.com/subscribe