(Conversation recorded on March 18th, 2024)

Show Summary:

On this episode, Nate is joined by inventor and investor Tom Chi to take a broad look at the principles guiding innovation and capital - and how we might shift these to be more biophysically aligned in the future. For the past few centuries, our global industrial system has been dominated by growth-based economics without awareness of its dependence on the biosphere - or the waste that it leaves behind. What would it mean for our technology to be ecologically centered, working in service of and in synergy with complex, biodiverse life on Earth? How can we work within our current financial and governance systems to create initiatives that benefit both ecosystems and economies? More broadly, what cultural shifts could we imagine that move beyond seeing ourselves as simply dependent on ecological systems - but rather as a part of the entangled whole?

About Tom Chi:

Tom Chi is the founding partner of At One Ventures, which backs early-stage (Seed, Series A) companies using disruptive deep tech to upend the unit economics of established industries while dramatically reducing their planetary footprint. Previously, Tom was a founding member of Google X where he led the teams that created self-driving cars, deep learning artificial intelligence, wearable augmented reality and internet connectivity expansion.

For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.co...

0:00 - Intro
2:03 - At One Ventures
5:04 - The Three Epochs
6:48 - Epoch 0
8:19 - Epoch 1
15:01 - Discount Rates
21:05 - Ecological Investing
23:58 - Epoch 2
40:20 - Changing Incentives
43:19 - Scaling
47:18 - Anthropocentrism
51:22 - Epoch 3
1:02:57 - Complex Life
1:05:52 - The Organisms in the Middle
1:11:19 - Are Humans Beneficial?
1:14:11 - From Extractors to Stewards
1:17:48 - Robots Replacing Humans
1:19:42 - Climate Change
1:24:40 - Working with Beavers
1:28:46 - Carbon Sinks
1:35:58 - Carbon Technology
1:41:44 - How Do You Allocate Time?
1:46:15 - Interconnectedness
1:53:36 - Multi-Planetary Species
1:56:52 - Personal Advice
2:05:25 - Biggest Fear and Biggest Hope
2:14:42 - What Would You Do with a Magic Wand?
2:15:03 - Closing Thoughts

Music: Frontiers by Revo
Licensed through Music Vine
License ID: S549586-16003