Inventing The Future Pablos Holman On Technology, AI, & Building What’s Never Been Done
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Key Quotes
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🎯 Summary
Summary of Finding Genius Podcast Episode with Pablo S. Holman
This episode of The Finding Genius Podcast, hosted by Richard Jacobs, features venture capitalist Pablo S. Holman, Managing Director of Deep Future. The discussion centers on Holman’s focus on deep tech investing—funding breakthrough technologies often ignored by mainstream Silicon Valley—and highlights several specific, high-impact investments his firm is pursuing.
1. Main Narrative Arc and Key Discussion Points
The conversation begins with Jacobs establishing the podcast’s mission: interviewing “geniuses” to distill complex knowledge. Holman introduces his role at Deep Future, emphasizing their focus on deep tech—technologies that require fundamental scientific breakthroughs to improve industries like energy, food, mining, and manufacturing by factors of 10x or 100x, rather than incremental software improvements. The core of the episode is Holman detailing two specific, revolutionary investments: autonomous, wind-powered cargo ships and next-generation, highly efficient electric motors based on novel magnetic configurations.
2. Major Topics, Themes, and Subject Areas Covered
- Deep Tech Venture Capital: Investing in foundational science and engineering before traditional financial metrics (like spreadsheets or revenue) are available.
- Maritime Technology: Decarbonizing and automating global shipping.
- Advanced Materials Science: The creation of ultra-long carbon nanotubes for high-performance applications.
- Electromagnetism and Motor Efficiency: Breakthroughs in magnetic configurations leading to vastly more efficient electric motors.
- Investment Stages: Delineation between pre-seed (Holman’s focus), seed-stage, and Series A funding rounds.
3. Technical Concepts, Methodologies, or Frameworks Discussed
- Autonomous Sailing Cargo Ships: Utilizing rigid, computer-controlled sails (like drones) for propulsion, achieving 100% fuel savings (relying on wind, supplemented by solar and regenerative drag charging batteries). The hull design is crucial, requiring a V-shaped hull for stability against sideways wind forces, unlike the flat hulls of conventional cargo ships.
- Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs): The ability to produce super long, ultra-long CNTs from methane cracking. This overcomes the historical limitation of CNTs being produced only as “dust.” The strength of these long fibers, held together by van der Waals forces, makes them candidates for materials like carbon fiber 2.0, potentially enabling concepts like a space elevator.
- Virtual Tri-Polar Magnetism: A novel magnetic arrangement (North-South-North or similar configuration) that allows for stable magnetic levitation and enables the creation of highly efficient electric motors.
4. Business Implications and Strategic Insights
- Disrupting Legacy Industries: Deep tech aims to overhaul massive, slow-moving sectors (like shipping) where software alone cannot drive necessary improvements.
- Efficiency Gains in Shipping: The autonomous sailing ships offer massive cost savings (eliminating fuel costs, which account for five out of six dollars spent) and align with new maritime emission standards. The bottleneck in shipping is port waiting time, not sea travel time.
- Material Revolution: Long CNTs promise to replace traditional high-performance materials in aerospace, automotive, and construction (e.g., replacing rebar).
- Electric Motor Efficiency: The new magnetic configuration achieves 97% efficiency, significantly outperforming current motors (often in the 60% range), leading to increased range for drones and electric vehicles, and reduced waste heat.
5. Key Personalities, Experts, or Thought Leaders Mentioned
- Pablo S. Holman: Venture capitalist, inventor, and technology futurist, Managing Director of Deep Future.
- Richard Jacobs: Host of The Finding Genius Podcast.
- Peter Diamandis: Mentioned as an inspiration for starting the podcast due to his future-focused newsletters.
- Jeff Bezos: Mentioned in Holman’s background regarding playing with spaceships at Blue Origin.
6. Predictions, Trends, or Future-Looking Statements
- Everything requiring high-performance materials (skis, race cars, rockets) will eventually be made from ultra-long CNTs.
- The new highly efficient electric motors will eventually be used in “everything that flies at least and that is electric,” as well as cars, motorcycles, and power plants.
- The autonomous cargo ships may initially carry only a few thousand containers, serving smaller ports currently underserved by massive container vessels.
7. Practical Applications and Real-World Examples
- Cargo Ships: Eliminating fuel costs and reducing emissions while only slightly increasing transit time (which is often irrelevant due to port congestion).
- CNTs: Creating tape, ropes, wires, and honeycomb panels; the theoretical application of a space elevator tether.
- Motors: Creating highly efficient ring motors (axle-less design) ideal for electric drones and aircraft, offering more thrust or range without added weight. They can also improve microphone fidelity by eliminating physical connections.
8. Controversies, Challenges, or Problems Highlighted
- Retrofitting Ships: Existing cargo ships cannot be easily retrofitted for sailing because their flat hulls are not designed to handle the lateral forces generated by sails, leading to excessive rolling.
- Investment Risk: Deep tech investing is challenging because it precedes traditional metrics; investors must deeply understand the underlying science to assess commercialization potential.
- Piracy/Security: The lack of crew on autonomous ships removes the leverage pirates typically seek, though remote control and insurance considerations remain. The potential for acoustic signature confusion with military craft was raised as
🏢 Companies Mentioned
Motorcycle manufacturers (General)
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Tech/Automotive
Power plant operators (General)
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Energy/Utilities
Automotive companies (General)
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Tech/Automotive
Aircraft manufacturers (General)
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Tech/Aerospace
Drone manufacturers (General)
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Tech/Aerospace
Electric motor manufacturers (General)
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Tech/Manufacturing
Jeff Bezos
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Individual (Associated with Tech/Aerospace)
Google
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Tech (Search/Information)
Amazon
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E-commerce/Logistics/Tech
Series A
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Coast Guard
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Los Angeles
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And I
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Silicon Valley
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X Prize
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💬 Key Insights
"I believe that they're currently able to show 97% efficiency. Most of the motors deployed are kind of in the 60 range, 60%. Their world records are in the low 90s."
"And so this is kind of a cool, you know, discovery, but it's allowed them to create the most efficient electric motor in the world."
"We're usually the first investor for these kinds of things. Because we're focused on investing in technologies, and most of the investment community can't really do that. They're sort of focused on some kind of financial or performance metrics."
"A team that's figured out how to produce carbon nanotubes that are super long. So you've probably heard of carbon nanotubes for decades, but they have been mostly useless because all anyone can do is produce carbon nanotubes that are like dust."
"Well, we don't have a fuel cost. So we have no reason to make them big. And so we can make a lot more smaller cargo ships, which is great because they can go right to their destination instead of clogging up these huge ports."
"The average from China to Los Angeles is about 50 days. And only 14 of those are on the water. The rest of the time is just waiting at ports, clogging up."
📊 Topics
#artificialintelligence
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#investment
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#startup
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