Episodes

In Lightmatter co-founder Nick Harris, Ph.D, tells us how he’s spending the $800MM entrusted to him by investors. We explore how photonics is reshaping datacenter communications today. The physics of why light beats electricity for data transport, and how Lightmatter’s Passage interconnects and Guide lasers deliver. 0:11 – Welcome & introduction to Nick Harris and Lightmatter 0:49 – Lightmatter’s mission: a new Moore’s Law with light 2:46 – Nick’s origin story: from Micron to MIT to founding Li...

Humans have thought about UFOs and alien creatures descending from the stars for about as long as they have dreamt about having their own self driving cars. A two-day drive in a Tesla, with 96% of miles driven in “self-driving” mode with zero interventions, showed me that consumer self-driving cars are essentially here. Could Space Cows be far behind? Related episodes include: 60. Alex Kendall, Co Founder & CEO, Wayve 43. Georges Massing, VP MB.OS Automated Driving & E/E Integration, Mercedes-B...

Episode 61: Lasers to the rescue! Xcimer’s Founder, CEO, and Chief Science Officer Conner Galloway and Co-founder, President, and Chief Technology Officer Alex Valise are building the world’s most powerful gas lasers to ignite fusion energy. With $170MM of capital raised, they are, step-by-step, commercializing scientifically validated concepts to deliver big, beautiful, clean energy. 00:00 Welcome 00:28 Meet Conner, Alex, and Xcimer 12:44 Fusion Basics Explained 18:41 Inside the Fuel Pellet 28:...

Episode 60: Revolutionizing and Democratizing Autonomous Driving Alex Kendall, founder and CEO of Wayve, a UK-based company with $1.3 billion of funding from Microsoft, NVIDIA, Softbank and Uber, discusses Wayve’s head start in end-to-end AI for driving, its efficient training and run-time architecture, and its suitability to any car manufacturer. 00:00 Welcome to Tech Cars Machines 01:32 Introduction to Alex Kendall and Wayve 02:00 Wayve’s Autonomous Technology Explained 04:21 The End-to-End A...

Episode 59: The Cherry on Top of Decades of Fusion Development Brandon Sorbom, Chief Science Officer and Co-founder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, is helping spend $3+ billion to turn hydrogen into abundant, safe and readily available energy. In our fourth fusion episode, Brandon educates us on the most time-tested approach to fusion which uses powerful magnets. CFS hopes to deliver commercial energy by the early 2030s. 0:00 Introduction 02:33 The Journey from MIT to Commonwealth Fusion Systems...

Episode 58: A Novel Path to Fusion Energy Will Regan, President and Co-founder of Pacific Fusion, is helping spend $1+ billion to mimic the sun’s method for producing energy. In our third fusion episode, Will educates us on inertial confinement. He discusses the advancements that help smooth Pacific Fusion’s path to delivering commercial energy by the mid-2030s. 00:00 Welcome to Tech Cars Episode 58 04:09 Introduction to Pacific Fusion 07:24 Will Regan’s Journey to Pacific Fusion 10:57 Explainin...

“Twisty donuts” if you lean Republican, “French cruller” if you lean left. CEO and Co-founder Brian Berzin, describes how this shape and a focus on manufacturability will allow Thea Energy to deliver fusion energy in a cost-competitive manner. Following up on last week’s episode with Dr. Scott Hsu of Lowercarbon Capital, Brian discusses the innovative approach Thea Energy is taking to commercialize fusion energy. The conversation covers the company’s origins in the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, ...

Episode 57: $10 billion and the Universe’s Most Powerful Energy Source: Fusion Why have the biggest names (such as Bill Gates, Lowercarbon Capital, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Google and Sam Altman) put billions into dozens of fusion energy companies? An engaging, accessible discussion with Dr. Scott Hsu on the fascinating world and private company ecosystem of the fusion energy. Scott was with with the DOE where he helped allocate $100MM of fusion R&D investment. He is now Partner at Lowercar...

Protecting $500 billion dollars of real estate value: Mike Zukerman, CEO of CSAA, an $8 billion carrier of insurance distributed through AAA Clubs, tells how technology helps protect that massive asset. He tells us how enterprise technology can “surprise and delight” CSAA’s 3 million policy holders, and how self-driving cars will change insurance strategy. 00:00 Introduction to Mike Zukerman & CSAA 01:40 Understanding CSAA and Its Business 04:24 Remote Work and Employee Satisfaction 08:30 Mike Z...

Jeff Huebner, Head of Mobilitas, discusses how he helps his commercial transportation networks manage their second-high expense: insurance. Ride sharing networks, last-mile delivery networks, and autonomous vehicle companies are his customers, and an enormous amount of customization and data ingestion and processing is involved. 00:00 Introduction 00:53  Jeff Hubner’s Background and Reconnection 01:48  Understanding AAA, CSAA, and Mobilitas 04:33  Mobils’ Mission and Services 06:25  Jeff Hubner’...

Episode 53: Making fleet electrification easy, with Alan White of Siemens. Alan details Siemens Depot 360’s comprehensive offerings to provide a turnkey, commercially attractive path for electrifying vehicle fleets. 00:00 Introduction to Siemens 02:08 Introduction to Depot 360 02:37 Benefits and Challenges of Electrification 03:30 Siemens Smart Infrastructure 05:26 Alan White’s Background and Career 07:36 Depot 360’s Operational Insights 16:25 Global Electrification Trends and Challenges 30:22 ...

Episode 52: Building the Future of Electric Trucking with Anja Van Niersen Anja Van Niersen, CEO of Milence, discusses plans to establish a charging network for European long-haul trucking. Milence is a 500MM Euro joint venture amongst Daimler, Traton and Volvo trucks. 00:00 Introduction to Milence 03:04 Anja’s background and career 03:10 Milence’s mission and operations 12:41 The profile of a charging hub 16:47 Future of heavy-duty/long-haul trucking 23:15 Geographical footprint and infr...

Live from Anaheim! I was at the world’s premier event for sustainable commercial transportation. Here’s a brief ~10-minute recap of key trends regarding China, electrification, sustainability’s future, and regulation. The highlight for me was driving a massive “day cab,” the driver part of a semi-truck. You can see the video at www.gtkpartners.com/act25

Episode 50: Building the Future of Electric Trucking with Patrick Macdonald-King of Greenlane In this milestone 50th episode of Tech. Cars. Machines., Patrick Macdonald-King, CEO of Greenlane, discusses plans to establish a charging network from the port of Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Greenlane is a $650MM joint venture amongst Daimler Trucks North America, NextEra Energy Resources, and BlackRock, and a leading, if not the leading, charging network for medium- and heavy-duty trucks. 00:00 Welcome ...

Lux Capital General Partner Shahin Farshchi, PhD, talked with me about his background, Lux’s history, and how the firm came to position itself as the leading investor in hard-tech. A focus on outstanding teams, market readiness, patience and taking the lead from entrepreneurs on the “next great sector” has led to investments such as Anduril, Aurora, Databricks, Hugging Face, Matterport, Nirvana, Planet Labs, Zededa and Zoox. Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below. You can read the related a...

AMD’s Mark Papermaster, CTO and EVP, talked with me about his background, AMD’s history, and how the company came to position itself as a “bankable supplier” with one of the most diverse semiconductor portfolios for the age of AI: CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, accelerators, custom development, and with rack-scale systems with the pending acquisition of ZT Systems. A focus on performance and open-ness are AMD’s guiding lights. Needless to say, we discussed DeepSeek AI, too. Note the “skip to” audio time sta...

Steve Patton shares EY’s perspective on how consumer demand and regulations shape the automotive landscape. We touch on Chinese car makers, sustainability, electrification, autonomy and logistics. Is sustainability self-sustaining, or does it still need regulatory incentives? Steve explains. Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below.  You can read the related article here in 3 minutes.     EY Transportation group is here.  Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  On some podcast players you can cli...

With the advantage of letting a few days pass before collecting my thoughts, two themes came into focus. First, the rise of Chinese auto companies, and the mainstreaming of electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and IoT were starkly clear. Second, I explain why there seems to me to be a correlation between exhibitor behavior and their business prospects. This isn’t investment advice, of course. Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  Other posts regarding CES: Chris Stallman, VC; Marc Amblard, Mobi...

Has any company made a bigger impact on the automotive sector in the last decade than Tesla? Love them or hate them, in electrification, auto dealership structure and passenger car autonomy Tesla has masterfully used the extraordinary latitude it’s been afforded by investors to disrupt of the industry.  We revisit and offer updated commentary from our original Everybody Hates Tesla episodes of a few years ago. Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below.  You can read the related article here in ...

Has any company made a bigger impact on the automotive sector in the last decade than Tesla? Love them or hate them, Tesla has masterfully used the extraordinary latitude it’s been afforded by investors and customers to disrupt the profit, supply and dealership structure of the industry.  This latitude is also potentially the Company’s biggest weakness, contributing to Groundhog Day execution problems and unnecessary “self-driving” claims. We revisit and offer updated commentary from our origina...

Can your AI make life-and-death decisions? Mercedes-Benz’s Drive Pilot can. Does your AI vendor take legal responsibility for those life-and-death decisions? Mercedes does. Drive Pilot is the only certified Level 3 passenger car system globally. Georges Massing, global head of the company’s automated driving and cabin technologies, tells us how. We hear his thoughts on how the technology ecosystem can work with Mercedes. You can read the related article here in 3 minutes. Mercedes-Benz’s globa...

Reilly Brennan, author of the must-read Future of Transportation newsletter and partner at Trucks VC, returns to Tech Cars Machines for a discussion on recent trends in transportation investing. We discuss financing round sizes and valuations, AI in autonomy and robotics, the promise of hydrogen combustion engines, the EV market, and much more. Host:  Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (2:35) Overview of Trucks VC and market trends (9:19) Discussion on capital investme...

China, EVs, vehicles that are too big and too heavy, autonomy, the future of transportation and lessons from history. We cover hot news and trends in all these sectors with Marc Amblard, Partner at Orsay Consulting, the well-known San Francisco-based advisor in automotive technology. He is the author of the widely read Mobility Revolution monthly newsletter. Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners. Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below.  You can read the related article here in 3 minutes.     On...

How do you start a new business in a large corporation and quickly scale it to hundreds of millions of revenues? Savi Baveja, President of 3D Printing and Chief Incubation Officer at HP, Inc. told me how. Focused on production, with markets in auto parts (custom Porsche seats), personal medical devices and drones, Savi gave me insights as only a Bain & Company veteran could. Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below.  You can read the related article here in 3 minutes. The HP 3D printing websit...