Core Memory

Ashlee Vance

Core Memory is a podcast about science and technology hosted by best-selling author and filmmaker Ashlee Vance. Vance has spent the past two decades chronicling advances in science and tech for publications like The Economist, The New York Times and Bloomberg Businessweek. Along with the stories, he's written best-selling books like Elon Musk’s biography, made an Emmy-nominated tech TV show watched by millions and produced films for HBO and Netflix. The goal has always been to bring the tales of complex technology and compelling people to the public and give them a path into exceptional and unusual worlds they would not normally have a chance to experience. www.corememory.com

  1. 22 Jul

    The Google Engineer Who Set The Skydiving Record At 58 - EP 83 Alan Eustace

    Most people think that the Red Bull guy Felix Baumgartner holds the skydiving record. But this is not the case. The real record-holder is Alan Eustace. In 2014, at age 58, the Google engineer rode a helium-filled balloon into the stratosphere and then fell back to Earth from 135,890 feet. Eustace’s fall lasted 4 minutes and 27 seconds, and he broke the sound barrier, reaching a max speed of 822 mph. And now, in a very rare appearance, Eustace has come on the podcast to discuss his adventure. Baumgartner, who dropped from 128,852 feet, received tons of attention because Red Bull turned his jump into a media spectacle. Eustace, by contrast, came up with the plan for his jump and spacesuit at his kitchen table, paid for a small team to help him build his suit and then did his skydive with just a single reporter there as a witness. This all fits with Eustace’s personality. He’s quite private and just goes about his work. It took several months of begging to get Eustace on the show, and I don’t think he’s ever discussed his skydive in this type of detail before. In this episode, we get into what drove a 58-year-old man to want to chase this feat, the rich history of stratosphere jumping and Eustace’s remarkable career as one of the key Google engineers who built the modern internet. We also hear Eustace’s thoughts on AI and his latest quest to search the ocean floor. (I apologize for saying that Eustace jumped from space in the episode. It was the stratosphere. I was excited.) If you can spare a minute, please do us a favor by filling out this ever so brief survey, so we can learn a bit more about our subscribers. Help us be better for you. Thanks!! OUR SPONSORS SendCutSend You know who else makes stuff for America? That would be SendCutSend. If you want to celebrate our great nation by building a metal part, then head on over to SendCutSend where you’ll get a 15 percent discount thanks to Core Memory on whatever you’re trying to build. We believe in you. Brex The Core Memory podcast is also sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform built to help companies spend smarter and move faster. Did we go to Texas, find a telescope ranch and then obtain an entire nebula in Brex’s honor? Oh yes, we did. We run on Brex and so should you. Learn more about Brex right here. Timestamps (they link out to YouTube) 00:00 Intro03:26 Chasing Alan Eustace07:42 Rocket Sleds and Seatbelts10:38 Why Build a Capsule?13:00 Kittinger’s Three Jumps18:11 The Idea Takes Hold21:07 Elon’s Mars Greenhouse23:18 The Jump That Failed28:37 Solving the Death Spin30:07 Racing Red Bull32:26 One Reporter, No Livestream34:12 The Kittinger Coincidence38:26 Not Your Typical Daredevil40:43 Goodbye Videos for His Kids44:35 The First Spacesuit Jump48:37 Two Hours to Space50:53 Google Earth in Reverse54:36 Can I Get a Countdown?58:55 Breaking the Sound Barrier1:00:08 The Crash Landing1:02:16 What It Really Cost1:08:28 The Magic of Gas Balloons1:10:30 Did the Jump Change Him?1:17:03 The VLSI Golden Age1:22:56 Is AI Revolutionary?1:29:20 The Google Translate Story1:35:49 The Fall of DEC1:41:09 Reinventing the Data Center1:48:51 Impossible to Inevitable1:51:40 Inside Commonwealth Fusion1:56:21 Hunting Amelia Earhart2:03:21 What’s Under the Golden Gate? 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

    The Google Engineer Who Set The Skydiving Record At 58 - EP 83 Alan Eustace

  2. 15 Jul

    An Implant That Tracks And Treats Cancer Tumors - EP 82 Ben Woodington

    Treating cancer remains a crude practice. We cut, burn and poison tumors, and we do all this with relatively little precision around both the initial treatment and our ongoing monitoring of how effective the treatment is. You show up for scans now and again and hope that whatever you’ve been doing has been working. Ben Woodington - who is an absolute unit - and the team at Coherence have come up with a new way to monitor and treat tumors. They’ve built an implant that, as the name suggests, gets placed inside the body to keep a constant watch on a tumor’s behavior. The chip also brings with it the ability to deliver electrical signals that may blunt a tumor’s growth. We’re talking constant monitoring of a tumor to see if treatments are working and the ability to read and write electrical signals as part of a totally novel bio-tech device. In this episode, Ben explains how this technology works and, more broadly, he walks us through the emerging field of neuro-oncology or cancer neuroscience. We have a look at Coherence’s device, which is reminiscent of Neuralink’s implant, and rival technology. Since we recorded this episode, Coherence has begun a study in Australia where its device is being used to record and stimulate brain activity in patients having brain tumors removed. The company has also put out a paper detailing some of its work and has brought on Neuralink’s neurosurgery lead Matthew MacDougall as an advisor and investor. This episode was a treat for me because I had no idea this type of technology even existed, and because Coherence seems to have made a remarkable amount of progress on its hardware in a short time. If you can spare a minute, please do us a favor by filling out this ever so brief survey, so we can learn a bit more about our subscribers. Help us be better for you. Thanks!! OUR SPONSORS SendCutSend You know who else makes stuff for America? That would be SendCutSend. If you want to celebrate our great nation by building a metal part, then head on over to SendCutSend where you’ll get a 15 percent discount thanks to Core Memory on whatever you’re trying to build. We believe in you. Brex The Core Memory podcast is also sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform built to help companies spend smarter and move faster. Did we go to Texas, find a telescope ranch and then obtain an entire nebula in Brex’s honor? Oh yes, we did. We run on Brex and so should you. Learn more about Brex right here. Timestamps (they link out to YouTube) 0:00 Intro3:54 Cut It, Poison It, Burn It. Is There a Fourth Way?6:16 Your Tumor Is Rewiring Your Brain8:29 The Clunky Device That Somehow Already Works11:35 Why Patients Take It Off15:12 Inside the Implant: A Neuralink for Tumors20:32 Could a Chip Replace the MRI?27:13 What the Mice Are Already Telling Them31:38 First Humans, and Why It's Always Australia35:36 "They Should Have Hired a Few Apple Engineers"43:24 Neuralink vs ONWARD: Who's Right About the Spine?47:09 The Idea Nobody Else in Neurotech Had1:01:45 Cut One Nerve and the Cancer Stops Spreading1:06:12 A Cancer Sensor Inside All of Us?1:09:12 Do Cancer Drugs Work Better Before 11 a.m.?1:14:59 If AI Ran Medicine, It Would Build This 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

    An Implant That Tracks And Treats Cancer Tumors - EP 82 Ben Woodington

  3. 9 Jul

    Inside The Media Marvel That Is TBPN

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.corememory.com Running a media business is hard. You’re competing for people’s attention. You must produce a relentless stream of new things that are good and different. And you’re often dependent on the ever-changing whims of the public and advertisers. John Coogan and Jordi Hays somehow made all of this look easy when they started TBPN in late 2024. The daily tech ne…

    Inside The Media Marvel That Is TBPN

  4. 8 Jul

    Quantum Everything Explained - EP 81 Prineha Narang

    Prineha Narang is one of the rising stars of science and the field of quantum technology. She earned her PhD in applied physics at Caltech, taught materials science at Harvard and now has her own lab at UCLA. The lab focuses on quantum materials, non-equilibrium dynamics, photonics, quantum information science and other easily digestible areas. Beyond her academic career, Narang is a science advisor to the government and a venture capitalist at DCVC. As you might imagine, we get into quantum computing and quantum technology in this episode. Quantum vs. AI, the US vs. China, when quantum tech will break encryption, quantum sensing and whether or not quantum technology actually has a bright future. The quantum sensing portion of the chat was all new to me and rather astonishing. Since Narang is also a competitive runner and mountaineer, we provide some top tips on gear because that is just the kind of all-purpose podcast that we deliver. And, if you can’t get enough quantum computing, come check out our video episode on PsiQuantum building the largest quantum machine in history. Enjoy! OUR SPONSORS SendCutSend You know who else makes stuff for America? That would be SendCutSend. If you want to celebrate our great nation by building a metal part, then head on over to SendCutSend where you’ll get a 15 percent discount thanks to Core Memory on whatever you’re trying to build. We believe in you! Brex The Core Memory podcast is also sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform built to help companies spend smarter and move faster. Did we go to Texas, find a telescope ranch and then obtain an entire nebula in Brex’s honor? Oh yes, we did. We run on Brex and so should you. Learn more about Brex right here. Narang Lab at UCLA: https://naranglab.ucla.edu DCVC: https://www.dcvc.com Oratomic (the Caltech neutral atom spinout): https://www.oratomic.com Atom Computing: https://atom-computing.com Mesa Quantum: https://mesaquantum.com Google's work on the cost of quantum factoring: https://blog.google/security/tracking...NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/post-q...DARPA Quantum Benchmarking Initiative: https://www.darpa.mil/research/progra...Hyperlite Mountain Gear (the Dyneema packs Prineha swears by): https://www.hyperlitemountaingear.com Timestamps (they link out to YouTube) 00:00 Intro02:17 The Physicist Who Almost Became a Pro Runner13:39 A Cold Email, a Full Ride, and the Road to Caltech26:15 How Video Game Chips Quietly Took Over Science31:56 Is Quantum Losing the Spotlight to AI?40:50 "I Still Don't Believe in Quantum": Answering the Skeptics46:28 The Google Result That Could Break Encryption53:44 Is It Time to Panic About Q-Day?1:06:48 Quantum Sensing and the Case of Who Sneezed1:17:30 Does Consciousness Run on Quantum Rules?1:22:28 The Advice She Gives Terrified Students1:30:20 So When Does Quantum Actually Get Real? 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

    Quantum Everything Explained - EP 81 Prineha Narang

  5. 17 Jun

    The Future Of Our Brains And Bodies - EP 77 Max Hodak Live Event

    Max Hodak is back. The co-founder and CEO of Science Corp. joined me for our first-ever live podcast recording, which took place at the Brex headquarters in San Francisco. Thanks so much to all the Core Memory subscribers who turned up. Max walked us through Science’s technology aimed at restoring vision in the blind, and the company’s new product lines focused on organ transplants and extending the abilities of brains. So, like, totally normal, everyday stuff. Mostly, we talked about the merger of humans and machines and the progression of bio-tech and AI technology. We’ve had Max on the show twice now because, for our money, he’s one of the most daring minds in the neuroscience and bio-tech fields, and there’s a decent chance that Science becomes one of the most fascinating companies in the world. Thanks, of course, to Brex for hosting this event and to you guys for all the great questions. The Core Memory podcast is on all major platforms and on our YouTube channel over here. If you like the show, please leave a review and tell your friends. Timestamps 0:00 Intro4:23 One Company or Three? Inside Science's Real Master Plan6:25 Why Is Humanity So Bad at Curing Disease?9:12 Implants That "Work" But Don't: Miracle or Mirage?13:34 Restoring Sight to the Blind: How PRIMA Really Works22:34 The BCI Gold Rush and the Money Problem No One Talks About31:44 Keeping Human Organs Alive Outside the Body36:52 Artificial Wombs and Bodies Grown Without a Brain?41:23 Audience Q&A: Is the AI Biotech Boom Actually Real?47:53 The Bet Every Other Bionic Eye Company Missed56:02 Can a Brain Implant Make Us Superhuman?1:05:04 What Will Surprise Us Most by 2035? 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

    The Future Of Our Brains And Bodies - EP 77 Max Hodak Live Event

  6. 9 Jun

    Redwood Materials Has Built A Recyling Empire

    A couple of months ago, we went out to Nevada to hang with JB Straubel, the founder and CEO of Redwood Materials and the co-founder of Tesla. JB took us on a tour of Redwood’s massive battery recycling operations and showed us the company’s next chapter, which centers on building battery and solar farms to power AI data centers. The result of our time with JB is a different style of podcast episode. You’ll probably want to consume this on the Substack, Spotify or YouTube where there’s video, and you can see what’s happening. If you’re not familiar with Redwood, well, it’s up to big things. Around 70 percent of all the lithium-ion batteries that have reached their end of life make their way to Redwood’s facility where they’re then broken down into their base elements, including lithium, cobalt and nickel. Redwood stands as the largest cobalt producer in the United States and does this all from recycling. As in, zero mining. Redwood is now taking car batteries that still have some life left in them and clustering them together alongside solar panels to create giant energy storage systems. Naturally, it’s aiming these systems at the AI set first, offering power that does not depend on the grid or turbines or anything else in short supply and high demand. In this episode, we go through Redwood’s entire recycling process and check out its first storage system. Along the way, we chat with JB about Redwood’s history and the recycling business. It’s a banger. OUR SPONSOR SendCutSend Do you make stuff? Do you need metal parts fast and believe in truth and justice? Then head on over to SendCutSend where you’ll get a 15 percent discount thanks to Core Memory on whatever you’re trying to build. We believe in you. 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

    Redwood Materials Has Built A Recyling Empire

  7. 16 Apr

    The $50,000 Underwater Drone - EP 66 Ulysses

    Guinness. Sharks. American manufacturing. These are a few of the interests I share with the founders of Ulysses, a San Francisco startup building autonomous underwater drones. The idea for Ulysses started when one of the four co-founders was on a surf trip and learned how much of humanity depends on a single marine plant: the humble seagrass. He spent a weekend designing a robot to plant it. Two years later, the group of Irishmen — and for diversity, a Scot — have moved well beyond ecological restoration. They’re providing services for the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and selling their drones to the U.S. Navy. The robots are called Mako. They’re two meters long, weigh about 400 pounds, and can dive 5,000 feet for up to 72 hours at a time. They’re also modular — payloads swap in and out like Legos, so the same vehicle that plants seagrass in Australia one week can inspect a submarine cable in the Baltic the next. A base Mako costs $50,000. Most legacy underwater drones built by big defense contractors can run between $1 million and $20 million each. On this episode of the Core Memory podcast, we’re joined by Will O’Brien and Akhil Voorakkara, co-founders of Ulysses. They build these drones out of an office in San Francisco — for conservation, for academia, for national defense. They just raised a $38 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz through its American Dynamism fund. We discuss what it actually takes to make robots for the most hostile environment on Earth, why the ocean is about to have its SpaceX moment, and the surprisingly thin line between planting seagrass and defending NATO. The Core Memory podcast is on all major platforms and on our YouTube channel over here. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review and tell your friends. This podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform built to help companies spend smarter and move faster. We run on Brex and so should you. Learn more about Brex right here. 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

  8. 15 Apr

    The Very Wild, Very Real Plan To Build AI Data Centers In The Ocean - EP 65 Garth Sheldon-Coulson

    We’re in a moment of insatiable desire for more energy and more computing. And so the ideas of how to provide said energy and computing are getting ever more adventurous. Case in point: Panthalassa, which is the subject of this week’s episode, alongside our guest Garth Sheldon-Coulson, the company’s co-founder and CEO. Panthalassa makes an object that it calls a node and that looks like a giant lollipop. This odd contraption is meant to live out in the deep ocean and produce energy from the movement of waves. Water goes into the node where it’s funneled through a series of channels and pressurized. After that, the water is directed into a turbine that spins and connects to a generator that produces electricity. How big is this node? Quite f*****g big. It’s about 20 meters across at the top of the lollipop and then goes down about 80 meters into the water. The contraption can move and steer on its own and travel about 30 miles a day to reach the ideal spots where the waves just keep coming and coming. There’s some universe where this thing is bobbing around in the ocean, generating electricity day and night and storing the electricity in batteries. Panthalassa, though, wants to put servers packed full of GPUs and TPUs right on board and use the electricity to fuel AI jobs. It will then send the results of the work up into space via Starlink and then back down to Earth. Simple. We get into all of this in detail with Sheldon-Coulson. Panthalassa has been operating in semi-secret for about ten years. This episode marks the first time that Sheldon-Coulson has discussed the company’s technology at length. We talk about his backstory, how this wild idea came to be and the engineering behind the nodes. The Core Memory podcast is on all major platforms and on our YouTube channel over here. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review and tell your friends. This podcast is sponsored by Brex, the intelligent finance platform built to help companies spend smarter and move faster. We run on Brex and so should you. Learn more about Brex right here. The podcast is also made possible by E1 Ventures, which backs the most ambitious founders and start-ups. 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

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About

Core Memory is a podcast about science and technology hosted by best-selling author and filmmaker Ashlee Vance. Vance has spent the past two decades chronicling advances in science and tech for publications like The Economist, The New York Times and Bloomberg Businessweek. Along with the stories, he's written best-selling books like Elon Musk’s biography, made an Emmy-nominated tech TV show watched by millions and produced films for HBO and Netflix. The goal has always been to bring the tales of complex technology and compelling people to the public and give them a path into exceptional and unusual worlds they would not normally have a chance to experience. www.corememory.com

Information

  • Creator
    Ashlee Vance
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    85
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Core Memory
  • Show Website
    Core Memory

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