Austin Next

Jason Scharf

Austin is building the new tech, cultural, and intellectual stack. The region is a living laboratory to answer a single question: How do you build a global innovation superpower? Host Jason Scharf dissects innovation from the individual to the ecosystem. From the soundstage to the data center to the fab, we decode the mechanics of Austin's innovation ecosystem. As Atoms, Bits, and Intelligence converge, we explore how Hard Tech scale, digital velocity, and creative density collide. This is an audit of the future. We map the physics of the flywheel so builders and investors can navigate the chaos.

  1. We're Living Through the Cyberpunk Era of War | Jim Rebesco, CEO, Striveworks

    24. MÄRZ

    We're Living Through the Cyberpunk Era of War | Jim Rebesco, CEO, Striveworks

    Directed energy weapons, autonomous drones, and combat AI agents are not just real. They are deployed. Jim Rebesco, cofounder and CEO of Striveworks, breaks down what's driving this moment, and the second and third-order effects most people aren't tracking yet. AI can't be bolted onto legacy systems and expected to perform.  It demands a blank sheet of paper. New design philosophy, new economics, new operational infrastructure.  The old model of pitching a PowerPoint and billing for development is already crumbling. What replaces it is being built right now. Agenda 0:00 We're already living in the cyberpunk era of war 5:34 When do you trust an agent with your credit card 14:04 The blank sheet of paper and the F-16 19:34 From Wall Street algorithms to battlefield AI 24:34 What Gen Alpha already takes for granted 32:34 When science fiction becomes reality 38:34 The $500 drone and the new economics of defense 45:34 The trust stack and the agentic AI revolution Guest Links & BioJim Rebesco: LinkedInStriveworks: WebsiteStriveworks Raises Growth Capital Led By Washington Harbour Partners Dr. Jim Rebesco is CEO and a co-founder of Striveworks, an artificial intelligence company focused on the deployment of AI/ML models at scale. He is a board member for Sayari Labs, a leading financial intelligence company, and has served as a consulting member of the Army Science Board.  Prior to founding Striveworks, Dr. Rebesco worked at Virtu Financial, a leading electronic market-making firm, where he led trading and data science teams as a partner in the firm. He was instrumental in building Virtu's capabilities from the beginning in data science and analytics and played a critical role in the firm's IPO in 2015.  Dr. Rebesco has been engaged with the Federal Reserve Board, elements within the Department of Defense, the United States Military Academy, and others as a recognized subject matter expert in both Al and its applications to various industries, including finance and national defense. Dr. Rebesco earned his B.S. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology and his PhD in computational neuroscience from Northwestern University.  -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    52 Min.
  2. Innovation Ecosystems Are Inherited | Nait Jones

    18. MÄRZ

    Innovation Ecosystems Are Inherited | Nait Jones

    The hype that landed on Austin in 2021 was correct and at the same time ahead of the curve. Nait Jones, serial founder and former a16z partner who arrived in Silicon Valley in 2011 at the Web 2 moment and moved to Austin during the pandemic, argues that the fundamentals have now caught up Jones traces what he calls a spiritual succession. A direct genealogy from Arthur Rock's invention of venture capital through Fairchild, Intel, Dell, and UT research into the current generation of robotics, defense, and energy infrastructure concentrated within a 200-mile radius. The city's defensible moat is where intelligence meets the physical world, the hardware and the software built as one.  The result will look nothing like what came before it. Agenda 0:00 Intro + Silicon Valley 2011 and the Web 2 Gold Rush 9:17 How The Social Network Changed the Talent Pipeline 11:16 Inside the a16z Partner Meeting 14:48 Spiritual Succession from Arthur Rock to Austin 18:06 The 2021 Hype Was Real, Just Early 20:26 California and Delaware's Self-Inflicted Wounds23:43 The 200-Mile Radius26:26 Permission to Build and the Sunlight Metaphor 30:20 Foundational Models Belong to SF 34:48 Third Places and Connective Tissue 42:29 The Storytelling Gap 45:44 Six-Month Vesting in the AI Era 49:04 Seedance, Suno, and the Creation-Consumption Collapse 54:59 The Barbell of Synthetic Media and Analog Craft 59:27 Copyright, IP, and the Entertainment Layer Cake Guest LinksNait Jones: X, LinkedInAdtwin: Website, LinkedIn -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    1 Std. 2 Min.
  3. The Western Canon in the Age of Vibe Coding | Carlos Carvalho, President, University of Austin

    11. MÄRZ

    The Western Canon in the Age of Vibe Coding | Carlos Carvalho, President, University of Austin

    American universities stopped optimizing for students a long time ago. The University of Austin was built as a direct counter to that failure. Carlos Carvalho, its president, brings a statistician's precision to the diagnosis, tracing the causal chain from dropped standards to credential collapse while building an institution with no tuition and no government money, staking its survival entirely on student outcomes 20 years out. The conversation moves from the financial architecture of a university, through a curriculum that starts with Plato before it touches Python, to the deeper question of what a university owes a civilization in the age of AI and whether Austin is the right place to answer it. Agenda0:00 Intro + Three Years In 9:42 The $300M Bet 15:42 The Conglomerate Problem 21:42 Western Canon First 28:42 What AI Changes About Teaching 34:42 The Bastrop Lab 41:42 UATX in the Austin Ecosystem 48:42 Atoms vs Bits in Texas 53:42 American Exceptionalism as Mission 59:42 The Hit Pieces 1:06:42 The UCSD Math Collapse 1:11:42 Grade Inflation as Decay 1:14:42 AI and the Soul Problem Guest BioCarlos Carvalho is the President of the University of Austin. Prior to taking on this role, he spent 15 years as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, where he held the La Quinta Centennial Professorship and founded the Salem Center for Policy. A native of Brazil, Dr. Carvalho earned his doctorate in statistics from Duke University and has also taught at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His research focuses on Bayesian statistics in complex, high-dimensional problems with applications ranging from economics to genetics to public policy. At UATX, he is leading a bold effort to build a new university that stands for American principles and academic excellence. Guest LinksUniversity of Austin: Website, Substack, Instagram, X, LinkedIn -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    1 Std. 13 Min.
  4. Bootstrap vs. VC: Speed Costs Control | Rob Taylor, Silverton Partners

    19. FEB.

    Bootstrap vs. VC: Speed Costs Control | Rob Taylor, Silverton Partners

    The decision to bootstrap a business or raise venture capital is not just financial. It is physics. You are choosing which system to operate within, which rules will govern your company, and whose incentives will shape your options at every inflection point. Rob Taylor has lived both realities. He spent years building venture-backed companies, raising millions in institutional capital. His brother Chris bootstrapped a company for 20 years and owned nearly 100% at exit. They sold their companies the same year and ended up in roughly the same place financially. The question is what do you optimize for, and the nature of that question is changing daily in the age of AI. Recorded live at Red Fridge Society. The Agenda 0:00 Intro + Defining Bootstrap vs. VC 7:23 Is Your Business VC-Backable 11:54 The Ecosystem You Gain with Institutional Capital 15:03 The Ownership Curve 20:36 Control and Governance 26:24 Disruption in the AI Era 32:41 How Fund Size Shapes Investment Behavior 37:43 The Bootstrap-VC Overlap 40:54 Choosing Your Partner 45:14 The Incremental Approach to RaisingGuest LinksRob Taylor: LinkedIn, Silverton PartnersRed Fridge Society -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    48 Min.
  5. Patient Capital in the Age of the $10B Seed | Brian Smith, S3 Ventures

    21. JAN.

    Patient Capital in the Age of the $10B Seed | Brian Smith, S3 Ventures

    The current venture market is defined by a dangerous decoupling of capital from reality. While the industry chases $10B seed valuations and trillion-dollar infrastructure bets, Brian Smith and S3 Ventures are executing a "Discipline Arbitrage." They argue that the real returns in AI will not come from the massive CapEx spenders, but from the application layer that solves boring, regulated, enterprise problems. This episode audits the structural risks of the current AI wave and explains why staying as a small fund may be the ultimate competitive advantage. Agenda 01:30 Cisco Moment & 28 Bellagios06:31 Applications First, Agents Next19:06 2021 Bubble vs 2025 Reality32:55 Defining Patient Capital44:09 Strategic Advantage of Small Funds53:03 Return to AtomsGuest LinksBrian Smith, S3 Ventures (Website, X, LinkedIn)  -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    52 Min.
  6. The Semiconductor Moment for the Mind

    14. JAN.

    The Semiconductor Moment for the Mind

    The market is mispricing the human brain. Some Investors view Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) and other neurotech as the next iteration of the medical device, a slightly better stent or a more advanced catheter. This is a category error. As Matt Angle (Paradromics) and Connor Glass (Phantom Neuro) articulate its not a product, its the next modem. The parallel is the internet in 1993. We are moving from a low-bandwidth, text-based era of biology into a streaming, high-fidelity era. This shift requires a convergence of disciplines, Material science, analog engineering, and machine learning, mirroring the semiconductor boom of the 1960s. Austin, with its unique trinity of industrial scale, software speed, and risk-tolerance, has emerged as the global command center for this revolution The Agenda: 0:00 - Intro 02:48 - Electrical Input and Output of the Body 08:13 - Navigating the Valley of Death via DARPA 16:54 - Moral Hazard of Regulatory Caution 23:45 - BCI as the Next Internet 37:51 - Capital Stack and the Platform Shift 50:31 - Declaring Austin the Global Neurotech Capital 55:23 - Convergence of Semiconductor DisciplinesGuest LinksMatt Angle: LinkedIn, Paradromics (Website, X, LinkedIn)Connor Glass: LinkedIn, Phantom Neuro (Website, X, LinkedIn) -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    1 Std. 8 Min.
  7. Combat as the Minimum Viable Product | Cix Liv, REK

    10.12.2025

    Combat as the Minimum Viable Product | Cix Liv, REK

    Cix Liv challenges the Silicon Valley consensus that humanoid robots belong in the warehouse or the battlefield. By explicitly rejecting the “Terminator” military arbitrage and the “Jetsons” domestic servant model, REK validates a new thesis: entertainment is the only sector where the reliability is acceptable and economically viable.  The discussion dissects the unit economics of robot combat, the “context window” required for mainstream sport adoption, and why American “lawyer culture” is fundamentally losing the hardware war to Chinese “engineering culture” explored in Dan Wang’s Breakneck This is a forensic look at building “Real Steel” without government grants or safe software margins. The Agenda: 00:00 - Beta Testing Robot Roadshows05:06 - Defining the Real Steel Concept07:14 - "Context Window" of Violence vs. eSports16:59 - State of Bipedal Balance & Chinese Hardware26:02 - Robot Soldier vs Real Steel Decision33:01 - B2B SaaS Brain Drain37:01 - Unit Economics: Reliability Arbitrage45:04 - Tech Stack of Tele-Operation52:07 - Dan Wang’s Breakneck Thesis: Engineer China vs Lawyer US57:37 - Bringing Detroit to TexasGuest Links REK: Website, X, Instagram, LinkedIn Follow Cix: X, LinkedIn -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    1 Std. 3 Min.
  8. Is The Venture Capital Model Broken? | Andrew Romans, 7BC

    03.12.2025

    Is The Venture Capital Model Broken? | Andrew Romans, 7BC

    The venture capital model of the last two decades, characterized by the "30-minute rule" and the race to a quick IPO, is obsolete. We are witnessing a fundamental decoupling of capital from geography and a restructuring of how liquidity is manufactured. In this episode, Andrew Romans of 7BC Venture Capital argues that we have entered a new era where geopolitical friction is forcing a renaissance in hard tech, hedge funds have permanently altered the growth stage, and the "Series A" playbook has been rewritten by the realities of a market where companies stay private indefinitely. Highlights 01:05 Why 30 Firms Control the Market09:49 "Stay Private Forever" & The Secondary Market 19:51 Geopolitics, Supply Chains, & Defense Tech30:30 Hedge Fund Tourists & Founder-Led VCs37:11  The Death of the "30-Minute Rule" 47:35 Beyond "Silicon Hills" Guest LinksAndrew Romans: LinkedIn, X7BC Venture CapitalFireside with a VC: Apple, Spotify, YouTube -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    52 Min.
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Info

Austin is building the new tech, cultural, and intellectual stack. The region is a living laboratory to answer a single question: How do you build a global innovation superpower? Host Jason Scharf dissects innovation from the individual to the ecosystem. From the soundstage to the data center to the fab, we decode the mechanics of Austin's innovation ecosystem. As Atoms, Bits, and Intelligence converge, we explore how Hard Tech scale, digital velocity, and creative density collide. This is an audit of the future. We map the physics of the flywheel so builders and investors can navigate the chaos.

Informationen

  • Erstellt von
    Jason Scharf
  • Jahre aktiv
    2021 - 2026
  • Folgen
    174
  • Bewertung
    Anstößig
  • Copyright
    © 2023
  • Sendungswebsite
    Austin Next

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