The world’s biggest supply chains - cocoa, coffee, palm, soy, timber, beef, rubber - all begin in the same place: a farm, often a smallholder, almost always invisible to the companies that depend on it. That first mile is where deforestation happens, where emissions accrue, and where water stress bites hardest. Until recently, nobody could give large companies the ability to understand what was and could be going on at the foundations of their supply chains. Jinal Surti is changing that. After building his career at the forefront of crypto with Egnyte, Ripple, and Menai, Jinal co-founded Epoch in London in 2023 to generate location-linked intelligence - deforestation status, emissions, water stress, and of course, biodiversity risk - compliance for every farm, plantation, and processing facility feeding global commodity supply chains. It’s been such a thrill to work with him on a project of this magnitude, and as you will hear, he thinks as clearly about company creation, value defensibility, and the practical implications and opportunities of AI as anyone I have ever met. Please enjoy my conversation with Jinal Surti. Subscribe to The Fundamental Molecule here: https://www.burntislandventures.com/the-fundamental-molecule For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fundamental-molecule/id1714287205 ----------- Jinal Surti is the co-founder and CEO of Epoch, an environmental monitoring, reporting, and insetting platform for the agriculture and forestry sectors. Global commodity producers use Epoch to manage nearly 3 million farms and plantations worldwide. Before starting the company, Jinal spent his career enabling global payments in emerging markets as an early employee at Ripple and a founding executive at Menai. Jinal holds an engineering degree from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Harvard Business School. 00:00 - Introduction 02:27 - Why Supply Chain Visibility Is Critical 09:55 - How AI Replaces Traditional Supply Chain Audits 16:57 - Why Water Risk Is Reshaping Global Business 20:26 - How Geospatial AI Maps Supply Chain Risk 24:54 - Building a Defensible AI Business 31:54 - How AI Is Transforming Startup Growth 38:50 - Crypto's Real-World Future Beyond Hype 40:49 - First Principles for Building Great Companies Links: Burnt Island Ventures: https://www.burntislandventures.com/ Jinal Surti Epoch Key Takeaways: "Cleaning up corporate supply chains is the biggest driver that we have not just for climate, but for human rights, for biodiversity, for water, for income inequality." "Just because a product is certified by some certification body doesn’t really evidence any difference... certifications just can’t be enough. You have to show the data." "Self-reported questionnaires are, by the way, also a huge pain point." "What really wins is context. The more customers you serve, the more context you have, and the more context you can use to utilize those models and make your product better." "You almost want people who can delegate the best and manage the best, because that’s what prompting really is, rather than somebody who’s really, really good at doing one thing."
