Astrolabe Podcast

Cyril Shtabtsovsky
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  • Entrepreneurship

Conversations with the scientists and engineers reshaping our world.

Episodes

  1. Oct 19

    Robert Zubrin | Elon, NASA, China, and why we need Mars

    Robert Zubrin is an aerospace engineer and the founder of The Mars Society‬. He hugely influenced Elon Musk to build SpaceX. 00:51 – Favorite sci-fi 01:17 – What killed Apollo’s momentum 02:12 – What's wrong with Artemis 05:21 – today's space race 07:24 – Private companies vs government 09:05 – Moon vs Mars 12:10 – Elon’s AI story 18:28 – Why not Venus next? 19:36 – Mining the asteroid belt 24:39 – Who lands on Mars first? 27:23 – Has Elon changed? 29:38 – How to inspire more kids? 30:02 – Why we need to go to Mars now? 30:59 – Star Trek vs Star Wars 34:30 – The ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything

  2. Aug 18

    Emil Kendziorra | Cryopreservation, Best Chance of Not Dying, Longevity & AI

    Dr. Emil Kendziorra is the founder & CEO of Tomorrow Bio, the world's best human cryopreservation company. 00:35 — Best sci-fi 01:35 — What Tomorrow Bio is 03:01 — How much it costs 07:13 — The two big open questions 09:11 — How we actually freeze people (no ice crystals) 13:21 — How many people will actually do this? 16:11 — Uploading, copies, and “is it still me?” 18:53 — Does a soul exist? 21:17 — Emil's actual longevity protocol 26:33 — Will AI solve aging in our lifetime? 28:37 — Is AI net good for society? 30:49 — Why this company is different 33:08 — Quickfire questions 35:29 — The ultimate question

  3. Aug 12

    David van Dijk | Yale Professor at YC, Why Pharma Is Broken & How AI Fixes It

    David van Dijk is the Yale professor (12,000+ citations) and founder of CellType (YC W26). In collaboration with DeepMind, he built Cell2Sentence - an LLM that simulates human biology. 00:42 – Favorite sci-fi 03:53 – Why drug development is broken 07:49 – AI as the future model system 09:15 – Cell2Sentence & DeepMind collaboration 16:32 – Folding biology into an LLM 18:32 – Virtual drug screen that actually worked 26:23 – Spinning out & joining YC 27:24 – Why cancer? 28:16 – The data bottleneck in biology 32:07 – From single cells to tissues 33:41 – Why open-source? 37:04 – University lab vs startup 39:58 – Going through Y Combinator 44:32 – Academics as founders 47:09 – Quick-fire round 51:15 – The ultimate question

  4. Aug 3

    Shai Albaranes‏ | AI transformation of $8B company, what happened to climate tech, learning science

    Shai Albaranes‏ leads Orbia's AI transformation and corporate VC. 1:04 – Do you like science fiction? 5:57 – What the Israeli army actually gives you 8:41 – Why almost every S&P 500 company has R&D in Israel 11:15 – Building an innovation function from zero 20:14 – What is the real value of AI for an $8B company? 22:07 – Is AI replacing jobs? 27:10 – The hardest part of sitting on startup boards 28:34 – Are boards more founder-friendly now? 30:51 – The most exciting deep-tech area right now 32:33 – Can fusion solve the energy problem? 33:18 – What happened to the climate tech 35:25 – Why a 50-year-old executive started learning chemistry 40:12 – Quickfire

  5. Jul 20

    Sasha Malysheva | GoogleX, Robotics & AI bottlenecks, Women in AI

    Sasha Malysheva, former DeepMind and Google X researcher who published in Science at 22, shares her journey from building AI-powered exoskeletons to founding her own stealth AI startup. 00:00 - Intro & Welcome 01:09 - Favorite Sci-Fi 02:11 - Starting AI Research at 18 03:29 - Why She Left Pure Research for Startups 04:03 - Publishing Her First Major Paper 04:58 - How AI is Changing Scientific Research Today 05:55 - What is Google X? Moonshot Projects Explained 06:58 - The Exoskeleton Project at Google X (Robotics + AI) 08:14 - Main Bottlenecks in Humanoid Robotics 09:53 - AI Research vs Building a Startup 10:47 - Would You Want a Personal Humanoid Robot at Home? 11:03 - Consciousness 12:19 - Are LLMs a Dead End? Why Monolithic Models Are Ending 12:59 - Her Bold Prediction About AGI (Most People Disagree) 15:05 - Why She Started Her Own Stealth AI Startup 15:38 - The Reality of Being a Founder & CEO 17:25 - Women in AI: Challenges, Role Models & Inspiring Girls in STEM 19:05 - Investing in Startups & What She Looks For in Founders 19:43 - Quick Fire Questions (Star Wars vs Star Trek, Prizes, Einstein of our time, etc.) 21:20 - The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe & Everything

  6. Jun 21

    John Martinis | Nobel Prize, Entrepreneurship vs Google, AI Replacing Jobs

    John Martinis is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, recognized in 2025 for his pioneering 40-year career developing superconducting qubits. He led Google’s team that achieved quantum supremacy in 2019, and today he is co-founder of Qolab, his quantum computing startup. 00:43 – Welcome & Introduction00:48 – Science Fiction and "For All Mankind"01:36 – Zero to One & Leaving Google04:35 – Entrepreneurial Mindset & Google Experience05:03 – Finding a Co-Founder (Alan)08:02 – Raising Money as a Truth-Teller08:54 – Academia vs Startup Life & Nobel Prize11:33 – Is Quantum Volume a Good Metric?13:52 – Optical Quantum Computing & Hype16:07 – Science Culture: France vs USA18:28 – Quantum Computing in France20:15 – Theorists vs Experimentalists in Quantum23:08 – Running Towards Problems (Entrepreneurial Mindset)24:54 – Nobel Prize & Timelines in Research27:48 – US Government Quantum Funding28:38 – Issues with Academia & Publishing30:20 – AI Replacing Jobs & Impact on Scientists33:51 – Nobel Prize or Build a Unicorn?34:08 – Favorite LLM (Grok & Gemini)34:30 – $10M Research Funding Idea35:10 – Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything

  • 6 Episodes

About

Conversations with the scientists and engineers reshaping our world.

Information

  • Creator
    Cyril Shtabtsovsky
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    6
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Cyril Shtabtsovsky
  • Show Website
    Astrolabe Podcast