Unreasonable Stories

Unreasonable Group

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Entrepreneurship
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Unreasonable Stories is a podcast from Unreasonable Group featuring conversations with entrepreneurs, leaders, and builders working on some of the hardest problems of our time. Hosted by Daniel Epstein, founder of Unreasonable Group, each episode goes beyond the business to hear the real story of the person behind the work, from what drives them and how they got here, to what they've learned along the way.

1 day ago

She turned London’s retired fire hoses into a luxury brand

Kresse Wesling CBE is the co-founder of Elvis & Kresse, the British company that has rescued decommissioned London fire hose from landfill since 2005 and turns it into luxury bags, belts and accessories. Half the profits from the fire hose range go to the Firefighters Charity. The first year that came to £134. It is now approaching half a million pounds, and has funded more than 29,000 therapy sessions for firefighters and their families. In this conversation with Daniel Epstein, Kresse goes back to the beginning: Silent Spring at 13 in Western Canada, a scholarship to Hong Kong at 16, the coal-black air of Guangdong Province, and a biodegradable packaging company whose first shipment biodegraded on the way to the UK. Then a week apprenticing problems in sewers, waste transfer stations and landfill sites, and the rooftop where she found the material that changed everything. The second half is about what came after circularity. Since 2015 they have been rebuilding the company around regeneration, defined strictly: clean more water than you use, generate more renewables than you consume, sequester more carbon than you emit. That produced a straw bale workshop that cut power consumption by 94.7 percent, a wetland sewage system, and a farm of degraded pasture now holding 11,867 hand-planted vines. She is candid about the near-death moments too, from an Apple order that shipped back to a seller who pulled out on the day of exchange. Kresse joined the Unreasonable Fellowship in 2016 in the very first cohort of the Unreasonable Impact program, run in partnership with Barclays. (00:00) Introduction (01:54) Commander Kresse, and Meeting the Queen (05:41) Silent Spring at 13, Hong Kong at 16 (06:53) A VC Job, and a Package That Biodegraded Too Well (08:05) Apprenticing Problems, and the Hoses on the Roof (09:25) Half the Profits, and 29,000 Therapy Sessions (11:38) Why Fire Hose Became a Luxury Good (14:29) Circularity Is the End of All Stress (15:48) Who Is Elvis? (19:07) Redesigning the Company for Regeneration (22:29) Exponentially More Good Than Bad (23:23) Straw Bales, Sewage, and a 94.7% Power Cut (25:12) The Farm Nobody Wanted, and 11,867 Vines (27:44) The Wine (29:03) The Mother Moose (31:15) Twenty Years of Working With the Love of Your Life (34:28) The Apple Order That Nearly Killed Them (38:00) A Vendor, a Pandemic, and 12,000 Thirsty Vines (40:59) What the Land Teaches, and the Sheep Rule (44:34) Twenty-One Years of Watching Minds Change (48:54) "If You're Capable, You're Responsible" (51:15) Two Tickets to the Bat Show (52:06) "I Think This Is Spam" (54:25) Sell More Flowers, and Alchemy (57:25) Barclays Buildings, 200 Bottles, and Tasting Nature
14 Aug

She Built the World’s Largest Food-Sharing App

Tessa Clarke is the co-founder and CEO of Olio, the number one food sharing app on earth. Olio connects people with their neighbors so spare food and household items get given away rather than thrown away: 10 million people have joined, items have been shared in 63 countries, and 150 million meals' worth of food has been safely redistributed, alongside 16 million household items. In this conversation with Daniel Epstein, Tessa traces the story from the beginning: a childhood as the family workforce on an isolated farm in the northeast of England, the 17 year corporate career that left her sick and tired of being uninspired by herself, and the moving day when removal men told her to bin all her uneaten food. She and co-founder Saasha Celestial-One, both on maternity leave, gave themselves ten months to make Olio work. She is candid about what came next: five rounds of fundraising against investors who called them "you girls with your little project," the trust decisions that set Olio apart from other social networks, and the food safety system that has redistributed 150 million meals without a single incident. The conversation also covers the surprises: two thirds of the community making brand new friends during a loneliness epidemic, a lifetime social impact recently valued at 1.1 billion pounds, AI doubling engineering productivity, the approach to break-even, and a vision of hyperlocal rails of redistribution for the whole world. Tessa joined the Unreasonable Fellowship in 2018 through the Unreasonable Impact program, run in partnership with Barclays. (00:00) Introduction (02:10) What Olio Is (03:37) Ten Million Users, and Nowhere Near Done (06:03) Making Friends in a Loneliness Epidemic (07:50) An Impact Unicorn: £1.1 Billion in Social Value (09:26) Five Percent Proud, 95 Percent Pissed Off (12:32) A Farm in the Middle of Nowhere (16:11) Leaving the Farm for Cambridge (18:33) Numbers That Should Be Front-Page News (20:03) Moving Day: The Lightbulb Moment (23:31) Saasha Celestial-One (25:11) Two Moms, a Deadline, and a £15 Company (27:31) Why "Olio" (28:52) Raising Over $50 Million Against the Odds (32:49) Prevention Questions vs. Promotion Questions (33:52) Crying Through Her First Unreasonable Program (35:18) The Full Potential: Beyond Grocery Retail (38:37) How a Neighborhood Tips (43:22) Designed for Trust (45:29) The Trust Choices Other Founders Didn't Make (47:45) Inside the Food Waste Heroes Model (49:14) 150 Million Meals, Zero Incidents (52:33) Going Global: Ireland, Singapore, Mexico (54:01) Competing Against the Bin (56:11) Olio Love (58:20) Four Values, No Silver Bullets (1:01:39) Managing a Community at Scale (1:03:48) Profit With Purpose (1:07:06) Break-Even and the Food Waste Inspector (1:08:27) AI Doubles Engineering Productivity (1:11:10) The Next Decade (1:14:19) The Magic of Being a Food Waste Hero (1:16:55) Retrospectively Obvious (1:19:00) An Idea vs. Dedicating Your Life (1:22:42) Hardwired to Share (1:24:32) Eight Years of Unreasonable (1:27:55) How to Help Olio (1:30:39) Closing: A Financial Unicorn in the Making
16 Jul

She Grows Biodegradable Materials Inside Bacteria

Molly Morse is the CEO and co-founder of Mango Materials, a Bay Area company that turns methane into a biodegradable plastic alternative. Its material is grown by bacteria that eat methane and store a natural polymer, PHA, in their cell walls, which Mango harvests into pellets that behave like conventional plastic but break down naturally at the end of life. In this conversation with Daniel Epstein, Molly explains the science in plain language: why methane, a greenhouse gas 20 to 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, makes the material carbon-negative going in, and why PHA breaks down in the natural environment and even in the human body, unlike the petrochemical microplastics now found in our blood. She traces the company from its origins in a Stanford PhD to products shipping today, from Natura soap dishes to Stella McCartney sunglasses, and is candid about the one barrier that remains: the scale needed to reach price parity with petroleum plastic. The conversation also goes personal. Molly talks about descending from a family of inventors, with a distant tie to Samuel Morse and a great-grandfather who commercialized the bicycle chain; what it has meant to build a hard-science company as a woman and a mother in a field that still treats both as risks; why we can't recycle our way out of plastic pollution; and the humor and clarity that keep her going. Molly joined the Unreasonable Fellowship in 2022 through the Unreasonable Impact program, run in partnership with Barclays. (00:00) Introduction (02:54) What Mango Materials Is (03:32) Feeding Methane to Bacteria: How PHA Is Made (06:31) Why Methane, Not CO2, and Why It's Carbon-Negative (08:12) From Oakland to a College "Garbage" Class (09:13) The Stanford Detour: A Master's Becomes a PhD (10:01) The Breakthrough: Making PHA From Methane (11:11) "How Hard Could It Be?": Starting Mango (12:02) First Funding and Raising $55 Million (14:03) What Mango Ships: Natura, Allbirds, Stella McCartney (15:02) How PHA Performs While You Use It (16:22) The Catch: Economics and the Need for Scale (18:24) What a $500 Million Offtake Agreement Would Unlock (20:00) Why the Big Buyers Haven't Committed Yet (23:21) The Truth About Recycling (26:31) How Long It Takes to Break Down, and Microplastics in the Body (29:59) A Family of Inventors: Morse Code and the Bicycle Chain (32:44) Swimming Against the Current: Women in Deep Tech (36:48) Her Deep Why: "Born This Way" (38:32) The Engineer's Mind, the Hypomanic Edge, and Handling Doubt (43:35) Being a Mom and a CEO (49:35) The Vision: Methane Everywhere, and On to the Galaxy (52:47) How to Get Involved, and Why "Mango" (55:27) Closing Reflections
3 Jul

Bringing Solar Power to 26 Million Homes Off the Grid

Patrick Walsh and Anish Thakkar are the co-founders of Sun King, the world's largest off-grid solar energy company. Over two decades they have brought solar power to more than 26 million homes across 46 countries, created work for more than 37,000 field agents, and extended over $1.7 billion in financing to customers most banks would never reach. In this conversation with Daniel Epstein, Patrick and Anish trace Sun King from its origins in a University of Illinois student project with Engineers Without Borders to a fully integrated company that designs its own hardware, runs its own village agent network, and finances customers through pay-as-you-go solar. They explain how a family living on a few dollars a day can unlock a solar system for about $5 down and $2 a week, why they built their own credit process for customers with no credit score, and how the same technology now serves everyone from off-grid villages to city households enduring twenty-hour blackouts. They also go beneath the business: the first sale in a village in Uttar Pradesh, the mentor who wrote their first check, why they consider off-grid energy access only twenty percent solved, and what has kept their co-founder partnership intact for twenty years. Anish closes with a challenge to investors, to back the next generation of founders building from inside the communities they serve. Anish joined the Unreasonable Fellowship in 2014 and Patrick in 2017 through the Unreasonable Impact program, run in partnership with Barclays. (00:00) Introduction (03:53) Where Sun King Started: Engineers Without Borders (04:47) Why Moving a Home Off Kerosene Matters (06:35) Solar's 40x Cost Collapse, and a Bigger Mission (08:55) Anish's Aha: A Billion People Without Power (11:01) Patrick to China, Anish to India (12:41) The First Check: Cornering Prabha Sinha (15:23) The First Sale: A Village in Uttar Pradesh (17:48) Building Trust Through a Village Agent Network (19:35) The Third Chapter: Purchase Financing (21:04) How Pay-As-You-Go Solar Works (24:43) Approving Credit in 10 Minutes, No Credit Score (25:54) Beyond Solar: Financing Smartphones (27:53) Patrick in China: Learning to Manufacture (31:34) Necessity Forced Full Vertical Integration (33:01) Quality, Breakage, and Reverse Logistics (34:56) When Physical Sun King Stores Became Necessary (37:54) Everything In-House, and Partnering for Refugee Camps (39:57) A For-Profit Social Business and the Envelope of Impact (41:12) Serving Both Ends: From $5 Lights to 5-Kilowatt Systems (43:31) Blackouts, Diesel Generators, and an Emerging Climate Problem (46:55) Twenty Years as Co-Founders: Why It Comes Down to Trust (49:18) How You Actually Build Trust (52:30) Is Sun King a Platform? How Far There Is to Go (56:13) Staying Grounded and Avoiding Burnout, 20 Years In (59:14) How to Get Involved: "Don't Fund Us, Fund Local Founders" (63:34) Closing Reflections (65:24) Addendum: An Ownership Opportunity for the Next Century
18 Jun

He Flew to Space. Now He's Building a New Space Station

Dylan Taylor is the founder and CEO of Voyager Technologies, a space infrastructure company that went public in 2025. Voyager is building Starlab, a commercial successor to the International Space Station, and through its Nanoracks business is the largest commercial user of the ISS today, with more than 1,300 experiments run in orbit. In this conversation with Daniel Epstein, Dylan explains why he sees space not as an escape from Earth but as a way to improve life on it, from cancer research in microgravity to printing human tissue that the body will not reject. He traces his own path back to a three-year-old in a rough part of West Denver who fell in love with space watching Star Trek with his father, and to the moment at thirty-eight when he was successful but unfulfilled and decided to redirect his ambition toward purpose. Dylan flew to space himself in 2021 and describes the overview effect as a single new emotion built from connection, fear, and anger, an experience a Johns Hopkins study measured as off the charts. It is why he founded Space for Humanity, the nonprofit that sent Katya Echazarreta, a Mexican-born engineer, to space. He also reflects on mentorship, fatherhood, why he loves running public companies, and his honest, skeptical answer on whether we are alone in the universe. Dylan joined the Unreasonable Fellowship through the Unreasonable Impact program, run in partnership with Barclays. (00:00) Introduction (02:43) What Voyager Technologies Is (04:25) Space as a Way to Enhance Life on Earth (05:08) Falling in Love With Space at Age Three (06:27) Ambition, Fear of Failure, and Finding Purpose at 38 (09:45) The Overview Effect and the Science of Awe (13:49) Why He Founded Space for Humanity (15:15) Katya's Story and the Ripple Effect (18:32) Reflected Glory and Working Backward From Impact (20:39) Replacing the ISS: Starlab and NASA (23:00) Going Public, and the Barclays Partnership (26:55) The Next Ten Years: LEO, Lunar, and Lagrangian (28:53) The Moon: Helium-3, Oxygen, and Habitation (31:13) Data Centers and the Problem of Cooling in Space (33:04) What Microgravity Makes Possible: Keytruda and Printed Organs (35:38) The Deep Why, and Remembering Who We Are (40:26) Why He Loves Running Public Companies (42:31) Mentorship: His Father and the Mentor Agreement (46:48) Why His Father Was His Greatest Mentor (49:44) His View on Extraterrestrial Life (51:30) Fatherhood, Autonomy, and Accountability (55:10) How to Get Involved (56:24) Closing Reflections
21 May

The Battery Built for Traffic Lights, Now Powering AI Data Centers.

ZincFive is the world's leading nickel-zinc battery company. Its batteries cannot be forced into fire, are over 90 percent recyclable through a smelter-free chemical process, and deliver power in millisecond bursts that lithium cannot match on its own. Nearly 2 gigawatts are deployed or under contract for data centers globally, and the company just launched its first battery cabinet engineered specifically for AI workloads. Tim Hysell commercialized the first nickel-zinc product in 2012 as a battery backup for traffic lights. By 2016 he had merged his company with PowerGenix to consolidate the chemistry and the manufacturing under one roof. ZincFive now holds over 80 patents globally on nickel-zinc and is positioned at the center of a $90 billion addressable market. In this conversation with Daniel Epstein, Tim talks about how a 90-day challenge to his engineering team led to the founding chemistry, why he believes the "no a*****e" rule is the most important value at the company, the cardiologist who taught him in his early twenties what real leadership looks like, and the mother who worked alongside him in the fields from age five with eight hours of conversation a day. Tim joined the Unreasonable Fellowship through the Unreasonable Impact program in 2018, run in partnership with Barclays. In September, after thirteen years as founder and CEO, he handed the company to his longtime COO Tod Higinbotham. His wife and both sons still work at ZincFive. (00:00) Introduction (02:09) Why ZincFive Exists (03:00) The Stoplight Problem That Started Everything (04:45) From Stoplights to Data Centers (06:14) Sprinter, Not Marathon: Nickel-Zinc vs. Lithium (07:06) The Battery That Won't Catch Fire (08:42) Two Gigawatts Deployed (11:12) How AI's 50-Millisecond Power Bursts Work (13:00) The $90 Billion Market (15:40) The Other Industries Still Waiting (18:33) Why He Wanted to Manufacture in the First Place (20:43) The 90-Day Empowerment Story (22:16) Where the Leadership Style Comes From (24:00) Food Stamps and the Fields With Mom at Age Five (27:50) The Two Parents Who Shaped Him (29:53) What Team Sports Taught Him About Building Culture (31:50) Coach vs. Quarterback: The Real Job of a CEO (34:30) The 2018 Culture Session That Changed Everything (37:54) The "No A*****e" Rule (42:30) Eight Years With Barclays (46:43) The Cardiologist Story (50:15) Hard Conversations and Almost Missing Payroll (54:46) Handing the Reins to Tod Higinbotham (58:25) What He Tells His Sons (Who Also Work at ZincFive) (1:03:30) Where the Name ZincFive Comes From (1:05:32) Closing Reflections
9 May

Renewable Energy That Saves India’s Factories 40% on Their Power Bill

Fourth Partner Energy finances, builds, and operates renewable energy for India’s factories. Clients save 30 to 40% on their power bills and pay nothing upfront to switch. The company now serves over 400 clients across 23 states, has raised $475 million, and is building a gigawatt of clean energy a year. Saif Dhorajiwala co-founded the company in 2010 with very little money. They started by building small solar plants for rural schools in interior India. Today their largest facility has 91 wind turbines and a thousand acres of solar, connected by a 90-kilometre transmission line that sends power from south India to factories in the Himalayas. In this conversation with Daniel Epstein, Saif talks about growing up in a 250-square-foot apartment in Mumbai, why there are no job titles at Fourth Partner, how every employee owns stock, what happened when they couldn’t make payroll in the early years, and the shared belief in karma that holds a Hindu co-founder and a Muslim-born co-founder together through 15 years of building. (00:00) Introduction (02:10) The Genesis of Fourth Partner Energy (06:00) Starting with Rural Schools (07:38) The Pivot to Commercial and Industrial (08:44) The Scale Today (11:09) A Gigawatt a Year (13:07) How the Economics Work (16:00) Zero Cost to Switch (18:10) John Kerry and the Advice That Changed Everything (19:57) A 560-Megawatt Facility You Can See from Space (22:05) The Hardest Part of Building at This Scale (25:22) Raising $475 Million (27:07) Why It’s Called Fourth Partner (28:34) No Titles, No Offices, No Hierarchy (29:09) They Eat, Sleep, Drink Fourth Partner (30:23) Trust as a Foundation (32:49) When They Couldn’t Make Payroll (36:09) Faith, Karma, and Doing the Right Thing (40:09) Growing Up in a 250-Square-Foot Apartment (44:19) What Saif Has Learned About Fundraising (47:22) Working Two Days a Week (49:29) What Makes a Good Mentor (51:07) The Next 10 Years (55:21) How to Get Involved (57:13) Closing Reflections
23 Apr

Wimbledon Players Shower in Solar-Heated Water. Here's Who Built It.

Heat is responsible for 40% of global emissions and more than half of all energy consumed on the planet. Most of it still comes from burning fossil fuels, and almost nobody is talking about decarbonizing it. Christophe Williams co-founded Naked Energy to change that. Their solar collectors convert up to 80% of the sun's energy into hot water, compared to about 20% for traditional solar panels. The hybrid version generates both heat and electricity from the same rooftop. Payback runs four to eight years, and an industrial system can save over half a million pounds annually. Before clean energy, Christophe spent 15 years as a film editor in advertising, cutting music videos and working on global campaigns. The pivot came from his grandfather, a physicist who worked on wave power and flywheel storage in the 1970s. He told Christophe as a child that if we put all known fossil fuels into a calendar year, we've only got minutes left. In this conversation, Christophe talks about selling his house and pulling his kids from school to start the company, what it took to raise £30 million as a first-time founder, the independent test that came back short and the CTO who turned it into a roadmap, Barclays helping land the Wimbledon project, and the question that drove everything: could I live with myself if I don't give this a go? (00:00) Introduction (00:25) Why "Naked Energy"? (03:01) The Warm Elephant in the Room (07:26) Hotels, Hospitals, and Factories (09:40) How the Technology Works (12:43) Storing Summer Heat for Winter (14:26) The Economics of Solar Thermal (16:34) 80% Efficiency vs. 20% for Traditional Solar (18:42) Solar Thermal Meets Heat Pumps (22:22) From Film Editor to Clean Tech CEO (24:46) Diana Ross, Joy Division, and Dennis Hopper (27:11) A Grandfather Who Worked on Wave Power (29:08) "We've Only Got Minutes Left" (33:08) Winning the Shell Springboard Competition (34:23) "Could I Live with Myself If I Don't Give This a Go?" (39:27) Selling the House and Taking the Kids Out of School (44:34) Hardest Lessons as a First-Time CEO (46:03) Crying into a Beer in Germany (51:20) E.ON, Barclays, and Wimbledon (54:26) What 1% of the World's Heat Demand Looks Like (59:46) A Physicist Daughter Joins the Business (1:03:13) How to Work with Giant Corporations (1:06:31) Closing Reflections
17 Apr

She Studied Time Travel at MIT. Now She's Making Food from Air.

Lisa Dyson has a PhD from MIT in string theory. Her thesis covered rotating black holes, cosmology, and time travel. She is now the co-founder and CEO of Air Protein, a company that makes protein and other food ingredients from CO2, water, and energy. The technology was originally developed by NASA during the Apollo program. The idea was to feed astronauts on long space voyages by recycling the carbon in exhaled air through cultures that could turn it into nutrients. When the program ended, the work was shelved. Lisa and her co-founder Dr. John Reed found it in the research literature decades later. When she called NASA, the scientist on the other end told her he could cry. He never thought anyone would pick it up. Air Protein's cultures work like yogurt starters. Instead of milk, they feed on CO2, water, and energy and produce protein in hours. The process runs day and night, needs no farmland, and uses orders of magnitude less water than conventional agriculture. A soy farm the size of Texas would match the output of an Air Protein facility the size of Walt Disney World. In this conversation, Lisa talks about going to 14 schools by the age of 14, what she learned from an entrepreneur father who modeled both resilience and failure, leaving BCG to start a company on the fringe of what seemed possible, and the mentor at an Unreasonable Impact Program who told her to stop carrying the weight of the world and let her team inspire her instead. (00:00) Introduction (01:57) What is Air Protein? (04:30) The Cultures Behind the Science (08:31) Environmental Advantages (10:28) An Entrepreneurial Father and a Scientist's Mind (12:24) String Theory, Black Holes, and Time Travel (12:59) 14 Schools by Age 14 (15:46) Discovering the NASA Research (17:20) Leaving BCG and Taking the Leap (19:19) The NASA Scientist Who Could Cry (20:16) The Birth of Kiverdi and Air Protein (24:55) Physics Meets the Future of Food (28:42) The Hardest Part of Starting a New Industry (34:13) Let Your Team Inspire You (36:16) Working with Barclays and Mars (39:27) What the World Looks Like in a Decade (42:12) How to Get Involved (44:45) Closing Reflections
2 Apr

A Million Babies and What It Cost to Save Them

Jane Chen co-founded Embrace Global as a student project at Stanford in 2007. She moved to India at 25 and spent four years working 12-to-15-hour days to bring a portable infant incubator to market. That technology — a sleeping-bag-like device that maintains 98 degrees for six hours on a 30-minute charge — has now saved over a million babies' lives in humanitarian crisis zones worldwide. In this conversation, Jane talks about the real cost of that mission. A major distribution deal collapsed a week before signing, leaving seven days of cash in the bank. Mark Benioff responded with one line: "I will fund your company." Years later, a second deal was fully signed, but the acquiring company shut down before the wire transferred. Jane hit rock bottom — severe panic attacks, depression, unable to get through a meal. She left everything behind and went on a healing journey that took her from Indonesia to frog poisoning ceremonies to Internal Family Systems therapy. The breakthrough: her drive to save powerless children came from feeling powerless in a violent home as a child. She shares what she learned about trauma, self-compassion, and why resilience isn't about grit — it's about being kind to yourself in the face of immense struggle. The conversation also covers identity in the age of AI, the illusion of control, somatic awareness, and how to make decisions from love instead of fear. It closes with Jane surfing in Honolulu with Nathan — a two-pound baby abandoned in China, saved by an Embrace incubator, now 14 years old and catching waves beside her. (00:00) Introduction (02:30) The Book and the Fellowship (03:54) What Writing a Memoir Revealed (06:09) The Why Behind the Why (09:17) Worth Beyond Achievement (13:39) Identity in the Age of AI (15:28) The Illusion of Control (18:27) What We Can Actually Control (20:37) Throwing the Book in the Ocean (22:27) The Gift of the Process (23:31) The Origin of Embrace Global (26:22) Moving to India and Building the Company (29:57) The Distribution Deal That Collapsed (32:13) Mark Benioff and the Meditation at Davos (34:10) The Roller Coaster of Entrepreneurship (36:40) Burnout and the Second Collapse (39:23) Rock Bottom and Panic Attacks (40:56) Resilience Is Self-Compassion (42:37) The Coincidence That Saved Embrace (45:00) Tony Robbins and the Rebirth of Embrace (47:52) A Million Babies and Nathan's Story (51:00) What Healing Looks Like (55:27) The Science of Trauma (57:28) Internal Family Systems and Self-Compassion (59:54) Leading from a Healed Place (1:01:15) Decisions from Love or Fear (1:07:17) The Wisdom in Difficult Emotions (1:08:22) Jane's Coaching Practice and How to Connect (1:13:44) Closing Reflections
26 Mar

Concrete That Works With the Ocean, Not Against It

Seventy percent of marine infrastructure worldwide is concrete, and almost all of it is harming the ecosystems around it. Dr. Ido Sella has spent 14 years trying to change that. His company, ECOncrete, tweaks the composition of concrete so that marine larvae — oysters, corals, barnacles — can actually settle and grow on it instead of being repelled. The result: 7x more carbon sequestration per square foot, reduced invasive species, and infrastructure that gets stronger over time as biology builds a protective crust on its surface. ECOncrete has deployed across 50+ projects in more than 30 countries and 10 seas, all with a team of 40 people. Time Magazine named it one of the top 100 inventions in the world in 2019. In Staten Island, their breakwaters are bringing oysters back to a waterfront that was once known as the oyster capital of the Northeast. In this conversation, Ido talks about the science, the business, and what drives a marine biologist to build a company in one of the most conservative industries on earth. He also talks about co-founding ECOncrete with Dr. Shimrit Perkol-Finkel, losing her in 2021 — one month before their Series A close — and the decision to carry the company forward in her name. Every investor, without coordinating, gave the same answer: "If you're going forward, we're investing." They closed the round three weeks later. He shares what the wilderness has taught him about leadership, the story of closing a funding round from a makeshift chair in the Desert with Leonard Cohen on a Bluetooth speaker, and the one line that now defines how he handles every setback: "It's not a crisis until someone is dying." (00:00) Introduction (01:57) What Is ECOncrete? (04:07) The Biology Behind the Technology (07:14) Discovering the Solution by Accident (08:47) From Research to Global Deployment (12:48) Global Scale and Business Model (14:08) Why Clients Pay for Ecological Infrastructure (19:09) Growing Up in Jerusalem (22:43) What the Wilderness Teaches (29:52) Solitude and Entrepreneurship (31:33) Protecting Time in the Desert (35:09) The Struggles Behind the Story (40:52) Losing Shimrit (44:51) It's Not a Crisis Until Someone Is Dying (46:59) Signs of Recovery in New York's Waters (52:08) The Tottenville Living Breakwater Project (55:27) Retrofitting vs. Building Right (57:11) How to Get Involved (1:03:48) Barclays as a Partner (1:05:21) Closing Reflections (1:07:20) Next Episode Preview
19 Mar

Detecting Cancer at Stage Zero from a Simple Urine Test

Most cancers are caught too late, and Ryuichi Onose has spent the last seven years trying to change that. His company, Craif, can detect 10 of the most common cancers from a urine sample, before symptoms, before scans can even see anything. Their accuracy for stage one pancreatic cancer sits at 93%, compared to 37% for the standard blood marker test. Ryuichi was 26 and managing ships at Mitsubishi when his grandmother died of stage four colorectal cancer in three weeks. He had no biotech background. He left anyway. Now Craif has sold over 50,000 tests across 2,000 hospitals and 4,600 pharmacies in Japan, raised $60 million, and is expanding into the United States. In this conversation, Ryuichi talks about the science, the business, and what it means to build a company around a problem that keeps getting more personal. His grandfather got sick too. And then, two weeks before we recorded this, his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He also shares where he wants to take this next: a toilet that monitors your urine passively, flags changes, and notifies your phone. The goal is to make prevention so frictionless that people don't have to rely on willpower or remembering to book an appointment. (00:00) Introduction (03:48) What Is Craif? (06:30) The Science Behind the Test (11:49) Craif Goes to Market (15:37) The Smart Toilet Vision (17:47) Growth, Scale and AI (19:44) Ryuichi's Origin Story (24:40) When Cancer Gets Personal (28:53) Fate and Coincidence (30:43) Presence, Balance and Fatherhood (36:30) Beyond Cancer: The Bigger Vision (41:53) Bringing Craif to America (45:35) Growing Up as a Misfit (48:34) Leadership and Culture at Craif (51:22) The Hardest Part of the Mission (55:06) How to Get Involved (56:51) Closing Words

12 Episodes

Unreasonable Stories is a podcast from Unreasonable Group featuring conversations with entrepreneurs, leaders, and builders working on some of the hardest problems of our time. Hosted by Daniel Epstein, founder of Unreasonable Group, each episode goes beyond the business to hear the real story of the person behind the work, from what drives them and how they got here, to what they've learned along the way.

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Unreasonable Group
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2026
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12
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Explicit
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© Unreasonable Group
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