Unreasonable Stories

Unreasonable Group
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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.

Episodes

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

    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

    1hr 9min
  2. She Studied Time Travel at MIT. Now She's Making Food from Air.

    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

    46 min
  3. A Million Babies and What It Cost to Save Them

    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

    1hr 15min
  4. Concrete That Works With the Ocean, Not Against It

    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

    1hr 9min
  5. Detecting Cancer at Stage Zero from a Simple Urine Test

    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

    1 hr
  • 5 Episodes

About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    Unreasonable Group
  • Years Active
    2k
  • Episodes
    5
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Unreasonable Group
  • Show Website
    Unreasonable Stories

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