Ventures

Viraj Acharya
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Monthly

Interviewing Legends.

  1. Oct 17

    Electric Motors For Millions | Robin Renz, Hyperdrives

    This is my first conversation with Robin Renz, co-founder and CEO of Hyperdrives. Hyperdrives is manufacturing super-efficient, highly power-dense, low-cost electric motors by solving their cooling problem. Their new engineering facility enables the company to iterate on the production line for the first time, in pursuit of manufacturing millions of motors. Timestamps: (00:00:00) Hyperdrives (00:03:35) Ambition exceeding comfort (00:06:02) Growing up in a car workshop (00:07:37) Making electric motors smaller and cheaper (00:10:41) Innovation in electric motors (00:12:05) The heat constraint (00:17:54) Building for the masses (00:21:30) Electric vs combustion (00:24:05) Products vs licensing (00:27:03) Working with automotive OEMs (00:34:18) Electrifying mines, ships and aircraft (00:40:05) Chinese urgency (00:49:40) Faster iteration wins (00:51:55) Feedback as a founder (00:54:22) Choosing the right partner (00:57:54) Scaling production and the team (01:00:55) Hire for attitude. Train for skill. (01:03:30) Radical ownership (01:08:55) Reindustrialising Europe (01:11:23) Robin's hardest decision

  2. Sep 4

    Manufacturing 1000 Microfactories By 2030 | Mollie Claypool, AUAR

    This is my first conversation with Mollie Claypool, co-founder and CEO of AUAR. AUAR builds and operates microfactories that produce timber panels for homebuilding. The team is preparing its first V3 deployments from its 11,000-square-foot facility in London, working toward deploying 1,000 microfactories by 2030. Timestamps: (00:00:00) Why the West has a housing shortage (00:03:55) Timber and microfactories (00:07:50) Prove by doing (00:10:12) The Capex problem (00:12:49) What homebuilders care about (00:14:37) MasterBuilder (00:19:37) Winning over builders and site managers (00:21:42) Redesigning the team for scale (00:24:27) Building the factory that builds factories (00:30:06) Filtering for ownership (00:37:39) Necessity of good design (00:39:05) Renovating homes and old warehouses (00:43:44) Biggest unexpected problems (00:46:50) Deciding what needs her attention (00:50:28) Being a one-two punch (00:53:29) Thinking in parts and systems (00:57:40) Not being the hero (00:59:32) Scaling to 1,000 microfactories by 2030 (01:03:23) Rabid Urgency (01:06:12) Her mother’s only advice

  3. Sep 1

    The Anti-Gravity Machine | Julian Rothenbuchner, Tumbleweed

    My first conversation with Julian Rothenbuchner, co-founder and CEO of Tumbleweed. In June 2026, Tumbleweed became the first Austrian commercial satellite, building and launching Oasis Alpha in under nine months, as they scale to industrialising microgravity. Timestamps (00:00:00) The anti-gravity machine (00:02:49) Enduring pain and complexity for simplicity (00:08:41) Building a satellite in nine months (00:13:07) Gradient descent and highly capable people plus attritional environments (00:15:52) Oasis Alpha Pre-sales (00:17:43) Pre-certification (00:20:14) Convincing SpaceX (00:22:53) Integration hell (00:24:22) Antigravity as an industrial resource (00:28:57) Not becoming a pharma company (00:33:28) Filtering for scary (00:36:36) Gradient descent to Mars (00:44:48) Accelerating cycle time (00:50:27) Scaling to larger projects (00:56:30) Irreverence for the impossible (01:04:23) Delete before optimising (01:06:45) Failure is tutition

  4. Aug 25

    Building the Space Police | Marnix Meersman, Arqus Aerospace

    My first conversation with Marnix Meersman, co-founder and CEO of Arqus Aerospace. Arqus is developing lasers to dazzle and destroy spacecraft Timestamps (00:00:00) Modern warfare's evolution (00:05:35) Becoming an aerospace company (00:06:45) Lindbergh (00:09:31) Using anger to move faster (00:10:55) How satellites are attacked (00:18:48) A 1% hit rate is enough (00:23:09) Why blind drones cannot return home (00:25:12) Making the laser small enough to carry (00:27:19) B******t radar (00:39:17) Packing the company into a Tesla (00:42:27) Bringing space qualification in-house (00:44:29) Building a clean room in six days (00:46:48) Manufacturing terrestrial lasers (00:51:43) Space-Weapons (00:57:06) Leaving the European Space Agency (ESA) (00:58:24) Optimising for cool (01:00:04) Space Police (01:05:43) Building Earth's suit of armour (01:11:45) The space-weapons arms race (01:15:11) R&D on Supercontinuum lasers

  5. Aug 18

    Human Clock Speed | Ali Mitchell, Odyssey Ventures

    My First Conversation with Ali Mitchell, Odyssey Ventures Timestamps 00:00:00 Work is life 00:02:23 Building the Ninian oil platform 00:09:10 The big red bus theory 00:11:47 Learning human clock speed at dunnhumby 00:16:22 Betting everything on Huddle.com 00:20:21 Mortgaging the house for Flow 00:23:01 Garrett Lord’s extreme grit 00:25:46 Slaughtering sacred cows 00:35:08 Booting up Silicon Roundabout 00:39:14 Bringing Silicon Valley back to London 00:42:38 The era of the PhD founder 00:44:55 Backing founders, not technology 00:47:39 Turning a farm into a deep-tech laboratory 00:49:40 Running on startups & adrenaline 00:51:49 The body is a battery 00:53:43 Buying back the Handshake bet 00:56:22 Putting founders before the fund 00:58:00 Staying the underdog 00:59:26 Global on day one 01:01:17 The never-ending game

  6. Aug 12

    The Space Shipping Company | Mark Stokes, Magdrive

    My First Conversation with Mark Stokes, Co-founder & CEO of Magdrive Timestamps 00:00:00 Studying classics 00:02:14 Meeting Dr Thomas Clayson 00:05:07 Why satellite propulsion stopped evolving 00:07:01 Turning metal into plasma with pulsed power 00:11:28 The Battle of Salamis 00:13:27 Building the shipping company for space 00:16:08 Building gas stations at Lagrange points 00:18:00 Science fiction that inspired Magdrive 00:19:09 Iain M. Banks & post-scarcity abundance 00:21:41 Why humans should live in orbital habitats 00:24:38 Catalan independence & the Spanish Civil War 00:31:10 Moving entire cities through space 00:38:19 Scaling from physics to manufacturing 00:41:15 Go Rogue mission 00:44:29 Shrinking production from six months to six weeks 00:47:21 Powering space construction with nuclear reactors 00:48:15 Hiring Oxford’s nuclear fusion engineers 00:52:17 Radical independence 00:55:21 Saying yes, then figuring it out 00:56:47 Testing every engineering brainwave 00:58:13 Giving engineers autonomy 00:59:49 Art as an antidote to stagnation

  7. Aug 4

    Building Unmanned Tractors | Voltrac, Fran Infante Aguirre & Tom Hubregtsen

    My first conversation with co-founders Fran Infante Aguirre & Tom Hubregtsen of Voltrac. Timestamps 00:00:00 The Farming Labour Crisis 00:01:49 Farming as a Service 00:03:27 Leaving the family business 00:04:57 Building the first chassis in the family shed 00:08:02 Hardware at software speed 00:13:25 Rebuilding the tractor from first principles 00:16:47 Building Thor in ten months 00:19:56 Raising €7 million with a broken shoulder 00:29:55 Breaking hard problems into small steps 00:34:08 Negotiating with kidnappers 00:40:15 Stress testing the vehicle 00:41:27 One vehicle for farms & front lines 00:46:10 Putting Thor on Mars 00:50:02 Road to 100 00:52:43 Learning manufacturing from Grandad 00:56:12 The dog years 01:01:54 A Language of Their Own 01:08:15 The Limits of Velocity 01:10:31 Killing John Deere Links Voltrac: https://voltrac.eu/ Fran Infante Aguirre: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fran-infante-aguirre/ Tom Hubregtsen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thubregtsen/

  8. Jul 28

    Go Gig or Go Home | Josh Vernon, Gigaton

    This is my first conversation with Josh Vernon, founder of Earnd/Stream and now CEO of Gigaton. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:28 Learning to work from his father 06:59 Dropping out of mechatronic engineering 09:06 The instinct behind life-changing decisions 12:10 Early mentors and stumbling into Earnd 15:25 Persuasion, credibility and the craft of selling 22:31 Winning Adani Cement 24:33 Founding Earnd 34:27 Exiting to Greensill 36:34 Inside the rise and collapse of Greensill 45:01 Flying to Ukraine to win a deal 50:45 Jewish culture, curiosity and trust 57:50 Leading through crisis with radical transparency 01:01:44 Choosing Gigaton 01:06:05 Taking over a company that was “on fire” 01:12:03 “5 Live by 2025” 01:13:06 Gigaton-scale impact 01:16:00 “Go Gig or Go Home” 01:19:39 Who thrives at Gigaton 01:22:45 Why mission is a competitive advantage 01:27:34 Gigaton in one year 01:30:24 Josh’s deepest fear

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About

Interviewing Legends.

Information

  • Creator
    Viraj Acharya
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    146
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Viraj Acharya
  • Show Website
    Ventures