Austin Next

Jason Scharf
  • 4.9 (14)
  • Technology
  • Updated Weekly

Austin is building the new tech, cultural, and intellectual stack. The region is a living laboratory to answer a single question: How do you build a global innovation superpower? Host Jason Scharf dissects innovation from the individual to the ecosystem. From the soundstage to the data center to the fab, we decode the mechanics of Austin's innovation ecosystem. As Atoms, Bits, and Intelligence converge, we explore how Hard Tech scale, digital velocity, and creative density collide. This is an audit of the future. We map the physics of the flywheel so builders and investors can navigate the chaos.

  1. 2d ago

    The Future Is Actually Starting to Happen | Andrew Côté, Deep Tech Week

    I had been thinking Austin needed some kind of frontier-tech week when Andrew Côté announced that he was bringing Deep Tech Week here. I reached out almost immediately, and now I’m helping build it. That gave us the excuse for this conversation, but the rabbit hole went much deeper. We are living through a moment when things that recently belonged mostly to science fiction are becoming companies and products you can actually encounter in the physical world.  That is where Andrew’s perspective gets especially useful. He has moved from engineering physics and fusion into shaping what is essentially a storytelling platform around the people trying to make these futures real. Austin is becoming one of the places where that transition is unusually tactile, where the imagined future is starting to become something you can walk into, touch, and build. Agenda 0:00 Austin’s takeoff and cowboy futurism10:00 Where physics meets economics17:12 Industry, AI and abundant energy28:18 The geography of deep tech33:29 Underwriting hard tech39:21 Ambition and the sci-fi future46:47 Austin’s factories and permission53:53 Orbit, beamlines and what comes nextCome to Austin Deep Tech Week The week opens with a hardware showcase at The American Housing Corp on September 21. The Factory Crawl runs September 22–24, with stops including ICON, Neurophos and Emerald Cloud Lab. We close with a nuclear-powered party at the Aalo Atomics factory on September 25. Explore the full schedule and register Guest Bio & LinksAndrew Côté: X, Writing, Deep Tech Week Andrew Côté is an engineering physicist that went from designing superconducting magnets for nuclear fusion to running deep tech week.  -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    The Future Is Actually Starting to Happen | Andrew Côté, Deep Tech Week

  2. Sep 10

    The Army Is Adapting to the New Speed of War | Matt Willis, Army FUZE

    The battlefield is changing faster than the systems built to supply it. Matt Willis runs Army FUZE, a roughly $750M portfolio built to get new technology into soldiers’ hands faster. The deeper question is what an institution as large as the Army has to change when technology cycles collapse from years to weeks.  That means accepting more failure up front, shortening the distance between a problem and a decision, getting real-world feedback before a product is fully baked, and building a system that can keep adjusting as the technology and the mission keep moving.  The question now is whether those changes are durable enough to let the Army operate at unprecedented speed, or whether bureaucratic inertia eventually pulls it back toward the old model.  Agenda 0:00 The new speed of war7:51 Speed, risk, and the 80% solution17:23 Soldiers, marketplaces, and feedback22:22 The tech stack and commercial innovation29:10 New requirements and industrial capacity35:32 Open systems and Operation Jailbreak41:32 Manufacturing and the capital stack46:33 Austin and the defense innovation map52:57 Soldier founders and access to innovation57:13 AI, augmented soldiers, and what’s nextGuest Links and BioMatt WillisUS Army PIT: Website, LinkedInUS Army xTech, US Army SBIR/STTR Dr. Matt Willis serves as the Director of Army FUZE, leading the Army’s portfolio of private sector engagements through prize competitions (xTech), the Army Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, the Technology Maturation Initiative (TMI) program, and the Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) program, comprising over $750 million in annual research and development investments. Previously, Dr. Willis served as the Army Director for Laboratory Management at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (ASA(ALT)) and held various positions across the Army and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Dr. Willis earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and both a Master of Science and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    The Army Is Adapting to the New Speed of War | Matt Willis, Army FUZE

  3. Jul 16

    What This Unlikely Deal Shows About New Austin | Max Cunningham (Sesh) & Jake Medwell (8VC)

    Sesh looks like a consumer brand. 8VC looks like the last fund that would back it. That mismatch is the fastest way to see what Austin is becoming. Sesh founder Max Cunningham and 8VC's Jake Medwell start with the logic that makes the deal make sense. Sesh holds a legal moat most competitors can't cross for years, and it earns software-like margins on a physical product. From there the conversation opens into a bigger question about where ambitious companies belong, and why more of them are choosing a city that now draws the founders and families betting on that future. Agenda 00:00 What Sesh is06:05 Why 8VC backed a nicotine company10:44 Regulatory timing and the six-year door16:37 Software margins and owning the factory22:01 Who buys this and why the market is growing29:27 Why some companies need SF and others do not34:32 What Austin talent looks like now42:10 The Elon spillover and the coming IPO wave 48:37 Raising kids in the AI age55:07 Safety, schools, and what comes nextGuest LinksSesh: Max Cunningham, Website, X, Instagram8VC: Jake Medwell, Website, X -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    What This Unlikely Deal Shows About New Austin | Max Cunningham (Sesh) & Jake Medwell (8VC)

  4. Jun 30

    Live from Hack Club Stasis: The Teenage Hardware Frontier Lands in Austin

    A custom board that ran two thousand dollars five years ago now costs fifteen and ships in two weeks. That collapse is why a hundred teenagers flew to Austin to build in the physical world instead of code in the digital. The organization behind it is Zach Latta's Hack Club, the hackathon was created by seventeen-year-old Meghana Madiraju, and Blake Liberman of 021 Ventures is why it happened in Austin.  The conversation ranges from how that collapse happened to what teenagers do with the agency it hands them, and turns sharper on what threatens it. Underneath the optimism is a real question about who controls the tools of creation, code, energy, and hardware. The Agenda 00:00 What Hack Club Stasis Is 06:28 How Hack Club actually works 13:01 Why hardware, why now 18:05 The case against the credential machine 24:11 Agency and the pressure myth29:33 What's actually worth building 34:38 Open source is quietly closingGuest LinksHack Club021 Ventures -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    Live from Hack Club Stasis: The Teenage Hardware Frontier Lands in Austin

  5. Jun 18

    Love Conquers Fear: The Last Barrier to Abundance Is Our Own Fear | Brett Hurt

    Brett Hurt returns to Austin Next for the fourth time, more than any guest in the show's history, to argue that the hardest problem in front of us is psychological. Abundance is already on a clear technological path, and the thing most likely to stop us is the fear center we carried off the savannah. He walks through the four technologies he calls the Superfecta: AI, robotics, quantum computing, and brain-computer interfaces, and why they land together rather than in sequence. The stakes are the Great Filter and to make it through to abundance or destroy ourselves. His book lands June 23, and this conversation is the argument it rests on. Agenda 0:00 Love is hard, fear is hijacked 10:21 Cooked food and broken business models 18:04 Mocktails, birth rates, and Bhutan 25:52 Moonshots and the James Webb sublime 30:42 Why aliens would be benevolent 36:13 The Superfecta changes everything 41:52 Capitalism, Chad, and abundance 51:40 Old Austin, wizards, and prophets 58:33 The nuclear math nobody wants 1:02:37 How the podcast made him hopeful 1:11:09 Open source wins the next hingeGuest Bio & Links Brett Hurt: X, LinkedIn, Love Conquers Fear Podcast Love Conquers Fear: Humanity, AI, and the Age of Abundance for All Brett Hurt is a serial tech entrepreneur, investor, and author. He works at the intersection of AI, leadership, and human values focusing on how society can harness exponential technologies with courage, ethics, and unity. Hurt most recently co-founded and led data-dot-world, which was acquired by ServiceNow on July 7, 2025. He previously co-founded Bazaarvoice (unicorn IPO) and Coremetrics (acquired by IBM). He also co-leads Hurt Family Investments, which is in 150 startups (12 unicorns) and 50 VC funds. He was named Austin’s Best CEO (Legacy Award) and is also an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow. Through his Love Conquers Fear holding company, platform, and podcast, Hurt explores how AI and emerging technologies can either amplify fear or help create broad-based human flourishing to eventually reach the Age of Abundance for All. Based in Austin, he’s the author of three books and host of the Love Conquers Fear podcast, which has 60 episodes and counting. -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    Love Conquers Fear: The Last Barrier to Abundance Is Our Own Fear | Brett Hurt

  6. Jun 11

    Austin: From Counterculture to Culture | Karen Blashek, Austin Home Magazine

    Austin's counterculture is still the ethos. The next chapter is what gets built on top of it. Karen Blashek, the editor-in-chief of Austin Home Magazine, took over a 21-year-old design publication with no editorial background and turned it into one of the city's most consequential platforms for naming what's already happening. We ask why Austin's design talent operates one neighborhood away from its tech talent and neither knows the other exists. What the city is telling people and the cultural infrastructure need to make it all compound: storytellers, convening spaces, named districts, and a  patronage layer. Agenda 0:00 Austin Home as civic editing4:22 Why Austin lives outside15:04 Block parties and Old Sixth21:02 Personality vs. values27:07 Ground floors as infrastructure32:10 The public space czar idea37:01 Why Austin is a design capital41:01 Naming districts that exist45:07 Three roles every ecosystem needs53:37 If you don't tell the story, someone else will58:08 The patronage gap1:03:37 Rising stars, the talent leak1:09:50 Tech and culture flywheel1:15:40 Naming what's already hereGuest Bio and LinksKaren BlashekAustin Home MagazineGroundup Ideas Cities and Ambition by Paul GrahamThe City That Lingers by Ryan Puzycki Tokyo is Reinventing the Downtown by Making More Than One by Richard Florida Karen Zabarsky Blashek is Editor-in-Chief of Austin Home Magazine, a Hearst publication covering the intersection of architecture, interiors, development, and culture in one of America’s fastest-evolving cities. She is also the founder of Ground Up, a creative studio for the built environment. Before returning to her native Texas, Blashek spent 13 years in New York where she led design for Kushner, one of the country's largest real estate developers with projects nationwide. -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    Austin: From Counterculture to Culture | Karen Blashek, Austin Home Magazine

  7. May 21

    Revisited: How Specificity in Vertical AI Rewrites Industries | Nick Tippmann, TipTop VC

    Updated re-release. A year ago we left one question unresolved. Where do foundational AI models end and where do the applications begin? Nick Tippmann returns in a fresh epilogue.  A year on, the tension has only sharpened.  Specificity is the differentiator when inches matter. Nick Tippmann, founding partner of TipTop VC, explains how vertical AI is rewriting the software industry by going deeper instead of wider. From the transition beyond SaaS to the gray zone between foundational models and high-stakes applications, we get into how vertical AI can transform laggard industries and why Austin might lead the race. The Agenda 00:00 Defining vertical AI05:07 Where general AI fails09:36 Vertical AI software, not just chatbots16:44 Pricing logic after the seat model24:04 Underwriting at pre-seed and seed 27:20 Capital intensity and seed-strapping36:48 TAM analysis and the Frontiers Market example41:46 OpenAI's Instacart hire and the gray zone45:55 Austin as a vertical AI hub58:21 Epilogue: Where the models end and applications beginGuest Links and BiosNick Tippmann, TipTop VC Nick Tippmann is the Founder and Managing Partner of TipTop Ventures, an early-stage venture fund focused on Vertical AI. Before becoming an investor, Nick spent nearly a decade as a founding team member and CMO at Greenlight Guru, where he helped scale the company from zero to category leader with more than 250 employees, tens of millions in ARR, and a nine-figure investment from JMI Equity. An operator turned investor, Nick now partners with founders building industry-specific AI and software businesses, bringing hands-on experience in go-to-market strategy, scaling, community building, fundraising, and company development. He has also been an active angel investor since 2021, with more than 100 startup investments. -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    Revisited: How Specificity in Vertical AI Rewrites Industries | Nick Tippmann, TipTop VC

  8. Apr 29

    What Building in Austin Actually Feels Like Right Now | Will Johnson & Alex Cohen

    This was not the episode we planned. Will Johnson, founder and CEO of Gyde, and Alex Cohen, founder and CEO of Hello Patient, came on to talk about innovation in the business of health. Instead it became our off the record conversations, but behind the microphone. An unfiltered field report on what it actually feels like to build a startup in Austin right now. The talent math, hunting for mid-size office space, the venture culture, Austin vs Miami, the press gap, and the political friction. All of it from two founders who chose this city, are hiring here, and are naming what needs to change because they want it to work. Agenda 0:00 Why Alex and Will chose Austin5:17 The engineering talent gap 14:10 Who gets hired and the conference hustle 20:58 Miami, Palantir, and competing for wins 26:02 What SF's venture culture has that Austin is still building32:58 Operator density problem and the office gap 41:05 Why selling to Main Street works better from Austin 50:16 More storytellers needed59:16 SXSW's decline 1:05:18 King of Austin for a dayGuest Links and BiosAlex Cohen: X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Hello PatientWill Johnson: X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Gyde -------------------Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedInEcosystem Metacognition Substack

    What Building in Austin Actually Feels Like Right Now | Will Johnson & Alex Cohen
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4.9
out of 5
14 Ratings

About

Austin is building the new tech, cultural, and intellectual stack. The region is a living laboratory to answer a single question: How do you build a global innovation superpower? Host Jason Scharf dissects innovation from the individual to the ecosystem. From the soundstage to the data center to the fab, we decode the mechanics of Austin's innovation ecosystem. As Atoms, Bits, and Intelligence converge, we explore how Hard Tech scale, digital velocity, and creative density collide. This is an audit of the future. We map the physics of the flywheel so builders and investors can navigate the chaos.

Information

  • Creator
    Jason Scharf
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    184
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2023
  • Show Website
    Austin Next

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