Tough Tech Today with Meyen and Miller Jonathan Miller and Forrest Meyen

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… technically a flying boat! 
When challenged to imagine how to electrify aviation, Billy Thalheimer, CEO and co-founder of REGENT Craft, and his team set to work looking at what has been done with hydroplanes before – and what emerging technologies are available today that change the equation for what is possible and economically achievable.
“Building with atoms is harder than building with bits. You can’t just revert to your last code push,” Mr. Thalheimer told us. “Early on, it was really just finding those investors that ‘got’ tough tech.” And such investors he did find, bringing in allied capital with hands-on operational experience running manufacturing, aviation, and maritime businesses.
REGENT Craft is settling into its expanding headquarters in Rhode Island, where the team enjoys the benefits of its specially-chosen locale: access to the U.S.A’s top naval composites experts, aerospace giants, and deep-rooted talent pools in avionics, software, and other key capabilities needed to make nontraditional vessels glide above the seas. 
With the potential to fundamentally change how goods and people are shuttled along coastal communities globally, REGENT has been carefully fusing together a team of interdisciplinary specialists. While it may not be the astronaut career Mr. Thalheimer originally envisioned, it sure is an exciting ride!

P.S. Thank you to our episode sponsor, The End Effector! JMill will be decoding deep tech over there, so join the mailing list to get read-in.
P.P.S. Thank you to our tough tech champions. Mariemma, you're our newest Pioneer! We really appreciate your support! If you’d like to follow Mariemma’s example, take a look at our pay-if-you-can membership options so you can help us bring Tough Tech Today to more folks!

The blue parts of our planet are beautiful yet stunningly punishing for even our toughest of technologies.

Dark, crushing, unexplored, and unknown – the depths of the seas are where an explorer like Jeff Smith has devoted his career to understanding. As the Vice President and General Manager of Autonomous and Undersea Systems at Saab, Inc., Smith has experience developing submersibles of nearly every shape and size, including some of the most advanced systems for remotely-operated and autonomous research vessels. 

A distinguished figure in the undersea robotics realm, Smith brings a wealth of experience from his involvement in innovative startups and contributions to significant projects supporting the US Navy and other long-standing partners in ocean exploration. His journey, inspired by childhood memories of Jacques Cousteau's adventures, has led him to a career where his passion for the seas intersects with cutting-edge technology, embodying the adage that when you do what you love, it hardly feels like work.

Our conversation with Smith offers an insightful look into the challenges and opportunities within ‘blue technologies’. He highlights the critical role of autonomy and robotics in probing and protecting over 70% of the Earth's surface covered by oceans. His work developing cost-effective undersea systems underscores the importance of practical approaches in advancing our understanding and capabilities in marine environments. Smith also shares his entrepreneurial journey, from his start with a credit card and a dream to building Riptide Autonomous Solutions (acquired by BAE Systems), a major force in the unmanned undersea vehicle space. 

This episode not only peers into the technical aspects of undersea exploration but also touches on the broader implications for environmental conservation and defense. Smith’s emphasis on the need for continued innovation, especially in battery technology and onboard machine intelligence, points to a future where autonomous undersea vehicles play a pivotal role in addressing some of the planet's most pressing challenges. This conversation with Jeff Smith not only educates but also inspires, reminding us of the vast, unexplored frontiers beneath the waves and the tough tech required to navigate them safely.

P.S. Thank you to our episode sponsor, The End Effector! JMill will be decoding deep tech over there, so join the mailing list to get read-in.

P.P.S. Thank you to our tough tech champions. We really appreciate your support! If you’d like to follow Erika’s example, take a look at our pay-if-you-can membership options so you can help us bring Tough Tech Today to more folks!

Tough Tech Today is transitioning seasons, recapping our Season 3 themes exploring the tough tech domains of biology, space, and fusion energy. We are also preparing for the show's fourth season and we are really excited for it!
Upcoming themes:
Blue tech – The advanced technologies of the maritime industry. Incredible machines, sustainable oceans, and mysteries to solve in our planet's seas.Quantum sciences – A wild world where physics gets weird, we are super curious about opportunities in computing, sensing, and communication.Artificial Intelligence – While it was only fairly recently that "A.I." has debuted on the pop-culture zeitgeist, for years tech trailblazers have been developing incredible applications of machine intelligence to solve our world's toughest challenges.Thank you, our Season 3 guests!
BioTechNew Equilibrium Biosciences - Virginia BurgerElevian - Mark AllenConcerto Biosciences - Cheri AckermanSpaceSpace Capital - Chad AndersonMithril Technologies - Scarlett KollerArkenstone Ventures/USAF USSF - Preston DunlapFusionProxima Fusion - Francesco SciortinoTDK Ventures / Type One Energy - Tina TosukhowongFocused Energy - Thomas Forner and Pravesh PatelP.S. Thank you to our tough tech champions. We really appreciate your support! If you’d like to level-up your support of our work, take a look at our pay-if-you-can membership options so you can help us bring Tough Tech Today to more folks!

If this company perfectly combines lasers and atoms, the reaction could be worth trillions of dollars.
Focused Energy’s Thomas Forner, CEO, and Pravesh Patel, CTO, join us to talk about making lasers. Lots and lots of lasers. But for what aim? They are pointing hundreds of directed beams at a tiny target: a millimeter-sized plastic capsule of deuterium and tritium, about the size of a peppercorn. These experiments may reveal a commercial pathway to grid-scale fusion energy. In contrast to other pursuits for nearly limitless clean energy such as stellarators and tokamaks, our third installment of the Tough Tech Today fusion series spotlights Focused Energy’s inertial approach to excite hydrogen isotopes. 


Uniquely straddling the Atlantic to tap into specialized talent pools in Austin, Texas, and Darmstadt, Germany, this team is leveraging discoveries from top fusion labs in the U.S. and Europe. The company has spun out of the Technical University of Darmstadt and combined with talent from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where the first net energy gain from nuclear fusion was demonstrated in 2022.


In a planet hungry for energy, the company aims to generate significant revenues within a few years, fast-tracking commercialization of fusion energy while tapping into early revenues streams Focused Energy is deriving from testing other organizations’ technologies, cleaning up nuclear waste, and providing other valuable services as the company matures its laser drivers, high-gain ignition facility, and, eventually, establishes a pilot power plant. It is a lot of progress for a venture that has raised $82 million to date, including closing an $11 million Series A in 2023. From maintaining a permanent presence among regulators in Washington, D.C., to working with other energy companies to ‘educate the market’ about why fusion energy is now a venture-class investment opportunity, Forner, Patel, and the Focused Energy team exemplify a multinational collaboration of some of the world’s top minds.


P.S. Thank you to our tough tech champions. We really appreciate your support! If you’d like to level-up your support of our work, take a look at our pay-if-you-can membership options so you can help us bring Tough Tech Today to more folks!

🔖Topic Timecodes:
[1:50] Focused Energy’s approach to fusion
[6:07] Differences from WX-7
[7:41] Magnetic vs. inertial fusion
[11:16] How ignition discovery changed the inertial fusion industry
[12:46] Focused’s focus
[14:18] Biggest misconception about fusion in venture capital
[17:52] Comparison of risks between fusion, fission, and autonomous driving industry
[20:57] Developing in public vs private sector
[24:48] Founding story of Focused Energy
[28:23] Working between US and Germany
[34:30] Balancing cooperation and competition
[36:16] Connections to government and politics
[40:10] What’s on the whiteboard
[41:53] Number one technology priority for Focused Energy
[43:28] How does inertial fusion work?
[48:30] Focused Energy is hiring



🧠Relevant Links:
Episode homepage: https://www.toughtechtoday.com/fusing-atoms-with-lasers/Thomas Forner on LinkedIn: https://de.linkedin.com/in/forner-thomasPravesh Patel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pravesh-patelFocused Energy homepage: https://focused-energy.world
👏Credit Roll: 
Producers: Jonathan 'JMill' Miller and Forrest MeyenGuests: Thomas Forner and Pravesh PatelHosts: JMill and Forrest MeyenEditing: JMillTranscript: JMill

Investors are betting big on clean energy becoming the norm.
Tina Tosukhowong of TDK Ventures joins us for a review of the major approaches to curbing carbon emissions in hard-to-abate industries. A thorough assessment led Tosukhowong to opportunities for practical, grid-scale fusion. TDK Ventures invested in Type One Energy Group, a private fusion company affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their stellarator-based design is one of several that have emerged in recent years, with the Type One team and their thesis-driven backers like Tosukhowong of TDK Ventures being among the leaders of commercial fusion approaches in the United States.
TDK Ventures is pursuing “big ticket items that contribute to climate change”, Tosukhowong states, including  aviation, shipping, cement, steel, industrial heat, and the overall building sector. Each is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, each is foundational to our society’s operation, and each is in the crosshairs of tough tech startups looking to preserve the habitability of our planet for future generations. 

How do we harness the power of the stars to deliver clean energy on Earth?


It has been a collective goal – and, perhaps, an impending imperative – for human civilization to secure renewable energy sources for its present and future needs. The team at Proxima Fusion (https://www.proximafusion.com/about), led by co-founder and CEO Francesco Sciortino (https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-sciortino-aa340180/), is focused on one approach to build a fusion power plant. Their use of a “stellarator”, a wildly complex machine that until recently has been literally impossible to build, could prove the economic viability of the design and its underlying physics. 


Headquartered in the booming ‘tough tech’ center of Munich, Germany, and drawing in expertise globally, Francesco shares with us how his team of scientist-engineers are leveraging prior learnings from tokamak systems as well as integrating institutional knowledge from their stellarator’s predecessor, the famed Wendelstein 7-X reactor built by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.


P.S. Thank you to our tough tech champions. Special shoutout to Erika – you are our first Advocate member. We really appreciate your support! If you’d like to follow Erika’s example, take a look at our pay-if-you-can membership options so you can help us bring Tough Tech Today to more folks!


🧠Relevant Links:
Episode homepage: www.toughtechtoday.com/harnessing-the-power-of-a-star/Francesco Sciortino on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-sciortino-aa340180/Proxima Fusion homepage: http://proximafusion.com/MIT PSFC article about Proxima Fusion: https://www.psfc.mit.edu/news/2023/from-mit-bonds-to-stellarator-breakthroughs-proxima-fusion
👏Credit Roll: 
Producers: Jonathan 'JMill' Miller and Forrest MeyenGuest: Francesco SciortinoHosts: JMill and Forrest MeyenEditing: JMillTranscript: Alan Yan and JMillBlog Author: JMillArt Design: JMill (stellarator icon credit Olena Panasovska)
🔖Topic Timecodes:
[forthcoming]
📖Transcript:
Transcript is viewable here: https://otter.ai/u/cEyXpgYNFKgTPRZWbR78cvc-88A