Future Optimist

Chris Tolles is the CEO of Yardstick, an eco-tech company focused on measuring soil carbon that just raised $12MM in Series A funding. In this episode, we talk about climate challenges, and the potential of addressing climate change through improved agricultural practices. Exploring a niche within a niche, Yardstick aims to create a market by offering a method to measure soil carbon cheaply and ef...

Nik Ershov is  the CEO of Waverox, makers of brain-monitoring headphones and headbands that help you de-stress and be more productive. Nik Ershov shares his journey from experiencing severe burnout in the advertising and marketing industry to founding a startup focused on combating stress and increasing productivity through a mind-tracking device and wellness app. He explains how his personal batt...

Dr. Gordon Chiu has 41 patents and recently won Harvard Business School's "Tough Tech" Prize in 2023. He is a graphene pioneer, investor, AI entrepreneur and deep tech expert. In this episode, we discuss various topics including a utopian/dystopian future, the importance of authenticity, the future of technology, and the healing power of music. Join me for a deep philosophical conversation with a...

John Hacker is a biomedical engineer and the CEO of NeurGear. His latest innovation is the ZenBud, the market's first ultrasonic vagus nerve stimulator, designed to promote relaxation and combat stress. In this episode, Jon Hacker discusses the underlying technology, its decades of research, and its implications for future wellness applications. He sheds light on the challenges and excitement surr...

Joining us today is Alan Liu, the co-founder of Persperion Diagnostics, an innovative startup based in San Diego that aims to revolutionize diabetes management with its non-invasive glucose monitoring technology. Founded in 2022 by Alan Liu and Lu Yin, the company leverages cutting-edge touch-based sweat-sensing technology to detect a wide range of biomarkers from a simple fingertip touch. This te...

Brooke Harris is the founder and CEO of Goodmylk Co., one of the world's leading plant-based dairy companies.  Her awakening to the benefits of a plant-based diet—driven by personal health challenges—unveiled the stark reality of conventional "nutritious" alternatives marred by unhealthy additives. Determined to offer a genuine, healthful option, Brooke's venture into crafting plant-based milks wi...

Massimo Portincaso is the Founder and CEO of Arsenale BioYards. Formerly, he was a managing director at Boston Consulting Group. As the creator of this groundbreaking bio-manufacturing platform (what does that even mean!?!), he’s using crazy tools like yeast to build… Anything! No this isn’t Star Trek… but this is undeniably the kind of future tech that humans have only dreamed about for generatio...

Greg Johnson is the Co-Founder and CEO of AquiPor Technologies. His company offers groundbreaking tech for porous concrete, meaning the sidewalk can collect and capture rain water! AquiPor promotes a new type of material technology intended for urban stormwater management. We will investigate the effectiveness and environmental impact of their products, including their permeable concrete and low-c...

Welcome to Future Optimist! I'm Ross Palmer, founder of aloa.agency, and together we're going to explore the world of the future in all its good and bad glory with the entrepreneurs and visionaries who are building the world of tomorrow. I hope you’ll join me in becoming a Future Optimist! ➡️ Watch these episodes on YouTube ➡️ My agency Aloa®

Wow – 200 interviews in the bag! So what’s next? In this mini-episode I’m going to be telling you three things I’ve learned from the 200 interviews I’ve conducted for the Beat the Often Path podcast. I’m also going to be going into more detail about an exciting change that’s coming up – the name of the podcast is changing to…*drumroll*… Future Optimist! We’re going to explore the world of the futu...

In this very special 200th interview, I’m joined by Deniz Kent, the Co-Founder & CEO of Prolific Machines, a biotech company at the forefront of sustainable and healthy food. Starting his career with notable research in cancer immunotherapy at the University of Bristol, Deniz has been recognized for his contributions to science, including winning the award for “outstanding contribution to research...

Lin Kayser is the co-founder of Leap 71 – a Dubai-based company pioneering the emerging field of Computational Engineering. Lin started coding as an 8-year-old and is a serial entrepreneur with 30 years of experience in building high technology ventures. His software was also pivotal in the roll-out of the original Matrix movie, still one of my absolute favorite movies of all time. ➡️ https://leap...

Gastón Paladini is the CEO and Co-Founder of Moolec Science, a crazy tech company that is literally turning soy into pork. Can plants be more like meat, no really? In this episode, we're spotlighting Moolec Science, a trailblazer in the food industry harnessing the power of Molecular Farming technology. Not sure what that is? Great! Because neither am I. At the helm (and joining us today) is CEO a...

Niklas Kluger is the co-founder and COO of InPlanet, a brilliant eco-company with a quadruple+ bottom line.   We’ll learn how this GreenTech pioneer, with a rich background in environmental engineering and tropical agriculture, is revolutionizing carbon dioxide removal. From scaling urban farming globally to pioneering something I had never heard of called “Enhanced Rock Weathering” in Brazil, Nik...

Saman Farid is the CEO and founder of Formic Technologies, a company at the forefront of revolutionizing automation in manufacturing. With a passionate commitment to boosting productivity in U.S. industries, his company Formic, specializes in offering cutting-edge robotic solutions that elegantly simplify automation. These versatile robots not only streamline the packing and palletizing processes...

Paul Shapiro is the CEO of the Better Meat Company—a company on a mission to reinvent "meat". T hey’ve got plug-and-play mycoprotein formulations that quickly and cost-effectively enhance (or even replace) meat products while improving nutrition, flavor, and yield. He's also the author of the best-selling book, Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World, a...

In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about Blue Oceans and Red Oceans, a concept talked about in Blue Ocean Strategy by Renée Mauborgne, W. Chan Kim. Broadly speaking, a “blue ocean” is uncontested market space—something that no one else is really doing, like Cirque Du Soleil when they first started. Compare that with a “red ocean”, or a supersaturated market in which you’re unlikely to succeed...

Today we’ve got an AWESOME episode for you. Joining us is Matt Rogers, whom I believe we can accurately call a tech legend. Matt's career began at Apple, where his talent and dedication led him to build the software team responsible for ten generations of the iconic iPod. As one of the pioneering engineers on the original iPhone, his influence extended through five generations of the device and in...

Fabian is a six-time serial entrepreneur with a 33-year history in technology innovation, holding over 100 patents in software, electronics, and photovoltaics. He has led diverse teams on four continents and launched numerous technology products globally. As the Co-founder and CEO of Solaires Entreprises Inc., a Canadian cleantech company, he's pioneering the development of perovskite-based solar...

Ryan Field is the CEO of Kernel, a neurotech company that's raised over $150 million revolutionizing neuromedicine. What if a brain scan was a part of our regular checkup? What if we could detect and prevent diseases like dementia far in advance, with non-invasive tech? Something as simple as just putting on a bicycle helmet? Could we accelerate treatment discovery? Improve patient outcomes? And t...

Today's episode feels like pure science fiction. What is a digital twin? How could this help us make better and faster pharmaceuticals? And why is that important? We know that there is so much data about us and our bodies and soon, our brains. Is there a reality in which we can use data to remove human testing from the process of finding new drugs? How can we use machine learning and artificial in...

Tom Frazier is the co-founder and CEO of Redivider, a company that is making sustainable & responsible edge computing. But first, what is edge computing? You might not realize it, but every single device you use and every single platform you interact with is storing massive amounts of data somewhere. And the farther away from you physically these data centers are the more inefficient and unsustain...

Travis Rosbach is the creator and founder of Hydro Flask, and a brilliant 600x MoM serial entrepreneur. Do you know those water bottles you've seen everywhere? Every single time you go to the airport, it seems like every single person has one? Well, it turns out that that's called the Hydro Flask, and it was invented by Travis Rosbach. Today we are going to discuss the unlikely journey and strange...

Robin Simsa is the CEO of Revo Foods, the first company to sell 3D printed, vegan “salmon” filets – already available all over Europe. They're making 100% plant-based seafood to reduce overfishing and relieve pressure on our marine ecosystem. Robin himself has a PhD in biotech from the university of Gothenburg and Tufts University, and he was also nominated to Forbes 30 Under 30. 3D printing food...

Nicki Driscoll, PhD is a post-doc researcher at MIT, and CTO of NeuroBionics, a company that has developed a new kind of neural interface using microscale, flexible, bioelectronic fibers that seamlessly integrate with the body. Have you ever seen a fiber optic cable? Imagine a tiny strand that is as thin as a human hair. Each fiber integrates a range of functions, such as electrical, chemical, and...