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In this episode of Blond & Quantum, I sit down with Ish Dhand, Founder and CEO of QC Design — a startup building the essential design automation (EDA) layer for fault-tolerant quantum computers.

We dive deep into why designing scalable, error-corrected quantum computers has become the industry's biggest bottleneck. Ish explains how QC Design is turning 30 years of academic research into production software, allowing hardware teams to simulate 20+ hardware imperfections at once — something open-source tools cannot do. We also explore why QC Design competes with in-house teams (not other startups), how they achieved product-market fit in just six months, and why they are already cash flow positive.

We also explore:

• What the "EDA layer" means for quantum (and why Cadence is the blueprint)
• The difference between logical qubits and logical sockets
• Why hiring 20 PhDs is hard to do — and how software replaces them
• How QC Design works across all hardware platforms (photonic, trapped ion, neutral atom, spin, superconducting)
• The 3–5 year roadmap to 100+ logical qubits solving transformative problems
• The real risk: what happens if no hardware platform reaches fault tolerance
• Ish's advice for anyone wanting to become a quantum founder today

🎙️ Guest: Ish Dhand | Founder & CEO, QC Design

🎧 Host: Eva | Blond & Quantum

If you enjoyed this conversation, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share — more episodes with global leaders in quantum are coming soon.

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