In this episode, Dewi speaks with Daniel and Luca, two quantitative analysts who left Bank of America to build Exona Labs — a startup helping insurance companies price AI risks. Daniel shares his path from applied maths in Hungary through finance to AI safety, while Luca talks about measuring the Higgs boson at CERN before pivoting to the corporate world. They explain the moment AI coding assistants made them realize this technology was genuinely transformative, the historical parallel of steam boiler insurance (and why AI moves faster), and how Blue Dot's incubator helped them build risk modelling tools that incentivize safer AI deployment through market mechanisms.

This conversation digs into why insurance could be faster than regulation, how financial incentives can drive safety at scale, and what it takes to build a startup in an industry that still prices everything by counting past failures.

Check out Daniel and Luca's new AI Insurance Startup here - https://exonalab.com/

Want to take one of our courses? 
Check them out here — https://bluedot.org/courses

A podcast by BlueDot Impact.

In this episode, Dewi speaks with Ryan Kidd, an Australian quantum physicist who pivoted from academia to become co-executive director of MATS (ML Alignment & Theory Scholars), one of the field's most ambitious AI safety talent pipelines. 

Ryan shares his journey from Brisbane to Berkeley—through depression, long COVID, and a PhD he almost didn't finish—and how discovering effective altruism during his doctorate redirected his career entirely.

He talks about the turning point when he realized his impact would be greater building infrastructure than publishing papers, the qualities that make someone a great researcher, and why the field desperately needs more "amplifiers" (people who can bridge technical work with operations and strategy). Ryan also reflects on MATS' explosive growth from 15 scholars to 175 fellows, the organization's plans to 10x again, and his vision for a coordinated, careful AI rollout that preserves human agency and meaning. 

This conversation digs into the realities of field-building at scale, the undervalued role of founders in AI safety, and what it takes to accelerate an entire generation of researchers toward building systems we can actually trust.

A podcast by BlueDot Impact.

In this episode, Dewi speaks with David Conrad, an Australian entrepreneur who went from running a nationwide chain of premium pet resorts to helping build Europe’s AI policy talent pipeline.

David shares how burnout, the pandemic, and a growing sense of responsibility pulled him away from the startup world and toward the fast-moving landscape of AI governance. He talks through the uncertainty of entering a new field, the challenge of finding meaningful work in AI policy without a technical background, and how early mentors, courses, and community helped him find his footing.

David also reflects on why he ultimately chose field-building over direct policy work, how Talos aims to scale Europe’s AI governance workforce, and the impact their fellows are already having through placements in think tanks, government bodies, and EU institutions. This conversation digs into the realities of switching careers into AI safety, the need for entrepreneurial people in governance roles, and the growing importance of building teams that can steer advanced AI toward a better future.

A podcast by BlueDot Impact.

Conversations with the people shaping the future of AI.

In this episode, Dewi sits down with Kris Bar, a former quantum computer scientist who later worked in the UK government on the Online Safety Act before moving into more direct AI Safety work.

Kris talks through how he first encountered the deeper risks posed by advanced AI systems, why he felt the policy world wasn’t engaging with those risks quickly enough, and what ultimately pushed him to shift his career toward areas where he could have greater impact. He reflects on the mismatch between government timelines and AI development, the moment he realised the stakes were far higher than he’d assumed, and how the BlueDot course helped him build the technical grounding needed to navigate the space more confidently.

This conversation explores the challenge of making sense of a fast-moving field, the limitations of shaping AI risk from within government, and the different pathways individuals can take toward work that genuinely matters.

A podcast by BlueDot Impact.