Future Optimist

Welcome to the Boston Series of Beat the Often Path! I got the chance to meet some of the most innovative and inspiring people in Boston’s robust start-up series, and I have to tell you, I absolutely loved my time there. Joining us on location at the Neurable offices in downtown Boston, Sridhar Iyengar is the Chief Innovation Officer of Elemental Machines and the former founder and director of Misfit, a wearable tech company that was purchased in 2015 by Fossil for $260 million. Sridhar holds over 30 U.S. and international patents and received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University as a Marshall Scholar. His newest company Elemental Machines has 250+ Customers and $300M+ in Protected Assets Monitored with their tech, which leverages a unique suite of IoT-enabled sensors, innovative software, and first-in-class data science to provide actionable insights that optimize complex operations. If it sounds complicated, it might be because this man is a genius. But more importantly, he’s a great person who is committed to helping other founders grow, so I’m deeply honored to have his wisdom on this show today.

➡️ https://elementalmachines.com/

➡️ Highlights: https://rosspalmer.com/sridhar-iyengar

➡️ Follow me on Instagram: @therosspalmer

➡️ Subscribe on YouTube: @therosspalmer

Bolis Ibrahim is the president of Cence Power, a start-up that aims to stop energy waste when AC power is converted to DC. The power coming into your house or office is AC, or alternating current. However, the vast majority of the devices and lights you use are DC, or direct current. Currently (har har), each individual device does its own AC/DC conversion, and if you’ve ever felt a hot laptop charger, you’ll have witnessed power going to waste. Cence can save buildings up to 40% on their energy consumption for lighting and HVAC systems, which adds up when you consider how many commercial buildings there are in the world!

➡️ https://www.cencepower.com/

➡️ Highlights: https://rosspalmer.com/bolis-ibrahim

➡️ Follow me on Instagram: @therosspalmer

➡️ Subscribe on YouTube: @therosspalmer

Maeve Wang is a Harvard graduate and the CEO of IAMBIC, a company that uses AI to make truly customized shoes that are tailored to your exact foot.

Finding shoes that fit, it turns out, is a big problem for 27% of the population and it affects a considerably larger percentage. It’s not just about comfort and fashion, it’s about health and fundamental wellbeing. Beyond that, Maeve has a remarkable personal story and career, as she left the corporate world to become an unlikely founder. 

➡️ https://iambic.co/

➡️ Highlights: https://rosspalmer.com/maeve-wang

➡️ Follow me on Instagram: @therosspalmer

➡️ Subscribe on YouTube: @therosspalmer

Is the "green rush" over? Are NFTs still a thing? Was it wrong of me to put my life savings into AMC stock? Michael Johnson is the CEO of Metrc, a company that makes supply chain software for the cannabis industry. If talking about cannabis bothers you, I suggest you skip this episode… This is one of those businesses that makes sense when you learn about it, but seems so out of left field for an uneducated person such as myself. Today we discuss the cannabis industry boom and maturation of the “green rush” as what was once an emerging field becomes more commonplace. Metrc has over 250,000 users for their “track and trace” software program, and they’re trying to bring safety and oversight to the wild west of the cannabis space. 

➡️ https://www.metrc.com/

➡️ Highlights: https://rosspalmer.com/michael-johnson 

➡️ Follow me on Instagram: @therosspalmer 

➡️ Subscribe on YouTube: @therosspalmer 

Jo Norris is a climate scientist, materials engineer, and artist, combining all three in the climate tech startup space. She’s the co-founder and CEO of Carbon Reform, a start-up that’s built a device that removes carbon from the air and safely stores it into sustainable building materials, while improving indoor air quality and reducing HVAC costs by up to 40%. It’s one of those wild, too-good-to-be-true ideas that I’m just so excited about, and I’m not the only one: Carbon Reform has raised over $3.5 million to date, and the future looks bright for us all.

➡️ https://carbonreform.com/

➡️ Highlights: https://rosspalmer.com/jo-norris

➡️ Follow me on Instagram: @therosspalmer

➡️ Subscribe on YouTube: @therosspalmer

Joining us today is Nicholas Grundish, who earned a Ph.D. in Materials Science and studied under a Nobel Prize recipient. Now he’s putting his battery tech to use for EnergyX, a company that’s secured tens of millions in funding with GM leading their Series B with 50 million. What does this mean for you and me? Batteries in our cars and everyday devices will soon charge faster, be more safe, and have dramatically increased capacity. I love people who are building a more sustainable future in eminently practical ways.

➡️ https://energyx.com/

➡️ Highlights: https://rosspalmer.com/nicholas-grundish

Follow me on Instagram: @therosspalmer

Subscribe on YouTube: @therosspalmer

Valorant Health was founded in 2018 after Founder and CEO, Ahmed Qureshi experienced the impact that lack of access had on communities from his early years in Pakistan. Through extensive global travel, Ahmed realized that large portions of our population lack the access to healthcare that others of us expect. He saw enormous inefficiencies in outdated systems that led to incredible waste (nearly $1 trillion in waste in the US alone!), often with the people who need the healthcare the most paying the highest price. His is a fascinating take on a problem that affects us all, and I just love anyone audacious enough to take on something as massive as healthcare.

➡️ https://www.valoranthealth.com/ 

➡️ Highlights: https://rosspalmer.com/ahmed-qureshi

Follow me on Instagram: @therosspalmer

Subscribe on YouTube: @therosspalmer

Phnam Bagley designs the future of everything on and off planet Earth. She co-founded Nonfiction, a design firm that turns science fiction into reality for a better future. She's a TED speaker who has designed new food systems for astronauts and who really sees the bigger picture in everything that she does. Her company closely parallels the vision that I have for myself, for my own future and for my own company, so it was deeply fascinating talking with someone who has truly shaped an unusual life of exceptional meaning.

➡️ www.nonfiction.design

➡️ Highlights: https://rosspalmer.com/phnam-bagley

Audrey Wisch is a powerhouse, a juggernaut, a wunderkind… Or maybe she’s just a cool person with a great idea. Audrey is the Stanford “stop-out” co-founder of Curious Cardinals, a company that’s redefining mentorship for K-12 students. They’ve raised millions in funding, and they did an astonishing $750k of sales in their first year in business, essentially linking passionate college mentors with younger mentees, in a time when children are in dire need of better education and human connection.

➡️ https://www.curiouscardinals.com/

➡️ Highlights: https://rosspalmer.com/audrey-wisch

Today’s guest changed the trajectory of my life forever. When I was just 11 years old, I heard the song Xpander by Sasha for the first time. That EP opened me up to the world of electronic dance music which would change my career and my life for the next sixteen years and beyond. From that moment forward nobody ever saw me without wearing a pair of headphones, without my trusty little Sony Walkman, listening to all of these albums – Global Underground, Airdrawndagger—all of this deep house music from around the world. I didn’t know it at the time but the creator of this and many other world-changing electronic records was Charlie May, ghost producer extraordinaire. Over the years he’s made pivotal tracks with Sasha, Spooky, Junkie XL, and a who’s-who of top underground artists for the last several decades. You might not know his name but that’s exactly the point. You should. His works have shaped the current electronic scene, taking us from a time when DJs were uncelebrated and underpaid weirdos in the corner of a room to this massive celebrity industry that we see today.

This week all the music in this episode is an original creation of Charlie May—I would strongly encourage you to check out Charlie's Bandcamp for more of his work.

➡️ https://charliemay.bandcamp.com/

➡️ Highlights: https://rosspalmer.com/charlie-may