Boris Sofman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bedrock Robotics, a company turning existing construction equipment into fully autonomous fleets through same-day hardware upfits. With over $80 million in funding from Eclipse, 8VC, NVIDIA Ventures, and former Waymo CEO John Krafcik, Bedrock is tackling a major bottleneck in the global economy: a massive construction labor shortage just as demand for data centers, clean energy projects, housing, and manufacturing is skyrocketing.

 In this episode, Boris shares how his experience building autonomous vehicles at Waymo inspired him to apply similar AI and machine learning approaches to heavy equipment. He explains why full autonomy matters in construction, what it unlocks for efficiency and safety, and how Bedrock plans to accelerate infrastructure and industrial development through robotic automation.

Episode recorded on Sept 30, 2025 (Published on Nov 13, 2025)

In this episode, we cover: 

• [02:45] Boris’s background in robotics and autonomous vehicles
• [04:50] Learnings from Waymo applied to construction
• [10:09] Boris’s predictions for autonomous vehicles in the future
• [18:44] Why he left Waymo to start Bedrock Robotics
• [22:59] Choosing construction as the first market for autonomy
• [25:26] How Bedrock upfits machines without permanent modifications
• [26:25] Why excavators are the first target use case
• [28:20] Training AI to navigate changing job site environments
• [30:54] Skipping teleoperation and going straight to autonomy
• [35:52] Bedrock’s GTM focus on heavy industrial sectors
• [40:46] How to work with traditional industries effectively
• [43:55] How autonomy solves labor shortages and safety challenges

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Chase Lochmiller is the CEO and co-founder of Crusoe. If you’re a regular listener, Crusoe isn’t new to the pod. This summer, Cody sat down with Chase’s Co-founder and COO, Cully Cavness, during our live event in Austin.

This latest episode was recorded live at the inaugural MCJ Summit in San Francisco at the beautiful Autodesk Gallery. Cody and Chase dive into how Crusoe is building data centers at the intersection of AI and energy. Chase traces his path from MIT soccer captain and mountaineer to climate-focused entrepreneur, and how those experiences shaped Crusoe’s core values of preparation, curiosity, and speed.

He shares the story behind the company’s 1.2-gigawatt Abilene, TX project, its energy-first approach to powering AI infrastructure, and his vision for an era of abundant energy and intelligence. The discussion also explores the future of AI labor, grid integration, and what digital abundance could mean for society at large.

Special thanks to our MCJ Summit attendees and our kind sponsors: Autodesk Foundation, Borusan, Cedar Grove, CSC Leasing, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Obayashi, Palantir, and Safire Partners.

Episode recorded on Oct 15, 2025 (Published on Oct 29, 2025)

In this episode, we cover: 

• ⁠ [01:14] ⁠Chase’s early love of math, science, and soccer
• ⁠ [02:42] ⁠Realizing academia moved too slow for his energy
• ⁠ [04:32] ⁠How his entrepreneurial father shaped his path
• ⁠ [05:05] ⁠Climbing Everest and the origins of “Think Like a Mountaineer”
• ⁠ [09:32] ⁠Defining Crusoe as a clean AI infrastructure company
• ⁠ [10:47] ⁠Building vertically integrated “AI factories”
• ⁠ [16:24] ⁠Inside the 1.2 GW Abilene project for OpenAI and Oracle
• ⁠ [20:52] ⁠Crusoe’s energy-first approach to compute build-outs
• ⁠ [25:36] ⁠Using AI demand to accelerate next-gen energy solutions
• ⁠ [30:24] ⁠When AI becomes a power orchestrator
• ⁠ [33:31] ⁠Digital labor and AI’s impact on GDP and society
• ⁠ [38:41] ⁠How Chase hopes Crusoe is remembered in 30 years

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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• Cody Simms on LinkedIn
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Juliann Edwards is Chief Development Officer at The Nuclear Company. The United States has 93 operating nuclear reactors providing about 20% of the nation’s electricity. After decades without new builds, Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia finally came online—despite cost overruns and delays that nearly derailed the project. Meanwhile, China has dozens of reactors under construction and is on pace to surpass the U.S. as the world’s nuclear leader by 2030.

At the same time, an energy-demand gap—driven by AI data centers, reshoring of manufacturing, and widespread electrification—has put nuclear back in the conversation. Hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta are scrambling for clean, reliable baseload power.

The Nuclear Company believes it can crack what’s held nuclear back in America. Rather than inventing new reactor designs, they’re using proven models like and targeting “the other 88%” of costs—construction, financing, and project management. Their approach is fleet-scale deployment: building multiple reactors at once to drive down costs through repetition and shared learning. They’re also partnering with Palantir to build an AI-powered operating system to orchestrate these projects.

Beyond her role at The Nuclear Company, Juliann chairs U.S. Women in Nuclear. With 15 years in the industry—from steel commodities to the 2000s nuclear renaissance and the decommissioning wave—she’s seen the cycles and why today’s interest feels different.

MCJ is a multiple-time investor in The Nuclear Company through our venture funds.

Episode recorded on Aug 7, 2025 (Published on Oct 7, 2025)

In this episode, we cover: 

• [2:57] Juliann’s background and path to nuclear
• [05:30] Women in Nuclear’s mission and growth
• [06:38] Lessons from a six‑state nuclear bus tour
• [08:22] NIMBY sentiment shifting toward nuclear acceptance
• [10:25] U.S. build history and why it stalled
• [18:06] What went wrong and right at Vogtle
• [24:05] Nuclear reactor ~12% of cost; 88% is everything else
• [25:42] Workforce gaps and training pipelines
• [26:40] An overview of nuclear project types
• [32:59] Timelines: restarts soon; new builds in years
• [34:42] TNC’s executive makeup
• [37:40] The role of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• [40:35] Palantir and TNC’s newly announced partnership
• [48:35] Solving the nuclear waste problem
• [50:30] Juliann’s predictions for the future of nuclear
• [53:10] Hyperscalers’ evolving nuclear appetite

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Steve Oldham is CEO of Captura. Captura develops Direct Ocean Capture (DOC) technology that removes CO₂ from seawater, triggering the ocean to draw more CO₂ from the air to rebalance. With CO₂ concentrations ~150× higher in seawater than air, Captura’s closed-loop process uses electrodialysis to create acid and base on site—no added chemicals, no waste—and can run largely on off-peak renewable energy. 

Oldham, former CEO of Carbon Engineering, contrasts DOC with DAC, discusses MRV and crediting, deployment pathways (onshore, barges, vessels), his company’s pilot progress in Hawaii, and why pragmatic scale-up and licensing partnerships matter for gigaton carbon removal. 

Episode recorded on Aug 28, 2025 (Published on Sept 30, 2025)

In this episode, we cover: 

• [02:17] Steve’s path from Carbon Engineering to Captura
• [05:30] How Direct Ocean Capture actually works
• [09:10] Closed-loop design with no waste products
• [10:14] Using electrodialysis to split acid and base
• [13:12] Deployment options: onshore plants, barges, vessels
• [14:39] Running on off-peak and curtailed renewables
• [16:30] Measuring and crediting carbon drawdown
• [21:53] Balancing CO₂ use vs. permanent storage
• [25:22] Policy gaps like 45Q for ocean removal
• [35:15] Captura’s Kona pilot built in 70 days
• [37:33] First commercial project expected in Europe

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ben Lamm is CEO and Co-founder of Colossal Biosciences, the world’s first de-extinction company. Colossal has raised more than $400 million at a valuation north of $10 billion to bring back extinct species using synthetic biology and genetic engineering. Just this year, the company unveiled the first dire wolves born in 12,000 years, created woolly mice with mammoth-like fur, and remains on track to see woolly mammoth calves by 2028.

This conversation explores Colossal’s end-to-end platform approach, from ancient DNA recovery to multiplex genome editing, and why Ben sees de-extinction not just as science fiction come true but as a venture-scale business that spins out companies, partners with governments, and raises profound ethical questions. We cover polarizing public reactions, the conservation potential of rewilding keystone species, and how synthetic biology and AI are accelerating breakthroughs once thought impossible.

Episode recorded on Aug 20, 2025 (Published on Sept 23, 2025)

In this episode, we cover: 

• [04:14] An overview of Colossal
• [05:47] The company’s dire wolf pups debut
• [10:51] Reasons behind de-extinction
• [11:49] Mammoth vs. thylacine vs. dodo challenges
• [18:40] How Ben co-founded a bioscience company
• [20:56] George Church and Colossal’s origin story
• [22:40] The “why” behind bringing back the mammoth
• [27:42] Colossal’s biodiversity credit carbon model
• [28:43] Trade-offs between rewilding existing species vs extinct
• [31:35] Colossal’s multifaceted business model
• [33:58] The company’s plastic-eating enzyme spinout
• [37:57] Colossal’s unique speed of R&D
• [40:38] The Colossal Foundation
• [42:29] Ben’s pov on our moral obligation to transparency

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Dr. Stephen Beaton is Co-founder and CEO of Circularity Fuels, which develops compact reactors that turn waste carbon streams into high-value fuels and chemicals. Rather than compete with fossil fuels from the start, Stephen identified high-purity methane for lab-grown diamonds as a beachhead market—where Circularity’s product is 80–90% cheaper than incumbents while proving the core technology needed for clean liquid fuels.

Stephen earned a chemistry PhD at Oxford and built deep expertise in synthetic fuels during his U.S. Air Force career, including overseeing jet fuel quality control in the Middle East and launching the Air Force’s e-fuels program. His insight: build a fuels company that doesn’t begin with fuel.

Today, Circularity Fuels operates demonstration reactors in diamond facilities and is scaling toward biogas-to-SAF production using the same reactor platform. The company has raised $3M in venture funding, including from DCVC, plus $5M in grants from ARPA-E, NSF, and the California Energy Commission. MCJ is proud to be an investor.

Episode recorded on Aug 12, 2025 (Published on Sept 16, 2025)

In this episode, we cover: 

• [03:09] Dr. Beaton’s background in clean fuels
• [07:31] His work with Air Force petroleum in the Middle East
• [10:12] A brief overview of hydrocarbons
• [13:08] ESAF as resilience for Pacific operations
• [16:22] What e-SAF really means and why it matters
• [19:24] Circularity Fuels’ origin story
• [21:20] The company’s three principles
• [23:04] High-purity methane for diamonds as a beachhead
• [27:46] Recycling diamond exhaust with microwave-sized reactors
• [30:40] Building a fuel company without fuel as the initial product
• [34:35] Hardware sales vs metered methane service model
• [39:05] Biogas-to-SAF pathway via Fischer-Tropsch
• [42:38] Circularity’s progress to date
• [44:01] Competing with fossil jet and carbon removals
• [48:41] How Circularity secured non-dilutive funding

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Marc Tarpenning is Co-founder of Tesla and a venture partner at Spero Ventures. In 2003, Marc and Martin Eberhard saw two signals: GM killed its beloved EV1, and Californians snapped up Toyota’s Prius despite its compromises. They realized the market was ready for an electric car that was better than gas, not worse. Their breakthrough: 7,000 off-the-shelf laptop batteries powering a sports car that outran a Porsche and drove over 200 miles. The Tesla Roadster was born, before Elon Musk joined the company.

Marc shares how his time in Saudi Arabia exposed him to oil dependence, how NuvoMedia taught him about the pace of battery improvement, and why a software mindset helped Tesla out-innovate incumbents. Now at Spero Ventures, Marc backs founders building solutions that are both economically compelling and environmentally vital, and explains why, to him, EVs have already won.

Episode recorded on Aug 12, 2025 (Published on Sept 9, 2025)

In this episode, we cover: 

• [05:58] Marc's experience fixing software projects in Saudi Arabia
• [07:06] Why TELO’s compact electric pickup makes sense
• [09:09] Marc's Star Trek optimism versus Blade Runner dystopia
• [10:29] On founding NuvoMedia and the first e-book readers
• [17:40] Brainstorming EVs after the dot-com collapse
• [20:25] Prius demand proves customers value efficiency
• [22:18] Reducing oil dependence as national security
• [24:46] Roadster powered by 7,000 laptop lithium-ion cells
• [30:28] The Tesla launch playbook
• [32:14] Acceleration as the hook for high-end EV buyers
• [37:20] Early interactions with Elon Musk at SpaceX office
• [40:11] Lessons from early Roadster builds
• [43:36] Vertical integration only where it truly differentiates
• [48:15] Why EVs are inevitable
• [50:30] Marc's thoughts on Tesla today

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Dr. Susan Hubbard is Deputy Director for Science and Technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the largest of the U.S. Department of Energy’s multi-program science and energy labs. With more than 7,000 scientists and engineers, Oak Ridge is advancing innovation across nuclear energy, grid resilience, AI, quantum computing, isotopes, and advanced manufacturing. In this episode, Susan shares how the national labs’ mission has evolved since the Manhattan Project, how companies and startups engage with Oak Ridge through user facilities and partnerships, and what role the labs will play in shaping the future of energy and technology amid today’s geopolitical and industrial shifts.

Episode recorded Aug 18, 2025 (Published Sept 2, 2025) 

In this episode, we cover: 

• [03:03] Dr. Hubbard’s early career and hydrogeophysics
• [05:31] Permafrost thaw in the Arctic
• [07:11] Earth system complexity
• [09:00] Transition from geophysicist to ORNL leadership
• [12:17] ORNL’s user facilities, including Frontier supercomputer
• [13:56] Isotopes for medicine, security, and Mars exploration
• [15:45] Neutron scattering and world-leading materials research
• [17:25] Large-scale 3D additive manufacturing for energy
• [19:25] How DOE priorities shape research directions
• [22:04] Public-private partnerships in nuclear and fusion
• [26:54] ORNL’s role in ITER and advanced fusion materials
• [30:51] Local enthusiasm for nuclear in Tennessee
• [31:54] Building the future grid: reliability, cybersecurity, AI
• [33:17] High-performance computing simulations of energy systems
• [37:23] Quantum computing, AI, and labs of the future
• [43:41] How startups engage with ORNL (CRADA, Innovation Crossroads)
• [48:02] U.S. R&D evolution: Manhattan Project to today

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Mitch Lee, CEO of Arc Boat Company, is bringing the Tesla playbook to boating. Arc’s quiet, software-powered electric boats—like the sold-out Arc Sport—deliver cleaner rides, zero fumes, and customizable wave settings. Mitch shares why electric makes more sense on water than land, how dockside charging already works, and why Arc builds full boats instead of motors. With $100M raised and an expansion into commercial vessels, Arc is leading a cleaner, better future for marine travel.

Episode recorded on Aug 6, 2025 (Published on Aug 12, 2025)

In this episode, we cover: 

• [3:27] An overview of Arc Boat Company 
• [5:07] Mitch’s background and experience 
• ⁠[6:28] The inefficiency of gas boats and fuel use
• [8:17] His decision to build Arc 
• [10:54] The company’s vertically integrated battery pack 
• ⁠[12:04] Why Arc builds complete boats, not just motors
• ⁠[13:31] Battery size, range, and charging times for Arc boats
• [16:36] Charging Arc boats 
• [19:26] The traditional boat market and Arc's advantage
• [24:26] Safety on Arc boats 
• ⁠[28:51] Lessons from Arc One to Arc Sport
• ⁠[33:20] Software-driven customization for water sports
• ⁠[39:19] Arc Coast’s design and target market
• ⁠[41:30] Expansion into commercial and hybrid-electric vessels
• [44:21] Why the US hasn’t electrified commercial vessels like ferries 
• ⁠[49:06] $100M raised from top VCs and celebrity investors

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Katherine Boyle and Erin Price-Wright are General Partners at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), leading the firm's American Dynamism practice. This episode explores how their team invests in companies tackling national imperatives—ranging from defense and manufacturing to energy and critical infrastructure. Katherine shares how American Dynamism emerged from portfolio patterns at a16z, while Erin describes how her background at Palantir informs her investment lens. 

Together, they unpack why the U.S. must reindustrialize, how software is now eating the physical world, and what they look for in high-capex startups. This conversation also highlights the evolving U.S.-China industrial competition, the role of government in innovation, and why talent is moving from Big Tech into “hard tech.”

In this episode, we cover: 

• ⁠[02:30]⁠ An overview of a16z
• ⁠[04:59]⁠ Its thesis shift from defense to energy and industry
• ⁠[07:49]⁠ How AI is transforming heavy industries
• [8:24] Tech stack for US vs. China
• [12:23]⁠ Role of government versus private capital
• ⁠[16:14]⁠ Why software is still the core of industrial innovation
• [16:55]⁠ Base Power as a software-led grid infrastructure play
• ⁠[20:42]⁠ When vertical AI-native startups beat incumbents
• ⁠[21:48]⁠ How a16z helps startups navigate Washington
• ⁠[27:51]⁠ Why energy problems require system-level solutions
• ⁠[31:57]⁠ Moats in energy and manufacturing
• [37:51] a16z’s American Dynamism 50 list
• ⁠[40:16]⁠ Battery supply chains and the China dependency
• ⁠[46:44]⁠ Why capital stack strategy matters for hard tech founders
• ⁠[48:52]⁠ Looking 10 years ahead

Episode recorded on May 21, 2025 (Published on July 29, 2025)

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant