How a Lawyer and a Listicle Launched One of Quantum's Most Influential Media Platforms

Evan Kubes had no physics degree, no engineering background, and no idea what a qubit was when he stumbled across a press release about AWS investing in quantum. What he did have was experience translating complex industries for mainstream audiences — and within months, he and co-founder Alex Challans had turned a Wix website and a "Top 20 Most Influential People in Quantum" listicle into The Quantum Insider, now one of the industry's leading media and intelligence platforms. In this episode, Evan shares how that scrappy start grew into Resonance, a multi-vertical deep tech media company — and why he spent the last year making Our Quantum Future, a feature-length documentary premiering at APS March Meeting that aims to bring quantum out of the echo chamber and onto your screen.

Why this episode matters

This episode marks a new chapter for The New Quantum Era. In the intro, Sebastian shares some big updates — going fully independent, new media projects including the Helgoland 2025 documentary, a newsletter, and broader efforts to build a more accessible and equitable quantum technology ecosystem through open source and open standards. He also announces his new role as a Fellow at the Unitary Foundation. Read the full blog post: A New Chapter.

The conversation with Evan Kubes is a perfect fit for this moment. Evan sits at the intersection of quantum's technical community and the broader world trying to make sense of it — a translator between physicists and the public. His story illuminates something the industry rarely discusses: how do you actually build awareness, trust, and market understanding for a technology most people can't explain?

The documentary Our Quantum Future, produced for the International Year of Quantum and featuring Nobel laureates, a former CIA officer, and the leaders of Google, Microsoft, and IonQ, is designed for exactly that audience — the curious non-specialist who wants to understand what quantum means for the world. The ethics and national security themes it surfaces are relevant well beyond the quantum community.

What you'll learn

• How The Quantum Insider went from zero readers to a leading quantum industry platform using a creative "vanity listicle" strategy that got CEOs to respond overnight
• Why a lawyer from the esports world saw the same market opportunity in quantum that venture capitalists were pouring billions into — and what that says about the accessibility gap in deep tech
• How the Resonance media model applies The Quantum Insider playbook to space, AI, and climate tech — and what makes a deep tech vertical ripe for this approach
• What 39 interviews across 40 countries revealed about how the quantum community thinks about ethics — including a striking divide between engineers ("I'm just solving a hard problem") and policymakers ("we need safeguards now")
• The Oppenheimer parallel: how the documentary draws a direct line between the atomic bomb's development and today's quantum technology, and why some builders don't think about consequences while others think about nothing else
• A former CIA operative's reframing of quantum advantage as incremental compounding — 1% better per year for five years — and why that makes quantum feel much more real today than the "break all encryption" narrative suggests
• Why academics and corporate leaders consistently disagree on quantum's timeline, and where Evan lands after a year of filming both camps

Resources & links

Guest links

• The Quantum Insider — Quantum industry media, intelligence, and data platform co-founded by Evan
• Resonance — Parent company extending the deep tech media model to space, AI, climate tech [link to confirm]
• Our Quantum Future — Documentary website with sign-up for distribution updates

People mentioned in the episode

• Alex Challans — Co-founder and CEO of The Quantum Insider; Evan's business partner
• Nicholas Ogler — Former CIA operative featured in the documentary; redefines quantum advantage from a national security lens
• Dr. Bill Phillips — Nobel Prize-winning physicist; discusses his bet with Carl Williams on the quantum advantage timeline
• Dr. John Doyle — Professor of quantum at Harvard, president of APS; draws the Oppenheimer parallel
• Ilyas Khan — Former CEO of Quantinuum; argues for educational licensing frameworks around quantum technology
• Eric Cornell — Nobel Prize winner featured in the documentary

Mentioned in the intro

• A New Chapter — NQE blog post — Sebastian's full announcement on going independent, new projects, and the future of the podcast
• Unitary Foundation — Open-source quantum technology ecosystem; Sebastian is now a Fellow

Key quotes & insights

"When Oppenheimer and the most brilliant minds in the world were developing the atom, you had a large group who didn't really understand what they were building — they were just trying to solve a very difficult engineering and physics problem. We posed that same question to engineers at Google today: do you ever think about the potential consequences of what you're building? They said, absolutely not.""Quantum advantage to me is simply: if I can do a certain task 1% better every single year for five years, that compounds quite heavily. A country that uses quantum to improve radar detection by half a percent per year for five years has a massive advantage." — Nicholas Agler, former CIA"We emailed 20 people in the quantum industry — CEOs of Microsoft, Google, IonQ, Atom Computing — and said: Congratulations, you made The Quantum Insider's list of the top 20 most influential people in quantum. Every single person responded and agreed to do an interview.""For any industry to succeed, you've gotta get the venture capitalists and the capital markets around it, and you've gotta get the end users excited. If it's only PhDs talking to each other, it's gonna be a very limited market.""This documentary was not made for the quantum industry. It was made for Joe Blow and Cindy Blow at home who've never heard of this industry — to elevate and highlight all this fascinating work that we're doing."

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Join the conversation

• See the film: Visit ourquantumfuture.com to sign up for distribution updates — the premiere is at APS March Meeting in Boulder, with broader release to follow.
• Read the blog ...