May 28, 2025 · 2h 20m · tbpn
We Interviewed the New Thiel Fellow Dropouts
John Coogan · 32m spoken Jordi Hays · 13m spoken Koki Mochida · 7m spoken Aiden Smith · 6m spoken Teddy Warner · 5m spoken Jackson Denka · 5m spoken Jennifer Lynn · 5m spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Hosted by John Coogan and Jordy Hays, this marathon broadcast brings together an entire cohort of Thiel Fellowship dropouts to showcase frontier breakthroughs spanning non-invasive neurotech, expressive robotics, rebuilt financial rails, bioelectric regeneration, and domestic rare earth refining.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 26% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 4.5 Guest teaching 5.0 Guest disagreement 1.6 The hosts pushing back 2.9
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:05:30 Rejection of the Genetic Engineering Paradigm
Juan explicitly dismisses the popular consensus that CRISPR or single-gene engineering can resolve organ regeneration, asserting that whole-organ morphogenesis requires decoding physiological bioelectric signaling.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 2:17:35 Skepticism Over Weather Data BuyersJohn rejects the optimistic commercial framing of selling weather data, arguing directly that hedge funds rarely buy data and insurance companies cannot dynamically update premiums fast enough.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 48:10 The Economics and Emissions of Rare Earth MetallurgyHouman educates the host on why duplicating Chinese molten oxyfluoride electrolysis is non-viable in the West due to perfluorocarbon emissions, presenting the economics of Silcoa's zero-carbon process.
The host holds their own ▶ 1:32:15 Connecting Robot Time to Test-Time Compute ScalingJohn synthesizes Teddy's conceptual explanation of robot emotion and time constants by immediately tying it to the technical framework of test-time inference compute scaling laws.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carlo on FIS and Credit-Building Debit Cards | 5 | 4 | 2 | 4 | John draws on his personal credit history and cites Parker Conrad's compound startup framework to question why neobanks don't launch multi-product suites on day one. Carlo explains the severe capital and regulatory barriers in fintech that necessitate focused, incremental product rollout. | |
| AdQuick Sponsor Break and Contrarian Thinking | 4 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Steven outlines Orbit's vestibular neuromodulation tech and questions whether humans truly require eight hours of sleep or heavy lifting. John jokingly intervenes against sleep slander while querying closed-loop stimulation cycle times and FDA regulatory pathways. | |
| Eight Sleep Sponsor Break and Sleep Optimization | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | John probes technical specifics around 3D face layers, real-time transformer up-resing, and Unreal Metahumans. Elias clarifies that Canopy Labs tokenizes 3D simulation movement and speech directly into LLMs rather than relying on standard diffusion pipelines. | |
| Wander Sponsor Break and Vacation Living | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | John demands a steel man for meme coins, questioning whether they represent durable value creation compared to productive enterprises like Apple or Berkshire Hathaway. Jackson defends memetics as a decentralized pricing and consensus mechanism for attention and abstract phenomena. | |
| Bezel Sponsor Break and Tokenizing Luxury Goods | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Houman educates the hosts on the environmental and chemical barriers of Chinese molten oxyfluoride electrolysis and how Silcoa achieves carbon-zero domestic rare earth production. John explores adjacent connections to data center hard drives and Redwood Materials. | |
| Ferdinand on ID and Real-Time Cross-Border Rails | 4 | 5 | 2 | 4 | John questions the necessity of new payment rails given that modern domestic and payroll transfers seem functional. Ferdinand and Jordy push back, highlighting the severe latency and fees associated with bidirectional cross-border transactions involving emerging markets. | |
| Juan on PhaseLabs and Electrophysiological Organ Regeneration | 4 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Juan firmly rejects genetic engineering approaches like CRISPR for complex regeneration, detailing how bioelectric signaling directs anatomical morphogenesis. John explores exploratory applications regarding scar tissue and limb development. | |
| Ramp Sponsor Break and Financial Efficiency | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | John discusses pharmaceutical IP dynamics, failed phase 3 asset repackaging, and regulatory approval benchmarks. Jennifer explains how AUG reformulates expired off-patent compounds specifically for underserved rare disease patient cohorts. | |
| Figma Sponsor Break and Product Design | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Teddy describes creating an expressive interaction layer atop robot decision transformers using dynamic time constants. John immediately connects Teddy's concept of stress-induced compute scaling to test-time inference scaling laws. | |
| Sigil on Extraordinary and Reimagining O-1 Visa Talent Mobility | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Sigil describes the archaic physical paperwork required by USCIS and how Extraordinary identifies non-traditional global talent. John jokingly suggests their true business model is selling candidate deal flow to venture capitalists. | |
| Bodybuilding Banter and Intro to Aiden Smith | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Aiden explains how context-informed ML can extract intent from noisy, low-bitrate EMG signals without invasive surgery or awkward voice interactions. John proposes an in-mouth microphone concept, and Aiden informs him that Molar Mic already built that technology. | |
| Colton on Orbit's Engineering, Safety, and Sleep Prototyping | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Colton details the electrical hardware challenges of constant current stimulation and acoustic hydrophone testing. Jordy asks why they do not immediately push a consumer sleep device to market, leading Colton to explain the trade-offs between consumer launches and clinical medical indications. | |
| Koki Mochida on AI Weather Forecasting and Hurricane Intervention | 5 | 6 | 2 | 5 | Koki explains partial differential equation weather modeling and the need for in-cloud physical sensor data. John challenges the monetization potential of raw weather data, pointing out the stinginess of hedge funds and the sluggishness of insurance premium adjustments. |
Statements from this episode (11)
Financial Markets Pricing Individual People Will Continue to Grow
“I think it'll be a growing phenomenon. I don't know
If meme coins specifically are the mechanism, but I think that like pricing in people, it's definitely a growing trend.”
NFTs Are Largely a Failed Form Factor for Non-Financial Assets
“I think it's a failed form factor. I wouldn't like totally rule it out, but you know, NFTs, meme coins, predictions markets, these all represent a similar sort of like I don't know whether like people are consciously or unconsciously participating, but it's th…”
Repurposing Off-Patent Drugs Derisks Safety Hurdles for Rare Diseases
“Repurposing old drugs is a great strategy because you have safety usually already established for patients. Now you just have to work on making sure that it's like a drug that works.”
New FDA Guidance Reduces Animal Testing Requirements for Antibody Biologics
“So they just recently released the guidance that certain biologic drugs, antibodies don't have to go after as much animal testing. You can leverage a lot of human clinical trials, which is like almost incorporating common sense, right?”
Industrial Robots Usually Fail Due to Trivial Physical Blockages
“Robots work great in industry. 99% of the time they work wonderfully. Like if you think about an Amazon warehouse, there's a bunch of little Roombas that roll around and move the carts and stuff. And you know, on occasion, probably one percent of the time, the…”
Voice Interfaces Fail for Ambient AI Due to Social Awkwardness
“I actually don't like voice as a medium that much for most things. If it actually wants to integrate into your life effortlessly, I don't want to be in the middle of conversation with you and be like, what's the guy on the left's name. It's super awkward. It's…”
Contextual Awareness Resolves Noisy Non-Invasive Neural Speech Signals
“There's a really good story to be told about kind of doing this for speech and getting really terrible speech. I have no illusions as a neurotechnologist that you will get really terrible speech out of this. But the key thing is that this does not matter becau…”
Machine Learning Cuts Weather Compute Costs 99% and Boosts Resolution 100x
“With machine learning, what you're able to do is reduce costs by 99% and increase resolution by a hundred times.”
One Hurricane Holds Enough Energy to Power the US for Months
“And if you can, you know, harness it properly, you can power the United States for months and months just from one hurricane.”
US Cyclone Insurance Premiums Reached $140B, Doubling Annually in Coastal Cities
“Like there's about like a hundred forty billion dollars per year in insurance premiums issued in the U S for like tropical cyclones. And yet like insurance premiums have doubled every single year for the last, you know, four or five years in many coastal citie…”