#9 - Three Breakthroughs: Brain Computers, Ohalo, & Manipulating Weather

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Ready?

I'm ready to go. Yeah.

Okay. So welcome to this episode of the Tech Optimist podcast. This is the 3 Breakthroughs segment where we talk about what we think are 3 announcements or breakthroughs from the last week or so that we think have potential big impact for the world. And I'm here with Drew Wonsalak, who's a senior associate with Alumni Ventures. Drew, where are you today?

I am in our New York City office right here by the Empire State Building.

How's the weather in New York today?

It's beautiful. It's been warm everywhere I've gone coming from Chicago and it's practically short sleeves and shorts weather everywhere.

Yeah. Even in southern New Hampshire here today, I think it's 85. So, definitely We're definitely in the new season.

Indeed.

Alright. So, I think this week you go first. What's caught your eye? What's a big breakthrough that's going to change the world?

So, this is week 2 and I've already decided to stretch the rules of this 3-breakthrough segment here. My big announcement breakthrough was actually Neuralink getting approved. getting the green light from the FDA for a second patient. So, as a reminder for everyone, Neuralink, this is the kind of Elon Musk brainchild, pun intended, that connects brainwaves directly to a computer.

This was on my list too.

Oh, this is on your list?

That's good. You got first call. So, good for you.

Yeah. So, to recap, they put this in an initial patient, which was, I would say, semi-successful. There's been some issues with some of the wires getting detached. And so for the second patient, they're going to have to go a little bit deeper. But good signs, good signals that they're putting this in a second patient. And the reason I'm stretching the bounds a little bit here is because there was another announcement in the last week from UCSF where they were actually able to do restore bilingual communication with the brain-computer interface. Mm-hmm. Why is that important? Well, you can actually kind of differentiate between Spanish and English when you're taking someone that is nonverbal, doesn't have the ability to speak, and you're giving them that ability back. And so being able to understand between different languages is really important. And they were successful on this clinical trials, but successful to date, part of this larger project called BRAVO, which is Brain-Computer Interface for Restoration of Arm and Voice. And so I think just really great signals and steps as we think about what is the future of putting a small computer inside of our head. And it's not just for allowing a quadriplegic to play a video game. It's restoring, I think, very vital functions of voice, of motion, communication to people that have lost it.

Yeah. And I think it If we're really looking ahead 10, 20, 30 years, I think this merging of humans and machines, it is, I mean, obviously this is a big barrier between silicon and a human brain, but it is the very, very first steps on that for sure. And I do think there's a scenario where there Is a merging of those 2 things over time, right? So I think it, I think it not only points to kind of these short-term things, but I think it's, you know, I think it's directionally where, you know, the puck is heading. Um, there's also was some really interesting, um, news this week on other things dealing with the brain and brain mapping. Yeah. And so, I think we'll probably talk about that in probably more detail in future episodes, but I think there's a lot of really interesting work going on on the interface but also just understanding the human biological computer as well. So, I think that's a good one.

Yeah. I mean, it's not nice to have. I mean, for so many people, people that are affected by this, where this would be a huge solution for them, I think understand the benefits of technology like this. You know, it's not just, can we put Siri in my head or be able to, you know, call an Uber, you know, just by thinking about it. But it's, you know, people that have lost the ability to communicate, move, and how much that excludes people from, especially as we're in this digital

world. For sure.

Where everything is digital. And if you can't move a cursor on a screen, what does that prohibit you from doing? Yeah.

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Great. Cool. Mike, your breakthrough?

My breakthrough. I'm going to really change gears here, and I'm going to go into food innovation. And this was the coming out of stealth of a company called Ohalo. O-H-A-L-O, I believe. And this is a company that is really trying to innovate in the area of food and food breeding. And, you know, if you really look at the progress of civilization and the ability of the planet to feed 8 billion people, it's really come across through, you know, making certain foodstuffs scalable. Mm-hmm. Wheat, rice, et cetera, that just provide where you've converted corn from basically a grass into something that is just drive-through Iowa and the ability to just produce massive amounts of calories in an industrial way has been profound. But, the way that has been done historically, and again, I would encourage people, I think they have some really good videos on YouTube and on the website. We'll put those in the show notes. But, they do a pretty nice history lesson as well about the way one has done that is really trial and error and crossbreeding. Basically, you're combining DNA of 2 plants and it's kind of a random mix-up and you kind of have to rinse and repeat that over lots and lots generations. And so when you can begin to do that with technology and software, and you can just greatly accelerate progress. And again, if you can improve yields and if you can improve the desirable characteristics of plants, Where you can grow things in places that historically you couldn't grow them, or you could grow them with less water and less fertilizer. It is a big unlock. And again, pretty early-stage company. I think they've raised $50 million or so. So still a big journey in front of them, but the technology, it sounds very, very promising. And some of their early results are Really, really impressive. And there's again, just a huge value creation unlock. Again, you can look at the big seed companies, Pioneer, Monsanto. These players have created enormous amounts of value. But I think we may be entering into a new era of that with both software and CRISPR technology and some of the insights we have in how these things work that I think there's huge potential now in the area of plant breeding that could be, again, change the world kind of stuff.

Yeah. And, I live in the Midwest, you're from the Midwest. So, when you mentioned driving through the fields of Iowa, I think people that aren't in those environments don't realize just the scale that even just US agriculture is at. And then, in the tech world, you have this environment where you hear about cultured meat or cultured proteins, vertical farming, all these great innovations that I think are increasing access to food, sustainable food practices, but it's a couple drops in the bucket compared to the scale of traditional agriculture.

Yeah. Wheat, corn, Potatoes. I mean, again, just when you're looking at feeding 10 billion, 12 billion people, again, it's just how can you develop that many calories with not depleting the soil, water, all the environmental factors that you have to manage? And again, the use of technology to Whenever you can move things into a new, on a different technology plane, you know, we talked, I think last week about the ability to kind of model in software, things like proteins and small molecules instead of trial and error in a lab. This is again, an analogous, which can I do this through a technology platform as opposed to just out in a field, literally, you know, Yeah. Bringing together 2 plants that happen to do better in a row. And again, just— and there is a really interesting book that I would also recommend, The Wizard and the Prophet. I may get— the name may be a little wrong there, but it really looks at the— we'll get that right in kind of the show notes, but it really takes the history of how we address the future either through technology solutions or having an approach of being conservationists, right? Yeah. And, one of the things they go through is just how wheat how industrial wheat was invented and produced. And it's really just a fascinating story and history lesson for tech nerds. And again, a pretty philosophical approach about how do we move forward in the world. And again, as venture capitalists and just where we are personally is we're believers that technology is the way you're going to solve problems, not by going back to hunter-gatherer. Or gee, we need to get the population of the world back down to a million people. You know, that's not our solution.

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Okay, what's your third one, Drew?

Well, it's funny, I'm glad you brought up food and agriculture. And I mean, for people watching and listening, Mike and I this week decided not to tell each other what we were going to do. And I think I took your Neuralink one. But for my third breakthrough, a similar kind of 2 announcements that are related, But in our innovations within the sky and the clouds, as they relate to climate, as they relate to agriculture. And so the first one is actually kind of an anti-breakthrough— Okay. Where University of Washington researchers were stopped by the government in their research that they were trying to put particles up into clouds that would actually reflect more sunlight. Kind of back up away from the ground. There, of course, is some potential environmental concerns to doing that, but I think starts to drill into this concept of can we actually start to modify the climate that supports kind of our response to, to climate change and to global warming. So that was one announcement, and again, kind of an anti-breakthrough, but I think showing meaningful progress there. And it reminded me of this company that came out of stealth a couple months ago called Rainmaker. They're not doing particles to reflect the sun. They're actually putting particles into clouds to induce rain. And so you touched on this point of, can you grow crops in areas that they traditionally wouldn't be able to grow? Can we bring communities out of droughts? Can we reduce flooding? Can we reduce the severity of hurricanes? And this startup thinks we can. And, you know, by flying drones and dropping, I think it's like sodium iodine particles into the clouds, you can modify what's happening in those clouds. And that has a major impact on, you know, everything from farmers to ski resorts and talking about, you know, getting the right snow for ski season. So some interesting stuff there. Would love your thoughts.

No, I mean, I think they had They had some big storms and flooding in the Middle East there. I don't know if you saw pictures of those. We'll probably put those up in show notes because they had been doing some cloud seeding. I also think this week we had a fatality with turbulence on a flight that was going through the part of our And again, these things tend to get hyped. There's like a trillion travel miles and we had one fatality. But, there's a band of our planet where turbulence is really more pronounced, which this was right in the middle of. I think it was a flight to Singapore. And again, we can— and this is— I understand this reaction to don't mess with Mother Nature. Yeah. Right. And again, I think you probably saw that in Washington State.

Yep.

But I think it's a very healthy debate, which is, you know, by being on this planet in huge, huge numbers, we are messing with Mother Nature every day. And so, I don't think it's a choice of do we or don't we. It's how do we do it? How do we do it intelligently? How do we understand that for everything we do, there's an unintended consequence? So, one does have to be careful. And I think there's a rubric about risk-reward, unintended consequences. Have we adequately modeled this? The challenge with a lot of these issues too related to the environment, Is, um, you're going to impact your neighbor, right? I mean, one thing right now is in New England, we had a kind of an air quality alert. Well, we have an air quality alert because, you know, we have some very nasty states with very nasty power plants and factories throwing stuff up in the air that floats over our state. Thank you very much. So, you know, a little bit of a shot at our Ohio neighbors, but yeah, we have in New Hampshire, which has very little industry, had an air quality alert. But on a bigger scale, it's like, oh, you start doing things, you know, in the United States, how does that impact Europe? things go on in China, how does that impact the environment of the United States? And so I do think there is a place for international cooperation in this period of nationalism for us to work together on some of these problems. And yes, we have too much carbon. We need to work on putting less carbon up into the atmosphere, but at some point that's still not enough and people aren't going to give up their cars and we're not going to turn into EV overnight. So, what are we going to do? Well, one of the things that works is reflecting sunlight back up, which clouds do really well. So, can we have more clouds? Can we do things that reflect a little bit more of that sunlight? 3, 4 more percent makes a huge difference.

I think it's a PR issue. A little bit more straightforward on. I mean, I think it's a PR issue. For some reason, I think when people think about, you know, myself included, when you first hear about this concept of cloud seeding,

Yeah.

it seems so— you're playing Mother Nature, right? You're playing God. You're modifying the weather. You know, dams are like modifying Mother Nature, right? Like you're choosing, you know, the flow of rivers and lakes. There's ways that we've modified The earth and nature.

Iowa is not natively filled with corn and wheat, right? I mean, it was grasslands until we came and turned it into a breadbasket. So yeah, every day we are messing with it. That doesn't mean we don't think about it, do it thoughtfully. There's a role for regulation, international cooperation for sure, but to say no reactively. to alternatives to protein, to intervening with carbon capture or running experiments in this regard, I think is very shortsighted. And again, at the same time, just reading this week about the poles melting at even more alarming rates with kind of stuff going on, it's like, okay, doing nothing is a choice or hoping is a choice as well. So yeah, it's a good one. That's a good one.

Yeah. Great.

Excellent. All right. We'll do it again next week. I got 2 to do. You get 1.

Awesome. Thanks, Mike.

We'll talk again. Thank you, Drew. Good discussion. Bye-bye.

Thanks for tuning in to the 9th episode of The Tech Optimist. Come back next Thursday for another installment of 3 Breakthroughs with Drew and Mike. Look out for episode 10 of the show where Grant Demeter interviews Mike about his journey with Ozempic, a GLP-1 weight loss drug. You won't want to miss it. Have a great rest of your week and keep building.

Thanks again for tuning in to The Tech Optimist. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you'd give us a rating on whichever podcast app you're using, and remember to subscribe to keep up on the weekly episodes. The Tech Optimist welcomes any questions, comments, or segment suggestions, so please email us at info@techoptimist.vc with any of those, and be sure to visit our website at av.vc. Thanks again. Until next time.