Rahul Rana — Making Moonshots and Building the Future

Welcome to the Build the Future Podcast. My name's Cameron Wiese, and I'm your host. I've always been fascinated by the ideas and the sentiment that drove American culture in the 1960s with the space race. A culture galvanized to dream about the possibilities of tomorrow. Whether it's food, transportation, cities, biology, or anything else, it was this cultural mindset rooted in optimism that the world tomorrow would be better than the world today. A mindset where people were compelled to build things, and I quote JFK, not because they were easy, but because they were hard. It's this desire to build and to dream that seems to have been lost. And something we're here to bring back. With Build the Future, we're here to promote the ideas and stories of those who see how the future can be better and promote their plans to get us there. It's our mission to get you to dream about the possibilities of tomorrow, to dream about the future that you want to live in, and inspire you to go build. Today, we're talking to Raho Arana, the author of Making Moonshots. Making Moonshots is a new book that dives deep into the mindsets, philosophies, and strategies that are conducive to pursuing moonshot companies. I've been following Rahul's journey over the last year as he's been writing this book, and I'm really excited to have him on to share what he's learned. So let's jump right in. Rahul, first of all, thank you so much for, for coming on. I'm excited to finally have you on and talk about your book.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Yeah. So tell me about your book, Making Moonshots. And the sort of future you hope it helps build.

Yeah, of course. So Making Moonshots, right? What it is, it's a deep dive into the philosophies, mindsets, and strategies that are really conducive to building moonshot companies, right? So really impactful deep tech, things that are sort of metaphorical for going to the moon, right? The Apollo missions and so forth, right? Like the really, really hard, the seemingly impossible things to do, but yet if you do them, they're insane, right? They're impactful, they're profitable, they change the world. And I really just wanted to inspire regular people, right? Like, like tell them like, all right, like this is not, you know, just for the rich or just for the insanely smart, you know, PhD, whatever. It's like, this is for everyone. Everyone can make these. And it's, it's all a matter of just like, you know, what's the mindset, right? What are the philosophies, the intangibles, putting them in action and sort of going about navigating the whole ecosystem around it. And it's, it's so democratized. It's so accessible to everyone. I just want to give them that toolkit and then sort of empower them and inspire them on making moonshots. Right. So, and I guess like, you know, in terms of what future do I want to see it build? Again, it's in the name, right? I want to see more moonshot companies, more of those really, really profitable yet really impactful companies that leverage some sort of deep tech, really advanced science or technology, and solve some big problems in the world. So yeah. I

think you kind of answered it in that, but I want to just dive a little deeper because you start your book and all of your interviews with, what is a moonshot to you? And so I want to spin the tables and ask you the same question. What is a moonshot to you?

What's a moonshot to me? So a moonshot, right? It's any sort of, it's a 3-part, a 3-part spectrum, right? So, you know, to varying degrees, right? But it's, it's leveraging some, some really advanced science or technology, right? The deep tech part, using it in a radically creative solution, right? A disruptive solution, you know, one that no one has ever thought about or no one's ever sort of made successfully. And then 3 is solving a big problem in the world. Sort of the combination, sort of like the Venn diagram of all 3 of those things to varying degrees, obviously that's what really is a moonshot company. And it's, again, like I mentioned before, it's just like those companies that really solve some problem, right? Or make some breakthrough that are reminiscent of going to the moon, right? It's, it's It's technically impossible to make, almost technically impossible, seemingly impossible. You need that right mindset to do about it. It's probably going to fail, but if it is successful, it's going to change the world or change some aspect of society and in turn have a really positive impact. So that's what a moonshot is to me and a moonshot company.

Yeah. You break it down into the mindset, the philosophy, the strategy, and the ecosystem. What surprised you the most about the mindset piece? Like what is it that these moonshot founders, how they view the world that you wanna share to everyone else?

So honestly, like it's kind of funny. Like what was most surprising is how normal and how accessible these mindsets, right? Like these sort of qualities are. Like literally anyone can do it. And I like, everyone has that energy. And as so long as they have that energy, like getting those right qualities, right? You know, building those qualities, right? Obviously, you know, working towards them or whatever it may be, just like building that mindset is so, it's not easy, but it's simple, right? Anyone can really, you know, really, really sort of adopt those things. And, you know, in that light, what's interesting to me on how literally all the people that I've ever sort of observed, moonshot founders, one thing that they always share, and if you read, you know, the first chapter, right, all about radical creativity, is that they really harness these seemingly opposing qualities. And I think the harmony of those qualities is really what gets them successful, right? They're super childish, but super sort of, you know, they're responsible, right? They're irresponsible, but they're really responsible. They're really dispassionate, but they're really, really passionate. Right. really pessimistic and really optimistic. And it's really like these, these really seemingly opposing qualities. I just, I noticed this between like every single one of them. Like there's not one that did not have some degree of sort of these polar opposite qualities. And I really like, you know, dug into that and I came across Mihaly. I don't know how to say his last name, but the scientist behind the flow state, right? Oh yeah. That really, really long last name. Yeah. Yeah. He actually wrote a really similar book on, you know, what are the qualities of the people who, you know, discover things, create things and so forth. He sort of broke it down into those 10 sort of qualities of creativity, right? I basically took that and I really demarcated, discriminated between regular creativity and radical creativity. The way I sort of describe it is sort of regular creativity, that's making new things out of old things, repurposing, recombining connections between existing things, and sort of assuming this linear future based on those things. I think radical creativity is the opposite, right? It's sort of making new things out of new things. And it sort of assumes this exponential sort of future in which anything can happen, right? It's sort of this compounding effect in terms of science and tech progress or whatever it may be. And that's really the mindset that these moonshot founders harness. And they put it into action and you see it in their work. So yeah, that was honestly, that was the coolest thing I found.

So going back to the energy that everyone has within them to go do something like this, why do you think people aren't pursuing moonshots? What are the blockers?

Yeah. Well, there's so many. And I would say there's like, like, like in my book, there's sort of intangible and tangible things. Right. So in terms of intangible things, obviously it's hard. Like it's not easy going to the moon, right? The Apollo missions, it was probably going to fail. Right. Like SpaceX, right. Control Labs, like whatever, any company, right. They're probably going to fail. A lot of people can't, you know, maybe, maybe sort of don't have the means of, you know, internalizing that risk. And that's totally, that's totally understandable. People have different financial situations, right. Different interests. They may have different priorities, right? You gotta put food on table and then maybe you could take more risks if you could do that, right? But if you can't, like, you know, you gotta focus on just basic survival and whatnot. Again, different sort of, you know, needs, necessities, circumstances, whatever it may be. So honestly, like the way to overcome that I realized is, all right, like if you look at big tech, look at, you know, big finance, right? Investment banking, you know, software, all those, you know, really, really in demand sort of, you know, jobs and whatnot. And you look at them and basically like one, they have like this like really, really conducive ecosystems, like, you know, mentorship and growth and so forth, right? Mm-hmm. exit opportunities, right? They have a lot of incentives basically is what I'm trying to say, right? The incentives to go there are so high and like, especially, you know, for maybe people don't have, who are aspiring to have, you know, solid salary, right? Solid benefits, right? Health insurance. I don't know, like any benefits, right? Any incentives, right? They go to those industries, you know, to do whatever they want to do and have the lifestyle that they want to live. The social attitude, right? The social infrastructure and also like the social sort of incentives. Deep tech, right? And sort of research and academia don't have those yet. And sort of, you know, all the industries that are making moonshot companies, right? Like they don't have that. that 3-part sort of, um, you know, structure. So if you want to overcome that, we, we gotta, you know, have like better, better incentives, right? Have a better attitude around, you know, all things deep tech and then sort of, you know, incentivize people to come to it as they do, you know, software engineering, right? Or, or investment banking or whatever, you know, finance positions or whatever it may be. So it's interesting, right? Like, so again, like to, to recap, intangible, right? People are scared to do it, right? It's a big risk. That's totally understandable. But then in, in sort of, you know, tangible terms, right? People have different circumstances and We have to make this environment or this ecosystem that's really conducive their sort of personal growth as well as their career growth. So yeah.

Yeah. I want to talk about like how we go about creating that ecosystem, but first it sounded like you were tracked for finance. You're like, cool, I'm going to go into investment banking. Right. But something kind of shifted in your mindset. So what was that moment for you where you're like, I don't know if I want to go do this anymore. I want to shift gears and go pursue something a bit more ambitious.

Yeah, yeah, of course. It's kind of funny. I always tell this to everyone. So my dad, my entire life, he's worked at Bell Labs. Any tech enthusiasts know how groundbreaking, how crazy Bell Labs was, all the Nobel Prizes, all the insane inventions and everything. That was my childhood. I'd go to all the labs, see the bronze plaques. It was so inspiring. I'd play with all their little fancy gadgets and computers and whatnot. It was super cool. I loved it. And that was sort of like, I was just early on, I was really exposed to all things deep tech and research and whatever. And then Funny enough, back in high school, I sort of just blocked off all that curiosity, right, for science and tech and whatever. And I sort of fell in with the finance crowd, right? Admittedly, like, again, like the salary, the prestige, fancy suits, whatever, like, you know, Wall Street. Like, I was like, damn, like, I want that. I got to college and I was like, wait, you know, I started, you know, networking in the space and just started doing the work. And I was like, wait, I don't know about that. Like, like, it's interesting. Again, I spent 4 years of high school developing those skills. Mm-hmm. So I had the skills in finance, right? And again, I absolutely do. I do like finance, you know, all things, you know, business related and whatnot. But wanted to do it in a context that was actually impactful, right? And something that really was fulfilling at the end of the day. And I just think, again, like the podcast, that's right, building the future, that's fulfilling. Like that makes me like genuinely happy. And sort of, you know, if I could bridge the gap between those who are discovering the future, right? Those in academia, right? Those in research organizations like what Bell Labs used to be and, you know, still continues to be, but nonetheless, you know, as innovative as they are, you know, give them the business acumen, right? Like help them with the business side of things and sort of, you know, in turn, commercialize these breakthroughs, right? Make more moonshots at the end of the day. So that's how I got into the deep tech space. And then after that, I was just like, all right, let me do something bold. And that's how I got to writing a book.

So I assume there's a lot of thinking that went into, okay, like what else can I go pursue? Right. And I'm curious, how did you land on doing a book?

So that was 100% serendipity actually. It was just coincidence. Like, it's so funny. Like, I mean, it came to this realization, all right, I want to combine finance and deep tech and whatever. Right. That was basically, you know, October, November of 2019. So, right. So, so December came, right? I finished the semester, was at, you know, on winter, on winter break. I was like, damn, like I really, I have so much energy, like so much passion. Like I want to do something bold. What's the boldest thing I could do? That's actually, you know, possible. It's feasible at, you know, my sort of moment in time, right? Considering my skills and what I know and stuff. And I think starting a company was not the best sort of thing to do at the moment. I don't think I could have added enough value or made a company or whatever at that moment in time. Mm-hmm. So I was like, all right, like what's the next best thing, right? Creating content around the thing, right? If I'm passionate about it, like that'll come easy to me. And it really did. I started taking in so much, so much content and, you know, got ideas on, you know, how I want to present this. And then as I was doing all that, again, pure serendipity or coincidence, whatever it is, I came across my mentor of mine, right? Who's soon to be the mentor who brought me on this book journey. So he's a Georgetown professor. His name is Eric Custer. And I just came across him on LinkedIn, had a conversation with him. He's like, all right, like out of the goodness of his heart, like he loves bringing people together, right? He has this like author community. He teaches them how to write. write books, right? Like he teaches them, right? Like from writing, like literally like the hook of like a story, putting it into an actual manuscript to even publishing it, right? Setting up with a publisher, sort of, you know, doing marketing, sales, whatever, whatever. He got me started on the entire journey. And it was at that right point in my time when I was like, all right, I have the energy, I need to do something now. I need to harness it and, you know, sort of channel it into something. And again, I don't know why, like maybe like the universe was looking out for me, but like he came at the perfect time and I just ran with that idea. You know, he took me under his wings and mentored me the entire time, set me up with a publisher and so forth. And

here you are.

Yeah, here I am.

A little bit more than a year later with an incredible book pulled together. It seems like the— I have a hard time believing in like free will in a way. It's like stuff just kind of comes across our paths and it's like, cool, I'm gonna like jump in, I'm gonna grab it, and then I'm gonna go and see where it takes me. And in that, that process is always a journey of like immense personal growth and it's like providing like a new— it gives you a new lens on the world. And so with this journey you've been on for the book in the context of pursuing moonshots, what was your headspace like before going into the book? Because you had a lot of energy, you were excited. And then what kind of changed for you along the journey that, that influences how you're seeing things now at the end?

Yeah. All right. So back when I started, right, this is January. So my first idea for a book, right? So, you know, talk to professor, right? He brought me in, you know, under his wings and whatever. We were ideating, right? What's like a solid book, right? I was, you know, I told him all the things I was interested in, VC, deep tech, whatever it is. You know, solving big problems, whatever, whatever. So my first idea was actually not moonshots, right? My first idea was actually sort of taking like, all right, like how does it, how is the private sector, right? Startups and whatever. How's the private sector solving public sector problems, right? So problems that are, you know, the purview of the government or have been ruined by the government, right? Healthcare insurance, all these, all these sort of industries that are, you know, heavily politicized, heavily regulated. Like what are the startups doing that are, that are sort of cutting through that, making some solid companies in that, in those spaces? And again, awesome, awesome sort of topic, but I just, I just was not passionate about that, right?

Like,

yeah. And it was funny, like, I was, I was talking to one of my friends and he was just like, yeah, like, if you're not passionate about it, like, you shouldn't do it because you're gonna, you're gonna devote a large portion of your life to this. And I was like, yeah, like, I just couldn't find that intrinsic motivation to even like do the research around the topic. And I was just like, then like, wait, like, I don't know, like, I asked myself like, why do I want to do VC, right? Why do I want to, you know, again, solve all these big problems in the world? Or, you know, I'll, I'll just like— I got really introspective, right?

Yeah.

It was kind of funny. And I was just like, all right, I just love all these sci-fi sounding things, these optimistic, these heroic inspirational things. It's super, super broad, but I was just like, all right, that's why I love all these advanced sciences and technologies, all these cool, cool startups. They make me feel like a kid again, like watching Marvel movies or something. And it was just like, all right, that's what I love, but I don't know how to make a book out of that. And again, I don't know if the universe was just looking out for me. I don't know what happened, but I was just doing some research, some light research, listening to podcasts, whatever. I came across the ex-Moonshot Factory. I came across Lux Capital, came across all these super, super amazing startups, right? CTRL-Labs, Variant Bio, all of Lux's portfolio. I absolutely love those companies. Yeah. And it's just like, damn, those are moonshot companies. There's no literature around how to actually— how any normal person, any regular person can make such a company, right? there's no literature around how we can make an ecosystem around said companies. What are sort of the special factors that these founders harness that other founders don't or other people don't? And how can sort of people actually build to those qualities? I want to make it actually actionable. And I was just like, wait, that's a perfect book. And I ran with that. So it was interesting in the beginning. It was just like, all right, it was a topic I was super, super interested about. But the thing is, and I always tell this to everyone, by no means was I an expert on anything moonshots or deep tech related when the book started. Right. I use this book as a way to learn. And it's tough to do that, right? Because it's sort of 2 responsibilities at once. Right. You have to learn and you also have to put it in this digestible sort of informational and fun manner. Right. Entertaining manner. So I was doing those 2 things at once and it was tough. It was not easy. I absolutely loved it. Yeah. It was just tough though. Again, blood, sweat, and tears. I'm not even lying. throughout the entire process. Literally blood, sweat, and tears. And what do I mean by that? There's one point when I had a physical, right? And the doctor literally said like, all right, like, why is your heart rate like so high? It was like higher than usual. I was like, all right, like I'm under a lot of stress, you know, doing the book right now. So literally blood, right? Sweat. Like I was like literally like, you know, pulling investment banking hours for this book, right? 90-hour work weeks, 100-hour work weeks, and then tears, right? Like I'm not even lying. Like there's some nights, like I was working so hard on this, like so many long hours that like I started like hallucinating. Like I was that exhausted sometimes. I was like, all right, like that's when I went to sleep on those nights. But like, I'm not even lying. Like it was like tough. It was, it was not easy. Again, I was like doing, you know, I worked 3 internships over the summer, right? I was working, you know, working on this book, learning it. And also, you know, again, like I said before, right, learning the topic and also like putting it in this like awesome sort of format. Like it was, it was tough, but I loved it. Like I absolutely loved it. Like it was just amazing. It was just like so inspiring. So I don't know, like, you know, the journey itself was hard. I don't know if I would do it again. Yeah. I'd rather put that time into maybe a company or VC, doing investing work, which I eventually got the position because of the book at Lux Capital. But nonetheless, I don't know, it was just amazing. And yeah, no, the journey was awesome and it sort of ended around mid-October. That's when I completely finished actually the hard part of the book, the actual content.

Yeah.

After that's been fun though, getting active on Twitter, jumping on podcasts, meeting awesome people, sort of building a reputation around the space, like it's been, it's been so fulfilling and, and, and just like seeing my, all of my work, right? Just like put into that book and everything. Like it, it's, it's like, it feels, it feels awesome. So, so yeah.

Yeah. It's, it's a stamp in time. It's like, it is like, here's a product. Here's like, here's like an artifact of, of this work. And you kind of share it with people and get people excited about it and then leverage that to then go do the next thing. I wanna jump back to, you mentioned kind of media and like heroic inspirations. 2 questions for you. So one, what media really influenced your thinking? You mentioned Marvel movies, and I know in the book you mentioned kind of Interstellar, Social Network, and like The Martian, or like the cultural, like everyone watches those, everyone's like, oh my God, I wanna go be Mark Zuckerberg. Oh, I wanna go travel to

space.

But I'm curious kind of outside of those, what are some pieces of media that have shaped your thinking? And then 2, who are some heroes of yours that most people may not know about, but inspired you to go pursue moonshot projects?

Of course. Yeah. So in terms of media, so there's a lot of sort of niche deep tech-ish related content that I started taking in early on. Obviously, so a lot of my favorite VC firms, right? Lux specifically. I love sort of all the partners, the content that they make, all these partners at these firms. I would look at their Twitter threads or look at all their blog posts and their podcasts and whatever. And I'll tell you what, the first sort of deep tech, anything related, like podcast I ever listened to was Josh Wolfe's Invest Like the Best interview.

Right.

That one just like set it off. Right. Like after that one, I was like, the coolest stuff ever. So right early on, right. Just a lot of taking in a lot of sort of perspectives from experts in academia, but also like VC and whatever. Right. Deep tech space, but from those sort of angles. And yeah. Yeah. Ever since then, that's really how we got started on that. And then, you know, obviously, you know, I'm a big movie fan. Like, me and my dad, we always love watching movies and whatnot. And I really think to your point, right, like Martian, Social Network, whatever it is, they have this evangelizing factor, right? Like you mentioned before when we were talking, right, having something tangible, right? Like a project, right? If you're making the event, I won't say it, obviously, but the event you were talking about before, right? Just having something physical in front of you, right? It's just so much better than just reading it or whatever. Right? Like, you know, like movies, right? You like, you hear it, you feel it, whatever it is. So there's so many movies, right? Like, I like the ones that you mentioned, super, super just like inspired by them. You know, there's people who, you know, really, really inspired me and then, and, you know, just like was super inspired by all of them. And then who are my heroes? So in terms of heroes, that's, it's like interesting. Like I would say like, you know, every sort of, you know, major, major, you know, like scientists or whatnot. Like, so what, some of the movies I really liked, right? Good Will Hunting, one of my favorite movies.

Yeah.

Theory of Everything, Imitation Game, right? I really love those sort of scientific biographical movies. They're so inspiring, right? They're so awesome. I really have a really deep appreciation for PhD people, right? People who go into academia, do research, or devote their entire lives to these sort of domains and industries and whatnot. So a lot of those people I would say are my heroes, right? I'd say one of my favorite founders, Thomas Reardon, right? CTRL-Labs. I never met him. Tom's like, if he sees this, I want to meet him so badly. He's just so cool. He has this crazy, crazy journey. He built, what was it, Internet Explorer, right? So again, talk about making an impact, Internet Explorer, that started everything, right?

Yeah.

Every piece of information that we know and then how interconnected the world is, right? It all started with Internet Explorer and early days of Microsoft and those companies, right? So he worked on that, he built that, and then he went to college at age 31 or something crazy, really, really late. He studied like classics and, and after classics, like, I, I don't know how he got into neuro. I, I forgot his exact story, but then he started Control Labs, right? Literally making mind control real. Like, that's so cool. And it's just like, you know, people, people like Cam, like, I was like, damn, like, I, I wanna be some— I wanna be like that, right? Or, you know, I wanna be the person who helps those people, right? I wanna, I wanna, you know, uplift them, give them the, you know, financial support, right? The business acumen, sort of like all the resources that they need, just make their lives easier, right? They make the breakthrough, I'll help them, you know, sort of spread it, commercialize it, whatever it is. Yeah. I would say, yeah.

Yeah, I think it's one thing that seems to be missing is just like accessible heroes. Because you ask anyone in kind of, I guess, our sphere and they're like, oh, Elon Musk. You ask anyone, they're like, Elon Musk is like a demigod, right? Like, don't— like, you can't touch him. He's like this mythical figure. Oh, it's Elon.

Yeah.

No, he's just a dude, but no one views him that way. What we need is more of the, like, Thomas from Control Lab. Yeah, like, we need more people like Thomas. We need more people like Blake Scholl from Boom. We need more people like Ryan Johns from Culdesac. Like we need these, these like more accessible founders or heroes that we can tap into.

Yeah. And I've been thinking of that for a long time. Yeah. Like 100%, we need, we need more of those people, but also like one thing I raised in the book, I think I said, I said, I forgot what chapter it's in. Right. But like, I raised this question, like, all right, like why isn't there a female Elon Musk, equivalent of Elon Musk, but, you know, but, uh, you know, a woman, right. Or why isn't there a person of color Elon Musk or, or, you know, all these other sort of demographics. Right. a poor Elon Musk, right. Or whatever it may be, just like, we need Elon Musk to be normalized, right? Like, like, like, you know, you see someone like him and you're just like, all right, it's a normal person, right. Doing, doing what they do best. Right. Like that needs to be like, you know, again, he's this awesome person. And again, he has his flaws. He's not perfect or whatever. And I know it gets slightly sort of controversial when people sort of put him on a pedestal, but nonetheless, we need people like him to be like the norm. And once we get to that place, like, all right, that's when I know like my job is done. We've made enough moonshot founders that it's like normal. So. It's interesting. And yeah, like, I think like the way to do that is to have more, you know, heroes, but, you know, for, you know, specific subgroups, right? Maybe it's geographical, maybe it's, you know, by gender, maybe it's by race or whatever it may be. We just need a lot of them and diverse array of them, right? So people can actually resonate with them and stuff. So yeah, at the end of the day, like we, again, like you said, we just need more accessible heroes. Yeah.

Yeah. So you cover a lot of ground in the book. You talk a lot of— talk about a lot of different moonshots. You talk a lot, a lot about kind of the possible futures. Curious, like, what excites you the most about the future?

I mean, so many things. Like, I mean, like, you know, on one hand, like, space is becoming ever so slightly, like, you know, more accessible, right? Like biotech, we're literally treating DNA like it's code now. Like, it's insane, right? Like, mind control is, like, real, right? Like, you know, I'm so excited about the sheer capabilities that we're sort of unlocking with all these, you know, right, moonshots or deep tech or whatever it is, right? All these synonyms. Like, there's a lot of synonyms, right? Frontier tech, emerging tech, deep tech, hard tech, whatever you want to call it. Like, just like, just the sheer capabilities, right? And the potential for actually solving the hard problems. So many, so many smart people are just going to, you know, big tech, right? Big finance, like, you know, maximizing advertising revenue, whatever it is, like, you know, maximizing the click rate of a button. No, like, we got to bring that talent and we got to bring more attention to, you know, people solving like the big problems— diseases, poverty, like, I don't know, going to space, things like that, you know, things in, you know, the environment or aging, right? Things like that. And there's so many problems out there that need to be solved. The futures that I want to see, what I'm hopeful for is that they will get solved. Again, moonshot founders, right? With people who actually do the adventurous sort of daring things and then you're going about these hard, you know, sort of extremely complex problems. And yeah, that's what I'm hopeful for.

I mean, but you're doing your part now. You got the book, we're kind of over here talking about it. We can get more people bought into this idea of going to pursue these moonshots. I think we're seeing a little bit with just this year in general, so many incredible groups have popped up. People are like, wait a minute, my government's not competent. Oh, my local— oh, the people who I thought were supposed to be the adults in the room, Or not. And if I want anything done, I have to go do it myself. And so that's, I mean, that's why I'm excited about kind of what you're doing, the path you're on and kind of the other people in our Twittersphere. It's like, people are like, no, actually, no, we need to go do something. And this decade is going to be fantastic as a result.

So. Yeah, 100%. If you, you know, I gave you an early look at my book. I don't know if you've read my government subchapter, but it was funny. Like, like my editor, he was just saying like, wow, like this is like scathing. Like this is like, You really go after government here. I was like, yeah, I say it in a mature way, but I also don't want to hold back. There's just so many things that I just wish weren't the way it is in the government. And the government has the deepest pockets, and what if they could just put a tiny percentage of it more towards science, solving problems, whatever it is, just away from politics? I just hate politics so much. I don't know if you notice throughout the book, but I sort of take a libertarian stance, almost just like, you know, forget about the government. Like we're going to do it on our own because they're not, they're not here to help us. I wish, I wish they were, but clearly they're not. So it's sort of like that. That's sort of like the stance I take. I don't know if you noticed that, but nonetheless, like, yeah, like the government one, like it's like annoying to a point, right? Like, it's just like, damn, like why can't you guys just like work together? Right. Like, just like solve the, you know, solve things that need to be solved, but I don't know. Anyway.

Well, I'm hopeful we'll get there. I mean, we have friends who are working on solving that particular problem.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

Very, very confident the future looks bright. Where can people kind of follow along? Where can they get your book? How can they stay updated?

Yeah, of course. So I'm pretty active, trying to get really, really active on Twitter, @rrana03_. I have a blog. It's also linked in my Twitter. I'm gonna try to make some solid content there, continue sort of the hype and sort of everything around my book. I really wanna build this reputation and all things moonshots. So building out a blog, obviously LinkedIn, just search my name, Lux Capital. Making Moonshots, you'll probably find me there. Um, and yeah, yeah, like, you know, the book's gonna be on Amazon, Barnes Noble, you know, everywhere where books are sold. So it's, it's all out there and it's gonna be out there in a couple of days as well.

Fantastic. Well, everyone's definitely— everyone listening, definitely go pick up a copy. I got an early look. It's phenomenal. Got me inspired. Lots of good different moonshot ideas in there. So we have the, the popular ones that, you know, everyone wants to talk about, but I, I loved kind of getting sucked into it, as I, as I said, because you just cover lots of different companies, lots of different ideas. And yeah, you did a great job of weaving in the the different possibilities, the different moonshots people are working on with you, with the narrative. It's like, how are these founders getting there? So yeah, yeah, exciting. Thank you.

That means a lot. Wow. Awesome.

Yeah, no, it's, it's good. And I'm excited for everyone to kind of check it out and, and dive deep. And hopefully we can get more moonshot founders starting companies.

Awesome.

Awesome. Make sure to grab a copy of Rahul's new book by searching Making Moonshots on Amazon or clicking the link in the show notes. And if you want to follow along Rahul's journey to help build the future, You can find him on Twitter @rrana03_. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Build the Future Podcast. Lastly, if you're building and want to get support, want to hear about certain topics or from certain people, or just want to get involved in helping build the future, shoot us over an email at hello@buildthefuturepodcast.com or follow me, Cameron, on Twitter @camwiese. And we'll see what we can make happen. That's it from us. Until next time, go build!