Tom Chi: "Net Positive for the Planet – from Beavers to Bionics”

Episode 120
April 24th, 2024

(Conversation recorded on March 18th, 2024)  

Show Summary

On this episode, Nate is joined by inventor and investor Tom Chi to take a broad look at the principles guiding innovation and capital - and how we might shift these to be more biophysically aligned in the future. For the past few centuries, our global industrial system has been dominated by growth-based economics without awareness of its dependence on the biosphere - or the waste that it leaves behind. What would it mean for our technology to be ecologically centered, working in service of and in synergy with complex, biodiverse life on Earth? How can we work within our current financial and governance systems to create initiatives that benefit both ecosystems and economies? More broadly, what cultural shifts could we imagine that move beyond seeing ourselves as simply dependent on ecological systems - but rather as a part of the entangled whole? 

About Tom Chi

Tom Chi is the founding partner of At One Ventures, which backs early-stage (Seed, Series A) companies using disruptive deep tech to upend the unit economics of established industries while dramatically reducing their planetary footprint. Previously, Tom was a founding member of Google X where he led the teams that created self-driving cars, deep learning artificial intelligence, wearable augmented reality and internet connectivity expansion.

Watch on YouTube

https://youtu.be/AjGOGfzAvyc

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

PDF Transcript

00:00 - Tom Chi info, At One Ventures

12:26 - Gradient

12:45 - Fluorinated gasses used in refrigerators

17:41 - Jevons Paradox

22:03 - Software-as-a-Service innovation is reaching its limits, we need more hardware innovation

24:44 - Viewing the Earth’s resources as verbs rather than nouns

26:45 - Indigenous methods of harvesting forests

28:29 - The virtual economy is physically embedded

30:51 - Water purification in the Hudson Valley

32:02 - Dendra Systems 

33:12 - Physical and Pollution dangers of mining sites

34:40 - Ecological succession

36:15 - Dormant seeds remain in the soil

37:30 - Mangroves

41:11 - Honey Bees population death, Effects of Neonicotinoids on Humans and Bees 

41:49 - Honey Bee Vaccine

43:01 - Majority of biomass on Earth are plants, 80% of which are angiosperms

46:20 - Myanmar mangrove clearing for shrimp production, Abu Dhabi

49:32 - Discount rates

52:01 - Plenty of Room at the Bottom, Richard P. Feynman

53:34 - Earth’s Energy Balance

57:21 - Maximum Power Principle

58:17 - Hadean Eon

58:43 - Archaean Eon

1:00:44 - Doughnut Economics, Degrowth

1:01:33 - Global biodiversity through time and space

1:03:40 - The timeframe of a changing climate determines the magnitude of extinction

1:04:18 - The Great Dying

1:07:19 - Cats adapted meowing in response to humans

1:08:53 - Dogs outweigh all other wild land mammals

1:13:18 - Ioway Tribe

1:14:15 - Reality Roundtable on Agriculture - Jason Bradford, Andrew Millison, Vandana Shiva, and Daniel Zetah

1:14:38 - Haber Bosch

1:18:19 - Most of the world’s food is grown by small scale farmers

1:19:25 - Shortage of farm labor in the U.S.

1:21:17 - Biggest direct air capture ever built

1:22:05 - Beavers and carbon sequestration

1:22:59 - CFC, DDT, Leaded gasoline

1:25:17 - Insurance companies pulling out of high risk fire areas

1:26:15 - There were over 100 million beavers in 1600 in North America

1:27:02 - North American pre-colonial indigenous population estimates

1:27:36 - There were 5+ feet of topsoil in the americas, now only a few inches

1:29:11 - Histosols

1:34:55 - Monsanto, Syngenta 

1:36:24 - Monarch Tractors

1:39:16 - Bamboo

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Luther Krueger: "Goldilocks Tech? A Solar Oven Overview"