Speculative Technologies with Ben Reinhardt [Macroscience cross-post]
Tim Hwang turns the tables and interviews me (Ben) about Speculative Technologies and research management.
May 27, 2024•30 min
Idea Machines
Idea Machines is a deep dive into the systems and people that bring innovations from glimmers in someone's eye all the way to tools, processes, and ideas that can shift paradigms.
We see the outputs of innovation systems everywhere but rarely dig into how they work. Idea Machines digs below the surface into crucial but often unspoken questions to explore themes of how we enable innovations today and how we could do it better tomorrow.
Idea Machines is hosted by Benjamin Reinhardt.
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Episodes
Industrial Research with Peter van Hardenberg [Idea Machines #50]
Peter van Hardenberg talks about Industrialists vs. Academics, Ink&Switch's evolution over time, the Hollywood Model, internal lab infrastructure, and more! Peter is the lab director and CEO of Ink&Switch , a private, creator oriented, computing research lab. References Ink&Switch (and their many publications) The Hollywood Model in R&D Idea Machines Episode with Adam Wiggins Paul Erdós Transcript Peter Van Hardenberg [00:01:21] Ben: Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Pet...
Feb 10, 2024•47 min•Season 1Ep. 50
MACROSCIENCE with Tim Hwang [Idea Machines #49]
A conversation with Tim Hwang about historical simulations, the interaction of policy and science, analogies between research ecosystems and the economy, and so much more. Topics Historical Simulations Macroscience Macro-metrics for science Long science The interaction between science and policy Creative destruction in research "Regulation" for scientific markets Indicators for the health of a field or science as a whole "Metabolism of Science" Science rotation programs Clock speeds of Regulatio...
Nov 27, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 49
Idea Machines with Nadia Asparouhova [Idea Machines #48]
Nadia Asparouhova talks about idea machines on idea machines! Idea machines, of course, being her framework around societal organisms that turn ideas into outcomes. We also talk about the relationship between philanthropy and status, public goods and more. Nadia is a hard-to-categorize doer of many things: In the past, she spent many years exploring the funding, governance, and social dynamics of open source software, both writing a book about it called " Working in Public " and putting those id...
Oct 03, 2022•56 min•Season 1Ep. 48
Institutional Experiments with Seemay Chou [Idea Machines #47]
Seemay Chou talks about the process of building a new research organization, ticks, hiring and managing entrepreneurial scientists, non-model organisms, institutional experiments and a lot more! Seemay is the co-founder and CEO of Arcadia Science — a research and development company focusing on underesearched areas in biology and specifically new organisms that haven't been traditionally studied in the lab. She's also the co-founder of Trove Biolabs — a startup focused on harnessing molecules in...
Sep 01, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 47
DARPA and Advanced Manufacturing with William Bonvillian [Idea Machines #46]
William Bonvillian does a deep dive about his decades of research on how DARPA works and his more recent work on advanced manufacturing. William is a Lecturer at MIT and the Senior Director of Special Projects,at MIT's Office of Digital Learning. Before joining MIT he spent almost two decades as a senior policy advisor for the US senate. He's also published many papers and a detailed book exploring the DARPA model. Links William's Website The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies Transcrip...
Aug 02, 2022•48 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Philanthropically Funding the Foundation of Fields with Adam Falk [Idea Machines #45]
In this conversation, Adam Falk and I talk about running research programs with impact over long timescales, creating new fields, philanthropic science funding, and so much more. Adam is the president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which was started by the eponymous founder of General Motors and has been funding science and education efforts for almost nine decades. They've funded everything from iPython Notebooks to the Wikimedia foundation to an astronomical survey of the entire sky. If yo...
Jul 02, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 45
Managing Mathematics with Semon Rezchikov [Idea Machines #44]
In this conversation, Semon Rezchikov and I talk about what other disciplines can learn from mathematics, creating and cultivating collaborations, working at different levels of abstraction, and a lot more! Semon is currently a postdoc in mathematics at Harvard where he specializes in symplectic geometry. He has an amazing ability to go up and down the ladder of abstraction — doing extremely hardcore math while at the same time paying attention to *how* he's doing that work and the broader insti...
May 30, 2022•57 min•Season 1Ep. 44
Scientific Irrationality with Michael Strevens [Idea Machines #43]
Professor Michael Strevens discusses the line between scientific knowledge and everything else, the contrast between what scientists as people do and the formalized process of science, why Kuhn and Popper are both right and both wrong, and more. Michael is a professor of Philosophy at New York University where he studies the philosophy of science and the philosophical implications of cognitive science. He's the author of the outstanding book "The Knowledge Machine" which is the focus of most of ...
Jan 18, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 43
Distributing Innovation with The VitaDAO Core Team [Idea Machines #42]
A conversation with the VitaDAO core team. VitaDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization — or DAO — that focuses on enabling and funding longevity research. The sketch of how a DAO works is that people buy voting tokens that live on top of the Etherium blockchain and then use those tokens to vote on various action proposals for VitaDAO to take. This voting-based system contrasts with the more traditional model of a company that is a creation of law or contact, raises capital by selling equi...
Jan 02, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 42
The Nature of Technology with Brain Arthur [Idea Machines #41]
Dr. Brian Arthur and I talk about how technology can be modeled as a modular and evolving system, combinatorial evolution more broadly and dig into some fascinating technological case studies that informed his book The Nature of Technology . Brian is a researcher and author who is perhaps best known for his work on complexity economics, but I wanted to talk to him because of the fascinating work he's done building out theories of technology. As we discuss, there's been a lot of theorizing around...
Oct 03, 2021•1 hr 54 min•Season 1Ep. 41
Philosophy of Progress with Jason Crawford [Idea Machines #40]
In this Conversation, Jason Crawford and I talk about starting a nonprofit organization, changing conceptions of progress, why 26 years after WWII may have been what happened in 1971, and more. Jason is the proprietor of Roots of Progress a blog and educational hub that has recently become a full-fledged nonprofit devoted to the philosophy of progress. Jason's a returning guest to the podcast — we first spoke in 2019 relatively soon after he went full time on the project . I thought it would be ...
Sep 29, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Fusion, Planning, Programs, and Politics with Stephen Dean [Idea Machines #39]
In this conversation, Dr. Stephen Dean talks about how he created the 1976 US fusion program plan, how it played out and the history of fusion power in the US, technology program planning and management more broadly, and more. Stephen has been working on making fusion energy a reality for more than five decades. He did research on controlled fusion reactions in the 60s and in the 70s became a director at the Atomic energy commission which then became the Energy Research and Development Administr...
Aug 30, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Policy, TFP, and airshiPs with Eli Dourado [Idea Machines #38]
Eli Dourado on how the sausage of technology policy is made, the relationship between total factor productivity and technological progress, airships, and more. Eli is an economist, regulatory hacker, and a senior research fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University . In the past, he was the head of global policy at Boom Supersonic where he navigated the thicket of regulations on supersonic flight. Before that, he directed the technology policy program at the Mercatus...
Jul 27, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 38
In the Realm of the Barely Feasible with Arati Prabhakar [Idea Machines #37]
In this conversation I talk to the Amazing Arati Prabhakar about using Solutions R&D to tackle big societal problems, gaps in the innovation ecosystem, DARPA, and more. Arati's career has covered almost every corner of the innovation ecosystem - she's done basically every role at - DARPA she was a program manager, started their Microelectronics Technology Office, and several years later returned to server as its Director. She was also the director of the National Institute of Standards and T...
Jan 25, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Shaping Research by Changing Context with Ilan Gur [Idea Machines #36]
In this conversation I talk to Ilan Gur about what it really means for technology to "escape the lab", the power of context to shape the usefulness of research, the inadequacies of current institutional structures, how activate helps technology escape the lab *by* changing people's context, and more. Ilan is the CEO and founder of Activate, which is a nonprofit that runs a fellowship enabling scientists to spend two years embedded in research institutions to mature technology from a concept to a...
Dec 18, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 36
Your Equity is a Product with Luke Constable [Idea Machines #35]
In this conversation I talk to Luke Constable about the complicated tapestry of finance, funding projects, incentives, organizational and legal structures, social technologies, and more. Luke is the founder of the hedge fund Lampa Capital and publishes a widely-read newsletter full of fascinating deep dives. He's also trained as a lawyer and historian so he looks at the world with a fairly unique set of lenses. Disclaimer: nothing Luke says is an offer to buy or sell a security or to make an inv...
Nov 25, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 35
Venture Research with Donald Braben [Idea Machines #34]
In this conversation I talk to Donald Braben about his venture research initiative, peer review, and enabling the 21st century equivalents of Max Planck. Donald has been a staunch advocate of reforming how we fund and evaluate research for decades. From 1980 to 1990 he ran BP's venture research program, where he had a chance to put his ideas into practice. Considering the fact that the program cost two million pounds per year and enabled research that both led to at least one Nobel prize and a c...
Nov 09, 2020•59 min
Focusing on Research with Adam Marblestone [Idea Machines #33]
A conversation with Adam Marblestone about his new project - Focused Research Organizations. Focused Research Organizations (FROs) are a new initiative that Adam is working on to address gaps in current institutional structures. You can read more about them in this white paper that Adam released with Sam Rodriques. Links FRO Whitepaper Adam on Twitter Adam's Website Transcript [00:00:00] In this conversation, I talked to Adam marble stone about focused research organizations. What are focused re...
Oct 26, 2020•1 hr 7 min
Hanging Out in the Valley of Death with Michael Filler and Matthew Realff [Idea Machines #32]
Michael Filler and Matthew Realff discuss Fundamental Manufacturing Process innovations. We explore what they are, dig into historical examples, and consider how we might enable more of them to happen. Michael and Matthew are both professors at Georgia Tech and Michael also hosts an excellent podcast about nanotechnology called Nanovation. Our conversation centers around their paper Fundamental Manufacturing Process Innovation Changes the World. If you're in front of a screen while you're listen...
Oct 19, 2020•56 min•Season 1Ep. 32
The Decline of Unfettered Research with Andrew Odlyzko [Idea Machines #31]
A conversation with Professor Andrew Odlyzko about the forces that have driven the paradigm changes we've seen across the research world in the past several decades. Andrew is a professor at the University of Minnesota and worked at Bell Labs before that. The conversation centers around his paper " The Decline of Unfettered Research " which was written in 1995 but feels even more timely today. Key Takeaway The decline of unfettered research is part of a complex web of causes - from incentives, t...
Sep 01, 2020•49 min
On the Cusp of Commerciality with Eleonora Vella [Idea Machines #30]
A conversation with Eleonora Vella about getting the right people in the room, finding research on the cusp of commercializability, and generally how TandemLaunch's unique system works. Eleonora is a Program director at TandemLaunch. Tandemlaunch is a startup foundry that builds companies from scratch around university research. This is not an easy task - check out Episode 15 with Errol Arkilic , Episode 19 with Mark Hammond , or Episode 21 with Eli Velazquez if you need convincing. Given the ch...
Aug 23, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Innovating Through Time with Anton Howes [Idea Machines #29]
A conversation with Dr Anton Howes about The Royal Society of Arts, cultural factors that drive innovation, and many aspects of historical innovation. Anton is a historian of innovation whose work is expansive, but focuses especially on England in the 18th and 19th centuries as a hotbed of technological creativity. He recently released an excellent book that details the history of the Royal Society of Arts called " Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation " and he publishes...
Aug 06, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Inventors, Corporations, Universities, and Governments with Ashish Arora [Idea Machines #28]
A conversation with Ashish Arora about how and why the interlocking American institutions that support technological change have evolved over time, their current strengths and weaknesses, and how they might change in the future. Ashish Arora is the Rex D. Adams Professor of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. His research focuses on the economics of technology and technical change and we spend most of this conversation focused on his recent paper: " The ch...
Jul 09, 2020•55 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Invention, Discovery, and Bell Labs with Venkatesh Narayanamurti [Idea Machines #27]
In this episode I talk to Venkatesh Narayanamurti about Bell Labs, running research organizations, and why the distinction between basic and applied research is totally wrong. Venkatesh has led organizations across the research landscape: he was a director at Bell Labs during its Golden Age, a VP at Sandia National Lab, the Dean of Engineering at UC Santa Barbara and started Harvard's engineering school. Our discussion touches on the ideas in his book Cycles of Invention and Discovery. In it, he...
May 29, 2020•54 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Roadmapping Science with Adam Marblestone [Idea Machines #26]
In this episode I talk to Adam Marblestone about technology roadmapping, scientific gems hidden in plain sight, and systematically exploring complex systems. Adam is currently a research scientist at Google DeepMind and in the past has been the chief strategy officer at a brain-computer interface company and did research on brain mapping with Ed Boyden and did his PhD with George Church. He has a repeated pattern of pushing the frontiers in one discipline after another - physics, biology, neuros...
Apr 20, 2020•52 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Distributed Innovation with Jude Gomilla [Idea Machines #25]
In this episode I talk to Jude Gomilla about distributed innovation systems focused especially around the bottom-up response to the coronavirus crisis. Jude is a physicist, founder and CEO of the knowledge compilation platform Golden, and a prolific angel investor. He's also been in the thick of the distributed response to the coronavirus response from day one. Key Takeaways - There's a clear gap between market-based distributed systems and a top down systems coordinated by the government but it...
Mar 30, 2020•58 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Analogies, Context, and Zettleconversation with Joel Chan [Idea Machines #24]
Intro In this episode I talk to Joel Chan about cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer, zettlekasten, and too many other things to enumerate. Joel is an a professor in the University of Maryland's College of Information Studies and a member of their Human-Computer Interaction Lab . His research focuses on understanding and creating generalizable configurations of people, computing, and information that augment human intelligence and creativity. Essentially, how can we expand our knowledge frontie...
Mar 17, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Funding Breakthrough Research with Anna Goldstein - [Idea Machines #23]
In this episode I talk to Anna Goldstein about how the ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) model works and what makes it unique. We focus on ARPA-E : the department of Energy's version of DARPA that funds breakthrough energy research. Anna is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the author of the paper " Funding Breakthrough Research " that systematically breaks down how the ARPA model works based on research at ARPA-E. Anna is full of insights about the A...
Feb 26, 2020•50 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Systems of Progress with Jason Crawford - [Idea Machines #22]
In this episode I talk to Jason Crawford about his work on the history of progress, funding and incentivizing inventions, ideas behind their time, and more. Jason is the author of the Roots of Progress blog , where he focuses on telling the story of human progress in an amazingly accessible way. Key Takeaways Funding *structures* are understudied as a progress-enabling mechanism *Why* inventions happen is not so straightforward as we might think Culture may matter more than we think for building...
Feb 16, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 22
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