Tony Atti and How Phononic Was Founded During the 2008 Financial Crisis| PART 1 of 2

NC Tweener Talks · Jan 22, 2026 · 25m

In this episode (Part 1), we cover the origin story.

Tony walks through the decisions, failures, and inflection points that led to Phononic’s founding: leaving the Northeast for graduate school at USC, working on applied energy systems at JPL during the Mars rover era, and learning painful but formative lessons from a university spin-out that didn’t work.

Then comes the moment you can’t script. In the fall of 2008, while the global financial system is actively collapsing, Tony presents a research thesis on why semiconductors transformed everything except cooling. He walks out that same day…