Shows / Core Memory
Core Memory
Core Memory is a podcast about science and technology hosted by best-selling author and filmmaker Ashlee Vance. Vance has spent the past two decades chronicling advances in science and tech for publications like The Economist, The New York Times and Bloomberg Businessweek. Along with the stories, he's written best-selling books like Elon Musk’s biography, made an Emmy-nominated tech TV show watched by millions and produced films for HBO and Netflix. The goal has always been to bring the tales…
Episodes
Core MemoryThe State Of Gene Editing - EP 37 Eryney Marrogi
We have a proper treat this week. Core Memory special correspondent Eryney Marrogi comes on the pod. Marrogi is a scientist and soon-to-be doctor who has…
Core MemoryWe Shall Finally Map The Brain - EP 36 Andrew Payne
In the 1970s, scientists created the first wiring diagram of a worm brain. To do this, they sliced up a worm, imaged the slices under microscopes and then…
Core MemoryChina Builds, The US Regulates - EP 35 Dan Wang
In this episode, Dan Wang comes on the show to discuss his new book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future. I’ll start by noting that the book is…
Core MemoryCan California Ever Build Again? - EP 34 Jan Sramek
This week, we bring you the story of California Forever in all its “never told before” glory. For the past eight years, Jan Sramek and a group of wealthy…
Core MemoryThe Man Who Changed Policing In America - EP 33 Rick Smith
Most of you have not heard of Axon Enterprise. But there it is – a $57 billion company that has reshaped pretty much every police department in the United…
Core MemoryShe's Ready To Gene Edit Babies - EP 32 Cathy Tie
Cathy Tie has been having an eventful year. First she co-founded a company determined to gene edit animals and build literal unicorns. Then she held a wedding…
Core MemoryThe History And Future Of Brain Implants - EP 31 Sumner Norman
Into the brain we go. Sumner Norman, the co-founder and CEO of Forest Neurotech, comes on the show to take us on a journey across the history and future of…
Core MemoryLife Beyond Blueprint - EP 30 Bryan Johnson
Well, here we go. Bryan Johnson has come to the pod. You have likely heard an interview with Johnson before, since he’s become such an object of love, hate and…
Core MemoryHow North Korea Infiltrated American Companies With Fake Tech Workers - EP 29 Bob McMillan
For the past few months, The Wall Street Journal’s Bob McMillan has been writing a series of stories on fake North Korean workers who have infiltrated American…
Core MemoryThe Company Putting A Score On Your Life - EP 28 Dugal Bain-Kim
We are awash in longevity tests and services. There are ones that measure your blood, others that measure the quality of your DNA and others that check on your…
Core MemoryThe Forrest Gump of Silicon Valley - EP 27 Leslie Berlin
This week’s guest is Leslie Berlin, the author, historian and executive director of the Steve Jobs Archive. My first encounter with Berlin’s work happened when…
Core MemoryThe Iranian Scientist Leading America’s Nuclear Rebirth - EP 26 Kurt Terrani
Our guests this week are Kurt Terrani, an Iranian-born nuclear scientist, and Tommy Hendrix, a Green Beret turned venture capitalist, and they arrive with an…
Core MemoryHer Multi-Billion Dollar Quest to End Disease - EP 25 Priscilla Chan
Ten years ago, Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg vowed to aim almost all of their billions at a singular goal: “to cure, prevent and manage all disease by…
Core MemorySpaceplanes Are Upon Us - EP 24 Stefan Powell
Last November, Dawn Aerospace broke some aerospace records. Its spaceplane – the Mk-II Aurora – hit Mach 1.1 on its way to climbing to 20km faster than any…
Core MemoryThe Child Prodigy Teaching Other People How To Learn
Andrew Hsu has been something of a legend for most of his life. In 2007, The Seattle Times published a story documenting Hsu’s graduation from the University…
Core MemoryFixing American Science Funding
This week on the Core Memory podcast – we fix American science and advance civilization. We were joined by Anastasia Gamick and Adam Marbleston from Convergent…
Core MemoryThe New Era of Consumer DNA Tests
This week’s guest is Kian Sadeghi, the founder and CEO of Nucleus. Sadeghi has everything you want in a controversialish bio-tech CEO. He’s a college dropout…
Core MemoryAn AI Engineer Is Here, and It Might Redesign the Physical World - EP 20 Paul Eremenko
The news here is that Paul Eremenko has a new start-up called P-1 AI. Eremenko is billing P-1 as one of the first stabs at building an AI engineer. The…
Core MemoryThe Future of Money - EP 19 Zach Abrams
More than a decade ago, someone I respect told me to go meet these young, Irish brothers - Patrick and John Collison. The brothers had started a small company…
Core MemoryAnduril and Meta Make Peace to Make War Together - EP 18 Palmer Luckey
Palmer Luckey has come on the Core Memory podcast today to deliver some full-on shocking news. (And top tips on raising children as well.) As you’ll hear on…
Core MemoryPeter Beck on Rockets, Dinner with Elon and the Future of Space
The facts are these: Peter Beck is the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, and Rocket Lab is an absolute beast in the aerospace world. It has launched more than 60…
Core MemoryHe Comes Promising AI Freedom For All
Back when I first began covering technology in the early 2000s, my favorite thing to write about was open source software. I was young and idealistic, and the…
Core MemoryThe Company Trying to Reprogram Aging
First. The news. The bio-tech player New Limit has raised $130 million from just about the fanciest assembly of smart, rich people imaginable. Nat Friedman and…
Core MemoryA Brain Researcher's Bid to Make Digital Twins of Humans
Earlier this month, Nature published some of the results from a multi-year effort to better understand the visual cortex of mice. The work took place under the…
Core MemoryCoinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on the Evolving Future of Humans
Coinbase CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong joins the pod to discuss crypto, crypto, crypto. Well, not really. Everyone asks Armstrong about crypto all the…
Core MemoryChris Kemp on Astra's Comeback, Rockets and Drones from Space
If you’ve seen HBO’s Wild, Wild Space or read When the Heavens Went on Sale, then Chris Kemp needs no introduction. Kemp is one of the stars in both works. For…
Core MemoryDwarkesh Patel Wants People to Learn Things
We flipped the tables on Dwarkesh Patel this week and turned the podcaster into the podcastee. Over the past few years, Patel has made a name for himself as a…
Core MemoryThe First Bungee Jump, Space Weapons, Lunar Landers and Airships: Al Weston Has Done It All
A few years ago, I caught wind that Sergey Brin had started funding an airship start-up called LTA (Lighter Than Air) Research. After hitting up some sources…
Core MemoryEngineering Brains - EP 09 Max Hodak
Few figures in Brain Computer Interface Land can match Max Hodak’s output over the past decade. He helped start Neuralink in 2016 and then went on to start…
Core MemoryConsciousness in the Quantum Realm
For the past decade, the scientist Suzanne Gildert has been working to imbue robots and AIs with new skills. She co-founded a pair of start-ups - Kindred and…
Core MemoryOn Steve Jobs, Drugs, AI, Risk and the Enduring Magic of Silicon Valley
Don’t meet your heroes unless your hero is John Markoff. For he is as good as billed. No one has broken more stories about the technology industry or…
Core MemoryBecause Sometimes a Chicken Sandwich Needs to Get to Space
Several years ago, KFC did something ridiculous. It hired a giant, stratospheric balloon maker called World View to put its Zinger Chicken sandwich into space…
Core MemoryThe Start-up Making IVF and Egg Freezing Faster and Less Awful
Dina Radenkovic has set out to reshape women’s health. Gameto, her start-up based in Austin, has spent the last four years working on stem cell engineering…
Core MemoryFly Another Day: The Daring, Thrilling, and Misguided Life of a Test Pilot
In this episode, we’re joined by the test pilot Elliot Seguin to learn what it’s like to put your life on the line on a regular basis. Unlike most of the…
Core MemoryLife After Extinction: Bringing Woolly Mammoths Back Via Artificial Wombs
Fresh off closing a $200 million funding round, Ben Lamm from Colossal Biosciences - now valued at more than $10 billion - joins Core Memory - now valued at…
Core MemoryKeller Rinaudo Cliffton on Zipline's Drone Delivery Journey from Blood to Burritos
A few weeks ago, I went out to Zipline’s test facility in Half Moon Bay, California for a dinner and to see their delivery drones in action. I was not…
Core MemoryJoe Betts LaCroix on Longevity and Building and Destroying Things
Sam Altman has placed a few very large bets. There’s OpenAI, of course, and Helion Energy for fusion; World (fka Worldcoin) for finance and identity; and then…