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
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
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
1:36:24 - Monarch Tractors
1:39:16 - Bamboo