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Articles by Ashlee Vance
Robots Like Us - EP 92 Andrew Kiguel and Matt McMullen From Realbotix
Our guests this week are Andrew Kiguel and Matt McMullen from Realbotix. Realbotix makes humanoid robots that actually look like humans. McMullen, who founded the company, has spent years refining the animatronics and materials needed to create lifelike machines. His past creations have received tons of media attention both because they’re striking and because they veer into companionship and sex territory. Lars and the Real Girl? Yep, that’s Matt’s work.
Inside Tech's Favorite Talk Show
It feels like only yesterday that techies on X first heard the sound of TBPN’s gong. The show was so ridiculous, its hosts so charismatic, its content so nerdy that Silicon Valley just couldn’t look …
Core Memory ✓ Claim
LS 36 TOP 3% ABOUT THIS PODCAST 🔗 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.
He’s Here To End Death - EP 90 Dr. Emil Kendziorra
A few years ago, some people put me in a van and drove me to the edge of Moscow. And by “the edge of Moscow,” I mean where things started to get a bit rural. We turned off a road and went toward what looked like a modest farmhouse with a shed. After exiting the van, we entered said shed and found two large metal containers that were full of human bodies and heads along with the bodies of many animals, including dogs, cats, and a hummingbird. Have a look.
The Wordcel Queen Of Silicon Valley - EP 89 Anna Gát
We’ve heard a lot of moonshot ideas on this podcast, but this week’s guest may have the most impossible one yet: making tech more cultured. In this episode, Ashlee sat down with Anna Gát, a Hungarian philosopher, playwright, and founder of Interintellect, a platform for hosting intellectual conversations online. She calls herself “the bridge” between the humanities, academia, and the tech world, which in practice means getting engineers to read Goethe. Gát grew up on a TV set in communist Hungary.
Investigation: Does LA Have The Chinese Work Ethic?
If America is to build things again, it will be building things in Los Angeles. LA has become home to a multitude of manufacturing startups across energy, defense, aerospace and beyond. (Like, really …
Inside Los Angeles' E-Bike Scene With Kelly Chameleon
In this episode, Ashlee joins the only gang that would plausibly have him — one run by a former circus clown. After dark, downtown Los Angeles belongs to a lithium-powered gang led by Kelly Chameleon,…
The Xbox Nearly Destroyed Him - EP 87 Seamus Blackley
This episode is nerd catnip unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Ashlee sat down with Seamus Blackley, who you might know as the man who talked Microsoft into building the Xbox. Nowadays, you can find Blackley in a Pasadena laboratory making the world’s best chocolate. If you’re just here for the cacao, well, we did a video on it. Blackley grew up in rural New Mexico and studied electrical engineering, then physics, at Tufts University.
The Rise Of A Nerd King
THE FIRST time I met Scott Wu was back in 2015. This was before the rest of the world had seen him performing heroic math feats on X or talking up his coding agent Devin. It was before the profiles and the podcasts that discussed his poker-playing exploits and daring acquisitions. Back then, Wu was all of 18 years old and, I must say, did not come off as a future titan of Silicon Valley. Wu at 18 looked and behaved much the same as he does at 29.
Should We Kill Fish With Robots?
This will no doubt come as a surprise to you, but industrial fishing in the U.S. is not a pleasant experience for the fish. Quite often, fish are hauled aboard and then either dumped on the deck of a boat or unloaded onto some ice where they’re left to writhe around until they suffocate and die. This process sometimes takes hours. Along the way, the stressed fish flood their flesh with cortisol, adrenaline and lactic acid.
The Realest Longevity Guru - EP 85 Alex Colville
Over the past five years, Alex Colville has become one of the most influential figures in the longevity and aging fields. There’s a decent chance you have not heard of him, which is a bit by design. Unlike many longevity gurus, Colville does not seek much attention and, for the most part, operates in the background where he’s been doling out many millions of dollars in investments.
An Inventor In LA Has Produced The World's Best Chocolate
We have found the world’s best chocolate. It’s made in a top-secret laboratory in Southern California and is the creation of Xbox inventor Seamus Blackley and his inventing partner Asher Zelig Sefami.…
The Spinal Implant Giving Paralyzed People New Hope
Julie Verlinden had just completed her master’s degree in archaeology. It was January of 2022. She’d been studying at Bilkent University in Ankara for months, visiting historical sites in and around Turkey. Now she wanted a break and planned to go on a road trip back home to Belgium with her boyfriend, a fellow archaeologist. The couple hoped to break up the long drive with jaunts to historical points of interest – a mix of work and pleasure.
The Startup Trying To Fix California Housing
It’s been 18 months since fires ripped through the Pacific Palisades and destroyed thousands of homes. LA’s Mayor Karen Bass and California’s Governor Gavin Newsom promised to make rebuilding faster …
Can New Mexico Buy A Future?
We’ve been traveling through New Mexico for the past week, and all you hear about is how thirsty the state is – both for water and technology. I will not claim to be a New Mexico water expert after a few days on the ground, but the stories of dire times have been relentless. One woman we met lives in the mountains near Albuquerque where people have been digging their own wells and tapping into the local aquifer for decades.
Inside The Media Marvel That Is TBPN
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.
Quantum Everything Explained - EP 81 Prineha Narang
Prineha Narang is one of the rising stars of science and the field of quantum technology. She earned her PhD in applied physics at Caltech, taught materials science at Harvard and now has her own lab at UCLA. The lab focuses on quantum materials, non-equilibrium dynamics, photonics, quantum information science and other easily digestible areas. Beyond her academic career, Narang is a science advisor to the government and a venture capitalist at DCVC.
Here Is Your Space Station Of The Future
The International Space Station is Old AF. It has been orbiting the Earth for 27 years and has been bombarded by a constant stream of space debris. The ISS leaks and requires much repair. As NASA alum…
The Full Tesla Semi Factory Tour
A couple of months ago, we went to Nevada and invaded the Tesla Semi factory. It was early days in the factory’s march toward full production. We made a beautiful video about the experience, and it w…
The Manufacturing Phenomenon That Is SendCutSend - EP 79 Jim Belosic
If you spend any time inside a company that actually makes things in the U.S., then you’ll hear about SendCutSend. Started in 2018, SendCutSend has become an American manufacturing phenomenon. The company makes metal parts for more than 300,000 customers, ranging from giants of aerospace and defense to hobbyists working on their cars. You ship SendCutSend a computer file of what you want built, and it often arrives at your house or factory the next day.
Body Scanners, Banned Models, and DeepMind's Space Game Obsession - EP 78 Ashlee Vance And Kylie Robison
Did Kylie and I attend the Midjourney Scanner event? Yes, we did. Did Kylie compare notes on her skincare routine with Bryan Johnson at the event? Also, yes. Meanwhile, I formed more wrinkles by downing cocktails while all this happened. Since the Midjourney pivot into medical devices and health spas is all the rage, we had no choice but to dive right in on this week’s episode.
David Holz's Living The Dream Era Begins
One of the tricks Silicon Valley pulls on people is making it seem cool to raise tons of money. The sums can be so vast, especially in this moment of AI frenzy, that it looks awesome to pry billions of dollars away from investors in the hopes that you might make billions of dollars for yourself. The better, more awesome approach, of course, is to make your billions without taking any money from investors and without giving up any control of your company.
The Future Of Our Brains And Bodies - EP 77 Max Hodak Live Event
Max Hodak is back. The co-founder and CEO of Science Corp. joined me for our first-ever live podcast recording, which took place at the Brex headquarters in San Francisco. Thanks so much to all the Core Memory subscribers who turned up. Max walked us through Science’s technology aimed at restoring vision in the blind, and the company’s new product lines focused on organ transplants and extending the abilities of brains. So, like, totally normal, everyday stuff.
The Space Race Is So Back - EP 76 Ashlee Vance And Kylie Robison
The theme for this week’s episode is tick, tick, boom. America is running out of time to catch up with China on manufacturing, and we’re physically incapable of spending an hour together without bringing it up. Release the glorious machines please!! We also go behind the scenes on Kylie’s reporting on motors and actuators — the unglamorous parts that sit in every joint of a humanoid robot, account for roughly 60% of what that robot costs to build, and come almost entirely from China.
Redwood Materials Has Built A Recyling Empire
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.
Can You Reverse Decades of Drinking Damage? Perhaps. - EP 75 Jacob Kimmel Is Back
Jacob Kimmel returns to the show. And he might have cured the hangover and liver disease. NBD. Kimmel is the co-founder and president of NewLimit and one of the deepest thinkers in the longevity field. His company has been working to reverse the aging process in the body and has seen some stunning results with a new therapy that undoes liver damage in mice.
The Startup Trying to Save Us From AI Bioweapons- EP 74 Hannu Rajaniemi
Our guest this week is the renowned science fiction author Hannu Rajaniemi. And he has come to terrify and then perhaps comfort you. Rajaniemi made an immediate name for himself in literary circles with his debut novel The Quantum Thief. He’s since written a string of novels that explore the directions technology might take in the future, and his work always stands out for its creativity and imagination. These days, Rajaniemi is putting those skills to very practical use at Red Queen Bio.
Schmidt Out of Luck - EP 73 Ashlee Vance And Kylie Robison
We are back with another episode of Ashlee and Kylie gossiping about the latest in Silicon Valley. First, a re-cap of our Alexandr Wang interview — his first real sit-down in eleven months — and what it actually revealed about Meta’s AI play. Wang seemed nervous hashing out the strategy in the studio, and we both keep circling the same puzzle: Meta has endless compute and top talent in Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, so why does the model still feel underwhelming?
Open Tab: Ashlee Vance
Playback speed × Share post Share post at current time Share from 0:00 0:00 / Transcript Open Tab: Ashlee Vance The veteran tech journalist on getting close to Elon, why he walked away from the best job in media, and showing audiences where the world is headed before it gets there.
Kelly Johnson, Skunk Works And The Days When America Did The Biggest Things
It’s with great pleasure that we present this excerpt from The Impossible Factory by Josh Dean. It’s a tremendous, new book about Kelly Johnson and Lockheed Skunk Works. Copyright 2026 by Josh Dean. Published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Kelly Johnson knew that engineers, especially those in defense contracting, had a responsibility to understand and predict the market.
The Freshman Who Took Down Stanford's President And Its Perfect Image - EP 72 Theo Baker
As a freshman, Theo Baker signed up to write for The Stanford Daily on a lark. He thought it might be a fun way to spend some time when he wasn’t busy studying and coding. But then, he turned out to be quite good at reporting and tips started coming his way. One of these tips included information suggesting that there were inconsistencies and perhaps massive errors in past scientific papers tied to Stanford’s then-president Marc Tessier-Lavigne.
The Bet Against Brain Implants
Alex Smith has a magical hand. It’s made of carbon fiber. It can rotate 360 degrees. And Alex can detach it and still control the hand when it’s several feet away from him.
Meta's AI Chief On AI Beef, New Models And Life With Zuck - EP 71 Alex Wang
Last June, Meta pried Alex Wang away from Scale AI, the company he co-founded and ran, in a deal valued at $14 billion. Zuck could feel Meta fading in the AI race and decided that Wang was the rescue plan. He would work full-time at Meta, assemble a super team and hopefully make the company more competitive against the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet. Wang has basically been in hiding ever since.
Everything You Need To Know About The Nuclear Energy Boom - EP 70 James Krellenstein
We’re in the midst of a new nuclear energy boom. Start-ups – both fusion and fission – abound, and the U.S. government has cleared the way to build again. Meanwhile, China is racing ahead with nuclear plans that dwarf those of the rest of the world combined. As with any boom cycle, there is a lot of hype and a lot to understand if you want to get a handle on what’s real and what’s not. And so, we brought James Krellenstein onto the podcast.
The Great Texan Telescope Ranch
A few months ago, I saw someone posting a certain kind of erotica on X. They were images of hundreds upon hundreds of telescopes spread across what appeared to be ranch land. The telescopes were arra…
The Cyborgs Commeth - EP 69 Connor Glass
It is time to talk about robotic body parts. Connor Glass, this week’s guest, has a company called Phantom Neuro, and it makes a human machine interface. By this, we mean a computing device that gets implanted in your body and lets you control a robotic limb with your mind. The first people using this technology are amputees.
Is America Cooked? - EP 68 Ashlee Vance And Kylie Robison
We’re trying something new. Ashlee and Kylie dishing on Tech Land and dishing hard. The Core Memory podcast you didn’t know you needed but now can’t live without. We dove into our recent sit-down with Sam Altman and Greg Brockman: why Greg seems to have stepped back into a real leadership role at OpenAI, our biggest takeaways from the episode, and why the startup has become its own telenovela. We had to unpack the state of American manufacturing.
The Secret Town in Texas That Might Save America
Over the past couple of years, one of the more ambitious experiments in American manufacturing has been taking place in Central Texas. It is called Proto-Town, and it has been something of a secret. …
The Great Reset At OpenAI — EP 67 Sam Altman And Greg Brockman
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 Man Growing Organs On Demand
The initial heart transplant was not greeted with universal applause. Shortly after Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the procedure for the first time in 1967, people bombarded his hospital in South Africa with letters that characterized the doctor as a butcher and a ghoul. A fellow cardiologist likened the operation to a form of cannibalism. Many people criticized Barnard for picking one life over another and playing God. It did not take long for most of this criticism to dissipate.
The Very Wild, Very Real Plan To Build AI Data Centers In The Ocean - EP 65 Garth Sheldon-Coulson
We’re in a moment of insatiable desire for more energy and more computing. And so the ideas of how to provide said energy and computing are getting ever more adventurous. Case in point: Panthalassa, which is the subject of this week’s episode, alongside our guest Garth Sheldon-Coulson, the company’s co-founder and CEO. Panthalassa makes an object that it calls a node and that looks like a giant lollipop.
Exclusive: Inside The Tesla Semi Factory
We bring you - our loyal subscribers - the world’s first look inside the Tesla Semi factory. As many of you will know, Tesla has been on a long journey to create a new line of Semi trucks capable of g…
He Hacked Finance And Is Now Building An AI CEO - EP 63 Pedro Franceschi
Pedro Franceschi taught himself to code when he was eight years old. At 12, he began receiving legal notices from Apple, asking him to stop hacking iPhones. By 14, he was making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year selling software and had his mom accompanying him on job interviews in his home city of Rio de Janeiro. Even among coding and hacking prodigies, Franceschi stands out.
The Smarter Way To Kill A Tumor: mRNA's Second Act
Long before a lab leak/pangolin connoisseur/over-eager chiropterologist made mRNA vaccines famous, Jake Becraft and Tasuku Kitada were exploring ways in which mRNA technology could be applied to trea…
Here Come The Space Lasers - EP 62 Baiju Bhatt
Baiju Bhatt is trying to pull an Elon Musk. About 25 years ago, Musk sold his finance tech company PayPal and left dot-com life to get into rockets with the founding of SpaceX. Hardly anyone considered this a rational choice on Musk’s part. Space, after all, was where rich people went to blow their fortunes and fail. For his part, Bhatt co-founded the investing service Robinhood in 2013 and has now decided to get into the space business as well via a start-up called Aetherflux.
The Aussie Man Who Used AI To Create A Cancer Cure For His Dog
We have tracked down the man and dog of the hour. Paul Conyngham and his dog Rosie gained worldwide attention over the past week for breaking new medical ground. Using a variety of artificial intelligence tools, Conyngham – and some doctors and scientists in Australia – managed to create a personalized (petalized?) cancer treatment for Rosie that appears to be working. The story resonated with the public for a couple of big reasons. First off, Conyngham has no real science or biology background.
They’ve Revived Dead Brains. And Now We Might Finally Get Some Cures
The courier arrived with the human brain early in the morning. The brain, insulated in a cooler, came in through the back door of a start-up called Bexorg located in New Haven, Connecticut. It then went into the hands of Josip Butkovic, a Croatian-born surgeon, who carried the package to a prep table in Bexorg’s basement. Next, Butkovic removed the brain and placed it in a metal bowl. Gelatinous and shiny, the brain spread out to push against the bowl’s edges.
Trends in admissions and costs for neonatal intensive care in US children’s hospitals, 2017–2022
Abstract To evaluate trends in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admissions, illness acuity, and hospitalization costs among U.S. children’s hospitals from 2017 to 2022. This retrospective cohort study used data from the Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) and included all NICU admissions. We examined trends in patient characteristics (e.g., gestational age, complex chronic conditions), illness severity scores, and standardized hospital costs.
Inside The Race To Reboot Human Cells - EP 60 Nabiha Saklayen
The mainstream media says almost nothing about induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). So, you’re lucky that we’re here to help. These cells with a clunky name hold the promise of being able to reverse the aging process across our bodies. Put rather bluntly, your old, wine-soaked liver could become like your twenty-something, Jell-O-shot-soaked liver. Your aging neurons could fire like they once did. And your tired heart could be fresh and loving again.
Going Underwater With Anduril's Autonomous Subs
Anduril receives the most attention for things that fly – its drones, autonomous jets and weapons systems. This makes sense because they’re flashy and sometimes kinetic and people like stuff that goe…
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