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Podcasts

Operator conversations and long-form interviews on rebuilding the industrial base.

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Podcasts

American Dynamism

The Self-Improving Company | Kavak's AI Playbook

content+a16zpodcast@a16z.com (Gabriel Vasquez, Angela Strange, Alejandro Maza Ayala)

Angela Strange and Gabriel Vasquez are joined by Alejandro Maza Ayala, Chief Product & AI Officer at Kavak, to unpack how the Latin American used-car marketplace rebuilt itself around AI agents, with 96% of customer interactions and 95% of transactions now handled by agents. Ale…

Listen 10 hours ago·Aug 10, 2026
Podcasts

War on the Rocks

What America Learned About Democracy When It Gained Stealth

T. Nelson Collier

Editor’s note: This is the seventh article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th ann…

Listen 12 hours ago·Aug 10, 2026
Podcasts

War on the Rocks

Why Conflict Gold Sanctions Fail

Amanda Kadlec

In April 2026, over a month after the United States launched its attack on Iran, leading to thousands of reprisal strikes across the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates shut down a network of money changers connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iranian exchange houses a…

Listen 13 hours ago·Aug 10, 2026
Podcasts

Acquired

Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

In 1984, the Walt Disney Company was worth more dead than alive. Disney Animation — the heart of Walt's famous flywheel — had stagnated for years, bleeding away talent while corporate raiders circled, salivating over offers to sell off the film library to MGM and offload the par…

Listen 16 hours ago·Aug 10, 2026
Podcasts

American Dynamism

The Reality of AI-Powered Cyberattacks | Truffle Security & Socket

content+a16zpodcast@a16z.com (Joel De La Garza, Feross Aboukhadijeh, Dylan Ayrey)

Joel De La Garza is joined by Dylan Ayrey, co-founder and CEO of Truffle Security, and Feross Aboukhadijeh, founder and CEO of Socket, to discuss one of the biggest shifts happening in cybersecurity: AI models are no longer just finding vulnerabilities—they're exploiting them. A…

Listen 3 days ago·Aug 7, 2026
Podcasts

War on the Rocks

Warlords of Greece: Warfare in Homer’s World

Josho Brouwers

The Iliad and Odyssey have shaped Western ideas of heroism for nearly three millennia. Yet despite centuries of debate over whether they reflect historical reality or poetic fantasy, the Homeric world remains an internally consistent universe worth studying on its own terms. Thi…

Listen 4 days ago·Aug 7, 2026
Podcasts

War on the Rocks

How Can U.S. Special Operations Forces Help Defeat China on Taiwan?

Brian Petit

It is conceivable that in one blistering campaign, the People’s Republic of China could invade, occupy, and forcibly annex Taiwan. One question would dominate the post-occupation debate: “What more could have been done?” The obvious answers will be better intel…

Listen 4 days ago·Aug 7, 2026
Podcasts

War on the Rocks

Attacks, Deals, and Discontent

WOTR Staff

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranOver the last two weeks, President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened…

Listen 4 days ago·Aug 6, 2026
Podcasts

War on the Rocks

Does Latent Nuclear Deterrence Really Work?

Matthew Fuhrmann

In 2025, Matthew Fuhrmann wrote, “U.S. Allies and Adversaries Are Attempting Nuclear Deterrence Without Weapons – Will It Work?,” where he argued countries don’t always need to go as far as actually building nuclear weapons to reap the benefits of nuclear…

Listen 4 days ago·Aug 6, 2026
Podcasts

American Dynamism

The Engine Powering Open-Source AI

content+a16zpodcast@a16z.com (Elena Burger, Matt Bornstein, Simon Mo)

Elena Burger and Matt Bornstein are joined by Simon Mo, co-founder and CEO of Inferact, the open-source inference engine powering many of today's most advanced AI applications. Together, they explore how open-source AI evolved from a research project into critical infrastructure…

Listen 4 days ago·Aug 6, 2026
Podcasts

American Dynamism

Three Startups Reinventing Critical Infrastructure

content+a16zpodcast@a16z.com (Erin Price-Wright, Ryan McEntush, Theo Jaffee, Doug Bernauer, Turner Caldwell, Will O'Brien, Erik Torenberg)

This week, a16z American Dynamism Films premiered three short documentaries highlighting companies tackling some of America's biggest industrial challenges: Ulysses, Mariana Materials, and Radiant. Before watching those films, we're revisiting conversations with the founders beh…

Listen 5 days ago·Aug 5, 2026
Podcasts

American Dynamism

OpenAI's Joshua Achiam: Did We Already Reach AGI?

content+a16zpodcast@a16z.com (Theo Jaffee, Joshua Achiam)

Theo Jaffee is joined by Joshua Achiam, Chief Futurist at OpenAI, for a conversation on AI cybersecurity, frontier model capabilities, and why he believes society may have already crossed the threshold into an AGI-era without fully recognizing it. They discuss AI's rapidly advan…

Listen 6 days ago·Aug 4, 2026
Podcasts

American Dynamism

Ruby Thelot on Internet Culture, AI, and the Future of Taste

content+a16zpodcast@a16z.com (Sophia Dew, Sofia Puccini, Ruby Thelot)

Sophia Dew and Sofia Puccini are joined by Ruby Thelot, designer, artist, cyberethnographer, professor at NYU, and founder of 13101401, for a wide-ranging conversation about internet culture, AI, digital communities, and how technology is reshaping the way we relate to one anoth…

Listen last week·Aug 2, 2026
Podcasts

Acquired

The Walt Disney Company

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

The Walt Disney Company is the most successful enterprise ever created for monetizing human nostalgia. Today it’s the king of global entertainment, holding the intellectual property rights to the childhood memories of billions of people (including, likely, all of you) and is a r…

Listen 2 months ago·Jun 22, 2026
Podcasts

Dwarkesh Podcast

Reiner Pope – Chip design from the bottom up

Dwarkesh Patel

New blackboard lecture with Reiner Pope: how do chips actually work - starting with basic logic gates, and working up to why GPUs, TPUs, FPGAs, and the human brain each look the way they do. Reiner is CEO of MatX , a new chip startup (full disclosure - I’m an angel investor). He…

Listen 3 months ago·May 22, 2026
Podcasts

Acquired

Vanguard

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Vanguard is the most effective vehicle ever created for participating in the fruits of American capitalism. Today it’s the single largest equity owner of the majority of corporations in the S&P 500, on behalf of 50 million clients (including, likely, many of you). And yet Vangua…

Listen 3 months ago·May 18, 2026
Podcasts

Acquired

Ferrari

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Ferrari is the pinnacle of luxury scarcity — across its entire 79-year history, the company has sold just 330,000 cars at an average price today of $500,000. For context, Hermès sells that many Birkins and Kellys roughly every 2 years, and Rolex moves that many watches every 3 m…

Listen 4 months ago·Apr 13, 2026
Podcasts

Dwarkesh Podcast

Dylan Patel — Deep dive on the 3 big bottlenecks to scaling AI compute

Dwarkesh Patel

Dylan Patel , founder of SemiAnalysis , provides a deep dive into the 3 big bottlenecks to scaling AI compute: logic, memory, and power. And walks through the economics of labs, hyperscalers, foundries, and fab equipment manufacturers. Learned a ton about every single level of t…

Listen 5 months ago·Mar 13, 2026
Podcasts

Acquired

Formula 1

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Formula 1 is three competitions in one: a 200mph battle of the world's best race car drivers, the world cup of engineering where thousand-person teams spend hundreds of millions designing cars from scratch, and — as one of our listeners perfectly put it — the “Real Housewives of…

Listen 5 months ago·Mar 2, 2026
Podcasts

Acquired

The NFL

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

The NFL is nearly synonymous with America today. Practically nothing is more quintessentially and universally American than tuning in every Sunday (and Monday, and Thursday… and sometimes Saturdays and holidays too) to watch the world’s most beautiful ballet of violence. It gene…

Listen 7 months ago·Jan 27, 2026
Podcasts

Dwarkesh Podcast

Fully autonomous robots are much closer than you think – Sergey Levine

Dwarkesh Patel

Sergey Levine , one of the world’s top robotics researchers and co-founder of Physical Intelligence , thinks we’re on the cusp of a “self-improvement flywheel” for general-purpose robots. His median estimate for when robots will be able to run households entirely autonomously? 2…

Listen 11 months ago·Sep 12, 2025
Podcasts

Dwarkesh Podcast

@Asianometry & Dylan Patel — How the semiconductor industry actually works

Dwarkesh Patel

A bonanza on the semiconductor industry and hardware scaling to AGI by the end of the decade. Dylan Patel runs Semianalysis , the leading publication and research firm on AI hardware. Jon Y runs Asianometry , the world’s best YouTube channel on semiconductors and business histor…

Listen 2 years ago·Oct 2, 2024
Podcasts

Lex Fridman Podcast — Industrial

#412 – Marc Raibert: Boston Dynamics and the Future of Robotics

Lex Fridman

Marc Raibert is founder and former long-time CEO of Boston Dynamics, and recently Executive Director of the newly-created Boston Dynamics AI Institute. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – HiddenLayer : https://hiddenlayer.com/lex – Babbel : ht…

Listen 2 years ago·Feb 16, 2024
Podcasts

Lex Fridman Podcast — Industrial

#394 – Neri Oxman: Biology, Art, and Science of Design & Engineering with Nature

Lex Fridman

Neri Oxman is a designer, engineer, scientist, and artist working on computational design, synthetic biology and digital fabrication, previously at MIT, and now at OXMAN. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Babbel : https://babbel.com/lexpod and use…

Listen 3 years ago·Sep 1, 2023
Podcasts

Lex Fridman Podcast — Industrial

#380 – Neil Gershenfeld: Self-Replicating Robots and the Future of Fabrication

Lex Fridman

Neil Gershenfeld is the director of the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – LMNT : https://drinkLMNT.com/lex to get free sample pack – NetSuite : http://netsuite.com/lex to get free product tour – BetterHel…

Listen 3 years ago·May 28, 2023
Podcasts

Lex Fridman Podcast — Industrial

#374 – Robert Playter: Boston Dynamics CEO on Humanoid and Legged Robotics

Lex Fridman

Robert Playter is CEO of Boston Dynamics, a legendary robotics company that over 30 years has created some of the most elegant, dextrous, and simply amazing robots ever built, including the humanoid robot Atlas and the robot dog Spot. Please support this podcast by checking out…

Listen 3 years ago·Apr 28, 2023
Podcasts

Lex Fridman Podcast — Industrial

#309 – John Carmack: Doom, Quake, VR, AGI, Programming, Video Games, and Rockets

Lex Fridman

John Carmack is a legendary programmer, co-founder of id Software, and lead programmer of many revolutionary video games including Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and the Commander Keen series. He is also the founder of Armadillo Aerospace, and for many years the CTO of Oculus VR.…

Listen 4 years ago·Aug 4, 2022
Podcasts

Dwarkesh Podcast

David Deutsch - AI, America, Fun, & Bayes

Dwarkesh Patel

David Deutsch is the founder of the field of quantum computing and the author The Beginning of Infinity and The Fabric of Reality . Read me contra David on AI . Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript with he…

Listen 5 years ago·Jan 31, 2022
Podcasts

Lex Fridman Podcast — Industrial

#252 – Elon Musk: SpaceX, Mars, Tesla Autopilot, Self-Driving, Robotics, and AI

Lex Fridman

Elon Musk is CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and Boring Company. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Athletic Greens : https://athleticgreens.com/lex and use code LEX to get 1 month of fish oil – ButcherBox : https://butcherbox.com/lex to get…

Listen 5 years ago·Dec 28, 2021
Podcasts

Dwarkesh Podcast

David Friedman - Dating Markets, Legal Systems, Bitcoin, and Automation

Dwarkesh Patel

David Friedman is a famous anarcho-capitalist economist and legal scholar. Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Episode website + transcript here . David Friedman's website: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ Follow me on Twitter for…

Listen 5 years ago·Aug 9, 2021
Directory

Podcasts

Operator conversations and long-form interviews on rebuilding the industrial base. 12 sources / 11 live / 1 manual.

Podcasts

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Live feed

Deep histories of the companies that built the industrial and technological backbone of the modern economy — TSMC, Nvidia, Lockheed, Boeing.

company historysemiconductorsindustry
Podcasts

American Dynamism

Katherine Boyle and David Ulevitch

Live feed

The a16z thesis on companies supporting the national interest — defense, aerospace, manufacturing, housing, logistics, and hard tech.

a16zamerican dynamismdefense techhard tech
Podcasts

American Optimist

Joe Lonsdale

Live feed

Founders, policymakers, and operators building the next American century — industrial tech, defense, energy, and national strategy.

american dynamismdefenseindustrial policyventure
Podcasts

Dwarkesh Podcast

Dwarkesh Patel

Live feed

Long-form conversations with historians, economists, and builders — select episodes on semiconductors, state capacity, and industrial history.

interviewseconomicshistory
Podcasts

Hoover Institution Podcasts

Hoover Institution

Live feed

Policy conversations on national security, industrial strategy, China competition, and American economic statecraft.

policynational securitychina
Podcasts

Lex Fridman Podcast — Industrial

Lex Fridman

Live feed

Select long-form conversations on manufacturing, rocketry, fusion, and the engineers rebuilding American hard-tech capability.

engineeringinterviewshard tech
Podcasts

Machines Like Us

Taylor Owen

Live feed

How machines and industrial systems reshape society — automation, infrastructure, and the new political economy of production.

automationpolicysociety
Podcasts

Odd Lots

Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway

Live feed

The markets-plumbing show that consistently covers commodities, supply chains, shipyards, fabs, and the weird corners of the industrial economy.

marketssupply chaincommoditiesindustrial
Podcasts

Plain English with Derek Thompson

Derek Thompson

Live feed

An abundance-agenda lens on housing, energy, manufacturing, and the political economy of American building.

abundanceeconomicspolicy
Podcasts

The Hadrian Podcast

Chris Power

Manual

Inside the modern defense and aerospace precision-manufacturing floor — conversations from inside a next-generation American factory.

manufacturingdefensehadrianprecision machining
Podcasts

The Industrialist

The Industrialist

Live feed

Operators, founders, and policymakers working on the American industrial base — supply chains, fabs, energy, and defense production.

industrial basemanufacturingpolicy
Podcasts

War on the Rocks

Ryan Evans

Live feed

The national security publication of record — defense procurement, industrial mobilization, and the shape of modern warfare.

defensenational securityprocurement