TechSurge: Deep Tech Podcast
Exploring topics at the intersection of emerging technology, geopolitics, and business.
Hosted by Celesta Capital.
The TechSurge: Deep Tech VC Podcast shares the latest insights directly from legendary Silicon Valley leaders, daring new founders, and visionary technologists.
Join us as we examine the factors shaping the next major technology cycle shift of AI, examine emerging global tech hubs, and analyze where investment dollars are flowing next.
Each discussion delves into the intersection of technology advancement, market dynamics, and the founder journey, offering insights into the vast opportunities and complex challenges ahead.
For entrepreneurs, investors, or anyone interested in where we're headed next, this is your guide to understanding the technologies and companies poised to transform the future.
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The Race to Build the Next Trillion-Dollar AI Chip Company
Almost 2% of U.S. GDP will be spent on AI infrastructure this year, nearly double 2025's figure. But beneath those headline numbers, the composition of that spending has quietly flipped: for the first time, dollars spent on running models in production now outweigh dollars spent training them.
In this episode of TechSurge, host David Goldman speaks with Austin Lyons, a semiconductor analyst at Creative Strategies, co-host of the Semi Doped podcast, and author of the Chipstrat newsletter. Lyons previously worked as a hardware engineer at Intel and as a product manager on John Deere's autonomous tractor and Blue River Technology teams before turning to full-time chip industry analysis.
The conversation opens with why AI buyers have moved from assembling commoditized parts to buying entire pre-integrated systems, tracing how Nvidia's rack-scale approach, exemplified by its 72-GPU Grace Blackwell racks, made turnkey deployment the default, and why that raises the bar for any chip startup trying to compete. Lyons and Goldman then unpack how inference workloads have split into two distinct problems, prefill and decode, and how that split created an opening for SRAM-based challengers to outperform general-purpose GPUs on decode speed.
From there, the discussion turns to the rise of neoclouds, the GPU-rental companies that grew into public businesses worth well over $100 billion combined, and why so many traditional investors missed them. Lyons and Goldman work through the circular financing debate head-on: the mechanics of Nvidia's equity stakes, GPU-backed debt, and hyperscaler off-take agreements that critics compare to dot-com-era vendor financing, and the counterargument that demand is simply outrunning fixed supply.
The episode closes on Lyons's own framework for identifying the next trillion-dollar chip company, built on four conditions including the ability to run trillion-parameter models at rack scale, beat an incumbent on a key performance metric, and land a frontier anchor customer, along with a look at how AI-assisted chip design is lowering the barrier for more companies, from OpenAI to electric vehicle makers, to design their own custom silicon.
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Join host Michael Marks as he discusses the transformative potential of technology in the construction industry with leaders from three innovative companies: Ash Bhardwaj, CEO and co-founder of Onx Homes; Trevor Schick, CEO of Slate.ai; and Camilo Restrepo, CEO of Biomason. The conversation delves into the challenges of disrupting the construction sector, the roles of AI and data in improving productivity, and novel approaches to sustainability and affordability in home building. Explore the future of construction technology and the strides these companies are making towards resilient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly construction solutions.
In this episode of TechSurge: The Deep Tech Podcast, host Nicholas Brathwaite of Celesta Capital speaks with Christian Mitchell, Chief Digital and Information Officer at Northwestern Mutual, about the profound digital transformation happening in the financial services and insurance sectors. The discussion covers how legacy systems are being modernized, the role of AI in enhancing underwriting and customer experiences, and the increasing importance of cybersecurity in safeguarding sensitive data.
Christian also shares insights on the evolution of FinTech startups and Northwestern Mutual’s approach to investing in and partnering with innovative tech companies, providing a deep dive into how technology is reshaping long-established industries while balancing innovation with regulatory and customer needs.
In this episode, we explore the future of mobility and AI with Aicha Evans, CEO of Zoox, a leading developer of autonomous robotaxis and an Amazon company. Joining Celesta Capital’s founding partner Sriram Viswanathan, Aicha shares her journey from Senegal to Silicon Valley, where she led groundbreaking innovations at Intel before taking the helm at Zoox.
Together, they discuss the challenges and opportunities in autonomous transportation, the evolving role of AI in various industries, and the critical importance of safety, customer experience, and scaling in the robotaxi space.
Tune in for insights on the future of transportation and the transformative potential of AI in shaping our daily lives.
Will AI will take away all of our jobs? Is technology eroding privacy? Is the pace of technology advancement too fast?
We address these questions and more topics around global science and technology policy with Rob Atkinson, founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Speaking with Celesta Capital founding partner Nic Brathwaite, Rob dives into the intersection of technology, innovation, and public policy, covering topics such as ethical AI, the role of China in the global innovation race, and the realities facing smaller economies in blossoming into tech hubs. Rob shares his insights on innovation economics, government policy, and the critical role of entrepreneurs in shaping the future of tech.
Fred Thiel, Chairman and CEO of Marathon Digital, dives us into the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency mining. Fred discusses the technological advancements in Bitcoin mining, including significant improvements in energy efficiency, and provides insights into the future of Bitcoin, predicting substantial growth in its value and its linkages with AI inference data centers. He also explains the relationship between Bitcoin and global economic factors, the potential for regulatory changes, and the evolving role of cryptocurrencies in both developed and developing markets, highlighting Bitcoin’s growing role as a store of value and a driver of financial sovereignty in the digital age.
Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra discusses his journey in the semiconductor industry and the growing strategic importance of the memory industry in the age of AI. He highlights innovation in high bandwidth memory (HBM), which enables faster data access and lower power consumption. Sanjay also discusses Micron’s plans to build new U.S. semiconductor factories and the role of the CHIPS Act in bringing semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S. He shares his insights on the resurgence of hardware innovation and what it takes to drive technological leadership in a rapidly evolving industry.
Celesta Capital is a global deep tech venture firm enabling visionary founders at the forefront of scientific and engineering breakthroughs.
Celesta's team has spent decades founding, leading, and scaling global technology businesses, collectively founding more than 40 companies. We understand how to partner with founders to help turn prototypes into powerhouses.
From semiconductors and systems to breakthrough biology, we seek out the physics‑defying, code‑rewriting breakthroughs that will power the next decade of technology advancement.
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