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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Patrick Pilarski: Alberta Plan Co-Author On Reinforcement Learning & AI-Powered Prosthetics
For all the competition among AI labs, their primary products are built in much the same way: a large language model is pre-trained on enormous datasets, post-trained, deployed, and refreshed every so often. In 2022, three researchers in Alberta, Canada published a contrarian roadmap for AI that rejects that entire premise.
In this episode of TechSurge, host David Goldman speaks with Patrick Pilarski, who co-wrote the Alberta Plan with Richard Sutton and Michael Bowling. Pilarski is a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, an Amii Fellow, and a professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Alberta, where his lab builds prosthetic limbs that learn to anticipate what their users intend. In 2017, he was one of three Amii researchers who brought DeepMind’s first international research office to Edmonton, serving as its co-lead until 2023.
The conversation opens with the Alberta Plan’s core premise: an agent that constructs all of its knowledge from its own stream of experience, with no artificial separation between training and deployment, what Pilarski calls “temporal uniformity.” He contrasts this with how today’s major AI labs bolt reinforcement learning onto pre-trained language models during post-training, and addresses head-on why his co-author Rich Sutton has publicly argued that LLMs are a dead end.
Pilarski also breaks news on the podcast: he will soon join ExperienceFlow.AI, a San Francisco-based company with a research lab led scientifically by Richard Sutton, as Head of Edge Superintelligence, focused on bringing continual learning to computing environments where connectivity and compute are limited. He argues that the industry’s massive data center build-out does not lock AI into a single architectural path, and that existing hardware and software stacks have far more flexibility than commonly assumed.
The episode closes with a tour through Pilarski’s own research: how AI-powered prosthetic limbs learn to predict user intent in minutes rather than months, a landmark bone-anchored prosthetic surgery performed in Alberta, and the prospect of supernumerary limbs and wearable technology as a path toward genuine human augmentation. Pilarski also discusses a paper he co-authored arguing that AI agent safety concerns dominating recent headlines are, in fact, reinforcement learning problems the field has studied for decades.
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Host Sriram Viswanathan sits down with Qualcomm Chairman Mark McLaughlin, the former CEO of Palo Alto Networks and Verisign and a trailblazer in technology and cybersecurity. Mark shares his remarkable transition from West Point to the heights of the tech industry, drawing on the many powerful leadership lessons developed throughout his career. Mark shares advice on balancing family priorities and career choices, offering a deeply human perspective on leadership told through his unique experience of stepping down from Palo Alto Networks at the height of his prime as CEO. The discussion touches on the shifting terrain of cybersecurity, the growing influence of AI, and the complexities of board leadership during periods of CEO transition. This episode is packed with practical insights for anyone looking to navigate a c-suite career in tech.
Host Sriram Viswanathan speaks with Andy Lee and Anand Chandrasekaran from Crescendo AI about the transformative impact of AI on the customer service and call center industry. The conversation covers Crescendo's unique approach to integrating AI in business process outsourcing, the dynamics of the sector, and the potential future of human-AI collaboration. Discover how AI is poised to disrupt and enhance the BPO industry, and why Crescendo AI is at the forefront of this technological revolution.
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.
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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