New neuro episode with Dr. Tom Oxley (@tomoxl), co-founder and CEO of Synchron (@synchroninc). Synchron has built a BCI called the Stentrode, which reaches the motor cortex via a blood vessel — leveraging the approach of cardiovascular stents, without having to open the skull at all! 15 million people live with motor impairment. The Stentrode lets people operate their phones and computers through thought, and could restore independence to people who've lost the ability to control their devices. Tom sees BCIs as a major technological leap that will help human flourishing, by enabling better communication, decoding and conveying emotions, and enabling us to leverage the great capabilities of our computing infrastructure. This was a great, wide-ranging conversation. We discuss the origins of Synchron, the endovascular approach and its benefits, their next-gen system designed for high-channel-count recordings across distributed brain regions, the longer-term possibilities of helping people communicate better, how Tom developed as a founder and how he leads the company, how BCIs could unlock powerful mental states similar to psychedelics and meditation, how neurotech will transform humanity in the 2030s and 2040s, and why Tom thinks the US will lose the BCI race to China unless the US greatly accelerates. Hope you enjoy! Other links to this episode and references below. Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction 00:03:18 Carl Jung, stroke surgery, and the road to BCI 00:06:58 The endovascular approach: reaching the brain without surgery 00:10:37 Getting Synchron off the ground 00:17:23 Reading the brain: channels, signal, and noise 00:36:41 The numbers: 15M patients, FDA, and Medicare 00:43:17 Cognitive AI: foundation models, the data economy, and the 2040s 00:52:55 Consciousness, psychedelics, and the extended self 01:02:51 Agency, addiction, and geopolitics 01:06:51 The optimistic vision: unlocking the subconscious 01:10:49 Building a company: 696 no's 01:21:30 Losing the BCI lead to China

Excited to launch a new podcast dedicated to conversations on the future of neurotech, computing, intelligence, and more. First guest: @maxhodak_ founder & CEO of @ScienceCorp_, which is building PRIMA, a retinal prosthetic that’s restoring meaningful vision for patients with blindness caused by age-related macular degeneration. Science is also developing a biohybrid brain implant that grows living neurons directly onto a silicon chip, then interfaces that system with the cortex. The possibility space here is vast and new. Imagine growing new areas of the brain. Sections 00:00 What counts as neurotech? 01:45 History of brain-computer interfaces and the smartphone dividend 07:25 PRIMA - How Science is restoring vision in blind patients 10:10 Why stimulating bipolar cells works when the optic nerve doesn't 30:30 Are we bottlenecked by biology or engineering? 32:40 Expanding the brain's bandwidth beyond 10 bits per second 37:00 Can we add new areas to the brain? 37:46 Biohybrid BCIs: neurons growing on a chip 39:20 What could neural augmentation look like? 01:13:20 How Science drives Fast R&D 01:44:00 How founders learn and level up This is the kind of discussion I’m excited to explore on this podcast. Enjoy! Full Episode 1 here and in links below.