Deep Tech Week was one of the most optimistic gathering I have been to. Every session was characterized by a positive and hopeful atmosphere and a sense of community.

It is hard to capture the real essence of an event like this for those who could not be there, so I wont even try. I will, however, provide some information that helps you understand why I believe we should all line up behind the many builders and creators who came together to accelerate our collective progress, and should all cheer on the organizer of the event who pulled it together from the spark of an idea into a well orchestrated virtuous week.

This event was a week-long series of over 40 separate events, including hackathons and themed sessions on topics like bioinformatics, energy, defense, neurotech, quantum computing, and investing. The event was designed for founders, investors, engineers, scientists, and artists who are deeply engaged in the future of deep tech.

The organizers did a fantastic job of setting a tone of support to free and open societies and not being afraid to address both the need for and challenges in innovating in the defense tech world. Lead organizer of the event is Andrew Cote, founder of Hyperstition Inc. Andrew is an engineering physicist who has long championed the application of advanced technologies to solve big problems. His relentless focus on support to builders and entrepreneurs made this event so good. 

The atmosphere was distinctly action-oriented, emphasizing real builders and practical solutions over theoretical discussions.

Several firms from the OODA network were there, including MetabaseQ, Ligandal, Vectara, Turion Space and GenLab. Was great having time with them as well as close friends and OODA network members like Junaid Islam, Alan Beohme, Ray Wang, Andre Watson and so many others. 

I spoke at several of the sessions including two defense tech focused events. And attended many more to meet builders and innovators and investors and try to get a sense of the status of tech innovation in domains of interest (primarily dual use tech applicable to both military and civilian use, but also biotech, neurotech, aerospace and robotics). 

The event’s structure and focus on tangible outcomes set it apart from the typical large scale conferences we’re accustomed to in DC or the cybersecurity realm. It was a refreshing and impactful experience, underscoring the importance of collaboration and relentless support for entrepreneurs and builders.

The week began with a tech showcase and launch party onboard the USS Hornet, an Aircraft Carrier museum based in Alameda across the bay from San Francisco. Hosting a tech showcase and party onboard a warship was a great way to underscore the fact that national security has always needed deep tech. Tech showcased at the event included small fusion reactors, 3D printed rockets, robotics, and neurotech solutions. 

Presentations included a focus on biotech, with a longevity panel titled “How not to die” with Bryan Johnson, Linda Avey and Celine Halioua.

Bryan Johnson is one of the more famous of the anti-aging pioneers. He has a goal of reversing his aging by watching his diet and behaviors and taking advanced therapies as well as taking targeted therapeutics. He has an extremely intense diet and exercise regimen. It is true he looks young, especially from afar.

Linda Avey is the famous founder of 23andMe, the firm that brought insights from genetics to anyone who wanted to know about their personal genome. She remains active in the biotech industry advising many projects seeking to solve challenges like Alzheimer’s disease. 

Celine Halioua founded Loyal, a biotech startup developing drugs to extend dog lifespans. She also advises and invests in biotech firms and has a good sense of the biotech industry. 

This panel was followed by Boom Aerospace’s CEO Blake Scholl and YCombinator’s Jared Friedman. They showed some videos of the first commercial aircraft designed to go supersonic since the SST and outlined their intent to make the world a smaller place by enabling supersonic flight for all. They have flown an aircraft test plane which is a smaller scale than the full version and all indications are they are on path to do so. Some of the more interesting topics included his views on how to fix Boeing, which seems to have lost its once great engineering culture. Blake recounted anecdotes of how engineering and safety requires true leadership from the top. The first flight of their test aircraft did not go at all because a junior engineer looking at data felt an emergency system, something that would not be needed in this first flight at all, had a slight chance of failing. Blake knew the right answer was to respect the safety culture and come to all stop till the engineer was convinced the system would work 100%. Was the right move for instilling an environment where you want people to feel free to raise issues. 

Another panel was focused on the space economy. It included Will Marshall, CEO of Planet Labs, Chris Kemp, CEO of Astra, and Mike Cassidy, CEO of Apollo Fusion (builder of high performance satellite thrusters).  

Sampriti Bhattacharyya, founder and CEO of the electric hydrofoil startup Navier, led many discussions and was active throughout deep tech week. She has also built several other companies including Hydroswarm which develops underwater drones. 

GenLab, a startup studio OODA is advising, hosted a day long hackathon during the week which had the goals of improving the use of AI to benefit humans by producing systems that can write code alongside humans, automate repetitive coding tasks and generate programs based on natural language instructions. 

Thanks to Simone Syed I was asked to speak to a group of 250 builders with an interest in national security. This event, which the hosts named the “Unhinged Defense” panel, was really a joy to be at. I felt like I was with the people who are going to innovate in defense whether the DoD wants them to or not. We reviewed defense technology needs, hard problems and what I think innovators should be creating to better serve the defense world. 

I also attended several sessions and social events focused on Biotech. Clearly the San Francisco region has a lot going for it in terms of support to innovators in biotech, including great universities, strong healthcare and medicine companies, many biotech focused investors and a track record of launching great biotech companies. Some of the most interesting entrepreneurs I spoke with are working on ways to use neural devices, both invasive and cranial devices. One interesting one is called Lymbic AI. They are using neural waves as an authorization and authentication mechanism for computers. Seems like this is the ultimate biometric. 

I also spoke at a Venture Capital company event, the 8VC Defense Industry Night. This allowed me to share with builders some methods they can use to build relationships with leaders in the military and intelligence community. Some of the companies I met include Tidal Flight, a company building electric seaplanes. Spike Dynamics is reinventing actuators in a way that could potentially change any device that has moving parts.

I enjoyed finally meeting Dara Ladjevardian in person. He co-founded the company Delphi with a vision of enabling all of us humans to extend our knowledge and experiences, therefore letting us all learn the best from each other. His clear articulation of what this can do for others led me to realize that I should do more to share my personal expertise with people outside my direct network. The result: A new digital clone was born. Meet BobGourley.ai

Some Take-Aways

Overall this was a great way to interact directly with great builders of our collective future. I left the event feeling extremely optimistic that the technologies these deep tech builders are creating for us all will result in dramatic advancements in productivity and quality of life. I personally want to do everything I can to support these builders and encourage all others to do so as well.

It was fantastic seeing the themes of national loyalty throughout this event. Our country has some serious problems and there are tensions and pressures straining us all and at too frequently leading groups of us to hate each other. Sometimes it seems our political parties thrive on that hate and are not motivated at all to really address it. But at this event it was all about the nation, not the government or our political parties. Let me underscore that with two anecdotes:

• I met an innovator whose parents and entire extended family suffered for protesting in communist China. He is here now building an incredible company based on deep tech that will help ensure our nation’s freedom long into the future.
• I met another innovator, this one a medical doctor from Pakistan who is here innovating in biotech now and seeking to inform the world about what hate does to society and why we need to defend our way of life.

These are just two examples of conversations I had every day during this event. Our country attracts great people who innovate and whose children innovate, and their desire to defend open societies gives me great hope.

A key takeaway is the power of human networks. I ran into several old friends and companies I have known for a long time. But the entire reason for being there was that Andrew Cote asked if I would be interested in speaking on a panel. I met Andrew Cote via Andre Watson, who I met via Matt Devost. In the age of AI, human networks are becoming more and more valuable. 

Another big theme was the importance of technical culture to success in deep tech domains. The many failures of Boeing were discussed in a handful of sessions. The importance of Boeing and the big defense integrators was also discussed. 

Several high tech startups are building capabilities for computational resources in space. One I met is called Aethero. They want to enable spacecraft to perform distributed data processing across constellations and enable more autonomous operations. 

New energy solutions to power the future were a huge theme. I now believe fusion microreactors are in our future. Avalanche Fusion brought a display that showed the size of what they are building. Will be small enough to fit on your Delorean!

One viewpoint I formed and articulated on my panel is that builders of dual use tech should focus more on building capabilities that can better enable winning large decisive battles. Seems we have enough small drones being built. Time for some big weapon systems like large ships. My opinion resonated with many at the event. 

I wore logo merch displaying the logo of the e/acc movement for most of the time I was there. That was a great conversation starter. Most in this group aligned with the objectives of effective acceleration and/or techno-optimism overall. This is my cadre.

My gut was telling me this event had potential. A few weeks before the event I wrote:

A handful of events in history have had an outsized impact on our world. There was the Fifth Solvay Conference (1927), The Bretton Woods Conference (1944), The Solarium Commission (1953), The Dartmouth AI Conference (1956), and Woodstock (1969). My sense is SF Deep Tech Week will join this roster of world shaping events.

Will this event end up changing the world as much as these other events? Time will tell, but it sure has the potential, especially if we decide to make it so.

A handful of events in history have had an outsized impact on our world. There was the Fifth Solvay Conference (1927), The Bretton Woods Conference (1944), The Solarium Commission (1953), The Dartmouth AI Conference (1956), and Woodstock (1969). My sense is SF Deep Tech Week will… https://t.co/63eqMuyZK4

— Bob Gourley (@bobgourley) June 17, 2024