30: Noor Siddiqui —Predicting Your Future Child’s Health Just Got Easier
Flux
On today's episode I speak with Noor Siddiqui, the founder of , a company that quantifies the genetic risks of your future children. We discuss the plunge in genome sequencing costs and why Orchid's ability to predict polygenic diseases impacts so many families compared to predicting single-gene diseases. Noor reveals what it was like starting a company remotely during COVID, how her mother's own rare disease motivated her and what genetic privilege means. We discuss her path from doing a Thiel fellowship to teaching a crypto class at Stanford to...
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29: Kevin Caldwell — A Bio Bank for the Future
Flux
In the last Flux episode of 2020, Alice talks with Kevin Caldwell, founder and CEO of , a company building the first bank of on-demand bone marrow stem cells and developing therapeutics to treat leukemia, blood cancer, and other diseases. Kevin discusses how he navigated his many career options and how his time with grandparents shaped his values. After graduating law school and getting degrees in physics and economics, working at McKinsey and at hedge funds, Kevin realized he wanted to have more impact and switched to life sciences. We discuss the history of stem cell therapy and...
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28: Adam Arrigo—The Show Must Go Beyond
Flux
Flux fandom. In today's episode Alice talks with Adam Arrigo, co-founder and CEO of , a live virtual concert company. Adam has been pushing the frontier of music his whole life, from touring as a musician to designing Rockband the game at Harmonix. In 2016 Adam and Aaron Lemke founded Wave. Along the way the company has evolved and worked with artists including Imogen Heap, Kill the Noise, Tokimonsta, Galantis, Rezz, John Legend and the Weeknd. Today Wave distributes imaginative, interactive shows across platforms, from MMO games to Twitch, Youtube and TikTok. Wave just closed a Series B with...
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27: Alex Bisignano — Decoding Pandemic Genetics
Flux
Hi from Alice and the Flux team. We hope you are safe and well. In the latest episode I talk with Alex Bisignano, founder of is the second ever company to be approved by the FDA for at-home saliva testing to detect COVID-19. Alex has been on the frontlines of the pandemic in New York City. While most companies are using synthetic data, Alex and his team have collected live samples from patients in the lab. Phosphorus has been able to rapidly develop virus and antibody test products, even though that wasn't the company's prior business. Alex shares how he thinks about supply chain...
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26: Andy Coravos — A Brave New World of Digital Medicine
Flux
Welcome back to Flux! In this episode I talk with the co-founder of Elektra Labs, which is building a future of digital medicine that's data-driven and secure. Recently we’ve seen an explosion of wearables and sensors in healthcare. How accurate are these monitoring tools? How secure are they from hackers? Elektra is cataloguing these distributed devices and has created benchmarks for pharmaceutical companies, doctors and device makers. We're also now seeing the advent of digital therapeutics such as video games that help treat ADHD or PTSD. Is the FDA equipped to respond to these changes?...
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25: LaTurbo Avedon — the Avatar That Grew up in Cyberspace
Flux
In this episode we try out a new format. I talk remotely with , an online avatar who has been active as an artist and curator since 2008. Her responses have been run through a speech synthesizer. Recently we've seen a wave of next-gen virtual stars rise up, from Lil Miquela in the west to pop-stars like Kizuna AI in the east. As real-time avatar representation becomes more accessible, what emergent behaviors will we see and what will our virtual relationships look like? LaTurbo was early to exploring these questions of identity and experimenting with telepresence. She has...
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24: Matt Cauble—Soylent’s Co-Founder Goes After Alcohol
Flux
In this episode I talk with Matt Cauble the co-founder of , a functional beverage company that aims to reduce stress — “all bliss, no booze.” Matt was previously a co-founder of Soylent and he shares tales from the company’s early days, describing how they made one of the largest pivots in YC history from building software-defined radios to meal-replacement shakes. He explains why Soylent resonated and we get into co-founder Rob Rhinehart's latest interest in space settlement and the Mars industry he hosted in the Mojave. Matt shares why he is now interested in...
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23: Eric Marcotulli—Bottling the Fountain of Youth
Flux
Eric Marcotulli is the co-founder of , a life sciences company developing consumer-facing health products based on aging research. Elysium's first product is Basis, a supplement that increases NAD levels and activates sirtuins, boosting cellular health and longevity. In the latest episode of Flux we discuss why longevity companies like Sirtris Pharmaceuticals failed, which was initially bought for $720 million in 2008. Eric explains why going direct to consumer is the best strategy and what the current Basis user base looks like. He shares what its like working with eight...
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22: Isaac Cohen —An XR Trailblazer on how to Build Humane Technology
Flux
In the this episode I sit down with Isaac Cohen (Cabbibo), a fascinating creator at the forefront of VR and AR who has released a number of apps and experiences that push the boundaries - you can find some of his pieces on . He has a background in physics and interface design, previously worked at Leap Motion, and has been an artist in residence at Unity and Adobe. Isaac shares his views on why realism in VR is the wrong approach and how developers need to approach it in a transformative rather than a derivative way. He describes the ARkit workflow, how he thinks about using AR...
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21: Alban Denoyel—One Billion 3D Views and Counting
Flux
Alban Denoyel is the CEO of Sketchfab, a 3D hub to publish, share, buy and sell 3D, VR and AR content. We discuss the history of the business and what the company has learned from Youtube and why they are pursuing a distributed content strategy. Alban shares how power creators are using the platform to monetize content, the powerful role 3D plays in cultural heritage, and the importance of figuring out standards and formats in 3D. With Sketchfab crossing 1 billion cumulative page views, Google's Poly turning one, and Microsoft's Remix 3D turning two, it's an interesting moment...
info_outlineAustin Woolridge is the co-founder and CEO of Players Lounge, a site that allows casual gamers to compete against each other and win money in games like FIFA, Fortnight, Madden, NBA 2K, MLB, NHL, and Call of Duty. In this episode we get into Austin's path into entrepreneurship, co-founder Zach Dixon's impressive efforts pitching investors, how Y Combinator had such an impact on him and the team, and why New York had the special ingredients necessary to start his company. He reveals what he thinks the potential is for the casual eSports market, how the site handles user liquidity and adding new titles, how they have navigated the regulatory climate, and how he thinks about entering the Asia market in the future.
Full transcript with resources is available on Medium: https://medium.com/@TheFluxPodcast
The episode was produced by Allison Behringer. ᐧ