Ep. 3: Austin Sendek, Aionics

AI, climate, metal music, Arnold Schwarzenegger & the future of humanity

Fellow Climate Warriors,

Join Austin Sendek and I as we drink Old Fashioneds while discussing the role of AI in climate and the future of humanity, how Austin created the Hellabyte, what it’s like growing up in Yreka, metal music, Arnold Schwarzenegger policing Santa Monica bicyclists and much, much more.  

📻 Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Substack👉

Please see below about the newest podcast episode and 🥃 upcoming CTC happy hour👉 in Oakland, CA August 12th!. Thank you for your continued support, and keep up the good fight with a cool beverage in hand.

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📲 Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram👉

📝  Show Notes Below👇

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🎧 New podcast episode:

Austin Sendek, Founder and CEO, Aionics

“Spotify tells you the music you’re gonna like, Amazon tells you stuff you’re gonna buy, Netflix tells you which movies you’re gonna watch.  All this is doing is saying ‘Hey, scientist, you tried these things and they didn’t work, you tried these things and they did work, here’s something you probably never would’ve thought of, but we think it’s gonna work.” -Austin Sendek, Founder and CEO, Aionics

Austin Sendek (@BatteryCowboy) is the Founder and CEO of Aionics (@AionicsInc), a Silicon Valley startup that is leveraging the power of A.I. to accelerate the development of new materials for a zero carbon future. Austin is widely credited with leading the first successful demonstration of A.I. outperforming humans in the design of new battery materials, which he led while he was a doctoral student in Applied Physics at Stanford University. His research publications have been cited over 1,200 times, and he was included in Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 in Energy list in 2019. 

🍹 What we drank during the episode: Golden Rule Old Fashioned

Enjoy the show!

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Substack.

Interested in sponsoring? 

Please reach out to m@climatetechcocktails.com

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🥃 August Bay Area happy hour:

Thursday, August 12th, 5:30-7:30 at New Energy Risk’s HQ in Oakland to celebrate the release of Lisa Dyson, Founder and CEO, Air Protein’sCTC session. RSVP here ASAP as space is limited! 

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Companies/Startups mentioned during the show:

🐣 Yotta Energy

🐣 Energy Vault

🐣 Fervo Energy

🐣 Resonant Link

🐣 Nitricity

🐣 Cuberg

🐣 Form Energy

🐣 QuantumScape

🐣 Fluidic Energy

🐣 Source

🐣 Twelve

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People/places/things mentioned during the episode

🧠Golden Rule Spirits

🧠Jack Daniel’s Honey Whiskey

🧠White Claw

🧠Mike’s Hard Lemonade

🧠Yreka, California

🧠Eureka, California

🧠Redwood National Park

🧠Mark Twain account of naming Yreka

🧠State of Jefferson (Capital: Yreka)

🧠Yreka’s gold rush history

🧠Marijuana industry in Yreka, Siskiyou County

🧠CALFIRE

🧠This is Spinal Tap

🧠Metallica [The Black Album]

🧠Metalcore

🧠System of a Down

🧠Nu Metal

🧠As I Lay Dying Singer Goes to Prison

🧠Hellabyte

🧠Septillion

🧠Yottagram

🧠Consultative Community for Units (CCU)

🧠Priya Donti

🧠David Danielson

🧠Applied Physics--Stanford University

🧠Evan Reed (Stanford)

🧠Yi Cui (Stanford)

🧠Superionic Materials

🧠Softbank Vision Fund

🧠Machine Learning

🧠Joel Moxley

🧠Stuart Macmillon

🧠Stanford Climate Ventures

🧠Power-to-X

🧠Terminator 2: Judgement Day

🧠The Matrix

🧠Arnold Schwarzenegger

🧠 American Physics Society

🧠Arnold Schwarzenegger on the Tim Ferriss Show

🧠Cody Friesen

🧠Etosha Cave

🧠Nico Pinkowski

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-TIMESTAMPS-

[0:00] Intro

[1:24] Drink of the show

[3:46] Where Austin grew up (Yreka, CA)

[5:24] How Mark Twain named Yreka & history of city cont’d

[9:32] Growing timber vs fighting fire

[11:41] Austin’s experience growing up in Yreka through timber industry bust

[14:53] Playing in metal bands 

[17:11] Announcing Climate Aid 2022

[12:33] Creating the Hellabyte

[26:28] Graduate Studies at Stanford

[29:13] The huge need for energy storage

[30:32] Why is this a materials challenge?

[34:56] Return to graduate school conversation

[37:24] Applying AI/ML to materials 

[41:20] Stanford Climate Ventures Program

[44:26] Forming Aionics

[51:40] The role of AI/ML in materials

[54:20] Future of AI/ML in climate tech

[58:30] AI/ML accelerating decentralization

[1:01:15] Power-to-X

[1:02:25] AI and the future of humanity 

[1:03:38] My Arnold Schwarzenegger story & Austin’s Arnold connection

[1:10:44] Startups Austin loves and people should keep an eye on