Today, Matt speaks with Jonathan Criss, CEO and co-founder of Vital Lyfe, about reinventing how the world gets clean drinking water. After 13 years at SpaceX working on the Starlink and Dragon programs, Jonathan set out to apply the same first-principles engineering to desalination - starting with a unit he built in his garage that cleaned ocean water. They talk about why the water crisis is really an infrastructure problem rather than a scarcity one, how Vital Lyfe’s portable “Access” device makes drinking water from nearly any natural source without the energy and problems of big desalination plants, and where this technology could go next - from off-grid communities to AI data centers.

Check out Vital Lyfe at vital-lyfe.com

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Jonathan’s Bio:

Jonathan Criss is the CEO and co-founder of Vital Lyfe, a clean-water technology company building portable, decentralized water-making systems. He spent over 13 years at SpaceX as a Lead Integration and Test Engineer and Product Manager on the Starlink and Dragon programs. He co-founded Vital Lyfe with fellow SpaceX engineer Andrew Harner to apply aerospace-grade engineering to water access - turning almost any natural source, including seawater, into clean drinking water without centralized infrastructure. The company’s flagship product, Access, launches in 2026.

Episode Resources

Vital Lyfe website: vital-lyfe.com
Matt Matern on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ACClinkedin
A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids