Here’s a jaunty debrief from PopTech, a notoriously hard conference to describe, that always features obscenely talented entrepreneurs and changemakers.

In this episode, Kwaku Aning, Sarah Rose Siskind, and I share some of the great stories and great vibes from this year's conference, including:

FetusGPT, Sarah’s madcap experiment to train an AI on everything her soon-to-be-born baby is hearing from inside the womb
Why Colossal Biosciences is de-extincting the dire wolf and other “charismatic animals” (dodos and woolly mammoths are in the works) — and why de-extinction is an important goal that will help us solve lots of other problems along the way
“Shade-as-a-Service”, a new idea from climate champion, farmer, and entrepreneur Eben Bayer, the founder of MyForest Foods (maker of MyBacon, the top-selling non-meat bacon). The idea is to launch giant parasols into the atmosphere to cool the Earth below.
Why Tibet and Taiwan are so key to the tech industry (not to mention global stability); Tibetan PM-in-Exile Lobsang Sangay was a speaker.
How to make progress on what matters most to you, featuring a prioritization exercise from Deep Future inventor and investor Pablos Holman

Featured Voices:

Sarah Rose Siskind, science and comedy writer and the founder of Hello SciCom, a STEM communications agency
Kwaku Aning, professional connector, founder/principal of RetroFuturism Consulting
Dan Blumberg (me!), host of CRAFTED. and the founder of Modern Product Minds. HMU if you want to build something great. I love building from zero to one.

And Pretty Please...

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PopTech 2025: FetusGPT, De-extinction, Shade-as-a-Service, and More Crazy (but Real!) Ventures