Eli Dourado is Head of Strategic Investments at Astera Institute, a foundation funding transformative science and technology across energy, aerospace, AI, and other frontier sectors. Before joining Astera, he worked as a "regulatory hacker" at Boom Supersonic, where he helped navigate complex aviation regulations to make supersonic flight viable again.

In our conversation, we explore:

• How Eli's refusal to be pigeonholed led to a career reviving forgotten technologies

• How lifting the 1973 ban on supersonic flight could reshape aviation, after decades of stagnation and regression

• Why airships need to be massive to be economical, and how they could transform global logistics

• The untapped potential of geothermal energy and why drilling economics are the key bottleneck

• Why titanium could be the next material to undergo a manufacturing revolution

• How reading regulatory fine print can unlock trillion-dollar industries

• Why AI might not automatically solve our productivity problems

• The relationship between technological stagnation and potential civilizational collapse

• The fascinating possibility of harvesting antimatter in space

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Transcript: https://www.generalist.com/p/reviving-forgotten-technologies-eli-dourado

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Timestamps

(00:00 ) Intro and Eli's background

(04:11 ) Eli’s work at Astera Institute

(07:53 ) The frontier sectors Astera is betting on

(08:57 ) Eli’s path from academia to tech investing

(13:06 ) How Eli became involved with supersonic flight

(15:42 ) Why the airline industry entered “the great regression”

(18:38 ) The origins of the overland supersonic flight ban

(20:37 ) Working as a "regulatory hacker" at Boom Supersonic

(27:30 ) The current state of supersonic flight technology

(30:40 ) Eli’s cargo airship research

(37:20 ) What sparked Eli’s interest in airships

(40:23 ) Why airships fell out of favor as a way to travel

(42:53 ) How Jim Coutre found a path to profitable airships

(47:00 ) The pros, cons, and profit potential of airship travel

(50:08 ) A case for geothermal energy

(55:37 ) Understanding the “idiot index” and scaling titanium production

(58:36 ) Thoughts on AI and avoiding complacency

(01:02:00 ) The risks fueling a potential societal collapse

(01:06:10 ) Final meditations

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Follow Eli Dourado

Newsletter: https://www.elidourado.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elidourado/

X: https://x.com/elidourado

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Resources and episode mentions: https://www.generalist.com/p/reviving-forgotten-technologies-eli-dourado⁠

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