Anatomy of Next

Sep 06 2023 52 ep. 31 mins 8.3k

Anatomy of Next Podcast artwork

In the second season of Anatomy of Next, explore every aspect of going to Mars, transforming it into a habitable world, and building a new branch of human civilization. How do we bring a cold, dead planet back to life? Can we build an atmosphere on Mars, thaw the frozen plains, and build an ocean? How do we seed a barren land with life, and make a red Mars green? Then, it’s everything from politics and education to money, music, and architecture. What does it mean to be human on an alien world?

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Peter Thiel // The Diversity Myth, 30 Years Later

Sep 06 2023 68 mins

Nearly 30 years after publishing “The Diversity Myth,” Peter Thiel sits down with Mike Solana to unpack what the book got right and wrong. Thiel argues that social distractions have stunted scientific progress, slowed economic growth and weakened our geopolitical standing. How did anti-Western rhetoric popularized on college campuses in the 90s morph into the culture wars that

Patri Friedman // Starting Over

Dec 28 2020 33 mins

What if we just... left? The challenges facing our cities are enormous. Our problems could take years to correct, or decades. The purpose of this season is to explore new ways to reinvigorate our cities, but it's worth entertaining the alternative. What if we built something new, from the foundation up? I sat down with Patri Friedman, founder of both the Seasteading Institute and

Robert Poole // Gridlock

Dec 17 2020 33 mins

Why is the traffic so bad? And why is so hard to build new transportation infrastructure? Robert Poole is the co-founder and director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation, and the author of Rethinking America’s Highways. We talked about congestion, variable pricing, light rail, tunnel boring machines, and why they don’t seem to work in our cities — or rather, why w

Garrett Langley // Standing Guard

Oct 22 2020 37 mins

Flock Safety is building a national network of security cameras monitoring neighborhood traffic. In some cities, their work has been instrumental in reducing property crime by as much as 70 percent. In this episode of Anatomy of Next, Mike Solana sits down with Garrett Langley, the CEO and founder of Flock. They talk about the network — where it came from, and how it works —

ASYLUM #3 — Trivial Pursuit

Oct 13 2020 41 mins

In San Francisco, how does government work? Who is in charge, what can they do — structurally, what are they actually capable of? — and most importantly: what are they focused on? A look at our Board of Supervisors, its apparent war on growth (and possibly tech), and an argument for moving forward (spoiler alert: you just have to vote (sorry)) Featuring: Trisha Thadani (San Fr

Daniela Perdomo // A New Signal

Sep 09 2020 30 mins

There's almost nothing more terrifying than losing communication in the heat of a blazing wildfire. In recent months, California has been brought to its knees by natural disaster. Now more than ever we need the help of our firefighters, and to keep them safe. An entirely centralized communication infrastructure is a single point of failure we just can't risk. Daniela Perdomo is t

Fnnch // Brand New Paint Job

Aug 26 2020 42 mins

Who owns our streets? Our bus and train stops? Our public walls and public parks? If public property truly belongs to the public, can members of the public (which is to say: us) do with our property whatever we want? And on the absolute ground floor, can we not just... make it all look a little bit nicer? Fnnch is an artist based in San Francisco, and the man behind the famous ho

Matthew Putman // Nano City

Aug 03 2020 37 mins

Consider the computer mouse. It takes a massive, sprawling, global system, and thousands of parts and people from all over the world, many months, or even years after conceptualization, and design, to get that product to your desk. But what if you could do it all in a "factory" the size of your one-bedroom apartment… in a building down the street? I sat down with Matthew Putman

Alexis Rivas // House Factory

Jul 27 2020 21 mins

Separate from our government's anti-housing policies, a big piece of our crisis in affordability comes down to the way we think about new homes. In Japan, for example, where housing is significantly more affordable, newer homes are far more popular than older homes, and this has galvanized both construction and prefabrication. At scale, this reduces cost. I interviewed Alexis Riv

ASYLUM #2 — Legalize Housing

Jun 28 2020 52 mins

The housing crisis is the root of almost every serious challenge San Francisco faces. From property to construction to regulation, when it’s possible to build at all it’s too expensive to meaningfully increase supply. Because it’s too expensive to build here, most people can’t afford to live here. So let’s get into it: why does the housing crisis exist, in what ways is it