On this week's episode of The Generalist Podcast, I chat with Eli Dourado, Head of Strategic Investments at Astera Institute. Reviving Forgotten Technologies: How Airships, Supersonic Flight, and Geothermal Energy Could Transform Our World @elidourado is Head of Strategic Investments at @AsteraInstitute, 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. Listen now: • YouTube: • Spotify: • Apple: A big thank you to the incredible sponsor that makes the podcast possible: ✨ Brex — The banking solution for startups: 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