Improving Weather Forecasting with WindBorne

John Dean is Co-Founder and CEO of WindBorne, a company building next-generation weather balloons and an AI-powered forecasting layer to improve global weather prediction. WindBorne’s balloons can stay aloft for weeks — collecting critical atmospheric data across oceans and remote regions where traditional weather infrastructure doesn’t reach.

In this episode of Inevitable, Dean explains why weather forecasting has remained largely unchanged for decades and why better data—not just better models—is the key to improving weather predictions. Our conversation explores how WindBorne’s balloon constellation captures atmospheric data at a global scale, how AI models like WeatherMesh translate that data into more accurate forecasts, and why extreme weather and infrastructure gaps are creating urgency for better systems. Dean also shares how the company makes money across data, forecasting, and insights—and his long-term vision of building “a planetary-scale nervous system.”