Tacos and Tech Podcast
by Neal Bloom
Latest episode
A Manufacturing Company With a Drone Problem
A Manufacturing Company With a Drone Problem
About this podcast
The Tacos and Tech Podcast highlights the builders of companies, technologies, ecosystems with a local flair for our lifestyle as well.
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Episodes
The newest 20 of 217 episodes
- A Manufacturing Company With a Drone Problem · 1 h 1 minFirestorm set out to build modular drones and ended up somewhere less glamorous and more valuable. Co-founder and CTO Ian Muceus describes the company today as a manufacturing…
- Podcast: Motherhood Is Technology Barren · 42 minTina John is a biomedical engineer who spent her career on hip implants, knee implants and drug delivery systems, then had her first child and discovered that the hardest job she…
- Every Driving School Said No · 1 h 5 minNigel Tunnacliffe and Matt Harvey spent years building a way to retrofit adaptive cruise control into old cars - a Raspberry Pi, a camera, and a turbocharged Miata that…
- Thirst Is a Lagging Indicator · 58 minDr. Debbie Chen found the water signal in her own PhD data around 2007, laughed it off, and did nothing with it for a decade. Then came years of amateur Muay Thai and cramping…
- Measure It at the Source · 1 h 14 minMax Darsonval spent twelve years in the SEAL teams, most of it as a combat medic, and left on what he calls a 50.01% decision. He’s now founder and CEO of Velocity AI, building a…
- A Different Person in Every Game · 30 minCody Germain spent seven years at Riot - leading competitive games on League of Legends, with the Valorant and Legends of Runeterra launches in between - then moved to San Diego…
- Teams Don’t Exist in Business · 42 minLarry Coval spent nearly four decades leading organizations at AT&T, Global Crossing, and Cox Business, and came out the other side convinced that most of what gets taught about…
- Food for the People · 42 minNeal nerds out on tacos with Mauricio Velázquez de León - Mexico City-born writer-turned-publisher, founder of Duo Press, and author of An Illustrated Guide to Tacos and…
- Signals Before Symptoms · 50 minNeal sits down with Adam Jacobs, President of Xzōm, a San Diego company developing a near-patient platform for isolating and analyzing exosomes from a small blood sample in under…
- The Connective Tissue · 48 minNeal sits down with Eric Weiss, a fellow longtime builder in San Diego’s startup ecosystem. Eric is a self-described “parallel entrepreneur,” founder coach, President of the…
- Beyond the Blueprint · 29 minEpisode Summary Neal sits down with Janine McMurdie, Chief Commercial Officer of Pictor, a proteomics platform company that expanded from New Zealand to Carlsbad. Janine explains…
- Why Great Companies Go Bad · 1 h 8 minEpisode Summary Recorded live at the San Diego Angel Conference finale at SDSU, Eric Ries — author of The Lean Startup — sits down with product leader and founder coach Vidya…
- Diversification Is Overrated · 41 minEpisode Summary Neal sits down with Dr. Adam Link, founder of Fireweed Capital and a recovering engineer who spent a decade in tech — including six years at Coinbase through its…
- Inside the San Diego Angel Conference · 1 h 29 minEpisode Summary Recorded live at the San Diego Angel Conference (SDAC 8) finale at SDSU, where Neal - the SDAC Fund 8 manager - and 40+ investors spent months turning 135…
- Greener Only Scales When It's Less Expensive · 43 minEpisode Summary Recorded at Natilus HQ in downtown San Diego, Neal sits down with Aleksey Matyushev, CEO and co-founder of Natilus, and Dr. Fabiano Piccinno, Global Head of…
- Sleep Is the Last Unprotected Hour · 43 minNeal sits down with co-founders John Sjolund (CEO) and Jon Brilliant(CFO) of Luna Diabetes, two serial diabetes tech founders building what they call “sleep only automation”…
- Rebuilding the Protein Stack · 39 minTony Martens, co-founder of Plantible Foods, joins Neal to walk through the company’s eight-year arc - from a free greenhouse in San Marcos to a commercial-scale rubisco protein…
- SAFEs, Notes, and SPVs · 51 minAngel Academy Session 5 brings in Brian Dirkmaat, a startup attorney at Rimon, P.C and longtime SDAC sponsor, to walk the room through the legal mechanics of angel investing…
- From Operator to Fund Manager · 47 minEpisode Summary Neal sits down with Will Alaynick, managing partner at Phase Two Ventures, for a fireside chat on what it actually looks like to go from building a company to…
- The Operator's Edge: From San Diego Angel Academy · 1 h 3 minAngel Academy Session 3 brings together a panel of San Diego operators who crossed over to the investor side - including Katherine Chapin, Dane Chapin, Ken Potashner, and Bardia…
