Why China Is Baffled by America’s AI Race | Yi-Ling Liu
Journalist Yi-Ling Liu explains to host Finn Murphy how China views AI differently than the West, focusing on societal impacts over a race for AGI.
8 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT
We Need Draconian Military Change | Ex-CIA Chief David Petraeus
Former CIA Director David Petraeus discusses the urgent need for military transformation to address autonomous warfare and global instability in this interview.
1 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT
Can AI Talk To Whales? | Project CETI Founder David Gruber
Host Finn Murphy interviews marine biologist David Gruber about Project CETI's AI-driven quest to decode sperm whale communication and foster interspecies dialogue.
24 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT
'Claude's Priest': Fr. Brendan McGuire on Shaping AI for the Common Good
Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy interviews Fr. Brendan McGuire, an engineer turned priest, on aligning AI for the common good before recursive self-improvement.
22 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT
Forecast 2050 Season 2 Trailer
Host Finn Murphy interviews industry leaders about shaping the next 25 years in this trailer for Forecast 2050 Season 2.
6 May 2026
Enveda's Radical Vision for the Future of Medicine | Viswa Colluru & Pablo Lubroth
Enveda Founder and CEO Viswa Colluru believes we have been looking for new medicines in the wrong places for decades.
In the Season 1 finale of Forecast 2050, I sat down with Viswa and Pablo Lubroth, VP of Special Projects at Enveda, to discuss why 9 in 10 drugs fail in clinical trials despite Big Pharma spending $276 billion in annual R&D, how AI is finally unlocking 99% of nature's chemistry that we've haven't been able to read, why the incentive structure of biotech capital markets is actively bad for patients, why insisting on understanding how a drug works actually slows down drug discovery, why aging may not be inevitable, and why mental health is going to be the defining medical crisis of the next 25 years.
Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/3dc95f79-4a7e-4c80-9630-970c1e6e2117
Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/beb7222d-efd1-472b-85be-09d7a7faf1a5
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:09 The Quintessential Problem With Drug Discovery
04:57 Pablo’s Journey to Enveda
06:29 Insisting on Understanding Biological Mechanisms Slows Down Drug Discovery
09:39 Science Has Been Divorced From Human Experience
12:22 Scientific Reductionism Has Not Led to Better Drugs
19:31 Lessons Learned From Big Pharma Missing Out On GLP-1s
22:11 Capital Markets Disinventivize Risk-Taking and Harm Patients
28:12 How to Prioritize Which Illnesses to Cure
33:38 Prediction and Prevention is a Better Strategy Than Treatment
38:27 Drugs to Make Us Limitless Like Bradley Cooper
42:53 Aging is Not Inevitable
43:34 Everyone Has a Chinese Peptide Guy
50:13 The Loon Shots for 2050
52:39 Mental Health Will be The Biggest Challenge for 2050
54:46 The AI Revolution in Medicine
Viswa Colluru is the Founder & CEO of Enveda, a clinical-stage biotech company using AI to discover new drugs from nature. He built Enveda from $55K of personal savings into a unicorn with over $500M raised and multiple assets in clinical trials. Before founding Enveda, Viswa was the first Innovation Scientist and Product Manager at Recursion Pharmaceuticals. He holds a PhD in immuno-oncology from UW-Madison.
Pablo Lubroth is a VP of Special Projects at Enveda and the Co-Founder & Editor of Decoding Bio. He previously built and led the biotech practice at Hummingbird Ventures and co-hosts the annual AI x Bio Summit at the NYSE. Pablo holds degrees in Neuropharmacology and Biochemical Engineering from UCL and an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge.
Viswa on X: https://x.com/viswacolluru
Pablo on X: https://x.com/pablolubroth
Enveda: https://enveda.com
Decoding Bio: https://www.decodingbio.com
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.
Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12
Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/
Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.
Head to nebular.vc for more info.
29 Apr 2026
Building the Next Great American City | Esmeralda CEO Devon Zuegel
Devon Zuegel believes America has been building cities wrong for decades. She grew up spending summers in Chautauqua, an intellectual community in western New York where four generations of her family shared a household and she knew her neighbors better than the ones at home in California. Now she's building a village called Esmeralda 90 minutes north of San Francisco to prove that formula can be replicated.
I sat down with Devon in San Francisco to talk about harnessing urban planning as a powerful technological force for good, age-segregation in America and the impending population crisis, and why we need more incredible cities popping up across the country over the next 25 years.
Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/8bcb1293-d2f5-4c6c-a133-8a6d0826b839
Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-7-devon-zuegel?r=25ihqz&triedRedirect=true
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:07 Chautauqua Inspires Esmeralda
03:02 Cities Are A Technology
06:33 The Autonomous Vehicle Takeover
10:02 The New Multigenerational Society
13:29 American Colleges Make the Economy Dynamic, but Break Up Families
17:39 Remote Work and the Expansion of the Metropolis
19:55 A Real Alternative to the Suburb/City Dilemma
22:21 Real Life Is The Classroom
26:04 Esmeralda’s Open Door Policy
27:59 Making Cities Worth Living In
32:51 The NIMBY Problem
35:10 The Digital-Physical Divergence
38:29 The Cities That Have Gotten It Right Before
Devon Zuegel is the founder and president of the Esmeralda Institute, where she is building Esmeralda, a village of the future just 90 minutes north of San Francisco envisioned as a Chautauqua for Silicon Valley.
Devon on X: https://x.com/devonzuegel (https://x.com/devonzuegel)
Devon’s Personal Site: https://devonzuegel.com/
Esmeralda Institute: https://esmeralda.org/
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.
Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12
Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/
Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.
Head to nebular.vc for more info.
22 Apr 2026
Rule Britannia? How the UK Wins the AI Era | Matt Clifford & Ian Hogarth
Matt Clifford and Ian Hogarth believe Europe is roughly a decade behind the United States in building the technology companies that will define the next era. But they also believe that the gap can be closed, and that the UK and Europe could even leapfrog America, if political leaders and the public make fundamentally different choices.
I sat down with Matt, co-founder of Entrepreneurs First and architect of the UK Government's AI strategy, and Ian, co-founder of Plural and Chair of the UK's AI Foundation Model Taskforce, to talk about what Europe needs to do to save itself from stagnation. We get into why Europe's risk aversion is a bigger threat than American superiority, why career politicians won't survive in the new multipolar world, and why the pro-growth movement is losing the culture war — and how to win it back.
Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/2dc713af-826a-43dc-a2ad-91ad00ee6134
Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/00092f0e-3f30-473f-a773-d560724b3dc5
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:01 The Compounding Effect: Why the US Is Winning
03:50 Jumpstarting European Growth
06:48 We Must Risk Failure to Succeed
09:30 Crisis as Catalyst
12:21 The Multipolar Moment
14:31 AI Nationalism
18:41 Career Politicians Won’t Survive the New Global Order
21:32 The Apollo Moonshot for the UK
25:26 The UK Has a De-Growth Cultural Problem
28:32 Growth ≠ Good
33:55 Prediction Markets as Gambling Companies
36:23 Political Leaders Should Not Be Neutral About the Good Life
37:41 UK and Europe: Geography as Destiny
39:33 The Next Pendulum Swings for Europe
Matt Clifford is the co-founder and Chair of Entrepreneurs First, the world's leading talent investor, and Chair of ARIA, the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency. He authored the UK Government's AI Opportunities Action Plan and served as the Prime Minister's Adviser on AI. He was named to the TIME100 list of most influential people in AI and was awarded a CBE for services to AI in 2024.
Ian Hogarth is co-founder and partner at Plural, an early-stage venture capital firm, and served as Chair of the UK Government's AI Foundation Model Taskforce. He co-founded Songkick and was named to the TIME100 list of most influential people in AI in 2023.
Matt on X: https://x.com/matthewclifford
Ian on X: https://x.com/soundboy
Matt's Website: https://www.matthewclifford.com/
Ian's Website: https://www.ianhogarth.com/
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.
Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12
Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/
Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.
Head to nebular.vc for more info.
15 Apr 2026
Dimming the Sun to Save the World | Stardust CEO Yanai Yedvab on Solving Climate Change by 2050
Yanai Yedvab thinks we need to completely overhaul the infrastructure of humanity to avoid a climate disaster, and we can't afford to wait the 70 years it’ll take to wean off fossil fuels. Before founding Stardust, Yanai spent nearly three decades in Israeli nuclear research, ending up as deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.
Stardust is developing reflective particles to disperse into the upper atmosphere that will buy us the several decades we need to transition into a low-carbon economy. We sat down in New York to talk about how the technology works, the dangers at stake if we do nothing, and Yanai's radical optimism in spite of everything.
Stardust Publication on Safety: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/science
Stardust Publication on Ethics: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/guiding-principles
Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/191c8d8c-50a1-42d4-a44e-03e618b9d359
Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/c04e6ebb-d1e8-4cbf-97d3-fee104f21536
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:10 From Nuclear Physics to The Climate Crisis
04:01 The Failure of Climate Activism
05:28 How Solar Reflective Technology Works
09:12 The 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo
12:01 The Montreal Protocol and How to Negotiate in a World at War
16:03 Buying Time: Weaning off Fossil Fuels Will Take 50-70 Years
18:55 Data Centers, Fission, and Fusion
19:59 Preparing for Emergencies the Israeli Way
23:40 Radical Transparency: The Only Way To Gain Trust
27:05 Persuading the Policymakers
33:05 Unlimited Ambition is What Will Save the World
35:10 Stardust Will Unlock Quantum Leaps in Weather Prediction
36:54 Stardust in 2050
40:20 Why Stardust Has to Be a Private Company
45:32 Optimism for the Future is Rational
Yanai Yedvab is a nuclear physicist, former deputy chief scientist at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, and the co-founder and CEO of Stardust, a solar geoengineering company.
Stardust: https://www.stardustsolutions.com/
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.
Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12
Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/
Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.
Head to nebular.vc for more info.
8 Apr 2026
The Technologies That Will Remake Civilization by 2050 | Casey Handmer
Casey Handmer thinks we're living through the most consequential 25 years in human history, and that human civilization is just getting started.
I sat down with Casey in Los Angeles to discuss how China's dominance in solar energy deployment should be a wake-up call for the West, why antimatter is the only rocket fuel that makes interstellar travel possible, and how slowing down aging may be the best solution to plummeting birthrates across the planet. For Casey, the balrog in the deep isn’t demographic decline, but a climate catastrophe that swallows every coastline on Earth.
Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/6c52cb7a-572b-4f5f-8bf9-70fdaf14cf98
Transcript (with helpful links!): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/17c9604e-f38b-41a3-9068-eaf69d9f5575
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:53 The Solar Revolution
03:43 AI is a Supersonic Tsunami
06:00 Civilization Is Just Getting Started
08:46 Intelligent Life in the Universe
12:03 The $40 Trillion Ticket to Space: Antimatter
20:57 Space Exploration by 2050
22:09 Mitigating The Climate Catastrophe
27:53 Terraforming Mars vs Terraforming Venus
35:00 Solving the Birthrate Crisis: Humans Will Become Like The Elves in LOTR and Live Indefinitely
42:07 China Is Losing Sleep Over Their Problems As Much as We Are
44:46 Governments Are Lying About Their Population Sizes
46:11 The 2050 Moonshots That Will Save The World
52:45 Easter Egg :)
Casey Handmer is a physicist, entrepreneur, and the founder of Terraform Industries, working on making cheap natural gas from sunlight and air.
Casey on X: https://x.com/CJHandmer
Casey's Website: https://www.caseyhandmer.com/
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.
Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12
Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/
Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.
Head to nebular.vc for more info.
30 Mar 2026
Space AI, Moon Resorts, and Interstellar Calamity | Starcloud CEO Philip Johnston on 2050
Starcloud Founder and CEO Philip Johnston believes data centers in space are the first step to becoming a Kardashev level civilization. I caught up with Philip at Starcloud’s HQ to talk about his vision for the next 25 years. The conversation covers everything from luxury space tourism, whether Tesla’s Optimus robot will become a self-replicating galactic probe, the hard problem of consciousness, whether the world is a simulation, Mars becoming the next America, and Philip’s greatest concern for our long-term future.
Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/data-centers-in-space-moon-resorts
Transcript: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-iv-transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:59 Why the Space GPU Skeptics are Wrong
03:12 Elon Will Bring Launch Costs Down with Starship
06:50 The 2050 Space Economy: Moon Hotels, Asteroid Mining and Manufacturing
16:37 The 2050 Martian Colony: A Stepping Stone for Exploring the Universe
26:32 The Kardashev Scale of Civilization
28:44 We Live in a Simulation: The Fermi Paradox & The Great Filter
34:52 Cracking the Hard Problem of Consciousness
37:46 There is a Calamitous Event Waiting for Us
39:04 Mars is the Next America
Philip Johnston is the co-founder and CEO of Starcloud, a space technology company building orbital data centers powered by solar energy to run AI and compute infrastructure in space.
Philip on X: https://x.com/PhilipJohnston
Philip on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-johnston/
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.
Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12
Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/
Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City.
Head to nebular.vc for more info.
25 Mar 2026
Conflict and Diplomacy in an Era of Recklessness | Sir Malcolm Rifkind on 2050
Sir Malcolm Rifkind served as Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom from 1995 to 1997 and as Defence Secretary before that. He has sat across from Soviet ministers while a KGB double agent secretly briefed both sides, watched the Berlin Wall fall when nobody saw it coming, and has been banished from Russia by Putin personally for his criticism of the invasion of Crimea. I sat down with Sir Malcolm in London this January to talk about the next 25 years of conflict and diplomacy, and how to navigate a world where nobody cares about the old rules anymore.
Extended Show Notes: https://substack.com/home/post/p-192033568
Transcript: https://substack.com/home/post/p-192033862
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:05 Why Politicians Can’t Predict the Future
03:37 The Power of Double Agents in Spycraft
04:38 Social Media Diplomacy Was Inevitable
12:46 Soft Power is Dead
16:25 The Cult of Youth in Global Leadership
18:54 The West Must Think Long-Term to Survive
27:43 Technological Innovation Will Hurt Old People
30:58 The Chinese Will Eat Their Rich
38:11 Meeting Gorbachev and His Philosopher Wife
44:32 There Are No Good Guys and Bad Guys
46:46 Ukraine will Freeze Up like Korea, Kashmir, and Cyprus
47:55 Taiwan is More Important than Iran
53:23 How Smaller Countries Operate without Pax Americana
55:09 “The Chinese and the Russians Cannot Believe Their Luck” - on NATO Collapse
59:59 America May Not Be the Main Character in the Future
Sir Malcolm Rifkind is a British statesman who served as Defence Secretary and then Foreign Secretary under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and later chaired the UK Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee.
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.
Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12
Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/
Nebular is venture capital firm based in New York City.
Head to nebular.vc for more info.
18 Mar 2026
Artificial Wombs, IVF & Robot Nannies | Noor Siddiqui on Family in 2050
Noor Siddiqui is building a future free of inherited disease. As Founder & CEO of Orchid, she has developed embryo screening technology that reads 99% of an embryo's DNA - 100 times more information than legacy tools. In this episode of Forecast 2050, Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy sits down with Noor in San Francisco to discuss why embryo screening and artificial wombs may become the default way humans reproduce, what's really driving falling birth rates, the moonshot nobody is funding, and why a generation of young people with world-changing energy has been left with nowhere to put it.
Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/sex-is-for-fun-orchid-ivf-is-for
Transcript (with links): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-transcript-episode
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:50 Rolling the Dice No More: The Embryo Screening Revolution
05:27 Artificial Wombs Are the Tech Challenge of Our Time
07:47 Why Aren't We Having Kids?
17:03 The Broken Generational Contract
18:56 Nature Beats Out Nurture
21:45 AI & Genetic Technology Could Give Us Superhuman Powers
30:54 Noor’s Plan for 2050
37:10 What We Lose When Old People Run Everything
Noor Siddiqui is the Founder & CEO of Orchid, the world's first whole genome embryo screening company.
Noor on X: https://x.com/noor_siddiqui_
Orchid: https://www.orchidhealth.com/
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.
Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12
Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/
Nebular is a venture capital firm based in New York City investing in early-stage companies.
Head to nebular.vc for more info.
11 Mar 2026
Quantum, Superintelligence, and Reality's Ultimate Nature | Scott Aaronson on 2050
Scott Aaronson thinks that the time to prepare for a post-quantum world isn’t years away - it was yesterday. In the second episode of Forecast 2050 with Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy and Entrepreneur in Residence Tom McCarthy, we explore whether classical AI might eclipse quantum computing, how post-quantum cryptography will upend global security, and why the rise of superintelligence both excites and deeply unsettles Scott.
We also debate whether a quantum teleporter would actually be a suicide machine, how advanced AI might help us uncover the fundamental nature of reality, and the disturbing possibility that future superintelligences may compete with one another for dominance, treating humans as collateral.
Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/breaking-the-internet-scott-aaronsons
Transcript (with links): https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/forecast-2050-episode-ii-transcript
Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:04 How AI & Quantum Computing Interact Today
10:36 Why Scott Thinks Classical Computing Might Outdate Quantum
18:24 The Post-Quantum World of 2050
27:43 Quantum Computing & Biology
35:46 The Quantum Teleporter as a Suicide Machine
38:52 Superintelligence & The Ultimate Nature of Reality
45:00 The Battle Between Superintelligences
Scott Aaronson, the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, is widely recognized as a top researcher in the fields of quantum computing and computational complexity.
Thank you to Matt Johnson of Q2B Sillicon Valley and QC Ware for helping us film at the conference!
https://q2b.qcware.com/
Scott’s blog, Shtetl-Optimized: https://scottaaronson.blog/
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.
Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12
Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/
Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-mccarthy-41144779/
Nebular is an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City.
Head to nebular.vc for more info.
4 Mar 2026
The surprising truth behind collapsing birthrates | Tyler Cowen on 2050
Tyler Cowen believes we are woefully unprepared for the next 25 years.
In the first episode of Forecast 2050 with Nebular General Partner, Finn Murphy, we discuss the real reason behind falling birthrates, what the last human job might be in an AI-dominated economy, how conflict and war could evolve in the next 25 years, whether we will have a "viagra for the mind," why we are experiencing the fastest technological revolution in human history, why humans love stasis and hate change, and why we need faith in long-term thinking.
Extended Show Notes: https://finnmurphyirl.substack.com/p/humans-love-stasis-and-hate-change
Transcript (with helpful links!): https://substack.com/home/post/p-189726563
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:03 The real reason behind low birthrates
04:50 Transitioning to a majority-old society
07:49 The future of worldwide immigration
14:55 The 2050 economy will be healthcare dominated
19:23 Corporations have never been so powerful
26:25 There is life on the moons of Saturn
27:07 Elon is wrong: We won't settle other planets
30:00 AIs Will Take Over Society By Trick
30:58 We need faith for long term thinking
32:47 There will be many, many fake jobs
36:29 The future of the UN and global conflicts
40:56 The AIs will build their own superintelligent institutions
45:18 Tyler's greatest concern
47:50 The last profession standing in the AI era
Tyler Cowen is an economist, author, and professor known for his work on growth, innovation, and the future of technology.
Tyler on X: https://x.com/tylercowen
Tyler's Blog: https://marginalrevolution.com/
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years—and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what comes next.
Finn on X: https://x.com/FinnMurphy12
Finn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finn-murphy-16160465/
Nebular is an early stage venture capital firm based in New York City.
Head to nebular.vc for more info.
3 Mar 2026
Introducing Forecast 2050
Forecast 2050 is a series about the next 25 years, and the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping what lies ahead. Hosted by Nebular General Partner Finn Murphy.
Inside a recent episode
Why China Is Baffled by America’s AI Race | Yi-Ling Liu
Published 15 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] And if you actually like look at the rhetoric in a lot of Chinese, be it policy papers or news stories or even like the speeches of, you know, CEOs of major AI labs, no one is using that language. There is very little kind of rhetoric about the race and in particular, very little rhetoric about any type of race towards AGI. And so I think, you know, often when I speak with people who are working in China, on AI, the word AGI doesn't really come up that often. It's not kind of, and when it does come up, it's not looked upon as this, like, heroic, messianic, like, march towards singularity. It's more, you know, depending on the context, commercial buzzword, or sometimes in the academic context, it's this, like, big thing to move towards. […]
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