Episode
We Need Inventors. And Inventors Need Us. Pablos Holman on Finding and Backing Zero to One Builders
- Podcast
- Future Around & Find Out
- Published
- Apr 14, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1896
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://share.transistor.fm/s/37366f39
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Summary
We live in a world where every crisis lands in your pocket the moment it happens. The result? We're more informed than ever — and somehow less capable of doing anything about it. Inventor and investor Pablos Holman has a diagnosis: we're spreading ourselves across every problem, which means we're solving none of them. His prescription is uncomfortable — pick one thing, go all in, and cut the noise. *** QUICK PLUG: Future Around & Find Out is nominated for a Webby for best tech podcast! Voting is open now for the People's Choice Award. Please vote before April 16th! https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/shows/technology *** Pablos is the co-founder of Deep Futures, where he hunts for inventors tackling world-scale problems: energy, water, food, waste, transportation. Not apps. Atoms. And thanks to advances in AI and software, these "impossible" problems are more solvable than ever — if the right people show up to back them. In this conversation, recorded at the fabulous PopTech conference, he makes the case that inventors are the most important creative class on earth — and the most invisible. They're undersupported, uncelebrated, and working alone in garages. Some of them are probably going to blow themselves up. Those are exactly the people he's looking for. We get into: Why doomscrolling is literally eroding your ability to make a difference The difference between craft (optimization) and creation (zero-to-one) — and why AI is great at one and struggling with the other Why you can name 100 musicians but fewer than two living inventors How solving energy unlocks clean water, sanitation, and climate — essentially for free Why software people are uniquely positioned to work on the hardest problems in the world right now Chapters: (01:15) - Why the…