Oct 31, 2026 · the week's best moments from hardware podcasts
Last week, 22 shows put out 30 hardware episodes, about 23 hours. You don't have 23 hours, so here are the 8 moments worth stopping for, and the 3 episodes worth every minute.
The moments
Picked by a model from all 30 episodes for the surprising, the costly and the candid, with the generic advice left out. Quoted word for word; each opens at the moment it is said.
Expensive lesson
Despite winning the lawsuit, the financial toll of defending Figs against a competitor was devastating.
“after a three-year legal battle, the lawsuit against figs has finally come to a close. The jury winds up ruling in favor of Heather and Trina, but the founders pay a big price. How much did this cost you guys to fight? $40 million. $40 million to fight this. Yeah. It's so crazy to me. The only winners are the lawyers.”
Counterintuitive
Tate uses a medieval metaphor to explain why a board member is a coach, not a second CEO.
“The board member, on the other hand, is the coach of the Dragon Slayer. The company doesn't need 2 CEOs. They need a CEO and a board member who could coach the CEO who could oversee the CEO. And can help the CEO divide strategy.”
Telling detail
Here is the single most important number in food safety: 0.6.
“if the water activity is above a specific point, 0.6 water activity, then we know that there is an environment in that food that can allow for microbial growth. … If water activity is one of their primary hurdles to prevent microbial growth, then they can use water activity and below that 0.6 value and know with certainty that nothing is going to grow.”
Counterintuitive
Why the current gas turbine price surge, despite being painful for buyers, might actually be the best thing for the long-term health of the industry.
“It wasn't that long ago that the price for those units was down around 4 or $500 a kilowatt. Now, I think that this whole, um, Market activity is actually presenting an opportunity … Eventually, I think those prices are going to settle down around hater, $900 a kilowatt. That's still double. What the, an OEM in that megawatt range was expecting to get 5 years ago.”
Tony Brough on Catalyst
The new landscape for gas turbinesExpensive lesson
Most people assume Ithaca Hummus’s square tubs were a bold branding choice to stand out on the shelf. Here’s the real reason they’re square.
“the reason we're in square packaging is because we didn't have any money. We didn't have any money. I I moved. I moved production to Ledestri Foods. They had a filling line that had tooling that was built for a square cup. It was $60,000. If I wanted to get retooling to get into a round cup. I was like, I guess I guess we're doing, I guess we're gonna be in the square. That's why we're in a square.”Hear it at 29:45 →
Telling detail
This is how LoRaWAN is being used for large-scale agricultural monitoring, including a specific case of steering livestock.
“One example is from New Zealand, a company, that builds a solar powered, uh, livestock colors, not only for tracking the movement, but even steering them, to build the geoffencing, and that one company in a couple countries, they already have reached 1000000 connected cows.”
Telling detail
Here is the single most important operational constraint for getting into large-scale foodservice kitchens.
“If I can't implement your product here, if I can't have like a high school kid able to figure out how to use it with almost no instruction and with absolutely no additional equipment required in my kitchen, then it's not going to work. Especially for those big food service operators. Like, this is a plug and play kind of thing.”Hear the episode →
Counterintuitive
An engineer explains how he uses an LLM as a tutor to learn Swift, explicitly refusing to use the AI-generated code.
“I said, you built this app. Don't show me the code. I have not actually looked at a single line of a code that it produced yet. none of it. Um, I said, this is the app I want to build. I don't want any AI code in this app. I'm going to write it myself. However, I want to learn Swift and up to date Apple application programming. So you're going to build me a course with this app as the The goal of learning Swift, and you're going to teach me how to do this, lesson by lesson.”Hear it at 30:26 →
By job
The same episodes, sorted by who will get the most from them. Pick your job above to see only yours.
Start with: Despite winning the lawsuit, the financial toll of defending Figs against a competitor was devastating.
Start with: Tate uses a medieval metaphor to explain why a board member is a coach, not a second CEO.
Start with: Despite winning the lawsuit, the financial toll of defending Figs against a competitor was devastating.
Topics
Each episode counted once, under what it is mostly about.
Names
Named in at least two episodes.
3 episodes
Second for second, the best of the week: the most that lands, in the least time.
Heather Hasson and Trina Spear, co-founders of FIGS, explain how they reinvented the stagnant scrub industry by focusing on fit, fabric, and direct-to-consumer community building. They detail their journey from selling scrubs out of a car and facing 300-400 investor rejections to securing funding from Thomas Tull and navigating a $40 million legal battle with Strategic Partners. The founders discuss their decision to fight the lawsuit rather than settle, their rapid pivot to PPE during the pandemic, and their eventual IPO, emphasizing that their net worth is transient and distinct from their self-worth.
Tate Pursell, a former manufacturing CEO and private equity operating partner, explains that manufacturers should appoint outside directors only when facing specific inflection points like succession, rapid growth, or acquisitions, rather than following textbook advice. He contrasts the governance needs of family-owned companies, which focus on long-term stability, with private equity-backed firms, which require directors with intense operational experience and the ability to challenge both management and sponsors. Pursell outlines the critical mistakes owners make, such as hiring friends instead of skilled candidates, failing to define fiduciary roles, and neglecting proper onboarding processes.
Zachary Cartwright, Principal Food Scientist at AQUALAB by Addium, explains water activity (a_w) as the capacity of water to drive biological, chemical, and physical changes in food products. He details how a_w above 0.6 enables microbial growth, while specific thresholds cause textural issues like caking in powders or sogginess in snacks. The conversation covers the difference between moisture content and water activity, the use of moisture sorption isotherms to predict shelf life, and how sustainable packaging with different water vapor transmission rates impacts stability. Cartwright advises brands to access testing via universities or labs, but emphasizes that in-house meters with direct sensors and temperature control are ideal for quality control.
Connie Bowen, founding general partner at Farmhand Ventures, explains that agricultural automation must prioritize farm workers' needs and economic realities over pure speed. She argues that ignoring the skilled nature of farm labor and excluding workers from the design process leads to products that fail in the field, citing examples like blueberry harvesters that damage fruit. Bowen details her firm's use of redeemable equity to support companies like L5 Automation and Scout, emphasizing that founders must earn growers' trust through co-creation and addressing pre-harvest tasks like thinning.
Hosts Elliot Williams and Jenny List discuss recent hardware hacks, including Bo Made's work on driving e-paper displays at high frame rates without degrading them, and Boris Digital's recreation of a 1990s TV broadcast rack using Raspberry Pis. They also cover Mountain DS Lab's repurposing of a Xiaomi smartphone motherboard as an RC flight controller, and Squalius's hacking of the Tamagotchi Paradise to run arbitrary code and emulators. The episode concludes with a deep dive into infrared protocols and a review of the abandoned Google Lenovo Mirage Solo VR headset.
Chris Kirby, founder of Ithaca Hummus, explains how his culinary background led him to launch a hummus brand at the Ithaca Farmers Market, capitalizing on a category shift where Sabra had made hummus mainstream but value engineering had degraded quality. He details the accidental origin of Ithaca's signature square packaging, which resulted from using LiDestri Foods' existing tooling to avoid $60,000 in retooling costs, and highlights the strategic advantage of High Pressure Processing (HPP) enabled by the FLX Foods partnership. Kirby emphasizes that his success relied on refusing to compromise on fresh ingredients and leveraging the right partners to turn financial constraints into a distinct market differentiator.
Zlatka Stoeva, founder and managing director of DZP Technologies, explains how her company develops flexible, stretchable, and soft printed electronics for dexterous robots. She details the development of stretchable wires, tactile sensing skins, and robust interconnects, noting that 10-20% stretchability is more practical for industry than academic claims of 100%. Stoeva also discusses the challenge of modeling time-dependent soft materials using hybrid physical and machine learning approaches, and highlights the importance of sustainable, recyclable materials for the future of robotics.
Ghulam Murtaza, a Controls Project Engineer at Vanderlande, shares his journey from digitizing his father's construction ledgers in Pakistan to earning a master's in robotics and AI at the University at Buffalo. He details overcoming visa delays, family resistance, and university rejections to build a career in industrial automation, where he developed tools like a Parts Lookup app and systems for equipment monitoring. Murtaza explains how he leveraged Python, AWS, and data analytics to solve inefficiencies in Amazon fulfillment operations, transitioning from a volunteer role to a full-time position by demonstrating his coding capabilities through a personal portfolio.
Jimmy Diresta, Bob Clagett, and David Picciuto discuss the creative process of making physical products and content. They explore how design decisions act as exclusions, narrowing possibilities to reach a final form, and the challenge of pleasing an audience with diverse preferences. The conversation covers specific projects like Diresta's coffin barbecue and Clagett's rolling hobby cart, while highlighting tools like Fusion 360, Illustrator, and Freeform.
Isabella Hoag, founder and CEO of OSIA, explains how she pivoted from a four-flavor 'mood beverage' line to a single caffeine-free energy drink based on retailer and customer feedback. She details her formulation strategy, using juice concentrate and a functional blend of rhodiola, L-theanine, magnesium malate, vitamin B6, and taurine to provide energy without caffeine. Hoag also discusses her design background, which influenced the can's warm metallic aesthetic, and her journey from bootstrapping with $50 to raising her first round of funding.
Mike Pekovich, Owen Madden, and Bridgid Gruber of Fine Woodworking discuss how wood science informs practical joinery decisions, specifically addressing Dan Bullock's claim that pinning tenons reduces strength by 20-40%. They argue that while pins create stress risers, the resulting joint remains far stronger than necessary for typical furniture loads, making pinning a valid aesthetic and mechanical choice. The team also covers troubleshooting sticky wooden drawer slides, managing glue squeeze-out in mortise and tenon joints, and using tools like the Stanley 80 scraper and Lee Nielsen plane for difficult grain.
Elecia White discusses her daydreaming about low-stimulation educational toys for preteens, including 'Sweet Something' and 'Fact Dice', while Christopher White details building a custom Swift metronome app using AI tools like Claude and Xcode to train off-beat timing. They explore the ethical use of LLMs for learning rather than code generation, the vulnerability of embedded devices due to TLS/DHE flaws, and the business realities of contract engineering for high school students.
Bryan Cantrill, Adam Leventhal, Tom Lyon, and Ian Grunert discuss book recommendations in the annual 'Books in the Box' tradition. The group covers titles including 'Setting the Table' by Danny Meyer, 'Incorruptible' by Eric Ries, and 'The Power Law' by Sebastian Mallaby, while also reviewing 'Everything is Tuberculosis' and 'American Poison'. They critique works like 'Steve Jobs in Exile' and 'Grateful Geek' by Jean-Louis Gassée, and highlight historical accounts of technology companies such as 'Me and My Big Ideas' by Lee Felsenstein and 'The Iridium Story'.
Tony Brough, president of Dora Partners & Company, explains that major gas turbine OEMs GE Vernova, Mitsubishi, and Siemens are sold out past 2030, with backlogs exceeding 100 gigawatts and prices surging from $500/kW to nearly $2,500/kW. He categorizes the emerging ecosystem filling this void, including new turbine manufacturers like Boom Supersonic and Parallax, and companies like FTAI and Nova Power repurposing jet engines for stationary power. Brough argues that while these alternatives offer speed, they face significant technical hurdles and logistics nightmares compared to traditional large-scale turbines.
Tope Awotona, founder of the scheduling platform Calendly, returns to discuss the company's evolution into an AI-powered meeting assistant called Cali and the lowered barriers to building software. He advises callers on specific hardware and business challenges: Dom Cotton of New Lane struggles with profitability and scaling his UK-made foldable bike helmet; Ivana Besseluck of Playfield seeks operational systems to maintain her modular dog walking bag business while preparing for childbirth; Danny of The Nail Room weighs expansion against family life using builder gel techniques; and Justin Kitridge of ISlide prioritizes channels for his customized footwear.
Steve Crowe, Gene Demaitre, Mike Oitzman, and Brianna Wessling of The Robot Report recap the 2026 RoboBusiness event in Santa Clara, highlighting key industry trends and company updates. The team discusses panels featuring companies like Robust AI, Agility Robotics, and Amazon Robotics, focusing on the shift from rapid robot development to the challenges of real-world deployment and reliability. They also announce the rebranding of RoboBusiness to Robotics Summit West and the Robotics Summit in Boston to better distinguish between hardware development and commercial scaling.
Tim Paul, Director of CAD/CAM Programming at SendCutSend, discusses his unconventional career path from professional mountain bike racing to becoming a leading figure in CNC machining. He details his roles at Autodesk and Toolpath, emphasizing how hands-on shop experience and building relationships proved more valuable than formal education or resumes. Paul also explores the transformative impact of AI on manufacturing, arguing that combining deep technical knowledge with new software tools is key to scaling production efficiently.
Norio Fujikawa, Executive Director at PA Consulting and former founder of Astro Studios, discusses the evolution of industrial design over 30 years, emphasizing human-centered design, ethnographic research, and the critical collaboration between designers and engineers. He details his workflow from hand sketching with ballpoint pens and iPad Procreate to using AI visualization tools like Vizcom for rapid prototyping, while navigating the transition of his firm from a boutique consultancy to a division of the large engineering firm Jacobs. Fujikawa offers career advice for emerging designers, stressing the importance of curiosity, mentorship, and proactive networking in a challenging job market, and recommends books like 'Being and Belonging' and 'The Creative Act'.
Jenna Cameron, founder of Jenna Cameron Consulting and former foodservice sales expert at JUST, Alpha Foods, and Wild Earth, joins host Daniel Scharff to launch Startup CPG’s free Foodservice Tracker, a database of approximately 1,500 operators, distributors, and redistributors. They discuss how early-stage brands can use the tool to navigate the complex foodservice channel, distinguishing between back-of-house products like plant-based eggs and front-of-house grab-and-go items. The conversation covers strategic tactics such as targeting specific job titles on LinkedIn, leveraging scrappy methods like campus ambassadors and station takeovers, and avoiding common pitfalls like ignoring operational constraints like high-heat oven compatibility.
Roman Yankevych, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Renesas, demonstrates the redesigned Go Configure Software Hub, explaining how it unifies GreenPAK and ForgeFPGA development. He walks through the SLG46826 window comparator example, highlighting features like net labels, the rules checker, and bit-by-bit revision diffs in nonvolatile memory. The discussion covers locking designs into black boxes for IP protection, pre-programming simulation, and Renesas's future plans for AI integration in the tool.
Researchers from ETH Zurich and University Hospital Zurich, along with their spinoff startup Olivion, have developed a handheld breathalyzer called Nutriion that measures acetone levels in breath to determine when the body is burning fat. The device uses a specialized filter to block other chemicals and a sensitive sensor to detect acetone at parts-per-billion concentrations, matching the accuracy of expensive laboratory mass spectrometers. The hosts discuss how this technology enables continuous metabolic monitoring for weight loss, ketogenic diets for epilepsy, and broader medical trials without the need for invasive blood tests.
Brittany Arthur, CEO of Design Thinking Japan, explains why AI strategies fail when they prioritize technology over human-centered design, arguing that AI acts as a multiplier of intent rather than a solution in itself. She details how her company evolved from a design thinking consultancy to a human-centered AI product studio, emphasizing the need to solve real workflow problems for end-users, such as hospital operators, rather than just satisfying buyer demands. Arthur also introduces AI Atlas, a tool tracking global AI infrastructure, highlighting the discrepancy between announcements and actual builds, and the emerging trend of 'mixed stack' sovereignty in non-OECD countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.
Alper Yegin, CEO of the LoRa Alliance, discusses the state of LoRaWAN in 2026, highlighting its role as a key LPWAN standard connecting over 150 million devices. He explains that LoRaWAN’s deep indoor penetration, long range, and low power make it ideal for smart buildings, water metering, and agriculture, complementing Wi-Fi and cellular. Yegin details recent technical advancements like UL 1203 integration, automatic device discovery, and drive-by reading, while addressing the challenge of moving from pilot to scale through standardization and ecosystem maturity. He also emphasizes the growing synergy between LoRaWAN and physical AI, where edge processing on sensors reduces bandwidth needs.
FlexGen CEO Kelsey Pegler and COO Hugh Scott explain how the urgent power demands of AI data centers have transformed battery storage from an optional component into a critical infrastructure requirement. They discuss how data centers are using large-scale battery systems to manage extreme power fluctuations from high-density chips, secure grid interconnections, and enable hybrid microgrids. The conversation highlights the shift from traditional UPS solutions to containerized lithium-ion and alternative chemistry batteries, emphasizing the role of software in optimizing performance and extending asset life.
Tate Pursell, a former manufacturing CEO and private equity operating partner, explains that manufacturers should appoint outside directors only when facing specific inflection points like succession, rapid growth, or acquisitions, rather than following textbook advice. He contrasts the governance needs of family-owned companies, which focus on long-term stability, with private equity-backed firms, which require directors with intense operational experience and the ability to challenge both management and sponsors. Pursell outlines the critical mistakes owners make, such as hiring friends instead of skilled candidates, failing to define fiduciary roles, and neglecting proper onboarding processes.
Bill Fienup, Co-Founder and VP of Innovation Services, and Kim Blomquist, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications, explain how mHUB, a Chicago hardtech innovation center, helps startups move from prototype to production. They detail the facility's labs, accelerator program, and capital access, emphasizing the high barriers to entry for hardware compared to software. The conversation highlights specific success stories like HAAS Alert, which onshored production to avoid tariffs, and Zenblen, a food robotics company, illustrating how mHUB's network supports scaling and regional manufacturing retention.
Marc Jonna, Co-Founder and President of Plum Market, explains how the grocer sources emerging CPG brands, emphasizing logistics, authorized wholesalers like UNFI and KeHE, and a unique merchandising partnership model. He details the company's expansion into airports, offices, and schools, noting that high-quality, scratch-made food drives success in these channels. Jonna also discusses why Plum Market carries virtually no private label, preferring to highlight brand founders and traceability to meet consumer demand for transparency and quality.
Ben Bajarin and Jay Goldberg analyze Micron's transparent HBM roadmap, which dismisses 4F-squared memory in favor of vertical stacking to maintain a technology lead over Chinese competitors like CXMT. They discuss Meta's strategic advantage in owning massive AI infrastructure, enabling them to train and distill models like Muse at superior unit economics compared to API-dependent rivals. The hosts also examine NVIDIA's aggressive supply chain lock-up, debunking concerns about idle GPUs as standard staged integration, and warn of surging AI-powered cybersecurity threats.
Kaan Kekec, Partner at Simon-Kucher, discusses findings from the CDMO Growth Report 2026, revealing a critical misalignment between pharma sponsors who prioritize quality and CDMOs who over-index on speed. He explains how device suppliers often fail to validate their value propositions against competitors, leading to blind spots in customer experience and pricing strategies for drug delivery devices. The conversation highlights the need for integrated manufacturing capabilities and transparent partnerships to bridge the gap between sponsor expectations and supplier perceptions.
Heather Hasson and Trina Spear, co-founders of FIGS, explain how they reinvented the stagnant scrub industry by focusing on fit, fabric, and direct-to-consumer community building. They detail their journey from selling scrubs out of a car and facing 300-400 investor rejections to securing funding from Thomas Tull and navigating a $40 million legal battle with Strategic Partners. The founders discuss their decision to fight the lawsuit rather than settle, their rapid pivot to PPE during the pandemic, and their eventual IPO, emphasizing that their net worth is transient and distinct from their self-worth.
Zachary Cartwright, Principal Food Scientist at AQUALAB by Addium, explains water activity (a_w) as the capacity of water to drive biological, chemical, and physical changes in food products. He details how a_w above 0.6 enables microbial growth, while specific thresholds cause textural issues like caking in powders or sogginess in snacks. The conversation covers the difference between moisture content and water activity, the use of moisture sorption isotherms to predict shelf life, and how sustainable packaging with different water vapor transmission rates impacts stability. Cartwright advises brands to access testing via universities or labs, but emphasizes that in-house meters with direct sensors and temperature control are ideal for quality control.
Philip Tricca, a security engineer at Oxide Computer Company, explains the critical process of establishing a Root of Trust (RoT) and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for their hardware products. He details the 'key ceremony' required to generate and store secrets securely, highlighting the initial use of a dot matrix printer for printing key shares and the subsequent discovery that tamper-evident packaging was being used incorrectly. The team had to repeat the ceremony to ensure the integrity of the key distribution, which is stored in a bank vault, to prevent spoofing and ensure customer trust before shipping their first rack-scale computers.
Moira O’Connell, Vice President at Astō Consumer Partners, explains the firm’s late-stage growth strategy, focusing on profitable CPG brands with $40M+ in sales and checks of $25M–$75M. She highlights portfolio companies Clean Skin Club, Bloom Nutrition, and Starface, detailing how they expanded from DTC to retail or new categories like beverages. O’Connell emphasizes that quality of revenue, particularly avoiding boom-and-bust cycles like a quick Costco win, is more critical than raw growth, and discusses the importance of aligning on valuation and growth levers early in fundraising.
Next edition Saturday
The few moments worth your time, quoted word for word and linked to the second they’re said.
