SHIFT

A hundred million degrees Celsius. That’s the brutal reality of commercial fusion. This week, we’re sitting down with industry leaders to discuss the front lines of an energy revolution, from surviving extreme thermal stress to building brand-new supply chains.

We Meet:  
Joe Paluska is the CMO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Annie Kritcher is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at Inertia
Alice Brooks is a Board Member & Partner at Khosla Ventures
Cary Forest is the Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer at Realta Fusion

Credits:
This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

What do you think it would be like to lead AI efforts and the overall digital transformation of the CIA? This week, we find out as we dive into a world of espionage and secrets in the latest installment of our oral history project. 

We Meet:  

Retired Deputy CIA Director for Digital Innovation Jennifer Ewbank 

Credits:
This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

This episode originally aired in October 2025.

Microsoft EVP Jason Zander on the materials breakthrough that closed the gap, how AI agents cut the roadmap in half, and why he believes quantum's real job might be to make AI smarter.

We Meet:  
Microsoft EVP of Discovery & Quantum Jason Zander 

Credits:
This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

Frank McCourt is an American executive and philanthropist. He’s also the author of  “Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age”. We talk to him about that fight before a live audience in New York City at a gathering held by the responsible technology non-profit, All Tech Is Human.
This episode originally aired in 2024.

We Meet:

Frank H. McCourt, Jr., civic entrepreneur and executive chairman of McCourt Global, founder and executive chairman of Project Liberty

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

For as far as we’ve come with AI and robotics, there’s still a huge gap when it comes to combining the two. AI excels in the digital space, and in the physical world, robots are often pre-programmed. That’s where physical AI comes in. It’s critical for things that can’t tolerate the kinds of mistakes that are common in today’s statistics based AI, like self driving cars or managing the power grid. In the latest installment of our oral history project, we meet a central figure in these efforts, MIT's Daniela Rus.

We Meet:  
Daniela Rus is the Director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Credits:
This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.