Episode #533: 2025 Tech Trends Report with Greg Tirico

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With Ron Baker out this week due to a personal matter, Ed Kless is joined by Greg Tirico for a deep dive into the FTSG 2025 Tech Trends Report (available as a free download). Together, they explore 10 provocative takeaways shaping the future of technology—from AI’s evolution into “living intelligence” and action models, to the rise of agentic systems, climate-driven innovation, and the commercial colonization of space. Ed and Greg break down what these shifts mean for business leaders, professionals, and society at large. Expect thoughtful insights, some healthy skepticism, and a few surprises as they navigate the frontier of what’s next.

MORE ABOUT GREG

Greg's official title here at The Soul of Enterprise might be just a step above “intern,” but don’t let that fool you. He’s the behind-the-scenes engine helping drive marketing at The Soul of Enterprise — that is, when we allow him to emerge from the dark room in which he lives and works. In addition to making Ron and Ed look good (arguably his most important job), Greg also runs Working Web Media, bringing years of marketing and tech expertise to the table.

SHOW NOTES

Segment one

AI

• Deep Seek and Stanford have both shown that AI models do not need to get larger as previously thought. Think “small language models” instead of LLM (large language models).

• Newer models might be small and less capable but that’s a good thing, especially for mobile devices

• Agentic AI has cemented itself as a trend to watch. This can be thought of as autonomous decision making (or business workflow on steroids)

Metaverse

• Industrial applications remain “just around the corner” and I’m still a bit skeptical

• South Korea Enacts Metaverse Industry Law in February of 2024. The new law both supports and regulates the metaverse, prioritizing permissionless development with oversight after implementation.

• Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses: Meta AI for object detection, capture video, make phone calls, listen to music, and livestream — all for $300

Segment two

Biotechnology

• Real world industrial applications currently in the market:

• crops engineered for climate resilience and higher yields

• engineered microbes produce materials stronger than steel 

• Restaurants serve meat grown from cells rather than raised on farms. 

• Fashion brands sell jackets made from spider silk produced by engineered yeast. 

• Construction companies explore self-healing concrete created by bacteria.

• Beauty products contain proteins designed by AI and grown in fermentation tanks. 

• July 2024: CRISPR-edited seedless blackberries and non-browning avocados enter market trials.

• Medical LLMs used for drug discovery

• CRISPR gene editing: Editas’ EDIT-101, designed to treat Leber congenital amaurosis, is one of the first in vivo CRISPR therapies to restore vision in patients with inherited blindness.

• In vivo: in the living; ex vivo requires stem cells to be modified outside the body and then reintroduced 

• CRISPR modified livestock?

Mobility, Robotics, and Drones

• EVs as mobile power plants. After all, the Tesla power wall is the same battery they put in cars. The Ford F-150 Lightning is the ultimate tailgate machine

• Fun fact: Tesla now has over 60,000 superchargers worldwide at 7,000 locations. There are 11,616 Exxon Mobil gas stations in the United States.

• Software defined cars: NHTSA recalls still happen but the fix is done via software. The recurring revenue model is too lucrative to ignore for automakers

• Autonomous vehicles possibly face more regulatory scrutiny than technological barriers at this point. Waymo is in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin with 10 more cities planned this year

• Drones: medical applications both on and off the battlefield; agriculture

• Robots: AI driven domestic robots, “Cobots”, are being produced by Samsung and Switchbot. Moving beyond the vacuum, they can handle air purification, monitor pets, and deliver items to you (beer?)

• 1 in 10 South Korean workers are robots

• Space robots and drones will play a large role in the NASA Artemis project and are already helping to clean up space junk

• Aerial corridors are already a thing in the UAE

Segment three

Computing

• National security depends on computational supremacy. When adversaries can deploy more powerful AI systems faster, they gain advantages in everything from intelligence to weaponry. Building robust computing infrastructure is just as much about maintaining strategic autonomy as it is technological leadership. And this is where quantum computing enters the chat.

• When Google’s 2024 Willow quantum chip completed a problem in five minutes that would take today’s supercomputers 10 septillion years to solve, it sparked equal parts excitement and bewilderment.

• Access to energy and compute will continue to be critical over the next decade

• Biological computing, or biocomputing, uses biological organisms or processes to store, process, and transfer information, encompassing technologies like DNA computing and cellular computing. It aims to harness the power of living systems for computational tasks. 

• In 2023, researchers at Johns Hopkins University outlined a vision for biocom- puters powered by human brain cells in a paper published in Frontiers in Science. Led by Thomas Hartung, the team present- ed a roadmap for “organoid intelligence,” aiming to develop biological computing using 3D cultures of human brain cells.

• Generative UI refers to the use of generative AI to automatically create, adapt, or personalize a user interface (UI) based on real-time inputs and context.

• Context aware earwax

• Living tactical scenario: A gunshot cracks the night. Within seconds, the drones pinpoint the shooter through audio triangulation. The helmets respond, releasing precise doses of performance enhancers to steady hands and sharpen focus. If chemical weapons appear, the neural interface stands ready to inject countermeasures directly into bloodstreams. The soldiers adjust their approach wordlessly, human and machine moving as one. The drones unleash another tactic: They project phantom sounds across the battlefield—helicopter rotors, tank treads, marching boots. The enemy scatters, chasing ghosts. The helmets pick up on rising hostile heart rates as confusion spreads.

Space

• Space is shifting from government-driven to markets-driven. 

• SpaceX conducted 138 launches in 2024; 35 so far this year

• There was a private spacewalk in 2024 conducted by Polaris Dawn

• Vast Space will launch Haven-1 in 2025 — a commercial space station

• Space based manufacturing of pharmaceuticals 

• Cislunar Networking: As we return to the moon, infrastructure like fiber optics and reliable internet will be essential, mirroring Earth’s networks. This presents a significant opportunity to shape the future of lunar communications.

• “If we are to find new frontiers for industry and energy, then the mines of space will provide.” Isaac Asimov, “Foundation and Empire”

Segment four

• Entertainment, Healthcare, and News

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #532: Superabundance Revisited — Our Second Conversation with Gale Pooley

NEW SHOW FEATURE: We are now LIVE streaming our shows. Want to join us live? Just click this link every Friday at 3pm ET / 12pm PT.

Join us for an enlightening discussion as we welcome back economist and author Dr. Gale L. Pooley to celebrate the release of his new book. In this episode, we delve deeper into the groundbreaking concepts presented in the book, exploring how human ingenuity and freedom drive resource abundance and economic growth. Dr. Pooley shares new insights and reflections since his last appearance, offering a fresh perspective on the relationship between population dynamics and prosperity. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the principles that challenge conventional views on scarcity and highlight the potential for human creativity to overcome limitations.

MORE ABOUT GALE

Dr. Gale L. Pooley is an American economist, professor, and co-author of Superabundance. He currently teaches U.S. economic history at Utah Tech University and has held academic positions at institutions including Brigham Young University–Hawaii and Alfaisal University in Riyadh. Dr. Pooley is renowned for his work on the concept of abundance and population growth, notably co-authoring the Simon Abundance Index, which measures resource availability relative to population growth. He holds professional designations from the Appraisal Institute, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and the CCIM Institute.

SHOW NOTES

Segment one

• Gale first joined us for episode 409 and his co-author joined us for episode 418. Here’s a fun trick. Just type The Soul Of Enterprise dot com slash episode number to find any episode. So, thesoulofenterprise.com/409, for example

• Gale has a great list of the three original sins of economics: 1) only atoms can be resources; 2) we live in a world of scarcity; 3) we measure things with money

• Thank you VERY MUCH to Hector Garcia for submitting a question for our guest today. You can submit questions for Ron and Ed on any device using this link https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/questions 

• Here is a GREAT example from Gale on the time price of eggs. They may be technically more expensive in terms of dollars right now but if you shift your perspective, they are more abundant than ever in human history. More here https://galepooley.substack.com/p/egg-perspective 

Segment two

• Gale Pooley and Marian Tupy’s book, Superabundance, is well received on Amazon with about 400 ratings. How are the ideas in Superabundance being received by economists? Gale goes back to the three original sins of economics to reflect on the book’s reception. Here is a link for more info https://www.amazon.com/Superabundance-Population-Innovation-Flourishing-Infinitely/dp/1952223393 

• “CPI (consumer price index) tells you how expensive things have become but then it doesn’t tell you if they have become more or less affordable.” —Gale Pooley

• "A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never sure," is known as Segal's Law, and it suggests that having multiple sources of information can lead to confusion and uncertainty. 

• Time prices are a better measurement than just money and Superabundance, the book, lays this out. For example: There is more information in the time price of money compared to just money. It is easily calculated. The scientific method uses time. You can use time prices in any country at any time with any product and any currency. —Those are just a few examples. More at this link https://www.amazon.com/Superabundance-Population-Innovation-Flourishing-Infinitely/dp/1952223393 

Segment three

• This is a summary of the start of segment three today (Gale’s actual words are significantly better): When you buy a house, you’re really buying two things: the lot/land and the improvement on that land (otherwise known as the house). In some cases the land is worth 10% of the price and in other cases it is significantly more. The land explains the difference in housing price variability across the country.

• From the concepts in Superabundance, if you look at the TIME PRICE of materials for building a home, it really hasn’t changed that much since the 1960s. In fact, labor is not that much more either. More at this link https://www.amazon.com/Superabundance-Population-Innovation-Flourishing-Infinitely/dp/1952223393 

• To understand TIME PRICES and housing as detailed in the book Superabundance, Gale Pooley (co-author) likes to ask the question: “How much time does it take you to earn the money to make your monthly payment on a per square foot basis?”

• The Jevons paradox, named after the 19th-century economist William Stanley Jevons, suggests that technological advancements that increase the efficiency of resource use can paradoxically lead to increased consumption of that resource, rather than decreased consumption. 

• “AI Just Got 90 To 99.99 Percent Cheaper” by Gale Pooley https://galepooley.substack.com/p/ai-just-got-90-to-9999-percent-cheaper 

Segment four

• “Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh in 1984 at a retail price of $2,495. At the time unskilled workers were earning around $5.00 per hour, putting the time price at 498 hours. A new iMac can be bought today for $1,299 and unskilled workers are now earning closer to $16.51 per hour, indicating a time price at 78.7 hours.” —Gale Pooley in the article ‘Mac at 40’ https://galepooley.substack.com/p/mac-at-40 

• In his 2004 paper, Nobel laureate William Nordhaus estimated that innovators capture approximately 2.2% of the total surplus from innovation in the first year, due to a combination of instantaneous appropriability and the depreciation of Schumpeterian profits. https://www.nber.org/digest/oct04/who-gains-innovation 

• Royal Caribbean just launched a cruise ship that can hold 8,000 passengers and weighs 250,800 tons. Gale Pooley wrote a GREAT article about this called “Cruise Ship Billionaires” https://galepooley.substack.com/p/cruise-ship-billionaires 

• A big THANK YOU to Gale Pooley, co-author of Superabundance, for joining us today. You can follow Gale on his substack at this link https://galepooley.substack.com/ 

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #531: The Boardroom Brawl — Will Purpose Stand Tall or Will Profit Take All?

NEW SHOW FEATURE: We are now LIVE streaming our shows. Want to join us live? Just click this link every Friday at 3pm ET / 12pm PT.

In this episode of The Soul of Enterprise, Ron and Ed dive into the long-standing debate: Is the purpose of business to make a profit, or is profit simply the result of fulfilling a deeper mission? Drawing inspiration from the wisdom of Peter Drucker—who famously stated, “There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer”—they explore the implications of this perspective for entrepreneurs, executives, and professionals.

Does a relentless focus on profit lead to short-termism and ethical compromises? Or is profit the natural outcome of serving customers, creating value, and building a sustainable enterprise? Join us as Ron and Ed unpack these ideas, challenge conventional wisdom, and discuss what this debate means for the future of business.

SHOW NOTES

Segment one

• You can record and submit questions for future shows using any device. Just visit https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/questions 

• William F. Buckley wrote a single children’s book. He considered it the hardest book he had ever written. https://www.amazon.com/National-Treasury-Classic-Childrens-Literature/dp/096278415X 

• We had a GREAT question submitted today from a children’s book author, Melquea Smith. Check out some of her work here https://www.prettykittypaintings.com/ 

• Speaking of children’s books, Ron and Ed had the pleasure of interviewing Connor Boyack on episode 292. He is the author of the Tuttle Twins books. https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/tsoe/connor-boyack-tuttle-twins 

• Thank you Peter McCleskey for the question today! We’ve dedicated almost the entire show to the idea that profits are the result of a business and not the purpose. But Peter had other thoughts and we TRULY appreciate it. So much so that his question is the basis for our show today. 

Segment two

• “Purpose is bigger than tactics. Purpose is bigger than strategy. It is a choice to pursue your destiny, the ultimate destination for yourself and the organization you lead.” —from Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies by Nikos Mourkogiannis https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Starting-Point-Great-Companies/dp/0230605303  

• TIL Peter Drucker coined the term “profit center” and wrote, years later, that he was ashamed of it.

• “Profit is the oxygen for the body but it’s not the point of life.” —Ron Baker on today’s show (possibly non-attributed)

• “Business must be run at a profit, else it will die. But when anyone tries to run a business solely for profit, then also the business must die, for it no longer has a reason for existence.” —Henry Ford

• “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” —Sam Walton

Segment three

• Ed mentioned the 7-s framework on the show today. Introduced by McKinsey in the 1970’s, here is some historical background on the model: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/enduring-ideas-the-7-s-framework 

• Stanley Marcus, the former president and chairman of the board of Neiman Marcus, famously said "Consumers are statistics. Customers are people,"

• Here’s a fun exercise: How much would you have to be paid to not be able to use your iPhone ever again? THINK about that. There’s is a flip answer (thank goodness!) but what is your real number?

• Robert Wood Johnson, former chairman of JNJ and a member of the Company’s founding family, crafted the JNJ Credo himself in 1943. More here and in the image (which is the credo carved in stone at the JNJ headquarters) https://www.jnj.com/our-credo 

Segment four

• Ron and Ed talked about the seven internal responsibilities outlined in “Business as a Calling: Work and the Examined Life” by Michael Novak https://www.amazon.com/Business-Calling-Work-Examined-Life/dp/0684827484 

• Also reference in segment four today, “Wealth’s Way — The Wisdom and Wonders of Shareholder Capitalism” which is episode 488 of The Soul of Enterprise https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/488 

• Ron and Ed mentioned their new venture today towards the end of the show. They are looking forward to working more closely with people who are interested. Learn more at https://thresholdnow.com/ and hop on the free membership level.

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #530: One Thing — March 2025

NEW SHOW FEATURE: We are now LIVE streaming our shows. Want to join us live? Just click this link at 3pm ET / 12pm PT.

Inspired by A. J. Jacobs when he appeared on Russ Robert's great podcast EconTalk, Ron and Ed have each been keeping a "One Thing" journal for the last few years. The idea is simple. You have a place where each day you capture, just one thing that inspired you. For us, it is often a quote, but it can just be an idea. In this episode, Ron and Ed once again share entries from their "One Thing" journals. It is a bit random, but contains nugget after nugget of curated wisdom for the reading and listening habits of the hosts.

SHOW NOTES

Segment one

• So what is a One Thing show? Ron and Ed both keep a journal. And they keep one thing, a quick note, in their journals. A few times a year, we do a show on our One Thing.

• From Jonah Goldberg: Many firms try to be a vet and a taxidermist so they can say, either way, you get your cat back.

• From Peter Savadnik: There is nothing more pathetic than an older person who cares about what a younger person thinks is cool.

• From Winston Churchill: Socialism is the gospel of envy

• From Anthony Davies, former TSOE guest: One obtains wealth in exchange for providing value to others. The correct phrase, 1% of the people own 40% of the wealth, reveals the fact that 40% of the value the 99% experience as joy is created through the efforts of 1% of the people

• Attributed to Lenin: There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen.

• From Elon Musk: The most common error of a smart engineer is to optimize a thing that should not exist

• From Charles Spurgeon: Wisdom is, I suppose, the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise, to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. 

• From Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Let the lie come into the world. Let it even triumph. But not through me.

• Also from Alexander Solzhenitsyn: To stand up for truth is nothing. For truth, you must sit in jail.

Segment two

• From Kevin Williamson: History doesn’t have sides but historians do.

• Ed introduced us to a new word today: meliorism — the belief that the world can be made better by human effort.

• From Russell Banks, author: Go, my book. And help destroy the world as it is.

• Author unknown: We have to get better at disagreeing with one another, rather than being forced to agree with one another.

• The Royal Society's motto, "Nullius in verba," translates to "Take nobody's word for it”

• From Eric Voegelin: Don’t immanentize the eschaton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton 

• Epictetus: He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at

• From Lewis Carroll: Do we decide questions at all? We deice the answer no doubt, but surely the questions decide us.

• The rhino principle: A rhino is single-minded. It perceives an object and changes with everything it’s got. When done, it instantly resumes browsing.

Segment three

• Probably from the KGB: Anybody can commit a murder but it takes an artist to stage a suicide.

• From Anton Chekhov: The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.

• From Leo Tolstoy: In our world everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.

• From Peter Block: The habits or protocols of convening are based on the foundational idea that questions bring us together and answers keep us apart.

• From Booker T. Washington: I have never had much patience with those always ready to explain why one cannot succeed. I have always had high regard for the man who could tell me how to succeed.

• From Golda Meir after October 7th: We can forgive them for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with them when they love their children more than they hate us.

• From Seymour Lipset: To know only one country is to know none.

• From E.O. Wilson and his thoughts on Communism — Four words: Great idea. Wrong species.

• From Karl Marx in 1847: Without slavery, you have no cotton. Without cotton, you have no modern industry. Cause slavery to disappear and you will have wiped America off the map of nations (to which Ron retorts: I wonder if Marx ever got tired of always being wrong?)

• From Rene Girard: In a world purged of sources of authority, there is still one way to achieve status. Concern for victims. Victimism uses the ideology of concern for victims to gain political or economic or spiritual power.

• From Stefan Kisielewski: The use of coercion comes from not believing the argument.

• From Jonah Goldberg: The narcissism of small differences is one of the great drivers of human conflict.

Segment four

• From EconTalk guest Adam Mastroianni: Science progresses on its strongest link not its weakest link. The weakest link is discarded or ignored. Dump peer review. It’s failed.

• From Stephen Kotkin on Russia/Ukraine and China/Taiwan: If they take it they can’t have it.

• From David Hawkins on his consolidation of company strategy: Increase sales, cut costs, and make the bastards work harder.

• From Thomas Sowell: Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.

• From Gordon McKenzie: It is not the business of authority figures to validate genius because genius threatens authority. The ghost of past successes outvote original thinking.

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #529: Entrepreneurial Nerdery - Second interview with Seth David

NEW SHOW FEATURE: We are now LIVE streaming our shows. Want to join us live? Just click this link at 3pm ET / 12pm PT.

In this episode of “The Soul of Enterprise,” hosts Ron and Ed engage in a compelling conversation with Seth David, the Chief Nerd and CEO of Nerd Enterprises, Inc. Seth is renowned for his ability to demystify complex financial concepts, making them accessible and actionable for businesses and accounting professionals alike. With a rich background that includes auditing and a passion for leveraging technology to enhance business efficiency, Seth shares his journey from traditional accounting roles to becoming a leading educator and consultant in the industry.

SHOW NOTES

Segment one

• If you know Seth David but don’t know this (and how could you not?), he’s kind of an animal lover. Here’s a great pic of him feeding his dogs.

• Seth David used to regularly discount his courses but he realized that he had “trained” his future customers to expect a discount. Now, the courses have a regular price but the promos are not nearly as common (unless it is related to his charitable causes). https://www.nerdenterprises.com/courses-and-trainings-catalog 

• What inspired Seth David to break out on his own and start a company? “I hated working for people.” 🤣 🤣

• When Seth says he “inspires and educates”, you need to read his backstory to REALLY understand where his coming from as a caring, kind human being. His background story is here: https://www.nerdenterprises.com/about-seth-david 

Segment two

• “AI firms will look from the outside like a unified intelligence that can instantly propagate ideas across the organization, preserving their full fidelity and context. Every bit of tacit knowledge from millions of copies gets perfectly preserved, shared, and given due consideration.” —Dwarkesh Patel https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/ai-firm 

• We asked Seth about AI today on the show and he made a great joke about Artificial General Intelligence. “And then we’ll have AGI which is not adjusted gross income.” —Seth David

• What is the best outcome for artificial intelligence? “My hope is that this doesn’t go in the direction of Skynet but rather in the direction of us being able to be more human again.” —Seth David

• Seth David’s thoughts on AI: “So the AI is going to be like an employee that I work with who does the does the research and makes the recommendations. And then either I have more questions about those recommendations or I take the recommendations and go run with them and implement.”

Segment three

• “The more high tech we get the more we are going to demand high touch.” —John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives https://www.amazon.com/Megatrends-Ten-Directions-Transforming-Lives/dp/0446356816 

• “With any disruptive technology, adoption is slow at first and then it just pops. Either you are forced to adopt or you are going to be forced out.” —Seth David on the topic of AI adoption in the accounting space

• “The only comparative advantage I have against AI is a soul. And I think we're gonna have to really lean into that a lot more.” —Ron Baker

• If you use ChatGPT with any regularity, give this prompt from Seth David a try: Analyze my communication patterns based on our conversations so far. Tell me what you observe about my thinking style, decision making approach, and potential blind spots. 

Segment four

• Seth David has a new obsession. It’s called Notion although many of you probably already know a bit about them. The founder of Notion describes his software as digital lego. More here: https://www.notion.com/ 

• A big THANK YOU to Seth David for joining us today. He’s a nerd and we love it! Check out more about Seth at this link https://www.nerdenterprises.com/ 

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits.