Episodes

130
Sept. 22, 2026

Can the Power Grid Handle the AI Boom? | Rob Gramlich

In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin speaks with Rob Gramlich, founder and president of Grid Strategies, about AI data centers, electricity demand, the electric grid, transmission bottlenecks, and why power may become one of the biggest constraints on AI growth. Vit and Rob discuss Grid Strategies’ forecast that U.S. power demand could grow by around 166 gigawatts by 2030, a scale Rob compares to about 15 New York Cities worth of power. They break down how the grid works across generation, high-voltage transmission, and local distribution, and why the U.S. effectively operates through three major grid systems: Eastern, Western, and Texas. The conversation explores why AI data center developers often want power faster than utilities can safely provide it, why transmission lines are difficult to build, and why transformers, turbines, breakers, copper, rare earth minerals, and other equipment have become scarce and expensive. Rob also explains why utilities…
129
Sept. 15, 2026

How AI Can Make Groups Smarter Than Any Expert | Louis Rosenberg

In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin speaks with Louis Rosenberg, CEO and Chief Scientist of Unanimous AI, about collective intelligence, swarm intelligence, AI-mediated group decision-making, and why AI’s best use may be connecting people rather than replacing them. Louis explains why polls, surveys, and votes can aggregate opinions but often fail to help a group deliberate, challenge assumptions, or discover the strongest answer. Vit and Louis discuss how nature solves group intelligence through fish schools, bird flocks, and bee swarms, and why humans are good at thoughtful small-group conversation but struggle when a conversation grows to hundreds or thousands of people. Louis explains how AI agents can observe many small conversations, carry insights between groups, and weave large networks of people into one real-time deliberation. The conversation explores evidence from IQ-test research, radiology diagnosis, forecasting, and problem-solving, inclu…
128
Sept. 8, 2026

How to Use AI Without Losing Your Ability to Think | Jolie Dobre

In this episode of the An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin speaks with Jolie Dobre, author of Sustaining Human Intelligence: Keeping People Smart, Connected and Innovative in an AI-Driven Workforce, about how AI can speed up work while quietly weakening the human skills organizations depend on. Jolie explains cognitive offloading, skill decay, and why generative AI differs from narrow tools like GPS and calculators: it can take over summarizing, reasoning, ideation, research, and judgment across many domains. Vit and Jolie discuss how individuals can tell whether AI helps them think more deeply or simply does the thinking for them. Jolie shares a practical delegation test: before handing work to AI, ask whether you understand the task, the problem behind it, the goal, and when you last did the work yourself. The conversation also explores why junior employees are especially vulnerable if AI automates away foundational tasks before they build pattern recognition and deliberat…
127
Aug. 25, 2026

What AI Won’t Tell You When It’s Wrong | Jonathan Schaeffer

In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin speaks with Jonathan Schaeffer, founder and CEO of Synsira and creator of Kind, about why today’s AI tools can be useful but still unsafe to trust blindly. Jonathan explains why large language models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude should not be treated as intelligent authorities, why the word “hallucination” makes fabricated answers sound too harmless, and why a polished AI response can still contain errors users may never catch. Jonathan shares how ChatGPT once generated a biography about him with dozens of mistakes, then appeared to improve later through what he calls band-aids rather than a deeper solution to the trust problem. He explains why training on broad internet data can produce strange or unsupported answers, and why curated datasets can reduce fabrications by grounding responses in information the user controls. The conversation also covers source citations, verification, and why trustworthy AI should b…
126
Aug. 18, 2026

The 250 Million Users Product Teams Ignore | Rebecca Rosenberg

In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin speaks with Rebecca Rosenberg, founder of ReBokeh, about why low-vision accessibility is not niche and what it teaches product teams about adoption and business value. Rebecca explains how her low vision from albinism led her to build a visual-first app that uses a smartphone camera, augmented reality, contrast, brightness, color filters, and AI descriptions to help people customize what they see in real time. Rebecca argues that products often fail because teams build for the wrong user, market to the wrong user, or skip early conversations that reveal what problem actually matters. Her work with ReBokeh shows why accessibility has to be designed around real users rather than assumptions. Low vision is not simply “less blind”; it is a distinct experience where people may still rely heavily on sight but need different tools than audio-only or screen-reader-first solutions. Vit and Rebecca discuss the overlooked size o…
125
Aug. 4, 2026

Why Most AI Projects Don’t Show ROI | Sid Bharath

In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin speaks with Sid Bharath, founder of Refound, about why many AI projects fail to produce measurable ROI and what companies should do before giving work to agents. Sid argues that the problem is often not the model alone, but the way companies approach automation: large AI makeovers, unclear outcomes, incomplete data, missing edge cases, and workflows that were never documented well enough to automate. Sid explains what becoming AI-native actually means in everyday business operations. It does not mean removing humans or handing every decision to AI. It means identifying the repetitive operational layer of work, giving agents enough context and access to execute defined tasks, and keeping people focused on judgment, strategy, creativity, relationships, and review. Vit and Sid discuss how this changes roles inside sales, operations, engineering, customer support, accounting, and startup teams. The conversation also cover…
124
July 28, 2026

The Real Product-Market Fit Problem Is Emotional | Ravi Sawhney

In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin speaks with Ravi Sawhney, founder and CEO of RKS Design and creator of the Psycho-Aesthetics methodology, about why products fail even when the technology works. Ravi explains that product adoption is not only about function, usability, or technical performance; it is also about trust, stigma, identity, emotional resonance, and how a product makes people feel about themselves. Ravi shares a powerful story from his work on the MiniMed diabetic infusion pump, a product that improved quality and length of life but struggled because people felt exposed by its medical appearance in public. That experience helped shape Ravi’s view that successful design must understand the person using the product, the social meaning of adoption, and the emotional signal a product sends. Vit and Ravi also discuss Psycho-Aesthetics, persona resonance, the Hero’s Journey, self-affirmation, and how teams can use deeper human insight to avoid b…
123
July 14, 2026

AI’s Biggest Bottleneck Isn’t GPUs — It’s Power | Sergii Gerasymovych

In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin speaks with Sergii Gerasymovych, founder, CEO, and an AI data center infrastructure operator at EZ Blockchain, about why the next major AI bottleneck may not be models or GPUs, but the physical infrastructure required to power them. Sergii explains how EZ Blockchain is pivoting from Bitcoin mining infrastructure into AI data centers, and why the same lessons from crypto mining now apply to the AI compute race: everyone wants hardware online quickly, but land, power, utilities, transformers, cooling, and construction move much slower than software. The conversation breaks down what an AI data center actually is, why power and land sit underneath the entire compute stack, and why chip supply may be easier to scale than electricity delivery. Sergii argues that companies can manufacture more GPUs, TPUs, and specialized chips, but they cannot print power, accelerate utility studies overnight, or build substations at startup s…
122
July 7, 2026

The Quantum Threat to Encryption Is Already Here | Dr. Shohini Ghose

In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin speaks with Dr. Shohini Ghose, quantum physicist, author, and professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, about what quantum computing actually is and why the most urgent risk may not wait for a perfect large-scale quantum computer. Shohini explains why quantum computing is not simply a faster version of today’s computers. It starts from qubits instead of classical bits, which means concepts like superposition, entanglement, and probability become part of the computing model itself. Vit and Shohini discuss why governments and companies are investing heavily in quantum technologies, why the science is solid but scalability is still difficult, and why most people probably will not own a personal quantum computer anytime soon. Instead, quantum access may look more like cloud infrastructure or specialized services used when a problem has a real computing, sensing, security, or communications bottleneck. They also explore whe…
121
June 30, 2026

The Space Economy Has a Labor Problem | Ethan Barajas

In this episode of An Hour of Innovation podcast, Vit Lyoshin speaks with Ethan Barajas, co-founder and CEO of Icarus Robotics, about why the space economy may be limited less by rockets and more by labor in orbit. Ethan explains why astronauts spend valuable time on cargo movement, maintenance, experiment setup, and routine station operations, and why that work becomes a major bottleneck as commercial space stations, orbital manufacturing, and future space infrastructure grow. Vit and Ethan discuss how Icarus Robotics is building robotic workers for space stations, how teleoperation can become the data layer for autonomy, and why AI robotics in microgravity is very different from robotics on Earth. They also explore what it takes to build a company for a market that is still forming, how founders validate demand before building, and why robot labor could help astronauts focus on science instead of housekeeping. The conversation covers space robotics, commercial space stations, …