OVNIs Ep. #108 - Andrew Côté - From Particle Accelerators to Viral Threads: The Making of a Deep Tech Founder

In this episode of the OVNIs Podcast, Augustin Sayer sits down with Andrew Côté - engineering physicist, deep tech thinker, and founder of Hyperstition - for a wide-ranging conversation at the frontier of science and entrepreneurship. From his unconventional path from anthropology to engineering physics, Andrew retraces his journey through particle accelerators, nuclear fusion startups, infectious disease research during COVID, and early experiments with large language models - long before ChatGPT became mainstream.

The discussion dives deep into energy abundance, nuclear power, superconductors, venture capital, and the cultural rise of deep tech in the U.S. Andrew shares his philosophy on building technology that meaningfully advances civilization - arguing that energy, physics, and fundamental engineering breakthroughs form the true foundation of economic prosperity. A bold and intellectually electric episode about ambition, failure, resilience, and the pursuit of technologies indistinguishable from magic.

[00:00:00] Introduction — Who is Andrew Côté?

[00:00:22] From Anthropology to Engineering Physics

[00:01:54] Falling in Love with Cosmology & Particle Physics

[00:02:15] Choosing Engineering Physics Over the Safe Path

[00:03:05] Deep Tech Before It Was Trendy (2014 Context)

[00:04:28] Turning Down Academia to Start a Company

[00:05:33] First Startup Attempt — Computational Imaging & Light Field Displays

[00:07:26] Tech Risk & Hardware Fundraising Challenges

[00:08:44] Pivoting & Early Entrepreneurial Experiments

[00:09:31] The Move to San Francisco

[00:09:50] Chan Zuckerberg Biohub & Bioengineering During COVID

[00:11:04] Spinning Out an Early LLM Startup (Pre-ChatGPT)

[00:12:23] Philosophy: Doing What Only You Can Do

[00:15:00] Intrapreneurship Inside a Nonprofit

[00:17:07] LLMs for Drug Discovery — Too Early?

[00:18:50] Startup Failure & Moving Back to Canada

[00:19:36] Returning to Fusion Engineering

[00:20:19] Fusion vs Quantum Computing — What Matters Most?

[00:21:26] Why Energy Abundance Changes Civilization

[00:22:45] Nuclear Energy, France vs Germany

[00:25:15] Energy Policy & Industrial Competitiveness

[00:26:26] Back to Fusion — The Dream Job at Princeton

[00:27:33] Writing Online & Building a Deep Tech Audience

[00:27:51] The LK99 Superconductor Saga

[00:28:32] Going Viral on Tech Twitter

[00:29:04] Venture Capital Interest & New Opportunities

[00:32:43] What Is Deep Tech Really?

[00:33:05] Underwriting Technical Risk

[00:34:00] Founders vs Investors in Deep Tech

[00:36:30] The Origin of Deep Tech Week

[00:39:00] Building a Cultural Movement Around Engineering

[00:42:30] Hyperstition — Technology Indistinguishable from Magic

[00:45:00] Are We Entering a U.S. Deep Tech Renaissance?

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