#001 Stewardship Tech & Ocean Robotics w/ THE Ocean Cowboy. Will O'Brien. Ulysses.

#289 The Ocean Cowboy. Will O'Brien. Ulysses | Ocean Robotics & Stewardship TechWhy the future of marine conservation, national security, and global abundance relies on underwater robots and a true frontier spirit.Episode Overview71% of the planet is the ocean, yet it remains largely unexplored—the ultimate geopolitical and environmental frontier. To help us understand it, we sat down with the Ocean Cowboy, Will O’Brien.He and his crew are building Ulysses to tame the ocean frontier by building autonomous underwater robots to become stewards of the ocean at scale. Starting with restoring seagrass, they’ve expanded across environmental, commercial, and defense markets. Will embodies a strong focus on Stewardship Technology: tech serving humanity and stewarding scarce resources with technological progress, a frontier spirit, and projection of strength.Select Quotes:"It’s kind of clear that in the future, robots are gonna do all the important jobs... the ocean’s just getting more and more and more important. It’s gonna need robots, and they’re the ones that we build." – Will"Functionally, at the end of the day, you want to build a business that really fully realizes your vision... You want to move to a world of abundance, right? Let’s go forth and conquer it." – Will"I kind of draw the line between what I would call ‘stewardship technologies’ and climate tech... we need this pro-human framing." – Will📝 Timestamps:00:00 – Intro & The origin of Ulysses: Discovering the ocean as a massive business frontier.02:57 – Why underwater robotics? Solving the manual labor problem in seagrass restoration.05:20 – Moving to San Francisco: Why the Bay Area is still the undisputed king of HardTech.07:51 – The Strategic Ocean: Geopolitics, AI, deep-sea minerals, and subsea cables.10:23 – Pragmatic Business Models: Using defense and commercial revenue to fund nature restoration.13:17 – Grey Warfare & Illegal Fishing: The environmental destruction caused by foreign fleets.17:35 – The Case for U.S. Manufacturing: Supply chain security, geopolitics, and clean industrial standards.23:14 – Making Climate Bipartisan: Why focusing on abundance and energy resonates with the median American.35:44 – Hiring “Farmers” and Builders: Why hands-on projects beat fancy engineering degrees.42:13 – “Stewardship Tech” vs. “Clean Tech”: Rejecting scarcity for a pro-human, expansionist mindset.Sponsors:Lehmann’s Terms – Preparing founders and executives for high-stakes media and investor moments (ltmediatraining.com).Climate Finance Solutions (CFS) – Securing billions in grant funding for climate tech (ClimateFinanceSolutions.com).Roosevelt Talent – Headhunting, candidate screening, and hiring consulting for energy tech and frontier startups. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit climatecowboys.substack.com/subscribe