BSV Podcast 0088: Andrew Côté

Balerion Advisor Doug McAdams sits down with Andrew Côté, Founder of Hyperstition, to discuss fusion, biotech, and Deep Tech Week. Hyperstition is a media and community platform focused on accelerating deep tech development through events like Deep Tech Week. The conversation explores frontier engineering, energy systems, and emerging technology stacks shaping the future economy.Timestamped Overview00:00 – Introduction and overview of Andrew Côté’s background and work in deep tech 02:00 – Transition from liberal arts to engineering physics and entry into deep tech04:00 – Early career exposure to accelerator physics and emergence of fusion industry05:00 – Work in stellarator fusion and role as a design engineer08:00 – Why fusion represents a “canonical mega-project” in engineering12:00 – Physics intuition as a filter for evaluating deep tech viability13:30 – State of fusion: from science experiment to engineering challenge16:00 – Fusion vs fission vs solar: economics, scalability, and energy return18:00 – Fusion fuel types: deuterium, tritium, helium-3, and tradeoffs25:00 – Engineering constraints: neutron flux, shielding, and reactor design challenges29:00 – Aneutronic fusion and proton-boron as long-term ideal33:00 – Comparison of fusion company approaches and design diversity35:00 – Biotech as programmable nanotechnology and underappreciated frontier38:00 – AI as the key unlock for synthetic biology and molecular engineering41:00 – Space manufacturing roadmap and economic “ladder” in orbit42:30 – Fusion propulsion and implications for interplanetary travel47:00 – Challenges of space-based megastructure engineering and deployment48:30 – Transition to space economy as infrastructure with internal demand loops51:00 – Asteroid mining and early-stage space industrialization52:00 – Hyperstition and Deep Tech Week: vision, scale, and expansion55:00 – Building a global deep tech community and “science fiction as a service”57:00 – Closing thoughts: technological uncertainty and importance of physics literacy This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balerionspace.substack.com