One Atom at a Time

What this episode covers

A $1 patent. A $1.6 billion company. That gap is what happens when a brilliant team takes an overlooked technology and figures out how to run it at industrial scale. Paul Lichty, CEO of Forge Nano, joined me to explain how his company deposits a single atom of coating on a surface – and why that one atom matters enormously to battery manufacturers and AI chip makers. I tried. I really tried to understand the science. Paul was generous in walking me through it, and I nodded a lot. What I walked away knowing is this: the applications are enormous, the momentum is real, and the story of a $1 patent becoming the foundation of a unicorn company is one of the best I’ve heard. You’ll finish this episode smarter than I am about atomic layer deposition – which isn’t hard – and genuinely impressed by what’s being built right here in Colorado.

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