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The Future Of Brain-Computer Interfaces with Science's Max Hodak

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The Future Of Brain-Computer Interfaces with Science's Max Hodak

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Mar 09
Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

Mar 09
OverviewShownoteHighlightsTranscriptChaptersPins

Shownote

YC alum Max Hodak is the co-founder of Neuralink and founder of Science, a company building brain-computer interfaces that can restore sight.Science has developed a tiny retinal implant that stimulates cells in the eye to help blind patients see again. More than 40 patients have already received the treatment in clinical trials, including one who recently read a full novel for the first time in over a decade.In this episode of How to Build the Future, Max joined Garry to discuss how BCIs work, what it takes to engineer the brain, and why brain-computer interfaces may become one of the most important technologies of the next decade.

Highlights

In this episode, Max Hodak—co-founder of Neuralink and founder of Science—joins the conversation to explore how brain-computer interfaces are moving beyond theory into real-world clinical impact, particularly for people who have lost their sight.
09:49
Blind patients' brains generate hallucinations because they still 'want to see', even without optic nerve input.
14:47
Their clinical trial was the first to create form vision
19:42
Exciting bipolar cells with an image creates an image in the mind's eye
29:18
Biohybrid neural interfaces use engineered stem-cell-derived neurons seeded into implants to engraft onto the brain without wires or genetic modification of host tissue
49:32
The first people to live to a thousand may be alive now
52:04
BCIs will reframe the human condition by 2035

Chapters

How does a tiny retinal implant help blind patients see again—and what does the brain have to learn?
00:00
What’s next for vision restoration? From form perception to full-color, wide-field sight.
12:13
Why is stimulating the right retinal cells so hard—and what does that teach us about consciousness?
19:42
What are Science’s three breakthrough technologies—and how do they work together?
29:18
How did Max Hodak go from building labs remotely to co-founding Neuralink?
44:24
Why could 2035 be the year BCIs change what it means to be human?
52:04

Transcript

Max Hodak: I think it is very possible that the first people to live to 1,000 are alive right now. It still takes some suspension of disbelief. Because I think biotech has just been so incremental. One of the things that's so exciting about what's happenin...