Aug 2, 2021

Dr Florian Solzbacher is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Blackrock Neurotech which has the Utah Electrode Array, the only FDA-approved neural implantable device. Blackrock Neurotech recently closed a $10 million financing round, led by Christian Angermayer's re.Mind Capital with participation from Peter Thiel, German entrepreneur Tim Sievers, and Sorenson Impact's University Venture Fund II.

Top 3 Takeaways

• "In the end, you have to have the drive. It has to be a passion. And then you will find a way because very often in life, you will find that, just when you need it, all that you really need is one door opening at the right time”
• "The worst thing that can happen to this field is this sort of Hollywood-type hype and associated fear… 'people put chips into our brain and then they can read my thoughts”
• "You need to understand that you stand and fall with a team"

2:00 "You got a round of $10 million. So do you want to talk about this?"

10:45 "So are you saying then that they're not as interested in the prosthetic side of things but they really want to improve the bandwidth between consciousness and machines?"

16:00 "What do you plan to do with the money? Because $10 million is a lot of money, but at the same time, it's not a lot of money. That's like what you were saying, that's two studies, right?"

17:30 "I'm curious to hear your history of the company and how it's progressed over the last few decades."

25:30 "What advice do you have for listeners who want to do not only science, not only neuroscience, but engineering, science, business, and development?"

33:45 " Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention?"