Episode #91: Blue Flame Thinkers: Ernest Scheyder
Tech Optimist Podcast — Tech, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation
In this Blue Flame Thinkers episode of the Alumni Ventures Tech Optimist Podcast, Drew Wandzilak sits down with award-winning journalist and author Ernest Scheyder to explore the high-stakes global battle for critical minerals. Scheyder shares insights from his book, The War Below, tackling supply chains, resource extraction, and energy security.
Episode #91 – Blue Flame Thinkers: Ernest Scheyder
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This week on the Tech Optimist podcast, join Alumni Ventures’ Drew Wandzilak and author Ernest Scheyder as they discuss his book, The War Below. They will dive into the tough questions around supply chains, resource extraction, and the trade-offs we must navigate in the push for energy security.
- Global Mineral Battle – Drew Wandzilak and journalist Ernest Scheyder discuss the race to secure critical minerals like lithium and copper for the clean energy transition.
- Challenges & Trade-Offs – They explore the geopolitical, environmental, and economic complexities of resource extraction and supply chains.
- Insights from The War Below – Scheyder shares key takeaways from his book, examining the tough questions around energy security and innovation.
This episode offers an inspiring look at how these innovations are shaping the future of science, technology, and human collaboration.
Watch Time ~35 minutes
The show is produced by Alumni Ventures, which has been recognized as a “Top 20 Venture Firm” by CB Insights (’24) and as the “#1 Most Active Venture Firm in the US” by Pitchbook (’22 & ’23).
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Creators and Guests
Drew Wandzilak
Principal, U.S. Strategic Tech FundDrew Wandzilak invests in breakthrough technologies that matter to the real world—systems that generate power, move hardware, secure nations, or decode biology. He focuses on companies operating in high-heat, high-speed, high-stakes environments where technical performance is existential and strategic value is measured in megawatts, meters per second, or mission success. Across aerospace, energy, and defense, Drew backs founders who don’t just pitch vision—they bend atoms, trajectories, and supply chains to make it real. Funds actively worked on: Yard Ventures Green D Ventures U.S. Strategic Tech Fund Investment Areas of Focus: His investment lens prioritizes platforms over point solutions, scale advantages rooted in physics or manufacturing, and mission alignment with long-term public interest. That includes nuclear reactors that deploy like data centers, orbital vehicles that reshape access to space, hypersonic systems built for rapid iteration, and genetic tools that bring diagnostics to the edge. These aren’t just technical moonshots—they’re foundational bets on how the next century will be powered, protected, and personalized. Drew led Alumni Ventures’ investment in Impulse Space, which is building the in-space logistics layer for a high-frequency orbital economy. He backed Aalo Atomics, a small modular reactor company designing standardized, factory-built nuclear power for grid-scale deployment. He also invested in Astro Mechanica, which is reinventing hypersonic aerospace testing for the modern battlefield, and Acorn Genetics, which is miniaturizing genomics to enable low-cost, distributed DNA testing anywhere. These companies reflect Drew’s broader strategy: to invest in enduring platforms that serve strategic industries and unlock decades of downstream innovation. He believes the next great venture outcomes will come not just from apps or algorithms, but from reengineering the physical world—and the infrastructure that underpins it.
Ernest Scheyder
Journalist and AuthorErnest Scheyder is a journalist for Reuters and author whose work chronicles the people and places at the center of our global energy transitions. His book, "The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives" (One Signal/Simon & Schuster, 2024), was longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and the Financial Times/Schroders Business Book of the Year. It was also named the American Energy Society’s Energy Book of the Year. Scheyder’s work has also been featured in NPR, TIME, Fast Company, Marketplace, On Point, Barron’s, ABC News Live and other outlets. He is a frequent moderator and panelist at a range of conferences.
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