Nobel Prize Winner Nobody Sees Whats Coming After Ai

TITLE: Nobel Prize Winner: Nobody Sees What’s Coming After AI CHANNEL: Silicon Valley Girl DATE: 2026-04-08 ---TRANSCRIPT--- The skills you’re building right now are for the AI era, but they have an expiration date. Every few years, something comes along that changes what’s actually possible. The internet didn’t make libraries faster, it made them irrelevant. AI didn’t make search engines better. It made a completely different way of finding answers. And now we have something that’s coming that most people haven’t even heard of yet. And it does the same thing to computing itself. In December 2024, Google unveiled a quantum processor that completed a calculation in minutes. That exact calculation that would take today’s supercomputers longer than the age of the universe. And that is a different category of a machine. And here’s where it gets a little scary. A few days ago, Google published another paper. They say quantum computers could crack Bitcoin encryption in 9 minutes using 20 times fewer resources than anyone thought. As someone who holds crypto and is curious about implications of quantum on my day-to-day life, I wanted to ask questions. So, I was in Davos this January and I met the man whose 1985 discovery made all of this possible. He just won the Nobel Prize for it and President Donald Trump just put him on his science advisory council alongside with Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and Jensen Huan. He’s the only scientist in that room and he gave me a timeline 5 to 10 years. And to understand why this matters for your career, you need to understand what he actually discovered. Let’s talk to John Martinez. I wanted to talk to you about something that you discovered. So I don’t have any experience in quantum physics, but the way I understood it, if you throw a ball against the wall, it bumps, right? But you discovered that an electron

can pass the wall without passing it and be on both sides. Yeah. So, it’s possible that the the ball, you know, the wall can tunnel through the wall uh and and not just bounce off, but every once in a while actually tunnel through it. And the way I like to say it is that, you know, people are accustomed at quantum mechanics is the physics of atoms and molecules and microscopic particles. In here, we made electrical circuit about that big. And the currents and voltages in that big macroscopic electrical circuit is actually u obeying quantum mechanics and showing this tunneling phenomenon. That’s the moment quantum stopped being just theory. He proved it works in machines and that’s what started everything. So before this discovery, scientists thought quantum mechanics only lived inside atoms. He proved it works in machines. So what does that unlock? What really happened uh with with this idea and frankly it’s the reason for the Nobel Prize is that we took this discovery and then people built on it built on it and then the idea of build quits and building a quantum computer came along which natural our this physics naturally fit into this. So uh it’s really kind of the the creation of a field of discovery and innovation and technology that these experiments got developed into and why it’s important today. Yeah. When you when you say quantum computer, a lot of people think science fiction. For people who don’t know how it affects their daily lives or might affect their daily lives, can you give two or three examples where quantum computers really make a difference? Um the the idea I like to talk about is um for uh doing design of materials or molecules or chemistry. And uh people are are very familiar right now how you use computers to design your kitchen, make a mechanical part, design electronic circuit, uh you know other things. So you can build it virtually. Yeah. And then when you go and you build it in the real world, building it virtually in the digital is a lot cheaper and better and you can think about the tradeoffs. Well, a quantum computer would enable you to do that with molecules and you know certain atomic molecules moving part. What about drug discovery? I feel like if we’re Yes. And the same kind of thing uh with drug discovery. So if you can simulate molecules really well then uh you can maybe even just gain some insight. I mean what I’ve been told is that for example the drug discovery it’s very expensive to do this and if you can improve let’s just say your insight on how the drug works by 1% or few percent that’s really valuable and could be worth a lot of money. Yeah. So, so it’s not like we have to totally change things, but uh um I I think just improvements and better insights can be quite valuable for companies. But if we go 10 years forward, what do you think our life is going to look like if quantum computing is everywhere and accessible to everyone? How’s it going to change? So, um there’s kind of two things involved in this. First of all, we have to build better hardware. And then we have to be, you know, think about algorithms, be smarter with the algorithms and the like. And there’s just kind of a gap now. And maybe some people think there’s not much of a gap and other people think there’s a big gap, but we need to close the gap. And that’s building better hardware, which is what I’m doing in my company. We’re trying to do that, as well as many other people. And then people have to be more clever. And what’s interesting is you build better hardware, you can test out the algorithms better and then you can maybe discover exactly what’s, you know, what you need to get it to work right. So it’s a very interesting time where, you know, we’re everyone’s really trying to to push these things together and get it to work properly. Yeah, it feels like it’s a really fast growing market. According to Quantum Insider report, it’s going to generate $1 trillion in economic value in the next 10 years. uh with that’s a optimistic scenario that we find useful things to do. It’s quite possible that will happen and certainly I like those kind of forecasts because when we try to company Yeah. But our idea is that what we’re really trying to do in our company is make a general purpose error corrected quantum computer and not at hundreds of cub physical cubits what are people now but you may need a million physical cubits operating in the way with the errors go down and and and it works properly where I think the real value will be unlocked and you know the long-term value certainly there you know if people do this in the next few years, you’ll get you’ll get good value. But the those kind of numbers you’re talking about, you know, our thesis is you’re want to build this big computer and make it very well. As you might have realized, I had this conversation with John at Davos. And honestly, every conversation during World Economic Forum was with someone like John, a Nobel Prize winner, a professor, a founder of an AI company. And then you walk out knowing something important was said, but by the time you sit down to act on it, you’ve lost the nuance, the exact words, what was the tool that he mentioned, what was the hack that was going to work for my case. And that’s the problem this device solves. It’s called plot. Guest calls, partner calls, internal team syncs, the conversations that actually move things forward. This little device records and analyzes everything. It’s a small wearable, one press to record. No phone on the table between you and the person you’re talking to. You stay fully present in the conversation and afterwards you get a structured summary, decisions, next steps, key insights, 10,000 plus templates by conversation type, industry, and language. So what you get back actually reflects what the meeting was. This is our conversation with John. Here’s the transcript. Every speaker labeled and here’s the summary. Key insights, action items pulled automatically. 1.5 million people use it. 98 transcription accuracy works in person on Zoom over the phone and it fits in my phone’s case. Find the link in the description. If you’re having conversations that matter, and clearly you are cuz you’re here, this device is worth checking out. And of course, you always disclose when you record conversations. That’s natural. So, he’s betting on hardware the way Jensen Huang bet on GPUs before anyone knew what they were for. Now that’s the question that has been on my mind since I heard about quantum computing. Yeah. What what do you think for all the entrepreneurs who are watching who want to start building something in this field? What are the most uh exciting markets when it comes to quantum computing? Is it building hardware or is it like applying the algorithms? Well, there’s a lot of effort into algorithms because building software and algorithms is a relatively low cost. You don’t have to buy those. So our company is doing the exact wrong thing which is investing in building hardware really well. Now the nice thing is is that once you do that you can be and you’re successful you can be extremely successful company. And I I uh I like to think about Nvidia although they’re partnering with TSMC but their knowledge of designing the computers and putting together the systems have made them extremely uh valuable company and and our view on hardware is that um you know it’s possible for us to do that uh through that too. So we’re taking the hard approach uh and and focusing on the hardware. And then our particular thesis is that if you look at superconducting cubits right now and where they are, I mean I helped invent all the things to get there. Um and uh I think it’s great and but it’s still kind of um uh little bit I say academic or maybe even artisal uh fabrication and that we’re trying to use much more established semiconductor uh tools and fabrication process and the like in order to scale up and make the cubits better. Yeah. And when it comes to markets, what do you think are the markets that are going to be transformed the most? We talked about healthcare, finance, any other way. It’s all all of the above and and you hear people working working on that. But I like that we have very definite um ideas on how to build it. So let me I can explain this for maybe some of the Silicon Valley types. I really love Peter Thiel’s book 0ero to one. Okay. And that kind of in some sense explained my uh my career. So I am very much a definite optimist. I want to know what to build. I want to know what to build to make it useful. And that’s what that paper was all about. Now there’s a lot of people in this field who are indefinite optimists. In fact, most people in the United States are and they they have all the ideas like you’re talking about. And I think that’s great. I’m glad people are pushing that. my particular uh way my mind works and what’s always been successful is to really focus in on something definite you have to do. However, I’m very well aware you’re in a startup company, you’ll probably have to pivot. Yeah. And think about different things and we’d be happy to do that once those ideas come to. But the one thing I know for sure is we have to make better cubits and we have to make it scale. We need the hardware. We need the hardware and Okay. So that’s what we’re doing no matter what happens. Yeah. Uh I think so this question has been bothering me for a while. I think you’re the right person to ask. Is quantum computing going to break cryptocurrencies? Um so um my uh the CEO of my company is an expert here and I’m going to hopefully uh re re represent it well enough. M um my understanding is if you have some of the older crypto currency that was encoded in a way that could be broken but um some of the it’s the newer versions it’s um it’s a little bit stiffer encryption. Is that Bitcoin the oldest? I I think this is Bitcoin as I recall. So that one’s and then you can take your old Bitcoin and um you know pull it out and then reenrypt it to make it make it better. Okay. So you can make it safe. Okay. But there’s a lot of Bitcoin that’s kind of unclaimed that’s old and it’s a lot of money. Oh, interesting. So quantum computer computing breaks into that. So that is a market for a quantum computer business idea. Well, so we’re aware of that. Okay. And that’s fine. Now what my CEO is doing, which I think is very responsible, is talking to the US Treasury about this. Mhm. Because the US Treasury is going to be concerned that if other companies or uh you know criminal organizations get get a hold of that money, it’s a lot of money. Yeah, it is that um you know that’s a real issue and you probably want to set up laws and some system in order to uh you know do that. Yeah. Because it’s still very unregulated. There’s so much crypto ledgers or Yeah. And and that’s the problem is you have something very unregulated which people really like but in some sense that’s the Achilles Hill. Yeah. That because it’s unregulated if some technology can overcome it. And so you may you know there may need to be some plot on how to how to now I’m not an expert here but no I think I’m getting this kind of directionally correct. I talk to the people building what’s next before it makes headlines. If that’s useful to you, do not forget to subscribe to this channel. What is the timeline that you think? So, what I like to say is um u it’s possible in 5 to 10 years to build this a big enough quantum computer to do that. Mhm. Uh and uh partly I just say that that’s kind of an optimistic scenario and part I partly I say that is to warn people that you know this may be coming and you want to protect you know every not just bitcoin but you know the whole internet needs to switch over uh in this kind of time period. Yeah. Now what’s interesting and and just I was at a at a a meeting where the IBM kind of quoted similar numbers. This is all very reasonable. It’s funny that at Google the CEO is is saying three to five years. H to try and push things. Well, I think he’s pushing because if you’re a CEO and you’re making a prediction, you want to you want to have a lower number because you don’t want to be caught, you know, without that. But for example, Google already has quantum resistant protocols on at least some of their their traffic. I don’t know the details, but you know, these big companies already know about it and are protecting protecting their data or will be protecting their data. Yeah. But but there’s things like crypto that you know that’s beyond beyond that and other kind of uh private systems that you might have to worry about. That was very interesting. So basically we’re working on quantum computing but then we also need to work on the algorithms that protect existing systems. Yeah. And what happened is actually the idea that you can break it break it with this uh it was invented in the 1990s people understood that well Peter Shore and then you know in the early early 1990s and then um uh the government you know really has understood this for a long time and I’m going to say about 10 maybe 12 years ago uh the government got very serious about this and they saw that yeah okay the technology maybe you know could make this happen and for example at NIST they have a big program that they’re looking at what they called quantum safe cryptography other ways to encode it and that’s that’s been 10 years they have a nice algorithms uh people you know you can download essentially the algorithm and code and people are are building systems to do this so um people have been responding to this. Well, you can buy solutions here. Uh and uh you know, so I think we’re in in in pretty good shape. I think people are still, you know, investigate. You know, part of the thing about the crypto security is people have to try to break it for a long time to make sure that it’s really safe. I mean, people don’t know that RSA is unbreakable. RSA for sure but they know from practice that you know uh and the way that the everything’s operating that they don’t think anyone’s has broken it. Yeah. So so it needs time to do this. You know you you’re observing extremely rare uh extreme extremely rare events and you’re building something that is completely new. Has that changed how you think about luck black swan moments because you’re observing them basically in your work. Um what’s kind of uh strange in my career is um I’ve been developing a series of experiments uh and um uh how I’ve gone from you know one project to the other and what’s kind of funny in my career is I do a project and then somehow it doesn’t work out in some way and then I’m you stuck wondering, well, I have to do something else and um and then I figure out what else to do that’s really interesting. So, changing all the the different topics and projects is has always come through some strange event, often kind of a negative event. And just to give you an example, I was I went to Google, they paid me well, we did this quantum supremacy experiment and uh but then at some point after the quantum supremacy, they wanted to change the way they managed the group and essentially I was not googly enough to stay at Google and I had to leave which was u you know kind of difficult to to essentially leave a project you started way back in graduate school. However, by leaving Google, I was then free to think very creatively and free to think, well, we’re building in a certain way and how do I really want to build this to make it scalable and better and whatever. And by starting my own company and through think thinking freely and you know starting it with the co-founders we were able to come with with a bunch of ideas how to make it better. Yeah. And it could be that although that was a very let’s say traumatic uh thing I’m sure other people have gone through this that may be the best thing for me and the field that I was able to do something something new out of it. Absolutely. And so you know that’s one thing and and this has happened to me over and over again and you I kind of have to accept that you know that’s you sometimes these setbacks in life are actually very good for you. So the good thing is this year I just kind of I knew it was coming up but I totally forgot about it. So when the phone call came it was a complet middle of the night. Well, and it was my wife was awake and she saw she heard the phone phone ringing, but she thought she’d catch it in the morning and then she was just going to sleep and she looked at her email and there was all these congratulations, but that was like, you know, 2:30 in the morning. Yeah. And she knows I need my sleep. So, um, she didn’t tell me uh until about 6:00. dad, you know, because I needed my sleep. And also, there were reporters who were coming to that house and they wanted to wake me up in bed and she she pushed them away like, “Let him get his no way we going to do that.” Wow. But, um, I do remember her like, you know, sitting in the bed and, you know, waking me up gently and saying, “Hey, there’s some reporters.” And and, you know, I kind of I do. It’s October. So I I just opened my computer and I saw, you know, my picture there with the with John and Michelle. So that was a very like it’s just you can’t believe that it it’s happening. Sounds like a fairy tale. It’s a fairy tale. And what I would say is I think the most interesting part is you get to go to things like this uh and and see have these very amazing experiences. Here’s what I actually walked away with. JP Morgan and Google aren’t waiting for quantum to be ready. They are already deploying it. The race is happening whether your industry knows it or not. The encryption protecting everything you do online, your bank, your company data, your messages was built before quantum computers existed. John’s timeline 5 to 10 years. So that’s not a distant problem. If you work in tech, finance or cyber security, this is the conversation I think we should be having right now. In my newsletter this week, I mapped out which industries are most exposed right now and what people in those fields are actually doing about it and how can you start adjusting your career for what’s to come. My newsletter is called Future Proof. The link is in the description. Quantum is 5 to 10 years out. AI is right now. I talked to a Stanford professor about exactly what to do in the next 30 days. That video is right here on the screen. It is very practical. It’s going to make you excited about AI and excited about introducing it into your workflows. See you in that episode and thank you for watching this up to the very end.