20. We Were Promised Flying Cars

Or "Why You’ve Probably Never Heard of Waldo Waterman..."

🛸  //  

We were promised flying cars. We were told that by the year 2000, cities would float in the clouds, robots would cut our hair, and there’d be a computer in everyone’s pocket. Well, one out of three ain’t bad. 

The question is, why? Why did we think the future would bring interstate moving sidewalks, but we ended up with the internet instead? In this episode of Traceroute, we take an in-depth look at why we get the technology we get…and our trail leads to three distinct factors. Helping us unravel the reason behind these factors is Mike Winterfield, Founder of Active Impact Investments, a VC firm that specializes in Green Tech. We also talk with Oliver Walker-Jones of Joby Aviation, one of several companies that are finally making flying cars, who shares his insight as to why it took almost a hundred years to get from the idea of the flying car to the reality of one. 

Additional Resources

Episode transcript 

Connect with Grace Ewura-Esi

Connect with Amy Tobey

Connect with John Taylor

Connect with Mike Winterfield

Connect With Oliver Walker-Jones

Credits

Traceroute is a podcast from Equinix and Stories Bureau. This episode was hosted by Amy Tobey and Grace Ewura-Esi, and was produced by John Taylor with help from Sadie Scott. It was edited by Joshua Ramsey, with mixing sound design by Brett Vanderlaan, and additional mixing by Jeremy Tuttle. Our fact-checker is Ena Alvarado. Our staff includes Tim Balint, Mathr de Leon, Suzie Falk, Lisa Harris, Alisa Manjarrez, Stephen Staver, Lixandra Urresta, and Rebecca Woodward. Our theme song was composed by Ty Gibbons.

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