With a CV that reads like an engineering honour roll, Martin Kubie is a proud Scot with an effervescent and uniquely West Coast US take on both ambition and the optimism it requires.
He’s a co-founder of one of the world’s best funded nuclear fusion companies, Proxima Fusion, where he’s building on a decade of engineering best practice learned across Cambridge University, McLaren F1, Google X and Wing to develop a totally new stellarator reactor design - arguably one of the most complex engineering challenges currently facing mankind.
He’s a lover of life, systems thinker, cycling nut, philosopher engineer, deeply passionate European, and revered leader.
Having watched his incredible trajectory over the last few years, and been consistently fascinated by every conversation I’ve had with him - it was a no brainer to get him on the podcast.
Over a few beers in London this August, we dug into:
What the hell nuclear fusion is, and why Proxima is betting on the twisted pretzel stellarator approach
How AI has supercharged the development of engineering projects
Why engineering is actually all about communication
His backstory - from Edinburgh, to London, to San Francisco, and back again
How engineering and beauty interact with one another
How to build (and hire for) a high performing, fast iterating culture
Where Europe can be competitive in the hard tech & energy supremacy races
The sheer, unbridled joy of working on problems you care about with people you love
Facing fears and diving off bridges
Timestamps:
00:00 — Who is Martin Kubie?
01:06 — A €411M funding round: what Proxima actually does
01:56 — Stellarator vs tokamak: fusion’s religious war
04:40 — W7X: the €2bn machine that changed the game
07:04 — Alpha and the road to net energy gain
07:55 — How do you iterate on a machine you only build once?
13:40 — The best AI-utilising hardware company in the world
16:50 — Edinburgh, Renishaw, and the leap into engineering
19:50 — Mrs Brown, Cambridge, and failing mocks
21:15 — McLaren: the dream job
22:30 — California, Google X, and betting on a junior Brit
24:50 — The linear path ends: saying no to NVIDIA
28:10 — The wedding: two days in the corner with a friend
30:20 — The hot air balloon: engineering and beauty
31:58 — Dyson hand dryers and why version one is always wrong
34:30 — Make the car go faster: lessons from F1
35:55 — The talking monkey: focus on the hard bit
37:30 — “If it’s not used, it’s worthless”
38:22 — Engineering is a communication problem
39:24 — Bricks and skyscrapers
41:06 — Blunt but safe: from confrontation to curiosity
43:04 — Telling good from great: how Proxima hires
47:02 — Culture, blameless reviews, and leading from the front
50:12 — The European flag: why he came home
52:20 — Competing with Boston and Shenzhen on European terms
55:21 — What actually scares him
56:45 — The bridge in Zurich
58:30 — Quick-fire: cheese, McLaren, Lego, and what comes after fusion
