Perpetual Motion® Podcast

Join Perkins Coie partners Michael Glenn and Colin Fowler for a forward-looking conversation with Genies CEO, Akash Nigam, on how avatars are reshaping digital identity, creativity, and community. From the company’s vision and platform to practical use cases, they explore the intersection of avatars and generative AI, what’s possible today, and where the technology is headed next.

Problems looking for solutions will always find them. In this special holiday episode, Michael and Colin discuss wacky patents. Timestamps:0:46 – Gravity Wheel Apparatus, Patent No. 3,625,0893:34 – Fresh-Air Breathing Device and Method, Patent No. 4,320,7566:31 – Aircraft Landing System, Patent No. 3,380,6909:37 – Device for Waking Persons from Sleep, Patent No. 256,26511:50 – Combination Toy Dog and Vacuum Cleaner, Patent No. 3,771,19213:42 – Internet Canine Communication Device and Method, Patent No. 9,723,81316:32 – Banana Protective Device, Patent No. 6,612,44018:59 – Walking Through Walls Training System, Patent Appl. No. 10,890,635

Michael Glenn and guest host, Bryce Freund, visit the 2025 Austin Tech Week. Listen as they meet and mingle with some of Austin’s startup entrepreneurs. Timestamps:01:51 - Orbit Fab (Daniel Faber, Founding CEO): Founded in 2018 to eliminate the single-use spacecraft paradigm with in-space refueling. 10:50 – DAYY Photonics (Paul Golata): Supports the technological needs of our customers by developing industry-leading light sources and custom photonic solutions. 16:33 – spogan.ai (Joonas Koivuniemi, Co-Founder & CEO): Turns complex data into clear, real-time guidance with voice and visuals. 22:56 – Well Water Finders (Andrew Vandekop): Helps decision makers in real estate, agriculture, county supply, and private land ownership determine not only where groundwater is located, but whether there is enough of it to meet their needs. 30:07 – Alt-Bionics (Jackson Heinz, Co-Founder and CTO): Striving to transform the fields of prosthetics and humanoid robotics with cutting-edge, yet affordable bionic hands.

Michael and Colin speak with the CTO of General Galactic, Luke Neise, about employing a water-based propulsion system in spacecraft to achieve high thrust for rapid maneuver and high efficiency for sustained operations in space.

Michael and Colin meet with Lt. Cmdr. Mitchell Kempisty to discuss astronautical engineering, the role of education in invention, and the challenges facing an entrepreneur while serving as a naval executive officer and commanding officer.

The Perpetual Motion podcast visits the 2025 Rice Business Plan Competition and talks with several of the 42 teams from around the world competing for more than $1.5 million in cash and prizes. Timestamps:2:02 - GreenLIB: One-step pre-treatment process that extracts and refines critical battery elements4:25 - Rora: Committed to bettering women’s health at every life stage by creating innovative products for menopause symptom management8:10 - Safe Marine Transfer: Focused on safe subsea chemical injection to economically extend deepwater subsea tiebacks13:01 - Xatoms: using AI and Quantum-Chemistry to discover new materials to clean polluted water16:57 - Pinwheel: Designed for kids and managed by parents, this cool looking, modern phone helps kids grow into independent adults who use technology well23:20 - Watermarked.ai: Disrupts AI model training with undetectable audio watermarks and detects AI-generated deepfakes25:46 - Mito Robotics: AI-powered robotic system designed to automate research-scale cell culture

In this episode, Michael and Colin talk to inventor and professor, John Hetling, about his ground-up process for teaching the next generation of inventors, as well as his novel approach to addressing health issues through scans of the eye.

For the 50th episode, Michael Glenn and Colin Fowler revisit a number of their past guests to check in with them and see how each of their endeavors have progressed in the intervening years.Timestamps:03:43 – Lisa Wallace from Episode 8: From Potato Farms to Server Farms11:57 – Bob Cousins from Episode 9: Meet the Inventor of the Year21:36 – Craig Grossman from Episode 19: Something Big About Something Small32:35 – Danny Hillis from Episode 3: Pursuit of Curiosity: Inside an Inventor’s Mind44:11 – Lisa Myers from Episode 43: A Mother of Invention53:25 – Eric Bartsch from Episode 32: Electric Aviation Takes Off1:06:48 – Monica Plath from Episode 16: Tech Takes Toddlers to Task1:19:53 – Dr. Stephen Thaler from Episode 1: Are All Inventors Humans?

Colin Fowler and guest host John Fuller visit TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Listen in as they meet and mingle with the foremost startup entrepreneurs.2:12 Metal Light – is a clean-tech startup that advances metal-air technology and develops clean and sustainable power generators.9:50 BANF – is a Korea-based company that uses sensors to collect data on tire pressure, temperature, tread wear, wheel alignment, and even lug nut stability.17:36 Rarefied – is developing a novel propulsion mechanism that allows lightweight platforms to fly in near-space (30 km-100 km altitudes) using only sunlight.28:10 Tensor Tech – specializes in guidance, navigation, and control for satellites. 36:55 Solideon – is a manufacturing entity capable of crafting any aerospace vehicle.47:23 Witching Hour – creates low-cost, rapid, and effective forest fire mitigation technology, with the mission of ending forest fires.53:34 - SkiiMoo Tech – is the first ultra-humanistic prosthetic penis that can go from flaccid to erect at the push of a button via a smartphone or smartwatch.01:00 Posha – is transforming how the world eats healthy by building cooking robots for the home.

In this episode, Michael Glenn and Colin Fowler speak with Maxime Lamothe-Brassard of LimaCharlie about cybersecurity as a buildable cloud service. Maxime discusses a thoughtful approach to product development that puts cloud service structure into context in terms of both market forces and the historical development of cybersecurity products.“But the fundamental truth behind it is, all of this is just stuff made up by humans to make a system work. And if you read about it and you go and you try to understand it, you can step through it and you can do it.” - Maxime Lamothe-Brassard, Founder & CEO of LimaCharlie

In this episode, Michael Glenn and Colin Fowler talk with Chris Needham and Frank Oudheusden, engineering consultants in the solar field, about issues faced in designing solar arrays and how radical changes in the market and technology lead to radical adaptations of the associated engineering.“My advice is to find a growth industry where you're not staring at a whole mass of experts that got in before you so that you're allowed to try the new things and to make the mistakes.” - Chris Needham, Manager, Azimuth Advisory Services, LLC