Middle Tech

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520

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Oct 2026

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About the show

A podcast network exploring startups, technology, and entrepreneurship in Kentucky and beyond.

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60 recent

October 12, 20261 hr 0 min

Mission Critical | Silicon Solar Is Hitting Its Limit. What Comes Next? | Blake Martin and Jack Manzella of Sofab Inks

Silicon solar is close to its efficiency limit, and the AI build-out needs more power than ever. Blake Martin (CEO) and Jack Manzella (COO) of Sofab Inks are working on what comes next: perovskite solar layered on top of silicon. The catch is lifespan. Perovskite already performs, but it hasn't proven it can last the 25 to 30 years lenders need to see to finance it. Sofab, which closed a $6M seed round this summer, makes tin-oxide inks that replace C60, an off-the-shelf layer that is one of the main reasons perovskite cells don't last yet. This week's episode comes from Mission Critical, our series on the industries American prosperity runs on. We recorded it in person at Sofab's lab in Louisville. Blake and Jack explain why perovskite stacks on silicon instead of replacing it, why lenders care more about lifespan than record efficiency, and the test result they were sure was an error. Peter Armstrong, their CTO, closes the episode with a tour of the lab. Get new episodes in your inbox: middletech.com/subscribe Mission Critical is hosted by Logan Jones and Alex Mercer. Mission Critical is proudly supported by: Valent → getvalent.com Abel Construction → abelconstruct.com

September 29, 202644 min

Mission Critical | More AI From the Data Centers We Already Have: Abhi Sastri, FLUIX AI

Everyone's waiting on new nuclear, new grid connections, even data centers in space to power AI. Abhi Sastri thinks some of the fastest capacity is already built: the roughly 5,000 data centers in North America, where every watt saved is a watt for compute. This week's episode is from Mission Critical, our series on the industries American prosperity runs on. We recorded this one a few hours down I-75, in Knoxville. Abhi, co-founder and CEO of Bay Area-based FLUIX AI, joins Logan on the floor of TenHats, a Knoxville data center where FLUIX's software predicts how AI workloads will heat the room and adjusts the cooling before it happens. In a deployment supported by TVA EnergyRight, it cut the energy spent on everything but the servers by about a quarter. We also get into cold calls on a lunch break, why cooling runs up to 40 minutes behind the workload, and the data center backlash. The episode closes in the control room with TenHats' Wade Orloski. Mission Critical is hosted by Logan Jones and Alex Mercer Mission Critical is proudly supported by: Valent → getvalent.com Abel Construction → abelconstruct.com

September 14, 202645 min

Mission Critical | How AI Actually Reaches the Factory Floor: Matt Klein of S&K Industrial on Why Factory Floors Still Run on Code You Can Debug

The automated steel line S&K Industrial built for one of its customers does work that used to take eight to ten operators. Now it takes one. But ask the man who builds these systems whether AI is transforming manufacturing, and you'll get a more grounded answer than the headlines suggest. This week's episode is from Mission Critical, our series on the industries American prosperity runs on: energy, manufacturing, defense and space. In this episode, Matt Klein joins Logan on the floor at S&K Industrial's headquarters in Winchester, Kentucky. Matt is COO of the 65-year-old systems integrator, which consolidated with Bluegrass Tool & Industrial in July 2025 to deliver turnkey automation — supply, engineering, fabrication, and controls — for manufacturers across the Midwest. The conversation is a map of where AI is (and isn't) in manufacturing today: why its capability isn't overhyped but its advancement on the floor is, the black box problem that makes AI nearly impossible to root-cause, and how technology actually reaches the factory floor: from hardware makers like Fanuc, through integrators, down to general industry. Reshoring runs through the integrators — the companies that turn components from all over the world into production lines that work. Mission Critical is hosted by Logan Jones and Alex Mercer Mission Critical is proudly supported by: Valent → getvalent.com Abel Construction → abelconstruct.com

September 8, 202659 min

Mission Critical | Inside the Louisville Machine Shop Rebuilding America's Defense Industrial Base: Patrick Malcor & Wesley Sparks of Ajax Defense

There are 40% fewer small businesses in America's defense industrial base than there were 20 years ago. The machining, welding, and fabrication that turn a program into an actual weapon happen three tiers down from the primes - and that's where the capital has stopped flowing. In Louisville, a veteran-owned holding company is buying those shops and keeping them. This week's episode is from Mission Critical, our series on the industries American prosperity runs on: energy, manufacturing, defense and space. In this episode, Patrick Malcor (Founder & CEO) and Wesley Sparks (Chief Strategy Officer) of Ajax Defense join Logan and Alex at Whelan Machine & Tool in Louisville - a shop that has machined parts for the Naval Strike Missile since the first prototypes in 2018 - to share how Ajax is buying and permanently holding the tier-2 and tier-3 manufacturers that build the defense industrial base from the bottom up. The conversation covers Patrick's thesis that defense has a capital problem rather than an innovation problem, why a trillion-dollar industry running on one-year continuing resolutions can't make long-term investments, and what happens when multi-year commitments reach the primes but never flow down to the subcontractor who owns the machines. They also get concrete about AI on the shop floor, where new tooling has taken CNC programming on a new part from six hours to thirty minutes, and about the retiring owner with no successor who can't simply shut the doors because he's a single source on a live program. Anduril and the neo-primes still need the 110-person welding shop that makes the part. Keeping that shop alive is its own kind of building. Hosted by Logan Jones and Alex Mercer Mission Critical is proudly supported by: Valent → getvalent.com

August 24, 202651 min

341 | Tensor Black: Dr. Douglas Flora on Building the GPS for AI in Oncology and AI's Impact on Healthcare

There are already 700 to 800 FDA-approved AI devices on the market, yet a busy oncologist still has nowhere trustworthy to learn which ones are worth their time. In this episode, Dr. Doug Flora joins us to share how he is closing that trust gap. He is the Executive Medical Director of Oncology at St. Elizabeth's Yung Family Cancer Center and co-founder of Tensor Black, a clinician-led education platform he calls "the GPS for oncology." We discussed the three layers of AI in cancer care, from ambient note-taking to the "co-pilot" that supports physicians, and why detection is moving upstream to the "pre-patient" stage. Dr. Flora unpacks St. Elizabeth's screening program, which has caught roughly 900 stage-one lung cancers across 65,000 patients screened, and why keeping physicians "at the wheel" matters. From a region often called the epicenter of cancer in America, this is a founder using better tools to fight a very local fight. Hosted by Logan Jones Middle Tech is proudly supported by: KY Innovation → kyinnovation.com Awesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

August 10, 202646 min

340 | Builder Backed: Paul Koop on Building the Carfax for Homes from Covington, KY

Your car has a dealership that knows every service it's ever had. Your house - usually the largest asset you'll ever own - has nothing. In this episode, Builder Backed co-founder and CEO Paul Koop joins us to share how his Covington, Kentucky startup is building what he calls the "Carfax for homes": a permanent, portable service record for a house, created from the day it's built. Paul traces the idea back to buying a home built in 1892, then moving four times in five years and losing access to his father-in-law, a lifetime tradesman and the only trusted resource he had. He explains why partnering with homebuilders - starting with Erlanger-based Fischer Homes - gave Builder Backed the clean data and the distribution that home-services aggregators spend fortunes chasing, how a provider-paid model keeps homeowners, trades, and builders aligned, and why the partnership turned out to drive Fischer's sales rather than just improve customer service. He also gets specific about where AI stops: nobody, yet, will let a bot walk them into a $40,000 decision about their house. It's a case study in what happens when a seed-stage founder finds one anchor partner in his own backyard, and a reminder that the Cincinnati region's deep bench of big-company talent is a real startup advantage. Hosted by Logan Jones Middle Tech is proudly supported by:KY Innovation → kyinnovation.comAwesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

July 27, 202649 min

339 | Fireroad Ventures: Tim Metzner on Why AI Makes Small Business the Biggest Opportunity in Tech

Small businesses represent nearly half of all American jobs and 45% of all technology spend, yet less than 5% of venture capital goes to building technology for them. In this episode, Tim Metzner joins us to share how Fireroad, his Cincinnati-based early-stage venture firm, is betting that AI is changing that math. A serial entrepreneur who co-founded Coterie Insurance ($70M+ raised) and Differential (the studio behind Cincinnati's first unicorn, Astronomer), Tim returns to the show four years after his Episode 190 appearance with an entirely new chapter. We dig into the "silver tsunami" of retiring business owners with no succession plan, why Fireroad targets AI-resistant categories where technology supercharges rather than replaces, the flywheel of having business owners as LPs who become his founders' first customers, and why Tim believes staying small as a fund is the alpha most VCs are missing. Hosted by Logan Jones Middle Tech is proudly supported by: KY Innovation → kyinnovation.com Awesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

July 13, 202634 min

338 | Toothsure: Why Hospitals Fail at Oral Care and the Hazard, KY Startup Fixing It

Hospital-acquired pneumonia is the number one hospital-acquired infection in the United States — and it often starts with something as simple as a missed tooth brushing. After 37 years of consultations in Eastern Kentucky ICUs and nursing homes, one dentist decided to fix it. In this episode, Dr. Greg Baker and Dr. Brandon Wilde of Toothsure join us to share how they're building OralVac and OralVac+ — preloaded, measured-dose oral care devices designed around two years of ICU nurse feedback — from their home base in Hazard, Kentucky. The conversation covers the personal moment behind the company (Greg's mother spending a week in the ICU with only a cup of water for oral care), navigating the FDA as a combination drug-device targeting Q4 2026 clearance, the funding journey from self-funded to Keyhorse Capital and a seven-figure state grant, and the $7.3M manufacturing facility bringing 60 jobs to Perry County. It's a story of Appalachian grit: a clinician-founder betting his legacy on the idea that Eastern Kentucky can build world-class medical devices. Hosted by Logan Jones Middle Tech is proudly supported by: KY Innovation → kyinnovation.com Awesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

May 4, 202638 min

337 | ChargeRight: How an Electrician Used AI to Stop Homeowners From Getting Ripped Off

A union electrician with zero coding experience built an AI tool that's stopping EV owners from getting upsold thousands of dollars in unnecessary panel upgrades - and then Mark Cuban reshared his post. In this episode, ChargeRight founder Jason Walls joins us to share how 15+ years pulling wire in Kentucky led him to build an app that puts the NEC code book directly in homeowners' hands for $12.99 - replacing $300 truck rolls and $3,000–$6,000 panel upgrade quotes. The conversation covers Jason's path from automating job site paperwork to building a full product with Claude, the moment a Mark Cuban reshare hit 800,000 views, and how he's expanding ChargeRight into a broader product suite called RightSuite (Inspect Right, Spa Right, and more). We also dig into the trades-vs-AI narrative, why Jason isn't trying to raise venture capital, and how he learned to code by mapping git and repos onto motor control circuits and smart switches. Jason's story is what AI-era entrepreneurship actually looks like outside Silicon Valley - domain expertise plus the right tools, built by a guy who's still going to work every morning. Hosted by Logan Jones Middle Tech is proudly supported by: KY Innovation → kyinnovation.com Awesome Inc → awesomeinc.org

April 21, 202639 min

336 | Sunflower Fuels: This startup's plan: grow a crop on old mines, sell horse bedding, then make jet fuel

Kentucky has millions of acres of underutilized land, a shifting energy economy, and a generation of farmers looking for what's next. Sunflower Fuels is trying to answer all three with a single crop. In this episode, Sunflower Fuels CEO Gabrielle Blocher joins us to share how the company is building a Kentucky-rooted biomass business around Miscanthus — a perennial, "fire and forget" crop that can yield for 30+ years, grow on reclaimed surface mine land, and feed multiple growing markets. We dig into the full stack of the business: the horse bedding product (Revive Animal Bedding) generating revenue today, the renewable food packaging market forming next, and the long-term vision — bioenergy with carbon capture (BECCS) and sustainable aviation fuel. Gabby explains why the real economics of BECCS live in the voluntary carbon credit market, why Sunflower Fuels pivoted in 2025, and what her Naval Academy and Marine Corps background taught her about building a real-world startup. Hosted by Logan Jones Middle Tech is proudly supported by: KY Innovation → kyinnovation.com Awesome Inc → awesomeinc.org