From Village Tractors to Ocean Tech: Building the Planet's Nervous System

What happens when a Google X engineer who grew up driving tractors in a small village becomes obsessed with saving coral reefs? Meet Sergei Nozdrenkov, founder of Wildflow, who's building something that sounds like science fiction: a "nervous system for the planet."

Sergei's journey from reading Arthur C. Clarke's The Deep Range to diving in Iceland's tectonic plates to working with sharks in Mexico is wild enough. But his current mission? Creating AI that can process massive streams of ocean data—3D coral imagery, bioacoustic recordings, eDNA samples—and turn them into actionable conservation decisions in real-time.

We dive deep into how nature's own algorithms could revolutionize ecosystem management, why 84% of coral restoration projects are never monitored, and Sergei's audacious vision of modeling the entire biosphere. Plus: coral that eat fish, why wolves brought rivers back to Yellowstone, and his prediction for when we'll meaningfully communicate with whales.

If you've ever wondered how technology could actually save nature (instead of destroying it), this conversation will blow your mind.

Books Mentioned

• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
• The Deep Range by Arthur C. Clarke
• How to Speak Whale by Tom Mustill