Neura Pod (All Things Neuralink)
Sep 29, 2026 · 12 min · 8 segments
Brad Smith on X: https://x.com/ALScyborg Core Memory w/ Brad Smith: https://youtu.be/SqrANrm-QMY?si=4G62EuP2gOAXkYdP Neura Pod is a series covering topics related to Neuralink, Inc. Topics such as…
Ryan TanakaHost
In 2018, he hurt his shoulder in a dodgeball game with his church youth group, and instead of healing, the arm got weaker.
A neurologist tested the nerves and told him the muscles were not carrying electricity and that the likely cause was ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
He said he died three times in the ambulance, but because he and his wife Tiffany have three children, Lincoln, Edison, and Abigail, he fights to live.
Surgeons performed a tracheotomy, an opening in the windpipe for a ventilator, and the machine has breathed for him ever since.
For the next four years, his only way to talk was an Eye Gaze computer, a screen with a camera that tracks where the eyes are pointing so the user can select letters one at a time.
He can control the Eye Gaze better if he's in a place that doesn't have changes in lighting, and so we keep everything pretty dark.
So we close all the blinds in the windows.
I was stuck in a dark room.
A former Neuralink engineer named Bliss told him that about 90% of people diagnosed with ALS choose to die before they reach a tracheotomy.
ALS basically forces you to decide how to die.
I decided that I wanted to live to see my kids.
As long as I could define my quality of life.
ALS killed me in 2020.
Technology has kept me alive since then.
In 2018, he hurt his shoulder in a dodgeball game with his church youth group, and instead of healing, the arm got weaker.
A neurologist tested the nerves and told him the muscles were not carrying electricity and that the likely cause was ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
He said he died three times in the ambulance, but because he and his wife Tiffany have three children, Lincoln, Edison, and Abigail, he fights to live.
Surgeons performed a tracheotomy, an opening in the windpipe for a ventilator, and the machine has breathed for him ever since.
For the next four years, his only way to talk was an Eye Gaze computer, a screen with a camera that tracks where the eyes are pointing so the user can select letters one at a time.
He can control the Eye Gaze better if he's in a place that doesn't have changes in lighting, and so we keep everything pretty dark.
So we close all the blinds in the windows.
I was stuck in a dark room.
A former Neuralink engineer named Bliss told him that about 90% of people diagnosed with ALS choose to die before they reach a tracheotomy.
ALS basically forces you to decide how to die.
I decided that I wanted to live to see my kids.
As long as I could define my quality of life.
ALS killed me in 2020.
Technology has kept me alive since then.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
