The Earth and Engineering

✍️ Show Notes

Dan Casciato and his team at Lightbrite are building mostly in stealth, but Dan has some strong perspectives on the interplay between engineering and the Earth - our environment, our home, and our place in it. This is a thought-provoking episode about sustainable product development.

🔗 Check out lightbrite.net

🔑 Bytes:

• There's no work life and personal life. There is only one life.
• Make sure the problem you're solving is truly worth solving. Is it worth the externalities?
• Think about Right Action, not Reaction.

💬 Full Transcript

Vigs (00:01) All right, we're live. Dan, thank you for joining us from Lightbright. I'm excited to jump in and talk all about the mental and emotional wellbeing space as well as the hardware and software that you're building. How are you doing today? Dan (00:13) Hey, Vicks, thanks for having me. I'm doing really well. Thank you for asking. Vigs (00:18) Cool. So I've checked out your website. You guys are kind of operating in stealth right now. And I would love to kind of hear your take on what is it that you're trying to solve and what is the product you're building to solve that. Dan (00:31) Sure. I think, you know, thinking about our project and our team and in terms of problems, I could probably point to the number of ways that we are just unwell as people, human people, as a society, as a global community. And our team is using like the ancient science of sound and vibration. and incorporating the language of sound and light into technology to help people create a practice in their life that brings them a more mindful awareness so that they can understand their inner landscape better, clearer more easily, and we're using beautiful music as a tool to do that. Vigs (01:31) Cool. And so the way that the solution would work, let's say there's someone, say an engineer who is not very much in tune with their kind of mental and emotional wellbeing, how would they utilize this tool to become more kind of at peace with themselves? Dan (01:41) Mm -hmm. Well, we have a wearable that acts as a talisman of sorts or reminder that they've set an attention in the morning and that wearable also has the ability to show them where their emotional state might be based on their own unique frequencies of their body. So we're using biometric data to detect emotional states. or at least get close to where we think they might be emotionally. And then a user can use that information to either choose a breathwork session. They could choose to listen to some very customized sound in the form of music that our music engine has built for them based on the current state of their body. as well as the sound in their environment. So it's a way to build awareness and a practice of dropping into that awareness and recognizing the mind -body connection so that you can be in control of how you feel in another way or learn to steer your experience. mindfully and willfully. Yeah. Vigs (03:18) Cool. And you mentioned that you're the CTO of Lightbright. And I think the founders are non -technical. So I'd love to know about kind of how do you communicate with non -technical founders and how do you help them bring their vision and reality to life in this journey that you're on? Dan (03:36) Sure. I think, you know, personally, I'm pretty well suited to be a liaison for non -technical people. I came to engineering later in life and spent most of, well, probably most of my life still at this point, I'm 40, but the bigger half of my life as an artist and as a person who identified with... creativity and intuition and being in a process and being in a flow and have a good handle on how I'm feeling and how I'm impacting others. I grew up kind of a sensitive kid and studied psychology after I put kind of artisanship to the side. So. I have a pretty robust tool set for communicating with different kinds of people. And so I think I lean into those gifts and those characteristics to express various technical ideas or non -technical ideas, because it goes both ways, right? I mean, like I need to be able to communicate to my technical team too, from leadership that might not be as technical. And. So I think there's a lot about empathy and compassion and just having a perspective of another person and. I'd even say that my work in ecology and permaculture and spending time in the forest is helpful for learning how to listen and learning other languages, other ways of speaking, other ways of expressing that are not my own organisms, that is not my first language. there are lots of ways of expression and lots of ways of communicating. And so I think learning how to listen is probably one of the foundations or like cornerstones of my ability to communicate between like non -technical and technical people. Vigs (06:00) Yeah, the way you're describing it sounds like you're the perfect fit for a company like Lightbright to be their CTO. I know that a lot of engineers, my brother, for example, he's still in engineering school. He thinks of engineering as separate than his kind of relationship with his mental health and mindfulness. And I think you're setting an example to show that, you know, there are ways to combine all different aspects of your life into the role. So for example, Dan (06:20) Yeah. Vigs (06:28) a role where you get to promote mindfulness, promote emotional wellbeing, while at the same time being involved in the engineering and the team building side of it as well. Dan (06:39) Yeah, thanks. I mean, thanks for seeing me and saying that. I do feel like it's a good fit for me at this stage of my life and for this team and for this project. I think something that's coming up for me based on what you said is the idea that, you know, not so long ago, the ideas of, or like the qualities of creativity. of healing, of medicine and of spirituality were like non -differentiated. It was the same and one. And for many of our ancestors, all of our ancestors, even if you go back far enough, we were all animist and connected to the greater web of life. And this sort of compartmentalization and reductionist thinking that comes out of the enlightenment and that is now... just everywhere in capitalist modernity, keeps us from seeing that and keeps us from recognizing that it's all the same, that we're all unified, fields of vibration in an interference pattern and have always been that way. We're vibrational beings in a vibrational field and... there is no separation between your engineering life and your mental health. I mean, so much of my experience as an engineer, you know, coming to that work later in my life after already having studied neuroscience and psychology and lots of psychedelic work is that many people, especially if they're younger and they haven't had a whole lot of like life experience outside of academia, Vigs (08:07) Mm -hmm. Dan (08:32) outside of like performance metrics and competition with your peers and a sort of guiding light of success or progress or like needing to choose a trajectory in your career. Like all of these things, I think add up to just a lot of confusion about who we really are and what it means to be alive right now. Um, because there just isn't a separation between your own mental health and your family's mental health or your own mental health and your community's mental health or your country's mental health, or, you know, your blood lineage is mental health, your ancestors. I mean, it's all connected and it's, it's all very closely connected. And, you know, it's my understanding that, you know, the state of separation is, is really just. an illusion and having a good understanding of your inner mental landscape will serve you far better and far longer than being a good engineer. That analytical mind is only going to get you so far and if you hit a wall that you can't analyze your way out of, what are you left with? Vigs (09:32) Mm -hmm. Yeah, that's very true. And it also comes into play when someone's like, oh, my work life and my home life. And it's like, there's just one life. There's just one you. And the other way this extends to is I used to have an events business. We did kind of upscale networking events. And everyone all along told me, you got to pick a niche kind of people and bring them together, like engineers or marketers. And I kind of stayed true to the fact that I didn't want to differentiate those kind of people. Like, The one thing that unites everyone is that we're human. We have these human experiences. And that was kind of the niche is that, you know, everyone is coming together from all these different walks of life, but everyone's got a fear. Everyone's got a dream. Everyone's got things that are true to us as humans that go beyond just, you know, what your title is, what your job is and things like that. So I definitely can, can resonate with the idea of that whole person. Um, and so more and more on the product side, I'd love to talk about how. and what you're building in order to kind of accomplish these very lofty goals to help people become more at peace and more one with themselves. So what was that initial product prototype? What did that look like? And what is your plan kind of getting to production? Dan (11:12) Sure. Yeah, the product prototype started with an app called My Soulvibe and that's still available on the app store. It's something that our founder, Jackie Leonardini started and bootstrapped. And that really uses voice biomarkers to work with people's emotions. And there's a language of color there that... she really wanted to build out essentially. And so it kind of started with this app and it started based on energy medicine and energetic healing and the just quality of vibration that we all share. So in terms of like getting where we are and how we got here, you know, we've... been building a team now for quite a few months and we've just lined up development partners and we'd like to do as much manufacturing as we can in the domestic US. We're really trying to approach the hardware side of this project from an ethical of a place as we can possibly manage in our bodies, given how kind of terribly deconstructive like manufacturing is in general. To the mineral kingdom, which we're just extracting endlessly to enslave in our devices, excavating mountains, removing landscapes, you know, the first people of this planet will tell you that those are all people too, that the rivers are people, that the mountains are people, that the trees are standing people, and that people ship and personhood extends far beyond the bounds of like the human flesh and the human body. And so we have a lot of conversations about supply chains and where things are coming from and what sense does it make to build hardware at all? because of the stack of hardware that we all have in our lives right now that is no longer useful. And no one has really taken the cradle to grave approach with their electronics. You know, like we don't have a good system of reincorporating old products back into the supply chain to create new products. And this sort of like, endless churning through resources is not just a hardware manufacturing problem. It's like a global manufacturing problem where we've got piles of trash in different countries that are not first world. So like we see the first world, Western, modern, capitalist, consumerist societies creating lots of stuff from the earth. And when it's not... in use by someone, it just gets put somewhere else. And The externalities of that kind of like thinking are becoming just abundantly clear on the planet. You know, like our weather patterns are not going to get calm again. Our insect populations are not going to be revived. We're seeing tons of death in the ocean, tons of death on land. We lose like hundreds of species a day on this planet. And my children will not grow up in the same... Vigs (15:03) Mm -hmm. Dan (15:07) world that I did. That is because of this mentality of not thinking through the entirety of what we're doing and focusing only on the bottom line and only on this profit incentive. And so by only thinking with a profit incentive, we devalue like the rest of the picture, which Vigs (15:24) Mm -hmm. Dan (15:35) I mean, it's like insane. So we're really keeping these things close at heart and talking a lot as a way to embody what it means to build humane technology. I mean, our product, part of our platform and our product and our effort is to get people back to nature, is to like... understand why the sounds of nature have the effects they do on your nervous system, why it feels good to sit next to a stream, why the sun streaming through the green leaves of the forest calms you and makes you feel at home, why walking on the bare earth with your bare feet is a grounding experience, and how the microorganisms in the soil getting on your skin and living in your gut is actually... Vigs (16:13) Mm -hmm. Dan (16:30) a million times better than trying to go out and buy probiotics that were manufactured in a factory somewhere. You're surrounded by microbial life. Rub a tree, touch the grass. Like those are your local friends and your community where you are. And so we're having a lot of these conversations. I'm actually attending a really beautiful workshop right now called Embodied Ethics in the Age of AI. And... Vigs (16:40) Mm hmm. Yeah. Dan (17:00) that's being put on by Josh Sri of the Emerald podcast, who does a beautiful, beautiful offering and work in mythopoetics. And he's, he's now started working with Michael Garfield and Andrew Dunn, who used to work for the center of humane technology. We've got like a hundred people in the cohort from all over the world, coming from different places and talking about what it means to embody ethics and. Vigs (17:28) Mm. Dan (17:29) you know, Josh opened the course with a version of the Thanksgiving address that is present for the Iroquois people. And it's something that we probably should have started this conversation with because it's an acknowledgement and an inventory of all of our relationships and all of the relations that we can't. compartmentalize or look away from. And the acknowledgement that, you know, having all of these relationships means we're responsible, means there is a sense of responsibility that we have as human beings, as a keystone species on this planet to remain in harmony with our ecological brothers and sisters in this web of life. And so, Vigs (18:23) Mm. Mm. Dan (18:26) Building hardware, you know, I have a pretty strong tension in my life because of this acknowledgement and this inventory and the kin that we all live around. You know, I didn't ask permission of the trees to like build the fence around my garden, for example. I didn't ask permission of all the mineral friends and... Vigs (18:46) So. Dan (18:56) other material friends to build this laptop that I'm using to now communicate with you. And so we are at an inflection point on this planet where these kinds of conversations need to be happening. And it's people like your listeners who are interested in building hardware, who are young engineers who are getting ready to, you know, maybe make something, maybe not. And they're wondering about what that means. They should really think about it and think about why they're doing it. And if the problem they're trying to solve is really a problem at all, is it compartmentalized in this little bin of engineering projects that I could achieve because of my skillset or because of my team or because of this profit incentive, or does it actually support life? Does it actually... Vigs (19:33) Mm -hmm. Dan (19:55) lend to your role as a keystone species on this planet in supporting the rest of life. So that's part of our process in terms of how we're going to production and how we're talking to our partners and how we're vetting our partners and how we're making sure that there's a fit with our team members, you know, when we're recruiting people. Vigs (20:14) Mm -hmm. Dan (20:24) We work with a lot of musicians and a lot of creative people. And these are questions and conversations that we have. So that's definitely a part of our process. Vigs (20:40) Yeah. And that's, it's so kind of refreshing to hear because you're selling this wellness product, but at the same time, you're not just selling a product, you're building a brand and you're trying to build awareness. And it sounds like your mission statement has that ingrained in it. You know, even like kind of your backend processes that the end customer might not see you're taking the utmost care, the utmost vetting. So, you know, my question to you would be for people that are out there listening and that want to be more sustainable with their manufacturing and development. It's. It's hard to make that business case in kind of a capitalist world where profit is kind of number one or like shareholder value, right? So what are some of the things that you do that, you know, other people can learn from like specific concrete things that are like, okay, this is how we can be more sustainable. This is how we can be more friendly with our planet. Do you have some kind of advice like that? Dan (21:33) tons. Plant trees, make offerings, create altars, like get in touch with the rest of your family. I think a lot of, a lot of us, especially those of us human people who live in urban environments that live in, you know, human built environments, like don't have the regular contact with. trees, plants, animals, fungi, fish, like all of the other forms of life that we really depend on for our own lives. I mean, if it weren't for plants and animals, we couldn't eat. If it weren't for the mineral kingdom, we couldn't have neurotransmitters. We couldn't have iron in our blood. You know, without the rivers, we would have no blood at all. We are mostly water. And so... I think some of the practices I would recommend involve just being out in nature more and taking time to listen to what's around you. Like if you're in a city, listen to how noisy it is. Just listen to the noise and how does it make you feel versus driving an hour. out into a forest, out to a river, or just putting on headphones to listen to some natural sounds, if that's easier. But I don't have like a quick and easy answer. You know, I don't have like a quick and easy solution because... I think it takes time to build a practice, a relationship. I'd say meet some indigenous people that are near you. Make some friends with people whose culture still exists and has existed for thousands of years that maintains kin and relationship with. the broader web of life. And, you know, see how it feels in your body when you think about the manufacturing processes that you are about to undergo. When you think about the earth as a body, what does it feel like to dig up a mountain if that's a body? What does it feel like not to care? for your waste stream. Where does that go? And I think there is a lot to be said for having a practice of tidying, of keeping your own personal life tidy and how that expresses outward up and down the fractal scale of existence, what it means to be tidy with your thoughts and feelings and emotions and... This comes back to not being able to compartmentalize your engineering life and your real life, right? You know. Find ways into your authenticity. Find ways for you as a human person to express your authenticity. Because I think when we are able to be ourselves, both at work as engineers and at home as friends, partners, parents, brother, sisters, kin, there will be more information available about the right action. You know, like I'm more interested in, and I think a good practice for people getting back to your question is getting into a place of right action, not reaction, not quick thinking, but what's the right thing to do? Like. Yeah. So, so thinking about right action instead of reaction is a way to slow down and listen and, you know, move forward after things have settled a little bit. Cause I think, you know, we end up reacting a lot. There's a lot of reactivity around. And, um, I think slowing down is, is kind of like, Vigs (26:20) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Dan (26:28) a good balance to what I'm seeing there. Vigs (26:31) Yeah, I can definitely see that. And do you kind of instill these values with your team once they get on board, or are you already looking for people that have these similar values as part of your hiring process? Dan (26:47) we look for these values as a part of our hiring practice and in our recruitment protocol. because we're not, not really into, I don't know what other qualities are more important. You know, I think that those qualities of mindful awareness, listening, slowing down, recognizing your impacts, recognizing your role, not only on our team, but in life. I mean, this is one of those, this comes back to being authentic wherever you are in your life and your day is like, if someone's good at lying at work, for example. They're good at telling their team something to please someone. Like, when do they shut that off? How good are they at turning off that button that says like, I'm okay with being a little untruthful here. And so, yeah, I think personal integrity is a part of our recruitment process before we bring people on. Vigs (28:05) Yeah, I can see that. And I think being selected with who you work with, that's going to be best for the future of the brand. Because again, like we said, you're not just like building and shipping a product here. You're trying to do it the right way and you're trying to inspire other companies and have some teachings in that way. So I think it's super, super commendable what you're doing. Thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective. I think this is probably the most kind of grounding conversation that I've had in this podcast so far. So I really appreciate you coming on. Dan (28:07) Mm. Vigs (28:35) kind of bring in that perspective, both as an engineer, as a CTO, and as one of the earth. Dan (28:42) Well, thanks for the opportunity, Viggs. It's been nice talking with you and yeah, congratulations on the podcast. I wish you all the best and yeah. Vigs (28:48) Thanks. And then last thing, where should people go if they want to support Lightbright and see what you guys are up to? Dan (28:56) Can't tell you much right now. We're still staying pretty quiet. We have a website, but as you know, there's not much there. So I don't know, stay tuned. Vigs (29:06) Okay, I'll let him know. Thanks so much, Dan. Dan (29:08) Okay. Thank you so much.

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