Last week’s elections produced one of the biggest midterm swings in decades. Many of the issues behind that shift, from rising food and energy costs to tariffs and the war in Iran, land squarely in the sectors S2G invests in.

In this episode, S2G’s Sanjeev Krishnan sits down with Grant Leslie, S2G’s Operating Partner for Government & Policy, and Carlos Odio, co-founder of Equis Research, to unpack what happened and what comes next. Carlos explains what produced the swing, and why data centers became a political issue on both sides of the aisle. Grant describes a new class of pragmatic lawmakers under pressure to deliver on affordability, and why farm states that rarely vote on pocketbook issues did so this time. They close with advice for founders and investors on why politics is no longer something capital can ignore.

Chapters:

03:07 – A historic midterm
11:37 – What happens next in Washington
14:16 – A new class of pragmatic, heterodox candidates
17:38 – What the results mean for energy, food and ag
20:57 – How data centers became a political flashpoint
28:11 – Why farm country voted with its wallet
32:01 – Immigration, farm labor and the Trump White House’s factions
34:35 – Advice for founders: lead with affordability
36:24 – What 2026 tells us about 2028
41:18 – Why investors can’t afford to ignore politics

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. S2G holds positions in the companies referenced, but this podcast is for information purposes only and is not intended to promote any such company. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results. The views expressed herein are opinions based on certain assumptions and subject to change.

For more important information, please see s2ginvestments.com/disclosures.

In 2022, S2G helped found Apeiron Labs around one question: what would it take to cut the cost of collecting ocean data by a factor of 100, or even 1,000? The answer turned out to be low-cost underwater gliders combined with software that manages the network and processes measurements for customers. These vehicles are dual-use by design, and as demand for security rises, new investors and buyers are increasingly interested in technology that also improves weather forecasting, climate monitoring and our understanding of the ocean.

In this episode, S2G’s Sanjeev Krishnan sits down with Apeiron co-founder Ravi Pappu and CEO Rob Rainhart to talk about how far the company has come, from a PowerPoint slide to thousands of hours of operation at sea. Ravi and Rob share how advances in cars, drones, and satellites helped them solve a tough systems engineering problem, and why the cost of watching an entire hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico could soon be a rounding error. They also explain how steady, long-term ocean measurements could become some of the most valuable inputs to AI forecasting models, and why Ravi believes the company is one large manufacturing run away from delivering that data at scale.

Chapters:

00:02:01 – Ravi and Rob's backgrounds
00:06:08 – The Ocean as a Global Blind Spot
00:10:16 – Validating the Low-Cost Sensing Model
00:14:51 – Lessons from the Aerial Drone Industry
00:19:14 – The Shift Toward Undersea Conflict
00:22:57 – Rebuilding Ocean Mapping and Navigation
00:26:46 – Commercial Applications in Energy, Shipping, and Insurance
00:30:47 – Engineering for Scale and Affordability
00:34:44 – The Role of AI in Ocean Intelligence
00:39:02 – The Future of Global Ocean Monitoring

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. S2G holds positions in the companies referenced, but this podcast is for information purposes only and is not intended to promote any such company. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results. The views expressed herein are opinions based on certain assumptions and subject to change.

For more important information, please see s2ginvestments.com/disclosures.

For years, S2G has backed ocean monitoring for its impact on climate, fisheries, and ocean health, but rising geopolitical tensions have made it a national security priority too, and investment is following. The same technology that improves weather forecasts, tracks climate change, spots illegal fishing and follows whale migrations can also protect undersea cables, monitor shipping lanes and support defense. That dual use is what’s bringing new funding into the space. In this episode, S2G’s Sanjeev Krishnan and Kate Danaher join Tonya Bakritzes to talk about why these worlds are converging, and how the government has long been the first big customer for new technology, from GPS to semiconductors. They also take on the tough questions, including the risks of building a business on government contracts and how data collected for security could be put to work for the public good. The conversation sets the stage for next week’s episode with Apeiron Labs, whose low-cost underwater sensing vehicles serve both defense and climate-related use cases.

00:40: From Ocean Health to National Security
04:22: Why Government Is Often the First Customer
06:35: Why Ocean Monitoring Matters Now
09:25: How Ocean Warming Raises the Stakes
10:40: The Hard Questions of Dual Use Technologies
14:04: Putting Security Data to Public Use
16:15: Commercial Uses Beyond Government
17:47: Looking Ahead to the Next Decade

This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. S2G holds positions in the companies referenced, but this podcast is for information purposes only and is not intended to promote any such company. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results. The views expressed herein are opinions based on certain assumptions and subject to change.

For more important information, please see s2ginvestments.com/disclosures.