Building Robots for the Ocean — Will O’Brien, Ulysses

In the 1960s, people imagined living and working beneath the ocean. What happened to that ambition—and what would it take to bring it back? Ulysses co-founder Will O’Brien joins me for a conversation about building underwater robots and making ocean work cheaper. Will traces the company’s beginnings to a surf trip and the painstaking work of restoring seagrass, then explains the engineering behind Mako, Ulysses’ modular underwater vehicle. We discuss a deployment that went badly wrong, the consumer technologies making ocean robotics possible, and why a future full of robots will need its own charging stations. Audience questions cover navigating without GPS, mapping the seabed, ocean restoration, company red lines and the unexpected appeal of treasure hunting. This conversation was recorded live at a World's Fair Co gathering in San Francisco on August 19, 2026. If you'd like to attend, please sign up for notifications at www.worldsfair.org. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to World’s Fair 01:26 The forgotten ocean frontier 08:18 The ocean tax 10:36 A surf trip, seagrass and the start of Ulysses 13:44 A failed deployment and lessons learned 17:40 Meet Mako: modular underwater robots 22:38 Why underwater robotics is possible now 25:13 Ocean stewardship and mapping the seabed 30:05 Audience Q&A: climate, company values and San Francisco 34:52 Restoration, security and treasure hunting 38:12 Navigation, motherships and life at sea 42:25 What to build next—and the next 20 years Links & references The 1964–65 World’s Fair Futurama experience — A 7-minute General Motors promotional film follows a visitor through Futurama II, the experience discussed at the opening. Cousteau’s underwater habitats — Background on the undersea living experiments discussed near the opening. SEALAB: living and working beneath the sea — The U.S. Navy’s history of its underwater habitat experiments. Ulysses’ seagrass restoration trial on the Great Barrier Reef — The Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s account of the robot trial, with field footage. Seabed 2030 and Ulysses — The partnership behind the seabed mapping effort mentioned in the conversation. Planet Labs and forest monitoring — Background on Will’s comparison with satellite monitoring of forests. ARIA: Forecasting Tipping Points — Related reading for the audience question about ocean observations and climate models. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Build the Future Podcast. This is a project by World's Fair Co. You can learn more at worldsfair.org.