Predicting the Earth with Josh Goldman: How KoBold Uses AI to Find Critical Minerals

This week on No Priors, Sarah and Elad are joined by Josh Goldman, cofounder and president of KoBold Metals. KoBold is using AI to transform how we discover critical minerals like lithium and cobalt, making the exploration process faster, more precise, and more scalable than traditional methods. In this episode, Josh explains how KoBold is rethinking the fundamentals of mineral exploration by combining unique datasets, scientific modeling, and predictive algorithms. They dive into the company’s driving philosophy and technical approach, how they validate underground hypotheses, and why regulatory knowledge and a localized approach are crucial. Josh also discusses what success looks like in exploration today and the scarcity of world-class deposits.

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Show Notes:

0:00 Introduction

0:29 KoBold Metals

3:14 Using unique datasets

6:20 Traditional methods of lithium exploration

8:38 Regulatory vs. rarity constraints

13:40 Technical approach

16:25 Validating hypotheses

23:56 Redefining success in mineral exploration

25:44 Scarcity of good projects and deposits

32:44 Philosophy behind prediction

36:46 KoBold’s origin story