Jinal Surti - Bringing Visibility to Global Supply Chains
The world’s biggest supply chains - cocoa, coffee, palm, soy, timber, beef, rubber - all begin in the same place: a farm, often a smallholder, almost always invisible to the companies that depend on it. That first mile is where deforestation happens, where emissions accrue, and where water stress bites hardest. Until recently, nobody could give large companies the ability to understand what was and could be going on at the foundations of their supply chains. Jinal Surti is changing that.
After building his career at the forefront of crypto with Egnyte, Ripple, and Menai, Jinal co-founded Epoch in London in 2023 to generate location-linked intelligence - deforestation status, emissions, water stress, and of course, biodiversity risk - compliance for every farm, plantation, and processing facility feeding global commodity supply chains. It’s been such a thrill to work with him on a project of this magnitude, and as you will hear, he thinks as clearly about company creation, value defensibility, and the practical implications and opportunities of AI as anyone I have ever met.
Please enjoy my conversation with Jinal Surti.
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Full show notes and links to mentioned content below.
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Jinal Surti is the co-founder and CEO of Epoch, an environmental monitoring, reporting, and insetting platform for the agriculture and forestry sectors. Global commodity producers use Epoch to manage nearly 3 million farms and plantations worldwide. Before starting the company, Jinal spent his career enabling global payments in emerging markets as an early employee at Ripple and a founding executive at Menai. Jinal holds an engineering degree from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
00:00 - Introduction
02:27 - Why Supply Chain Visibility Is Critical
09:55 - How AI Replaces Traditional Supply Chain Audits
16:57 - Why Water Risk Is Reshaping Global Business
20:26 - How Geospatial AI Maps Supply Chain Risk
24:54 - Building a Defensible AI Business
31:54 - How AI Is Transforming Startup Growth
38:50 - Crypto's Real-World Future Beyond Hype
40:49 - First Principles for Building Great Companies
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