A few years after the Great Recession, you couldn't scroll through Google Reader without seeing the word "disrupt." TechCrunch named a conference after it, the New York Times named a column after it, investor Marc Andreessen warned that "software disruption" would eat the world; not long after, Peter Thiel, his fellow Facebook board member, called "disrupt" one of his favorite words. The term "disruptive innovation" was coined by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen in the mid-90's to describe a particular business phenomenon, whereby established companies focus on high-priced products for their existing customers, while disruptors develop simpler, cheaper innovations, introduce the products to a new audience, and eventually displace incumbents. PCs disrupted mainframes, discount stores disrupted department stores, cellphones disrupted landlines, you get the idea. In Silicon Valley's telling, however, "disruption" became shorthand for something closer to techno-darwinism.

"I don't want to be remembered as the guy that put a train in a tube" is the quote du jour from Hyperloop One's Josh Giegel. Giegel and co-founder Shervin Pishevar have been showing off a revised vision for how the future of public transportation will operate that moves far beyond intercity travel. But does this level of futurism run the risk of alienating governments and regulators who just want a cheap alternative to high-speed rail? We sat down with the pair to ask them to justify their even more utopian vision for the future of travel. The company's latest pitch video demonstrates this, showing how a route between Dubai and Abu Dhabi would work. In it, an Abu Dhabi-based individual is reminded that he needs to be back in Dubai within half an hour.