Tag: Entrepreneur

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Startups

Day 1873 and Flying A Micro-Reactor on a C-17

I spent most of yesterday on an airplane. I flew nearly 12 hours along the polar routes to go from Heathrow to America’s west coast. I flew British Airways and was disinclined to spend the many pounds for internet access.

Alas this meant I missed the rollout of the joyful flight of one of my favorite investments. Valar Atomics began its journey from California to Utah just as I too was flying. Me and the reactor I angel invested in were both up in the air like bluebirds and sunshine.

HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah, Feb 15 – The U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense on Sunday for the first time transported a small nuclear reactor on a cargo plane from California to Utah to demonstrate the potential to quickly deploy nuclear power for military and civilian use.

The agencies partnered with California-based Valar Atomics to fly one of the company’s Ward microreactors on a C-17 aircraft — without nuclear fuel — to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Via Reuters

I tear up just thinking of the incredible accomplishments of millions of people coordinating together across centuries that these technologies represent.

It’s easy to think of ourselves as being small in the vastness of time and space. I almost cannot believe I was handed such gifts in this life, but I can claim a small but early part in Valar’s story.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey on board a C-17 cargo plane that transported Valar Atomics’ Ward nuclear microreactor from March Air Force Base in California to Hill Air Force Base in Utah, at the Hill Air Force Base in Utah, U.S., February 15, 2026. On the right, with the American flag and the Valar logo on his jacket is our CEO Isaiah Taylor

Just a little over three years ago I sent Isaiah a message on Twitter. We had a lot in common and I felt a kinship with this young entrepreneur. It was before he had even begun the incorporation work on Valar. He was working on something else, but I trusted his quiet intelligence and admired his humble inquisitiveness. We kept in touch as he mapped out his path.

His lack of ego instantly marked him as special, as it meant he could hear even the hardest criticisms. His fortitude was clear. He could incorporate what was necessary into his mission, a skill usually developed much later in life.

It’s rare to build trust so early on, and yet we both did. I told him I’d back anything he did so long as he was the CEO. Little did I know just how lucky I would end up as his very first backer.

You might think you will have doubts in high risk early stage investing. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t believe in him from day one. I knew he was on a mission bigger than any of us. I knew it and he knew it. For God and country as they say.

That faith was required, as it was tested in rapid succession again and again over the next three years. Chewing glass is part of every startup. Even when you go as rapidly as Valar has gone, there are harsh conditions, brushes with death, and moments of utter joy in between.

Not only did we write a first check in the angel round, but in tight spots before the seed closed we wired follow on within minutes when a concern about a cash flow question arose. We put together special purpose vehicles. Nothing could jeopardize this mission. I’d invest more if I could.

We weren’t always the ideal investors as we struggled to showcase to bigger and better firms our conviction. Not too long ago it was all about being asset light and software as a service. Thankfully the execution always outshone the skeptics and we were ahead of the times. And while the skepticism was fierce, Isaiah never wavered. Neither did I.

Today is day 1873 in my daily writing log. I first wrote about Isaiah on Day 1145 which means somewhere around day 780 or so is likely when we first met. I wrote on day 1510 almost a year ago about their seed round and the first successful thermal testing. On day 1721 they broke ground in Utah.

And you can better believe that I am looking forward to July 4th this year. We promised the president we’d be turning on the reactor, so there is much to be done between now and then.

Even the Department of Defense (War?) is writing swan songs about Valar from the Pentagon Twitter account

At March Air Reserve Base, California, yesterday, a next-generation nuclear reactor was loaded aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft for transport to Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The reactor will eventually head to the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab for testing and evaluation.

The Ward 250 is a 5 megawatt nuclear reactor that fits into the back of a C-17 aircraft could theoretically power about 5,000 homes.

For military use, such a reactor could provide energy security on a military base ensuring the mission there need not depend on the civilian power grid, and in military operations overseas, such reactors would mean U.S. forces could operate without concern that an enemy might cut fuel supplies.

A reactor such as the Ward 250 also means greater energy security for the entire United States. It is firmly in line with President Donald J. Trump’s executive orders to reshape and modernize America’s nuclear energy landscape.

The president signed four executive orders designed to advance America’s nuclear energy posture, May 23, 2025. Those include “

Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base,

” “

Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy

,” “

Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

,” and “

Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security

.”

Michael P. Duffey, the undersecretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, said the partnership between the War and Energy Departments is critical to advancing the president’s nuclear energy initiatives.

“It’s clear to me that advancing President Trump’s priority on nuclear energy depends on close coordination between the Department of Energy and the Department of War,” Duffey said. “This partnership ensures advanced nuclear technologies are developed, evaluated and deployed in ways that strengthen energy resilience and national security.”

The future of warfare is energy-intensive, he said, and includes AI data centers, directed-energy weapons, and space and cyber infrastructure. The civilian power grid was not built for that, and so the War Department will need to build its own energy infrastructure.

“Powering next generation warfare will require us to move faster than our adversaries, to build a system that doesn’t just equip our warfighters to fight, but equips them to win at extraordinary speed,” Duffey said. “Today is a monumental step toward building that system. By supporting the industrial base and its capacity to innovate, we accelerate the delivery of resilient power to where it’s needed.”

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said that with small reactors like those transferred from March Air Reserve Base to Hill Air Force Base, the United States is aiming for a nuclear energy renaissance.

“The American nuclear renaissance is to get that ball moving again, fast, carefully, but with private capital, American innovation and determination,” Wright said. “President Trump signed multiple executive orders that have unleashed tremendous reform of all the things that stopped the American nuclear industry from moving.”

Part of that effort, he said, will mean that by July 4, three small reactors will be critical — or running smoothly.

“That’s speed, that’s innovation, that’s the start of a nuclear renaissance,” Wright said. By

C. Todd Lopez

, Pentagon News

Categories
Aesthetics Travel

Day 1864 and Retail Therapy in Fashion Exile Land

Maybe it’s because it’s been such a wild week in the financial markets, but I’ve been thinking back to one of my moves to San Francisco just before the Great Recession. It’s a story about buying clothing but I’ll get to that.

I had just come off the high of being the first publisher to break (by live streaming and photography) a new fashion designer who would become one of the biggest names of his generation.

The low hit me as I realized I was unable to afford any of the pieces in his collection. And nor was I able to buy them anyway as the whole collection sold out instantly in New York City. I look back on being backstage at his first (and subsequent) shows with much fondness. Once he threw a full on carnival in a parking lot! Imagine models tossing their size 9.5 Manolo’s on concrete to hop into a bouncy castle.

Those models were his muses and he was known for an off-duty model look. I am about a foot too short, 20-30lbs too fat, and three cup sizes too large to be mistaken for a model so not an ideal customer.

Normally one could politely ask for samples or gifting if one helped break a collection, but this was not a sample collection that would have fit me. I’m a size 7 shoe and those boobs do me no favors for hanger sizes.

Still I wanted one item badly. Even if I couldn’t afford it and I couldn’t find it in stores, I kept an eye out everywhere for it.

The coveted item was a pair of high waisted pleated black wool trousers (lined with an ample cuff) that was the wearable merchandising anchor to a collection that was otherwise a bit tricky for mere mortals to wear.

For the men (and some women) who haven’t given thought to runway models, the metrics are specific. You need to be over 5’ 10”, never over 115lbs and have an A cup to fit a designer runway model call sheet.

These aren’t aesthetic preferences, just that models are a glorified hanger and not a person for purposes of ease of fitting. Yes it’s a bit degrading.

And so I resigned myself to never getting those pants and having only the glory of discovery and first to market coverage. Though the proof on that may be debated.

But then a small miracle happened. As I was relocating to San Francisco (by the buyer of my first startup) I began to get invited to events and parties.

A brand new Barney’s opened up off Union Square in San Francisco. An old girlfriend who had just married and moved to San Francisco told me “you will love the shopping out here as the good stuff never sells out!”

Mind you the collection had sold out in other fashion capitals. I had called around. I asked all the major stockists. It just wasn’t to be had anywhere.

But the new Barney’s was very late in opening and had stock from the previous season saved. I missed the opening party but thought maybe I’ll see something from the newer collection and I’ll splurge.

Well I got even luckier than I imagined. The pants were not only at the new Barney’s but on the sale rack. No one in the market had even liked them.

The salesgirl said weren’t moving as they were too formal and too trend forward for the town. They were having trouble moving most of the pieces from the designer in fact.

There were multiple pairs of the pants in size 38. That is a size 6 in American sizing which is almost always the first to sell out. I purchased it without even thinking. They were 40% off.

I still wear them to this day. And anytime I visit a bigger city or capital with a retailer of high end fashion, or designer goods, I’ll go looking. Sometimes in the strangest places you will find the exact item you wanted marked off in the middle of February.

Categories
Finance Startups

Day 1858 and Parked Outside the Flow

The crazier the informational world gets, the more inclined I am to tune it all out. The flows of information are fun sure but it’s only useful to financiers, degenerates and the global management class. I really only rate into very bottom of one. No, not the degenerate class.

As 2026 has become the year of repositioning for “whatever is coming,” I am unsure of much I wish to return from the hinterlands into the flow. Being inside the flow looks enticing but it’s Thor the only way to do business.

The thing is that I began my own career by participating (in a small way) in what Will Manidis calls The Flow. Being inside has its perks and I saw a lot which enabled me to make some very good investments.

What is the flow? It’s a metaphor for a 24/7 club of information, a formal and informal circuit of social and business obligations, and series of social & professional inputs that sometimes generate spectacular output.

It’s no wonder people think investing looks like gambling when you put it that way. It takes a lot of shrewd social manners and access to resources to be inside the flow and those are distinct barriers for anyone outside the global ten percent.

So where to go if you are an American? Well, stay put somewhere you can be stable and secure. Sure the middle powers will tell you that they can save the liberal order but in reality it’s all state capitalism by strong man and technocrats. And I’m not either and I’d wager most truly new things that will matter won’t be easily secured by old mechanism of power.

What Manidis rightly points out in his Flow essay, is that you can build businesses and make good money for investors and limited partners outside of the flow. You can focus on your unique insights and build something great.

I hope I offer some proof of that myself. I flash the codes for my odd little node and traffic occasionally routes through me. I found crypto winners and the future of atomics outside the flow. And I think I’d rather like to spend my Sundays seeing what’s happening outside the nightclub of financial flows.

If you want to be outside you can be. I just might be already. You can find me in the proverbial parking lot of the Flow (the open internet) yapping, chilling, lighting and fighting with the cool kids. You will always know where to find me. I’ll be one DM away.

Categories
Aesthetics Culture Medical Startups Travel

Day 1826 and Some Best of 2025 Selections

Yesterday I wrote about the experience of my daily writing experiment rounding out its fifth year. It’s been a fun and often emotional journey that I find hard to fully capture. But I’ll attempt to list a few of my favorite posts of 2025 on the last day of year.

Healthcare and Biohacking

Day 1490 and Healthcare’s Sin Eaters

Day 1468 Deciding to Go HBOT and Starting HBOT

1567 and Turkish Medical Tourism

1565 and Elephant’s Eye

1560 and Getting an HBOT

Day 1517 and Blink Blink (First Incision of 4 Scalpel Incidents in 2025

Day 1503 and Managing Healthcare Projects from Mold to Hyperbarics

Startups

Day 1486 and Is There A Tech Right

Day 1510 and Turning Valar On

Day 1542 and Future Blind

Day 1572 and Reskilling

Media

Day 1485 and A New Pogue at The New York Times

Day 1581 and Lecturing at UC Boulder on Renegade Futurism

Day 1569 and the sky above the port tuned to a dead channel

Day 1496 and Maneuver Warfare

Politics

Day 1484 and Montana’s Right to Compute Bill

Day 1549 and Productive Primates

Day 1578 and Dark Start or Energy Realism

Day 1576 and a NatCon Boomer Kicks a Townie Millennial Out of Their Hometown

Trends, Cultural and the Academy

Day 1484 and Zoomer Identity Violence Trend

Day 1479 and Liminal Industrial Transport in an Empty Frankfurt International Terminal Pod Hotel

Day 1580 and Learning By Doing or Embodied Learning for Humans

Day 1575 and Renegade Futurism

Day 1555 and Modern Machiavelli

And I got to about May and realized I didn’t feel like I needed to put more into the organization. I had 4 medical procedures involving surgery. My father died. My best startups all raised rounds to scale. You can find your own way from there. It’s been a hard year despite the wins.

Categories
Community Startups

Day 1792 and Grateful for The Exceptions

This Thanksgiving I am feeling particularly grateful for the exceptions in my life. My world is filled with the exceptionally rare. Rare people, insights, businesses, and outcomes are part of building something genuinely new.

I suspect I’ll have to justify my faith in investing in and introducing new technologies to the world. We are doing a lot of looking back as the path forward looks so uncertain. And I continue to advocate for looking forward with optimism.

We have a lot to integrate and metabolize into human cultural life. We will be forced to address these changes as they change our institutions and expectations over the next few decades.

There is a lot to dislike about the technology industry at the moment. We’ve evolved far beyond “startups” being scrappy zero to one experiments in the proverbial garage. Startups turned into “Big Tech” and that concentration of influence and money has not always lived up to the high expectations we have for power.

We have had multiple cohorts of businesses as a mature industry. And indeed we’ve had multiple generations of people who spent their entire lives building a global ecosystem of technologies, along with the talent and capital to scale it. We may relentlessly start afresh but we cannot avoid acknowledging that we are a power base in our own right now.

Just in my lifetime, we’ve publicly codified our cultural mores, shared decades of knowledge on best practices on the open web and built institutions dedicated to helping people work across the multiple fields and disciplines that encompass “technology” as an industry. Or maybe I should simply call it an economy. It may even be the economy at this point.

Which is a problem. Our capital sorting mechanisms have seen our efficiencies and returns and pushed more resources, human and financial, towards us.

That has frustrated and starved the industrial base that provides us with the infrastructure to build. Let’s not even get started on what it has meant for food, education, entertainment and family.

I began more seriously investing in startups at the beginning of the pandemic. We maintain a small fund with low key LPs and our own family capital.

That is enabled by what we jokingly call the circle of life that is a liquidity event. When a startup sells many people become not just a little bit better off but sometimes twenty or even hundred times better off.

Those outlier events pay for all of the other things which don’t work as well. It’s a hits driven business. Hollywood would say “Thats show biz baby!” Oddly we don’t have a simple way of explaining the randomness of who or what becomes a winner.

Being excellent just isn’t enough. Startups that succeed are often exceptional in all areas and even then it still might not work. That bothers losers more than it does winners because the winners can comfort themselves with the money. But deep down even the winners know it could have easily gone another way.

So this Thanksgiving I am grateful for all the exceptional cases that have come into my life. To even see one is a rare thing. To be exposed to dozens of them is extremely unusual. To be invested in even positive outcome from the very start is beyond rare.

We’ve done so much to make startups more accessible to those with the mindset and discipline to succeed and still so many barriers remain. I see my work as the first check a founder takes as being a small part of the cycle of exceptionalism that builds success.

Just in the past two weeks we’ve had three companies raise large scaling rounds at markups that now place them soundly in the exceptional category. In two cases, I was their very first check, and in the third I was in their first pre-seed round. I qualify it only because I was not the first person to commit which I strive to be.

That is where I strive to be exceptional. I want to be the very first person that sees you for what you will be.

And I am deeply grateful to the founders that allowed me to be their first believer. It’s hard to be a founder. I’ve done it. To be an investor is much easier. You just have to have the balls, the brain and the bravery to say “yes” to something nearly impossible. That I can say yes is something for which I am most thankful.

Categories
Politics Startups

Day 1784 and Strange Trade Offs

It’s been a pretty fantastic few weeks for my investments. Decisions made years ago are now looking pretty smart. A bet I made two years ago announced a round and then proceeded to announce splitting the atom the next week.

Not to only focus on current belle of the ball in Valar especially as everyone in the portfolio seems to be finding their way. We are lucky that we focused on compute, energy, and decentralization as that is the trifecta of the artificial intelligence wave.

I honestly didn’t expect that we’d see such progress in our nuclear pick. With the regulatory climate it seemed more likely compute marketplaces and inference products would outpace the most regulated technology in the world.

Somehow during a Trump administration you get unexpected outcomes. I’ve been fighting for compute figuring the energy bottleneck wouldn’t get addressed till we had the full supply side of new AI products. It turns out everyone wanted to rush into capital expenditures and infrastructure as the demand was already there.

I guess I’ve proved my own thesis again. You can get a read on the direction and maybe even first order effects but in a chaotic world the second and third order effects are much harder to predict.

And on balance for all the bad I think on balance the atomic age finally arriving might be a worth while trade for our future. Hard to say if I’ll keep that opinion but I am grateful America is getting back on track with nuclear power.

Categories
Preparedness Startups

Day 1783 and Good Days In Bad Times

I have spent a lot of time in various states of concern, sadness and frustration this year. Which is too bad, as so many incredible things have happened to me. We passed a right to compute law. Valar Atomics took “accelerate” way more seriously than most.

It’s hard to balance knowing the future won’t be anything like the past, but still having to make decisions made on that being the only data you’ve got. Engaging in governance and investing in energy seem like sensible ways of approach a strange future. Organizing energy is civilization 101 stuff.

I can predict a world with increasing chaos but how it will affect demand for things like energy, compute and decentralization are directional bets. You know it’s coming but how and when? And the downsides are hard to consider. Nobody ever thinks the entropy will apply to them but it’s already begun.

Every time future shock gets me I’m surprised I’m managing an imitation of Cayce Pollard at all. I’m practically a poster child for “sensible takes about various concerning challenges” as I get asked about various eccentric revealed preferences.

The Fourth Turning is coming about and we aren’t ready. I use short hand like the Churn, elite overproduction, The Sort and other minor terminologies and schools of thought to signal to others. I understand this to be my best way available way signal. But who knows as the humans retreat from shared networks it won’t stay that way.

Categories
Aesthetics Culture

Day 1779 and Panic at Disco, Panic In The Waymo

I don’t quite know what it is about San Francisco but it’s just not my town. I love so much about it San Francisco. And it has much to love. But I’ll never love it the way it deserves.

I love what once represented in culture, technology and history, I love its portrayal as the epicenter of a certain kind of future. Whatever universe got us to Star Fleet Academy seems even if 2025 was pretty bleak for them too. Most importantly I love my friends San Francisco. It’s impossible to base a career on startups without spending some amount of time here.

But I just do not love being here for any amount of extended time. I find myself in an absolute misery adjusting to it every time.

Even when I lived and worked in neighborhoods with microclimates more suited to my preferences, I struggled. Dry, sunny and friendly is surrounded by gray, damp and miserable. And you can’t easily get out of where you live. Everything is 30 minutes away by car and the only way around that is biking.

The rolling hills in the 7×7 block that make up the core metropolitan area are a fair representation of my moods and the city’s fate. You can enjoy spectacular highs but you see the lows spread outward before you and it makes you question why you should have this unfair vantage point. Right up until you are trapped by the mountains at the horizon. San Francisco makes it easy to forget the rest of the world.

Some people manage to find an entire world here. I envy that. All I ever feel is hemmed in. It deepens whatever mood I am in, and heaven forbid I experience a depressive fit as you can roll very dark and deep here.

The expense, the hassle, the status games, and somehow (still!) the lack of women are all points in its disfavor. You can tell it’s a boom town because it’s where men seek their fortune and women don’t seek the men with fortunes. San Francisco is probably the best advertising for women seeking men beyond their utility. And they have tried importing the art hoes it just work. I promise it’s been tried.

Categories
Finance Startups

Day 1775 and It Is A Lot Easier To Just Be First

I often wonder how it is that venture capital remains so male-dominated when most of the work is the same skill set as a fashion editor or a style writer.

Sure, you occasionally see a man with good taste, and the twinks and gays are obviously the best of breed in both venture and fashion. But the game is basically the same. And yet fashion is dominated by women and venture as an esoteric sub-asset of private equity is very much not.

Let’s compare. Venture is a small, tight-knit group of people, who run on backchannels and gossip, and absolutely everything is determined by being the first person to land the next hot thing.

Now there is an avant garde who sets trends which then get validated with market success. In venture these are the earliest angel investors. In fashion, it’s the indie publishers who slog through the upstarts and pick who to champion.

The angel investor hopes their deal will go to later stage investors just as the trendsetting editor hopes their designer pick makes it to Vogue. Picking the next “it” thing and riding the wave to fortune is the goal for editor and designer, just as it is for investor and founder.

I personally think my skills are validated just as much being the person to get Mansur Gavriel added to the right boutiques as I am being the first check into Valar Atomics.

I took my bag to a breakfast at a boutique investment bank (you know the one with the summer camp) and happened to be meeting with an investor who loved the bag so much that the founder of their luxury ecommerce investment picked up the bag to stock immediately. Well over a decade later, I still carry that bag almost everyday and so do millions of other women.

Now ask yourself if this next story sounds pretty similar. I sent a direct message on Twitter to a young founder who seemed interesting. He had a quickness to his thought I respected as well as humility that set him apart.

Alas I didn’t like the company he was working on at the time and I didn’t like that he wasn’t its CEO. Sounds like “the food was bad & the portions are so small” sort complaint right? Well, I just thought he was so good he should be the lead in whatever he did next.

The young man had partnered with an experienced elder (which was probably wise for that industry) but the founder was clearly the dynamo in that situation. I told the founder that straight up. He had earned complete candor from me.

We began talking about what he really wanted to build. His intensity was awe inspiring. And his vision was just so crazy that I knew I had to back him. Many phone calls and strategy sessions later I wrote a check. It would take less time than I’d dared dream for others to see what I saw first.

Two years and change later, that young man is the founder and CEO of Valar Atomics which just raised 130 million dollars to make small modular nuclear reactors. Isaiah Taylor may have been a diamond in the rough when we first met, but I knew he’d sparkle in any setting.

To see him now as the jewel in the crowns of many much larger funds and backed by much more impressive and capable people than me feels amazing. I’ll always have the satisfaction of being the first to know he was going to be the next big thing.

And that’s not so very different from helping select the hottest hand bag of the last decade. Like Jeremy Irons’ character in finance classic Margin Call, I know the value of being first.

There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat.

Now, I don’t cheat. And although I like to think we have some pretty smart people in this building, it sure is a hell of a lot easier to just be first.”

If Isaiah’s work is successful, it will be an awful lot bigger than the hottest handbag. It will materially change the conditions of fueling our lives.

And while I am pretty smart, I knew enough to act first. Because it was a hell of a lot easier to just be first. And if I’m lucky, I’ll carry my bag and own equity in Valar for a long time to come. Read the full story in Bloomberg with a gift link.

Categories
Reading Startups

Day 1771 and Virtuous Cycles for Wise Readers

It’s hard to say that there is a best part of living in Montana. If you like mountains, seasons and being outdoors it is hard to beat. One thing I particularly enjoy is how often people will come to our state either as tourists or for retreats with their companies and coworkers.

Alex and I drove down to Paradise Valley today to meet up with the founders of one of our favorite products. Having a company meetup in Yellowstone’s off season is a smart choice and as Montana citizens we love it when folks come to visit and center themselves and their work here.

A villain’s lair in Paradise Valley or a cozy lodge for discerning visitors to Yellowstone?

Daniel and Tristan have made one of our all time favorite and most used set of reading applications. The first is called Readwise. It’s hard to fully describe the product except to say that it makes you a better reader through your own highlights and notes.

I came into the application with more than a decade of highlights from my Kindle and found myself deepening my experience with all of my prior reading. It’s one of the best research tools a heavy reader can purchase and I was a very happy customer.

They didn’t stop there though. To make things even better, they launched a reader product which further cemented a virtuous reading. My highlighting, annotating and review cycle is now integrated with my reading and note taking across all my different content formats and sources.

Majestic vistas help us all feel wonder and spark creativity through nature’s beauty

Taking a few hours to drive through some of the most beautiful countryside in America and catching up with talented and passionate founders is an incredible way to spend a few hours.

The passion and care that Tristan, Dan and their team have brought to making reading an even better experience brings me so much joy. As a power user of their apps, and a voracious reader of all forms of written content from books to Twitter threads, I appreciate the incredible feat of product management they have pulled off. Making reading better is no easy task.