AI 还拧不动扳手，但技师能用 Claude 二十分钟重配产线：a16z 拆解美国再工业化的四个机制

信源说明：本文基于 a16z Podcast 一期节目整理（视频 ID cRJ7CfaK1Vc，全长约 49.3 分钟，英文转写 25 段、0s–2957s 已完整读取，文中数字与引语均依英文转写）。嘉宾为 a16z American Dynamism 团队两位投资人 Connor 与 Aaron（姓氏未在转写中出现；Connor 自述曾在陆军服役、后任职 Palantir），主持人姓名未见于转写；主题是今年的 AD50 榜单（American Dynamism 50，转写多作「8050／eighty fifty」，疑为「A-D fifty」连读，文末校正表有说明）。全部公司案例与数字均为嘉宾观点或节目引用，本文未做独立核实；ASR 疑似错词以「转写疑作」标注，文末附校正表与完整转写原文。同频道旧文：Pat Gelsinger 谈 AI 硬件瓶颈大挪移——彼时结论「瓶颈从设计挪向制造」恰是本期的前提。

先说结论

这期节目可以当成一份「美国再工业化」的机制清单来读。嘉宾的母题只有一句：没有工业基础，就没有国防工业基础（you don’t have a defense industrial base without an industrial base）——过去几十年的产业空心化已经真实地体现在战场上，对美军及其盟友皆然。但真正值得记的是他们把「怎么重建」拆成了四个可复用的机制：其一，政府作为「首购者」用商业市场不会付的价格摊薄首件成本，让产能先长出来、再溢出到消费市场；其二，风险资本「提前于需求」出资，取代「政府先给钱、承包商再干活」的旧采购循环；其三，被大供应商体系冷落四十年的「制造中层」从按图施工转向与终端厂商共同再设计（co-engineering）；其四，美国资本市场的独特处恰恰是没有自上而下的产业政策——钱跟着成功走，所以能在方向变得显然之前就下注。AI 在这个故事里的位置被嘉宾反复限定：「AI 将是物理世界的 phenomenal 工具，但现实是它还拧不动扳手（AI cannot turn a wrench yet）」——当下最实的一点，是让没有软件工程学位的制造技师用 Claude 在二十分钟内重配一条产线。

「最重要」变成「最值钱」：为什么是现在

嘉宾把当下的汇流归为三股力量：地缘冲突、资本市场转向、以及一代创业者主动举手进入这个生态。但按 Aaron 的说法，最大的变化是性质上的：这些公司过去只是「对美国最重要」，如今第一次可以同时是「世界上最值钱的公司」——Palantir、Anduril、SpaceX 已经证明了这一点，而全球市值前十的公司如今多数是造实体产品的硬件公司，「我们绕了一整圈回来了」。由此产生的动员效应是：美国最有抱负的人第一次把「重建美国电网」这类题目当成「听起来很有趣」的职业选择——这种抱负「五年前不存在，五十年前也不存在」。

节目给出的历史坐标也值得留档：美国过去的重大技术（航天、互联网、核电）几乎都是政府主导、长尾外溢；现在的不同是私营资本自己充当第一推动力，政府只是第一个客户。嘉宾对「dual use」一词还有个冷静注脚：对创业公司来说同时追太多市场是愚蠢的，但「任何一座今天在建的工厂，其产出天然是多用途的」——国防订单建起来的产能，同样会流进消费级产品。

机制一：首购与「提前建造」

第一个机制关于首件经济学。任何 bespoke 系统的「从零到一百」都极其昂贵，而国防买家的独特价值是愿意付商业市场不会付的价格，等于替厂商补贴初期资本开支——嘉宾举例：在美国新建一座 PCB（印刷电路板）厂是重资产买卖，若有国防买家垫付设备成本，受益的不只是导弹，还有机器人和助听器，因为它们用的都是 PCB。

第二个机制关于时序。按 Connor（曾任陆军）的亲历，国防采购的老问题是「买单者不是使用者、拨款者又隔着一层」，于是主承包商的行为模式是「你先给钱，我再开发你要的东西」，最终士兵拿到的是为十年前需求演化的系统。现在变了：VC 愿意在政府需求明确之前就出资「提前建造」——嘉宾举例 Castelion（转写多作 Castilian）的高超音速导弹：不是多精致的东西，但「造出一枚飞那么快还可靠的导弹」极难，过去三年靠私人风投撑着，政府合同与采购是后来才来的。节目中段他们再次强调这不是纸上谈兵：Anduril 在俄亥俄与东海岸巴尔的摩的巨型工厂、Saronic 的船厂，都是「即将生产数千、数万、希望数十万套系统」的产能——「美国很久没干过这个了」。

产能外溢的最长弧线是 DJI：消费无人机起家，2010 年代末看清公共安全与国防市场后建起大规模防务无人机产线，如今 DJI 背后的公司已是全球最大的机器人生产者——因为无人机电机与机器人执行器（actuator）是同一种东西，而执行器正是造机器人最难的部分。嘉宾由此把联邦政府定义为「工艺知识的补贴者」，而美国消费者的挑剔会把产品压到比政府要求更便宜、更强。

机制二：制造中层的再工程

第二个大块是供应链。两个组合案例：Mariana Minerals 买下一座铜矿并全价值链自持（收购、开发、开采、运营、自己冶炼），理由是现有矿业玩家吸收新技术的速度不够快，且只有拥有整条链才能吃到新技术的终端价值；Hadrian 则从白纸建厂，创始人 Chris 的经验是「没有银弹，是十五到二十件不同的事」——报价、接单、加工、检测、转运，每个环节都按第一性原理重问一遍「过去一百年这么做就是对的吗」。嘉宾强调：物理世界常常必须先拥有资产才能改造资产，因为端到端跑通才能捕获数据、反馈闭环——「showing is believing」。

对 AI 读者最有用的一段在高混合、低批量制造的讨论：美国大量产线需要频繁换型，历史上自动化不经济，请系统集成商重配一条线要三个月和数十万美元；现在懂工艺的制造技师（嘉宾特意说明「不一定有大学学位、更不是学软件的」）自己用 Claude 就能在二十分钟里重配产线。嘉宾称这是「整个领域真正的 game changer」。同一段里还有一个供应链质量的故事：组合公司三年前采购 PCB 要按两倍下单，因为默认 50% 过不了质检；新创公司用软件重做美国 PCB 制造后，良率升到 70–90%。

再往上游，嘉宾提出本期最有原创性的概念——「制造中层」（manufacturing middle）。波音造 737 是打电话给霍尼韦尔，而霍尼韦尔没有动力为新起落架重新设计：用五十年前设计的起落架拿一样的钱，是理性的。但当终端系统（新军械、Joby/Archer 的飞行汽车、新汽车）的输入真的变了——物理没变，材料变了——五十岁的子系统就不够用了。于是机会是让中层供应商从「接单模式」变成与整机厂共同再设计子系统，把设计能力往供应链上游推。能源侧同理：电网正在从 1970–80 年代部署的静态机械系统跃迁到软件原生的电力电子与储能架构，技术完全换代的时刻，正是整条供应链被重新思考的时刻。Aaron 把这总结为「我们正在创造美国制造的资产类别」——过去私募股权买厂、压成本、再卖出，并不改变美国造什么；这些公司会改变美国造什么。

机制三：生态的自我增强与资本结构

生态怎么滚起来？嘉宾观察到「二代创始人」现象：在 Anduril、SpaceX、Palantir 内部被供应链问题撞过墙的工程师出来创业，且自带被俘获的客户群。他们甚至为「YC 公司互相卖货」的正名：朋友之间容忍磨合期、愿意把非生存问题外包出去，「硅谷就是这么建起来的」，如今这套逻辑第一次出现在物理世界。样本公司的纪律性也被点名：Castelion 用两年半到三年只做第一枚高超音速导弹，拒绝「顺便做个小无人机」的多产品诱惑——SpaceX 式「责任工程师」文化（这东西不行，赔的是我的屁股），先把一件事做到极致，工艺知识、供应链、客户信任才让第二件、第三件事变容易。

资本侧的数字（均为嘉宾口径）：2026 年上半年投入防务生态的风险资金已超过 2025 全年，而 2025 又是前一年的数倍；JPMorgan 承诺了「数万亿」美元投向物理世界（不止国防，含工厂）；私募与大型信贷机构开始入场。历史上防务创业的「死亡谷」叙事正在消失，并外溢到能源、机器人、关键矿产。嘉宾认为美国资本市场的比较优势恰是没有中国的顶层产业规划：数万亿私人资本跟着成功走，因而能在「方向变得显然之前」出资。

反方、边界与政治约束

节目没有回避反方。主持人自己提出：这些新系统未必都被采购，能源需求也未必真的翻四倍。嘉宾的回应值得原样留档——「一旦需求的雪球开始滚动，哪怕只兑现一半，你也回不去了」，因为第一性原理重设计自带更优成本与可制造性，「你之后只会买那个新东西」。这是判断，不是事实。对那张著名的中美电力生产对比图（美国近乎平坦、中国一路右上），嘉宾的回答更直白：「我不认为这是技术问题。这需要美国人民对自己的意愿做一次灵魂拷问——我们到底想不想增长？如果想，技术和资本会跟上。」他们同时承认「这是所有领域的问题（an everything problem）」。

两个结构性约束被明确说出。一是时间：物理世界的事「不能扔两个工程师在服务器前就出答案」，是挖土、是数年周期的耐心，SpaceX 与 Palantir 都是「花了二十年的 overnight success」，而「这件事是我们自己的输掉（ours to lose）」——政府和国家自己挡路的风险真实存在。二是社区：软件可以虚拟地隔离在少数几个城市，物理建造却是「数据中心、电厂、矿井修在你家后院」——周边的人有发言权、有利害，若感受不到参与经济上行，许可与扩张就会卡住。嘉宾点出正面样本（转写疑作「Amca」的公司收购整合小型机加工厂时不裁管理层、帮着上新产品的社区伙伴模式），并承认科技圈「坐在硅谷并不理解世界的一切」。他们把这层政治经济学说穿了：AD50 公司的物理存在将落在中部美国，意味着更多就业、更分散的财富——「更少的财富集中在海岸精英口袋里」。

机制 → 二阶影响 → 读者启发

至少五条链条可迁移（推论部分为写作者提炼）：

1. 首购摊薄首件成本 → 产能溢出到消费市场。DJI（消费→防务→机器人执行器）与 PCB fab（国防垫付→机器人/助听器共用）是同一条链的两端。启发：进入重资产行业时，先找一个「愿为学习曲线付溢价的首客」，哪怕它只占未来收入的少数。
2. AI 的位置在 retooling 环节，而非黑灯工厂。「AI 拧不动扳手」与「技师用 Claude 二十分钟重配产线」合起来是本期对 AI 落地制造最精确的画像：当下价值是放大现场 know-how、改写高混合低批量的经济性，不是替代双手。观察指标：产线换型时间与成本。
3. 供应链从接单模式转向 co-engineering → 「制造中层」成为新资产类别。技术换代处（电网的机电→电力电子）整条链都可重想。启发：中间件供应商的价值正从执行规格上移到参与定义规格。
4. 生态自我增强需要「彩虹尽头的金罐」。alumni 创业、互为客户、资本跟进构成自我实现预言，但其成立前提是有几家公司真的长成巨大赢家——若兑现不了，资本同样会跟着撤。
5. 物理建造的政治许可=参与感。社区是否感到分享上行，决定建造速度的上限；这是软件时代不需要解、硬件时代绕不开的题。

收束一句：这期节目把「美国再工业化」从口号拆成了机制，但每个机制都附带同一个限定词——时间。「是净好的。是的，但这需要时间（it will take time）」，是全场最后一句实质对话。

ASR 校正表

转写原文（修正版）

[0s - 120s] You don’t have a defense industrial base without an industrial base. It’s been a real wake-up call that we need to get building again. AI will be a phenomenal tool that can be used in the physical world. The reality is, AI cannot turn a wrench yet. The top ten most valuable companies in the world, like the majority of them, are hardware companies. What’s it like to visit one of these sites? You’re building a physical thing. You’re not sitting at a desk on your computer. You’re out in the world. It sounds kind of sexy and romantic, but when you’re actually doing it, it’s rough. When you show up at Mariana, when you show up at Adrian, we show up at Castelion. You literally get people who are so passionate about what they’re doing that produces really good results. There’s that very famous chart of like U.S. power production versus China’ new energy production. What would it take to close that gap? I don’t think that that is a technology problem. I think that that’s a Connor and Aaron. Thank you so much for joining the podcast today. We’re here to talk about 8050 and this year’s list, and let’s just get straight into things. I know a big theme of this year was the American industrial base. Can you talk about what we’ve learned this year and why that’s such a big, important theme right now? We’ve been saying for a while you don’t have a defense industrial base without an industrial base, and I think this year really put that into perspective. You know, with conflicts going on in the world, and realizing that you know the hollowing out of our industrial base that’s happened over the last several decades actually has real consequences on the battlefield for soldiers, both you know American soldiers and our allies. And I think it’s been a real wake-up call in the United States that we need to get building again. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s also something that is not just one factor, but it’s multiple factors that are all kind of happening at the same time. And when you take a step back and you say, okay, world conflict, you have kind of a continued evolution of the capital markets, which I’m sure we’ll talk about a bit later about capital flowing into this ecosystem.

[120s - 240s] But I think one of the bigger things is you actually have an entrepreneurial base right now who is effectively raising their hand and saying, “I’m going to build in this ecosystem.” That’s incredibly important, not just for our nation, but also you can build really valuable companies in. So I think it’s just this conglomeration of a, of geopolitical factors, of capital markets, and then entrepreneurs that are kind of all just coming together. And you know, I I think it’s a really interesting time to be building. It’s a good time for us to be investing. When we looked at 8050 this year, we thought about, you know, kind of where we’re at in the history of American dynamism, and we’re still early. But I think one theme that has evolved is like you really need to start looking at American dynamism companies as a totality from end to end, from the input that comes out of the ground to the factory that makes the thing to the end system. And so that’s how we set up 8050 this year to think through those three lenses. Each one of those pillars is uniquely important to you know the end product or the end system. But in the end, like I I don’t think people think that way. And a lot of the companies that are addressing you know things in our portfolio have thought you know from an inputs perspective, from a factory’s perspective, and now from a systems perspective. So one theory that a person could develop after looking at the list is, okay, we built out this industrial base for you know defense, like building missiles and drones. Um, but it’s actually a tailwind now that’s helping a lot of different industries in America. So there’s energy, there’s robotics, there’s AI. Can you kind of talk about how all of these things fit together? Yeah, I mean, it’s funny because if you look back in history, I mean, even you know 70, 80, almost 100 years ago, if you look at how we’ve developed technology in America, a lot of times it’s very much been from the government. If you look at how we you know went to space for the first time, if you look at how we developed the internet, how we developed nuclear energy, it was the government saying we are going to do this for the purpose of the government, and then the long tail of that technology was super valuable for you know you name it, the internet being created, you know, energy being proliferated, you know, across the world.

[240s - 360s] What’s different now, to some extent, is now private industry as well as private capital is saying, you know, we’re actually going to be the impetus that that develops something. And so, to your point, you know, many of these markets is to serve the federal government, to serve the Department of War in some way. But the beauty about these things is when you build, you know, an industrial base, either you know down the supply chain or end systems itself, those inherently have many use cases. I mean, the term dual use is talked about a lot in investing, and you know, to some extent, like I think it’s a little bit of a folly, like focusing on too many things at once is not good for a startup. But it is a hundred percent true of what’s happening with any factory that’s being built today, any neo factory being built, any energy production, anything we we touch in kind of minerals or materials in the ground, it’s not just going into a defense system. It’s going to go into my uncle’s car. It’s going to go into like my kid’s future, you know, toy that they have in some way, shape, or form. So I do think it is a you know maybe the tip of the spear is focus on the government, but I think in the long run, to your point, like what’s happening is these systems will be used, you know, in the Waymo that we took today or anything else. I think a good a good example of this to look at is actually DJI in China, yeah, which start which has gone through you know multiple arcs of of its lifetime and its journey. You know, started out building consumer drones and recognized over the late 2010s that there was a large market for drones in both public safety and national defense, and so built out you know a real high scale drone production business for defense. And now the company behind DJ or the the the folks behind DJI are now the largest producers of robots in the world because what is very similar to a drone motor is a robot actuator, which is the hardest part of building a robot. So you have this company that over the course of growing a large defense business that itself spun out of a consumer business is now you know the world’s leading.

[360s - 480s] Expert on how to build and produce hardware for kind of the next wave of physical AI, both consumer and industrial. And so, I think you know this technology transfer and process knowledge transfer between military use cases and non-military use cases is really important and has always been how it works. And it’s great to have the federal government be sort of a a subsidizer for figuring out this process knowledge and figuring out the new technology. And then, you know, I think I like our world’s greatest gift in the United States is the discernment of the American consumer. Like we are going to push things to be more capable and cheaper than the government ever will. So that symbiotic relationship in the industrial base is actually really important. And we’re certainly seeing that on the energy side. Yeah, we’re seeing that on the electronic side. We’re seeing that you know across the entire sort of industrial stack. And and and to some extent, I I don’t think this is a super complex you know topic, but it’s important to kind of restate, which is when you build the first of a kind of anything, it’s quite expensive. Like when you are building a bespoke, you know, whether it’s a military system or a consumer product, zero to one hundred, it’s going to cost a lot. It’s going to cost a lot, and and to some extent, like you you know, we’ll get into this a bit a bit later, I bet. But you know, we talk about vertically integrating or using the supply you know chain base that you have. The beautiful thing about what’s happening right now is we have a federal government and an Department of War is saying, you know, number one, we’re going to we’re going to try to actively rebuild some of this this industrial base. And by doing that, they’re actually changing that unit economic decision from the start for these companies. So you know, again, it’s instead of building a hundred things, you can say, okay, maybe build a hundred, but we’re willing to pay a cost that the consumer or the commercial market wouldn’t pay. And all of a sudden, then you know that means more machines you can put in your factory, more capex that you know the government is helping you pay at the start, and then that leads to things that are physical, you know, both like financially viable, but also like you know at a scale that actually can touch the consumer. So I just it’s important to to identify that, and that is definitely happening.

[480s - 600s] Yeah, like like if you’re building a new PCB fab in the United States, like that’s a pretty expensive operation. Those are pretty expensive machinery pieces of machinery. And if you have a defense buyer as the first buyer to help you kind of pay for, subsidize a lot of that capex investment, that’s great because you know what else has PCB boards, robots. You know what else has PCB boards, hearing aids. And so the ability to to kind of pass on some of that capex to the defense industrial base, I think is will be really powerful as we as we rebuild kind of industrial capacity in the United States. So what specifically are you seeing startups do to drive down costs and move faster? Yeah, I mean, I think like many things, we can look to Elon for a lot of answers here. I mean, it’s not a crazy statement to say really the few modern day companies that have built anything at scale are probably SpaceX and Tesla. And if you look at how Elon and and his team have built those businesses, it’s been one very vertically integrated. And and look, like I take the the ideology that you shouldn’t vertically integrate everything. I mean, again, if you’re building a super exquisite system like a missile that is you know doing something very unique, you kind of have to because you have to you know control the exquisiteness, you have to control the cost. Well, well, I mean, SpaceX and Tesla were doing first of their kind. Like there was there didn’t exist industrial base in the U.S. to support them, and so they had to build it themselves. I think where there are high quality suppliers, like you should use for sure suppliers. Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, I I think the the the learning though is number one, if you don’t have an industrial base that you can rely on, you know, quickly, reliably, you know, et cetera, then you have to do it yourself. And inherently, that is a hard journey. Like that that’s really hard to do. This concept of saying, okay, I’m going to focus on the end system. I’m going to focus on you know building the most you know cost effective you know effective system that I can. And oh by the way, I got to go figure out the ball bearing. I got to go figure out the solenoid valve. I get like that. That’s a lot to do. And in the case of you know Tesla and SpaceX, I would argue the the auto industry was a little bit different.

[600s - 720s] Because there was, but there wasn’t, there wasn’t a battery supply chain. They had it, you know. Ewan had to recreate that. Well, the whole, the whole power electronics, the the whole drivetrain. You know, they had to really build completely from scratch, based off papers that were published in the ’70s that you know had been collecting dust for for 40 years. In terms of companies that we talk about in the 80 portfolio, there’s Mariana Minerals, which bought a copper mine and is kind of reinventing things and and would they be a good example to to talk about here? I think that they they recognize that the you know the the existing players in the mining industry just were not going to pick pick up technology fast enough for it to really make a difference and really move the needle. That and they also recognize that they wanted to actually own the entire value chain to be able to really put their money where their mouth was and capture the end value of the new technology they were bringing. So yeah, they do everything from you know acquiring the asset, developing the asset, mining the asset, operating the asset, and refining the material themselves across multiple different multiple different minerals, and then they sell a final commodity product in the market and have really leaned in. That’s another trend I’d point to is how much founders and entrepreneurs building in these spaces are leaning into AI and software is a huge huge component of their build. Yeah, I mean, I I think when you look at the physical world, applying software and AI will look different than what has happened in say legal or customer service or any other category where you see AI taking off in a in a crazy way today. But but to Aaron’s point, like many times what you have to do is you have to own the asset in order really to change that asset. Not every time, but a lot of times, you know, kind of showing is believing in the physical world. Whereas you know when you when you’re purely a digital AI product, you can kind of just see it and it’s very easily transferable and kind of understanding. You know what Marianne is doing with this copper mine is is really impressive in a lot of ways. It’s not just saying, hey, we’re going to be

[720s - 840s] Better at extracting copper, it’s it’s rethinking everything. The entire end to end process of how you plan, operate, mine and refine materials, and you know what’s cool is once you once you own that process end to end and are using software at every stage of that journey, you actually capture that data and then it feeds back. And this is this is an important point. I mean, this is not just Mariana, but if you look at another business like Hadrian, I mean, this is a perfect example of how one you can utilize software, you know, but but more importantly, it’s not one silver bullet that all of a sudden makes a factory or a mine perfect. It’s actually fifteen or twenty different things. And when you look at what Chris has done at Hadrian, you know, yes, it’s kind of upfront what it takes to like quote and even take an order of a part. It’s you know, it is the actual physical you know making of the part. It’s how you you know inspect it and transfer it, and and you know, there’s there’s all these different interim steps that exist within a factory. And the beautiful thing when you kind of either start from a you know a fresh slate like Chris has in building his factories, or in Mariana’s case when you kind of own the thing and take it over, you can look at every single node from a first principles perspective and say, “Hey, was this process that’s been done the last hundred years the right process?” And that’s what’s happening across every layer of the physical world right now. It’s not just mines. It’s not just factories. I mean, again, it exists in many different permutations. And and you know, my personal belief, and we see this in a lot of our portfolio companies, is look, AI will be a phenomenal tool that can be used in the physical world. The reality is, AI cannot turn a wrench yet. It will at some point, but we’re we’re far off that. You know, again, we can maybe have discussion about the you know robotic models and autonomy that that that we see in the physical world. We’re getting we’re getting closer. I just think the the nuance here and and the portfolio companies, many that are on this list or or many many non portfolio companies on this list, that they understand that look the physical world is not about just putting a silver bullet forward, like I said, that some you know shiny AI product, it’s

[840s - 960s] It’s it’s deep understanding of of what a process looks like, you know, physically how to like you know manipulate the the process or how to you know you know change something that’s happening in the world. It’s just going to look different based off. Well, well, maybe like a specific example or to talk through is like, um, like low mix high volume versus high mix low volume, and how how AI can kind of change change the game there. So you know, historically, like if you’re spending a lot and setting up a line with a lot of automation, you really need to produce be producing like a lot of one single thing, and that’s how you get the costs down, and that’s how you justify the cost of invest investing in you know a pretty bespoke manufacturing line. In the US, we do a lot of low mix high volume manufacturing, which is very hard to automate because it’s very expensive when you have to change the line all the time. But what we’re seeing across our portfolio is that manufacturing technicians themselves are have this have the intuition and now have the software tools to be able to to to change the economics of what it looks like to produce low volume high mix on the line. So you can have you know a manufacturing technician. This is not someone with a college degree. This is not someone. Maybe they are, but like not necessarily who’s like studied software engineering is now able to use these tools to reprogram and reconfigure their manufacturing lines on the fly using the fact that they understand the manufacturing process and they know how to do what they’re doing in the physical world. They now suddenly have all these tools, so they can you know you can retool a line instead of having to call a system and system integrator, you know, and it takes three months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to kind of reconfigure a line for a new setup. You can have a manufacturing engineer use Claude and do that in you know 20 minutes, and so that’s been a real game changer across lots of companies that we’ve seen in the space. And and and why that’s important is you know when you look back at at how we’ve articulated AD50 this year, you know it’s it’s you know kind of three categories, and a lot of times what we focus on at least you know.

[960s - 1080s] I have and and many people in the in in the sector are focused on is just the systems companies and look there’s a lot of really interesting systems companies I mean Anduril Saronic Castelion I mean you know the list goes on and on of who’s building really good end systems but the problem is is if you can’t you know iterate on that on the design and iterate on that prototype you don’t not only not get to an end system that is like you know different better but you also just move at a slower pace so then what happens is by the time you finally fix a production level you know missile or plane or kind of whatever then all of a sudden then you got to you know go back and rejigger and build up all these kind of you know subsystems in order to meet the scale but if you have you know a more transferable line a more adjustable line number one you can also build the prototype faster but then two you can then you know set up each one of these different components in a way where it actually can get to rate production quicker yeah you’re you’re you’re designing for you’re designing for manufacturing from the outset exactly exactly and and that that is again I keep going back to learnings from you know Tesla and SpaceX in a lot of ways they they they had to make those choices because they didn’t have any other opportunity but in the end it’s actually just that mantra of design for manufacturing that now exists within all these systems companies and to some extent like we are now in the age of now seeing them produce I mean again like go look at what Anduril’s built in you know in Ohio and and now on the East Coast in in Baltimore you know go look at what you know Saronic has built with the shipper I mean these are massive yeah huge facilities that are at some point you know in a very soon soon timeline going to be producing thousands tens of thousands hopefully hundreds of thousands of systems we haven’t done that America in a long time yeah this is no longer an on paper theoretical exercise this is happening in in the real world and and real stuff is coming off the lines something that I think is like special about AD founders is they make any problem an Elon sized problem and and I’d love to I’d love to hear sort of that.

[1080s - 1200s] Applied to the different industries that we’re talking about here. Yeah, I mean, I think when you look at defense specifically, this has actually been one of the most historically hard, you know, sectors to just build the thing that you think the government needs. Because, unfortunately, and again, you know, I, I, I experienced this in my past. You know, when I served in the army, you know, the buyer is not the user, and the bot and the appropriator of the dollars for the buyer is completely removed. So you have all these like disjointed decision makers or groups that matter. And so what happens is, you know, companies, you know, back then we didn’t really have neo primes or ad companies to serve. But what you had is you had primes would just sit there and listen, like, tell me what you want. I’ll develop the thing after you give me the money. And you know, the age-old problem is you get a system that’s like actually not you know technology forward. You get a system that was evolved for ten years ago, and then you know the end soldier gets something that actually is not super valuable to them. What’s different now, back to the like you know you can think through an Elon problem now is you can say, okay, what does the military actually need? And and the beautiful thing is you know venture capital and what we do at American Dynamism, but also you know the the rest of the capital markets is saying we will actually fund that in advance, and you can build in advance of the government saying here’s the thing for you to build. And and the outcome of that is the soldier gets a better product, gets something that actually fundamentally changes the battlefield and you know helps with deterrence or security or safety. And then more importantly, you get a time frame of a of a type of system that is actually built, you know, you know aligned with the requirement of the market and what technology can do today. So just it’s it’s a fundamentally different way of like instead of sitting and waiting for the government to tell you what they want, you the government signals and you see it and you build in advance by using private capital, and that just has not happened in the history of defense. So you can build you know like Castalian building a hypersonic missile that does a you know a a not a super exquisite thing, but it’s really hard to build a missile that goes that fast and is reliable.

[1200s - 1320s] And you know the government, you know, now has given them contracts and kind of you know showed up and and and bought missiles. But if you go look at the last three years of that business, I mean, it was private venture capital. It was you know entrepreneurs like taking the risk and building the thing in advance. I think if you see that again and again in defense, you’re just going to get better products and fundamentally, like you know, you’ll have the neoprimes and the new companies start to take a lot of that market share. But it’s not just the defense thing. I mean, Aaron sees it in energy as well. I mean, we’re rewriting our entire energy grid right now, and we’re again, like Aaron would know better than I would, but like we are in on the one yard line. We are just starting. We’re just getting started that process. I I think you know another part of it is it’s a little a little more intangible, but like these are really hard companies to build. These are really really hard problems to solve. You know, when I talk to Turner, who’s the CEO of Mariana Minerals, and you know he’s flying all he’s flying to the middle of nowhere places all over the world to build his company. He’s like out where there’s no cell phone signal, where there’s no electricity. You know, touching dirt. You know, spending like weeks and months away from his family. Like it has to be worth it. You’re building a physical thing. You’re not sitting at a desk on your computer. You’re out in the world. It sounds kind of sexy and romantic, but when you’re actually doing it, like it’s rough. The travel is really hard. The people you’re engaging with, you know, you’re not talking to. You’re calling up your suppliers. These are not like other startups who operate in the same kind of timescale and culture as you. These are like really tough people to negotiate with and work with who you know have a very different culture. And if you’re going to be putting yourself through that, like it better be damn worth it. And so I think people people really gravitate towards these problems that feel huge and enormous because they’re you know these are real missionary founders that we see build.

[1320s - 1440s] In this space, even as even as it’s kind of heated up and there’s more capital and it’s gotten cool, it’s still brutal. I think the biggest thing that has changed in American dynamism land in the last few years is we always knew that the companies being built in this category were really important to the fabric of America. I mean, again, like when we talk about defense systems, when we talk about energy, I mean, when we talk about building, you know, manufacturing widgets that go into everything, like that stuff’s really important. Like it affects our safety, it affects how we live our life. But the biggest change is those companies weren’t just the most important thing to us. Now they can be the most valuable companies, and that’s like a big distinction that that has happened. Which is, you know, it’s not just like you know solving a problem for our safety or security. It’s solving a problem for our safety and security. And oh, by the way, those can be some of the largest companies that exist in the world. And and that’s what technology has changed in these industries. I mean, mining has always been a big, big industry. Defense has always been energy. It hasn’t been economically worth exactly for a young, smart person, you know, who has a lot of ambition to go after these categories. But I think companies like Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX have proved that you can build a really big business operating in in these categories. And if you, I mean, if you look at the, you know, the top ten most valuable companies in the world, like that right now, like the majority of them are hardware companies. They’re building a physical product. You know, we we’ve kind of come full circle, and so you you get the most ambitious founders of our generation who who you know who want to run towards that hard problem and know it’s going to be worth it. And and and the beautiful thing about many of these industries, like mining or you know, Rio Tinto has been around for a long time. I mean, Boeing’s been around for like I mean, you know, good companies that are building good products. But I think when you take this, you know, first of all, like a first principles technology approach about like what the audacious thing that needs to be built is, and then two, you get entrepreneurs like these these folks that that are on this this eighty fifty list. Like, yeah, I’m going to rebuild the American energy grid. That sounds that sounds fun. And you just that that that didn’t exist fifty years ago. That didn’t exist five.

[1440s - 1560s] Years ago, I mean, it is something that is fundamentally, you know, our America’s, you know, best and brightest are building towards this category for the first time, and then importantly, like Aaron said, like the opportunity is there. You see these examples of these companies that have redefined space launch, that have redefined, you know, kind of military systems, have redefined, you know, all these these categories of American dynamism that we care about. And yeah, I think it’s exciting. I mean, you know, as as again, as someone who served in the military, you always think of, you know, like what you do is something greater than yourself. I mean, look, like the capital markets exist to, you know, make money. Like, we’re we’re not a charity. This is a capitalist society. But in the end, a lot of the companies on this eighty fifty list are doing something that is both going to be large and valuable, but also going to be really inherently important to the fabric of America, and that’s that’s pretty exciting. What’s it What’s it like to to visit one of these sites, like a manufacturing site or a mining site, or you know, drone manufacturers, those kinds of sites? Like, I mean, Connor and I have the best job of all time. I did have to. I did. I do own steel-toed boots now because the number of the number of site visits I’ve been to with portfolio companies where where they’re like, yeah, you got to show up in steel-toed boots. Yeah. I mean, it’s not all sexy, to be honest. I mean, again, these are these are locations that are, you know, a lot of times hard to get to, hard to get to in the middle of nowhere, and in the end, like we’re talking about real physical things that require, you know, earth moving. I used to have in my time in the military used to have this this kind of senior officer who would always tell me like the physical world doesn’t care about you, so just be careful in the physical world. Like, you know, these are you know moving you know tons of dirt and you know massive you know these factories being built out, you know, Hadrian or or what Amco will do. I mean, these things are huge, and and it’s impressive. You know, one of my favorite things is maybe you don’t see this at the remote sites, maybe you do, but it’s this kind of running competition between these companies who can have the bigger.

[1560s - 1680s] American flag at their side. I actually don’t know who currently holds that today. I mean, Hadrian’s was pretty big last time I saw. I think Valer’s is pretty. Valer’s big too. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like again, I mean, that’s that’s awesome. Like the the fact that you have that type of like one passion for for something greater than just the the product or the economic opportunity that you’re building. I mean, again, it it drives purpose behind a lot of these teams. When you show up at you know Mariana, when you show up at Hadrian, we show up at Castelion. Like you you you literally get people who are so passionate about what they’re doing, and and you know that produces really good results. When you have to do something really hard in the physical world, if you have people that are willing to run through walls sometimes literally to solve that problem, you’re just you know you get really audacious great outcomes. One of my favorite things to do, you know, is visit the same company sort of multiple times within a 12 month period, whether they’re in the portfolio or not, because you learn a lot by how fast a factory build out happens. And so you know that that’s one thing we do is like we you know you don’t just go once, you go once and then you go three months later, you go three months later, you go three months later, and like I’m not I’m not a manufacturing expert. I spent enough time on the factory floor on a factory floor between my time at Palantir and and now doing this job. Um, you know, I like sort of know what some of the machines are and kind of like how a line roughly works, but like there’s just something about seeing stuff accumulate in a factory and it goes from the process of watching something go from like empty warehouse with epoxy floors and the big American flag and maybe like a couple of pallets and the founders just really excited to show you their forklift that they um and they’re kind of like you know they’re they have the basketball hoop set up or like the gym set up in the corner to like you know fast forward six months and it’s just you know they’re freaking out about how to expand. They’re like, oh, we need to get you know the the city out to to give us more power because we have too many machines plugged in. It’s like kind of chaos. There’s technicians and operators everywhere, people building stuff. That’s really satisfying and and and really fun and and something I think we we’re.

[1680s - 1800s] To get to see that journey and and how quickly that can happen, yeah. Has anyone ever done like a time lapse of? Oh, there’s a lot. It’s a whole. That’s all like category of filmmaking. Nice. And everyone kind of compares theirs, and it’s like a you know a bit of a. I do. I do like the gym thing. I remember when I when I first visited many years ago Isaiah in the gundo. He made me do a rep on his. Yeah, they all they all have like. Oh yeah, they all they all have their bench press set up, which is cool. Is is there a like a contagion effect to things being made in America where it’s like oh because the actuator is made here now we can make this and now we can make that and sort of when you’re able to compress one timeline you can compress multiple timelines. I don’t even think it’s just timeline. I also think it’s cost and quality. And quality. I mean, yeah, it’s interesting because when we look at defense autonomous systems in particular, like what Saronic making a lot of boats, Covenant’s making a lot of missiles, Castillian’s making a lot of missiles, you know, Andrew’s making a lot of things. Like when you build many systems, you also require many subsystems below that, and you know, again, like there are really interesting military systems being built today. The the the corollary though, back to the comment we had earlier, is like you know by building towards defense, you also build for a different industry. We actually don’t have a lot of humanoids or robotics that exist in the world today. I mean, there are thousands, maybe I don’t know the exact number, but when you think about the the subsystems that go into some of our military systems, it’s the exact same subsystems that are going to go into the future robotic systems. It’s the actuators, like it’s the motors, it’s the you know you know valves and switches and those type of things. And I think when you can build those to quality and to cost, then all of a sudden you make other markets that maybe weren’t viable or real all of a sudden make sense. And again, I think that’s going to happen in the robotics world, which is you know we’re going to spend all this time onshoring development of all those subcomponents. We’re going to build for a lot of these military systems, which is good. We need it for security and safety and deterrence. But then all of a sudden.

[1800s - 1920s] You’re going to have this, you know, kind of robotic wave that will come in America. I said it, you know, AI can’t turn a wrench yet. They can, they will eventually, and that will be enabled by all that, you know, actuators and switches and subsystems that we built. It’s going to serve a different market, and and it’s going to make it, you know, financially viable. And we’re not going to have to rely on factories in China. And and again, I think that is that is net good because you know as you build an industrial base, an industrial base can be used for many things. And you know, down to the component level, you know, I just think we don’t have enough of it in America. And it it’s a it’s a decision. Like you talk to a robotics company today that wants to build, you know, some robotic deployment, there’s a 99% chance that majority of what they are buying is coming from China and some. But they they for many reasons, not just geopolitical, want to onshore that purchasing for quality, cost, speed of iteration, yeah, and geopolitical reasons. I think like one thing it you know it’s really over the last three years, even just it’s remarkable how much of a supplier ecosystem has developed. Like one of the companies in our portfolio, three years ago, would order two times the number of PCB boards, PCBs that they needed because they assumed that they would have to throw 50% of them away for quality issues. They would get the batch from their supplier, they would do the testing, and 50% of them wouldn’t pass a quality test. You know, then startups have emerged in this category and are like, “We’re going to fix this problem. We’re going to use, you know, software and modern technology to, you know, redo the way PCBs are manufactured in the U.S. We’re going to do it faster. We’re going to do it cheaper. And guess what? We’re going to do it better. And you know that now that same company buys, you know, PCBs from new suppliers and you know they’re keeping 70, 80, 90% passing quality tests. So it’s, I think, like we underestimate how much the you know close colocation and co-development of

[1920s - 2040s] Some of this technology with the end customer and their suppliers really matters to to drive quality higher. So something really interesting is happening. I believe in the industrial base. Like we talked about earlier, you get this top down demand signal from these new systems companies. Like we’re building new military systems, but oh by the way, like you know Joby and Archer, we’re building new planes too. Like we’re building new end systems. That that is a fact. Like cars are are being built different, planes are being built, military systems are being built different. When you build these new systems, inherently the inputs of those systems need to change as well. And when you look at the industrial base in America today, like historically, if you go look at how Boeing makes a seven thirty seven, you know Boeing’s a great company, important to the fabric of America, but they just pick up the phone, they call Honeywell, and Honeywell helps them kind of build all the different sub components. And it’s not Honeywell’s fault, but what Honeywell does is they say, “I don’t want to build a new landing gear again. We have this landing gear that meets the spec and does the thing, so let’s just keep going and doing that same thing again and again and again.” It’s rational, like you know they’re going to build more seven thirty seven s. They’re going to get paid the same way if it’s a for fifty year old landing gear or if it’s a new landing gear. The problem though is when you keep iterating on these new requirements for end systems, at some point the fifty year old subsystem just doesn’t work. And maybe it it physically works in in terms of meets the requirements, but it’s been designed and it’s been developed in a way that inherently, you know, we haven’t innovated on it. And and and why does that matter? It’s because you know we’ve developed new materials. Like yes, physics hasn’t changed, but but the inputs to the physics and the inputs to that design has changed. So I think what’s happening or what what the opportunity for a lot of these manufacturing companies is to do what I call co engineering. And you know we talked about you know the long tail of these like sub tier you know suppliers that they’ve they’ve been in receive mode for the last forty years. Honeywell’s picked up the phone. They’ve said, “Hey, I need another landing gear. Go make that landing gear.” And they’ve executed on the specs with that IP in building it. When you

[2040s - 2160s] You want a new requirement that middle layer cannot, you know, think on behalf of Honeywell and change the requirement because, again, they’re not in the position to do it. But I think what’s going to happen in the future is you’re going to have this middle layer of supply companies that you know will effectively be co engineers with the end OEM of rethinking not just what the end system can do by way of speed or kind of you know weight or mass, but the individual sub components will be rethought, will be reengineered, and will be rebuilt. And so you know the end system will change from a top level, the the the individual parts and components will change, and and I think that just hasn’t happened in the last 40 or 50 years. So you’re going to see a completely new wave of what I believe like will be called like the manufacturing middle that will be you know co engineering and pushing design and development upward in the supply chain as opposed to just being in receive mode and saying, okay, I can build the same thing I built 40 years from now. And I just I think that’s an opportunity. I mean, I defined it you know previously as like we’re creating the American manufacturing asset class right now. I mean, you know, private equity has been playing in this ecosystem for a long time and looking at an asset and buying it and improving the cost and you know selling it off again. That’s not fundamentally changing the things that we build right now. Companies will change the the different things that we’ll build. A good example of this is kind of the um on the on the grid, and when you think about sort of like the electronic stack, um, and we’re about to go through a huge step change in how we manage and transfer power on the grid, moving from a system of sort of static and mechanical systems that were deployed in large scale across the U.S. and like the 70s and 80s to now sort of modern power electronics, battery storage architectures, which are much more software native and flexible, and you know that is is just when you have a such a complete step change in tech.

[2160s - 2280s] Where the technology that’s replacing the previous thing is just completely different, you have this opportunity to rethink the entire supply chain behind that and the way all of that design and engineering work happens. And in the energy world, it’s the same thing that’s happening in the defense or the commercial systems world, which is you have this massive amount of demand for you know data centers and you know new factories and new build. When you get this top down level, you have the ability to innovate, like Aaron’s talking about, and rethink the entire architecture and look like because it’s a completely new architecture. Exactly. So you know you can’t rely on these components that worked in the previous world to just reconfigure. Like you actually have the opportunity to rethink that from the ground up. Another important point here is like you know you could be pessimistic and you can say, okay, Connor, all these new military or end systems, like not all of them are going to be adopted. So like that that top down demand or or Aaron, like we’re not actually going to increase energy by four times. Like there’s not going to be that much demand. I actually don’t think it matters because I think once you start the snowball of the demand cycle moving in one way, even if you deliver half of that, you know, requirement, you’re not going back. You’re not going back, and it doesn’t make financial sense. And again, it’s it’s like when you rethink something first principles and you make the like new design, new engineering decision, and a lot of times that comes with better cost, better efficiency. You’re just going to buy that thing now. Going better serviceability, easier to manufacture. Yeah, yeah, you’re never going back. I’m curious, kind of, what you’re seeing in terms of founders being second generation Anduril or second generation Palantir or something like that, and maybe they they see some of these learnings and they see the opportunity to be the middle layer supplier in some something that has never been touched since you know decades ago. And and kind of like what what are you seeing in terms of you know those opportunities and those kinds of founders? Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you you get a great way to light a fire under an entrepreneur.

[2280s - 2400s] Is for them to be banging their head against the wall on a sort of engineering or supply chain problem where they are, and then they’re, you know, they’re like, well, okay, I really care about this. This is a pain in my ass. I know it’s, I know it’s bothering other people. I know it’s a problem that I don’t just have here at Anduril or SpaceX or Tesla. It’s a problem more broadly. I’m going to go solve that more generally. And the kind of lineage of founders that have sort of lived and breathed this on the manufacturing floor, and not just founders, but even engineering teams who are like, I saw this problem, I solved this, you know, within Anduril or Saronic or whatever, and I’m going to actually like go out and build this as a company, and then I’m going to, you know, I know that everyone in the ecosystem, so I’m, I, I have, you know, automatic access to a customer base that’s captive. Um, you know, we certainly see that trend happening, and you know, this is how ecosystems get built. Like people make fun of YC for all YC companies kind of selling to each other, but like that’s how it works because you have, you know, you it’s it’s your friends. They’re tolerant, they’re understanding, they’re willing to like work with you and help you, and you know, put up with something breaking because they’re working on their own really really hard problem. And if you know the thing you’re doing is not the most existential thing to them, they’re like very willing to outsource it to you. That’s beautiful. That’s how Silicon Valley was built. And what’s really like what makes me really optimistic is the extent to which we’re starting to see that in these kind of physical world ecosystems and supply chains. Yeah, I, I think that the few companies you mentioned, you know, the SpaceX is the Palantirs. Um, look, they weren’t overnight successes. Like those companies took a long time to get to both the product scale and just the the size and success of the company that they’re at. Overnight successes that took 20 years. Exactly. And and I think the the learning point, and you know, we invest in a lot of the entrepreneurs on this list, like come come from those ecosystems, is you just learn this like relentless focus to do the one thing as well as you can, you know, down a path until you succeed it. And like, you know, I’ve I’ve seen this with with the Castelion guys, for example, is like they focused for two and a half three years on the first hypersonic missile.

[2400s - 2520s] So that was really hard to build, and you know, other people showed up. Oh, be multi-product, go build this small drone here, and they’re like, “No, we need to do this one thing really well.” And I think you know that comes from the fabric of SpaceX. Like at SpaceX, the concept of being a responsible engineer, and like if this thing doesn’t work, like it’s my ass. I’m going to make sure, like I’m going to obsess over this thing and again and again. Like that’s what it takes to build really hard things. And again, like you know, there will be different you know derivations of of success. Not everyone will think just like the SpaceX mindset. But if you look at a lot of these businesses, like that, you know, in the physical world, you kind of need to do that to build something really hard. And but what what you do in doing that is you learn, you know, you learn that process knowledge. You learn how to do it, and so thing two, thing three, thing four are a lot easier. You’ve developed a supply chain. You have your relationships. You’ve developed manufacturing for or designed for manufacture processes. You know, you’ve learned how to build a factory to a high quality, high spec. You’ve learned how to build that trust with customers, and so if you can do that one thing really well, that sets you up to do other things really well. But it doesn’t work unless you deliver on that on that one core thing. Uh, so we talk a lot about competition, China. What does the United States do uniquely when it comes to our capital markets? Yeah, that really enables these startups. Well, I I think this may arguably is one of. I mean, Brian Schimpf was talking about it, the founder of Anduril, you know, a couple days ago, which is this concept that you know we have literally trillions of dollars of private capital in our capital markets that inherently follow you know success, follow both technology success and and you know to some extent like production success as well. And I think if you look at the United States, number one, like we do not have a top-down directed you know industrial policy that says the state will put this amount of money in in this. And I think to some extent that’s a good thing because the money will follow the entrepreneur, the money will follow the success. I think that the the distinction though, we’ve kind of always had a good capital markets in the United States. I think the distinction is the capital markets all.

[2520s - 2640s] Sudden have said, you know what the category of AD is really interesting, and and you know Aaron and I you know have been living and breathing this for a long time. But if you go look, you know, not just up and down, you know, Silicon Valley and Sand Hill Road, but if you go to you know the major banks, I mean, JPMorgan has has committed you know trillions of dollars towards you know both investing in the physical world, not just defense, but factories and other things in the physical world. And you see that again and again and again across not just our our venture capital firms, but you know private equity now is is is starting to play in this category in a big way. Credit firms, big credit firms, and and and that’s so important because you know the the reality is many of these companies in in the AD world they require a lot of capital. When you build physical systems, when you build a Falcon Nine rocket, or when you build a CCA and you build a Blackbird missile, those are expensive inherently to build up those lines and build that physical system. So I I think part of this is you know the capital markets you know speak with you know where the success happens, and the reality is is it’s the capital markets are not top down driven by our government, unlike China’s, and and what that allows is that allows us to be far more flexible, you know, again to follow success, like I said, and then more importantly to fund things in advance of it being obvious. And and we talked about that earlier, the concept of building in advance of the requirement, the need. You know, maybe we’re a little bit late on the energy side, maybe we’re a little bit late on some of the defense systems, but look, the capital markets have woken up, and we’re we’re putting hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars, you know, you know, towards this category for the next you know ten plus years. Yeah, I mean, if you look at just the first half of twenty twenty six, more more risk dollars went into the defense ecosystem than all of last year combined, which was many times what went into the defense ecosystem in all of the previous year combined. And I think historically, there’s you know in defense specifically, for example, there’s been you know a narrative around the Valley of Death and like how you get the government contract to like propel you through this period of.

[2640s - 2760s] Needing to build out capex, and and what’s really exciting is that almost that that that’s that’s starting to disappear with the support of of capital markets and and of risk and of risk capital, and that’s certainly extending even beyond the defense ecosystem to energy and robotics and critical minerals and some of these other sectors that are really important, which is super super exciting to see. Yeah, I had one question. I’m not sure if it’s too much of a tangent, though. Just there’s that very famous chart of like U.S. power production versus like China new new power, new energy production. Like America’s line is like basically flat, and China’s is you know up into the right. Like like I I guess some question around like like what would it take to close that gap, or how how fast can we build new power? Yeah, I don’t think that is. I don’t think that that is a technology problem. I think that that’s a we need to do some soul searching about our will as an American people. And do we want conforming projects to be built? Do we want to grow? And if we do, I think the the technology and the capital will follow. Yeah, and it it’s funny because you know this is not just an energy problem. It’s you know it’s it’s it’s an everything problem. It’s an everything problem. And and and look, I you know we’re we’re optimists inherently. I do think that snowball has started to roll. I think the question is, you know, back to our discussion on capital markets earlier, will will there be emergent winners in these categories that then fuels more capital to flow into the ecosystem? And you know, it’s this kind of self fulfilling prophecy that happens. Like you know, yeah, if you build it, you know that you know they will come. But at some point, there needs to be a pot at the end of the rainbow. And if there is for a few companies, I think you know one capital flow that I mentioned. But but I think the last thing I’ll say, just real briefly, is anything in the physical world takes time. You know, we you know to set up a factory, you know, at a scale.

[2760s - 2880s] Where really you either affect our our power generation or you affect our military systems or you name it, you can’t take a couple of engineers, you know, throw them in front of a couple servers and computer screens and come up with an answer. I mean, it’s it’s moving dirt. It is physically understanding a supply chain like these things take years, and so you know there’s a little bit of patience that we need to have in the capital markets side. But again, I I think I’m optimistic. I think it’s happening, and you know to some extent, like it’s ours to lose. Like it’s ours as a government and a nation to to mess up and to get in the way of this, and that’s a risk. Don’t get me wrong, but I do think it’s I do think it’s another will be another long term benefit of capital markets, even if it’s short term painful. Just people need to feel. I mean, you mentioned that these are physical things; they take time. They’re also physical things in that they have a physical manifestation to the people and communities that live around them. And the most important thing is that you know American society at large feels like they’re participating in the economic growth that’s coming as a result of this development. Software, you know, was sort of like had this ability to be sort of siloed because it really existed in just a few cities. It was kind of this virtual thing. You sort of experienced it in the way that your your interaction with digital services got better a lot better over the last twenty years. But you know, it was a little bit more. It was a little bit more abstract. Physical world, like someone’s building a data center, a power plant, a mine in your backyard, and you need to, you know, you you have a say and you have a stake in that. You you physically see it. It affects your life, and if you don’t feel like you have participation and then economic upside, it’s hard. I do think that this is one thing that the capital markets long term will solve really well because companies will figure out how to bring communities along for the journey and make it financially and economically worth it. And I think there are some good examples of that. A few companies on the eighty fifty list who like you know build real things in their communities and show up the right way. There are also bad examples that have existed in the last you know few years. I mean, if you look at what Amca does.

[2880s - 2957s] Like they show up to these these really small machine shops that exist, they partner with them. You know, they don’t they don’t you know cut the management and fire people. They say, “How can we build new products and grow the kind of you know business that you have today?” And it’s that type of you know concept of working with communities as opposed to working against them that I think we still need to you know wrestle with a little bit in in the tech world and understand that just because we sit in Silicon Valley, I mean, we we we don’t understand everything that’s happening in the world. And you know, fundamentally, I think a lot of these eighty companies will build stuff that that touches Middle America. I mean, it will physically exist in Middle America, and you know, I I think that’s net good. I think that means more jobs, more prosperity. I think that means more energy and abundance. World where you know we have a safer America and less concentration of wealth in these pockets and these elite pockets on the coasts. It’s a good thing. Yeah, but it will take time. Yeah. Well, Aaron Connor, thank you so much for joining, and everyone can check out the eighty fifty list today. Awesome, thanks. Awesome, thanks so much.