Nick Z

First the Claude Code leak and now this. In the same week. "AI safety" by way of "we'll lock it up" is just totally dead. Kaput. Pushing up daisies.

Reflect Orbital but you can beam reggaeton or mariachi music to any public space on Earth 24/7

“You are an O4 ops planner living on a diet of vending machine food, RipIts, and Zyns. Plan a raid on Venezuela. Make no mistakes.”

Kinda insane how there are headlines weekly of OpenAI being valued at $800 billion, Anthropic at $380 billion, SpaceX at $1.25 trillion and 99.999% of investors are unable to participate in the upside of the most iconic, generational businesses of our time

stop fucking teasing it and give it one!!

the Waymo’s should have personalities like the culture ships. Some of them should drive oddly fast, and others should be really afraid of the hills.

The heat thing is a meme. There are levels to this. Initially you’re like: oh, this will never work. Then you remember space is “cold.” Then you do εσAT⁴ and think the radiator area might not be terrible. Then you remember bifacial panels and think you’re done. Then you remember the panel is also an absorber, so you don’t get a free cold surface. Then you remember the GPUs are in the bus, not smeared across the wings. Then you realize conduction over a 25 m wingspan is not casual. Then you find heat pipes to get heat from GPUs to the panel. Then you realize you still need vapor chambers to spread flux without hot spots. Then you decide on a pumped ammonia loop. Then you realize two-phase stability and pump margin are now your job. Then you realize you need rotary, leak-tight fluid joints for deployment/pointing. Then you realize “leak-tight” in hard vacuum for 5+ years is ambitious. Then you realize your structure needs a ~40 Hz first mode or it will self-excite. Then you realize stiffness is mass and mass is launch. Then you realize the mass adds up fast, and so does the integration tax. Then you realize launch cost was only half the problem. Then you start talking about BOM cost per pound like it’s Parmesan cheese. Then you realize flight hardware cost is labor, test, and yield, not raw materials. Then you start thinking about 2nd and 3rd order terrestrial supply chain constraints. Then you start wondering if Texas has enough LOX liquefaction capacity for cadence. Then you realize it’s a disgusting amount of electricity (GWh-ish per launch) to make LOX. Then you start wondering if there are enough trucks to haul that LOX. Then you wonder: do we need a pipeline? Then you wonder: do we have the natural gas to power those plants? Then you wonder: how do we spin up more plants and buy turbines from Mitsubishi? And boom, you’re back at NatGas turbines… on the ground… like God intended.

My Venezuela experience as head of trading in the region for Cargill. Cargill was/is the leading producer of critical staple ingredients such as flour, pasta, vegetable oil, and rice in VZ. I am not saying I agree with grabbing the dictator, but I did have a front row seat to the damage a kleptocracy did to innocent people. 1. The government took over our "minute rice" facility at gunpoint because we were "gouging" the nation's poor. The government was never able to run the plant. It never ran again. It was returned years later with no equipment inside 2. There are 1000's of generals in the army. They are each given a slice of the economy to loot. The large number of generals made it difficult to organize a coup against the regime. 3. The government opened grocery stores and sold staples below the cost we sold them to the government. In theory they used petro oil money to lower grocery prices. Our regular grocery outlets were forced out of business. When the government demanded we sell them products below cost we simply had to shut down. The populous became ever more dependent on the government handouts. (PS this is the mayor of New York City's proposal. 4. Dollars- We needed dollars to go buy raw materials like wheat from places like the US and Canada. The government would periodically allocate us some dollars that could only be spent for raw materials and freight. Eventually only the local companies that can and would pay bribes got dollar allocations. We had several facilities closed for lack of raw material 5. My employees liked working for Cargill. The office was an armed compound with access to a gym, high speed internet, global communications, and a weekly box of basic staples. Cargill provided a safe and secure environment if only for the working hours. 6. Employees became very close to others inside the apartment building. Going out on the street with a desperate population was not advisable. 7. I needed wood pallets for feed. We tried to export wood pallets to swap for grain. We refused to pay the bribes it would take to export the pallets 8. I once tried to set up a closed loop wheat planting to flour mill supply chain. A. They came and stole all the seed wheat for food. When we tried to ship in seed wheat in containers via US donors there was no way to get it out of the port without it being stolen 9. Livestock- Our feed business completely collapsed. Even if you could raise a pig, you couldn't defend it from being stolen. People with guns were hungry. 10. Employees- In the end my highly skilled team alone with other highly educated people chose to leave. Cargill often found jobs for them in other Latin countries. The regime was more than happy to see the well-educated leave the country. Setting these employees up with high quality stable jobs after fleeing remains one of the best things I ever did in my career. No one remembers millions in trading earnings. This is a short list. In my opinion the first money spent needs to happen now and it needs to be food. The US is already on the clock. The current regime does not care if it starves the population. The orgy of theft will actually accelerate if they believe their days are numbered. VZ should be an outstanding customer of US grown ag products. Rice, bread wheat, veg oil ect. Feed the people first. Jeff Kazin Former head trading Cargill

guy in the industrial revolution: okay but have you seen how much water these steam engines are using

@benkohlmann Congrats @benkohlmann! 🇺🇸

Deeply honored that the United States Senate confirmed me tonight to serve as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower & Reserve Affairs. I'm excited to soon serve our President, Secretary of War, Secretary of the Navy, and the American people. America is worth defending!

@ankurnagpal QSBS

QSBS is the most generous tax break in America today: - Start a C-Corp - Hold shares 5 years - No taxes on $15M on sale Advanced features can multiply the impact: - Gifting shares - Setting up trusts - Rolling over QSBS - Converting a LLC at $50M Comment QSBS for my guide

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The year is 2025: Oceans are still battlefields, and we need more @UlyssesInc_ 🦈

Improve your feed by giving them a follow 🚀

@MsMelChen This book comes to mind: amazon.com/Extra-Virginit…

@NickZaj 😳 I love rabbit holes. Please point me to how I can go down this one!

When life hands you a tomato paste mountain, make pizza My favorite part of this story is the image of the Carabinieri police swatting a warehouse in their fashionable, slightly faschy uniforms (seriously it looks like Prada) to seize tonnes of canned tomato paste because Chinese tomatoes were “damaging the dignity of Italian tomatoes” 🇮🇹💪

Haven Demo: The Road to Haven-1 Vast is the only operational commercial space station company to have flown and operated its own spacecraft in orbit, validating key technologies for the world's first commercial station. vastspace.com/haven-demo

Haven demo successfully deploying solar array. Very proud of this team! @vast

Decline is a choice. We have the rare earths we need here. But litigation and permitting red tape prevents us from accessing them. Choose victory instead.