Scott Nolan

My first interview with US Secretary of Energy @SecretaryWright and @ScottNolan, Founder of @GeneralMatter. This conversation is on nuclear and how we're going to power the AI data center buildout. 0:07 Powering the AI data center boom 3:25 Biggest energy bottlenecks over the next five years 6:03 Ramping power generation before we have SMRs 16:06 Bridging the nuclear transition with natural gas 21:39 What if we’re underestimating how much power we’ll need for AI 27:10 Staying ahead of China 34:07 Why AI is hated + the fear of AI data centers driving up electricity prices 40:21 Increasing baseload capacity 42:50 Building hundreds of gigawatts by 2050 49:37 Copying the SpaceX playbook 53:14 Incentivizing founders to build ahead of demand 59:03 “If you want to build big things in America, come talk to the government”

Scott Nolan (@ScottNolan ) was employee ~30 at SpaceX. He spent over a decade at Founders Fund backing Anduril, Radiant, and Crusoe Energy. In 2023, he went looking for a company enriching uranium domestically. There was none. So he started General Matter (@generalmatter ). The U.S. once produced 86% of the world's enriched uranium. By 2013 it was zero. Russia filled the gap. China is scaling fast. Meanwhile, every advanced reactor company in America was hitting the same wall: no domestic fuel supply. General Matter is changing that. $900M DOE contract. First facility in Paducah, Kentucky, the exact site where the U.S. last enriched uranium. And just weeks ago in Tokyo, a $2.4B EXIM financing deal to supply Japanese utilities. Why is this important to Japan? Because 70% of Japan's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Because Japan currently imports all its enriched uranium from Europe. Because Japan has been burned by energy dependency in 1941, the 1970s, and right now. One pellet of enriched uranium contains as much energy as 100 barrels of oil. You can stockpile it for years. The energy density alone makes nuclear the most defensible base load option for an import-dependent economy. I sat down with Scott over sushi in Tokyo to talk about all of this. Enjoy. (00:00) Intro (01:17) The $2.4B EXIM Deal (04:43) Why General Matter Had to Be Started (11:51) The Uranium Supply Chain (15:40) SpaceX and Nuclear: The Parallel (19:54) Japan's Energy Security (25:58) Safety Myths and Next-Gen Reactors (31:10) Enrichment Economics (37:18) The SpaceX Approach to Cheaper Enrichment (46:43) Japan Supply Chain Partnership (56:50) Why Peter Thiel Joined the Board (01:02:10) Founders Fund on Japan (01:09:02) Definite Optimism and the Anduril Playbook (01:13:10) General Matter's Culture (01:15:27) Five-Year Scaling Plan

*New Lecture* Stanford @CS153Systems '26, Session 8 (Full Video) Energy Bottlenecks with @ScottNolan from @generalmatter 00:00 Energy Bottlenecks Intro 00:11 AI Factory Overview 02:55 Why Power Matters 03:56 From ChatGPT to Enterprise Demand 07:25 Meet Scott Nolan 09:03 Energy Is The Real Limit 11:16 Demand Growth Reality Check 13:17 Stranded Power Era 15:54 What Data Centers Need 16:59 Nuclear As Baseload Path 18:21 Fuel Cycle And Enrichment Gap 21:41 Bitcoin Mining As Rehearsal 25:03 Building Primitives Not Pivots 28:17 Nuclear Safety And Narrative 30:22 Calibrating the Moment 30:54 Pick Important Problems 32:14 General Matter Breakthrough 35:04 Building Team and Site 37:18 Government Support Reality 39:19 Jobs and AI Demand 42:37 Scaling Timelines and Space 46:16 Early SpaceX Lessons 50:25 Nuclear Perception and Europe 53:17 Supply Chain and Enrichment 56:56 Why US Lost Enrichment 59:25 Back to the Future Wrap

.@ScottNolan started his career as employee 30 at SpaceX. He left to join Founders Fund after Peter Thiel recruited him personally in 2011, and spent the next 12 years backing companies like SpaceX, Anduril, Radiant, and Crusoe Energy. The through line across all of it, and the worldview Thiel built Founders Fund around, was finding important problems that incumbents have no incentive to solve. Scott's version of that thesis was physical-world companies in a decade when venture capital had largely decided not to fund them. Before starting @generalmatter, Scott met nearly every advanced reactor company in America. They all were constrained by the same problem - no one was enriching uranium domestically at scale. He spent 2023 looking to invest in a company solving it and found none. The US once led the world in enrichment. But it let its enrichment plants calcify and shut down its last domestically owned facility in 2013. Today Russia supplies about 25% of the enriched uranium that fuels 20% of the country's electricity. Congress has already passed a ban on those imports that takes full effect in 2028. So Scott started General Matter, the first private American uranium enrichment company, built on DOE land in Kentucky where the country's last enrichment plant once operated. In January, the DOE awarded it a $900 million contract. Thiel sits on almost no boards, yet he joined General Matter's. Enjoy this great conversation with Scott Nolan. Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 1:00 Finding Important Problems 6:18 Lessons from Peter Thiel 9:32 Spotting Underappreciated Companies 21:46 The Danger of Falling in Love with Ideas 25:12 The Nuclear Energy Bottleneck 30:44 Why America Needs to Vertically Integrate 37:55 AI, Data Centers, and the Energy Squeeze 45:41 Advanced Nuclear Reactors 49:27 The Bring Your Own Energy (BYOE) Concept 53:45 Navigating America's Nuclear Fuel Cliffs 1:15:32 The Trade-offs Between Investing and Operating 1:18:00 Kindest Thing

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Under @POTUS leadership, the biggest AI companies in the world are committing to the Ratepayer Protection Pledge. Data centers are the foundation of the internet and next generation technologies, supporting the U.S. economy and national security. Although electricity demand is increasing, Americans won’t be footing the bill. President Trump is leveraging the data center boom to benefit American households, businesses, and the energy grid at large.

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America used to be #1 in the world for nuclear energy and controlled 86% of global uranium enrichment. Today? We've fallen to last place. As we approach the January 2028 ban on Russian uranium, the United States is facing a massive fuel crisis. If we don't reshore this capability, the future of our grid may be at risk. In this episode, @ScottNolan (Partner at @foundersfund & Co-founder of @generalmatter) reveals his plan to take back America's lead. We discuss: • How Scott is applying the SpaceX playbook of cost reduction to uranium • The massive market opportunity in HALEU and next-gen fuel • Scott's counterintuitive advice: avoid starting companies unless the mission is this important. Timestamps (00:00) Introduction to Scott Nolan (02:24) General Matter’s mission to rebuild U.S. enrichment (08:31) Scott’s background: From SpaceX and Founders Fund to General Matter (17:50) How Scott’s focus evolved over 13 years at Founders Fund (33:30) How U.S. uranium enrichment quietly came to an end (38:34) The Russian uranium ban and the 2028 supply cliff (50:56) What the U.S. needs to actually scale nuclear energy (59:30) Why General Matter chose Paducah, Kentucky (01:07:06) The $900 million Department of Energy award (01:14:12) Final meditations

Congrats @ScottNolan.