We've designed @foundrymgt from scratch with Atlas Holdings (~$26B in annual revenue across metals, mining, automotive supply chain, paper, food, energy, and logistics) so technologists can deploy AI inside these businesses at real scale from day one. Reindustrialization requires deploying AI at scale, and that starts with trust, access, and context inside the businesses themselves—exactly what Foundry Management gives founders. If you want to build inside real, physical businesses, let @oyhsu know!

In this episode of First Principles, we'll learn about asteroids, the telescopes that find them, and the satellites that protect us against them. ✧ In 2004, astronomers discovered a new, 60-million-ton asteroid hurtling towards Earth. They scrambled the world's best telescopes, traced its path in the sky as accurately as they could, and concluded that the asteroid, 99942 Apophis, had a 2.7% chance of causing "regional devastation" here on Earth. Today, that estimate has been revised down. We now know that Apophis will make its closest pass on Friday, April 13th, 2029, missing Earth but only just barely: the asteroid will pass closer than satellites in geostationary orbit, and will be visible to the naked eye. Exactly how we know that — and what we would do if we determined an asteroid really *was* heading our way — is the focus of today's episode. In this episode, we'll visit the telescope that discovered Pluto, one of the biggest optical reflecting telescopes in the world, and the factory floor of @AstroForge, a company building satellites for asteroid mining and planetary defense. Special thanks to @MattGialich, whose connections to Lowell Observatory made this episode possible — and whose meteorite collection is the envy of space nerds everywhere. ✧ 00:00 — Asteroids & Apophis 1:08 — Pluto Discovery Telescope Overview 1:57 — Pluto Discovery, Tracking 2:34 — Pluto Discovery, Optics 3:38 — Pluto Discovery, Sensor 5:06 — Lowell Discovery Telescope Overview 5:24 — Lowell Discovery, Tracking 7:08 — Lowell Discovery, Optics 8:07 — Lowell Discovery, Sensor 9:35 — Driving the Lowell Discovery Telescope 11:26 — The @AstroForge Satellite Factory 13:46 — How AstroForge Deflects Asteroids 14:49 — AstroForge 1.5 kW Laser Demo

Surgery is one of the most compelling opportunities for Physical AI - scaling expertise built over decades and bringing it to more patients. @alephsurgery is taking on the challenge, building a fully autonomous surgical robot. We at @a16z are honored to support @r_mcguire and @dylanmcguir3 as they build the future. @daisydwolf @oyhsu If that level of ambition excites you, reach out!!

We @a16z are proud to lead a $7.5M round into @alephsurgery, which is building an autonomous surgical robot. These robot surgeons will eventually be able to learn & perform any procedure, making critical care accessible to all. @dylanmcguir3 and @r_mcguire are visionaries and we're honored to partner with them on this journey, alongside @BoxGroup, Reveille VC, Constellation, @forward_deploy, @Valkyrie_vc, @DiscipulusVent, @maniacvc + more. @evajsteinman @oyhsu

We’re taking a massive swing at generalizable autonomy in the OR. Solving it means tackling some of the hardest problems at the intersection of robotics and medicine. If that level of ambition excites you, reach out →

We @a16z are thrilled to be partnering with @alephsurgery to bring autonomy to surgery. @r_mcguire and @dylanmcguir3 are doing incredible work applying frontier robot learning research to the operating room, and @daisydwolf @evajsteinman and I are honored to support them. They're hiring:

I don’t normally write these things. But this one hits a bit different. Nearly three years ago I told a16z I wanted to spend part time outside the firm helping @drfeifei start and build a frontier model company. And what followed were some of the most remarkable moments of my career. From being at the founding table. To watching the first git commits. Seeing the very early very rough results that hinted at something much greater. Contributing to the open source. Watching the creation of new model architectures that pushed the state of the art in multiple areas. I saw the team spin magic from nothing again and again. And I was very privileged to be within the walls. I’m very proud of what was accomplished, and am so excited for what lies ahead. So congratulations to AMD for entering into an agreement with the leading spatial intelligence frontier lab. And congratulations to the World Labs team on a partner that has the vision, ambition and leadership to be the top AI technology provider globally. Also congratulations to Dr. Su and Dr. Li. Two world class CEOs with a common vision. The both of you working together is unimaginably legendary. Arguably the smartest leaders in tech with the shared goal of building the world's leading AI capabilities. I know you both share an optimistic view of AIs ability to aid humanity. We need far more of that. As everyone knows. I’m World Lab’s biggest fan. And will remain so. Thanks to @drfeifei , @BenMildenhall , @jcjohnss and the entire team for letting me tag along. What a crazy fucking ride. You stood at the frontier, and moved it. And will continue to. Again, many congratulations to everyone involved. The future of AI will be so much brighter with this partnership. I can’t wait to see where it leads. Here’s to new worlds!

Today, we’re launching an ambitious new school called The Horowitz Andreessen Academy. Based in San Francisco, The Academy serves the most promising young high school graduates. We think this can be an elite institution that attracts top tier talent. One that prepares students for the future rather than remaining stuck in the past. The #1# goal is to help students learn to build, which is the most important skill in the AI era. They'll learn primarily by pursuing their own projects, either individually or in groups. There are classes and guest lectures, too, from some truly amazing people who have built modern-day Silicon Valley. The Academy is designed as a network, since that’s the reason students go to school in the first place. Core to that network are our 10 Founding Partners: Anduril, Anthropic, Coinbase, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, and Stripe. The network includes over 50 hiring partners and over 200 speakers and mentors. To join as a hiring partner or faculty member, you can apply on our website. We raised $42M in funding led by @a16z. I'll be CEO and @pmarca and @eriktorenberg will join me on the board. Applications are open for our Founding Class Fellowship, which will be one year and tuition-free. Eventually, pending regulatory approval, we plan to offer a two-year program that charges tuition, similar in cost to an elite private university. We're looking for the most unusually ambitious young builders on the planet. Come join us in San Francisco:

My second interview with @2112Power, Founder and CEO of @HadrianInc. 0:10 How to scale manufacturing in the US 1:42 Building ahead of contracts 4:21 Burn rate & execution risk 6:40 Bets that aren’t risky to you but are risky to everyone else 8:34 Scaling capacity 10:45 Operating with an 80% risk of death 13:10 Sprinting through 1-way doors 16:51 “Sometimes you gotta roll a hard 6” 18:37 Constructing a new factory 21:45 Learning how to build factories 28:14 Surviving company killing events 32:12 Radically pulling forward timelines 37:13 How financing changes as you scale from $1M revenue to $1B revenue 38:53 Growing from 725 to 1,325 employees in 4 months 43:00 Deciding which contracts to go after 45:33 What’s stopping you from growing faster? 50:02 “Just f*cking do it” 53:23 Designing the finance side of the business 56:51 Educating investors on manufacturing and capex heavy businesses 59:08 Deciding which competitive advantages to optimize for 1:02:08 Building trust with government partners 1:04:54 False doors 1:09:12 Figuring out the highest leverage activities 1:11:04 Investing in velocity 1:13:59 Energy management

Scaling for physical AI means scaling the actual footprint required for physical world data. These systems need to be tightly coupled with actual physical infrastructure to close the loop in their development. Congrats to the @periodiclabs team on Neon!

Congrats @LiamFedus @ekindogus and the entire Periodic team! Amazing to see these results and even more amazing to see the lab they’ve built in person. Their thesis on real world lab data already seeing major impact: “Periodic Neon is an early example: using our lab data, we trained a trillion-parameter model that outperforms GPT-6 Astra on a critical scientific analysis task using relatively little compute. As we scale our labs and compute, we expect AI trained on our lab data to tackle increasingly complex scientific problems”

Hadrian is a pillar of reindustrialization, and they’re now expanding on multiple fronts across capabilities, scale, and building the new American workforce. Congrats to @2112Power and the entire @HadrianInc team on these milestones. The Factory is the Product.

My live conversation with @2112Power, @jordan__black, and @hargsb on building in manufacturing. We discuss: - financialization, talent, & culture - regulation & process - vertical integration - the role of software - org building & scale Now on the @a16z podcast. Links 👇