Thinking On Paper

How does space policy transcend election cycles?

One important factor is that space has been bipartisan for a very long time, and I think it's important to preserve that. Political cycles are driven by partisanship, so maintaining consistency over time is a responsibility for each generation. We have to avoid turning space into another partisan issue.

The second piece is national security.

That's complicated because leaning into national security isn't a free lunch. There are legitimate reasons to be uncomfortable with using national security to build enthusiasm for space.

But national security is also one of the fundamental responsibilities of a state.

Framing space as a long-term national security priority can extend the political horizon and create a reason to maintain investment beyond a single administration or election cycle.

We rely on space more than we realize. GPS is the most tangible way we interface with it daily, from calling an Uber to managing financial transactions and energy grids. Losing GPS would impact almost everything, even from our living rooms.

From SpaceX to the forest

Our largest customer in home building is D.R. Horton.

Originally, we designed a material with a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel. As engineers, Wad and I thought, “How cool is this? We made steel out of grass.”

When we showed it to D.R. Horton, they laughed. They said, “That’s cool, but we would never buy it.”

We asked why. It was stronger than steel.

That forced us to understand how the industry actually works and what customers value. We realized we were solving for the wrong requirements.
So we redefined the problem and applied that lens to the material.

Sam Altman was kicked out of OpenAI in November 2023.

The board removed him because it said he had not been consistently candid in his communications with them. They essentially lost confidence in him as CEO.

And then the employees rallied around him.

Nearly the entire company threatened to resign unless Altman was reinstated. Within days, the board backed down, Altman returned as CEO, and OpenAI announced a new board.

And here we are now, stuck with him.

Teleoperating humanoids on the Moon from Earth?

Space investment is now dominated by defense.

But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Governments are directing significant defense budgets toward building capabilities in the space environment, driven by national security requirements.

What those defense dollars are doing is creating a large, reliable source of demand for these companies.

That can accelerate their technology roadmaps and allow them to deploy systems faster than they might have through commercial investment alone.
It’s also helping companies scale their satellite constellations more quickly, bringing them closer to the point where they can generate large, persistent, real-time data sets.

So defense spending isn’t just funding individual technologies. It can accelerate the development and deployment of an entire space infrastructure that may ultimately have both military and commercial applications.

Quantum requires very little power compared with AI.

A good rule of thumb is that a state-of-the-art quantum computer uses about the same amount of power as one rack of AI hardware, and actually a little less today.

That will still be roughly true for large-scale quantum computers in 2029.

Why did it take AI companies this long to introduce parental controls?

We discuss Mustafa Suleyman’s warnings about seemingly conscious AI, the rise of AI companions, and what happens when chatbots start forming emotional relationships with children. Character.AI and other platforms have already raised serious questions about how AI should interact with kids.

If companies can see these risks coming, why are parental controls being added after the fact?