Alex Oliver retweeted
The @USNavy has selected Radiant to deploy our Kaleidos microreactor at Naval Weapons Station Crane, Indiana.
With this selection, Radiant is now the only nuclear microreactor company with partnerships across the Army, Navy and Air Force.
The Navy has more than 70 years of safe reactor operations. It wrote the playbook on reactor safety. Earning its confidence is powerful independent validation of Kaleidos.
This milestone moves us closer to our goal: reliable, resilient nuclear power wherever the mission demands. Through our work with all three branches, we’re building a clear path from military deployment to nuclear energy at scale for government and commercial customers.
Read more details here: radiantnuclear.com/news/navy…
ALT A landscape image showing a truck hauling a large container marked "Radiant" across a desert landscape at sunset. In the sky above the scene, logos for "America's Navy," "U.S. Army," and "U.S. Air Force" are prominently displayed.
Alex Oliver retweeted
Our investment in Foundry Management (@foundrymgt), a company creation platform for the intelligent industrial age.
We @a16z have long believed in the opportunity to deploy the most advanced technologies into America's largest industrial businesses.
Doing so at the scale that reindustrialization demands, however, requires a level of trust, access, and context difficult for most early-stage founders to obtain.
Earlier this year, we teamed up with our friends at Atlas Holdings, who represent ~$26B in annual revenues across metals, mining, automotive supply chain, paper, food, energy, and logistics. We started with a blank page and worked to design the best way to accelerate technologists deploying AI into industrials businesses at real scale from day one.
The result is @foundrymgt, a platform for those building AI for the industrial world, from inside the industrial world.
Backed by a16z and Atlas and led by CEO @BarnehamaArye, Foundry brings a small number of exceptional technical founders onto the platform and deploys them into some of the largest industrial businesses via Atlas’ portfolio. Working alongside the operators, technicians, and management at these businesses, these founders will establish the foundations to spin out as an independent company.
We believe that some of the most transformative technology solutions will originate on the factory floor of enduring institutions. @davidu
Today, we're launching Foundry Management, formed by @a16z and Atlas Holdings to help founders build AI companies inside the industrial world.
The hardest constraint in physical-world industries is often not the technology, but getting close enough to mission-critical work to understand what should be built. Foundry gives you a place to begin.
We recruit a small, select group of some of the top technologists and give them premiere access to the Atlas portfolio, representing $26B in annual revenue across metals, paper, packaging, building products, automotive supply chains, energy, and logistics.
You'll work alongside the operators and management at these businesses to build products and technologies that unleash AI in these industrial contexts. When it demonstrates the potential for an independent business, a16z and Atlas will support its creation, with you leading it as founder and CEO.
There’s a great deal of the future left to build inside the industries already around us.
Come build it with us: [email protected]
Alex Oliver retweeted
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
Alex Oliver retweeted
Vice President JD Vance at the groundbreaking of Saronic's Port Alpha in Brownsville, Texas:
"We are rebuilding the American dream from the ground up by employing and investing in American workers and American businesses."
"What this facility will mean is that 10,000 families have a good paycheck. 10,000 sons and daughters will see mom and dad go to work with purpose. 10,000 people will know that their country is being built not by people outside of the United States, but by their own fellow citizens and their own people in their own community."
"So I just wanna say to the workers, to the investors, to the leadership of this company, I'm proud of you."
"This represents something that for 40 years, we saw factories close down. We saw shipyards close down. We saw our friends and neighbors lose their jobs because we had a government, but also a corporate leadership that didn't want to invest in the American worker anymore. Well, that has changed."
"As you guys break ground on this facility, as you build it up to great heights, and of course, as you start seeing ships roll off the lines, know that the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, we're proud of you, we're thankful for the work that you're doing, we're rooting for you, and you will be our champion here in Brownsville, Texas, and we will be your champion in Washington, DC."
@VP @Saronic
Alex Oliver retweeted
Our fifth growth fund is now $8.5b.
The founder is the asset in late stage, and we back the best in the world. At the same time, the best founders face global complexity earlier in their lives than ever before. So we are building out an enhanced Growth Platform for these exceptional founders.
Biggest product cycles of our lives. Never been higher stakes, and never been more excited.
@a16z
Alex Oliver retweeted
I’m excited to share that Podium Automation has raised an $18M Series A led by Construct Capital, with participation from a16z, Transition, Sunflower, and Banter to help our customers build the automated world faster.
Today, Podium designs and ships UL 508A control panels in less than four weeks for the most ambitious hardware teams across industries. Our customers trust us to deliver panels on spec, on time, with full visibility from quote to delivery.
In less than two years, we have shipped over 200 panels to customers ranging from hardware scale-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We’ve been heads down building our team, software platform, and factory to meet rapidly growing demand for quick-turn capacity, and we’ve also doubled our throughput in the last quarter.
More importantly, we’re laser focused on delivering sustainable value to our customers with bottom line discipline. This quarter we delivered positive factory-level economics in our Brooklyn factory that launched in August 2025.
If you want to be part of a team that cares about tangible results and believes in a future where industrial products are built efficiently, transparently, and without compromise - we're hiring across the board.
To our team, customers, and investors - thank you. Today's announcement is grounded in the trust you’ve placed in Podium, and the responsibility we feel to keep earning it.
Alex Oliver retweeted
“The unmanned surface vessel, a Saronic Corsair, located the crew, who had spent two hours in the waters off the coast of Oman and brought them to shore.”
Never been prouder of the @Saronic team. 🇺🇸💪🚀
Alex Oliver retweeted
"America must now build autonomous systems at both the quality and quantity required to win. We have the talent advantage. We are losing the production race.
The stakes are whether the United States arrives at the next conflict with overwhelming superiority in autonomy, or whether we cede that advantage to adversaries who are already building it."
a16z's Daniel Penny, Alex Oliver, and Zach Chen on the moral case for autonomous warfare: a16z.news/p/no-man-left-behi…
