Damian Grados retweeted
In the last week, I've heard from 3 different people in my personal orbit that have been laid off because of the disruption AI is causing in their industry.
They're all white collar workers. They all have student debt.
I think the next 2 years is going to be a bloodbath for the overlap of white collar worker with student loan debt.
Those thinking that AI won't cause massive job displacement & disruption - especially in white collar work - are in for a very rude awakening IMO.
Yes - the opportunity to chart a brand new path using AI that's FAR more lucrative and overall much better is exploding. But so is the massive disruption to the existing labor market.
Damian Grados retweeted
NOAA Commits to First Deep-Sea Mining Certification Within Two Months and First Permit Within 12 Months
On the final day of the 54th Underwater Minerals Conference (UMC) in Toyama, Japan, NOAA Undersecretary Erik Noble delivered an unexpectedly direct and unequivocal message about the US administration's commitment to commercial deep-sea mining.
Speaking in refreshingly clear and unqualified language, Noble stated that NOAA would be issuing its first commercial recovery application certification within the next two months and its first commercial recovery permit within 12 months.
This is a clear win for The Metals Company $TMC who were the first to commit the US permitting pathway.
In attendance were Gerard Barron, CEO of TMC, together with members of his team.
Throughout the conference, TMC shared the remarkable breadth of work undertaken to advance its deep-sea mining projects, from resource assessment, offshore collection technology and extensive environmental baseline research to monitoring systems, engineering and bench-scale testing of its metallurgical processing flowsheet.
Noble made clear that ending regulatory paralysis is an explicit objective of the US administration. The intention is to move beyond decades of uncertainty and establish a functioning regulatory framework capable of supporting environmentally responsible, economically viable commercial deep-sea mining.
For more detail check out my substack @themetalsco @gtbgtb
Damian Grados retweeted
SpaceX has a chance of going about half the GW next year of actually usable compute.
“Actually usable” is an important metric. It takes us ~2 months working 24/7 to get a large compute cluster working reliably. I’d guess closer to 6 months for others.
Damian Grados retweeted
I wanted to let you know that in the past days NOAA has written to us with an update. It now expects to decide on certification of the TMC USA-A consolidated application by mid-December 2026, instead of the end of October.
Importantly, the letter does not identify any issue or deficiency with our application. The regulator is following the statute step by step. That matters. Our path runs through a law that has been on the books since 1980 and a regulator that is applying it methodically. That is what makes a permit last.
Metal independence isn't a partisan issue. It's about whether the West secures the critical minerals it needs or stays dependent on China. We appreciate a thorough review, and we're engaged with NOAA at every step.
Also I'm excited to be in Japan this week for the Underwater Minerals Conference, where I'll be attending for the first time to watch $TMC's enviro team showcasing findings shaping this industry's future. With world-first commercial-scale plume modelling published yesterday and almost a dozen presentations drawing on our data, it's shaping up to be quite a week. #deepseamining
Damian Grados retweeted
$TMC NGOs seem uncomfortable with real data. The more they dismiss the facts and ignore the benefits of deep sea mining, the more credibility they stand to lose.
World-first commercial modelling published in @JMSE_MDPI shows that even at commercial scale, the seafloor plume remains highly localized within the direct production area. Over 435 days of modelled operations, the collector travels 12,624 kilometres, roughly three coast-to-coast journeys across the U.S. Yet 86.7% of mobilized sediment settles within 10 metres of the tracks, with the plume dissipating completely within 2–5 days of operations ending. Even at its maximum extent, the plume occupies just 0.029% of our initial production area's water volume.
mdpi.com/2077-1312/14/21/208… #deepseamining
Damian Grados retweeted
Elon called it out: SoftBank is defaulting on their turbine orders.
I suspect the main reason is what I repeatedly pointed out for months:
1. SI demand is going through the roof. There is no bubble.
2. The real problem is supply.
3. Supply has multiple layers:
a) Energy
b) Land and permits
c) Buildings
d) Chips & memory
e) Building the superclusters
f) Financing
a) has become the #1 problem, and only Elon can solve it. You need to literally manufacture your own turbine blades. OR you have to find a place where there is enough excess energy AND an entity that is able to do the right kind of deal - which is possible but very hard.
b) this is becoming harder but is not the primary problem. Going forward, it requires pitching local communities, offer very good deals to the actual people living there and making sure everyone is happy, which requires a new skillset
c) Buildings = easy
d) Getting access to large clusters of chips AND memory requires large-scale projects (50B+) AND a strong reputation that you will get it done and pay. Not many entities or people can secure supply from Nvidia and Micron.
e) one of the most underrated problems: you have to actually build these things with hundreds of thousands of perfectly calibrated GPUs, etc. - you need a lot of rocket scientists for that, or face years of delay and massive cost explosions
f) you need access to tens of billions of money , meaning flawless credit profile OR a pile of cash you are sitting on OR a deep equity market profile.
Put these together - and you will see this game is one that can only be done by AWS, META, MSFT, GOOG and SPCX...
AND that SPCX will have a 2-4x speed advantage, wich translates into tens of billions saved in interest and faster ROIC cycles.
+++
In short:
MASSIVE demand overhang that is getting WORSE over time.
TRILLIONS of margin to be generated over the next 5 years.
A HANDFUL of companies who can stand up the supply.
SPCX getting the lion share of it.
/C /Compute buildout.
Damian Grados retweeted
My x Feed is depressing today.
Lighten up people! Time to build and create a better civilization. Did you really believe the GOP would save us?
2028 will get much worse.
Ultimately, it is up to us to build a civilization by the Pioneers, for the Pioneers.
Damian Grados retweeted
Election night 101 for $SPCX holders.
What you need to know before you panic sell or buy the dip:
1. Nasdaq futures dropped 1.35% overnight on the Texas governor race. Futures. Thin trading. 2am.
2. The fear: a new governor "ices" the data center buildout.
3. What a governor can do alone: pick grid regulators (the Texas Senate has to confirm them), push the grid operator, veto bills.
4. What needs the legislature: killing data center tax breaks, rewriting grid laws, any moratorium. Earliest that becomes law: around Sep 2027.
5. Texas was already squeezing data centers before tonight. Grid hook-ups for big new loads were paused months ago.
6. SpaceX launch licences are federal. Not Texas.
7. xAI's compute is in Tennessee and Mississippi. Both red states. Not Texas.
8. Congress likely flipped too. A blue Congress can hold hearings on SpaceX. It can't cut SpaceX funding without the president signing it. Overriding him needs 2/3 of both chambers.
9. SpaceX flew 161 of 195 FAA-licensed launches last year. 83%.
10. Dragon is the only working US crew ride. Starliner doesn't fly crew again until 2028.
11. 2016 election night: Dow futures -800. Next day the Dow closed +1.4%.
Headline risk is real. Business risk is mostly noise.
Washington can change. The need for SpaceX doesn't.
If it opens red, that's a discount, not a thesis change.
$SPCX
Damian Grados retweeted
The White House's new manufacturing report names $OKLO and $TE as the companies behind the largest energy investments in its tally with ~$1.7B going toward nuclear fuel recycling and more than $500M into a Texas solar cell plant.
Pretty telling where next wave of U.S. energy investment is actually going as more of supply chain gets pulled back onshore.
Damian Grados retweeted
Absolutely crazy market data from Morgan Stanley shows unprecedented Pioneer Alpha opportunity
The selloff in momentum and AI stocks is again worse than in the dot com bubble - only this time the market is dumping historically undervalued stocks with massive profits and accelerating growth.
In other words:
Enormous amounts of free money 💰
Pioneer Alpha paradise!
/C /selloff
Damian Grados retweeted
Yesterday, President Trump was in Texas highlighting the economic success his policies have delivered.
We're proud to be part of that momentum.
T1 is building G2_Austin, an advanced photovoltaic manufacturing facility in Texas, with an estimated 2.1 GW Phase 1 capital expenditure in excess of $500 million. G2_Austin is expected to create an estimated 1,500 high-paying advanced manufacturing jobs with a $120 million payroll in Milam County, Texas, while helping to reshore a critical industry.
This investment would not have been possible without the leadership of President Trump and his administration.
We are investing big in America, because it is the greatest country in the world. 🇺🇸
Damian Grados retweeted
True
FSD could literally free up OVER $1.5 trillion/yr... WHY isn't anyone talking about this??
If Lawmakers were serious about serving the people, they would start focusing on how to speed up FSD adoption.
The Data:
Fatal & serious crashes cost the U.S. almost $2 trillion per year in total societal harm; including ~$400 billion in direct economic costs in the form of:
- medical bills
- property damage
- lost wages
- enormous quality-of-life cost of lost years
- permanent disability
Tesla’s latest FSD data shows vehicles with FSD engaged are ~9× SAFER than the average driver.
That means, if fully adopted, FSD could produce savings the size of any one of these:
- ~6% of GDP
- The entire Social Security program
- Medicare AND Medicaid
- Roughly 2× the defense budget
At this scale, FSD (and technologies like it) could be one of the first real steps toward an age of AI "abundance" people talk about.
50 years from now, our children and grandchildren will look back in horror at the fact that we ever drove at all.
Damian Grados retweeted
America needs an estimated 6,000 new mining engineers over the next decade. This week, the @DOECMEI put $16 million behind closing that gap.
Congratulations to the 16 universities selected for DOE’s PROSPECT Planning Prize, including @UUtah, @coschoolofmines, and the rest of the winners.
Rebuilding American minerals production is primarily a people problem. For decades the talent pipeline has thinned while ore bodies got deeper and grades declined. Both must be solved at once.
That’s why autonomy is the mandate at Mariana. Software and autonomous systems can take on most of the measuring, adjusting, and scheduling that humans still do by hand, so every engineer, geologist, metallurgist, and operator we hire can do more. Great people remain essential; autonomy lets them mine and refine far more.
To the next class of mining engineers, scientists, and operators: the industry you’re walking into is about to look very different. Come build it with us.
marianaminerals.com/careers
Hang in there $TMC holders…$1.85 the lowest I see this going if no permit announcement, great buying opportunities going into the EOY. Be selective.
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Damian Grados retweeted
Palmer Luckey tells Joe Rogan an African grey parrot's tiny brain could change how we think about AI
Joe Rogan: Are you familiar with Alex the African grey parrot? African greys are probably the smartest bird, right up there with crows and ravens. They can talk, they can reason.
Palmer Luckey: Alex was a uniquely smart one. African greys are usually not kept in captivity because they're a handful, and they're a handful because they're so intelligent. They need intellectual stimulation, and most people don't have the time. They get depressed and self-harm.
Palmer: Alex had a vocabulary and understood grammar. I think he's the only animal who asked an existential question, right before he died: "What's happening and where am I going?"
Palmer: And he has a tiny bird brain. People who've lost huge chunks of their brain seem to get by. Parrots like Alex suggest you can do a lot with very little brain if it's oriented correctly.
Trainer: What's different? What number is grey?
Alex: Four.
Trainer: Very good. Good boy.
Palmer: That's intelligence on par with a human toddler, with far less brain tissue. Building a thinking system from scratch with AI will help us understand how other systems think. There's never been an economic motive to dig into how the brain fundamentally works. Google's never funded it to the tune of tens of billions. Meta's never funded it to the tune of hundreds of billions.
Nobody paid to understand the brain until there was money in building a copy of it.
