Intro
My first conversation with Michael Thompson who is on the board of Joby Aviation ($JOBY) and Oklo ($OKLO). He previously started Reinvent Capital with Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman where he was Managing Partner and made early investments in the physical economy through Joby, SpaceX, Nimble Robotics, Oklo and many other companies. This is a special edition of We The Builders conversation from Reindustrialize.
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Timestamps
00:00 Intro
02:35 From hedge fund to physical-world techonolgies
03:45 "Where is all this power gonna come from?" The case for nuclear
04:50 Why nuclear stalled
07:05 Where AI value will accrue: physical-world technologies
07:55 "Recursive industrialization": SpaceX, Cursor & frontier models
09:15 Joby: amplifying world-class engineers with AI
10:50 Does eVTOL need a charging network like Teslas?
11:30 Breaking down the Joby aircraft: airframe, controls, powertrain
18:55 Why these companies need vertical integration and technical founders
20:25 How to value SpaceX and Joby (it's not next year's EBITDA)
22:25 Why Joby went public through a SPAC
23:50 "Henry Ford never built a mile of road": financing the infrastructure
25:15 FAA certification is like FDA approval
27:35 Reinvent Capital and the "1870s thesis"
28:55 Nimble: specialized robots and forward-deployed training data
30:25 What he's changed his mind on
