Raw milk startup wants to build nuclear reactors
Valar just raised $1b to mass-produce nuclear reactors faster than anyone's ever done it. Sounds insane, right? Well, their pitch includes mandatory bible studies, a cigar lounge, and raw milk for employees.
If the founders genuinely think raw milk has upside with zero safety tradeoff, they don't understand risk assessment. That's not a red flag for a startup selling energy drinks. It's disqualifying when you're asking people to trust you with nuclear technology.
The pentagon airlift, the dropped-out founder, the great-grandfather on the Manhattan Project, the gigapixel oil-from-thin-air vision, the $6b valuation. It all smells like myth-making covering for a company that hasn't actually proven anything at scale yet. Maybe it works. But right now it's all americana cosplay and hype.
ok this might be the most aggressively american startup i’ve ever seen 🇺🇸 > they’re trying to build nuclear reactors 100x faster than the nuclear industry ever has > the founder isaiah taylor grew up on food stamps + dropped out of high school at 16 > his great-grandfather literally worked on the manhattan project > generations later isaiah built a working nuclear reactor before turning 28 and named it “ward” after him > the pentagon used 3 military c-17s to airlift the reactor 700 miles from california to utah in a first-of-its-kind mission > the company culture is hardcore americana > they hold bible studies, offer raw milk, love fast cars + have a cigar lounge > plus 4 gigantic patriotic paintings of columbus discovering america, the pilgrims arriving on the mayflower, the signing of the declaration + the constitutional convention > they sued the nuclear regulatory commission for slowing them down > valar's end goal is to build the same reactor thousands of times across nuclear “gigasites” to make energy 10x cheaper > then they'll use that energy to pull carbon out of thin air and turn it into oil and gas for supreme energy abundance > just raised $1b at a $6b valuation to scale it > if valar pulls it off, isaiah’s family will have helped usher in both of america’s atomic ages yeah this gets my vote for most badass startup of the year
Source
x.com