This Week I’m Tracking: 12 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 5 minutes of curated insights

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#1: Lightbringer

Description: Lightbringer is a legal-tech provider focused on patents.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Lightbringer recently raised $10M in venture capital funding. Lightbringer’s patent platform enables legal professionals to file faster at a lower cost. Additionally, Lightbringer’s platform enables industry professionals across tech, industrials, and other sectors to file their first patents and scale their portfolios seamlessly, creating a curated, securely protected intellectual property portfolio. You don’t need to know anything about intellectual property law to use their service.

#2: Endurance Energy

Description: Endurance Energy is a developer of deep-ocean geothermal energy.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Endurance Energy recently raised $54M in venture capital funding. Small and remote islands are heavily reliant on imported fossil fuels for their energy. Energy can cost up to 7x as much as on the nearby mainland. Offshore geothermal energy is the solution that Endurance Energy is striving to build. Seafloor hydrothermal generators set along the Ring of Fire can easily deliver a GW of baseload power.

#3: NS/TX

Description: NS/TX is a developer of plant-based meat and seafood.

Why Is This Company Interesting? NS/TX recently raised $10.5M in venture capital funding. NS/TX is striving to create a meat-like product that perfectly mimics the textures and tastes of salmon and beef. They engineer muscles from plant materials, combining and arranging them to produce any product they want, mimicking any species on the market today. In the world of plant-based meat, NS/TX stands out as an innovator.

#4: Critical Energy

Description: Critical Energy is a developer of modular turbines for geothermal energy.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Critical Energy recently raised $19M in venture capital funding. Critical Energy is building modular power generation systems. These are factory-made plants that convert heat into electricity, delivered in standard shipping containers and installed in weeks. These units are adaptable to changing input conditions and resource constraints, using vaporized working fluids to generate head and electricity.

#5: Vaja

Description: Vaja is a developer and supplier of solar tracking systems.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Vaja recently raised $3.6M in venture capital funding. Vaja has built a proprietary solar tracking system that follows the sun’s trajectory to maximize energy output, increasing revenue from solar panels by 30-40%. This ensures continued profitability for many of the new solar farms popping up around the world. They have also built systems optimized for individual and residential solar panels that provide similar benefits.

The Guardian: World’s First Wind-Powered Underwater Datacenter Starts in China

The Shanghai Lingang undersea data center project was recently completed and is located more than 6 miles off the coast of China. The datacenter is submerged 10 meters below the surface and powered by renewable energy. Estimates put the datacenter as reducing power consumption by more than 20% compared to land-based datacenters.

The New York Times: The Secrets of a Soccer-Turf Master

FIFA brought in John Sorochan, an expert in turf grass science and management, to level the playing field for the 2026 World Cup to a consistently high standard. He carefully studied how athletes interact with each field’s surface, measuring recoil, traction, and other factors. This enabled them to create what they believe is the “perfect” grass product for the players this summer.

BGR: DNA Study Reveals Space Permanently Changes the Human Body

Astronauts in space routinely lose muscle but grow taller. Interestingly, a recent study found that astronauts also age more slowly, exhibiting subtle differences from Earth-bound peers. This means if they were to stay in space longer, there may be more interesting long-term consequences.

PitchBook: When Headline Valuations Aren’t What They Seem

Not every investor in every fundraising round pays the same price. Investors are using multi-tranche rounds in which one tranche values the company at an aggressive premium, and the rest is much more realistic. Often now, some VCs are squeezing into rounds by paying a premium, especially in the age of AI.

ManagingIP: AI and the Future of IP Law

AI is reshaping intellectual property every day. It is simultaneously a legal controversy and an increasingly critical tool for professionals. There are many controversies: who owns inventions, how copyright and training data work, and how governance and trade secrets integrate. For IP professionals and those casually looking at the space, AI’s interactions with the legal sector will be paramount to understanding our future.

Quartz: 15 Philosophers and the One Idea That Made Them Famous

This author lists out 15 famous philosophers and the one idea that made them famous—what they brought to the world. For instance, Aristotle brought the golden mean and virtue ethics, and John Locke brought the social contract and natural rights. It’s worth a read if you’re a fan of impressive philosophers or simply want to learn more.

Reddit: Some People Miss Their Childhood. Others Miss the Future They Imagined When They Were Children.

I thought this was an interesting perspective I hadn’t fully considered regarding childhood nostalgia.

See, when we’re children, we often think that the world is a big, shiny place where we can all be happy and successful, and that that’s all there is (if your childhood wasn’t like this, I’m so sorry for you and hope you the best now).

Do you miss that, or do you miss the present that once was, the times on the playground, the times galloping around the neighborhood, the times eating food in various shapes, the times playing just to play?

I think I often miss a bit of both. Life was so simple then. Now, it’s a bit more complicated.

What do you miss?

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

Drew Jackson

Founder & Writer

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This Week I’m Tracking: 12 developments across the sectors shaping our future

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#1: Helion

Description: Helion is a developer of fusion power plants.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Helion recently raised $465M in venture capital funding. Helion uses natural resources in its fusion plants, derived from water and from prior fusion reactions. Helion has recently achieved many industry-first milestones with its Polaris prototype, becoming the first privately funded fusion machine to operate with deuterium-tritium fuel.

#2: Iceye

Description: Iceye is a satellite intelligence startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Iceye recently raised $1B in venture capital funding. This is my second time covering Iceye in the newsletter. Since our last discussion, they’ve further solidified their position in the sovereign and commercial space-based intelligence markets. Seven governments across Europe have procured satellites from Iceye, making it the leading provider of space-based intelligence, with further momentum propelling the company to expand materially going forward.

#3: Innovafeed

Description: Innovafeed is an insect agriculture firm.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Innovafeed recently raised $51M in venture capital funding. Innovafeed is a leading insect producer for animal and plant nutrition. They grow flies, offering alternatives to fishmeal and vegetable oils currently used in fish and animal feeds. They’ve launched specific products for trout, poultry, and pork, driving impressive change and growth in each market. They continue to innovate today, constantly targeting new markets.

#4: NewOrbit

Description: NewOrbit is a developer of very-low Earth orbit satellites.

Why Is This Company Interesting? NewOrbit recently raised $18.5M in venture capital funding. NewOrbit is engineering very-low Earth orbit satellites that fly at 1/3 the altitude of conventional satellites. This increases the area over which we can deploy satellites, although it shortens their lifespans because they are subject to more of Earth’s gravity.

#5: Orbital

Description: Orbital is a developer of orbital data centers.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Orbital recently raised $5M in venture capital funding. As the demand for AI continues to skyrocket, Orbital is among many seeking to put data centers in space. Their first mission is to demonstrate AI in space through a payload on a Falcon 9 rocket. From there, they will build their first data center satellite and launch it in 2028, aiming to be one of the first to market, drive returns, and validate the model.

Department of Energy: Celebration of First Advanced Reactor Criticality

This week, as part of the Department of Energy Reactor Pilot Program, Antares Nuclear’s advanced reactor design completed a zero-power fueled criticality demonstration. This confirms the reactor can operate safely and will allow subsequent reactors to produce electricity in the coming years, further advancing the commercialization of advanced reactor designs.

The New York Times: NOAA Declares El Niño Is Here

Meteorologists have found that El Niño has formed and will intensify in the coming months. The store can affect global weather patterns, supercharging floods and droughts. El Niño events reach their peak strength during winter in the northern hemisphere.

SpaceNews: New Glenn Failure Worsens Constrained Launch Market

The recent explosion of the New Glenn rocket will significantly impact the commercial space market. In the 2016 explosion at a SpaceX site, it took them 15 months to rebuild the pad. Blue Origin has not yet commented on the rebuild timeline, but experts estimate it will be close to that amount. There are no other pads available for New Glenn at this time, so experts are guessing it may take over a year before the rocket can launch again.

Pitchbook: Visualizing SpaceX Over Time

SpaceX became a publicly traded company this week. This article visualizes how the company has grown, adding Starlink subscribers, creating new rocket designs, and continuously innovating over its two decades of history to become the largest IPO in history.

The New York Times: Meet the Astronauts of Artemis III

This week, NASA unveiled the four astronauts set to make up the Artemis III crew: Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas. This crew will not go to the moon but will instead fly to LEO to test rendezvous and docking maneuvers with lunar landers. This is essential work to validate the planned 2028 moon walk.

The New York Times: Billionaires’ Billions Are Increasing Faster Than Ever

In 2010, the world’s billionaires collectively owned $4.5T. By 2024, that figure had increased to $14.2T. Now in 2026, that number is $20.1T. This reveals the chaotic trend of increasing concentration at the top, where the richest of the rich are becoming ever wealthier. The growing concentration and dominance of the world’s conglomerates continue to consolidate wealth.

Vox: I don’t want children. I do want children. What should I do?

Letter to the editor, summarized below:

“Facing age-related pressure to decide on parenthood, I feel deeply ambivalent because while I don’t desire the daily grind of early caregiving, I fear a lonely and depressing old age without adult children. I am torn between the wish to pass on my values and the reality that a child may rebel and become their own person, leaving me struggling to support them. Ultimately, I am stuck trying to navigate the immense ethical weight and unpredictability of this life-altering decision based on motives that feel inherently selfish.”

The discussion of how and when to have children is very complicated. I can’t claim to be anywhere near an expert in this case.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

Drew Jackson

Founder & Writer

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Credit Nerdist

When Gerald Cotten died unexpectedly in 2018, he took the passwords to $215 million in customer crypto to the grave. His death didn’t just end a life; it nearly destroyed a company. This is the high-stakes reality of key man risk.

This Week’s Focus: Economics

What You’ll Understand: How companies almost inevitably face key man risk and various strategies to mitigate it.

Reading Time: 11 minutes for full analysis + key takeaways highlighted throughout

Key Question: What is key man risk?

My Take: Key man risk is found in companies of all shapes and sizes. In the moment, it can lead to outsized outcomes, but it often ends in catastrophe. When businesses try to mitigate this risk, they can fall into 3 failure pits: reversion to the mean, becoming a copy of a copy, and undergoing a succession war. Navigating these complexities is key to long-term business success.

Quick Context: This deep dive connects to my work on personnel economics. New to Brainwaves? We explore the forces reshaping our world across venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, and philosophy. Subscribe here for bi-weekly deep dives plus weekly current events.

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Let’s dive in.

Thousands of books have been written studying the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, refining the list of qualities they believe drive that success. These include passion, drive, vision, innovation, leadership, calculated risk-taking, and many more.

Some of the greatest of all time would be considered mad and unhinged today. There’s a fine line between greatness and too good to be true. We’ve seen this played out in seemingly “great” entrepreneurs like Bernie Madoff and Elizabeth Holmes, who were eventually unmasked for what they truly were. Recently, Gerald Cotten became another infamous name to add to this list.

Credit CBC

Gerald Cotten was involved in Ponzi schemes as a teenager in the online forum TalkGold. Cotten would promote high-yield investment programs that “promised very high returns but were unregulated and anonymous, disclosing little or no details about the investment or who was behind it.”

After learning about Bitcoin in his 20s, Cotten founded Quadriga with his co-founder, Michael Patryn. Patryn’s involvement in historical Ponzi schemes had caught the authorities’ attention, making Cotten the perfect front man for Quadriga.

Quadriga was an online exchange that allowed users to store, buy, and sell various cryptocurrencies by depositing cash or other cryptocurrencies with the exchange. As advertised externally, Quadriga made money by charging users a per-transaction fee.

In 2016, Cotten became the sole director after the other directors resigned. At this point, the company had no employees, offices, or bank accounts and was simply (although the public didn’t know it) relying on external payment processors to run their business.

Throughout 2017 and 2018, Bitcoin prices rose and fell, with around $1.2B in Bitcoin exchanged on the platform. Quadriga became one of Canada’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, attracting significant prestige.

However, some fundamental issues began surfacing. The spike in volume increased commissions, but caused a cash flow problem due to the exchange’s reliance on external payment processors. In 2017, Quadriga announced it lost $14M in Ethereum due to a smart contract error. Additionally, customers reported delays when attempting to withdraw funds, and when directed to the physical location to pick up their money, they found a windowless office building with no money or employees.

Not surprisingly, some of the payment processors Quadriga used were found guilty of fraud, including WB21 and Crypto Capital. Undiscovered at the time, the business was primarily being run from Cotten’s encrypted personal laptop.

Cotten unexpectedly died during a volunteer trip to India in 2018. His wife only announced his death via a Facebook post one month later—meanwhile, for that month, the platform had been accepting money but returning none. After this news, the market panicked, losing confidence in Quadriga’s viability, which eventually ceased operations.

Once the dust settled, it was determined that over 76,000 customers were owed $215M, most of which was in the form of cryptocurrency held in Quadriga’s cold wallet on Cotten’s laptop—no one knows the passwords.

There are many question marks surrounding his death. For instance, why did he have no backup plans for his crypto passwords? Why was his name misspelled on the death certificate, especially given that the former chairman and managing director of the hospital had been convicted of financial fraud two months earlier?

Subsequent investigations have failed to find records of these wallet holdings on the blockchain, leading some to speculate whether Cotten faked his own death to defraud customers in true Ponzi-like fashion. Quadriga likely never invested the funds it received, and it is unclear where the money went.

Often, the circle of trust for founders engaging in Ponzi schemes is incredibly small—they can’t risk the secret getting out. Granted, these are acute examples, but nevertheless, they are great examples of key person risk.

Key person risk, while singularly defined, refers to one or more people who are critical to a project or a company’s operations. If the key person or people were lost, the long-term viability of the project or company would also be lost.

Most often, key man risk is highest in smaller businesses: one person owns the majority of the relationships, one person designed and built the technology and knows it intimately, and one person sees the “vision” for the long-term platform.

However, key man risk can also be present in larger enterprises (as we’ve seen with Quadriga and Thernos). In the entertainment industry, no better example of key man risk is the magical persona of Walt Disney.

Credit TheCollector

Founded in 1923, Walt Disney envisioned and created a captivating set of figures that inspired and entertained generations of children and adults. Walt Disney operated a hub-and-spoke management style. He was the hub, with every creative department (animation, imagineering, live-action) reporting directly to him.

Walt didn’t just approve ideas; he shaped them from the beginning. Because Walt’s taste was so specific and usually commercially successful, the staff stopped trusting themselves and instead focused on predicting Walt’s next big idea—a form of creative mimicry rather than original creation.

Thus, when Walt Disney died in 1966, the company lost its creative director and visionary. This effect was so acute that, for the next two decades, the studio’s mantra was literally “What would Walt do?” This created a stagnant culture, characterized by two main aspects.

Firstly, this mindset prevented the studio from adapting to the changing culture and consumer preferences of the 70s and 80s. While films like Star Wars were revolutionizing cinema, Disney was stuck making safe, often recycled-feeling content.

Secondly, to deviate from “The Walt Way” was seen as heresy. Innovation required the risk of being labeled “un-Disney.” Without Walt there to give permission to change, the company chose the safety of the past.

This period only ended when a new wave of leadership and a new generation of animators arrived in the mid–80s. They righted the business, stopping asking what Walt would do and started asking what a modern audience needed.

Small, medium, and large enterprises can easily face key man risk when they over-rely on a single creative visionary, leading to institutional paralysis once that North Star is gone.

Besides a creative vision or holding all the keys to a Ponzi scheme, there are numerous ways key person risk can threaten a business. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be them leaving, dying, or getting fired for the business to be at risk; it can be something simple, like a scandal or a small news story.

In traditional businesses, a brand like Coca-Cola, Nike, or GMC is built on an abstract logo and a set of lifestyle associations. Virgin Group is different; it’s built on a human narrative.

Credit Space

Sir Richard Branson, an English-born business magnate, co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970 as a mail-order record business. He opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, in 1972, which grew rapidly. In the 1980s, Branson started Virgin Atlantic Airlines and expanded the Virgin Records music label. In 1997, Branson founded the Virgin Rail Group for passenger rail travel across Britain, with InterCity train franchises operating for subsequent decades. In 2004, he founded the space tourism company Virgin Galactic.

Branson’s personal history—his rebel ethos (fighting the British Airways “dirty tricks” campaign), his hot-air-balloon records, and his casual, confident demeanor—is the product Virgin sells.

On a company’s balance sheet, goodwill is an intangible asset that represents the value of a company’s brand and reputation. Financial analysts suggest that Virgin Group’s assets are highly volatile because it is closely tied to Sir Richard Branson.

For instance, if Branson were to face a catastrophic personal scandal, the “Virgin” name could transform from an asset into a liability overnight. As a result, Branson and the Virgin leadership have spent the last decade attempting to de-risk the brand.

Interestingly, Virgin Galactic has recently re-entangled the brand with Branson’s adventurous personality. By being on the first fully crewed flight to space in 2021, he successfully boosted the brand’s adventurous credentials. Still, experts estimate that a “post-Branson” Virgin will likely face a significant value correction as it transitions into a standard lifestyle brand.

Brands and companies are increasingly recognizing the potential risk associated with key people and taking steps to mitigate it, as evidenced by the Virgin example above.

To mitigate key-person risk, companies must transition from “personality-driven” to “process-driven.” This involves decentralizing knowledge, institutionalizing values, and building a deep breadth of leadership talent.

This often involves implementing a succession plan that identifies and develops internal and external replacement candidates for every C-suite role. Knowledge is transferred from person to groups, and standard operating procedures are documented.

As seen in the Disney example, a great risk is the loss of a specific taste or philosophy. Instead of relying on a leader to create and/or approve every design, companies create brand images or design languages that outline the leader’s principles (e.g., simplicity over features) so the team can make decisions autonomously.

For companies like Virgin, where the risk is tied to brand equity, the strategy is to shift the spotlight. Other executives are introduced in press releases, keynotes, and interviews. This signals to the market that the “magic” of the brand is a team effort, not just a solo performance.

Credit Fast Company

The case of Steve Jobs and Apple is a gold standard example of succession planning and key person risk mitigation.

Most CEOs focus on resource allocation and strategy. In contrast, Steve Jobs focused on the intersection between liberal arts and technology. Famously, Jobs didn’t believe in market research. He believed that “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” This created a massive risk at Apple. If the man with the vision is lost, who decides what the next “great product” is?

This was exhibited during the development of the iPhone and iPad. Jobs, like Disney, acted as the final filter. Every curve of the hardware and every pixel of the UI had to pass his personal taste test. This created a significant bottleneck, tethering innovation to a single human brain.

Between 2004 and 2011, Apple’s stock price became a proxy for Steve Jobs’ health. Because the market believed, as it had been led to expect to this point, Apple’s future product pipeline lived inside Jobs’ head, any visual change in his weight or suggestive phrase during a keynote resulted in billions of dollars in market cap decreases. Investors feared that without Jobs, Apple would revert to the struggling, directionless company it had been in the early 1990s.

Apple’s survival was not an accident; it was a deliberate engineering project. Early on, Jobs realized that for Apple to survive him, his subjective intuition that powered product development had to be converted into broad, objective processes available to all.

In 2008, Jobs established Apple University, which taught high-level employees how Apple makes decisions. They analyzed past successes and failures to codify the “Apple Way” of thinking—focusing on the simplicity and minimalism the company is known for today.

Additionally, Jobs picked a partner in an area he understood the least: supply chain and operations. His partnership with Tim Cook and other leaders created a modular leadership structure, which decentralized authority and de-risked the brand.

In 2011, Steve Jobs passed away from a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. At this point, Apple was perfectly positioned to continue, entering a new era of growth and development. Fast forward to today. While critics will argue Apple hasn’t launched a “category-defining” product on the scale of the iPhone since 2007, the company’s valuation has increased from ~$300B at Jobs’ death to over $3T. Apple is the second-largest company in the world and has an incredibly diversified leadership bench, expansive product development characteristics, and no official ties to any one key person.

Mitigation tactics, as showcased by Virgin and Apple, can cushion the fall. However, they often fail to account for the intangible qualities that a founder or key leader brings, which cannot be easily codified into a manual or university curriculum. I imagine you’ve been a part of organizations where these types of people exist. Even with the best mitigation strategies, companies often face three specific failure modes.

Firstly, these companies revert to the mean. When you institutionalize a visionary’s taste into a process (as seen at Apple University), you often create bureaucracy. Once the visionary is gone, the new group in charge tends to rely on data, consensus, or safe bets. This leads to a slow slide into mediocrity. The company remains profitable, like Apple, but it stops being truly revolutionary.

Secondly, these companies can become a copy of a copy. Codifying a leader’s values in a brand bible is like making a photocopy of a painting. This set of rules can tell you what the leader did, but it can’t always tell you what they would have done in a completely new, disruptive context (e.g., what would Steve Jobs have done in the rise of AI?). The team becomes excellent at executing what the key person did, but loses the ability to invent the future. This is perfectly exhibited by the atmosphere at Disney immediately after Walt’s death.

Thirdly, these companies undergo a succession war. Sometimes, the act of naming a successor or grooming a deep set of leaders backfires by creating internal friction. In an attempt to mitigate the risk of losing the CEO by identifying and grooming candidates, the company might accidentally trigger the secondary leadership layer to jump ship upon the founder’s leave.

Ultimately, key person risk represents the delicate tension between a visionary’s unique soul and an institution’s need for stability. While the singular intuition of a leader like Walt Disney, Sir Richard Branson, or Steve Jobs can catapult a company to legendary status, it also creates a single point of failure.

Mitigation strategies—such as institutionalizing taste through internal universities, diversifying brand equity, and grooming operational successors—can successfully preserve a company’s market value and functional survival.

However, as history shows, no amount of insurance or documentation can perfectly replicate the “unreasonable” spark of a founder; the true challenge for any maturing organization is learning how to honor its original North Star without becoming paralyzed by its absence.

That’s a wrap on this deep dive.

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This Week I’m Tracking: 14 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 5 minutes of curated insights

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#1: Greenpixie

Description: Greenpixie is a data center decarbonization startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Greenpixie recently raised $4.7M in venture capital funding. Data centers are popping up left and right. So far, they’re not the most environmentally friendly structures, so startups such as Greenpixie are helping to decarbonize them. Emissions data informs business decisions, so Greenpixie models these factors from actual cloud usage data to develop a complete and defensible viewpoint. Companies are actively delving deeper into cloud intelligence and sustainability.

#2: SuperMeat

Description: SuperMeat is a lab-grown meat startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? SuperMeat recently raised $6M in venture capital funding. SuperMeat is a startup aiming to recreate chicken meat directly from cells through a sustainable, animal-friendly process. Cultivated meat products provide further supply chain and domestic security, as you don’t have to rely on foreign sources or processors. Their products are available at The Chicken, a shop where you can watch the production of cultivated meat while you eat your cultivated chicken.

#3: UnaStella

Description: UnaStella is a rocket developer.

Why Is This Company Interesting? UnaStella recently raised $24M in venture capital funding. UnaStella is developing the next generation of rockets, leveraging Korea’s vertically integrated landscape to enable rapid development and deployment. A key point for them is that they build their own propulsion systems in-house, enabling more flexibility and proprietary technology.

#4: Spiro

Description: Spiro is a creator of electric motorcycles.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Spiro recently raised $215M in venture capital funding. Spiro is dedicated to creating a new electric motorcycle that can enable the larger-scale electrification of mobility across Africa. These motorbikes reduce carbon emissions and promote a cleaner environment. As a country that has rapidly increased its share of motorcycles over the last century, this will be a critical change to its environmental stance.

#5: Impulse Space

Description: Impulse Space is a developer of highly maneuverable spacecraft.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Impulse Space recently raised $500M in venture capital funding. Impulse Space is creating space infrastructure vessels, including LEO and HEO distance vehicles. Their supply chain is vertically integrated, with in-house manufacturing of valves, battery packs, electronics, and bladed assemblies. They’re already booking up flights into 2028, which shows their demand is incredibly high.

Pittwire: Wind Energy is Not Bad For Your Health, New Research Shows

Previously, studies and media reports have suggested that wind turbines can cause all manner of health problems, including sleep disturbances, up to suicide. New research sought to determine the accuracy of these claims, finding that turbines are not associated with any detectable adverse health outcomes. It’ll be interesting to see the long-term effects of newer technologies, but there could be hope for wind.

Reuters: Russia Signs $16.5B Deal to Build First Nuclear Power Plant in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is the world’s biggest producer of uranium and a major player historically in Soviet nuclear testing. Now they have the opportunity to create their first nuclear power plant, further integrating nuclear into their ecosystem. The Russians are getting export credits in exchange for financing the plant.

The New York Times: 2025 Wildfires Were the Costliest Ever, Researchers Say

Even though the total area burned in 2025 was relatively small, it was the most economically damaging wildfire year on record. The study estimates worldwide losses of around $54B. Given current climate changes, this trend is expected to continue over time. This is why there have been many startups founded recently surrounding wildfire prevention.

Pitchbook: At $1.8T, Why Bother With Price Discovery?

With the SpaceX IPO looming, analysts are struggling to reconcile the price with the company’s fundamental attributes. Most sizable IPOs undergo a roadshow where underwriters gauge market interest to help price the deal. Here, SpaceX is foregoing this practice, signaling to investors that it has confidence in the prices set.

The New York Times: This Is Why Your Groceries Are So Expensive

Food prices continue to rise, with estimates indicating around 20-30% increases in certain staple items over the last year. Why? Firstly, geopolitical conflicts and other dynamics have had a large influence. However, the most important factor influencing these prices is the increasing extreme consolidation within these industries, as seen in the beef, bread, and carrots industries, among others.

Forbes: 3 Philosophy Books for Leaders’ Summer Reading Lists

Summer reading lists are full steam ahead. Here is one author’s list of 3 essential philosophy books for leaders this summer:

• The Book of Dead Philosophers by Simon Critchley

• I’ve Been Thinking by Daniel C. Dennett

• Beyond Stoicism: A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Other Ancient Philosophers by Massimo Pigliucci, Gregory Lopez, and Meredith Alexander Kunz

Vox: You Can Do Everything Right, and Things Can Still Go Wrong

Moral luck is an interesting philosophical concept that concerns situations in which a person is assigned moral praise or blame for an action, even though significant factors determining the outcome were beyond their control. This factor makes it much more difficult to judge people, given that many of the consequences of their actions may lie beyond their influence.

Big Think: The Hidden Bias in Every Life-Changing Decision You Make

Some of life’s biggest decisions can’t be made easily, and in the way we make other decisions. These generally include big milestones such as having a child, falling in love, going to war, etc. This philosopher explains that this is because there is an epistemic wall, with a barrier between who you are now and what you’ll become. The only thing that could ever teach us how to make these decisions is the experiences themselves.

I saw a wonky thought on social media this week about time.

This person discusses how the possibility that time is not linear is disturbing to them. Traditionally, time is seen as a linear construct, moving from history to the present to the future.

However, if you think of it as anything but linear, it quickly becomes incredibly convoluted. If time is nonlinear, it exists simultaneously for all of eternity.

This creates a complicated paradigm that people and scientists are still searching to wrap their heads around.

There’s so much more to think about here; this is only the surface.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

Drew Jackson

Founder & Writer

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This Week I’m Tracking: 15 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 6 minutes of curated insights

Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.

New to these updates? They pair with our bi-weekly Brainwave analyses for comprehensive sector coverage. Wednesday’s deep dive explored an interview with Joe Biel - catch up here.

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Let’s dive in.

#1: Casimir

Description: Casimir is an energy harvesting technology provider.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Casimir recently raised $12M in venture capital funding. Casamir is developing a new type of energy-harvesting technology that uses quantum fields. Their chips have created the world’s first unlimited power source. This will change the way we think about electronics and capabilities. For instance, small but interesting examples are tire sensors, smoke detectors, hearing aids, and many more.

#2: Mantle8

Description: Mantle8 is developing subsurface modeling and exploration technologies.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Mantle8 recently raised $36.2M in venture capital funding. Mantle8 is revolutionizing hydrogen discovery and acquisition, dramatically reducing production costs and lowering overall energy costs. In comparison to gasoline, hydrogen shines, burning without releasing CO2. Beneath the Earth’s surface lies a large quantity—finding it efficiently and effectively is the secret.

#3: Magrathea

Description: Magrathea is an extractor of magnesium from waste brines.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Magrathea recently raised $24M in venture capital funding. Magnesium is a critical metal to many supply chains. Magrathea is optimally positioned to help establish a significant domestic share in the United States. They’ve formed a joint venture with TETRA to deploy their electrolytic magnesium technology at their brine conversion plant in Arkansas.

#4: Fermtech

Description: Fermtech is a sustainable cocoa developer.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Fermtech recently raised $2.5M in venture capital funding. Fermtech has developed a way to produce cocoa that reduces CO2 emissions by 98% compared to traditional cocoa. They use spent grains and fermentation to create Koji Cocoa. Their goal is to deploy this technological development across 10B+ chocolate bars by 2040, a lofty goal.

#5: Sora Fuel

Description: Sora Fuel is a sustainable aviation fuel startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Sora Fuel recently raised $14.6M in venture capital funding. Sora Fuel is a company that creates jet fuel from just air, water, and renewable energy. Their technology combines these variables with carbon capture using a single process to derive jet fuel. This is a sustainable way to create future jet fuel, offsetting direct air capture. Their supply chain is carbon-negative, which is unique for jet fuel companies.

European Commission: 5 Things You Should Know About Nuclear Energy

Here are 5 things you should know about nuclear energy in the EU:

• Almost 25% of electricity produced in 2024

• Nuclear energy is one of the lowest carbon-emitting sources of electricity

• Only spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste require deep geological disposal

• Nuclear power plants are designed to rigorous safety standards

• Replicating the power of the sun on Earth

The National Interest: The Race to Quadruple US Nuclear Generation Is Underway

While other energy sources have flip-flopped in public perception, nuclear has remained in relatively good light throughout the Biden and Trump administrations. The Biden administration called to triple nuclear by 2050, with the Trump administration expanding that to 4x by 2050. Since the explosion in AI, the demand for nuclear energy has continued to increase.

Reuters: Global Wind and Solar Power Outpace Gas for First Time

Wind and solar, combined, generated more electricity than gas globally in April for the first time ever. This continues a broader trend rather than a reaction to soaring fossil fuel prices following the conflict in Iran. They combined to be 22% of global electricity, compared to only 20% from gas. This share continues to increase as countries nearshore to provide further domestic energy stability.

The New York Times: NASA Buys Two Cars for the Moon

This week, NASA awarded $220M two Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab to create lunar vehicles for the moon. The agency wants the rover to be ready on the moon when the astronauts arrive, meaning it needs to be ready in less than 2 years, which is a very expedited timeframe. Each will weigh around 2,000lbs and need to be an all-terrain vehicle.

The New York Times: Blue Origin Rocket Explodes

This week, the major rocket built by Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, blew up during a test at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It’s a great explosion if you haven’t seen it yet. These events put a damper on the current Blue Origin SpaceX competitive streak—only time will tell if they continue to compete.

The New York Times: GDP is a Flawed Measure of Prosperity

GDP is hardly a good measure of how much people are flourishing. For decades, economists have tried to devise an alternative metric. A recent UN study produced a dashboard of 31 metrics, representing the four key buckets of peace and human rights, sustainability, quality of life, and inequality.

The New York Times: How Anthropic Got So Big, So Fast

Anthropic is more valuable than OpenAI. This writer broke their meteoric rise down to figure out how they got so big so fast. A main reason is that their Claude Code programming tool was exponentially better than other solutions on the market. Additionally, their run-rate revenue has now increased dramatically to $47B, justifying the $900B price tag.

Pitchbook: Want to Invest in My Startup? Talk to My Agent

This month, Polsia used its AI agent to raise $30M in funding at a $250M valuation. This is an extreme example; however, it’s becoming an increasing trend for AI to be used as a critical component of the dealmaking process. It’s used in the NDA stage, evaluation stage, drafting of materials stage, and many other areas.

Politico: Deepfakes Are Testing the Limits of IP Law

Deepfakes are becoming increasingly popular. Now, Congress is trying to use intellectual property laws to curb the spread and damage caused by these technologies. This week, lawmakers introduced the NO FAKES Act, which would give all Americans an IP right to their own voice and likeness.

Reddit: Living in the wilderness is not an option in today’s world

I think this deep thought is so interesting. People often say “go live in the wilderness” or a version of that (in a Thoreau-style manner); however, that’s not very realistic in today’s climate.

Why? There’s limited wilderness left on Earth. More and more of it is becoming private property and state-controlled land, with little to no large-scale public access. Additionally, the little private property that exists is generally off-limits to activities other than recreation.

Long-term stays in the wilderness don’t really work these days—to everyone’s dismay.

What’s nuanced here is that there is more wilderness than we think; it’s in locations people don’t want to go, for instance, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, etc.

So, should you go disappear into the wilderness? Maybe—it might be more accessible than you think.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

Found this analysis valuable? The best way to support Brainwaves is to share it with someone who’d benefit from these insights.

Drew Jackson

Founder & Writer

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Keep Exploring

• Next Deep Dive: The High Cost of Indispensable People - June 10th, 2026

• Previous Editions: View the archive here

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Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal opinions, not financial advice. This content is educational only. Investment decisions carry risks - always consult professionals and do your own research. All sponsorships are clearly disclosed.

© 2026 Brainwaves. All rights reserved.

Credit Microcosm Publishing

Microcosm Publishing is a Portland-based provider of curated books, zines, decks, and more through their publishing, distribution, and wholesale programs. Their products emphasize skill-building, critical thinking, community, and creativity. They carefully pick each product, aiming to relate to the experience of marginalized people, remove barriers to success, and foster underground movements.

The interview Q&A provides a founder’s perspective on critical business, strategy, and career decisions, drawing on his experience as a practitioner and, now, as a business owner. Key points discussed today include:

• Key areas of value creation relative to the competitive landscape

• Finding a business through the pursuit of a passion

• Optimizing the size of the customer base relative to competitors

• In-depth analysis of the publishing industry, with a focus on distribution channels and demographic differences'

Check out Microcosm Publishing

👋 Hello friends,

Thank you for joining this week’s edition of Brainwaves. I’m Drew Jackson, and today I’m bringing you insights from a lovely conversation I had with Joe Biel, founder of Microcosm Publishing.

Quick Context: New to Brainwaves? We explore the forces reshaping our world across venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, and philosophy. Subscribe here for bi-weekly deep dives plus weekly current events.

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Time to Read: 12 minutes.

Let’s dive in.

I recently had the pleasure of connecting with Joe to dive into his insights and experiences. It’s a great look at his perspective, and I’m excited to share his take on these topics with you.

Q: Background on Joe and His Company

In the mid-90s, I was an at-risk, undiagnosed autistic kid who discovered punk rock and zines at clubhouses run by people a few years older than me. Microcosm started as a reason for me to get out of bed every day in the 90s. I wanted to create resources that were lacking for me as a teen, presented in a way that would be attractive to someone like me. It wasn’t intended to be a business; I wanted to create the tools for people to change their lives and the world around them. In my case, those happened to be books.

Courtesy Microcosm

I started publishing stuff by my more creative friends. I knew someone who worked at a Kinko’s and someone who could ship things for me for free through their work. So I would set up behind the bar at local punk shows in Cleveland. Around 1996, I had been doing this for a few years, and so I decided to give it a name, to be more official. Or maybe it was the general confusion that people would write for a catalog but not know who they were writing to, so a single name to tie it all together made sense.

Incredibly, this had the effect of resonating with millions of people and was attractive to many wide subsets of the population that hadn’t felt acknowledged previously by publishing. We were the fastest growing company in our entire industry in 2022, according to Publishers Weekly and the third fastest for the next two years, when I was honored with the first Innovator Award, the only award for people in my industry between 30 and 65. While Microcosm was never meant to be a “job,” it could consume hundreds of hours per week just from keeping up with the letters and the orders and keeping things in print. We were doubling each year for three years, and 1086% growth in eight years! It was meant to be a reason to stay alive, and that’s why it was so successful—because it went on to do that for people other than myself. I think that echoes with people much more than I ever realized. This hasn’t changed at all in 30 years—we are just getting 5% better at it every year.

Credit Amazon

We sold our 25 millionth book for our 30th anniversary. To share what I’ve learned, I published A People’s Guide to Publishing in 2018 with a new edition in 2026 and the accompanying podcast of the same name, where we answer a question about publishing each week.

Q: What does the publishing industry look like, without including your company?

It’s still the 1800s over here. People would rather go out of business than change. You could draw a map to a treasure chest and everyone would respond that they are too busy with their P&P to go get it. This makes it really easy to innovate and grow. Book publishing is remarkably robust. Sales grow with the population and experienced a nice bump during the pandemic.

Courtesy Microcosm

That said, the market is very crowded and competitive. Even from the ten largest companies in the industry, 51% of books sell fewer than 1,000 copies per year. To compensate, publishers further flooded the market with crap that exasperated the problem. Consolidation and buying successful properties are seemingly the only strategies that corporate publishers understand for growth. During the Penguin Random House / Simon & Schuster merger trial, it was revealed that the only way that these companies know how to grow is through distributing independent presses—whom they can presumably data mine. New publishers are frequently shocked at how difficult it is to break in and make a splash—even when you have great books.

The combination of an industry where it’s getting more difficult to win organically yet is exploitable can be dangerous. Fifteen years ago, a packaging company signed the rights to use a teenage girl’s name, sold the film rights, rewrote her book for screen adaptation—while introducing 40 instances of plagiarism—and then hired a crisis response team for her to downplay the packager’s involvement and put her on Kate Couric to face the music.

A third of all books are sold online, but the majority are still sold in brick-and-mortar shops, given the consumer’s preference for analog. And it’s not just bookstores. Most gift and specialty stores sell books—even more than bookstores, according to the annual figures.

Q: Following up on the previous question, what value and/or differentiated model is Microcosm Publishing bringing to the publishing industry? What does the market look like for your solution?

Our competitors focus on the top 20 largest accounts. Some of these you would have heard of. They outsource sales to third-party companies that have consolidated and become less effective. The problem is that the shelf is incredibly crowded, and you get boxed out quickly. So we focused on the 15,000 smallest accounts. We essentially built a parallel economy, and about 5,000 of these accounts buy all of their books from us. We stress value proposition in our development so that every book finds its audience. We focus on audiences that are neglected by the industry. Many of these things are obvious to me, but it’s mostly because I wasn’t educated in a traditional publishing environment and nobody put any expectations on me. So I was free to go where things made sense.

We built our own WorkingLit software first as early ecommerce and then later as a series of relational databases that manage all aspects of our operations. From accounting to inventory management to order fulfillment to metadata distribution to marketing analysis. We can essentially automate our entire organizational structure. We made this software available for other publishers to use and it’s fascinating learning about their businesses and migrating them from clipboards and spreadsheets. This was a matter of giving back from our success.

Q: What are your plans for future growth?

The best KPI that we have is how many letters we receive each week that someone wouldn’t be alive without one of our books. As long as we are receiving communications like this, we know that we are relevant and then it’s just a matter of convincing retailers of this.

We built out segmentation charts for our 14 key specialty markets and have developed marketing plans for each of them. It became clear last year that sales are incurred by successive customer touch points; meaning that the more that we contact our customers, the more that they order. So by knowing our customers and their interests and proclivities, it’s fairly easy to use the tools that we built to continue to grow outwards into adjacent book categories and retailer types.

After years of turning down requests for me to do consulting, I found a way to make that work sustainable too. It had been very frustrating to be requested to do consulting, figure out someone’s problem in a few minutes and solve it within an hour...then have them decide that they don’t want to change after all and defeat the entire purpose of hiring me. Nowadays, I make them agree upfront that they are both able and willing to change before we commit to any consulting together. This was transformative as previously people would seemingly hire me to have someone to kvetch at, rather than someone to fix their organization with.

Q: If you had to give one piece of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, founders, and business owners, what would it be?

Reject the traditional methods that aren’t working for you. Find the shortest path from where you are to where you want to go. The underground is much bigger than the mainstream. And the relationships are much more real.

My Takeaways

First of all, it was fantastic to learn from Joe and hear more about his story. It was interesting to hear about his career trajectory and his strategies for building and growing his enterprise.

I want to thank Joe again for the fantastic opportunity to benefit from his insights!

A Quick Aside on My Rationale With This Approach:

My goal in reaching out to Joe and people like him is to highlight that all businesses face strategic challenges at each step of the growth journey. In school, you traditionally only learn about the “best of the best”, those Fortune 500 companies that have hundreds of case studies written about them.

Yet there’s value in the unique insights of small business owners on the ground, constantly making critical decisions.

How much do I price my product? Who should I hire? How should I expand my business? What do I do if my sales are down? — All the questions that small business owners face constantly.

Now, on to the critical lessons I want to highlight from my exchange with Joe.

Lesson #1: Start with passion, then build a business later

Some of the very best business people I’ve ever met started their ventures as passion projects, simply to fill time, use their skills, help others, and give back to their communities.

Joe is no different, describing how he grew up without access to resources that would have helped him navigate the world effectively. Luckily, he found a home in Cleveland’s underground punk rock scene. He quickly became a zinester, creating self-published independent zines and comic books.

During this time, Joe found the perspective and motivation to fully pursue his own thing, and he began the project he continues to this day. It wasn’t originally founded as a mainstream business venture as it is today; it was born purely out of survival, desperation, and passion.

Many of us, in our own ways, are like Joe—we have passions, interests, and other initiatives we’re working on, thinking about pursuing, or hoping to one day have the opportunity to run after. For many, all it takes is to dive in, like Joe experienced, jumping into the opportunity with both feet and doing your best to survive.

Startups founded this way are more likely to survive and expand, and they exhibit greater scrappiness to ensure survival and expansion in any scenario.

Lesson #2: Building strategies for innovation and growth in a stagnant industry

Many industries are aging, with legacy incumbents set in their ways, creating a general air of stagnation. These environments are ripe for disruption by scrappy, innovative newcomers like Microcosm.

Joe outlined a few strategies they’ve employed in his words above, including catering to and resonating with millions of underserved individuals, focusing on smaller customers with deeply ingrained relationships built on trust and respect, and a tech-enabled backend to enable efficient business and product management. In addition to these, I want to highlight other strategies they’ve used to grow and innovate.

Firstly, they’ve launched a major initiative to sell books to stores that don’t traditionally sell them, targeting these alternative retail spaces as key market segments. This practice places zines and books in proximity to their target subcultures. These places include bike shops, taco stands, record stores, clothing boutiques, and feminist and community spaces.

Second, they’ve vertically integrated to cut out the middleman. Standard publishing relies heavily on corporate distributors to get books into stores. Conversely, Microcosm has built its own distribution wing, managing its fulfillment centers, retaining more profit per unit sold, and gaining greater flexibility.

Finally, they practice a methodology of radical financial transparency through a careful break-even model. Technically, Microcosm is a for-profit entity, but they intentionally operate on a break-even philosophy. Instead of accumulating excess capital, all profits are reinvested in staff wages, a worker-ownership program, and funding upcoming book releases. This means they don’t have to stress over saving a bad quarter, as every dollar is put to work instantly, creating a resilient, self-sustaining loop.

Ultimately, I think Joe’s advice is perfect. “Reject the traditional methods that aren’t working for you. Find the shortest path from where you are to where you want to go. The underground is much bigger than the mainstream. And the relationships are much more real.”

Lesson #3: An army of smaller customers can be more powerful than a few larger ones

Imagine your business makes $10M a month. If this depends on two large customers rather than an army of small ones, your revenue streams are more vulnerable to significant losses if one customer leaves. Serving a large number of small customers removes this risk of a single point of failure.

When a few large clients provide the majority of your income, they can exhibit large customer power. They can demand custom features, forcing you to lower your prices, dictate your schedule, and alter your ethical boundaries because they know you cannot afford to lose them. Conversely, if you have many small customers, no single customer has leverage over you. A large customer base protects your autonomy, your vision, and your peace of mind.

Additionally, large corporate clients can be volatile. Their budgets change often, management teams change overnight, and buying cycles can take months of negotiation.

Maybe the most important factor for Joe is that two large corporate clients will rarely do your marketing for you. Thousands of passionate, small customers represent a decentralized marketing force. They are a literal crowd of ambassadors, writing reviews, giving word-of-mouth recommendations to friends, and defending your brand online.

Joe has realized this critical piece within the publishing industry, catering his offering to the little guys, to the mom-and-pop stores all around that champion his brand everywhere.

_______

I want to say another thanks to Joe; it was great learning all of these things from his experience, and it is even better that I can share them with you.

I hope you found something valuable in the discussion above and takeaways that will influence how you approach business or even your life in general.

That’s a wrap on this deep dive.

Found this analysis valuable? The best way to support Brainwaves is to share it with someone who’d benefit from these insights.

Drew Jackson

Founder & Writer

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• Next Deep Dive: The High Cost of Indispensable People - June 10th, 2026

• This Saturday: Weekly roundup of breaking developments across energy, space, venture capital, economics, intellectual property, and philosophy

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© 2026 Brainwaves. All rights reserved.

I built Brainwaves on a promise of radical transparency, and Q1 really put that to the test. It wasn’t all wins and milestones—we hit some significant speed bumps that forced us to rethink how we grow. In this update, I’m pulling back the curtain on the hard lessons we’ve learned, the numbers we’ve hit (and missed), and the roadmap guiding us through the rest of Year 3.

A Key Insight into Producing Content: Routine

Routines are how I get everything done; they’re how I maintain the organization and productivity necessary to run this platform at the level I’ve set for myself.

For the newsletter specifically, I’ve talked a bit about my process, but I wanted to highlight a few things I do that really help move it along.

Firstly, I keep a running list of potential newsletter topics in a Google Sheet that I continually add to as I hear about, think about, or come across new articles. I rank them based on how much I want to write about them and how important/value-add I think they are, with the combination of those scores generally leading to what I end up writing about.

Secondly, I follow the same steps when I write a new article: I brainstorm and outline the article, then I take some time off to come back with fresh eyes, and I write it in chunks; very rarely do I write it all in one sitting. This allows for a reiterative editing and rewriting process, so the final version of the first draft is often quite well-polished, given all the rereading and editing along the way.

Thirdly, I’ve standardized my templates and formatting, so I’m not constantly customizing and spending time thinking about these details. This creates an efficient process and a more unified, standardized voice.

Finally, my review process is highly standardized—I have a Grammarly subscription that helps me edit for punctuation and word choice —and then I reread and edit each article twice to ensure proper phrasing and clarity. Honestly, I wasn’t very good at this at first, but I’ve gotten much better since (looking back at old articles can be a bit cringey).

Overall, having routines can be very helpful to ensure stability and proper adherence to established precedents.

Brainwaves: What Happened This Quarter?

This quarter focused on finding new interesting topics to write about that aren’t exactly down the fairway of what I normally write about. You’ll see these come across in Q3 - I’m excited to showcase these articles, I think they’re some unique perspectives on current event phenomena.

There were some good articles released this quarter, and I’m looking forward to what’s coming. Hopefully, you were able to catch each one; if not, take a peek below (I would highly recommend the Assassinations, Threats, Cover-ups, Greed, and the Collaborative Frontier articles if you’re looking for a nice short read).

Articles You May Have Missed From This Quarter:

• The Strategic Case for a Circular Economy - Describing the next era of reduce, reuse, and recycle: circularity

• We Should Stop Preventing All Wildfires - A long-form deep dive into Futures Thinking series tenet #7

• Assassinations, Threats, Cover-ups, Greed - A History of Intellectual Property - An engaging set of IP stories to showcase its interesting and unique history

• Opponents: Is Venture Capital the Best Asset Class? - Arguing against venture capital being the best asset class

• Proponents: Is Venture Capital the Best Asset Class? - Arguing for venture capital being the best asset class

• The Collaborative Frontier - Explaining the juxtaposition between public and private space entities and the future outlook

The Saturday Morning Newsletter: What Happened This Quarter?

This quarter has continued the recent streak of busyness, where the newsletter is fit in wherever possible (leading to some late nights and early mornings). I’m super excited you keep reading it each week and stay up to date on current events, only more to come in the future!

Articles You May Have Missed:

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #79 - 11 Rules for Resilience, Who Owns Ideas?, and The Most Important Supreme Court Case of the Decade

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #80 - Meekness Isn’t Weakness, Smashing Asteroids, and Airlifting Nuclear Reactors

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #81 - BookTok Wants First Person, How to Fix Indoctrination, and Why Kids Won’t Farm

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #82 - Solitude Isn’t Loneliness, Why You Care If I Think You Matter, and The Weather is Getting Wilder

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #83 - Time to Start Believing Again, Confusing Busyness With Purpose, and Moving Fast and Breaking Things

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #84 - Successful Artemis II Launch, The Secret of Exploration, and Where Every President Fails

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #85 - Artemis II Splash Down!, Killing America’s Golden Goose, and Plastic Ice Rinks

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #86 - Where Did All The Affordable Cars Go?, Asking Weird Questions, and Maximizing Your Social Intelligence

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #87 - Living Life to the Fullest, AI is Raising the Stakes, and Soldiers Need Childcare

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #88 - The Loneliest People, Amsterdam Outlaws Fossil Fuel Ads, and Plant-Based Plastics

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #89 - How to Fix Democracy, Why Gas Prices Differ, and How Fast the Universe is Expanding

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #90 - Arguments Against Veganism, Zugunruhe, and Gas Prices Driving the Sale of EVs

• The Saturday Morning Newsletter #91 - The Most Influential Philosophers, Scientists Revisit Global Warming Downside Case, and EPA to Allow Some Forever Chemicals

Brainwaves: By The Numbers

This quarter saw some pretty massive growth, going from 255 to 309 subscribers. I’m so glad to have beaten our goal this quarter, and I’m hoping it’s only good momentum to come. I have numerous thoughts on initiatives to continue this positive performance trend, and hope you get to see a few of them come down the pipeline. Ultimately, having more subscribers increases the likelihood that someone benefits from my content each week, which is my ultimate goal.

After a breakout performance last quarter with some very large articles, this quarter has been more muted, with lower views and open rates. I’m still trying to figure out some behind-the-scenes variables with SEO and the website, which hasn’t driven as many views this quarter as it has historically (I’m thinking some indexing issues), so hopefully that will be sorted out this quarter. Thank you to the consistent readers each week who push the numbers up. It’s always great to see what content resonates the most.

The Saturday Morning Newsletter is incredibly consistent with its performance. However, if you throw a trend line on the newsletter views and open rate graphs, the trend isn’t pretty. From other newsletters I subscribe to like this, it’s easy to let them keep hitting your inbox without really reading them, just always having the intention to read them at some later date. Hopefully, this trend reverses this quarter, with some standout articles gaining traction.

I’m going to continue with similar commentary here as in previous quarters: we’ve been working on revamping the website for optimal performance this quarter and last, and the results are reflected in the numbers. My favorite metric is scroll depth, which is best in class for newsletters (it will likely decrease over time).

Last Quarter Goal Execution

1) Dive into my unique brainwaves each day, write about them, and publish my in-progress views each week, hopefully making a positive impact on someone’s life each week

Success.

As I’ve already touched on, this quarter has been a very exciting time for learning, discovery, and growth. I can’t wait to share what I’ve learned in the upcoming quarters.

2) Curate an experience that readers enjoy, one that makes them want to return for more

Success.

I think readers enjoyed the experience this quarter - I see more of you liking posts than we’ve had historically, which I appreciate. Obviously, there is always room for improvement, but hopefully I’m doing a good job overall.

3) Subscriber Goal In 3 Months: 285

Success.

Guys, we smashed our subscriber goal this quarter. Thank you for continuing to subscribe, share, and spread the word about what we’re doing here to everyone in your network. It really makes me happy to see the platform continuing to grow and develop, touching the lives of more and more people along the way.

4) Continue building on our social media success

Success.

We’ve had some breakout successes on social media this quarter on LinkedIn, and Instagram continues to perform well. I’m really appreciative of Jasmine for overhauling our process and continuing to drive performance here. I’m excited for the future quarters to continue this performance and drive further subscriber growth.

5) Drive subscribers through the referral program

Fail.

We launched the referral program (here) with the expectation that it would help drive growth, but so far it hasn’t (officially) driven one subscription, which isn’t great.

It’s been two quarters now that I’ve been trying smaller initiatives to drive traffic for the referral program with little success. I’ll continue looking into solutions here as I imagine there’s a good way to structure things that I haven’t found yet.

6) Read more books associated with subjects I’m interested in

Success.

I read quite a few books this quarter that relate to the topics discussed in the newsletter, and I’m excited to incorporate these insights and perspectives into upcoming articles. I hope to continue having time here to broaden my perspective and share interesting finds with you.

Goals For This Quarter

1) Dive into my unique brainwaves each day, write about them, and publish my in-progress views each week, hopefully making a positive impact on someone’s life each week

This is the first and most important goal of this platform, and the reason I started this journey. I view this platform as a great excuse to share my unique perspectives on some of my favorite topics, trying to understand and continually refine my viewpoint on each subject.

I subscribe to the mantra that you learn more about a subject when you have to teach someone else. Through the Brainwaves platform, I’ve created an artificial obligation to produce content each week, which means I’m carving out time in my schedule to learn about new topics I might not have prioritized before.

This platform also allows me to publish my in-progress views on each subject I learn about each week. This is a great opportunity to get feedback from readers who may know more about these subjects than I do or have a unique viewpoint I haven’t considered.

Surrounding this entire process is the pursuit of making a positive impact on someone’s life each week.

2) Curate an experience that readers enjoy, one that makes them want to return for more

The goal of this platform is to create an experience readers enjoy so much that they keep coming back each week for more and more content. Now, that’s an incredibly lofty goal, but one I continue to strive towards each week.

I hope you enjoy the content each and every week!

3) Subscriber Goal In 3 Months: 375

I hate asking people for help, so I normally keep my “ask” to share/subscribe to this publication very short, and usually, most people just brush right past it.

Today, I’m putting it front and center.

If you enjoy and/or get any value from the Brainwaves platform, help me get to 375 subscribers by the end of February by doing any of the following:

• Forward this email to friends and tell them to subscribe,

• Share on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook with a short note,

• Share within your existing community or your company Slack channel.

Getting to 375 people shouldn’t be hard. To put it into perspective, with 309 of you currently subscribed, we just need a referral rate of 0.21 (~1 in 5 people sharing) to reach 375. I’d really appreciate it if you could spend a couple of minutes helping me broaden this platform’s reach and impact.

To reiterate, the goal of this platform is not to become famous or generate an income stream; it is purely to educate people like you about critical factors in our future. So, the goal to increase subscribers is not to grow larger (although that is a nice economies-of-scale byproduct); it is simply to reach a broader audience consistently, and an audience that I will hopefully have a positive impact on every single week.

In addition, more subscribers mean more views and a greater likelihood that one of my readers knows more about a subject than I do, creating more opportunities for me to learn and grow through this process.

4) Continue building on our social media success

We’ve had a ton of success on social media this quarter. My goal is to continue pushing content and make a measurable impact on our subscriber base through our social media efforts this quarter. That’s a lofty challenge that requires tons of views, interactions, and engagement, along with a decent conversion rate.

I think it’s an ambitious goal, but well within reach.

5) Drive subscribers through the referral program

If you missed it, we launched a referral program last quarter! There are some exciting rewards (in my opinion), so feel free to send this to a friend or two and get them to sign up. Read more here.

I hope this drives a large portion of subscriber growth (and helps me get rid of some of this swag) this quarter and quarters to come. Go make it happen!

6) Read more books associated with subjects I’m interested in

I’ve started reading books on subjects that interest me, and they’ve definitely helped round out my thinking, offer new perspectives, and deepen my knowledge of the niche subsegments within each sector.

I’ve already got some exciting books lined up for some segments I’m interested in. Hopefully, you’ll get to see a couple of insights here and there.

Thank You + Bonus Content

Thank you for sticking around. For anyone new here: thank you too! I hope you’ve enjoyed your time and will continue to return for more content each week.

I’m excited to see what happens this next quarter. This passion project continues to grow and develop, astounding me every single day. Like always, this is purely for fun and learning, and so far it’s been great.

As a little thank you, here’s a little hint at what’s coming down the pipeline:

An Interview?

Key People?

An Obscure Latin Phrase?

Commentary on Old People?

….and more

With that, thank you again for your support! As is customary, here’s a Kardashian + friends quote to brighten your week:

“You can say a lot of things about me, but you cannot say I don’t work hard. I don’t sing. I don’t dance. I don’t act. But I am not lazy.”

- Kim Kardashian

Thank you again for another great quarter!

Drew Jackson

Twitter: @brainwavesdotme

Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com

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This Week I’m Tracking: 14 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 6 minutes of curated insights

Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.

New to these updates? They pair with our bi-weekly Brainwave analyses for comprehensive sector coverage. Wednesday’s deep dive explored the collaborative frontier - catch up here.

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Let’s dive in.

#1: Lunar Outpost

Description: Lunar Outpost is a developer of moon rovers.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Lunar Outpost recently raised $30M in venture capital funding. Lunar Outpost is developing the infrastructure necessary to inhabit other planets. Their lunar rover technology, combined with their launch capabilities, is close to enabling people to go to and roam around on the Moon and other planetary bodies. American innovation will continue to pave the way for the world to reach new heights.

#2: Meatly

Description: Meatly is a cultivated meat producer.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Meatly recently raised $10.4M in venture capital funding. Meatly is creating cultivated meat products geared for pet consumption. In the age where cultivated meat products are beginning to hit the mass market, why shouldn’t it also extend to pets? Their technology uses chicken cells to create meatless products without harming any animals.

#3: Cowboy Space

Description: Cowboy Space is an orbital infrastructure startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Cowboy Space recently raised $275M in venture capital funding. Cowboy Space is building the power grid in space to support AI. Earth’s grid isn’t set up to sustain the pace of AI development. Luckily, there is tons of capacity in space to support this exponential growth. Cowboy Space is betting this will be the future of energy and AI.

#4: Crew Carbon

Description: Crew Carbon is a developer of carbon dioxide removal solutions.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Crew Carbon recently raised $25M in venture capital funding. Crew Carbon provides wastewater treatment facilities with a process intensification solution that improves performance, lowers costs, and permanently removes greenhouse gases. Their solution replaces conventional alkalinity chemicals, providing a more efficient process and lower long-term costs for plants. Additionally, it reduces the risk of hazardous chemical exposure for operators.

#5: Star Catcher

Description: Star Catcher is a developer of a power grid in space.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Star Catcher recently raised $65M in venture capital funding. Like other players in this industry, they aim to create the first power grid in space, powered by solar energy. Their technology transmits solar energy directly to the satellite’s existing solar arrays (think mirrors). What’s special about Star Catcher is that they hold the world record for optical power beaming, which underpins their proprietary technology.

Reuters: Trump’s Crackdown on China-Linked Solar Firms Stalls U.S. Factory Boom

The Trump administration has cracked down on China-based solar panels, leading to some unfortunate byproducts. A few U.S.-based manufacturers with Chinese ties (however strong) are also facing backlash, as businesses are unsure whether they can continue doing business with them. This shift threatens more than 1/3rd of U.S.-based solar development.

The New York Times: EPA to End Some Limits on ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Drinking Water

The Trump administration announced that it will drop some limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water. These chemicals have been previously found to cause cancer and other serious health problems. The Biden administration enacted these policies; now, the Trump administration is rescinding protections on four of the substances and will continue to protect against two of them.

The New York Times: Scientists Tweaked the Global Warming Outlook

Researchers recently said the worst-case climate scenario used in science and policymaking over the last decade had become implausible and could be revised downward. In response, Trump falsely claimed that this was clear evidence that the international expert committee had been wrong, pushing the agenda that climate change is a hoax.

The Wall Street Journal: SpaceX Launches Starship Rocket

On Friday, SpaceX successfully launched its next-gen Starship rocket. A few minutes after the launch, the spacecraft separated from the booster. The booster ran into problems and eventually crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. The spacecraft lost one of its engines but managed to reach space and successfully deploy its payload. The craft came back down to Earth, exploding upon touchdown in the Indian Ocean.

Pitchbook: More than 1 in 5 Startup Acquisitions Include an Earnout Provision

This level of earnouts in M&A deals signals that buyers still have large power in the current market conditions. While overall conditions have improved since the recent downturn, earnouts continue to remain a more common feature in these deals. A major reason in the broader market is that many startups are still stuck with inflated valuations from the 2020 and 2021 market peaks, which makes earnouts more palatable to founders than a lower valuation.

Pitchbook: SpaceX IPO Filing

This week, SpaceX published its S-1 filing in preparation to go public. The company has grown tremendously in valuation, although many of the revenue and earnings figures do not track to the size of the IPO SpaceX hopes to have. The company raised more than $10B in funding over its lifetime, with many gearing up for a major liquidity event.

IP Watchdog: Maximizing AI Value Through Smarter IP Strategy

AI is developing at an incredible rate. Conversely, intellectual property law and policy aren’t evolving nearly as fast, leaving gaps in coverage. Additionally, AI innovation doesn’t fit neatly into the current IP model, which causes additional strain on entrepreneurs, policymakers, and general consumers. Asking critical questions about what we’re trying to protect, who controls the inputs, who owns the outputs, and what can be commercialized should be examined carefully as we develop IP frameworks to shore up these gaps.

Open Culture: The Most Influential Philosophers Explained in 26 Minutes

Who are the most influential philosophers of all time? That’s incredibly debatable, but this video breaks down and argues for who they think they are, including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, René Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Hegel, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein.

Company Spotlight: Quaise

On the surface, Quaise looks like any other geothermal energy company I write about here. When you look a bit more, there are a few things that set them apart in this sector.

To provide some background, Quaise Energy is a spinout of MIT, and they recently announced their next big project: Project Obsidian. Their goal is to create the world’s first commercial superhot geothermal power plant.

What is a superhot geothermal plant? They use gyrotron technology, which emits high-energy waves that vaporize rock, to drill deeper into the earth than other geothermal methods. Their goal is to drill down 10-12 miles into Earth’s core, producing 5-10x more power than traditional geothermal wells.

They’ve initially tested their technology, successfully drilling through 100 meters of granite. When deployed commercially in 2030, they will search for very hot rocks (300-500 Celsius) that provide the pressure and heat needed to produce supercritical water, enabling viable GW-level plants.

It’s super interesting to see how companies and people are innovating to drive growth and prosperity in legacy industries.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

Found this analysis valuable? The best way to support Brainwaves is to share it with someone who’d benefit from these insights.

Drew Jackson

Founder & Writer

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• Next Deep Dive: Special Edition Interview - May 27th, 2026

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Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal opinions, not financial advice. This content is educational only. Investment decisions carry risks - always consult professionals and do your own research. All sponsorships are clearly disclosed.

© 2026 Brainwaves. All rights reserved.

This Week I’m Tracking: 15 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 6 minutes of curated insights

Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.

New to these updates? They pair with our bi-weekly Brainwave analyses for comprehensive sector coverage. Wednesday’s deep dive explored the collaborative frontier - catch up here.

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Let’s dive in.

#1: Satellites on Fire

Description: Satellites on Fire is a wildfire detection startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Satellites on Fire recently raised $2.7M in venture capital funding. Satellites on Fire integrates cameras on watchtowers with satellite imagery to rapidly identify and address new wildfires. They are currently identifying around 95 new wildfires a month, ensuring proper response and prevention. This tool is valuable to municipalities and state governments worldwide, delivering a high ROI.

#2: Voltify

Description: Voltify is a converter of diesel trains to electric.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Voltify recently raised $30M in venture capital funding. Voltify is overhauling traditional locomotives into new electric motors. These trains are then powered by renewable energy instead of fossil fuels. This enables the train system to save up to 66% on fuel costs.

#3: Entrix

Description: Entrix is a battery optimization startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Entrix recently raised $43M in venture capital funding. Entrix uses AI technology to optimize battery storage space and lifecycles. Their company also enables the trading of extra energy to drive further revenue for their customers. Currently, they’re executing over 30,000 trades per day.

#4: Zevero

Description: Zevero is a carbon accounting platform.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Zevero recently raised $7M in venture capital funding. Zevero enables companies to manage, track, and act on carbon emissions. Their clients are hitting their net-zero goals early by partnering with Zevero. Their in-house sustainability experts help advise clients on opportunities to continue making progress towards their goals.

#5: Renasens

Description: Renasens is a textile recycling technology.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Renasens recently raised $10M in venture capital funding. Renasens recycles old apparel using a waterless process for tried-and-true results. They start by removing dyes, then separating fibers, and finally cleaning the recycled fibers to complete the recycling process. Circular manufacturing is becoming increasingly important in our global consumerist economy, and Renasens is well-positioned to facilitate it.

Canary Media: America’s Nuclear Dry Spell is Over

After a decade without new nuclear power construction in the United States, two companies have broken ground on projects, with others hot on their heels. TerraPower and Kairos Power both began construction of their nuclear power plants in a dramatic race to the finish line to see who can commercialize energy the fastest and win large energy contracts.

Financial Times: Solar Panel Prices Rising

Solar panel prices are rising after China implemented a program to curb competition among producers. This trend could spell the end of increasingly affordable solar cells—following the Moore’s law trajectory they’ve been on. This surge in prices is driven by both rising silver prices and the crackdown on competition, which has caused billions of dollars in losses in the sector. This may be the rock bottom of prices for the time being.

The New York Times: Fuel Prices Driving the Sale of EVs

The war in Iran and the resulting increase in oil and gas prices have led to a surge in electric vehicle sales globally as consumers aim to transition away amid higher costs. This is beginning to hurt sales of fossil-fuel-powered cars, even as electric vehicle adoption slowed in China and the United States.

The Wall Street Journal: Why Companies Are Racing to Put Satellites in LEO

Low Earth orbit is increasingly sought after by technology companies looking to deploy satellites to provide internet and other services worldwide. This video effectively details the competitive environment, showcasing motivations and potential areas for pause.

Space: SpaceX or Blue Origin for 2028 Moon Landing?

NASA’s redefined plan for the Artemis program puts a test in orbit in 2027, with an attempted landing in late 2028. The two companies previously selected to build this technology are SpaceX and Blue Origin, both of which are currently in development and are facing tight timelines to accomplish this feat. The next few months will determine who is ready and optimally positioned to succeed in this complex task.

The New York Times: Geothermal IPO

This week, Fervo Energy, a geothermal energy player, raised ~$1.9B in its IPO. This was above analyst and investor expectations, signaling confidence in the industry over the longer term. Investors have confidence that this model can be successful, repeatable, and scalable. Hopefully, geothermal only continues to grow in its share of the energy mix.

Pitchbook: Anthropic vs. OpenAI

This article details three charts that help investors and the general public think about the rivalry between Anthropic and OpenAI. It seems as though Anthropic is gaining significant momentum right now. OpenAI was the major leader from the start, so it’s unclear who is currently in the lead.

The New York Times: China Is Weaker Than It Seems

This economist’s viewpoint is that in the long run, a structure similar to the United States’ is bound to succeed more than that of China’s. “Because history shows that the most productive national assets are political freedom and open markets — the freer, more open and more competitive, the better.” This has been shown in the past and continues to ring true today; however, with the recent declines in the United States, the gap is thinning.

Big Think: Zugunruhe

Zugunruhe is a German term for the relentless urge birds feel when caged. This term also applies to humans, as seen in movies where the actor begins to restlessly pace the room they’re stuck in. Philosophers have started using this term to identify when your environment isn’t a good fit for you, causing this reaction—it isn’t a personal flaw.

What is the most interesting philosophical argument against veganism?

Doing some quick research on this topic in Gemini provided some intriguing answers.

For instance, there’s a viewpoint that argues that eating meat actually benefits animals. Flipping the argument on its head, philosophers argue that if the demand for meat drops, then fewer farm animals will be bred. Thus, ethical raised meat will be lower, reducing the number of future lives that would never be.

Another argument is the harm causation argument, which targets the impact of an individual’s choices. The idea is that if you don’t decide to purchase meat, that won’t meaningfully alter the number of chickens slaughtered. The market only responds to massive, macro-level shifts in demand. Thus, the animal on your plate is already dead, and your refusal to eat it changes nothing for the next generation of livestock.

Finally, another argument points out the general hypocrisy of a pure vegan diet. Agriculture of any kind requires clearing land, which destroys natural habitats and kills millions of small mammals, birds, and insects. Some argue that eating a single grass-fed cow results in fewer total animal deaths than a diet reliant on intensive crop farming. Trying to completely detach yourself from the cycle of death is a philosophical impossibility.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

Found this analysis valuable? The best way to support Brainwaves is to share it with someone who’d benefit from these insights.

Drew Jackson

Founder & Writer

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© 2026 Brainwaves. All rights reserved.

Credit AZoOptics

Space innovation has one key rule: In the research phase, break everything. In the deployment phase, don’t break anything.

This Week’s Focus: Space

What You’ll Understand: The complex dynamic between public and private space entities

Reading Time: 9 minutes for full analysis + key takeaways highlighted throughout

Key Question: Is the current dynamic between public and private space entities better than it has been historically?

My Take: The shift from producer to customer has enabled the space industry to accelerate rapidly, as entities now own IP, fiercely compete, and drive innovation at every step. This enables rapid prototyping, where failure provides tremendous information and isn’t the end of the world. Historically, NASA and other entities were too rigid, causing delayed timelines and cost overruns. However, they did make it to the Moon, which this new system hasn’t accomplished yet—meaning the historic model may still be superior.

Quick Context: This deep dive connects to my prior work on space commercialization. New to Brainwaves? We explore the forces reshaping our world across venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, and philosophy. Subscribe here for bi-weekly deep dives plus weekly current events.

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Let’s dive in.

In 1969, history was made when humans walked on the moon for the first time. This mission was accomplished through a tremendous effort of NASA engineers, rocket builders, and scientists across the United States.

In 2027 and 2028, this milestone may be achieved again as commercial space giants collaborate with NASA in a public-private partnership. This will be the first time humans have reached the moon in over 50 years.

Public and private space entities have collaborated closely to achieve some of the largest space milestones to date. They’ve also competed fiercely for resources, technology, know-how, and orbital space. Over the years, the dynamics have shifted from financier to partner to purchaser, and from contractor to partner to innovator.

As the space commercialization movement continues, the spotlight on public and private space entities grows. Understanding and analyzing the dynamics, both historically and going forward, will enable space players to maximize their collaborative and competitive initiatives.

Credit NASA

Pivot from Producer to Customer

During the Space Race, NASA often used cost-plus contracts. In this scenario, NASA would design the rocket, pay a contractor to build it, and cover all costs plus a guaranteed profit margin. If the project went over budget or took longer than planned, NASA (and technically the taxpayer) picked up the tab.

For instance, following President Nixon’s January 1972 directive to develop and build a reusable space transportation system, NASA designed the Space Transportation System (commonly known as the Space Shuttle). The reusability of the shuttle’s components was expected to provide easier access to space while reducing costs.

NASA fully funded and managed the program, contracting private aerospace companies to build the components for the reusable transportation system. After 10 years, the development phase ended, with the total bill to the taxpayers costing $10.6B (equivalent to around $49B in 2026).

However, this business model had some large flaws. Today, NASA operates under a service-based model using fixed-price contracts. Many projects are based on milestones and funded accordingly. NASA says, “We need to get 500kg of cargo to the ISS. We’ll pay you $XXM when you prove the rocket can launch and another $YYM after the mission is complete.”

In this model, private companies own the hardware and the intellectual property; NASA is simply buying a seat or cargo space. Previously, NASA owned the hardware and the intellectual property. Now, if a private company wastes money, it eats the cost. This creates a massive incentive for low-cost, efficient, reusable solutions, and NASA can penalize for missing timelines.

In essence, NASA has gone from being a producer to being a large customer.

By becoming a customer, NASA creates a more modular and redundant system. If NASA owns one “mega rocket” (e.g., the Space Shuttle) and it fails, the entire space program is grounded. By being a customer of multiple providers (SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic), the system gains redundancy. If one provider experiences a technical failure, NASA can pivot to another provider.

Additionally, under the historical model, building a NASA-owned, designed, and operated rocket could take years, if not decades. This means the program is vulnerable to cancellation when a new presidential administration takes office. In 2026, buying space on other rockets creates shorter-term commitments that are harder to kill and easier to scale.

Some problems are unavoidable in both solutions. When the Space Shuttle program was delayed and overspent, NASA had no option but to wait and either invest more in a sunk cost or shutter the program. Similarly, today, if Boeing’s Starliner is delayed by years, NASA doesn’t have its own backup rocket ready.

There remain operational dependencies, with only a few players capable of designing and developing the products NASA needs for its missions. Granted, there’s more than one currently, providing some redundancy, flexibility, and optionality, but the system isn’t perfect. Additionally, a private company’s goals aren’t always aligned with NASA’s. Most are billionaire-founded and -funded, so profit isn’t the primary goal, but they are still at the whim of the billionaire’s vision, which may not align with NASA’s broader scientific goals.

This isn’t an isolated occurrence in the space sector alone. We’ve seen this producer-to-consumer pivot across many large industries over the last few decades. For instance, companies no longer build their own server rooms; instead, they rent compute space from AWS or Azure. Governments are increasingly buying commercial drones for military use rather than developing them in-house. Public-private partnerships for toll roads or bridges develop infrastructure faster, although the state lacks full operational authority.

Credit Space

Rapid Iteration vs. Mission Assurance

There are many ways to manage and mitigate risk. Two popular versions have been showcased throughout space history—one treating failure as a cost of information, while the other treats failure as an unacceptable catastrophe.

NASA was founded on a mission of robustness and mission assurance. Their goal is extreme reliability, making sure there are no points of failure. When you’re designing the $10B James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that you’re sending out millions of miles into space, there is no option for repairs. It must work the first and only time. They spend thousands of hours on computer modeling and testing so every single component is documented, tested, and verified, ensuring failure isn’t an option. Failure represents a generational setback for science and a massive blow to national prestige.

SpaceX, on the other hand, operates on a hardware-rich philosophy. They build many prototypes quickly and expect them to blow up. Their goal is to identify flaws in a design in the real world rather than in simulation. Every explosion provides a massive amount of information. In their opinion, by failing early and often, they eliminate design flaws faster than a team of scientists sitting in simulators every day. It’s often cheaper to build 10 cheap prototypes that fail than to spend 20 years building one perfect machine that might still fail on its first try.

The choice between the two methods comes down to replicability and consequences. There are scenarios where rapid iteration is better suited, and others where assurance is needed. For example, when you’re building thousands of Starlink satellites, it’s easier to rapidly iterate. If 5% fail during the learning phase, the system still survives, especially at that scale. On the other hand, when you’re sending humans to the Moon, the cost of failure (in this case, human life) is too high for a trial-and-error approach.

Interestingly, we are seeing a convergence. In 2026, NASA is increasingly adopting a rapid iteration process for its lunar lander components, while SpaceX is adopting assurance measures as it prepares to put humans on Starship.

The trick is to know which phase of a project you are in. In the research phase, break everything. In the deployment phase, don’t break anything.

Credit WIRED

Democratization of Low Earth Orbit

Historically, space was a region accessible only to national government space agencies. The famous Space Race was between Russia and the U.S. government, not between North American Aviation and Experimental Design Bureau-1.

Over the past century, launch costs have decreased exponentially, following a Moore’s law trajectory. Historically, sending a kilogram into space was extremely cost-prohibitive ($10,000- $100,000/kg). Today, space commercialization efforts have significantly reduced that cost (see the graph below).

Credit American Enterprise Institute

With this decrease in costs, access to space is more widely available to a wider range of entities, including all manner of commercial companies, government entities, and more.

When launch costs were high, you only brought things back from space if they were Moon rocks or astronauts. Now, the ROI for a wide variety of physical goods becomes viable. For instance, in Earth’s gravity, crystals grow with defects. In microgravity present in space, they grow with near-perfect molecular symmetry. These purer crystals allow for higher-concentration drugs, fundamentally changing patient care.

Another example is traditional silica fiber. As it’s currently manufactured on Earth, it loses signal over distance. A new type of fluoride glass, called ZBLAN, that is theoretically 100x more efficient but is impossible to make on Earth. Manufacturing ZBLAN in LEO could create trans-oceanic cables that require almost no signal boosters, revolutionizing the speed and energy efficiency of the global internet.

Democratization brings a new risk: the Kessler Effect. As Low Earth Orbit becomes a “commercial zone”, the density of objects increases the risk of collisions. A single collision can create a cascading effect. As of now, we don’t have any effective ways to counteract this effect, which could have potentially hazardous consequences.

Credit University of Glasgow

The Scientific, Non-Business Case

We shouldn’t expect, or even want, private corporations to handle every aspect of space exploration. There’s a difference in goals between ROI (return on investment) and ROC (return on curiosity) that we need to factor in.

Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are responsible to shareholders and face massive capital requirements to appease them. They need a path to revenue and profit, whether through satellite launches, space tourism, asteroid mining, or other ventures. If a mission doesn’t have a foreseeable profit margin at this point or in the future, it’s often not pursued.

Contrast that with public entities like NASA, which measure success through research data and achieving astronomical milestones. Finding a single microbial fossil on Mars has negligible immediate market value but large scientific value.

It is in pursuit of these goals that public entities can take high-risk, zero-profit gambles. Exploring the outer regions of the Solar System and beyond involves decades of planning with no guarantee of any financial reward at the end.

Private companies avoid this due to long R&D cycles and strict preservation requirements. For instance, the James Webb Space Telescope took over 30 years to realize. No private board would approve a 30-year project with no profit. Additionally, scientific missions often require “planetary protection” protocols to ensure strict preservation of foreign sites from Earth contaminants. This is an expensive add-on and slows down commercial efficiency.

Rather than being rivals, the public and private sectors function in parallel. Public agencies fund the high-risk innovation, while private companies take those proven technologies and optimize them for the mass market, driving down the cost of access to space. Lower cost inputs then allow public agencies to buy cheaper seats on private rockets, allowing the cycle to continue with lower costs for existing infrastructure.

One of the ultimate pursuits of space exploration is the search for life. This is the ultimate non-business case; if we find life on Europa or elsewhere, we can’t sell it, and we shouldn’t exploit it commercially at first. Public agencies are well-positioned to serve as custodians of human knowledge, ensuring that discoveries belong to everyone rather than remain proprietary trade secrets.

Ultimately, we need both sides of the coin. We need the non-business case to encourage scientific development and to take risks that don’t make any business sense. We need the business case to make space sustainable and accessible at a larger scale, enabling a positive feedback loop—however long the timelines may be.

That’s a wrap on this deep dive.

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• Next Deep Dive: Quarterly Update / Interview - May 26/27th, 2026

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This Week I’m Tracking: 13 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 5 minutes of curated insights

Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.

New to these updates? They pair with our bi-weekly Brainwave analyses for comprehensive sector coverage. Wednesday’s deep dive explored proponents of venture capital - catch up here.

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#1: True Anomaly

Description: True Anomaly is a developer of space technology.

Why Is This Company Interesting? True Anomaly recently raised $650M in venture capital funding. True Anomaly is developing software that enables operators to orient, decide, and act in orbit. Additionally, they’re developing a tactical fighter-interceptor to operate within contested space environments. Their goal is to curate a suite of space-based solutions for the modern government and/or commercial use cases.

#2: CMBlu Energy

Description: CMBlu Energy is a developer of long-duration batteries.

Why Is This Company Interesting? CMBlu Energy recently raised $50M in venture capital funding. CMBlu Energy is developing a water-based battery that provides long-duration power without needing lithium. These batteries are modular and can be deployed when needed. They’ve recently repositioned their business model to serve AI and data centers. These batteries are reliable, with an extensive engineering team helping scale long-duration energy storage solutions easily.

#3: Fermeate

Description: Fermeate is a precision fermentation startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Fermeate recently raised $2M in venture capital funding. Fermentation is a complex art that requires sophisticated equipment and know-how. Fermeate is developing a new hardware module that delivers timed pulses of light to switch your production organisms genetically. This further optimizes existing infrastructure, increases yields, and provides greater stability in genetic variation.

#4: Panthalassa

Description: Panthalassa is a generator of energy from waves.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Panthalassa recently raised $140M in venture capital funding. Global energy demand is rapidly accelerating, outpacing current supply growth. Panthalassa is developing autonomous ocean-based systems that generate wave power, capturing a natural source of movement as energy. Their devices are easy to create and deploy and can be scaled efficiently as the world demands more flexible energy sources.

#5: Moment Energy

Description: Moment Energy is an EV battery repurposing company.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Moment Energy recently raised $40M in venture capital funding. Moment Energy is recycling existing EV batteries to create commercial-scale energy storage plants. They create public good by recycling old batteries while purchasing their supplies at a lower cost than new batteries. Interesting model as they’ll be working with technology that is always 5+ years behind current market innovations, so that lag may hurt them.

The New York Times: America Will Pay Dearly for Its Energy Arrogance

Under Trump, America has embraced fossil fuels, moving further away from other sources and increasing concentrations and potential harms. In the short term, this may be fine, but in the long run, it will create significant uncertainty and instability, potentially leading to long-term consequences on a geopolitical scale.

The New York Times: A Strong El Niño May Be Coming

Forecasters say a powerful El Niño weather pattern could form later this year. This could be one of the strongest in three decades. There’s roughly a 60% chance, with scientists saying next year could be the warmest year on record yet.

Spaceflight Now: ULA Launches 29 Amazon Leo Satellites

This week, ULA launched 29 more Amazon Leo satellites into orbit. This is ULA’s sixth flight, delivering the internet satellites into orbit. This brings the total number of Amazon satellites in orbit to 270 as Amazon seeks to compete with SpaceX for next-gen space-based internet capabilities.

The Wall Street Journal: How Fast the Universe is Expanding

Scientists are beginning to know how fast our universe is expanding. Experts found that objects in our universe recede faster as they become more distant. This rate is the most precise ever calculated. This is contrary to what the theory of everything predicts, causing ripples in the scientific community.

Pitchbook: VC’s Future is Anyone’s Guess

Venture capital’s 2030 forecast is very broad - it all depends on whether AI firms can exit their investments. The base case estimates very modest growth, whereas the upside could result in a 50%+ increase in global AUM. AI now accounts for around 65% of total VC deal value, with the money highly concentrated among a small group of top-tier companies.

The New York Times: Why Gasoline Prices Vary So Much

The price of gasoline varies dramatically by city and state. Around 50% of gasoline prices are driven by oil prices. Since the United States attacked Iran, the price of oil has risen by more than 50%. The variance between states and cities stems from the location of oil refineries, logistics, state taxes, and competition.

Psyche: Why It’s So Hard to Agree on What Counts as True

Everyone pretty much agrees on the facts. However, recent studies have shown that people view “truth” differently. Truth can be understood in different ways. From a social angle, truth is tied to authenticity, so calling someone’s statement true means we think they were honest and transparent. Maybe it’s time to be more conscious about how and when we use the word “truth.”

The Conversation: How to Fix Democracy?

Plato argued that governing a state is a skilled trade, no different from piloting a ship or practicing medicine. In his view, leadership is not a birthright or a popularity contest, but a craft requiring a specific, rigorous expertise.

The first hurdle is defining the “skill” of ruling. Plato defines it as a rule that possesses knowledge of “that which is truly good.” Unlike flying a plane, where a safe landing measures success, the “true good” is subjective and difficult to quantify.

This isn’t to say that only a small subset of the population has a monopoly on these skills - leadership isn’t confined to just government; anyone can have these skills in any facet of life.

Additionally, there is a strong case for the wisdom of the crowd. Collective decision-making often proves better than those of a single expert.

No system can perfectly guarantee a skilled leader. Democracy doesn’t always produce the best leader, but neither does any other system. It’s a complicated process that no one has yet figured out perfectly.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

Found this analysis valuable? The best way to support Brainwaves is to share it with someone who’d benefit from these insights.

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• Next Deep Dive: Public vs. Private Space - May 13th, 2026

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This Week I’m Tracking: 11 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 5 minutes of curated insights

Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.

New to these updates? They pair with our bi-weekly Brainwave analyses for comprehensive sector coverage. Wednesday’s deep dive explored the proponents of venture capital - catch up here.

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#1: Fasal Bio

Description: Fasal Bio is a plant-based plastics producer.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Fasal Bio recently raised $7M in venture capital. Fasal Bio is developing a proprietary renewable materials formula that uses wood-based materials to replace conventional plastics in manufactured goods. Their product is engineered to work with standard plastic processing methods, including injection molding and extrusion. This enables it to be integrated into existing manufacturing production lines with minimal impact.

#2: NanoTech Materials

Description: NanoTech Materials is a developer of advanced materials.

Why Is This Company Interesting? NanoTech Materials recently raised $29M in venture capital funding. NanoTech Materials has a proprietary, patented coating technology that reduces heat transfer while maintaining structural durability. This helps control energy costs and extend asset lifetimes, saving businesses money in aggregate. Wildfire exposure is also driving this effort, as their product is engineered to protect structures against temperatures of thousands of degrees.

#3: Plume

Description: Plume is a developer of geospatial AI.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Plume recently raised $3.3M in venture capital funding. Plume is a software platform for energy infrastructure intelligence. It enables development teams to identify the best-suited land for renewable energy projects, track risks, and build a strong pipeline of top-tier opportunities. Getting through the permitting and development phases is one of the longest parts of this process, so finding efficiencies like Plume provides developers a leg up on the competition.

#4: Starfish Space

Description: Starfish Space is a developer of robotic spacecraft to service satellites.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Starfish Space recently raised $110M in venture capital funding. Starfish Space is developing an autonomous satellite servicing vehicle (called Otter). It’s smaller and cheaper than alternatives, using solar electricity to dock with satellites to enable life extension and proper disposal. Their technology is actively in space, helping service existing infrastructure.

#5: Xoople

Description: Xoople is building a satellite data platform.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Xoople recently raised $130M in venture capital funding. Xoople is a developer of AI Earth data monitoring. Their infrastructure layer will feed into many other tools, enabling businesses and governments to be more productive in their decision-making regarding Earth-based variables. Their ultimate goal is to build a system of record for Earth data that can be used by many AI agents.

World Nuclear News: TerraPower Begins First U.S. Utility-Scale Advanced Nuclear Plant

TerraPower is developing what will hopefully be the first advanced nuclear plant built at scale in the United States. The company began non-nuclear construction in 2024 and just received its NRC-approved construction permit. It is the first commercial reactor approved for construction in a decade. The project is expected to be completed and operational by 2030.

The New York Times: Amsterdam Outlaws Ads for Fossil Fuel or Meat

Recently, after being characterized as a very open city, Amsterdam outlawed advertising that promotes lifestyles linked to high carbon emissions. This primarily relates to ads surrounding fossil fuels (airlines, cruises, and faraway destinations) and meat (beef, chicken, pork, fish). This is a world first, but it could signal a trend as regions become more aggressive in addressing climate change.

The New York Times: Global Deforestation Slows

In 2025, the total area of trees destroyed was around 63 million acres, around 14% decline from 2024. This was the lowest of any year in the last decade, largely driven by progress in protecting tropical forests. This was especially impactful in tropical rainforests, where declines were 36% compared to 2024.

The New York Times: We Will Be Paying for the Iran War

America’s war with Iran will cause decades of repercussions. The government has entered into many long-term contracts in the face of this war to fund retrofitting equipment, developing new weapons, and creating stockpiles. This war, which many Americans believe should not have happened in the first place, has enduring repercussions that only compound the issue.

U.S. Senate: China Stealing U.S. Intellectual Property

Intellectual property is a vital component of the United States economy, driving extensive innovation and product development and generating many positive externalities. However, it isn’t a perfect system. Foreign actors, China specifically, have been stealing designs to their benefit—leapfrogging current capabilities unethically and illegally. We must protect our intellectual property, but how to do it perfectly isn’t clear yet.

EcoNews: The Loneliest People

The headline is perfect: “Psychology suggests that the loneliest people in life are not usually the outcasts, but rather those kind, competent, and always-available individuals whom everyone values, but whom almost no one calls to ask how they are doing because they seem too strong to need care.”

Loneliness isn’t just a bad mood; it’s been found to be linked with higher risks of disease (29% higher risk of heart disease) and even early death.

This is a quick reminder to check on people in your life—even the ones that seem like they’re all good and have their lives together.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

Found this analysis valuable? The best way to support Brainwaves is to share it with someone who’d benefit from these insights.

Drew Jackson

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• Next Deep Dive: Public vs. Private Space - May 13th, 2026

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© 2026 Brainwaves. All rights reserved.

Credit National Park Service

Venture capital represents less than 1% of U.S. GDP, yet it is the primary engine behind the most transformative companies in the modern economy. From the smartphone in your pocket to the rockets landing themselves on ocean platforms, VC-backed businesses account for a staggering 77% of U.S. public market capitalization and 92% of all private R&D spend. While critics focus on the failures, the data suggests that without this ‘tiny’ asset class, the 21st century would look fundamentally different.

This Week’s Focus: Venture Capital

What You’ll Understand: Favorable Viewpoints on the Venture Capital Industry

Reading Time: 14 minutes for full analysis + key takeaways highlighted throughout

Key Question: Is venture capital the best asset class?

My Take: Many investors claim that venture capital is the best asset class. In many ways, it is better than other asset classes. It produces high returns for a select few investments, driving innovation and positive externalities for society. However, there are some aspects that are hard to dismiss (covered in part 3). In aggregate, venture capital is a very good asset class, but it might not be the best.

Quick Context: This deep dive connects to my work historically on venture capital (here). New to Brainwaves? We explore the forces reshaping our world across venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, and philosophy. Subscribe here for bi-weekly deep dives plus weekly current events.

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Venture capital has rapidly evolved and expanded throughout the last couple of decades into a full-fledged industry. Throughout its development, many of the industry’s core characteristics and the players’ fundamental properties have changed drastically to adapt to emerging trends and ultimately increase success rates.

As such, our knowledge of modern industry principles and practices may miss key developments or be fundamentally skewed by historical thinking.

The purpose of this essay today is to continue acknowledging and addressing aspects of the modern venture capital industry and any misconceptions we may have, revolving around one of the biggest overarching questions: Is venture capital the best asset class?

View part 1, part 2, and part 3 of this series.

Is venture capital truly the best asset class?

Most of the people I know who write about venture capital, in one way or another, are pretty adamantly on one side of the aisle or the other (i.e., they really love VC or really despise it).

One of those people I read frequently is Packy McCormick at Not Boring. If you can’t tell from any of his articles (here, here, here, or here), he writes about VC often and is a strong proponent of it. Why?

The Proponents

The proponents of venture capital being the best asset class list a wide variety of reasons, the main of which are:

• Venture capital fund returns (as an average across the asset class) are higher than those of other asset classes

• Venture capital funds a large portion of innovation in the U.S.

• Venture capital is the best situated to embrace variance in returns

• Venture capital is able to fund the wildest ideas in the world

• The venture capital industry builds upon itself over time

• The failure of one company’s returns doesn’t necessarily spell failure for the fund’s returns

• Venture capital investors have an active involvement in value creation

• Venture capital can help social and economic impact

Proponents’ Rationale #1: Venture Capital Fund Returns Are Higher Than Those of Other Asset Classes

In one of Packy’s recent articles, he uses the following graph from a 2015 study comparing private and public company investments by researchers at the University of Virginia. The results speak for themselves:

Credit Not Boring

As you can see, given its risk level, venture capital aggressively outperforms its peers. Packy explains that the data isn’t perfect, but is directionally correct. Depending on the time horizon you use and whether or not you’re using risk-adjusted returns, venture capital may or may not be the best-performing asset class.

If you’re like me, you don’t always trust one source, so here are other sources that prove a similar point (here, here, here, and here).

There’s virtually no other asset class capable of providing returns of 50%+ annualized IRR over a 10-year fund cycle. To be clear, not every venture capital fund can hit this level of returns; it’s a select few (a good IRR is around 20%, per the graph above).

Why does venture capital return this high? It’s a combination of factors, mainly the risk and return profile, diversification, and the types of companies invested in. Don’t worry, we’ll discuss each of these points further.

Proponents’ Rationale #2: Venture Capital Funds a Large Portion of Innovation in the U.S.

What isn’t in doubt is that venture capital funds a large portion of the innovation in our society. As we’ll touch on later, whether the company is a winner or a loser, there are benefits to innovation in every scenario.

As writers from Adams Street Capital explain, venture capital is a relatively tiny asset class in terms of total dollars, representing less than 1% of the U.S. GDP, yet it is the primary engine behind the most transformative companies in the U.S. economy. They elaborate:

Venture capital firms have a multi-decade history of facilitating innovation. Four of the five largest public companies by market capitalization at the end of 2022 trace their roots to VC funding. According to the National Venture Capital Association, half of all US public companies benefited from venture investment, while VC-backed businesses make up about 77% of US public market capitalization, 81% of total patents granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office, and 92% of research and development (R&D) spend. Since 2001, 53% of all initial public offerings (IPO), and 70% of tech companies going public had VC backing, according to Professor Jay Ritter at the University of Florida.

Traditional corporations often focus on incremental innovation—making an existing product 1-10% better—to protect their quarterly earnings. Venture capital firms fund disruptive innovation—companies that make existing products and solutions obsolete.

Venture capitalists often take on technical risks that public markets won’t touch, often because of their speculative nature. For example, in 2026, venture capital is the dominant funder of commercial nuclear fusion, quantum computing, and synthetic biology.

Venture capital doesn’t just fund products; it creates entire industries that didn’t exist a decade ago.

• The Internet Economy: Google, Amazon, Meta

• The Space Economy: SpaceX, Relativity Space, Stoke Space

• The Modern Energy Grid: Tesla, Form Energy, Valar Atomics

Without venture capital, these would likely still be academic research papers or slow-moving government projects.

Proponents’ Rationale #3: Venture Capital is the Best Situated to Embrace Variance in Returns

Venture capital is the career choice for the ultimate variance seekers. In standard finance, returns often follow a normal distribution, with most outcomes clustering around the average. In venture capital, returns often follow a power law.

Because the upside of venture capital investments is theoretically infinite, but the “downside” is capped at 1x (the money invested). Venture capital firms don’t fear a 90% failure rate; they fear missing the one outlier.

This unique structure makes venture capital the best asset class for embracing variance.

For pension funds, a 50% swing in a company’s value is a disaster. For a venture capital firm, high variance is a signal of disruption. If a market is stable and predictable, there is no room for a startup to capture massive value. Venture capitalists look for tectonic shifts that create high-variance environments where new giants can be born.

As you can see in the visualization below, the range in venture capital fund returns is much larger than for any other asset class, followed by other private speculative asset classes like private equity, private capital, and real estate.

Credit Not Boring

Consider the current AI bubble. Venture capitalists are investing billions of dollars in companies offering models, wrappers, and outrageous promises of world-changing solutions. Billions of this will undoubtedly be worth nothing very soon—not all companies are born to succeed. Why is this the current situation? Venture capitalists can’t perfectly predict which investments will succeed, so they need to cast a broad net and embrace greater return variance.

Packy provides his perspective, “Would returns look better if VCs simply funded the good companies and didn’t fund the bad ones? Maybe in the short-term, maybe not in the long-term, but it’s a moot point, because no one knows what the great ones are going to be ahead of time. Venture is beautiful for embracing that.”

Proponents’ Rationale #4: Venture Capital is Able to Fund the Wildest Ideas in the World

Venture capital is often described as the fuel for the future because it operates on a logic that most traditional financial institutions, like banks, simply can’t touch.

Most businesses are built to be stable and profitable. Venture-backed startups, however, are built for extreme outcomes. They only need one Uber or SpaceX to make their entire fund a success; they are incentivized to take massive risks on unproven technology in pursuit of large gains. Packy explains further:

Venture capitalists are willing to fund companies creating new technologies even if those companies don’t seem to have a viable business model in sight. The best venture capitalists try to fund companies that marry new technology with viable business models, but some technologies are just too early to make any economic sense. That’s OK! There are venture capitalists willing to fund those, too.

For startups, there is a period known as the valley of death, signifying the gap between an invention and a finished product. It often requires millions of dollars in research and development before a single cent of revenue is generated. From Packy, “Who’s going to fund that experimentation period? A bank? The public markets? Nope. Venture capitalists.”

Venture capitalists can fund the wildest ideas in the world, some of which will work, most of which won’t. Packy ends his thought well:

I’d argue that even if venture capital underperformed other asset classes, generated 0% returns or something, it would be a net benefit to society to have a pool of capital that funds crazy experimentation. But this is capitalism, and returns are what keeps the machine humming. So the fact that VC has generated such strong returns over a long time horizon is key.

Proponents’ Rationale #5: The Venture Capital Industry Builds Upon Itself Over Time

The venture capital industry isn’t just a series of bets; it’s a compounding infrastructure of innovation.

When people think of venture capital, they often focus on the unicorn investments—the big wins. However, the real engine of the industry is the collective learning curve generated by the vast majority of companies that didn’t make it.

Most cutting-edge technologies are too early when they first launch and go through several “winters.” Early venture capitalists fund the pioneers who often go bust because the timing is off, the hardware is too expensive, or the market isn’t ready.

However, in the grand scheme of history, those failures aren’t everything. They leave behind trained engineering and founding talent who know exactly what doesn’t work, codebases and research that become the baseline for the next venture, and the beginnings of consumer education to promote future adoption.

To be clear, venture capital firms aren’t being altruistic. They’re greedy for the “big win”, trying to get an early investment stake in the next big thing at a low price. Their risk appetite serves as an R&D subsidy for the rest of the world.

Packy, in a recent article, stated, “There seems to be collective intelligence at play on longer timescales. The opportunity to generate returns today might not exist if someone hadn’t been willing to lose money decades ago. No venture capitalist does this altruistically – they’re driven by the small, against-all-odds chance that this too-early technology might be the next big thing – but in their mistakes they create opportunity for others.”

Proponents’ Rationale #6: The Failure of One Company’s Returns Doesn’t Necessarily Spell Failure for the Fund’s Returns

More often than not, venture capital investments don’t pan out. Within a typical venture capital fund of 20-40 companies, the outcome distribution tends to look like the following:

• 60-70%+ Fail: These companies either go bankrupt or return less than the original investment. These bets didn’t pan out—but as we’ve discussed, they’ve laid the foundation for future companies.

• 20-30% Average Returns: These companies survive and might return 1-3x the investment. They are successes on paper, but don’t move the needle much for a venture capital fund.

• 5-10% Power Law Winners: The goal is for one or two companies in the portfolio to be “home runs” that return 10x, 50x, or even 100x the initial investment.

When developing their portfolios, venture capitalists often don’t diversify to lower risk; they diversify to increase the probability of hitting a power law winner. If you invest only in 3 companies, your chances of missing the “next big thing” are very high. The more companies you invest in, the more you increase your chances of luck.

In this way, the failure of a single company is often a planned casualty in the pursuit of the outlier.

This effect is magnified for limited partners (people and funds that invest in venture capital funds). They diversify their investments across venture capital, private equity, real estate, and other asset classes. Packy elaborates:

From the LPs’ perspective, venture capital is a small but growing high-risk / high-reward piece of a much larger portfolio. If any individual investment that one (or multiple) of their venture managers make fails, no matter how spectacularly, it’s unlikely to have a big impact on the overall portfolio. What’s more important to LPs is that venture as an ecosystem continues to take the kinds of risks that have a shot at driving higher returns.

Proponents’ Rationale #7: Venture Capital Investors Have an Active Involvement in Value Creation

There’s a common viewpoint that venture capitalists (and private equity, for that matter) are simply “money men.” However, this is a common misconception. As venture capital continues to grow in terms of the number of funds, fund sizes, and competition, venture capital firms must find ways to differentiate themselves.

To win the best deals, venture capitalists must prove they add value to a business. In most cases, this includes active support that helps the startup scale faster or more efficiently than it could on its own.

For example, most lead investors take a seat on the company’s Board of Directors. This isn’t just about oversight; it’s about providing a perspective that founders, who are deep in the daily grind, might miss, given their extensive industry experience and investing in similar companies.

Venture capitalists have seen hundreds of companies succeed and fail. They can spot patterns months before it becomes a crisis. Additionally, they can help prepare the company for an IPO or an acquisition years in advance, ensuring the financial reporting and corporate structure are ready.

To compare the two types of investors, passive investors (e.g., those invested in public stocks) and active venture capital investors, passive investors often rely on public filings or quarterly disclosures, whereas active venture capital investors have information rights and real-time data.

Similarly, passive investors generally have no say in daily operations, often voting by proxy or through regularly scheduled cadence. In contrast, venture capital investors often collaborate on hiring, pivots, pricing, and much more.

Proponents’ Rationale #8: Venture Capital can Help Social and Economic Impact

Venture capital is often benchmarked using internal rate of return and unicorns, but its impact on society and the economy is far more structural.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found that between 2018 and 2022, venture capital-funded firms accounted for just 0.2% of all U.S. firms but employed 12.5% of the workforce.

Unlike traditional small businesses that grow linearly, venture capital-backed companies are designed to scale exponentially. This requires hiring hundreds (if not thousands) of high-skilled workers in a matter of months, with a significant economic impact. For every direct job created at a startup, research estimates 1.5-2.0 indirect jobs are supported in the surrounding ecosystem, from lawyers to accountants to doctors to janitors.

Venture capital companies don’t just contribute to the economy by filling jobs; they also constitute around 50% of all U.S. public companies and 77% of the total market capitalization. During economic downturns, such as the 2008 economic crisis, venture capital companies maintained positive, high-growth employment rates.

Venture capital offers a unique solution for many companies, especially compared to traditional small-business bank loans. The risk profiles differ: banks require collateral and steady cash flow, whereas venture capital firms accept total-loss risk for high-growth potential.

Bank loans help stabilize the local economies, while venture capital firms disrupt and expand the national economy. More commonly, bank loans and other small business financing primarily have a social impact on individual livelihoods and small communities. Compared with other funding sources, venture capital can fund ideas that affect nations and the world (mRNA vaccines, EVs, etc.).

Venture capitalists are often the only entities willing to fund businesses with large social impacts. Furthermore, the venture capital industry is increasingly deploying capital to break down historical barriers to entry, with notable increases in funding for female-founded and minority-led startups.

This has led to the development of a special class of venture capital investors dubbed “impact investors,” whose primary goal is to fund projects with a large impact on the world around them.

___

Packy arguably says it best, “All I’m saying is that as an asset class, venture capital is way better than it gets credit for. There’s no other asset class that’s been as positive-sum or cooked more free lunches over the past half century.”

Is Venture Capital the “Best” Asset Class?

I’ve often found it difficult to objectively determine whether something is truly the “best” among its class.

In many ways, venture capital is better than other asset classes. In others, it’s simply on par. In some categories, it underperforms. In aggregate, I would argue that venture capital is a very good asset class.

Unfortunately, there are some aspects that are hard to get past, namely, the necessity on other classes to function and return money to limited partners, the tendency to adopt a winner-take-all model where the best funds continue raising larger and larger funds and the rest of the industry struggles and dies, and the lack of liquidity and transparency for limited partners narrowing the types and profiles of potential investors and future opportunities they are interested in pursuing in the industry.

By no means is this a comprehensive analysis of every pro and con of the venture capital industry—please let me know what I’m missing, and there may be a sequel with an updated perspective given new information.

That’s a wrap on this deep dive.

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This Week I’m Tracking: 12 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 5 minutes of curated insights

Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.

New to these updates? They pair with our bi-weekly Brainwave analyses for comprehensive sector coverage. Wednesday’s deep dive explored opponents of venture capital - catch up here.

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#1: Blue Energy

Description: Blue Energy is a developer of prefabricated nuclear power plants.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Blue Energy recently raised $380M in venture capital funding. The nuclear reactor itself only accounts for <10% of the total cost of a nuclear power plant. The other portions are construction costs, labor, and materials, with a significant portion being loan interest. Blue Energy is focused on this portion, designing prefabricated nuclear reactors that can be dropped into place, eliminating a large portion of development costs.

#2: Humble

Description: Humble is a developer of autonomous freight trucks.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Humble recently raised $24M in venture capital funding. Humble saw the huge problems in shipping and the supply chain and designed a modern solution: autonomous trucking. Their trucks use sensors (think Waymo) to drive from A to B, hauling large loads along the way. The commercial trucking industry is large, especially in large countries like the United States. Humble’s technology can semi-easily upend an entire industry.

#3: Atmos Space Cargo

Description: Atmos Space Cargo is a developer of orbital transport and re-entry vehicles.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Atmos Space Cargo recently raised $25.7M in venture capital funding. Atmos Space Cargo is developing a reusable spacecraft that uses a mechanism resembling an inverted parachute. This proprietary device controls reentry and maximizes the spacecraft’s reusability. This ensures a lower-cost infrastructure to make space more accessible.

#4: TheStorage

Description: TheStorage is a thermal energy storage developer.

Why Is This Company Interesting? TheStorage recently raised $3.6M in venture capital funding. TheStorage is developing a new way to store heat by acting as the conduit between renewables and industries. Clean energy is converted into heat and stored in sand at high temperatures; when needed, the heat is released from the sand. This enables a steady supply of energy for critical technologies, all powered by renewable energy sources.

#5: NOC Energy

Description: NOC Energy is a developer of electric heating systems.

Why Is This Company Interesting? NOC Energy recently raised $2.7M in venture capital. NOC Energy converts energy into high-temperature heat. This heat powers crucial industrial processes without relying on burning fossil fuels. Their technology can be used for drying, curing, chemical reactors, transforming raw materials, or replacing combustion systems. In an era when many industrial facilities seek renewable resources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, NOC Energy provides a valuable solution for a necessary byproduct of fossil fuels: heat.

National Interest: Two Military Bases Receiving Micronuclear Reactors

The Department of the Air Force and the Defense Innovation Unit confirmed which two military bases will receive nuclear microreactors under the Pentagon’s recent program. The goal of this program is to demonstrate the feasibility and operational benefits of on-premises localized energy.

The New York Times: You Paid to Have Old Clothes Recycled. Here’s What That Really Means

Some companies have built business models around collecting and recycling clothing. Unfortunately, most of these companies don’t provide tracking for the journey. This leads to a lack of transparency for customers, so often there’s not a clear picture of where things are really ending up. Usually, recycling isn’t truly recycling. Old clothing doesn’t usually become new; it's usually downcycled into insulation or mattress filling.

The New York Times: Sightings of Meteors Surge

Depending on how fatalistic you are, this could have different meanings to you. In the first three months of 2026, the number of meteor fireballs in Earth’s atmosphere was around double what it usually is. And scientists don’t know why. Could it be aliens? Could it be our tech has blind spots? Could it be satellite debris? There are quite a few theories out there—stay tuned as we learn more.

Pitchbook: Upcoming Mega-IPO Wave

SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are all expected to go public in the next year. These exits will likely add to the chaos in the secondary market, which has been growing rapidly over the last few years. These companies are expected to raise $100B+, almost the size of the entire secondaries market in 2025.

The New York Times: You Can’t Defend a Nation When Soldiers Don’t Have Child Care

I think the premise of this article is incredibly unique, and one that I love learning more about. See, the military can’t function when children aren’t being cared for. During the 1980s, the military developed a robust child care service that helped soldiers across the nation feel safe to serve their country. This kept soldiers on the job and reduced absences. Now, in 2026, the current administration is looking to gut these programs to pay for wars, and the economists are predicting poor results.

IP Watchdog: AI is Raising the Stakes on Intellectual Capital and IP Rights

In the grand scheme of things, the shift to IP-heavy businesses has been relatively recent. Now, most organizational knowledge and value lies in the know-how, the intellectual property of the business and employees. AI is upending this strategy by codifying complex human-based tasks, eliminating much of the need for human interaction. Therefore, proprietary, protected processes protected by IP become increasingly valuable and create larger moats.

If you’re like me, you’ve seen and heard the phrase “live life to the fullest” out and about. However, current societal norms actively prevent this from happening. Society highly values predictability and stability, which are generally the opposite of a life lived to the fullest.

Our world has been built around the 40-hour work week and the pursuit of productivity. It’s difficult to chase your passions when your survival and ability to thrive are based on your schedule and income. We are encouraged to dream, yet penalized if those dreams impact our work product.

Society was built for conformers. Those who reject tradition are met with skepticism, often pushed aside, and even shamed. Society actively pushes people to conventional paths and ideals, ensuring the collective moves in the correct direction. It actively suppresses living life to the fullest.

It seems like the idea of living life fully is just a faraway ideal, rather than something that can actually be achieved—think strong parallels to the American Dream in 2026. Living to the fullest requires a level of risk-taking that our society isn’t set up to handle, leaving most of us to sadly gain only glimpses of it, without experiencing its true depth.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

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• Next Deep Dive: Proponents: Is Venture Capital the Best Asset Class? - April 29th, 2026

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This Week I’m Tracking: 15 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 6 minutes of curated insights

Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.

New to these updates? They pair with our bi-weekly Brainwave analyses for comprehensive sector coverage. Wednesday’s deep dive explored the opponents of venture capital - catch up here.

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#1: Turion Space

Description: Turion Space is a developer of spacecraft.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Turion Space recently raised $75M in venture capital funding. Turion Space is building a platform and ecosystem optimized to perform in the next century of space. Their technology anticipates that space will become increasingly congested, requiring next-generation solutions that proactively position and equip hardware to adapt to changing conditions. Their platform is built with this in mind, packaging the software and hardware together for this end scenario.

#2: Agriodor

Description: Agriodor is a developer of natural crop protection products.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Agriodor recently raised $15M in venture capital funding. Agriodor is seeking to further stabilize agricultural outcomes from the effects of pests and insects. Their goal is to develop a biology-based, natural pesticide that repels unwanted invaders while protecting the helpful critters. They’ve created a proprietary blend to do this and are now deploying it to the market.

#3: Citra Space Corporation

Description: Citra Space Corporation is a developer of space object identification capabilities.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Citra Space Corporation recently raised $15M in venture capital funding. Citra Space is developing a software solution for space-based objects. Their platform enables the discovery, identification, and tracking of space-based objects, ensuring full transparency in orbit. Technology like this is especially attractive to government entities that wish to ensure dominance in space and prevent bad actors.

#4: Scentian Bio

Description: Scentian Bio is a developer of insect-based sensors.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Scentian Bio recently raised $7M in venture capital funding. Scentian Bio uses insect-based techniques to revolutionize odor detection. They use highly sensitive biosensors that measure the concentrations of thousands of compounds to determine what the “smell” is and should be. They’ve been able to produce this technology at scale, bringing it into the food and beverage, logistics, health, and pest control markets.

#5: Fieldwork Robotics

Description: Fieldwork Robotics is a developer of berry-picking robots.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Fieldwork Robotics recently raised $3M in venture capital funding. Fieldwork Robotics is creating robot pickers for the raspberry market. They’ve created an autonomous robot that reduces the cost per berry and provides a predictable cost structure. These robots use 3D cameras, sensors, and machine learning to pick fruits at the same speed and quality as human pickers, while operating for extended periods.

Visual Capitalist: The Countries Building the Most Nuclear Power

Based on existing and projected project capacity, China is set to become the leader in nuclear power. This article ranks countries by current and prospective nuclear capacity, showcasing how the world plans to reach 180 GW+. Countries expanding nuclear capacity can reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels, while strengthening energy security and grid safety.

AgWeb: Solar Panel Plague or Progress?

Solar panels have become a large source of income for farmers, but those around them aren’t happy with the change. Farmers are being offered $1,500/acre+. Many critics argue that it reduces local wildlife, destroys the scenery, and reflects poorly on the regions where it’s placed. It’s a complicated affair because, on the one hand, we want to ensure the renewable energy transition, but on the other hand, solar takes up a lot of land, affecting local inhabitants.

The New York Times: Northeast States Set Big Climate Goals

Several years ago, Northeast states adopted some of the most ambitious policies to shift away from fossil fuels towards clean alternatives. Today, after rising electricity bills and the current Administration’s goals, these states are beginning to rethink their goals. Is it possible to achieve clean energy targets? For many, actual events are beginning to point to a miss; there still may be initiatives to help bolster results.

The New York Times: Why Investing in Wind and Solar to Avoid Gas Shocks Hasn’t Added Up For Some

Fuel prices are soaring after prominent geopolitical conflicts. Even as countries are installing record levels of wind and solar power to insulate themselves against energy shocks, the results haven’t been fully proven. This is particularly impactful in Europe, as the way it sets electricity prices can be dramatically affected by fluctuations in fossil fuel prices.

The New York Times: Artemis II Gives NASA Momentum in Renewed Moon Race

For the time being, the United States is ahead of China in the race to the Moon. The recent Artemis II mission demonstrated that their spacecraft can handle transporting human beings to the Moon. The next significant milestone is putting humans back on the Moon in 2028. China aims to put its astronauts on the Moon by 2030, so the U.S. timeline continues to show dominance for now.

The Wall Street Journal: Landing On The Moon Will Be A Lot Harder

Some current and former NASA officials are skeptical that a 2028 landing will be possible, given the technical and operational needs over the next two years. The Artemis II recent mission may end up being the easy part of this initiative. Major progress will be made in 2027 with the Artemis III mission, which will dock the spacecraft with lunar landers in orbit.

The New York Times: Where Did All The Affordable Cars Go?

For better or worse, American society is built on cars. For most Americans, buying a car has become a significant financial burden. The solution is to stop subsidizing American-made cars and open the market broadly to foreign-made cars. This is a complicated solution, as it further promotes offshoring and the use of foreign assets in critical U.S. infrastructure. Yet people at the bottom of the income scale need a solution for the broader society to function.

Clarivate: Impact of AI on Modern IP Decision Making

AI remains ingrained in modern intellectual property workflows. A majority of intellectual property participants use AI in their workflows, with trust developing through exposure to the product. People have slowly moved from skepticism to support once these platforms have proven they can reliably handle every request. The future is expected to only continue this transition.

Albion College: Asking and Answering Weird Questions

Asking weird questions is a fundamental part of philosophy. Similarly, an equally important part of philosophy is the answers it provides. Every good philosopher should practice asking all of the weird questions and be prepared to vehemently defend the answers they give. This is the field’s goal: advancing ideas and answers through rational analysis.

20 Sentences to Maximize Your Social Intelligence (I guide I found on the internet)

1. To solve an issue quickly, be soft on the person and hard on the problem

2. Pretend everyone was sent to teach you something

3. Pause in speaking + eye contact = confidence

4. Make people feel important with the SHR Method: Seen, Heard, Remembered

5. A person’s favorite sound is their name, so remember it

6. “Praise publicly. Criticize privately.” - Warren Buffett

7. To give feedback, first make the other person feel you care about them

8. “Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.” - Neil Strauss

9. The best networking strategy is a helping others first strategy

10. Loneliness is a silent pandemic; assume people want to meet you

11. Practice going first, e.g., “Hi, I’m Ben.”

12. Build the habit of responding with “Yes, and” because it advances their idea

13. Avoid complaining or gossiping (nobody likes to hear it)

14. Storytelling is a superpower; use a structure like setup, tension, and resolution

15. Every dog has its day because dogs are friendly (lesson in there)

16. “The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life.” - E. Perel

17. To discover blind spots, build an inner circle that will give you honest feedback

18. Normalize “I don’t know anything about that yet” as a successful answer

19. Record and study your speaking like an athlete watching game film

20. “Great leaders create more leaders, not followers.” - Roy T. Bennett

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

Found this analysis valuable? The best way to support Brainwaves is to share it with someone who’d benefit from these insights.

Drew Jackson

Founder & Writer

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• Next Deep Dive: Proponents: Is Venture Capital the Best Asset Class?

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© 2026 Brainwaves. All rights reserved.

Credit Stanford Graduate School of Business

Roughly 90% of all startups fail. In any other industry, those odds would signal a catastrophe; in venture capital, they are simply the cost of doing business. While proponents call it the ultimate engine of innovation, a growing chorus of opponents argues that the ‘best asset class’ is actually a high-stakes gamble where most players leave the table empty-handed.

This Week’s Focus: Venture Capital

What You’ll Understand: Opposing Viewpoints on the Venture Capital Industry

Reading Time: 18 minutes for full analysis + key takeaways highlighted throughout

Key Question: Is venture capital the best asset class?

My Take: Many investors, both within and outside the industry, claim that venture capital is the best asset class. However, their opponents cite high risk, large-scale failures, reliance on external factors, and many other factors for why this simply can’t be the case. Honestly, their case has quite a bit of merit, but it may not outweigh the positives (coming in part 4).

Quick Context: This deep dive connects to my work historically on venture capital (here). New to Brainwaves? We explore the forces reshaping our world across venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, and philosophy. Subscribe here for bi-weekly deep dives plus weekly current events.

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Venture capital has rapidly evolved and expanded throughout the last couple of decades into a full-fledged industry. Throughout its development, many of the industry’s core characteristics and the players’ fundamental properties have changed drastically to adapt to emerging trends and ultimately increase success rates.

As such, our knowledge of modern industry principles and practices may miss key developments or be fundamentally skewed by historical thinking.

The purpose of this essay today is to continue acknowledging and addressing aspects of the modern venture capital industry and any misconceptions we may have, revolving around one of the biggest overarching questions: Is venture capital the best asset class?

View part 1 and part 2 of this series.

Is venture capital truly the best asset class?

There are thousands of proponents and opponents of the venture capital industry. On one hand, there are thousands of companies and founders that use venture capital funding to change the world and get rich in the process. On the other hand, this comes at the expense of LPs, company failures, and reliance on other factors.

Today, our goal is to understand the main arguments of these naysayers, those who habitually oppose and are skeptical of the industry’s true value. Part 4, the final piece of this series, will present the champions’ viewpoint.

The Opponents

The opponents of venture capital being the best asset class list a wide variety of reasons, the main of which are:

• Venture capital is incredibly risky and has a high failure rate

• Venture capital funds are very illiquid

• Venture capital returns are highly variable with a high dependence on “home runs”

• Venture capital firms charge high fees (2 & 20)

• There are substandard and unqualified investors in venture capital

• Venture capital firms make money when other people do all the hard work

• Many venture capital funds are struggling

• Because venture capital firms invest in private companies, there can be a lack of transparency for limited partners

• Venture capital requires larger, more mature asset classes for its exits—venture capital can’t exist in a vacuum

Opponents’ Rationale #1: Venture Capital is Incredibly Risky and Has a High Failure Rate

Just because you received a venture capital investment does not mean you’re going to be the next unicorn (although it doesn’t hurt your chances). In fact, in venture capital, risk isn’t just a possibility—it’s at the core of the business model.

Roughly 90% of all startups fail. Venture capital’s goal is to find and invest in the 10% that don’t fail (or have less likelihood of failure). In practice, this often means investing in companies with high potential but high failure rates.

Packy at Not Boring summarizes the problem well: “No asset class’ constituents fail at a higher rate than venture capital’s, yet venture capital’s returns match or exceed all the others’... Even the best venture funds are wrong much more often than they’re right.”

Venture capital sits at a unique point on the risk-return spectrum, taking many risky bets with the hope that a small few will return well enough to cover the others and then some. If the failure rate is so high, why do institutional investors (e.g., pension funds and insurance companies) continue to invest in venture capital?

Like other private markets, venture capital often moves differently than the stock market, providing an uncorrelated return profile that enables further portfolio diversification.

Additionally, these investors want access to the home run upside. In venture capital, you can only lose 1x your money on a failure (which is often the case), but it provides an opportunity to make 100x or even 1000x on a success.

On the whole, these factors create dynamics where the best funds, those hitting home runs consistently, rise to the top percentiles, while the majority of funds, those consistently striking out, struggle and eventually disappear.

Opponents’ Rationale #2: Venture Capital Funds are Very Illiquid

Packy states the issue perfectly, “There are many good reasons for LPs (limited partners, the people and institutions who invest in funds) to be avoiding venture right now. Most of them boil down to one thing: liquidity.”

Traditionally, venture capital funds were designed to be ~10-year vehicles, with the first 5 years for investing the money and the other 5 for building and selling companies. Thus, as an investor, your money is tied up for 8-10 years before you begin to see money back and any capital gains.

In 2026, this timeline can often be longer, as funds are hesitant to deploy capital on the frontend and companies are staying private longer, resulting in 10-15-year fund timelines that further increase the illiquidity of these funds.

This means many funds are reaching their legal expiration date while still holding most of their assets. As a result, fund extensions have become increasingly popular to ensure capital can be recovered.

The “J-Curve” represents a fund’s return profile and its illiquidity. In the first few years, a fund’s value drops because of management fees and early investment failures. It only curves upward in the final years of the fund’s lifecycle as the winners grow and eventually exit.

For many funds, limited partners don’t give the venture capital firm all of the money at once. Instead, they are “called” over several years, meaning the investor must keep that cash ready but relatively unproductive until the venture capital firm asks for it, further compounding the lack of immediate returns for investors.

Therefore, an investor might not see a single dollar of distributions (profit) until year 7 or 8 of the investment. Because this illiquid wait time has become so long, the industry has developed new ways to artificially create liquidity before a company actually goes public or is acquired.

In 2025, the global secondaries market reached $240M. This market enables limited partners to sell their stakes in a fund to another investor, or for founders to sell a portion of their shares to specialized firms.

Additionally, if a venture capital firm has a great company but its fund is expiring, they might “sell” that company into a new fund they also manage. This gives old investors a choice: take their cash now or roll into the new fund to keep waiting for a bigger exit.

It’s a very difficult environment for venture capital investors right now. Limited partners need returns to fund their insurance programs, pension funds, university research, and other activities. They can easily sell stocks and bonds at their market value; they can’t sell their venture capital stakes as easily. So it’s not surprising some limited partners are becoming hesitant to provide capital for venture capital firms.

Opponents’ Rationale #3: Venture Capital Returns are Highly Variable, With a High Dependence on “Home Runs”

Peter Thiel, in his book Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, states:

The error lies in expecting that venture returns will be normally distributed: that is, bad companies will fail, mediocre ones will stay flat, and good ones will return 2x or even 4x. Assuming this bland pattern, investors assemble a diversified portfolio and hope that winners counterbalance losers. But this “spray and pray” approach usually produces an entire portfolio of flops, with no hits at all. This is because venture returns don’t follow a normal distribution overall. Rather, they follow a power law: a small handful of companies radically outperform all others. If you focus on diversification instead of single-minded pursuit of the very few companies that can become overwhelmingly valuable, you miss those rare companies in the first place.

One of the best parts of venture capital is that not all investments need to pan out, enabling them to take risky bets that other asset classes cannot.

Due to these factors, venture capital firms are often reliant on a few core investments (usually unknown from the start but identified throughout the investment lifecycle) to return the majority of their capital and profit.

However, if you don’t manage to capture any of those home-run performers, your fund struggles—as many do today. This can lead to competent, powerful investors failing solely because of the field’s uncertainty, potentially decreasing capital available to companies in the future. Thiel continues:

Of course, no one can know with certainty ex ante which companies will succeed, so even the best VC firms have a “portfolio.” However, every single company in a good venture portfolio must have the potential to succeed at a vast scale.

Opponents’ Rationale #4: Venture Capital Firms Charge High Fees (2 & 20)

The traditional compensation structure for venture capital and private equity funds is known as the “2 and 20” structure. On the surface, it sounds simple, yet it creates a powerful set of incentives that dictate how money is invested and managed.

The “2” refers to the annual management fee (usually 2%), calculated based on the total capital committed to the fund, not the amount currently invested. The purpose is to keep the fund afloat by paying salaries, covering office space, travel, technology, legal expenses, and more.

For some quick math, if you raised a $1B fund, you would receive 2% in annual management fees, or $20M. Over a typical 10-year fund life, that’s $200M in guaranteed revenue, regardless of whether the fund makes a single dollar in profit.

Granted, most modern funds include a “step-down” provision where, after the initial investment period (3-5 years), the fee might drop to 1.5% or 1% as the workload shifts from finding new deals to simply managing existing ones.

The “20” refers to the performance fee, and it’s where venture capital firms make their real wealth. Once the fund has returned all the original capital to the limited partners, the general partners retain 20% of any additional profits. This is designed to ensure the venture capital fund only gets rich if the investors get rich.

If our $1B fund returns $4B (once all investments are exited), the limited partners receive $1B back first, and the remaining $3B is divvied up: 80% to the investors and 20% to the venture capital firm.

Over the last few years, a clear divide has emerged in the industry. As a new class of funds emerges, dubbed “megafunds”, with over $10B in assets under management. For these firms, the management fees ($200M+/year) are so massive that the partners are wealthy even if the fund’s performance is mediocre. Smaller, scrappier funds, usually $500M and under, must hit home runs to survive, as their management fees barely cover basic operations.

Thus, some firms are more heavily incentivized to carefully select and pursue home-run investments, even if the economics (2 & 20) remain the same.

Overall, investors generally accept high fees so long as the fund provides alpha (returns higher than what the investor could earn elsewhere, usually the stock market). When performance dips, these fees are among the first things limited partners seek to renegotiate.

Opponents’ Rationale #5: There Are Substandard and Unqualified Investors in Venture Capital

Despite its elite reputation, venture capital is a highly fragmented industry. In 2026, the gap between top-tier firms and “unqualified” investors has never been wider.

When observers or critics speak of “substandard” or “unqualified” investors, they are usually referring to three types of venture capital players that can actually damage a startup’s health:

• The Hype Chaser: These are investors, often retail groups, family offices, or non-tech corporations, who enter venture capital only during the boom times. Unfortunately, they often lack the stomach for the 7-10 year startup winter. When a company faces volatility or uncertainty, these investors are often the first to panic and push for a premature sale, at the company’s long-term detriment.

• The Dumb Money: These are capital providers that provide zero strategic support. While an elite venture capital firm provides hiring assistance and customer introductions, an unqualified investor might overcomplicate the cap table, demanding toxic terms that make it impossible for the founder to raise more money later, or require excessive hand-holding, wasting management’s time instead of finding ways to add value.

• The Ghost Investor: Ghost investors are groups that have stopped writing checks but still want to appear active, a significant red flag in today’s climate. If an existing investor doesn’t follow on in your next round, it sends a signal to the rest of the market that something could be wrong with your company. Many “unqualified” investors often run out of dry powder but don’t tell the founder until it’s too late.

Based on the above explanation, you may have come to the natural conclusion that “substandard” or “unqualified” investor types are detracting from the industry, and should be eliminated—that was my first thought, too. Packy provides some clear commentary on this point:

They stand in the way of acquisitions that would be life-changing for founders but meaningless for returns. Often, the most helpful thing some VCs can do is write a check and get out of the way. I’ve worked with bad ones from the other side of the table and I know how harmful they can be. The good news is, over time, the market typically punishes the bad ones.

He continues with a counterintuitive point:

If you zoom in on the behavior of any one participant at any given time, you might think that they’re behaving stupidly. In many cases, they are. The ecosystem works not in spite of, but because of, the stupidity of some of its participants.

There are undoubtedly investors who show up to work and do a substandard job, as you would find in any career. Unfortunately, in this case, all suffer. In what ways can this be prevented?

Arguably, the biggest reason behind this trend is the lack of formalized training and oversight of venture capitalists—there’s technically a very low barrier to entry.

Additionally, the industry is moving toward structural and technological safeguards to weed out low-quality investors. The goal is to shift from a traditional handshake culture to a data-driven culture where poor performance and toxic behavior have immediate consequences.

For instance, founders have begun to vet venture capital firms as rigorously as venture capital firms are vetting them. This includes asking for references from successful and unsuccessful portfolio investments to discover how the investor behaves when things go right and wrong.

Review sites are gaining traction, allowing founders to leave reviews for venture capitalists and flag sub-performers, helping future founders understand the scope of their potential partnership.

Lastly, the National Venture Capital Association and similar entities have launched initiatives to increase transparency across the venture capital process. A main initiative is creating open-source, fair-market-term sheets that enable founders to recognize unfair terms as red flags for unqualified investors.

Opponents’ Rationale #6: Venture Capital Firms Make Money When Other People Do All the Hard Work

The argument that venture capitalists make money while others do the work is a common critique of the industry and has some merit. Underlying the argument is the fundamental tension between capital (in this case, the venture capital firm’s capital) and labor (the founders’ and employees’ “sweat equity”).

At the very beginning, a company’s value is essentially zero. Founders and early employees provide 100% of the labor, but they often lack the resources to significantly scale. In many cases, the solution is to bring in a venture capital firm to provide some of the capital necessary to grow and achieve future projections.

In return, a founder trades a portion of their ownership (often 20-40%+) for the capital needed to hire a team and build the product. Fast forward to exit, if the company sells for $1B, a venture capital firm that owns 20% makes $200M. Critics will argue that the venture capital firm didn’t write the code, sell the product, or pull late-nighters to ensure viability—yet they took a massive share of the value created by those who did.

The counterargument used by the venture capital industry is based on the nature of the risk each party assumes. For the founder, if the startup fails, they lose years of their life and potential salary, but they often don’t lose millions of their own dollars. In contrast, if the startup fails, the venture capital firm loses its entire investment. As such, there is an asymmetry in the risk taken (in the venture capital firm’s opinion), which justifies the compensation received on successful investments.

Recently, this paradigm has been shifting in favor of the founder. Founder-friendly terms are appearing more often in term sheets, including “super-voting shares” that allow founders to keep control of the company’s direction even if they own a minority of the stock.

Additionally, to help prevent founders from burning out while venture capitalists wait for a massive exit, many term sheets include provisions that allow founders to sell a small portion of their shares in a secondary transaction early in the venture. This allows the founders to get paid for their hard work before the investor gets their final payday.

Separately, some venture capital firms are moving away from passive investing towards the creation of venture studios, where the venture capital firm actually provides the first engineers, designers, and recruiters. In these cases, the work and value-creation process is more evenly shared between the firm and founders, justifying the return profiles.

Opponents’ Rationale #7: Many Venture Capital Funds are Struggling

In March 2026, the Chairman of the 45th Annual Small Business Forum summarized this issue well: “This panel will also examine trends of increased concentration in the venture capital industry. For example, in the first seven months of 2025, roughly 40% of all venture capital dollars flowed to just 10 companies, while the share of deals below $5 million fell to a decade-low of 49%. On the fundraising side, thirty firms accounted for approximately seventy-five percent of the total venture dollars raised in 2024.”

Now, to be clear, concentration doesn’t exactly mean many venture capital funds are struggling, just that some are outperforming the rest.

Carta, a software to manage equity management, estimates that from 2021 to 2024, the number of new venture capital funds raised fell by 68%. In the same period, the annual count of investors who made at least one new investment in a U.S.-based startup declined by 26%.

Often, one of the biggest signs of a successful venture capital firm is the ability to raise subsequent funds, usually at larger fund sizes.

Through these metrics—concentrated funds raising the majority of venture dollars and a decrease in firms raising new funds—it’s a pretty sure bet that many venture capital funds are struggling.

In recent years, limited partners have struggled to earn significant returns on their venture capital fund investments. This is measured by a metric known as distributed-to-paid-in capital (DPI), which compares the cash returned to investors with the capital they contributed.

Among the most recent venture capital fund vintages, DPI has been hard to achieve. Carta estimates that just 21% of funds from the 2020 vintage have generated any DPI for investors thus far, compared to 37% over the same period for 2017 vintage funds. They include the following graph, which illustrates this point well:

In the late 2010s and early 2020s, there was a surge of new venture capital funds as investors sought to capitalize on a growing market. Thus, many speculate that the current trends of the shrinking VC landscape represent a normalization back to long-term trends.

Aside from these factors, the recent market consolidation is painful for many funds, resulting in fewer fundraising opportunities for both less-experienced founders and newer investors.

Opponents’ Rationale #8: Because Venture Capital Firms Invest in Private Companies, There Can Be a Lack of Transparency for Limited Partners

In most cases, the relationship between the general partner of a venture capital fund (the person managing the investments and portfolio day-to-day) and the limited partner (the institution or individual(s) providing the money for the fund) is often a black box.

Because venture capital invests in private companies, they aren’t subject to the same public disclosure rules as a company listed on a public stock exchange. This creates a significant information asymmetry.

In the public markets, a stock price is updated every second. In venture capital, the value of a company is often a “best guess” based on the last time someone wrote an investment check. For instance, a company might have raised money at a $1B valuation in 2021. If the market crashes in 2022, the venture capital firm might still carry that company at $1B on its books until it raises additional capital in a down round or exits.

Even though limited partners are the primary financiers, they rarely have a seat on the startup’s board. Limited partners usually receive quarterly portfolio summaries. They might see “Company X is doing well,” but they won’t see the internal Slack messages, customer data, board minutes, or the granular monthly burn rate.

This is especially the case if the limited partner also invests in competitors of the company, in which case, general partners must strictly limit what information they pass up the chain to prevent trade secrets from leaking.

However, limited partners have begun to push back, wanting increased transparency. For example, in 2026, the Institutional Limited Partners Association introduced new reporting templates that force venture capital firms to provide more granular data on fees, expenses, and performance metrics. In another instance, California recently passed a diversity law requiring venture capital firms to report the demographic data of the founders they fund—moving transparency from financials to include social and operational metrics.

Opponents’ Rationale #9: Venture Capital Requires Larger, More Mature Asset Classes For Its Exits—Venture Capital Can’t Exist in a Vacuum

Venture capital doesn’t exist in isolation within the financial landscape. It is often the on-ramp for companies to a much larger global financial highway. While venture capitalists specialize in high-risk, early-stage growth, they cannot survive unless they can eventually hand their companies off to larger, more mature asset classes to provide liquidity.

As we’ve discussed, venture capital creates value, though it’s largely paper value until an exit. For venture capital to return cash to its investors, it needs a buyer with significantly deeper pockets, typically from three mature asset classes.

Firstly, the public markets are the ultimate destination for startups. When a company lists on an exchange, it gains access to a pool of capital valued at trillions of dollars from retail and institutional investors. JP Morgan estimates that this accounts for around 10-15% of all venture capital exits.

Secondly, large strategic incumbents (e.g., Google, Microsoft, and Costco) regularly use their cash reserves to acquire companies. For example, in 2026, the race to build AI infrastructure has led many strategics to record-breaking M&A deal values and volume, with these giants serving as exit opportunities for smaller innovators. Sales to larger strategic players represent around 50-55% of all venture-capital backed exits, the largest channel.

Lastly, large financial institutions (e.g., private equity firms, family offices) deploy significant capital to continue growing these companies for years to come. These investors often bring significant operational, technological, and sector-specific expertise through prior investments. Financial investors account for the remaining 25-40% of venture capital investment exits.

Venture capital relies on these larger asset classes to achieve liquidity and to ensure the next stage in the company’s growth lifecycle (traditionally, a more mature, moderate-growth stage).

However, this has become harder recently. In 2026, Stanford Professor Ilya Strebulaev found that the average time to exit was between 6 and 10 years, with this timeframe increasing steadily over the last 3-5 years. Only 35% of companies exited within 1-5 years, 40% within 6-10 years, and 25% within 11-15 years.

Because companies are staying private longer, the secondary market has become vital. This capital allows early investors and employees to sell some or all of their shares to other private investors before the company actually fully exits.

This provides a pressure-release valve for the venture capital ecosystem, ensuring capital keeps flowing even when the IPO or M&A windows aren’t favorable.

Part 4 to come next.

That’s a wrap on this deep dive.

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This Week I’m Tracking: 11 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 5 minutes of curated insights

Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.

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#1: Patlytics

Description: Patlytics is an AI platform for patent law.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Patlytics recently raised $40M in venture capital funding. Patlytics is a company I’ve been following for a couple of years. Their software helps lawyers draft patent applications, pursue legal actions, and file claims more easily. In an era of intellectual property appreciation, this model is increasingly valuable and is likely to grow rapidly.

#2: Portal Space Systems

Description: Portal Space Systems is a developer of solar thermal propulsion systems.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Portal Space Systems recently raised $50M in venture capital funding. How do we move things in space? Initially, we relied on the traditional method of burning fossil fuels, which only works as long as you have enough on board. Portal Space is proposing a new technology powered by solar thermal energy, creating a renewable energy source capable of easily moving objects in orbit.

#3: TerraSpark

Description: TerraSpark is a producer of space-based energy systems.

Why Is This Company Interesting? TerraSpark recently raised $5M in venture capital funding. I would estimate this is the fourth or fifth space-based solar power beamed to Earth startup I’ve written about in as many weeks. Given the vast energy needs on Earth, many are looking for solutions on and above Earth. Space-based solar offers many efficiencies; the only downside is the distance from Earth, but significant advances have helped reduce inefficiencies in this gap.

#4: Starcloud

Description: Starcloud aims to build solar-powered data centers in space.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Starcloud recently raised $170M in venture capital funding. As data center demand continues to increase, the cost to build decreases, and energy costs increase, the economics for space-based data centers make more and more sense. Starcloud is creating the initial infrastructure for these projects, striving to be first to market to prove out the technology.

#5: Standing Ovation

Description: Standing Ovation is a precision fermentation startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Standing Ovation recently raised $25M in venture capital funding. Standing Ovation is a developer of alternative proteins using a proprietary fermentation process. They create non-meat proteins, including dairy- and vegan-based options, for use in other food products to bolster their protein content.

Gizmodo: Should We Be Hyped Or Freaked Out About Nuclear Microreactors?

Nuclear microreactors are a newer, widespread innovation in the nuclear sphere, as commercial and government entities wish to provide flexible, movable energy to areas. Each reactor can power towns and cities, just as larger reactors do. These reactors pose a greater risk because they aren’t always fixed in place, which can encourage nuclear proliferation.

The New York Times: Enthusiasts Turn to Plastic Instead of Ice

For places with outdoor ice rinks, a newly proposed solution is to install new rinks made of high-density polyethylene, rather than resorting to expensive ice maintenance and upkeep. This material is more durable, easy to assemble, cheap to maintain, and performs almost exactly like ice. It’s an interesting concept for curbing climate change that I hadn’t considered.

The New York Times: Artemis Astronauts Splash Down

On Friday, the four astronauts aboard the Artemis II rocket splashed down off the coast of California. This ended their 10-day mission to circle the Moon and back, proving the technology’s capabilities for a future Moon landing. This is arguably one of the biggest space milestones in over 50 years, a monumental feat.

The Wall Street Journal: Artemis Astronauts Go Farther Than Any Human

Mid-flight, the four Artemis astronauts traveled to a new record distance from Earth: 248,655 miles. That surpassed the milestone set by Apollo 13. “‘We, most importantly, choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived,’ said Jeremy Hansen, the Artemis astronaut representing the Canadian Space Agency, after the crew set the new distance milestone.”

Fortune: Risk Killing America’s Golden Goose By Taxing University Research

Many lobbyists are promoting the idea of taxing the income universities earn from licensing their intellectual property. However, opponents argue that this is contrary to universities’ goals: creating and fostering intelligence and intellectual curiosity. It’s unclear at this point if any laws will be enacted, but this is a highly contentious issue in the intellectual property sector.

ZME Science: Japan Just Switched on Asia’s First Osmotic Power Plant

If you’re a cool new technology nerd like I am, you’ll enjoy this one quite a lot. Japan has recently gone live with its new power plant powered by osmosis.

This plant generates electricity in a unique way, by mixing fresh water with salt water. This is only the second plant of its kind in the world, capable of powering a nearby desalination plant and supplying power to around 200 homes.

It works by putting fresh water on one side of the membrane. On the other side is seawater. The difference in saltiness pulls the fresh water across the membrane, increasing the pressure on the saltwater side. This pressure is used to turn a turbine, generating electricity.

Isn’t that an interesting use of a technology you learned about in biology class?

I love it when humans find unique solutions to problems that affect the entire population in an interesting yet simple way.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

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This Week I’m Tracking: 15 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 6 minutes of curated insights

Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.

New to these updates? They pair with our bi-weekly Brainwave analyses for comprehensive sector coverage. Wednesday’s deep dive explored assassinations, threats, cover-ups, and greed - catch up here.

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#1: Mantis Space

Description: Mantis Space is a space and advanced energy startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Mantis Space recently raised $10M in venture capital funding. Mantis Space strives to build space-based energy infrastructure. Their goal is to create a satellite network that can beam power to other satellites in Earth’s shadow, ensuring they receive sufficient power. These types of innovations will be critical for the development of further space infrastructure, as everything relies on energy.

#2: Factorial

Description: Factorial is a solid-state battery developer.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Factorial recently raised venture capital funding. Factorial is set on pushing the limits of battery technology. Current lithium-ion technology is reaching its limits, with only diminishing marginal returns from new innovations. Solid-state batteries, like those produced by Factorial, are the future, offering high returns and greater potential.

#3: Vast

Description: Vast is a producer of commercial space stations.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Vast recently raised $300M in venture capital funding. Vast is developing the next generation of space stations for in-space habitation and scientific development. Their initial tests have proven successful on rocket deployments, with further tests planned. With recent news that the U.S. may pause a new space station deployment, this model may be in flux, but it’s too early to tell.

#4: Hawkeye 360

Description: Hawkeye 360 is a supplier of space-based radio frequency data.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Hawkeye 360 recently raised $23M in venture capital funding. Hawkeye 360 is developing technologies to scan the entire broadband for signals, helping governments identify bad actors and illegal activity. Additionally, this technology is crucial for early threat detection, ensuring that communication with all end parties is correctly validated.

#5: Pave Space

Description: Pave Space is a developer of orbital transfer vehicles.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Pave Space recently raised $40M in venture capital funding. Orbital mobility will be a critical component of space infrastructure. Satellites will need to be moved between orbits, and other spacecraft will need to be adjusted, especially if they lose propulsion. Pave Space is developing the initial prototype that enables this movement while in orbit.

NPR: Trump Takes Aim at Windmills Despite Increasing Energy Costs

President Trump is actively pushing companies to keep coal-powered plants online. Simultaneously, Trump is battling any and all attempts to expand wind energy. Not one windmill has been approved since Trump has been in office. The Administration’s goal is to keep this trend going.

The New York Times: Forest Service Will Close Research Stations Studying Wildfires

The U.S. Forest Service is closing 57 of its 77 research facilities under a reorganization plan this week. This will threaten the science of studying wildfires, droughts, pests, and global warming. This comes at a time when the Western United States is suffering from record temperatures and prolonged drought, which will dramatically increase the risk of wildfires this summer.

The New York Times: Avalanche Dogs

Nothing is better than a wholesome story about cute dogs. Avalanche dogs are trained for years, playing elaborate games of hide-and-seek. The goal is to be able to find people buried under snow very quickly, before they suffocate, freeze, or starve. Using their noses, these dogs can track people and ensure they’re identified in the proper order.

The New York Times: Artemis II Astronauts Fly Away From Earth Toward the Moon

Hopefully, you, like millions around the globe, watched the live launch of the Artemis II rocket. It could turn out to be a pinnacle moment in the history of space. Currently, these astronauts are flying towards and around the Moon, testing systems to enable a moon landing in 2027 or 2028. This is crazy futuristic stuff, happening right now!

Reuters: NASA Plans to Build $20B Moon Base

NASA announced that it is canceling plans to deploy a space station in lunar orbit and will instead plan to build a $20B base on the Moon’s surface and send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars. These are unprecedented changes to the Artemis program, all based on returning to the Moon before China sends its astronauts in 2030.

Pitchbook: OpenAI Buys TBPN

This week, OpenAI acquired TBPN, the daily livestreamed talk show and podcast. This is their first acquisition of a media player, following a trend of companies bypassing traditional press outlets to reach consumers directly. OpenAI isn’t a normal, regular company. As such, this move makes a lot of sense—they can help control the narrative and showcase their company as they see fit in the open market.

TechCrunch: Building Diverse Teams

Building diverse founding teams in a company starts on day one. Starting with diversity makes it easier to continue, rather than having to adopt it later. Now, when it comes to startups, often a major influence is their capital provider(s). These individuals and groups, if they aren’t diverse, can have a major effect due to their outright or implicit biases (not to say that diverse groups don’t have that as well; it’s usually just less). Having diverse venture capital groups helps drive diversity and ultimately returns in startups.

The New York Times: Every President Tries It. It Never Works

Every president tries to return manufacturing jobs to the U.S. They’ve all found it’s extremely hard, and not necessarily in favor of the country’s long-term interests. When presidents try to reverse this trend, they mostly only succeed in shifting jobs from one industry to another rather than expanding the pie overall. There are many economic costs we have to bear when manufacturing is returned—is that worth the benefits? Opponents argue there are smarter economic strategies out there.

Lexology: Key IP Trends in 2025

This author summarizes key intellectual property trends that shaped the industry in 2025:

• Redefining ownership using AI

• Patent filing gets smarter and faster

• Digital content protection and copyright reform

• Fighting deepfakes and counterfeits

• Surge in multi-jurisdictional IP litigation and online hearings

• Harmonizing global IP laws

• Surge in trade secrets litigation

The Wall Street Journal: The Secret to America’s Success in Exploring the World

I loved some of the nuggets from this recent article, leading up to the fantastic Artemis II launch.

This author explores how and why Americans have been leading the world in the exploration of our world and beyond. Classic qualities like grit, determination, and perseverance help, but there’s more.

Firstly, the free market system, combined with strong intellectual property laws, rewards innovation and risk-taking. This encourages explorers to go out and dare.

Second, explorers have always been able to tap into large pools of capital to finance their ventures, whether from the private or public markets. These fund initiatives that otherwise may not have happened.

I think it’s super interesting to dwell on this combination of factors that has driven the U.S. to now be launching humans back around the Moon. We’re built to explore—and we’re built so everyone has a shot to do that if they so desire.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

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Credit Axiom

Assassination, greed, cover-ups, rewriting history, and threats have driven much of intellectual property law today, and most don’t know it.

This Week’s Focus: Intellectual Property

What You’ll Understand: The history behind today’s intellectual property rules can be interesting and exciting for everyone.

Reading Time: 12 minutes for full analysis + key takeaways highlighted throughout

Key Question: What is a not lame, captivating way to tell the history of intellectual property?

My Take: There are millions of interesting intellectual property stories to highlight in a comprehensive history. The stories depicted below represent some of the biggest moments and most captivating, with highlights including assassinations, greed, cover-ups, threats, and more.

Quick Context: This deep dive connects to our core work on intellectual property, including the future of the field. New to Brainwaves? We explore the forces reshaping our world across venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, and philosophy. Subscribe here for bi-weekly deep dives plus weekly current events.

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Honestly, it’s often hard to get excited about intellectual property. I’m impressed you made it this far. I’ve been meaning to write a background and history of intellectual property, but I knew it would normally read like a textbook—and we don’t want that.

I’ve made it my mission to find the best, most interesting stories on intellectual property to help tell the story of how the field has changed over time. It’ll be worth your time whether or not you know anything about intellectual property, or whether you know a lot.

To frame our discussion today, we’ll give a quick overview of some of the major intellectual property milestones from ancient times to modern day, highlighting how assassination, threats, the oath to swear to tell the truth and only the truth, an anti-monopolist producing the most popular game promoting monopolies, corporations and the “victors” rewriting history, unabashed corporate greed, cover-ups, and political lobbying shaped the intellectual property policies of today.

The Venetian Glassblowers: Arguably the First “Trade Secrets”

You’ve probably never heard of the stories behind the Venetian practice of glass blowing, but it reads like an action-packed Ancient Greek tale.

The Venetian city-state grew during the decline of the Roman Empire in the 400s (A.D.) as people fled invasions for the safety of the islands. Small communities began to form, among which Venice became the most popular.

The city became highly successful, becoming one of Europe’s trade capitals. Traders sold a wide range of goods in Venice, including spices, precious metals, gemstones, ivory, silks, and, most importantly to our story, glass. All of this trading led to an influx of capital in the region, promoting the development of an upper middle class and a wealthy merchant class. With this wealth came a greater appreciation for the finer things in life, such as art and architecture.

Researchers estimate that the practice of glass blowing began in Venice as early as 450 A.D. The earliest evidence is from the 700s-800s. Fast forward to the 1200s, and glassblowing has become a major portion of the Venetian economy. As such, the local governments strove to find any way to protect their models and prevent anyone from copying them.

And voilà, we have arguably one of the first forms of trade secrets! In 1291, most of Venice’s glassmaking industry was forcibly confined to the island of Murano—it’s a cluster of islands linked by short bridges, located around a mile north of the Venetian mainland in the Venetian lagoon.

The primary official reason cited was to prevent the threat of a disastrous fire from consuming all of Venice, as the furnaces used to make and blow glass are extremely hot and pose a significant fire hazard in a primarily wooden city.

However, this move also served to keep the technology of glassmaking, and, critically, the glassmakers themselves, confined to Murano. This drastically prevented the spread of Venetian glassblowing expertise from any competitors.

The rules were so drastic that glassmakers were not allowed to leave the island without government permission. If a glassmaker left the city without permission, they would be ordered to return. If they did not return, an assassin would be sent to kill them!

Did this actually happen?

It’s unclear exactly, but in 1667, the French Minister of Finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, successfully bribed and kidnapped several Murano glassworkers to come to Paris to teach the French how to make high-end mirrors. At this point, the French were spending millions of francs on the mirrors (they were more expensive than gold).

The Venetian Republic did not take this lightly. After several warnings were ignored, two of the top Venetian glassmakers in Paris died suddenly and agonizingly of stomach pains within weeks of each other. Historical records and diplomatic correspondence from the time strongly suggest they were poisoned by Venetian agents.

In this era and for many years to come, intellectual property (particularly trade secrets at this point) was protected by physical walls and threats, rather than by legal rights. In the humorous words of one Redditor, “Man, noncompetes used to be so much harsher back then.”

The Sewing Machine War of the 1850s

In the 2010s, amid intense competition, smartphone companies began suing each other for patent infringement, with Samsung, Apple, Google, and Rockstar filing lawsuitsback and forth.

However, this wasn’t the first patent war—the first was around 200 years prior: the sewing machine war of the 1850s. Although the sewing machine is now a complete invention that revolutionized industries and countries, it didn’t start that way.

It wasn’t just one person who invented it by themselves; it was the result of many contributions by different inventors, all of whom received patents on their inventions. The outcome was that each sewing machine produced, sold, and used infringed on multiple patents, which spurred massive litigation by patent owners against all guilty parties.

Elias Howe Jr. was the first person to obtain a U.S. patent for his novel “lockstitch” sewing machine in 1846. The machine was the first to feature a thread feed that remains a crucial component of modern-day sewing machines. Without a ready market in the U.S. for his new invention, Howe and his brother went to England to seek financing. They failed to gain traction and returned to the U.S. in 1849.

At this point, Howe had a patent for a sewing machine; there wasn’t a market for it, and other mechanics were starting to tinker with the concept, producing their own designs. For instance, Isaac Singer patented a bulky sewing machine design in 1851, followed by numerous copycats.

By the mid-1850s, several manufacturers were producing and selling sewing machines under their own patents. At this point, while unsuccessful in his commercialization pursuits, Howe did have the oldest and best patent. So beginning in 1849, he started suing the other companies for patent infringement.

In this way, Howe started the sewing machine war, even though he didn’t make sewing machines. At the time, Howe’s business model was solely licensing his patent to the lockstitch sewing machine manufacturers. As commentators from Slate write:

One historian referred to Howe’s “main occupation” in the early 1850s as “suing the infringers of his patent for royalties.” In short, if Howe were alive today, people would call him a “patent troll,” although it’s more accurate to say that his business model was patent licensing. In fact, Howe’s licensing and litigation practices were only possible because he had the financial backing of a business investor.

During this period, one of Howe’s competitors tried to convince the “original” developer (Walter Hunt) of the sewing machine design (pre-Howe) to come forward and sue Howe for infringement, invalidating his claim as the “first.” Howe ended up winning on a technicality because Hunt, as a “free thinker,” wouldn’t take the required court religious oath (to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help him God”), so the case was thrown out.

After 5 years, Howe won his cases, gaining the right to order the other manufacturers to cease and desist. However, he still couldn’t make a good sewing machine. So, what could he do?

In 1856, Orlando Potter, the President of the Grover and Baker Company, brought together the main sewing machine manufacturers with a proposal. He wanted to create the first “patent pool”, where all of them would congregate their various patents. All of the companies in the pool would be able to manufacture sewing machines, paying licensing fees to everyone else.

These pools are still used today when technological inventions are covered by many overlapping patents as a way to streamline monetization and prevent lengthy petty court battles.

Monopoly Was A Stolen Idea

One night in 1932, Charles Todd, a Philadelphia businessman, and his wife introduced their friends, Charles and Esther Darrow, to a real estate board game they had recently learned. The Darrows liked the game so much that Charles Todd made them a copy and began teaching them more advanced rules.

The game didn’t have an official name, and it wasn’t sold publicly; it was simply passed between friends. Everyone called it “the monopoly game.”

At this point, Darrow was unemployed and desperate for money to support his family. So, he asked Charles Todd to write up a copy of the roles. Following, Darrow went on to distribute the game himself, calling it Monopoly. Within 3 years of his success, Darrow sold the game’s copyrights to the Parker Brothers, eventually making him millions.

Journalists continued to ask him where he got the inspiration to create the game. Darrow told the Germantown Bulletin, “It’s a freak, entirely unexpected and illogical.”

Now, most people think Charles Darrow invented Monopoly during the Great Depression and became a millionaire—and that’s the version Hasbro wants you to believe.

In actuality, the game was invented in 1903 by American anti-monopolist Lizzie Magie, who originally called it “The Landlord’s Game.” As The Guardian writes:

To Elizabeth Magie, known to her friends as Lizzie, the problems of the new century were so vast, the income inequalities so massive and the monopolists so mighty that it seemed impossible that an unknown woman working as a stenographer stood a chance at easing society’s ills with something as trivial as a board game. But she had to try.

Night after night, after her work at her office was done, Lizzie sat in her home, drawing and redrawing, thinking and rethinking. It was the early 1900s, and she wanted her board game to reflect her progressive political views – that was the whole point of it.

At the time, board games were becoming increasingly common, so Lizzie began developing her design. She devised the game as a way to explain the single-tax theory of the economist Henry George, with the intention of using it as an educational tool to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies.

She patented the first version of the game in 1904. Lizzie created two sets of rules to showcase different scenarios: an anti-monopolist set in which all players were rewarded for creating wealth, and a monopolist set in which the goal was to create monopolies and crush opponents.

After further refining her design, Lizzie patented the game again in 1923. Two years later, she published a version of the game through the Economic Game Company. The game became popular with left-wing intellectuals and college students, eventually finding its way to the home of Charles Todd.

When Parker Brothers bought the copyrights from Darrow, they learned that Darrow was not the sole owner of the game, and there were existing patents in place. As she later recounts, Lizzie wasn’t fully aware of the opportunity she was signing away when she received $500 in exchange for her patent, with no royalties.

A new patent was issued to Charles Darrow in 1935 for the iconic board design, pieces, and coloration. In 1991, Hasbro acquired Parker Bros, creating and licensing many other versions of Monopoly.

Even today, Hasbro downplays Lizzie’s impact on the game’s development, crediting the official Monopoly game to Charles Darrow, and the official history on their website begins in 1935.

The Monopoly story raises the question of who should get credit for an invention and how, as many unnamed and unnoticed inventors like Lizzie go under the radar every day.

The Great Happy Birthday Heist

Did you know that, growing up, when you sang happy birthday (by my quick calculations, that may have been upwards of 250 times), you were likely in violation of intellectual property law? I bet you didn’t know that—and the price can be pretty hefty.

Even in the age of the internet and more vigorous reporting and fact-checking, intellectual property qualms continue.

Originally published in 1893 by Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill (though this fact is disputed in true IP ownership fashion), the Happy Birthday song became internationally recognized over the subsequent century. In 1998, the organizers of the Guinness Book of World Records went as far as to claim it was the most recognized song in the English language.

So, how did this song become extremely controversial in the 21st century (it seems like it’s been a long time since the original inventorship)? Let’s dive deeper into the song’s controversial history.

The combination of the melody and lyrics to “Happy Birthday” was first printed in 1912; it didn’t include any credits or copyright notices. This trend continued for the following decades as the song steadily grew in popularity.

In 1935, the Summy Company registered a copyright for the song, citing the authors as Preston Orem and Mrs. R. R. Forman, and maintained ownership of the intellectual property until the company was purchased in 1988 by Warner/Chappell Music for $25M (the value of the Happy Birthday IP was $5M at the time). With its newfound ownership, Warner stated that unauthorized public performances of the song were prohibited unless the user paid a $700 licensing fee.

In 1998, Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act, extending the rights of copyrights from the life of the author plus 50 years (or 75 years from publication or 100 years after creation) to be the life of the author plus 70 years (95 years from publication or 120 years after creation). As such, Warner claimed that the U.S. copyright would not expire until 2030.

However, some were skeptical about Warner’s ownership rights. Chief among them was American law professor Robert Brauneis. He extensively researched the song’s history and, in 2010, concluded that there was a high likelihood it was no longer under copyright.

In 2013, documentary filmmaker Jennifer Nelson wanted to use the song in a film about its history, but was told she needed to pay royalty fees (around $1,500) to do so. Nelson didn’t want to comply; instead working with Brauneis to develop a lawsuit against Warner, challenging the validity of the copyright claim.

After a two-year legal battle, a federal judge declared the copyright claim was invalid. In 2016, Warner settled for $14M, and the court declared that “Happy Birthday to You” was in the public domain. As the New York Lawyers Association writes:

The court’s decision was a significant win for culture and open access to music. With the recognition of the song’s public domain status, anyone could now use it freely—even in commercial contexts—without paying fees or seeking permissions. The case became a milestone in copyright history, underscoring the importance of balanced protection: ensuring creators are fairly compensated, but not enabling unjust monopolies over widely shared cultural works.

Moreover, the case served as a cautionary tale for other questionable copyright claims, encouraging greater transparency in the management of protected works and discouraging companies from profiting off creations that should belong to the public.

A Not Lame, Captivating History of Intellectual Property

The true, comprehensive history of intellectual property would fill libraries upon libraries of books. It’s incredibly convoluted and nuanced, complete with intricate technical terminology and historical precedents.

The 4 stories above showcase some of the most significant milestones in the history and development of intellectual property rights worldwide.

These tales showcase how assassinations, threats, lawsuits, monopolies, cover-ups, and unabashed greed have shaped the laws, policies, and principles we face today. It’s a classic case of a rule being made for a unique, niche scenario (i.e., this is why there’s a rule against eating crayons in class).

Even if you’re not fully interested in the field, hopefully, you’ve seen that there are parts that can be digestible and interesting for outsiders. If this sparked your interest to learn more, that’s great too!

There are hundreds of these stories out there—this is just the start. It’s my mission to continue sharing the captivating, not-lame narrative of this growing industry, one that is cementing itself as a key player in the 21st-century environment.

That’s a wrap on this deep dive.

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This Week I’m Tracking: 14 developments across the sectors shaping our future

Reading Time: 6 minutes of curated insights

Your weekly pulse check: The most important events in venture capital, energy, space, economics, intellectual property, philosophy, and more. I distill the most important developments across sectors I track, saving you hours of research while keeping you ahead of the curve.

New to these updates? They pair with our bi-weekly Brainwave analyses for comprehensive sector coverage. Wednesday’s deep dive explored why we should stop preventing all wildfires - catch up here.

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#1: Aetherflux

Description: Aetherflux is an orbital datacenter startup.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Aetherflux is currently trying to raise $250M in venture capital funding. Aetherflux is building power stations based in space. As AI data centers grow rapidly, they’re looking for solutions to provide additional bandwidth to meet increased demand. Where better to put new energy sources and datacenters than in orbit? Satellites can transmit power and data back to Earth using infrared lasers, enabling efficient transfer and small Earth-based infrastructure.

#2: Xona

Description: Xona is a satellite navigation network creator.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Xona recently raised $170M in venture capital funding. For decades, the world has relied on GPS. Now, the next generation of technologies demands a new level of precision for tracking. Xona’s technology, based on satellite-driven precise location data, is perfectly positioned to meet this demand. They’ve proven their infrastructure works and are using this funding to scale their model dramatically.

#3: Arc

Description: Arc is a producer of electric boats and propulsion systems.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Arc recently raised $50M in venture capital funding. Arc has primarily focused on electric boats for recreational personal use, but it recently raised funding to expand into commercial boats. These include tugboats, ferries, and defense vehicles. Their technology is revolutionizing this industry, providing greater reliability in a clean package.

#4: Foreverland

Description: Foreverland is a developer of cocoa-free chocolate.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Foreverland recently raised $6M in venture capital funding. Foreverland produces cocoa-free chocolate products. Given recent increases and fluctuations in cocoa prices, developing similar, consumer-loved alternatives to cocoa will enable brands to keep prices low while maintaining high supply.

#5: Epoch Biodesign

Description: Epoch Biodesign is designing enzymatic recycling technologies.

Why Is This Company Interesting? Epoch Biodesign recently raised $12M in venture capital funding. Epoch is currently aiming to address the unrecyclability of Nylon 6.6. This material is found in apparel, carpets, airbags, and more, and is currently lacking a cyclical option. Epoch uses enzymes to break down the material, recycle it, and reform it in the future.

Nuclear Newswire: On Moving Fast and Breaking Things

Recent nuclear regulatory changes have followed the technology approach: move fast and break things. Moving fast isn’t the problem; it’s the things that break along the way. When it’s a tech startup, the ramifications are limited. When it’s a nuclear power plant, that could spell disaster for thousands or millions. Whether we like it or not, this dynamic is likely to persist for the near future.

NPR: Oil and Gas Prices Soar, Solar Is a Solution for Some

As the war with Iran continues, oil and gas prices have increased. Some countries have been heavily affected because they primarily use fossil fuels for energy. Many countries are better off than they have been historically due to partial transitions to solar energy, battery systems, and even electric vehicles.

The New York Times: Vertical Farms Tried to Compete With Open Field Farming

Over the last decade, the vertical farming industry has grown exponentially, attracting significant venture capital. However, these startups have mostly withered since. It aimed to be a climate-friendly solution to modern farming. Thin margins, steep competition, and rising energy costs spelled the downfall of vertical farming as we know it.

The New York Times: NASA Wants You to ‘Start Believing Again’

Some of us didn’t stop (it might have been a slight, decades-long pause). NASA has recently become more serious about putting a base on the Moon. This week, they released a roadmap for the upcoming decade, aiming to inspire people in the same way the Space Race did. If you’re like me, you’re hesitant to believe at this point, given how much the agency has flip-flopped over the last few decades, but there might be hope.

PitchBook: Ultra Mega-Funds

Jeff Bezos is seeking to raise a $100B fund. How does that vehicle deploy capital while maintaining returns? So far, the only proof point is SoftBank, which has not posted much profit. There are unique dynamics with megafunds, including a limited investor base, potential for infighting, a need for world-class exits, and a tendency to overpay.

European Union Intellectual Property Office: The Importance of IP Rights to SMEs

Small- and medium-sized businesses represent 99.8% of all businesses in the EU. For many, IP is central to their success and competitiveness in the market. Studies have found that companies with IP rights generate 24% more revenue per employee (up to 41% when adjusted). As such, when a startup has intellectual property, it needs to be protected to increase revenue opportunities and solidify a moat.

Redman Spokesman: The Case Against IP

This author argues that, based on what we see in nature, intellectual property is abnormal. Survival doesn’t depend on who did what first. In the creation of IP, we curate artificial scarcities when knowledge should be available to all. Intellectual property often hinders more than it helps.

Aeon: A Duty to Oneself

Some African traditions idealize harmony and vitality and provide insight into how to treat ourselves. In many non-Western philosophies, harmony is considered a central value. In their opinion, when we violate a duty to ourselves, we are failing to treat ourselves in these friendly ways. Additionally, this article provides a long list of duties you should consider.

Reddit: I’ve Spent 30 Years Confusing Busyness With Purpose, And The Realization Is Humiliating

I honestly couldn’t say it better than this writer:

I’m 47. I’ve had the same job for 19 years. I own a home. I have a retirement account. By every conventional metric, I’ve “made it.”

But last month I had a panic attack in a grocery store because I couldn’t decide between two types of pasta sauce. Not because I cared about the sauce—because my brain was so fried from a decade of performative productivity that a simple decision felt like defusing a bomb.

I’ve been operating under the assumption that constant motion equals value. That if I’m not optimizing something, learning something, side-hustling something, I’m falling behind. I’ve turned my entire existence into a performance review where the metrics keep changing and the evaluator is a faceless void that never says “enough.”

The truth that’s been hardest to sit with: I’ve been running from stillness because stillness would force me to ask whether any of this actually matters to me. Whether I even like my life, or if I’ve just gotten very good at tolerating it.

I started tracking how I spent my time for two weeks—not to optimize it, but to see how much of my day was genuine versus performative. The results were devastating. Roughly 60% of my waking hours were spent on things I don’t care about, justified by narratives I absorbed from people who profit from my anxiety.

The grocery store incident was my body finally saying “no more.” I’ve started the painful work of untangling real priorities from internalized capitalism. It’s humiliating to realize at 47 that I’ve been living someone else’s life, but maybe humiliation is just what clarity feels like when you’ve been numb for decades.

I’m not sharing this because I’ve figured it out. I’m sharing it because I suspect I’m not the only one who confused exhaustion with virtue.

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.

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© 2026 Brainwaves. All rights reserved.