The Saturday Morning Newsletter #101
Genuinely Uncommon Ideas, Thinking For Yourself Not AI, and Destroying Books
This Week I’m Tracking: 15 developments across the sectors shaping our future
Reading Time: 7 minutes of curated insights
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Let’s dive in.
#1: Base Power
Description: Base Power is an installer and manager of home batteries.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Base Power is currently raising additional venture capital to dramatically increase its scale. Base Power is a modern energy startup operating as a distributed, technology-driven power company. Base installs and manages home battery storage systems to create a resilient, decentralized power network. By deploying these batteries, Base helps stabilize the grid during peak energy demand while offering homeowners affordable electricity and reliable backup power during blackouts.
#2: CleanDesign
Description: CleanDesign is a developer of software-managed batteries.
Why Is This Company Interesting? CleanDesign recently raised $20M in venture capital funding. CleanDesign is a hybrid energy management company specializing in optimizing power systems for heavy industries like oil and gas, mining, and EV fleet charging. Its proprietary Hybrid Energy Management System combines battery energy storage, generator automation, and real-time machine learning software to match power output to actual demand. By automating generator use and smoothing energy spikes, CleanDesign helps commercial operators reduce fuel consumption, minimize operational downtime, and cut carbon emissions.
#3: AuX Labs
Description: AuX Labs is a producer of casein for vegan cheese.
Why Is This Company Interesting? AuX Labs recently raised $4M in venture capital funding. AuX Labs is a biotechnology and food startup focused on developing animal-free dairy products using precision fermentation. By genetically engineering specialized microorganisms, the company produces essential milk proteins like casein without relying on traditional livestock. Their technology aims to create sustainable cheese and dairy alternatives that replicate the exact functional properties, taste, and texture of conventional dairy.
#4: Slate Auto
Description: Slate Auto is building low-cost electric pickup trucks.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Slate Auto recently raised $650M in venture capital funding. Slate Auto is an electric vehicle startup, backed by major investors including Jeff Bezos and Mark Walter. The company focuses on building versatile, low-cost modular EVs, featuring a platform that can be configured as a compact two-seat pickup truck or a five-seat SUV.
#5: Eternal Ag
Description: Eternal Ag is building autonomous robots for greenhouse harvesting.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Eternal Ag recently raised $8M in venture capital funding. Eternal Ag is an agricultural robotics company specializing in autonomous solutions for controlled-environment agriculture, such as greenhouses. The company builds AI-driven, omnidirectional robots designed to perform labor-intensive tasks like crop monitoring and selective harvesting. Integrating computer vision, deep learning, and advanced robotics, Eternal Ag helps greenhouse growers address labor shortages, cut operational costs, and boost crop yields.
The New York Times: The Science of Climate Change Explained: Facts, Evidence and Proof
The science behind climate change is more solid and agreed upon than you would think. The scope of the topic and rampant disinformation can make it hard to separate fact from fiction. In this analysis, the authors have done a good job of presenting the most accurate scientific information and explaining why and how we know it.
The Guardian: What is the US-Saudi Arabia Nuclear Deal and Why is it Causing Concern?
The United States and Saudi Arabia have agreed to a 30-year deal that would use American technology and expertise to establish a nuclear energy program in Saudi Arabia. Current concerns are around whether Saudi Arabia would have the capability to enrich uranium domestically and what that means for nuclear proliferation. As the American government argues, this denies competitors like China and Russia from gaining a foothold in the country.
The New York Times: Europe’s Summer of Reckoning Is ‘Just the Beginning’
Fires, heat waves, storms, and more are currently plaguing Europe. The summer of 2026 has already shattered many meteorological records across Europe. It has displaced more than 300,000 people across France and Spain, where they are currently experiencing the largest fires in those countries’ modern histories. Temperatures readily soar above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
The New York Times: A Ton of Space Junk Tumbles Unpredictably to Earth Every Week
More debris from space is coming down to Earth than ever before. This is one of the unfortunate by-products of the current and former space races. In 2025, the U.S. Space Force issued alerts for ~820 objects entering the Earth’s atmosphere. In 2015, that number was only 110. Huge objects weighing a ton or more arrive around once a week. Most of the debris splashes into the ocean, but some does crash onto land. What we can do about it and who is ultimately responsible for this damage is still up in the air.
Pitchbook: A Few VC Firms are Poised to Win the Future
Since 2022, the venture capital landscape has concentrated. A small number of high-growth AI companies have absorbed vast amounts of venture capital stockpiles and received unprecedented private market valuations. Over this period, the number of VC firms shrank, but some grew ever larger and came to dominate the market. Thus, if AI continues to be the technological shift many believe it is, the leading VC firms will have an opportunity to reap vast profits soon.
One of the biggest pieces of news in intellectual property in recent history has been the AI scraping of book knowledge. Recently, AI companies have begun scanning and learning from physical books using industrial-grade imaging equipment. When sued for the practice, Anthropic invoked the first-sale doctrine, which allows a buyer to do what they want with a purchased item without the original copyright holder’s approval. Judges ruled this was transformative enough and thus protected by fair use.
Forbes: In A World Where Anyone Can Build Anything, Intellectual Property Is The Last Moat
Intellectual property has become more valuable as the economy has increasingly become more digital. Now in the era of AI, creation of IP is also dramatically cheaper. Machines can write articles (not exactly well yet but getting there), design logos, draft patent claims, and build apps. Intellectual property is no longer just your most valuable property; it’s also your last defensible one.
TechCrunch: US Threatens Sanctions Against Chinese AI Models over IP Theft
The United States government is beginning to examine open source models from China for signs of intellectual property theft, threatening sanctions against Chinese AI companies if IP theft is established. We support open-source models from China, but not intellectual property theft.
Big Think: A Philosopher’s Guide to Thinking for Yourself in an Age Built to Think for You
Stupidity is not a lack of IQ or cognitive capability but a moral and psychological failure. See, there are three elements to stupidity: outsourcing your autonomy, where you surrender independent critical thinking to an external party; willful ignorance, where you reject or brush aside contradictory evidence; and conformity, where you exhibit groupthink. While normal evil can be identified, stupidity is far more dangerous, as facts and reason fall on deaf ears.
I came across this post today, and it caught my eye.
The author began reading philosophy as a mental exercise to encounter unfamiliar ideas, but was disappointed to find that thinkers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle mostly felt like common sense. Do these ancient figures seem obvious because their ideas are naturally intuitive, or because thousands of years have shaped how modern society thinks?
They enjoyed thinkers like Kant, Stirner, Ayn Rand, and Nietzsche for presenting novel concepts and challenging mainstream values.
One of the comments was truly enlightening, which is why I wanted to write this today. To paraphrase:
“To be blunt, you might be misinterpreting these texts more than you realize. Beginners often project their own beliefs onto philosophers, especially when dealing with subtle or cryptic thinkers like Plato. Since Plato and Aristotle disagree on fundamental points, it is impossible to align with both without contradicting yourself. To get more out of philosophy, focus on the fine details and see how small distinctions lead to drastically different conclusions. If you truly want radically non-intuitive ideas, look into David Benatar’s view that having children is immoral, Peter Unger’s assertion that knowledge and human existence are illusions, or Peter Singer’s argument that failing to donate all excess wealth makes us morally failing.”
That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.
Drew Jackson
Founder & Writer
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