The Saturday Morning Newsletter #52
Skepticism, 2034, Slumps, Refueling, Meat, and More
👋 Hello friends,
Thank you for joining this week's edition of The Saturday Morning Newsletter. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring 17 articles, essays, companies, ideas, podcasts, videos, or thoughts that caught my attention this week for their potential to significantly impact our future.
Before we begin: The Saturday Morning Newsletter by Brainwaves arrives in your inbox every Saturday, a concise and casual digest of current events, optimistic news stories, and other interesting tidbits about venture capital, economics, space, energy, intellectual property, philosophy, and beyond. I write as a curious explorer rather than an expert, and I value your insights and perspectives on each subject.
Time to Read: 6 minutes.
Let’s dive in!
#1: National Renewable Network
Description: National Renewable Network provides homeowners with solar panels with no upfront cost.
Why Is This Company Interesting? National Renewable Network recently raised $11.1M in venture capital funding. This model is unique, as the business provides residential solar panels free of charge up front, then the customer purchases energy from the system and the grid to pay for it over time. It’s a complicated model involving tons of up-front costs with very low income over time.
#2: Eight Sleep
Description: Eight Sleep is a smart mattress developer.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Eight Sleep recently raised $100M in venture capital funding. Eight Sleep is one of the major providers of sleep technology, an underserved portion of the consumer market. Around 1 in 3 people don’t get good sleep, so Eight Sleep helps proactively address their needs through their smart mattress toppers.
#3: Aalo Atomics
Description: Aalo Atomics is a developer of nuclear energy for datacenters.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Aalo Atomics recently raised $100M in venture capital funding. Their goal is to build mass-manufacturered nuclear plants in a modular function. The first prototype design is a 50 MW plant specifically geared towards powering datacenters. Modular nuclear reactors seem to be the future of nuclear energy, and Aalo is poised well to take advantage of the trends.
#4: SpinLaunch
Description: SpinLaunch is a developer of low orbit launch systems.
Why Is This Company Interesting? SpinLaunch recently raised $30M in venture capital funding. SpinLaunch is developing a unique way to reach space. Their Orbital Accelerator can launch vehicles containing satellites at up to 8kph using a rotating carbon fiber arm in a vacuum chamber. This could decrease our reliability on massive, perilous rocket engines to get things into space significantly.
Description: Better Meat is a developer of plant-based meats.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Better Meat recently raised $31M in venture capital funding. Their product uses rhiza mycoprotein, a fungal based protein deemed food safe. Their goal is to create a meat substitute with a lighter footprint and better nutritional value. From their website, they have bacon, sausage, sliced meat, steak, and other meat substitutes available.
Department of Energy: Announcing Initial Selections for New Reactor Pilot Program
The DOE announced the 11 advanced reactor projects that will move on towards development. The goal is to construct, operate, and achieve criticality for at least 3 test reactors by mid-2026. The hope is that the United States will become the leader in nuclear energy through this program.
US Energy Information Administration: 5 Countries Nuclear Generation Capacity
Five countries account for 71% of the world’s nuclear generation capacity. These include the United States, France, China, Russia, and South Korea, who have around 250 total reactors, compared to around 140 elsewhere in the world. It’s wild to understand that this important technology is so concentrated among key countries.
Reuters: Trump Administration Unveils Tougher Subsidy Rules
The Trump administration is expected to make it harder for companies to claim federal tax subsidies for wind and solar energy. They are interested in redefining what it means for a project to be considered under construction, and therefore hopefully decreasing access to the subsidies over time.
The New York Times: How Climate Change Affects Hurricane Like Erin
Workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggest the correlation between rapid intensification of hurricanes and human carbon and climate footprints. As the temperature of the ocean increases, this continues to create more and more intense hurricanes, causing increased damage along our coastlines.
The New York Times: SpaceX Gets Billions In Subsidies, It Pays Little Taxes
SpaceX has received billions of dollars in federal contracts over the last 20 years, but research has found that SpaceX has most likely paid little to no federal income taxes. Allegedly, privately, the company has been telling investors that it may never have to pay any. This has caused quite a stir in the space community and beyond, as many are questioning loyalties and the validity of these contracts.
Wall Street Journal: Billionaires Tackle Space Travel’s Refueling Problem
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are working on missions to the Moon and Mars, designing spaceships that will take on additional fuel while orbiting the Earth. How will they accomplish this? It’s going to be a major feat in engineering to grab propellants in orbit. If accomplished, this technology could begin travel deep into our solar system.
Pitchbook: 1st-Time VCs Face 2nd-Fund Slump
First-time VC managers who raised during 2021 and 2022 are finding that fundraising isn’t easy the second time. Compared to historical data, they’re raising fewer second funds than ever before. A vast amount of economic uncertainty plagues the VC landscape.
The New York Times: 3 Experts on What Trump Is Doing to the Economy
3 economists discuss the jobs reports and lack of economic data, the current and future states of tariffs, mass-inflation of consumer goods and other products/services, and the blooming national debt. They provide some interesting perspectives on the situations we currently find ourselves in.
ScienceDirect: IP Law Enforcement and Regional Cluster Innovation Efficiency
This paper examines data from China to understand the implications of the strength of intellectual property law enforcement for the innovation efficiency of regional clusters. The research found that the effectiveness of IP law greatly boosts regional clusters’ innovation efficiency.
Intellepedia: Will IP Still Matter in 2034?
Pathfinders 2034 report envisions 2 possible futures for intellectual property, one fragmented and dominated by AI, and the other connected, inclusive, and balanced. This is based on the 2025 World Intellectual Property Organization foresight study, trying to imagine how intellectual property might evolve in a fast-changing world.
The Collector: The Philosophy of Skepticism
Skepticism, from a philosophical lens, is an attitude of investigation, trying to understand whether certain claims are justifiable or merely beliefs, opinions, and dogmas. For epistemological skepticists, the possibility of knowledge itself is called into question. The very possibility of knowledge is taken as unknown, presenting a peculiar paradox. How should we think about this?
Permutations: Not Like This
In this week’s post, Simon Hoher discusses narrative capture, specifically how in our world, every story, claim, or demand carries a layer of context.
“Any narrative that can coordinate collective action must be open enough for others to claim and build upon it. This openness is what makes collective meaning possible. But that very openness creates vulnerability.”
In other words, people can interpret your words and your meaning and apply them differently or build upon them.
This view of life is very complicated, but it’s also the world we live in in the 21st century. Everything is complex, narratives are everyone, everything is subject to this openness.
This leads to decentralized transformation and evolution throughout all facets of life.
As Simon writes, this factor is what makes the world liveable.
How can we survive and thrive in this world?
Always be open to change. Continuously re-evaluate where you are going and why. Nothing will ever be perfect because everything is fundamentally changing too quickly for true perfection.
See you Wednesday for Brainwaves,
Drew Jackson
Website: brainwaves.me
Twitter: @brainwavesdotme
Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com
Thank you for reading The Saturday Morning Newsletter by Brainwaves. Please ask your friends, colleagues, and family members to sign up.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this content are my own and do not represent the views of any of the companies I currently work for or have previously worked for. This content does not contain financial advice - it is for informational and educational purposes only. Investing contains risks and readers should conduct their own due diligence and/or consult a financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Any sponsorship or endorsements are noted and do not affect any editorial content produced.