The Saturday Morning Newsletter #87
Living Life to the Fullest, AI is Raising the Stakes, and Soldiers Need Childcare
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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Let’s dive in.
#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.
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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Drew Jackson
Founder & Writer
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Keep Exploring
Next Deep Dive: Proponents: Is Venture Capital the Best Asset Class? - April 29th, 2026
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