Molly O'Shea × Philip Johnston × Ezra Feilden × Adi Oltean × Bailey Montaño × Miguel Rivera × Camilo Lopez

Orbital compute’s cost case hinges on launch falling below roughly $500/kg, versus about $5,000/kg on Falcon 9.Government customers are testing radar and hyperspectral inference, aiming to turn large image downlinks into actionable coordinates in minutes; Starcloud 2’s planned January launch tests radiator claims.Johnston says a 10% or 20% higher chip failure rate in space could break the economics, despite three months of chip burn-in.

Erin Price-Wright × Connor Love × Elena Burger

Defense customers can fund capacity commercial buyers would reject, creating a base that also serves robotics markets.Technicians using Claude can reconfigure lines in 20 minutes, versus three months and hundreds of thousands of dollars through a systems integrator.Love says first-half 2026 defense risk capital exceeded all of 2025, but factories still take years to build.

Nathan Labenz × Joel Predd × Ben Boudreaux × Matt Chessen

RAND urges the U.S. to build capabilities before choosing among seven ASI strategies, since five unresolved questions could change which path is viable.Its 106-capability agenda spans verification, evaluations, secure data centers and incident response, but remains unpriced; as frontier models diffuse, Chessen warns of a possible 12–24-month cybersecurity rough patch.

David Senra × Kenn Ricci

Fractional ownership raises utilization, but Flexjet still holds roughly 70 of its 365 aircraft as unsold core fleet.Buffett’s June 1998 $750 million NetJets acquisition helped unlock nearly $300 million in debt; Flight Options’ sales reached $400 million the next year, teaching Ricci that free cash flow and balance-sheet strength, not EBITDA, govern growth.

John Collison × Chris Sacca × Will O'Brien

Ulysses’ Mako can sell for as little as $50,000 to navies versus roughly $5 million for the common U.S.Navy autonomous underwater vehicle, while Leviathan supports persistent, modular missions.Demand already exceeds manufacturing capacity, with a factory planned next year; slow procurement could become a moat once deployments make undersea monitoring sticky and bankable.

José Macedo × Rohan Pujara

Pujara avoids consensus-heavy seed categories where inflated prices, copycats, and weak margins destroy early economics, underwriting distinctive founders instead.Valhalla’s $80 million–$100 million fund makes only two to four new investments annually and can concentrate 20%–30% behind a clear fund-returner.K2 Space’s more than $1 billion of signed business and $6.8 billion valuation illustrate the playbook, while the roughly 30-check diversification case remains unresolved.

Dwarkesh Patel × Si Sheppard

Spain’s conquests were coalition takeovers: indigenous allies supplied most manpower, while horses, steel, and firearms created a decisive initial battlefield and psychological edge.Capturing Moctezuma and Atahualpa exploited centralized systems with a single point of failure, allowing tiny forces to decapitate local elites and seize control.The longer-term advantage came from reusable knowledge, naval power, disease, migration, and organization, while Potosí silver globalized trade but weakened Spain through a resource curse.

Molly O'Shea × Aistis Šimaitis × George Hadjiminas × Bruno Wejchert

Ukraine has made production scale as important as technology: Europe’s fragmented manufacturing base and years-long component lead times leave a clear opening for Onodrim’s acquisition-led model.Autonomous fleets also reset unit economics, turning $30,000 radios and other exquisite components into products that must become cheaper and available in thousands or millions; execution and procurement remain the watchpoints.

Peter Diamandis × Salim Ismail × Dave Blundin × Alexander Wissner-Gross × Palmer Luckey

Anduril’s $2.2 million wildfire XPRIZE win, including $1 million from Lockheed, shows its autonomy workflow can transfer to emergencies where a 10-minute versus hour-long response requires different tools.Luckey’s specialized, verifiable systems and self-funded product model challenge a market where five companies once captured roughly 80% of major defense acquisition programs, while Anduril’s choice to use rather than build humanoids keeps platform scope and procurement scale in focus.

Blake Scholl × Jason Calacanis

Boom’s 42 MW, water-free, behind-the-meter data-center system repurposes its Mach 1.7 engine core, with the first engine due next month, while vertical integration targets multiple gigawatts annually and more than 10 GW added to the grid over five years.Overture targets a $3,500 round-trip break-even fare and a four-year goal, but the actual service date remains uncertain as regulatory momentum accelerates.