May 13, 2026

The Founders Who Left Tesla to Rebuild America | a16z

Erin Price-Wright, Turner Caldwell (Mariana Minerals), and Drew Baglino (Heron Power) discuss closing America's critical minerals gap and modernizing the power grid for the AI economy. They cover how automation, reinforcement learning, and lessons from Tesla can accelerate mining, refining, and grid infrastructure development to compete with China and enable re-industrialization.

Jul 23, 2025

The U.S. Can’t Build AI Without These Materials

The Western mining industry is broken, hampered by a talent drain, slow technology adoption, and misaligned incentives. A new, vertically integrated, software-first approach leveraging Reinforcement Learning (RL) and LLMs can build and operate mines and refineries faster, cheaper, and more flexibly, addressing critical geopolitical supply chain risks.