00:54:55 · Scott Nolan, John Collison
[00:54:55] S0: I would say, yeah, extreme conviction. [00:54:57] S1: What are the intermediate milestones for you guys as you approach production in Paducah by the end of the decade? Like, presumably that is not the target on the whiteboard in the Right. Have short term, exactly target. [00:55:10] S0: In between. So if you think of the big work streams to do that, okay, at the end of it you have a large facility, and it's filled with equipment and the equipment's operating. And if it's operating that means it's licensed. So, one work stream is licensing. [00:55:25] S1: Yep. [00:55:27] S0: As I mentioned, late last month we submitted our NRC license and so, that's one of the work streams. The another one is okay you have this big building that's operating let's work backwards. You have your license that's how it's able to operate. But also the building exists that's important and so you have a large construction effort. Typically in the nuclear space people outsource the construction of their facilities. In our case we copied, you know, the Tesla playbook of build your own in house construction EPC team. [00:56:00] S1: Mhmm. What's EPC?
00:56:00 · John Collison, Scott Nolan
[00:56:00] S1: Mhmm. What's EPC? [00:56:02] S0: Engineer procurement construct. So design your buildings, order the steel, build it. And so we have our own GC on the construction side. We have our own procurement and engineering teams internally. And so that building is, you know being designed and built and that'll basically be online in time to it'll exist in time to install hardware and commission it and operate it by the end of the decade. Then of course you need all of your equipment inside so that's ordering out of your supply chain, it's manufacturing and manufacturing final designs that hit the economics that you want. And so I think a lot of people think of nuclear and they think it's all about core technology or it's all about licensing. And I think for the reactors it's actually about if you're a big reactor it's probably about a construction project. If you're a small one it may be mostly about building your factory. For us it's more like that. It's more manufacturing. And manufacturing is the thing that relatively few companies in The US have really proven that they can do at scale. And I think that'll be that'll be the really exciting part in a, you know, in a year or two. [00:57:13] S1: Last question. We've talked about what you learned at SpaceX and Boeing and various places. What did you learn working at Founders Fund?
00:57:13 · John Collison, Scott Nolan
[00:57:13] S1: Last question. We've talked about what you learned at SpaceX and Boeing and various places. What did you learn working at Founders Fund? [00:57:25] S0: Avoid competition. So, you know, which is it happens automatically if you work on something that's really important that no one else is doing and that you can uniquely be good at. And so, you know, avoid competition is you know, you kind of achieve it that way but it's also something that will inherently be true if you're solving a problem that's not solved. So, you know, what important truth do you believe or like what important problem is no one working on? And I think that was actually the thing that led us here was it wasn't a desire to start a company. It wasn't, anything specific like that. It was what thing is actually holding back the nuclear industry? What is the bottleneck? What is the one thing that could prevent all the reactors from scaling, all the SMRs or, you know, gigawatt scale light water reactors? And it's fuel. A lot of the other pieces have been solved and so it's just fuel. [00:58:21] S1: For other future entrepreneurs, there's presumably equally big opportunities just staring them in the face. [00:58:26] S0: Yeah. I mean, there certainly are. I don't know what they are. I think it takes a lot of digging Mhmm. To see them. And... Yeah. [00:58:33] S1: And then enriching.
00:58:33 · John Collison, Scott Nolan
[00:58:33] S1: And then enriching. [00:58:34] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. And then enriching and turning into a guest. But, no, I think you only find out about these things if you follow some passion that you might have that not everyone's thinking about. So it's usually not part of a trend or at least it's ahead of the trend. If you're into something and you think it has value and you go deeper and you work in that space you'll see what the problems are and I think they become obvious to those who go deep enough. [00:58:59] S1: Yeah. Scott thank you. [00:59:01] S0: Yeah thank you.