Austin Vernon
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1 November
15 October
8 October
7 October
28 September
27 September
From one piece An Ode to Tesla's Cybercab 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
Tesla, like most others in the space, used a lot of deterministic code that looks good in demos but becomes brittle in deployment because of edge cases.
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Their words
A robotaxi is serving individual trips rather than a long list of owner requirements. The design can focus on maximizing the number of trips it can profitably do rather than handling edge cases. That market is significantly larger than any owned car model.
17 September
15 September
From one piece Defending Against Massed Drone Attacks 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
The most vulnerable and difficult to repair portions involve turning heavier compounds into gasoline and diesel, so electrifying ground transportation is a strong substitute.
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Their words
The US should perform well in the new era because the constraints for further proliferation (and defense) are in intelligence, systems integration, and control of Low Earth Orbit, not manufacturing or assembly.
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Their words
Large bases anywhere close to hostile actors are now obsolete in their current form.
28 August
11 August
11 July
10 July
From one piece How Ukraine Built a War Fighting State 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
In essence, the West has found its comparative advantage in providing financial resources and information, while the Ukrainians specialize in defense production. Ukraine would lose the war without this symbiosis.
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Their words
The downside is that Ukrainian strategic victory relies on a Russian collapse. The Ukrainians seem to lack the ability at this time to conduct a theater-wide, combined arms offensive with tactics and weapons adapted for drone warfare.
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Their words
Adverse selection is also present in resupply for items like drones. There is extreme variance in drone team efficacy, and poorly performing teams waste limited resources. The solution was a market and "currency" for units to buy equipment and supplies.
29 May
28 March
From one piece Solving the Strait of Hormuz Blockage 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
EVs, autonomous vehicles, electric and CNG trucks, and drone delivery should be deregulated.self-driving carselectric vehicles
Their words
EVs, autonomous vehicles, electric/CNG trucks, and drone delivery should be deregulated and unleashed.
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Their words
Markets ensure the disruption can't last more than 1-2 years.
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Their words
The most important thread holding this together is that markets be allowed to function. A ham-fisted attempt at controlling supply and demand could worsen the situation by limiting production growth and substitution. The global economy is remarkably resilient when it is free to adjust.
22 February
12 February
From one piece Speed Can Reindustrialize America 15 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
Tariffs on imported components and machinery hurt the American manufacturers they are supposed to help.Their words
These end manufacturers (new and old) are vulnerable to tariffs on their inputs and they are the buyers that the "speed strategy" is relevant for.
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Their words
The robot arm base case saves some hourly labor at the expense of adding more skilled labor, and can easily be negative if it needs reprogramming more than a few times per year.
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Their words
The modern world is so bountiful that mass production is no longer the limiting factor.
+ 12 more
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korrents.com
Most regulatory delay is dead calendar time that could be cut without changing a single safety test.Their words
There is a massive scope to reduce calendar time without even altering testing protocols.
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korrents.com
For small strategic materials markets like rare earths the right policy is a stockpile, not domestic production.Their words
Stockpiles provide insurance while conserving our valuable labor.
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korrents.com
The real cost of the CHIPS Act is the technical talent it ties up, not its fifty-billion-dollar price tag.Their words
The CHIPS Act might still be a positive, but the cost is almost certainly many times the $50 billion price tag.
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Their words
Industrial policy almost inevitably consumes more skilled labor and reduces what we can produce.
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Their words
Zero tariffs are the best way to help them.
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Their words
Second, technologies and market structure are contextual, where the US can't simply emulate China's manufacturing.
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Their words
It has a surplus of STEM graduates that are often underemployed, while "Hukou" residency restrictions complicate hiring hourly labor in coastal factories.
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korrents.com
An industrial robot does not replace labour, it shifts labour from hourly workers to scarce skilled ones.Their words
The key is that robot arms are not labor-replacing, but labor-shifting.
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Their words
Ultra-short lead times are one of the most important features for buyers.
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Their words
Long lead times and soft costs, fueled by the world-leading US wages for "white collar" work, are the root cause of poor performance in low-volume production because there are few units to spread the soft costs over.
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korrents.com
Reviving American manufacturing needs a better business model rather than a planned economy.Their words
Reviving manufacturing doesn't require a planned economy, just a better business model.
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Their words
The US excels at high-volume manufacturing, but not low-volume manufacturing.
26 October 2025
5 October 2025
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Likedrcmnd.app
John D. Rockefeller: The Cleveland YearsTheir words
Thankfully, my research assistant, GPT-5, found some excerpts of the excellent book "John D. Rockefeller: The Cleveland Years" by Grace Goulder, which I bought and read.
18 August 2025
16 July 2025
5 July 2025
23 April 2025
6 March 2025
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Their words
Making ultra cheap products requires different rules and strategy.
20 January 2025
23 December 2024
10 November 2024
From one piece Human Driving Increases Transportation Cost 10x 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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korrents.com
What stands between us and cheap lightweight vehicles is that they are illegal, not that they are hard to build.Their words
Cheap, lightweight people movers are currently illegal in many situations, so regulation is a barrier.
Human Driving Increases Transportation Cost 10xaustinvernon.site
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Their words
It should be possible to decrease the weight of a car by 10x without sacrificing speed or internal volume.
Human Driving Increases Transportation Cost 10xaustinvernon.site
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Their words
Humans being awful drivers leads to a massive increase in vehicle costs and weight, makes cars more dangerous to people outside of them, and imposes significant costs on infrastructure like roads.
Human Driving Increases Transportation Cost 10xaustinvernon.site
12 September 2024
18 April 2024
From one piece How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordable 9 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
Efforts to improve efficiency and remove vestigial features pay off handsomely.
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
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Their words
Some efforts, like nuclear-powered data centers, are reminiscent of Toyota's hydrogen push.
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
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Their words
The 100-megawatt facility might have ten 10-megawatt blocks served directly by a 1500V DC feeder line without connections to other blocks that would require extra switches and routing.
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
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Their words
The cooling systems in most data centers are energy hogs and contribute no direct value.
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
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Their words
Deleting the UPSs could knock off ~$750/kW after considering equipment, installation, and square footage reduction.
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
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Their words
Installed generators cost ~$800/kW, and the data center capital cost, including servers, is ~$40,000/kW, so adding 1% more makeup compute capacity is money ahead of purchasing generators.
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
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Their words
The optimal scenario is typically when the generators supply 1% of yearly electricity (shown below).
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
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korrents.com
A data centre powered by solar and batteries alone needs an array so oversized that the design is not worth building.solardata centersdesignbatteries
Their words
The solar array sizes under these assumptions are prohibitively large.
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
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korrents.com
Air cooling has run out of headroom for AI racks, so liquid cooling is now a requirement rather than an upgrade.Their words
AI servers bring new challenges because many require liquid cooling.
How to Make Off Grid Data Centers Affordableaustinvernon.site
3 January 2024
From one piece Revitalizing US Navy Shipbuilding 4 beliefs, in the piece's order there
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Their words
Nothing kills labor productivity like sections that don't fit together.
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Their words
Specialized suppliers need multiple shipyards in one location to steady their business.
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korrents.com
A modern shipyard can match a whole wartime industrial mobilisation with a fraction of the workers.Their words
South Korea's yearly production often matches the total tonnage the US produced in WWII - with one-fifth of the workers!
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Their words
Labor costs are not an excuse!
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