Isaiah Taylor, founder of Valor Atomics, aims to revolutionize energy with modular giga-sites for cleaner and cheaper production. He shares insights from his family's ties to the Manhattan Project and discusses why innovative nuclear solutions stalled in the West. The conversation dives into the potential of robotics and AI in energy, the need for regulatory reforms, and how decentralization can boost national resilience. Taylor also explores Bitcoin's role in a changing economy and advocates for real-world engineering over software-centric approaches.
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Isaiah’s Manhattan Project Legacy
Isaiah Taylor grew up immersed in stories of his great-grandfather’s work on the Manhattan Project.
His family's connection to the secret city deeply inspired his nuclear engineering journey.
insights INSIGHT
New Manhattan Projects Are Private
Modern "Manhattan Projects" are largely private entrepreneurial efforts like SpaceX.
Government’s best role is providing flexible regulation and capital support to enable tech breakthroughs.
insights INSIGHT
Modular Reactors at Gigasites
Valor Atomics targets building many small modular reactors (SMRs) repeatedly at a single "gigasite."
This enables scale, lowers complexity, and simplifies licensing and logistics.
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Energy production is broken—and rebuilding it could unlock a new era of abundance. In this episode, we sit down with Isaiah Taylor, founder of Valor Atomics, to explore how cheap energy can reshape the world. Isaiah shares his family’s history with the Manhattan Project, why nuclear innovation stalled in the West, and how Valor is building modular giga-sites to produce cleaner, cheaper energy at scale. We discuss how robotics, AI, and manufacturing are shifting cost curves, the future of energy demand, and why decentralization is key to national resilience. Isaiah also shares his thoughts on bitcoin, the dangers of regulatory bloat, and how restoring antifragility to America’s legal system could unleash a new industrial boom.
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TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Intro 1:04 - Isaiah Taylor’s Manhattan Project family history 3:18 - Secrecy inside America’s Secret City 5:37 - Why America needs new Manhattan Projects today 7:39 - How Valor Atomics is rethinking nuclear reactors 10:01 - How a nuclear reactor really works 13:38 - Why building reactors became a legal and talent problem 16:59 - How AI is pushing investors toward hard tech 18:59 - The future of energy: exponential demand and production 21:46 - Why energy prices have been broken since the 1970s 26:06 - Valor’s giga-site model to transform energy markets 30:27 - Could machines create an infinite energy feedback loop? 33:57 - Humanity’s mission: garden the universe 36:19 - Will money still matter in a post-scarcity world? 40:34 - How regulatory bloat crushed American industry 48:10 - Why Isaiah Taylor is suing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
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