Core Memory He's Building A Space Station For $1 Billion - EP 38 Jed McCaleb
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Oct 15, 2025 Jed McCaleb, a serial entrepreneur known for founding Mt. Gox and contributing to Ripple and Stellar, is now investing $1 billion in Vast Space to build a commercial space station. He shares insights about his childhood in an off-grid cabin and the evolution of file-sharing technology. McCaleb discusses the operational challenges of Mt. Gox and his pivot to innovative solutions like Ripple. He emphasizes the potential for human life in space and the importance of making space programs commercially viable while also investing in AI and brain-computer interface technologies.
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Rural Arkansas Upbringing
- Jed McCaleb grew up in a cabin in the woods without electricity or running water for his early childhood.
- He moved to Fayetteville then Little Rock with his mother, who was a reporter and later AP editor.
Building A Better File-Sharer
- Jed built eDonkey after spotting obvious technical flaws in Napster and improving file hashing and chunked downloads.
- eDonkey handled larger files and enabled more reliable sharing like movies compared to Napster.
Law Shaped Product Choices
- Legal ambiguity around inducing infringement limited eDonkey's ability to raise capital and expand into new services.
- That regulatory constraint forced the team to stall broader product ideas like Dropbox-style services.