Doing Useful Work on Neglected Problems

Scott Nolan spent 12 years at Founders Fund looking for the most important problems that no one else was funding. Then he found a problem so critical, and so ignored, that he couldn't find a company to back. So he started one.

General Matter is rebuilding US uranium enrichment. The United States was the world leader in enrichment through the 1980s and then stopped entirely. Today roughly a quarter of US enriched uranium comes from Russia, a ban on those imports takes full effect in 2028, and the advanced reactors everyone is counting on to power the next wave of data centers have no reliable domestic fuel source. Scott believes enrichment is the single bottleneck to a nuclear future, and that the window to solve it is narrow.

The conversation covers how Peter Thiel influenced him, why being in love with an idea is dangerous for investors but required for founders, and what it actually takes to rebuild an industrial capability the country let atrophy for 40 years.

Please enjoy my conversation with Scott Nolan.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like The Best

(00:02:45) Guest Intro: Scott Nolan

(00:03:36) SpaceX, Founders Fund & General Matter

(00:08:04) What Scott learned from Peter Thiel

(00:10:05) The "Avoid Trends" Concept

(00:10:55) Finding Important Problems No One Is Working On

(00:17:32) Gut v. Intuition

(00:18:49) Valuation, Competition & Capital Intensity

(00:20:20) Founders Fund Strategy

(00:21:06) The Steeper the Up Round, the Greater the Undervaluation

(00:21:41) Being in Love with the Problem

(00:26:07) Governments, Technology & History

(00:28:54) Lessons from SpaceX and Elon

(00:29:42) Vertical Integration

(00:33:07) The Role of Energy in Civilization

(00:37:36) State & Direction of US Energy

(00:38:58) Why Nuclear?

(00:42:20) Taxonomy of Advanced Reactors

(00:45:33) The BYOE Concept

(00:46:50) What Could Make Advanced Reactors Fail?

(00:48:04) General Matter: Product, Business & Company

(00:50:12) Enrichment & Weapons-Grade Uranium

(00:56:45) North Star Metric

(01:01:05) Building a Great Enduring Company

(01:04:01) How Scott Runs the Company

(01:06:11) Overcoming Irrational Fears About Nuclear

(01:08:25) Why Aren't There More Founders Funds?

(01:10:03) Operating vs. Investing

(01:11:56) Kindest Thing