The Saturday Morning Newsletter #46
Taste, Caring, 7 Sins, Insurance, Pet Food, and More
👋 Hello friends,
Thank you for joining this week's edition of The Saturday Morning Newsletter. I'm Drew Jackson, and today we're exploring 16 articles, essays, companies, ideas, podcasts, videos, or thoughts that caught my attention this week for their potential to significantly impact our future.
Before we begin: The Saturday Morning Newsletter by Brainwaves arrives in your inbox every Saturday, a concise and casual digest of current events, optimistic news stories, and other interesting tidbits about venture capital, economics, space, energy, intellectual property, philosophy, and beyond. I write as a curious explorer rather than an expert, and I value your insights and perspectives on each subject.
Time to Read: 6 minutes.
Let’s dive in!
#1: ZeroAvia
Description: ZeroAvia is developing hydrogen-electric propulsion systems for aircraft.
Why Is This Company Interesting? ZeroAvia is currently raising $150M in venture capital funding. They are trying to develop a full hydrogen-electric engine for aircraft applications. Their target is to make a 300-mile range hydrogen-powered aircraft by the end of 2026 and a 700-mile range hydrogen-powered aircraft by 2028.
#2: Fourier
Description: Fourier is a producer of hydrogen via modular electrolyzers.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Fourier recently raised $18.5M in venture capital funding. Hydrogen holds the potential to meet all of our current energy needs. However, historical high costs, inefficient production, and complex distribution have hindered its adoption. Fourier provides an on-site, on-demand hydrogen production system designed to fit the current demand.
Description: Noble Gas Systems is a developer of hydrogen gas storage vessels.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Noble Gas Systems recently raised $4M in venture capital funding. As hydrogen continues to increase in demand, storage systems are increasingly needed to meet the demand. The storage devices designed by Noble Gas Systems efficiently and safely store compressed hydrogen fuel without impacting passenger or cargo space.
#4: Solarock
Description: Solarock is an installer of solar panels in France.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Solarock recently raised $7M in venture capital funding. Their goal is to increase the amount of solar power in France by removing financial barriers and democratizing access to locally produced renewable energy. They are helping bring renewable energy to Europe at a low cost to most.
#5: Glacier
Description: Glacier is a developer of recycling robots.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Glacier recently raised $16M in venture funding. They are creating robots for every recycling facility to perform sorting functions. They claim they are up to 60% more affordable than competitors and can pay back in around a year. Their current robots have proven performance, suggesting that the future of recycling might be here.
Matters Journal: Rob Hopkins - Conquering the Imagination Deficit
Rob Hopkins is trying to bring back widespread imagination in our society. He talks about climate change, how the solutions require a boost in collective imagination to firstly envision and secondly build these futures. Our “disimagination” is what’s holding us back from our maximum potential, so we need to overcome this obstacle to enact widespread change.
IEEE Spectrum: Puerto Rico’s Solar Microgrids
Puerto Rico recently experienced an energy blackout, one of a series of power interruptions as of late. However, areas with solar microgrids were able to withstand the interruption, hinting that the solution to their issues may be at hand. However, the DoE recently redirected $365M for rooftop solar to the fossil-fuel grid, citing that it will be for “practical fixes and emergency activities that offer a faster, more impactful solution to the current crisis.” The long-term state of energy in Puerto Rico will be difficult, but there are good opportunities to be had.
Scientific American: Fusion May Be 15-20 Years Away
The joke in the fusion industry has always been that fusion is 30 years away (it’s been that way for 50+ years now). However, given recent developments over the last two years across the globe, some researchers are beginning to revise those predictions to only be 15-20 years now. Progress is happening, but it might be too slow.
The Hill: The Big Beautiful Bill + Renewables
The updated draft of the BBB slashes tax incentives for renewables and adds a new tax on future projects, flip-flopping the incentive structure for renewable energy. Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, commented, “These new taxes will strand hundreds of billions of dollars in current investments, threaten energy security, and undermine growth in domestic manufacturing and land hardest on rural communities who would have been the greatest beneficiaries of clean energy investment.”
New York Times: Insect-Based Pet Food
For years, researchers and entrepreneurs have tried to get humans to adopt insect-based foods into our diets. But, as of now, their efforts haven’t hit the mainstream. However, there still may be hope: pet food. Dogs and other animals, in research studies, didn’t distinguish between the different types of food (meaning that they didn’t have a noticeable difference when trying insect-based foods). I wouldn’t be surprised if this became a huge industry in the future.
Space News: Space is Hard. There Is No Excuse for Pretending It Is Easy
Honestly, we’ve needed this viewpoint in the space industry for a long time. To quote the article, “the headlines in the space industry over the past month have delivered a sobering reminder: space is not forgiving, and certainly not friendly to overpromising entrepreneurs.” Space commercialization isn’t progressing as easily as founders project to the outside world - it’s much more difficult than they imagined. There are structural problems that need to be addressed before space can become a viable commercial industry.
Space: Satellites Without Insurance
I’ve previously talked about space debris and the exponential trend it follows. As space debris increases, more satellite companies are choosing to launch without any insurance to cut back on costs and increase efficiency. This creates a feedback loop as cheaper satellites break up more easily and create more debris, leading to even more debris for the next satellites.
Pitchbook: The Big Beautiful Bill + Venture Capital
The BBB explicitly affects venture capital and startups in 4 main ways: changes to the qualified small business stock tax exemption, university endowment tax increase, changes to R&D deductions, and no AI moratorium. In addition to this, there will undoubtedly be many more indirect effects from the other aspects of the legislation.
Psychology Today: The Seven Sins of Philosophy
Philosophy can help us work through and assess many of the problems we face today. Progress can be made by answering these difficult questions. In order to do so, the author explains that philosophical investigations should avoid the 7 “sins” of philosophy: dogmatism, arrogance, obscurity, isolation, irrelevance, narrowness, and nihilism.
Big Think: A Philosopher’s Guide to Caring Deeply
Philosopher Meghan Sullivan explains what she calls the “Love Ethic”, a structure which states that “the most important focus of our moral work should be on forming our own characters, should be on making us into the kind of people who are capable of responding to these needs in others, rather than just trying to calculate the effects that particular donations are having on the world.” This framework, in her opinion, fills more of the gaps that effective altruism struggles with.
Is Taste the New Intelligence?
Stephfanie Tyler argues in a recent piece that in our age of information overload (via the internet, social media, generative AI, and a plethora of other sources), taste is more valuable than traditional intelligence.
What is taste, you ask? She defines it as discernment and the ability to filter what matters. Way back in the day, those with the most (quantity) information achieved the highest values. Now we’ve flipped to the opposite of the paradigm, where those with the best (quality) information achieve the highest values.
More than ever, what you pay attention to matters. To employ the colloquial phrase, “you are the sum of what you pay attention to.” Similarly, you are the sum of the information you internalize/allow to filter in/adhere to your taste.
Each of us needs to develop our own quality filters, our own “tastes” for content - not simply succumbing to the mindless virality of our world.
See you Wednesday for Brainwaves,
Drew Jackson
Website: brainwaves.me
Twitter: @brainwavesdotme
Email: brainwaves.me@gmail.com
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this content are my own and do not represent the views of any of the companies I currently work for or have previously worked for. This content does not contain financial advice - it is for informational and educational purposes only. Investing contains risks and readers should conduct their own due diligence and/or consult a financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Any sponsorship or endorsements are noted and do not affect any editorial content produced.