Tunnels vision

 Cities get more crowded, and road traffic gets more frustrating. There's the irritation of driving in that "soul-destroying" traffic, and then there's the irritation of arriving far later than the distance should require. 

The Boring Company was formed to relieve some of that pain. Its mission: "solve traffic, enable point-to-point transportation, and transform cities." They say that roads must go 3-D. Flying cars are not as practical as tunnels, which are weather-proof and don't conflict with existing transport or the valuable urban surface land above. Las Vegas now has an underground loop, and a Nashville loop is under construction.

All its advantages can be achieved only if you have a reliable, effective, relatively low-cost way to tunnel underneath the city. "Prufrock" is their solution. See how it works:

"Boring, it's what we do."

from Investopedia

Starbase LA

Starship is the vessel that will take humanity to the moon, then to Mars, and then beyond--according to the folks at SpaceX. The big project of becoming a "multi-planetary species" continued to move forward with the official big announcement last week.

A much bigger spaceport is needed; the decision has been made. It will be located in Louisiana.

Ten launch pads will eventually make about 30 launches per day--thousands of launches per year when the site is fully developed (image). 

That's the plan. This site will include more than launch pads: propellant farms, a propellant-production facility, and employee housing. Additionally, there will be an airport, deep water shipping capability, electricity generation. 

Everything depends on the successful development of Starship. Orbit will hopefully be achieved with the next test flight (possibly in September), and then the other milestones must follow, including the re-usable heat shield and re-fueling while in space.

from Space

Rags to riches

Forbes picked 250 individuals to celebrate as our "greatest living immigrants" on America's 250th birthday. Note that these are Forbes' choices, so over half of them are billionaires. You could guess who some of them are.

Why did they come to the US? In the magazine's words, "this is the place where people come to build a new life for themselves and their children." They did that, and they did much more.

"Rags to riches" stories do happen, and Jensen Huang can vouch for that. His parents sent him and his older 10-year-old brother - alone - from Thailand to Kentucky before they made the trip. Those early years were tough, the family poor and the boy lonely, cleaning toilets in local diners at night.

At the age of 30, Jensen and a couple of friends wanted to "build chips that can handle intense visuals for PC's." He had the vision to believe that "graphics chips would someday do far more than make video games look good." Two years later, their company Nvidia launched the first GPU.

Today he's the company's CEO as well as its co-founder, and Nvidia is the world's most valued company.

.

from Tech Startups

Still investing

After months of talks, Louisiana's governor has announced that a new rocket launch center will be built along the state's marshy coast by the world's richest man, Elon Musk, a South Africa-born immigrant to America. (That is, by one of his companies.)

SpaceX will invest $100 billion into the facility and start launching rockets in three years. The site of 100,000+ acres will eventually include ten launch pads and, according to Elon, will be the world's largest launch site: a self-sustaining spaceport.

Louisiana will give tax incentives to SpaceX, which will give $25 million to the community for regional planning plus that sum in cash every year to Vermilion Parish for 25 years. The deal includes SpaceX hiring for 3,000+ new jobs at almost twice the average salary in the parish.

from NOLA

Makes yogurt 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

What a positive impact this immigrant made in his new country. Employees kept their jobs. They accomplished something big and had the joy of it. They built a new Little League field in town. For every new Chobani hire, ten more jobs were created in the town. Every one of them enjoyed new wealth. 

He didn't take a course on how to create vision or how to motivate his employees or how to draw up a business plan. As an intuitive, natural-born entrepreneur, he saw what needed to be done and kept doing it. 

Only a small percentage of people are willing to take big financial risk and put enough hard work into it to make it successful. Today he still invests time and money into the business, even billions of dollars.

Hamdi is another in the long tradition of immigrants who come to America and bloom in the liberty. 

Makes yogurt 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

In his homeland of Turkey, Hamdi's nomad family lived in tents, raised sheep and goats, and made cheese and yogurt. Upon emigrating to the US, he judged that we had only inferior yogurt. He thought many Americans would buy his better product.

He bought an 85-year-old factory with borrowed money ($700,000) and had a meeting with four employees that he rehired. His only idea was to paint the walls white. Mike (one of the four) said, "Hamdi, tell me you have more ideas than that!"

To make enough money to keep this business operating, they would have to make and sell a lot of yogurt, at least enough to cover all their expenses and pay the employees. They did that. Eventually Chobani ("shepherd" in Turkish) captured half of the $8 billion yogurt market in America.

Only one hint of how they did it is given in yesterday's video: Hamdi and his original employees worked day, night, and weekends - for five years.

from Substack

(cont'd tomorrow)

Makes yogurt

Hamdi, originally from Turkey, drove down a dead-end road in upstate New York and toured the factory of a failed business. He met the people. He had no experience. He took a serious risk.

Listen to this inspiring story.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Fly test fail fix

Starship was scheduled to launch yesterday on test flight #13. But it didn't. It's a disappointment for all concerned, and that no doubt includes those who invested their own money in the success of SpaceX last month by purchasing the spaceflight company's stock.

"The stock is on a five-day losing streak." 

Some engines failed to ignite "triggering an automatic launch abort," as Elon reported on X. Two of them will be replaced by new engines and then the test flight can proceed next week. 

It's just as Jim Bridenstine (former NASA administrator) described SpaceX five years ago. They "fly, test, fail, fix - repeatedly." Yes, that's SpaceX, and that's life, too.

from CNBC

Nashville gains

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Seattle, Washington, has been losing ground. Seven more US states are ranked with Washington as "worst for business": California, New York, Illinois, Oregon, Massachusetts, New Jersey and my own state, Minnesota.

Ranked as "best" are the states of Texas, Florida and Tennessee. Dallas TX and Nashville TN attract businesses with advantages that make it worth the effort of a big move.

Local lifestyle factors in both cities are attractive to employees. With a lower cost of living, families may spend less but get more of what they want. Dallas has seen big growth in its technology and aerospace industries. 

You know Nashville as a huge music center ("Music City") but there's more. Amazon took a million square feet of office space. Health care is the biggest industry economically, and there's a young, well-educated labor force. Real estate here is the fifth hottest in the country. Oracle is moving in.

Nashville is booming. 

Seattle losses

Seattle's newly elected mayor advised its citizens not to buy the product of one of its iconic businesses last November: Starbucks coffee. She walked back her comment later, but it could symbolize an unfriendly trend toward financial supports of the city.

Starbucks originated and is still headquartered there. They made no response to the mayor but they're still planning a partial move to Nashville TN to open a second business hub. They will invest ~$100 million in the new hub and employ about 2,000 by 2031.

The coffee company is not alone in withdrawing some of their presence. Office vacancies around the country average about 17%, but downtown Seattle has vacancies of 36%. The city has lost the confidence of some of the business community. 

Since 2018, 465 company headquarters have moved elsewhere, mostly tech and manufacturing. The massive Boeing left the city back in 2001. Amazon has vacated a million square feet of office space since 2020.

Where do they go?

(cont'd tomorrow)

Helion 2026

Lots of startup companies don't make it. Their creators are inspired by what they think is a great idea, but turning that idea into a successful business is like driving down a road that's mined with explosives: so many problems to overcome.

Helion Energy's great idea was to build a business that provides power using nuclear fusion. Researchers have been trying to find a way to do that for decades, so far without success. But it's progressed enough that Helion (photo) believes they can get it done--and they have convinced people with money that they can get it done.

Just a year and a half ago, the company was valued at about $5 billion. Now investment in Helion has tripled to over $15 billion. That's a lot of money being bet on optimism. Helion even has a legal contract to supply power to Microsoft by 2028. Many experts in the field think that goal is far too optimistic.

Fusion-sourced power would be a dream come true for the world because of its benefits. The sooner the better. Some business will be the first to make it happen.

from Scientific American, which details the difficulty of producing fusion power

Starbuck

Robby Starbuck's family lost everything when communism took over in Cuba, so they fled to the United States. As the son of immigrants, he absorbed their vivid memories of growing tyranny in their homeland and the relief of finding freedom in the US. He learned to be alert to early signs that tyranny could threaten our American values . . because if America falls, there's no place to run to.

Producing Hollywood films was his career goal. While pursuing it in California, he ditched that goal to do something more meaningful to him: he saw this country going the wrong way and decided to put all his effort into getting it back on track. 

Corporations went political a few years back. Ideas like DEI racism and transgenderism found their way into boardrooms of big corporations and into their policies. When Robby tried to change executives' policies, they would ask him, "ok what organization must I donate to in order to get you off my case?" They seemed to respect it when he refused that money. He's had success with Target and others. A committed, woke activist who was head of Harley Davidson (motorcycles) could not be persuaded to change, and he is now gone.

Robby wants to fight for what he believes to be right, and he's been effective. He's also paid a price for being in the public eye.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Ranchers

Drought has fallen on Nebraska ranchers, a serious threat to property and to incomes. Wildfires naturally followed drought and destroyed thousands of acres of hay recently, spelling disaster for cattle.

Winds of 70 mph blowing across the flat terrain resulted in a record-breaking 827,000 acres burned this month.

"One rancher related that they were able to save some cattle by herding them into a field that had a pivot irrigation sprinkler system that they turned on. The water kept the cattle drenched and safe as the fire swept past." A consolation for this rancher, but just a partial one. They still have to be fed somehow, and the range is burned up.

Organizations like Nebraska Cattlemen Disaster Relief Fund will help. But quicker relief may come from neighbors who informally organize to help their neighbors:

from KSJD, Farm News and Views

WaPo chaos

Washington Post used to be very influential and profitable. Jeff Bezos, who bought the newspaper in 2013, became aware of the fact that legacy media (including his newspaper) was losing ground. He said, "Americans Don't Trust the News Media."

He started taking bold steps to turn the paper around, probably hoping to hold off a loss in profit that would accompany the loss of trust. In 2024 he decided they would not endorse a presidential candidate (and lost 200,000 subscribers). In 2025 he told them to write about liberty and free markets (and an angry editor quit his job).

Bezos (photo) could not avoid or hold off staggering losses. The paper lost $77 million in 2023, $100 million in 2024, and another $100 million in 2025.

What business could swallow loss on that scale? Only a business owned by a billionaire who could absorb those losses, perhaps. Changes had to be made. 

Earlier this year he fired over 300 reporters, a massive 44% reduction . . and then another 60,000 online subscribers quit.

We're watching legacy media in free fall.

AI & military

Modern military, whether in the US or other nations, uses artificial intelligence. Of course they do. Anthropic has a $200 million contract to supply their AI system, called Claude, to be used by the Pentagon "for all lawful purposes."

Anthropic has conditions on how the US military will use it. They will not allow it, they say, to be used for mass surveillance of American citizens, nor for weapon targeting without direct human supervision. These restrictions sound reasonable. 

But the Dept. of Defense threatens to reject Claude from military use. 

They say that "the current dispute is not specifically about autonomous weapons or mass surveillance . . ." 

It seems that Anthropic (photo) wants the final call in whether their AI system can be used in certain situations. But the US military refuses to delegate their decisions to another authority, such as a private company. That also sounds reasonable. The responsibility to operate lawfully, they say, is theirs--not Anthropic's. 

Interesting.

from International Business Times

AI & SpaceX 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Data centers will be in space in a few years. Ultimately, the "lowest cost way to generate AI compute" will be where solar energy is un-impeded by atmosphere, and where the required cooling is easy and won't be an environmental disturbance.

Bringing XAI into SpaceX will put the pieces of this vision together. Starship will move massive amounts of cargo to the Moon, where a permanent human presence will perform science and manufacturing.

The Moon will be a jumping-off point for deeper space. 

"The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a reality will fund and enable self-growing bases on the Moon, an entire civilization on Mars and ultimately expansion to the Universe." It's the SpaceX vision to understand the universe, and to preserve and protect the light of consciousness.

Estimates put the value of the newly larger SpaceX at about $1.25 trillion.

from SpaceX

AI & SpaceX

XAI, the company, was started up by Elon Musk in 2023 to manage both the development of artificial intelligence (including the chatbot Grok) and the social media platform X (former Twitter).

Now, that company has been acquired by another of Elon's companies, SpaceX.

He announced it on Monday of this week, saying that this move creates: "the most ambitious, vertically-integrated engine on (and off) earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world's foremost real-time information and free speech platform."

What is vertical integration? A business acquires other companies up and down its production process so that it is not wholly vulnerable to the vagaries of those other companies for the components or services it needs. 

(image)

So, SpaceX now has put together rockets, satellites (it already had Starlink), AI, and social media. What is its ultimate purpose? Hint: it's not just rockets.

from SpaceX

(cont'd tomorrow)

Fast food ↓

Is your favorite fast-food place in trouble? You probably wonder about that, if you see the take-out line of cars dwindling or the dining room looking old and shabby. Some old franchises just don't appeal to new generations.

Losing customers is one reason a business may fail. There are quite a few other reasons, including inflation. No business is untouched by inflation. Fast food may still be fast, but it's not so cheap anymore.

See if your favorites are in the video below:

McDonald's is on the list, but it still plans to expand with 8,000 new restaurants and some tweaking of the menu and prices. 

ADU 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Another use for an ADU would be to post it on Airbnb if you live in a popular destination area.

In fact, the co-founder of Airbnb, Joe Gebbia, also co-founded Samara. If you want an ADU in your California backyard, they will come and install a prefabricated small house for you in just 6 weeks on your property. The whole process takes about seven months including your design choice, off-site build, land prep, on-site installation, permitting, and financing. 

Fyi: last week's "Nuclear Now" series told the story of Brazilian model Isabelle Boemeke, who made herself into a nuclear influencer. She happens to be married to Joe Gebbia.

ADU

Housing is getting more expensive. In some cases, building an ADU can help. 

ADU is an "accessory dwelling unit." It's a residence added to the lot which already has a bigger primary residence on it, to which it may or may not be attached. Local regulations vary, but there's usually at least a kitchen, bathroom, and sleeping room. 

It could be sold or it could be rented, in either case providing financial help to the primary property owner. It might be attractive to someone looking for a unit more affordable than a single family house on its own lot would be.

Another reason to have an ADU could be to provide housing to a relative or to a visitor. It could be your own work space, or studio, or a guesthouse.

(cont'd tomorrow)