Erik Torenberg on the state of tech media and the Hill and Valley moment for venture-backed founders

by state? No, dude. So, uh Secretary Bergam gave these great remarks this morning um about how all of our federal lands should be considered a national asset, right? That makes sense. Totally makes sense.

And we probably have I think of federal lands as like the forests and like you know uh Yoseite, but there's probably federal land that's desert, right? Yeah. No, there's tons of tons. Tons. Yeah. Millions of unknown. Why don't we just convert this into the next Yellowstone? Exactly. Yellowstone, dude.

Like next Yellowstone, which would be sweet, or also more timberlands, which you can harvest, farmland. Yeah, exactly. So, like all of that or just give it to Teddy and have him tear it all up and strip mine it or something. That's also fine with me as long as you have a proportionate amount of new Yellowstones.

Wait, who's Teddy? Feldman. Oh, Feldman. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. From Duran. Yeah, makes sense. Sorry. Gundo Brain. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's on first name Teddy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

really not doing a lot for the listeners at home might not be familiar with the inner workings of a Gundo polit where you headed next back to the Gundo. Uh I get on a midnight flight back to Gundo.

I'm going to interview a bunch of scientists and then I get on a midnight flight tomorrow to Florida and then on Sunday I go by the way. Most brutal flying midnight cuz you landed like 3:00 a. m. It's the worst. And then you're back on an overnight. And the overnight to Florida is terrible cuz it's only 5 hours.

So you can't even get a full night sleep. You get cooked. Well, I did Salt Lake to DC this morning. Um, first of all, flew into Dallas. Huge mistake. But on the flip side, my row was empty, so I laid down. That's great. Okay, good. Hopefully, you can get some sleep. Hopefully, you can uh make it through those flights.

We appreciate you stopping by. Thanks so much. This is always good to have you on. Uh, maybe a couch for the road. Sure, of course. Thank you. You can take this whole tin. Wow. There you go. There you go, man. What a guy. Yeah, I see. I think so. Anyway, should we bring in the next guest? Who do we have?

I know we got a couple folks here. Let's bring them down. How you doing? I met you the last Helen Valley. Uh, welcome. Welcome to the stream of the stream. Would you mind uh doing an intro for the for the viewers? Uh, introduce yourself, the company, what do you do, how are you enjoying Hill Valley. Yeah.

Grab Yeah, grab it like this and then just hold it like you're giving a speech at the most important event at Hillen Valley. Awesome. Well, thanks again for having me. Good to see you again. So, I'm JC Pesh. I'm the founder and CEO of Fuse.

We're a fusion company working to accelerate the world's transition to fusion energy while also safeguarding humankind.

So, it turns out if you try to create an artificial sun on Earth in a bottle and use a lightning bolt to implode a pellet of fuel, that's really useful also to ensuring the safety reliability of our nuclear arsenal. Yep.

And so we're, you know, very committed to uh continuing to help the US modernize its nuclear arsenal and being uh offering radiation. Yeah. As a service. Yep. Yeah.

When we talked, it was fascinating because you were much more commercialized than most other nuclear founders that you talked to who are more in the let's get all these approvals, let's build the big thing.

Uh what has that commercialization been like and can you concretize the actual product that you're selling and to who? Yeah. Yeah. So uh we have customers both in the US government and and two you know public companies and uh we've built two machines that are operating today.

One is the world's highest power uh energy delivery system. We call it Titan and we publish it's one terowatt but for a billionth of a second. One terowatt. Wow. But for a billionth of a second, it's 20 word of the whole 20% of the whole world power production. Yeah. But it's just for billions of a second.

And it's not a fusion machine. It's just an energy delivery system. But it creates it creates pulses of radiation that are so intense and then you can expose electronics or materials and see how they behave. Okay.

So you're creating hostile environments similar to what would happen in you know humanmade hostile environments and expose electronics materials to those types of radiation whether it's X-ray neutrons and see how they would behave and that's really critical to ensuring you know reliability safety of of critical assets in space.

Interesting as well as now conventional systems. Okay. Um, and I don't know if you saw last week, but uh, there was an announcement that US will be spending 946 billion over the next 10 years to modernize the arsenal and it's 25% increase in budget since 2023. So, it's a big deal. Yeah.

And by, you know, producing this radiation and reducing the dollar per RAD and, you know, the availability of radiation, we can, you know, save taxpayers billions of dollars while offering radiation as Yeah. talk about the energy requirements of reindustrialization which is the theme of Hill and Valley.

I think a big question is like okay where's where's the power going to come from even if you're not looking at at AI are a lot of the conversations that you're having here around um uh with some of these bigger you know companies that that uh want to come back to the US but want to make sure that uh they're able to have the energy and infrastructure to actually um thrive here.

Yeah, it's it's a really challenging problem. I love the quote from Jensen today where one gawatt is like $60 billion and it's the annual revenue of Boeing. Yeah, that's really not going to work out very well.

The good thing about fusion, you know, the first thing I'll say which may be a bit controversial, but fusion is still like we're still far from commercializing it.

So, it's still probably going to take a decade or two to actually put electrons on the grid, but it's still really important and we can't afford for another country to to get there first. Um, but the good thing about fusion is that it's location independent. So you can put it anywhere you want, right?

The fuel is hydrogen which can be found in seawater. So you can literally take a data center and build a fusion plant right next to it and not have to integrate with the grid. Yeah.

And I think fusion being, you know, safe, clean, abundant, on demand makes a really appealing case for industrials because you can build a power plant right next to your industrial plant, whether it's data center, a steel factory, glass factory, etc.

But and and and when you think about, you know, the the the changes that have happened over, you know, in in industrialization, you know, there's been no new nuclear facility built in decades. Yeah.

Whereas like China is building dozens of plants and we've seen satellite imagery recently that's become open source on exactly our footprint of our facility being built. And so we just cannot afford for China to become for fusion what Saudi Arabia has become for oil.

And so is that is that the long-term business plan for you? Like find commercial applications today that that advances the R&D pipeline for ultimately Q greater than one fusion production that can be grid scale. Yeah. Great. So, so you know Q greater than one all this stuff it's great like pat on the back. Good for you.

You may do it but ultimately it's how much does it cost? Yes. Q engineering or Yeah. Well commercial Q commercial I guess right. and and also reliability. Like if Fusion is not a base load power, which means it's running 99. 9% of the time, how is it really competitive with other sources?

So you're doing 1 billionth of a second now and you need to get to 24/7. Yeah. Which means you're just 10 doubles away, I guess. Well, we just need to increase the rep rate.

So it will still be pulse, but just increasing the repetition rate and and that's that's a thing with Fusion because even Helon is like pulsed, right? That's that's the idea. And our pulser today actually operates at 0. 1 hertz frequency. But we still produce more radiation.

The cheaper the radiation, the higher our margins. And the more we fire, the more money we make. So we're getting paid to optimize our radiation service and radiation is ultimately energy. Yeah. And so we're getting, you know, we're building a sustainable business to get to the sustainable future that we all want.

And there's a massive multi-billion dollar business to be built along the way which is what you know a lot of our investors on the road that makes sense to get this. Yeah. Where where is the business now? Uh how many employees? How big? Yeah. So so we have around 50 people now. Uh we've got a couple millions in revenue.

We're on active contract supporting very rare for fusion companies. Congrats. Very cool. Yeah. Thinking outside the box and um fantastic. So we're still we're still humming. Well, good luck to you. Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you have a fantastic rest of Hill Valley on the floor. Yeah, we'll see you.

We'll see you later. Yeah, Eric Torberg wants to stop by group chats. Eric, get in here. Get over here. I I have a bone to pick with you. I saw you. You posted that you started a new group chat and I'm not in it.

I was so looking forward to getting added to something where a bunch of people are yapping and I have to put on mute because Yeah. No, I learned my lesson. The next one I'm yapping so egregiously that I definitely get in the hit piece. You will you'll be you will be invited.

You know they can kill Chayam House, but they can't kill the idea. It's going to resurge again. Of course, it's still it's still running. Um you know, even if the world had a nuclear war, Mark Cuban and Brian Goldberg would still be there every day. Digging it out. Yeah.

Uh uh have we gotten to the bottom of who Ben Smith is? It sounds like a generic name. Sounds like a fake alias. Uh, it's something that you see on a lot of fake IDs from uh, you know, high school students that are trying to buy beer.

I'd love I don't want I'm not a big fan of doxing, but I'd love to get to the bottom of who this man really is. Ben Smith, who you know docks the group chat. He is that doesn't mean that we should dox him, but I want to know personally. I'm not going to share it. I want to know who is who is Ben Smith really.

I think he's saying anon for now. Okay, I want to respect that. Yeah, I want to respect you. That's very kind. I follow the paradoxical commandments. You know, even if people don't even people dox you, don't dox. We'll keep his identity uh, private.

But I do know that as an anon, he did publish a steel dossier while he was at Buzz Buzzfeed. And I also know that he apologizes her or he almost regrets it. Um, which to me is as good as an apology and I believe that people can grow and change. And so I'm proud of him.

Um, because uh yeah, any other lessons from the from the story from group chats? Where's the future? What what's next? What do you want?

I think, you know, I got a lot of people emailing me being like, uh, you know, people like I play pickup basketball with or don't even know, being like, "How could you platform Tucker Carlson? " Like, "How could you do it? " Like, "How? " And I'm like, "I'm sorry.

" You know, first off, I regret to inform you Tuck Carlson's pretty big already. And also, it's a private group chat, so I'm not sure exactly how I'm platforming Tucker Carlson, but um, so a lot of people are angry that people are getting together and having conversations.

Um, but, um, you know, we're going to keep doing it. Yeah. We're going to keep doing it. Um, I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. The goal was to have a left right exchange and we're going to keep uh that was the original. We're going to keep trying to to make it together.

I I invite more of my friends uh on the left and the right to uh to be a part of it. And um you haven't gotten any emails. Well, how could you platform Mike? But no, I didn't I didn't get emails that, but I got DMs every day while Chain the House was going of like why is Mark Cuban here? It's good.

It's anti-echo chamber and how does he have so much time to to chat every day? And my theory is that the the pinnacle of Maso's hierarchy of needs is being a poster. Yes. Like once you've truly made it, then you could just post all day. Yes.

We have this ongoing fight with Antonio Garcia Martinez, who now we should call Antonio Gracias, the the Valor guy, because he's always getting mistaken for him. And we should It is It is funny. Own it. Just rename Gracias. Cuz they're like, "Great speech today when he did the Doge thing. " He's like, "What?

Talk to him? That's hilarious. " Yeah, you should have him on it and just like talk about the Yeah. Yeah, we should have them both on. We're thinking about doing, you know, you get both of the, you know, both apologies on both ROS on there's four Kevin Jangs. We're going to get all them.

So, we have this bit with Antonio where he's like, as soon as I'm rich, I'm getting out of this like as soon as I'm richer. And he just as soon as I'm like, you know, much richer, I'm getting out of uh group chats. I'm getting out of Twitter.

And of course, you know, Marcus D's in the group, all these other people who you have done phenomenally well and are just posting all day and he's like they're like, "You'll never leave. This is the best. " In fact, you'll step it up. You'll step it up. So, I think the demand is there.

I think the supply is there and we're going to we're going to keep doing it. Yeah.

Do do you think these it's so I I have to say I mean I think people don't realize like how much work everybody whatever four years ago was like everybody should have a community and then you had companies making Slacks or Discords or things like that and it just takes like a massive amount of work to sustain chats like not we talked about last time you're on the show the sort of like admin lift like there's a software solution but then there's like cultivating and there's like selecting like who should be in a group and all these different things and it's actually makes so much sense to have a third party like do that not have it just be on one member who one day they might wake up and they don't want to do it anymore but should the group die it's like no the group should be able to live on and so having a what's the ideal size are you uh uh Dave Morren had path it was 150 what's that Dunar's number I think Chattam house got up to like 330 uh Jay got what are your best practices Jay got too big I think you know dozens of spin-off groups have formed and it's like 10 20 30 you know I think it's a it's a good question I will say I'm I'm a bit of a street group chatter.

Uh Shirram and as these are academics, you know, they have a rigorous operation. They have community managers. I'm excited to lead co-lead this operating with it with the niche now that Sham has left. And so I'm excited to get support on the moderation side and to come back out.

You know, this is a blow to Chadam House, but we will be back rebuilding. We're rebuild rebuilding. We're still there. You still see Mark. You still see Brian. They pop up. They pop up. Yeah. Yeah. I'm doing the show. I'm like, uh, what are they fighting about? We should probably talk about it on the show. Exactly.

I'm willing to say publicly uh that, you know, um, so nobody killed except this non- guy, Ben Smith, who I I um to exactly get to bottom at some point. But, um, outside of that, you know, um, but I will say even before that, it was getting too big. You sure?

And I will also say that on the record that nobody killed Chadam House, but Brian Goldberg did kill Chadam House a little bit. I love Brian Goldberg. Yeah.

I actually learned a lot from kind of sharing like his business experience and I I I was unaware of him as a founder or a business operator before and and the other the other names were kind of okay I already know their their bit and I know their stick and so it was outspoken he is he's also a media tycoon. Exactly.

In the women's space. Yeah. I own fashion magazines. I own fashion magazines. I don't know. I was like how did tire your business? He's like well we have some advertisers like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He he broke that down very He's brought a lot to it and um Yeah. Very cool. Anything else?

What are you uh What's exciting so far about Hill and Valley? Is it nice to It must be nice to be in an event or like a social community thing that you didn't put together yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And I was just at the American Diamond Summit last month. That was fantastic, too. And this is also fantastic.

I mean, I think it's just um amazing how how how big this space is. I will say it's like and you guys have covered on the show, but it's like um this is like the new Silicon Valley. I feel like when Paul Graham made that Palanteer tweet, it was like a clash between sort of old Silicon Valley and and new Silicon Valley.

And it's interesting to just sort of see um not just the new people that have emerged, but sort of the new ideas around building companies like it's not just sort of make something people want and just talk to customers and just build something in a day. And maybe he's right.

Maybe there'll be a cracked founding team Xander X Palunteer digital ads digital ad startup.

Well, one one thing that comes to mind, we had Mike Salana earlier on the show and um and he was basically talking about how like Ezra Klein's whole abundance, you know, theory and idea is like a lot of the stuff that he had uh, you know, was like 5 years ago, right?

Like this idea of charter cities and, you know, energy production and all these things. So, I think we're all on the same team. That that's what I've just appreciated about Hill Valley. like the number one uh um person on the hillside of the event is that gets brought up is Richie Torres.

He's a Democrat and I think people associate uh you know a lot of these different characters with uh the right but uh so many of these issues are just American issues together. Matt Glacius, who was a a Chadam House member for I think a week before he just decided to to to leave and who I'm a fan.

He tweeted a platform for the new of the Democratic party and David Saxs quote tweeted and said this is conservatism. So there does seem to be a lot of convergence.

I I I love what Derrick and Ezra are doing with with abundance sort of bringing free market economics to to the left uh in a in a way that is palatable and accessible.

It's more nuanced than that, of course, but um yeah, there seems to be a convergence happening and if we have uh sort of both parties, you know, being more moderate, moving to the middle, you know, that I I I think the future of American politics is uh something I'm calling like far centrism or alt center. I like that.

Just just the most extreme centrism. This is the future. Yeah. Just being really extreme about it. Unless unless there's representation by both houses, uh we have a split uh split house and senate. I'm not happy. Yeah. Anyway, it is um it is really uh interesting. It's a fun time.

How much time are you expecting personally to stay in Washington? Have a lot of places you spending time is an area that Well, we we I'm you know, it's my second week on the job.

We have a robust DC operation and I want us to tell that story a bit more and help uh so we're going to do a policy podcast and so so I want to spend more time here and also bring on people who are really at the intersection of it does seem like it fits like the like we were talking this like lobbying adjacent VC activity introductions to people on Capitol Hill that feels like it definitely fits into the Andre machinery of like hey if you're doing enterprise sales like they'll set you up with a bunch of people PR was often something very good at uh even hiring you know find your VP of engineering uh doing some light lobbying maybe not being a lobbying firm or but introducing the right things making sure if there's a government relations or organization you know how to build it and I love that we're all so collaborative on this because it just moves the whole industry for like we have same crypto policy same AI policy same policy across it just helps everybody so that's a place where we all get to bring together one thing I also just want to say is uh Gavin Newsome's another example of somebody trying to move to the center and you know, bringing on Charlie Kirk and his podcast.

Let's make that the thing. Bar Center. And uh I hope that it works out. I hope that it helps him in the primary. Yeah, it seems like it's better off for every American if there's more like unity across the aisle. I just want to know I just want to know what what uh coining next. Yeah.

The next coinage leak it announce it on TV coin law is very important. No, but I mean I think I think American dynamism is is no longer contrarian.

We saw this remember Hereticon this year was like the least contrarian person I saw was wearing a like make America great again hat beyond that everybody was doing nuclear that was like no longer contrarian.

And so it's just like a big thing I'm trying to figure out while while we're, you know, here is like, you know, what what is the thing that nobody's talking about today that will be, you know, maybe the the entire subject matter of the Hill and Valley or the or, you know, the next American Dynamism Summit in a couple years.

One, just chat with yourself. Group chat dynamism. Exactly.

Well, whenever uh whenever Katherine or or whoever on the team has it, we'll we'll be on TVN for you know, my last my last thought here is is it feels like uh group chats with people that you don't know that have differing beliefs are the antidote to GPT40 agreeing to whatever you're saying, right?

It's like you go on chat GPT, you know what boss, like you were 100% right, like everyone else is wrong. You are right. And then you go into group chat and it's a way to get, you know, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. You're wrong. No, no. Yeah. Make disagreements great again.

And uh yeah, hopefully we can continue to be in these spaces. That's a great place to end the show. Thank you for watching. Thank you for tuning in. Uh we hope you enjoyed the stream. Uh we'll be posting a ton of clips and we will see you tomorrow or Friday depending on when we get back to LA. Talk to you soon. Bye.