Inevitable

Arch Rao is Founder and CEO of SPAN, the company behind the smart electrical panel that has expanded into utility grid management with SPAN Edge and distributed AI infrastructure with XFRA. What began as a smarter way to manage home electricity has evolved into a platform designed to digitize the electric grid, enable mass electrification, and unlock new AI compute capacity using existing residential infrastructure.

In this episode of Inevitable, Rao explains why SPAN's vision has grown beyond the home electrical panel, how utilities are using software-defined power management to avoid expensive infrastructure upgrades, and why distributed AI inference could become a new class of digital utility. He also discusses the intersection of electrification, grid modernization, and AI demand, arguing that the next major energy transition is the digitization of the electric grid itself.

Note: SPAN is an MCJ portfolio company 

Episode recorded on July 8, 2026 (Published on August 4, 2026).

In this episode, we cover: 

(0:00) An overview of SPAN

(1:53) How SPAN evolved from smart panels to grid infrastructure

(3:41) The inspiration behind XFRA and distributed AI compute

(5:21) What an XFRA node looks like and how it works

(6:04) Why homeowners would host AI compute infrastructure

(8:06) The homeowner business model: free panels, batteries, and lower utility bills

(10:48) Why SPAN is focused on new home developments

(11:56) How SPAN Edge helps utilities avoid costly service upgrades

(16:35) SPAN's go-to-market evolution

(17:16) Lessons from customer behavior and software adoption

(20:53) How SPAN Edge creates value for utilities

(26:16) Securing distributed AI infrastructure in residential neighborhoods

(27:48) Who is buying XFRA compute today

(29:45) Why distributed infrastructure offers flexibility over traditional data centers

(31:04) XFRA as a new form of digital infrastructure

(32:50) How SPAN differs from virtual power plants (VPPs)

(34:56) Why the real energy transition is analog-to-digital

(36:43) Why talent is SPAN's biggest hiring priority

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Noah Schochet is the co-founder and CEO of TerraFirma, a construction technology company rethinking how infrastructure gets built. Founded by two former SpaceX engineers, TerraFirma combines robotics, remote operations, and software into a construction business that performs projects directly rather than selling technology. By vertically integrating its tools with field operations, the company aims to make construction dramatically faster, safer, and more affordable while addressing labor shortages and enabling the next generation of infrastructure.

In this episode, Noah shares how his experience building Starship at SpaceX inspired TerraFirma, why he believes construction—not autonomy—is the real bottleneck to civilization-scale progress, and why robotics companies should focus more on delivering outcomes instead of products. He also explains TerraFirma's remote-operated construction model, its approach to rapid iteration, and why the future of construction still depends on people empowered by better technology.

Episode recorded on June 25, 2026 (Published on July 28, 2026).

In this episode, we cover: 

(0:00) An overview of TerraFirma

(1:04) How SpaceX inspired the creation of TerraFirma

(4:47) Why construction has fallen behind other industries

(9:33) The structural reasons construction is slow to modernize

(12:33) Why the goal isn't autonomy—it's better construction

(14:25) TerraFirma's construction-first business model

(17:11) Why customers buy outcomes, not robots

(20:54) How TerraFirma's retrofit robotics and software platform works

(25:53) Operating multiple construction machines from a mission control center

(29:01) How robotics could reshape construction jobs instead of replacing them

(32:02) Early customer adoption across data centers, housing, and hazardous environments

(34:20) Winning projects by building faster, cheaper, and safer

(36:13) The biggest challenge to transforming construction

(38:32) Hiring builders with extreme ownership and mission alignment

(42:55) TerraFirma's $100 million Series A and plans to scale

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Jake Jurewicz is the Co-founder and CEO of Blue Energy, a nuclear power plant developer. Blue Energy starts with proven, light water reactors and builds everything around them — prefabricating standardized nuclear plants as massive modules in shipyards and fab yards, then barging them to site.

It pairs that with a patented gas-to-nuclear approach that energizes the plant on gas turbines first and converts to nuclear later. The goal is to make nuclear cheap enough and fast enough to build that private lenders will finance it, rather than the taxpayers and ratepayers who've carried almost every plant built so far. The company recently announced a collaboration with GE Vernova on a 2.5-gigawatt gas-plus-nuclear project in Texas, built around GE Vernova Hitachi's BWRX-300 reactor, with backing from VXI Capital, At One Ventures, and Engine Ventures.

The why now is straightforward: AI data centers are pulling on the grid harder than anything in a generation, firm clean power is scarce, and the cost and speed of building nuclear have been the thing holding it back. Jake's bet is that the fix lives in how you build and finance the plant, rather than in the reactor itself.

Episode recorded on June 10, 2026 (Published July 21, 2026) 

In this episode, we cover:

(0:00) Overview of Blue Energy

(2:20) Why construction, not reactor tech, is the focus

(5:32) Two innovations: modular construction and gas-to-nuclear

(6:56) Why proven light water reactors beat new designs

(9:39) Building nuclear like LNG terminals

(11:57) The history of shipyard-built nuclear power

(14:17) Lessons from Venture Global's LNG buildout

(16:44) Why megamodules cut construction costs

(20:43) What Blue Energy builds versus buys

(22:14) Why civil construction, not the reactor, drives cost

(25:14) Navigating NRC approval for gas-to-nuclear

(28:21) Why customers still want nuclear after gas

(32:56) The first project: Victoria, Texas

(36:00) Financial innovation to unlock private capital

(39:19) Blue Energy's biggest execution risks

(43:32) Where nuclear heads next

(46:59) Commercial criticality beyond the chain reaction

(48:20) Nuclear's role in energy security and geopolitics

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Pete Johnson, Co-founder and CEO of Koloma, joins Inevitable to break down geologic hydrogen — naturally occurring hydrogen found deep underground — and why he believes it could be the first new primary energy source since nuclear power in the 1950s. Koloma has raised more than $400 million from Khosla Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund, Osaka Gas, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and holds roughly 20 million acres of exploration rights across the U.S. Midcontinent, the Philippines, Australia, and Canada.

Pete explains why Koloma's first commercial target isn't power generation but ammonia and fertilizer production in the U.S. Midwest, where farmers pay a $150-per-ton premium on imported ammonia. He walks through the geology of where natural hydrogen forms, how Koloma's 25-year proprietary subsurface dataset shapes its exploration strategy, what it actually takes to prove a commercial-scale discovery, and how he separates genuine clean-hydrogen economics from tax-credit-driven projects.

Episode recorded on June 24, 2026 (Published July 14, 2026)

In this episode, we cover: 

[0:00] Intro: Pete Johnson and Koloma's geologic hydrogen bet

[2:02] What "Koloma" means — and the gold rush origin story

[3:31] Where geologic hydrogen actually forms

[7:07] The Iowa project and why the resource lines up with demand

[7:51] The $150/ton ammonia premium hitting Midwest farmers

[10:53] Why hydrogen pipelines aren't the real bottleneck 

[13:52] Koloma's model: exploration engine, not driller

[15:12] What makes hydrogen exploration so hard

[18:13] How big a discovery needs to be to matter commercially

[22:39] Power vs. ammonia: how end use changes the math

[23:50] The Philippines opportunity and energy security stakes

[28:48] Pete's path: solar, Monolith Materials, and stumbling into hydrogen

[35:53] Sorting real clean hydrogen from a tax credit grab

[38:52] Current state of Koloma: 20 million acres and what's next

[42:04] Where Koloma needs help — policy and data

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Shannon Miller is Co-founder and President of Mainspring Energy, a company developing a new category of power generation technology called the linear generator. Mainspring’s systems generate electricity through a low-temperature, flameless chemical reaction that converts fuel directly into electrical power.

Shannon has been at this for about 15 years. She started the company on technology she developed while earning her PhD in mechanical engineering at Stanford, and took it from a lab experiment through commercial deployment to hundreds of megawatts in development and running in the field. Mainspring closed a $258 million Series F in 2025, led by General Catalyst and has raised more than $800 million to date.

In this episode of Inevitable, Shannon explains how Mainspring’s technology differs from traditional gas turbines and fuel cells, why modular and fuel-flexible generation is becoming increasingly valuable, and how the growth of data centers is reshaping energy infrastructure.

The conversation explores the urgent demand for faster power deployment, the advantages of dispatchable generation, the role of hydrogen and other future fuels, and why flexibility may become one of the most important characteristics of the future electric grid. 

Episode recorded on June 2, 2026 (Published on July 7, 2026). 

In this episode, we cover: 

(0:00) An overview of Mainspring Energy 

(1:47) What a linear generator is and how it differs from traditional ones

(3:57) Behind-the-meter power and the race for faster time-to-power 

(5:47) How Mainspring converts fuel into electricity 

(8:18) The benefits of modular power generation 

(10:34) Comparing linear generators to fuel cells 

(12:32) Where Mainspring fits into modern data center energy stacks 

(13:48) Transitioning from prime power to dispatchable grid support 

(14:42) Why fuel flexibility matters 

(15:27) Use cases for propane and hydrogen switching 

(18:57) The economics of power generation and cost competitiveness 

(20:44) Scaling from laboratory technology to commercial deployment 

(22:49) How utilities evaluate new generation technologies 

(25:00) Shannon’s vision for the future power mix

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant