Inevitable

Augustus Doricko is Founder and CEO at Rainmaker, a company using cloud seeding, drones, and radar to increase rain and snow as water scarcity and drought intensify across the West. In this episode of Inevitable, the conversation focuses on why cloud seeding—often misunderstood as science fiction or geoengineering—has existed for decades and why it has only recently become possible to prove it actually works.
The discussion centers on the industry’s core constraint: attribution. For years, operators couldn’t measure whether precipitation would have occurred anyway. Doricko explains how advances in dual-polarization radar and targeted flight paths now make it possible to identify human-caused snowfall, unlocking a path to scale.
Doricko also walks through Rainmaker’s vertically integrated approach, from weather-resistant drones and proprietary radar to software and validation systems, and why the company focuses on snowpack as a bankable water source. The episode also addresses public scrutiny, regulatory bans, and what it takes to build water infrastructure in a category that’s easy to misunderstand but increasingly necessary.
Episode recorded on Dec 16, 2025 (Published on Jan 20, 2026)
In this episode, we cover: 
[1:53] Cloud seeding vs geoengineering 
[3:27] How cloud seeding works and its history
[9:14] When and how it became commercially deployable 
[15:28] Advantages of using drones vs manned aircraft 
[18:34] The limits of today’s validation methods 
[24:54] Why Rainmaker focuses on snowpack first 
[27:34] Rainmaker’s go to market
[29:34] Acquiring legacy operators to scale faster
[32:40] Why Rainmaker sells services, not water
[38:25] State bans, politics, and public backlash
[40:39] Chemtrails and Texas flood controversies
[47:15] The future of cloud seeding in the US and abroad

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

Philip Johnston is co-founder and CEO of Starcloud, a company building data centers in space to solve AI's power crisis. Starcloud has already launched the first NVIDIA H100 GPU into orbit and is partnering with cloud providers like Crusoe to scale orbital computing infrastructure.
As AI demand accelerates, data centers are running into a new bottleneck: access to reliable, affordable power. Grid congestion, interconnection delays, and cooling requirements are slowing the deployment of new AI data centers, even as compute demand continues to surge. Traditional data centers face 5-10 year lead times for new power projects due to permitting, interconnection queues, and grid capacity constraints.
In this episode, Philip explains why Starcloud is building data centers in orbit, where continuous solar power is available and heat can be rejected directly into the vacuum of space. He walks through Starcloud’s first on-orbit GPU deployment, the realities of cooling and radiation in space, and how orbital data centers could relieve pressure on terrestrial power systems as AI infrastructure scales.
Episode recorded on Dec 11, 2025 (Published on Jan 13, 2026)
In this episode, we cover: 
[04:59] What Starcloud's orbital data centers look like (and how they differ from terrestrial facilities)
[06:37] How SpaceX Starship's reusable launch vehicles change space economics
[10:45] The $500/kg breakeven point for space-based solar vs. Earth 
[14:15] Why space solar panels produce 8x more energy than ground-based arrays 
[21:19] Thermal management: Cooling NVIDIA GPUs in a vacuum using radiators 
[25:57] Edge computing in orbit: Real-time inference on satellite imagery 
[29:22] The Crusoe partnership: Selling power-as-a-service in space 
[31:21] Starcloud's business model: Power, cooling, and connectivity 
[34:18] Addressing critics: What could prevent orbital data centers from working
Key Takeaways:
Starcloud launched the first NVIDIA H100 GPU into orbit in November 2024 
Space solar produces 8x more energy per square meter than terrestrial solar 
Breakeven launch cost for orbital data centers: $500/kg 
Current customers: DOD and commercial Earth observation satellites needing real-time inference 
Target: 10 gigawatts of orbital computing capacity by early 2030s

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

Kurt Terrani is CEO of Standard Nuclear, a company focused on a part of nuclear energy that gets far less attention than reactor designs but can become the true bottleneck: fuel.
In this episode, Kurt provides a nuclear fuels 101, walking through the front end of the fuel cycle from uranium processing and enrichment to fabrication. He explains in plain terms what makes TRISO fuel different, why it appears so frequently in next-generation reactor designs, and how fuel performance shapes reactor economics, safety, and scalability.
The conversation also unpacks Standard Nuclear’s origin story, which emerged from a Chapter 11 restructuring of UltraSafe Nuclear, and explores a future where reactor-agnostic fuel suppliers replace vertically integrated fuel strategies to unlock faster deployment across advanced nuclear technologies.
Episode recorded on Dec 4, 2025 (Published on Jan 6, 2026)
In this episode, we cover: 
[1:53] An overview of Standard Nuclear
[3:26] Nuclear’s history in Oak Ridge, TN
[6:07] The nuclear fuel cycle 
[8:35] US involvement and ownership in this cycle
[10:17] TRISO fuel or coated particle fuel
[17:56] Why enrichment access constrains deployment 
[21:43] Government’s role bridging fuel supply gaps
[24:03] Why reactor companies try vertical integration
[26:26] Standard Nuclear’s origin story 
[28:51] Why fuel must become a commodity
[33:42] The case for standardizing TRISO specs
[39:20] Challenges of building a fuels company

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

Aleks Gampel is COO and Co-founder at Cuby, a company rethinking how homes are built in the middle of a nationwide housing crisis. The cost of housing has soared while construction productivity has barely budged in decades, and today’s homes are still built through slow, wasteful, and carbon-intensive processes that aren’t designed for escalating climate risks. Instead of shipping prefab boxes across the country, Cuby asks what it would look like if housing finally had its assembly line moment—and the factory moved to where homes are needed. Their mobile microfactories are inflatable, rapidly deployable facilities that manufacture standardized home components on or near the job site using mostly unskilled labor, then assemble houses in a predictable, repeatable way. In this conversation, Aleks unpacks the roots of the housing shortage, why past modular attempts fell short, and how Cuby’s model could change what’s possible for housing affordability, waste reduction, and resilience.
Episode recorded on Nov 20, 2025 (Published on Dec 16, 2025)
In this episode, we cover: 
[4:40] Causes for the housing crisis today  
[8:17] Emissions associated with housing and how Cuby differs
[12:54] An overview of  industrialized construction 
[16:43] Main challenges with industrialized construction
[19:25] Cuby’s antithesis to centralized gigafactories in construction
[27:08] How Cuby’s inflatable mobile microfactory works
[30:17] Cuby’s European headquarters and China facility 
[31:57] Cuby’s single-family home design 
[33:30] The company’s business model
[37:52] Why Cuby isn’t displacing jobs 
[38:55] The company’s funding to date 
[40:15] What’s next for Cuby

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

Carrie von Muench is the COO and Co-Founder of Pacific Fusion, a company building the first pulser-driven inertial fusion system designed for net facility gain. Fusion has long promised limitless, carbon-free, dispatchable power, but only recently have breakthroughs—from ignition at the National Ignition Facility to major advances at Sandia and new high-efficiency pulse-power technology—shifted fusion from scientific aspiration to solvable engineering challenge.
The Pacific Fusion founding team came together after these 2022 milestones revealed a credible, engineering-driven path to fusion energy. Backed by a landmark $900M Series A led by General Catalyst, the company is developing a highly modular system that can be mass-manufactured using accessible materials and domestically sourced supply chains. In this episode, Carrie explains why these breakthroughs matter, how the modular pulser architecture works, why New Mexico became home for the world’s largest pulse-power facility, and how fusion could reshape global energy, industry, and security. MCJ is proud to participate in Pacific Fusion’s Series A through our venture funds. 
Episode recorded on Nov 19, 2025 (Published on Dec 9, 2025)
In this episode, we cover: 
[13:28] Pacific Fusion’s origins and founding team
[17:54] The company’s unique financing structure
[18:57] Why traditional venture models fail for fusion
[25:42] Pacific Fusion’s progress to date
[27:23] What a pulsed magnetic fusion system looks like
[29:15] The path from modular components to full-scale system
[33:20] Looking ahead at Pacific Fusion’s 2026 milestones
[35:04] Why they’re building in Albuquerque, New Mexico
[41:29] The global race with China to commercialize fusion
[46:24] The fusion supply chain
 

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at [email protected].
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Cody Simms on LinkedIn
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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant