Ren Tech

1.

Materials & Manufacturing

Material science has been advancing at a breathtaking rate. Novel composites mix and match materials with new and useful properties. Combining new materials with better tools and manufacturing methods enables rapid prototyping, complexed geometry for parts, and scale.

With Ren Tech, by investing in technology that already existed before our time, we get to make logic shortcuts: Hmm...so, in 1910 the margins made sense for materials and labor? Great. We can probably do it today with materials and technology that are orders of magnitude better and at a fraction of the cost!

2.

Capital Availability

Typically, when people say “that idea is crazy”, they usually just mean expensive. Access to capital has increased by many orders of magnitude since the inception of the Venture Capital financing method. Venture Capital has enabled the proliferation of ideas at an accelerated rate, and for 50 years has demonstrated repeatedly that it is the best financial catalyst for innovation. ~1% of assets are invested into Venture Capital, yet this is responsible for 70% of the market cap of NASDAQ. In addition to improved capital access, macro economic trends make it easier to attempt certain ideas.

3.

Business Practices

One of the greatest innovations of Silicon Valley is how to run a business. Over the past few decades operational business doctrine, legal innovations (SAFE Notes, etc), and the never ending SaaS software stack have made it easier than ever to start and run almost any kind of business. The ease of starting and running a company enables founders to focus more on what really matters, innovating.

4.

Public Perception

Introducing a conceptualized but truly novel technology to the world can sometimes be scary to the public. I have found there is a sweet spot for making an idea familiar enough, to get people to buy into the concept. Humans often need to tether novel concepts to ideas they already understand to accept something as plausible, or to trust it. Science fiction as a genre does much of the heavy lifting of educating the population on new ideas. For technologies that actually existed in years past like Airships; enough time needs to pass for the public to forget outrage & fear. The widely circulated video footage of the Hindenburg disaster was the first moving image news reel that many people ever set eyes on. This single disaster soured public perception of the technology stagnating further Airship development.

5.

Regulation

Regulation spurred by public outrage often results in the implementation of onerous rulesets that stifle innovative pursuits, and in some cases may prevent further deployment of an existing technology entirely. The nuclear industry in the United States is a perfect example of this. Strict regulation by the NRC & DoE combined with public opinion has resulted in obstinate costs for new nuclear power plants. Contrast the U.S. with France, a nation that derives 70% of it’s power from nuclear reactors is able to store all of their nuclear waste in a 20,000 square foot room because of modern reactor design. Nearly a century after nuclear fission was discovered, a recent wave of startups (TerraPower, X-energy, and Kairos Power) have set out to combat our energy crisis with an improved version IV reactor design. In 2022 Congress ordered the NRC to write new rules that replace a regulatory framework that was originally developed in the 1950’s. When these new rules are expected to be implemented in 2025, nuclear power can once again make up a larger % of the U.S. power grid.

Engelbart’s presentation is still considered one of the most significant events in the history of computing and is today known as the “Mother of All Demos”. His demonstration included the use of a computer mouse, graphical user interfaces, windows, hypertext, video conferencing, and more, meaning users wouldn’t need to spend hours interacting with computers through command lines.

Even within the startup and venture capital ecosystem—supposedly a haven for deep thought, technology, and contrarian ideas—people often forget that Silicon Valley’s namesake has origins with actual silicon chipsets. The innovations that Engelbart showcased at the end of 1968 were possible because in 1947 the transistor replaced the vacuum tube (originally using germanium rather than silicon) and in the late 1950s integrated circuitry allowed size reduction and mass production of microprocessor technology.

Apple, one of the most successful companies in history, is a Ren Tech company. In 1984, Steve Jobs unveiled the Macintosh computer, with many of the features originally theorized and debuted by Engelbart. Steve Jobs set out to implement and expand on Engelbart’s ideas over the first 30 years of the company’s history. Taking computers out of the laboratory, into our home, and then our pockets.