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Why do must nuclear energy startups fail? "I think it's actually been a mindset problem," says Valar Atomics founder Isaiah Taylor (Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors). "I was totally shocked to find that no nuclear startup had ever built a reactor and turned it on." Catch the fully... show more

Alex Konrad

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14,533 views • 5 months ago •via X (Twitter)

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Make energy cheaper, and demand shows up. Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors, Founder of Valar Atomics, on why energy is the only truly scarce resource in the universe, and why they’re betting on it.

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.Valar Atomics just made history by becoming the first startup to power an NVIDIA Blackwell with a nuclear reactor. Watch the full conversation as sarah guo joins founder and CEO Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors at the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab, home to the Ward 250 microreactor.

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Gong hit for Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors and the Valar Atomics team for becoming the first nuclear startup to ever make electricity. They did it with their Ward 250 reactor, which powered a Nvidia Spark at their San Rafeal, Utah, site yesterday.

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On episode 74 of S3, we visit Valar Atomics, the first startup in history to generate nuclear power, all while beating the July 4th deadline. In just 3 years, Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors went from pitching the idea on an Apple note to the reactor generating electricity, and now NVIDIA is betting on that same reactor to power its next AI data center.

On episode 74 of S3, we visit Valar Atomics, the first startup in history to generate nuclear power, all while beating the July 4th deadline. In just 3 years, Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors went from pitching the idea on an Apple note to the reactor generating electricity, and now NVIDIA is betting on that same reactor to power its next AI data center.

Jason Carman

31,637 views • 1 month ago

We asked Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors about the nuclear announcements today. "There hasn't been a Ford or Tesla of nuclear energy yet. "Valor Atomics intends to be that company." "If we're going to win on AI, manufacturing, or supply chain, we're going to do it with a ton of cheap energy."

We asked Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors about the nuclear announcements today. "There hasn't been a Ford or Tesla of nuclear energy yet. "Valor Atomics intends to be that company." "If we're going to win on AI, manufacturing, or supply chain, we're going to do it with a ton of cheap energy."

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23,539 views • 1 year ago

Took a fantastic tour of Valar Atomics HQ in El Segundo last week to hear the latest on their progress. Valar Atomics is announcing a massive $130M round today. Hear the latest from Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors on the factory floor here:

Took a fantastic tour of Valar Atomics HQ in El Segundo last week to hear the latest on their progress. Valar Atomics is announcing a massive $130M round today. Hear the latest from Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors on the factory floor here:

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Check out Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors of Valar Atomics explaining how we power our future, and what is holding back a new age of affordable nuclear energy. Full show with Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug & Michael Duncan is streaming now on YouTube.

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"We're building the biggest energy company on Earth." Valar Atomics CEO Isaiah Taylor discusses the startup's $1 billion funding round, its plan to scale nuclear power and why he believes nuclear is critical to winning the AI race

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"We sell energy, not nuclear reactors." - Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors, founder of Valar Atomics "The best way to use a Falcon 9 at SpaceX is to own the entire operational cadence. You sell products like kgs to orbit and Internet connectivity." "Nuclear reactors are like this as well. You build reactors on large energy campuses, then sell energy to AI data centers which need hydrogen and synthetic fuels." "If we can make a synthetic fuel that's cheaper than diesel or gasoline, we can become the energy company of the world."

"We sell energy, not nuclear reactors." - Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors, founder of Valar Atomics "The best way to use a Falcon 9 at SpaceX is to own the entire operational cadence. You sell products like kgs to orbit and Internet connectivity." "Nuclear reactors are like this as well. You build reactors on large energy campuses, then sell energy to AI data centers which need hydrogen and synthetic fuels." "If we can make a synthetic fuel that's cheaper than diesel or gasoline, we can become the energy company of the world."

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.Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors on what cheap nuclear energy actually means: "A lot of our food cost comes from the cost of synthetic nitrogen, which is essentially the cost of energy, because we use natural gas in the Haber-Bosch process to make nitrogen for our crops. And we were thinking about manufacturing and we were thinking about chemical production and what are the materials in the world going to look like when we can produce them at a fifth of the cost of today?" — Isaiah Taylor, Founder & CEO of Valar Atomics, on the Madison Malone podcast

.Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors on what cheap nuclear energy actually means: "A lot of our food cost comes from the cost of synthetic nitrogen, which is essentially the cost of energy, because we use natural gas in the Haber-Bosch process to make nitrogen for our crops. And we were thinking about manufacturing and we were thinking about chemical production and what are the materials in the world going to look like when we can produce them at a fifth of the cost of today?" — Isaiah Taylor, Founder & CEO of Valar Atomics, on the Madison Malone podcast

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Last May, Valar Atomics promised to build a nuclear reactor and bring it online by July 4, 2026. Yesterday, their reactor went online in Utah — three days before the deadline set by Trump’s executive order to accelerate advanced nuclear testing outside the national labs. The EO’s target was criticality. Founder Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors says they went further: “We didn’t just go critical. We went critical twice.” “And we went to thermal power operations and we went to electricity production.” "We really just hit it out of the park in every dimension." Valar also just announced a partnership with Nvidia to explore nuclear-powered data centers.

Last May, Valar Atomics promised to build a nuclear reactor and bring it online by July 4, 2026. Yesterday, their reactor went online in Utah — three days before the deadline set by Trump’s executive order to accelerate advanced nuclear testing outside the national labs. The EO’s target was criticality. Founder Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors says they went further: “We didn’t just go critical. We went critical twice.” “And we went to thermal power operations and we went to electricity production.” "We really just hit it out of the park in every dimension." Valar also just announced a partnership with Nvidia to explore nuclear-powered data centers.

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21,900 views • 1 month ago

.Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors is building planetary scale nuclear reactors at Valar Atomics. He dropped out of high school at 16, founded Valar at 24, raised $450M, and is building America's first nuclear gigasite. 🇺🇸 His advice for Discipulus Ventures hard tech founders: "Get to the hardware problems as soon as you can. You should be experiencing more hardware problems at a greater and greater pace over time."

.Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors is building planetary scale nuclear reactors at Valar Atomics. He dropped out of high school at 16, founded Valar at 24, raised $450M, and is building America's first nuclear gigasite. 🇺🇸 His advice for Discipulus Ventures hard tech founders: "Get to the hardware problems as soon as you can. You should be experiencing more hardware problems at a greater and greater pace over time."

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21,211 views • 4 months ago

BREAKING | The American Atomic Age: Valar Atomics, Fuse, Not Boring Isaiah Taylor (Valar Atomics), JC Btaiche (Fuse), & Packy McCormick (Not Boring) dive into how nuclear energy - fission & fusion - is at the heart of America's industrial resurgence & the race for AI dominance. Bonus: Packy covers The Great Differentiation Highlights: (00:00) The American Atomic Age (01:15) Isaiah Taylor on U.S. nuclear industry (03:34) Why modular reactors are the key to scale (06:47) China’s nuclear lead (08:32) Valar’s path to criticality & DOE testing (11:06) Foreign funding & misinformation campaigns (13:01) Nuclear myths: “It wouldn’t fill an Olympic pool” (15:29) Why Gen IV reactors are meltdown-proof (17:29) AI as a tailwind for nuclear infrastructure (19:21) Misconceptions in nuclear & energy performance (21:13) Pressure to deliver in this presidency term (22:59) The future of global energy (24:26) JC Btaiche: Building the world’s highest-power pulse system (26:41) Fuse’s strategy: revenue today, power tomorrow (28:34) Fusion’s role in reindustrialization (33:12) The AI-power constraint: “Energy = Intelligence” (35:31) Can we catch up to China in energy? (38:13) Packy McCormick on vertical integration (41:11) The Great Differentiation: Why brand matters in the age of AI This conversation is part of Sourcery’s “Made in America” Mini-Series recorded at REINDUSTRIALIZE SUMMIT 2025 Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors | JC B | Packy McCormick

Molly O’Shea

123,411 views • 1 year ago

The New Atomic Age: Inside Valar Atomics private nuclear energy effort. Full tour of the El Segundo, LA factory w/ founder Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors who just raised US$19m (and is a lovely person). Stare into the core of a small modular test reactor and hear about its ultimate industrial goal to "power the world" in this ep. + exclusive access into Valar's smoking lounge. 00:00 - Intro 01:24 - Valar Atomics tour! 06:59 - Nuclear fission history & future 10:59 - Solving safety 13:10 - Uranium supply 14:12 - Stand atop the test reactor Ward Zero 17:58 - Engineering in LA (SpaceX , Anduril Industries , Raytheon , The Boeing Company ) 19:59 - Full interview with Isaiah Taylor 21:04 - The New Atomic Age (cheaper energy, deflation) 24:12 - Regulation (Ballsy move to sue the NRC) 28:20 - Isaiah's background 28:41 - Valar's mission 30:00 - Powering AI 31:59 - Hydrocarbon solution 34:55 - US$19m seed round 35:31 - Outro BUILD BABY BUILD. Edited by Jacob Hurley

The New Atomic Age: Inside Valar Atomics private nuclear energy effort. Full tour of the El Segundo, LA factory w/ founder Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors who just raised US$19m (and is a lovely person). Stare into the core of a small modular test reactor and hear about its ultimate industrial goal to "power the world" in this ep. + exclusive access into Valar's smoking lounge. 00:00 - Intro 01:24 - Valar Atomics tour! 06:59 - Nuclear fission history & future 10:59 - Solving safety 13:10 - Uranium supply 14:12 - Stand atop the test reactor Ward Zero 17:58 - Engineering in LA (SpaceX , Anduril Industries , Raytheon , The Boeing Company ) 19:59 - Full interview with Isaiah Taylor 21:04 - The New Atomic Age (cheaper energy, deflation) 24:12 - Regulation (Ballsy move to sue the NRC) 28:20 - Isaiah's background 28:41 - Valar's mission 30:00 - Powering AI 31:59 - Hydrocarbon solution 34:55 - US$19m seed round 35:31 - Outro BUILD BABY BUILD. Edited by Jacob Hurley

Madison Malone

41,419 views • 1 year ago

Valar Atomics Founder Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors says nuclear has a fundamental advantage over natural gas for powering AI data centers because it can scale faster and isn't constrained by pipeline infrastructure. "We believe that nuclear has some fundamental scaling advantages over something like gas. The climate impact is a big part." "The other problem with gas generation is it has really backed up turbines, and it also has natural gas infrastructure that has to scale along with it. We're running out of places where you can just plop down a turbine without having to go and lay pipeline." "With uranium, you have one truckload that delivers an entire year's worth of fuel. That gives you a lot more flexibility on where you build the reactors and how big you can scale those sites. Nuclear has this fundamental advantage."

Valar Atomics Founder Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors says nuclear has a fundamental advantage over natural gas for powering AI data centers because it can scale faster and isn't constrained by pipeline infrastructure. "We believe that nuclear has some fundamental scaling advantages over something like gas. The climate impact is a big part." "The other problem with gas generation is it has really backed up turbines, and it also has natural gas infrastructure that has to scale along with it. We're running out of places where you can just plop down a turbine without having to go and lay pipeline." "With uranium, you have one truckload that delivers an entire year's worth of fuel. That gives you a lot more flexibility on where you build the reactors and how big you can scale those sites. Nuclear has this fundamental advantage."

TBPN

26,596 views • 1 month ago

My third interview with Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors, Founder of Valar Atomics. Valar just became the first startup in history to power an NVIDIA Blackwell with a nuclear reactor. 0:32 Manufacturing nuclear reactors is a SpaceX style problem 2:58 Scaling from 1 reactor to 10 4:31 Why it’s so tempting to iterate on paper instead of actually building reactors 7:37 Having contact with reality - modular shielding 10:09 Steel is cheaper than software engineers 11:09 Why the idiot index is so high in nuclear 16:02 Becoming a nuclear company 18:57 It's important not to lie to yourself 21:55 Obsessing over critical path 24:54 Nuclear reactors are relatively simple 30:35 Safety is a function of iteration speed 30:55 Why Valar had to vertically integrate 35:01 Designing a Toyota Camry vs a Ferrari 38:07 Running through 1-way doors 41:13 Pulling rabbits out of a hat 46:13 Wartime mode 48:49 Being willing to do unreasonable things 51:20 How Elon injects urgency into his companies 56:56 Relentlessly chasing the goal of making energy 10x cheaper 58:32 What’s changed over the last 3yrs 1:00:51 Designing safe nuclear reactors 1:13:05 Learning from SpaceX - optimizing for scale 1:18:07 Having a high tolerance for looking dumb 1:19:50 How Palmer Luckey handles hit pieces 1:20:55 Inevitable time 1:25:26 Predicting unknown bottlenecks 1:28:08 Scaling 1:29:45 July 4th will be a rebirth for nuclear in the United States

My third interview with Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors, Founder of Valar Atomics. Valar just became the first startup in history to power an NVIDIA Blackwell with a nuclear reactor. 0:32 Manufacturing nuclear reactors is a SpaceX style problem 2:58 Scaling from 1 reactor to 10 4:31 Why it’s so tempting to iterate on paper instead of actually building reactors 7:37 Having contact with reality - modular shielding 10:09 Steel is cheaper than software engineers 11:09 Why the idiot index is so high in nuclear 16:02 Becoming a nuclear company 18:57 It's important not to lie to yourself 21:55 Obsessing over critical path 24:54 Nuclear reactors are relatively simple 30:35 Safety is a function of iteration speed 30:55 Why Valar had to vertically integrate 35:01 Designing a Toyota Camry vs a Ferrari 38:07 Running through 1-way doors 41:13 Pulling rabbits out of a hat 46:13 Wartime mode 48:49 Being willing to do unreasonable things 51:20 How Elon injects urgency into his companies 56:56 Relentlessly chasing the goal of making energy 10x cheaper 58:32 What’s changed over the last 3yrs 1:00:51 Designing safe nuclear reactors 1:13:05 Learning from SpaceX - optimizing for scale 1:18:07 Having a high tolerance for looking dumb 1:19:50 How Palmer Luckey handles hit pieces 1:20:55 Inevitable time 1:25:26 Predicting unknown bottlenecks 1:28:08 Scaling 1:29:45 July 4th will be a rebirth for nuclear in the United States

Ti Morse

112,337 views • 1 month ago

"If somehow you wiped off America's built environment, but kept our regulatory system, and we had to rebuild America, we absolutely not could do it. We are unable to rebuild the civilization we live in today, and it's not even close." From earlier chat w/ Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors.

"If somehow you wiped off America's built environment, but kept our regulatory system, and we had to rebuild America, we absolutely not could do it. We are unable to rebuild the civilization we live in today, and it's not even close." From earlier chat w/ Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors.

Jan Sramek 🇺🇲 🌁 ⛰️

677,433 views • 11 months ago

News: Upstarts is launching our flagship podcast 🚀 Behind every world-changing business, there's an Upstart -- a founder who took on the status quo to achieve big impact 🌐 On The Upstarts Podcast, I'll chat with an up-and-coming startup leader each week about their 'Upstart Moment' and how they beat the odds 💪 You'll gain insight into transformative new technology, as well as real strategies and tactical tips for any busy builder to apply to their own work 🛠️ Early guests include: ▪️Canva CEO Melanie Perkins ▪️Valar Atomics CEO Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors ▪️Loyal CEO Celine Halioua ▪️Star Catcher CEO Andrew Rush More founders in AI, aerospace, biotech, fintech and fertility to follow! Highlights and behind-the-scenes extras will be on Upstarts Media, too :)

News: Upstarts is launching our flagship podcast 🚀 Behind every world-changing business, there's an Upstart -- a founder who took on the status quo to achieve big impact 🌐 On The Upstarts Podcast, I'll chat with an up-and-coming startup leader each week about their 'Upstart Moment' and how they beat the odds 💪 You'll gain insight into transformative new technology, as well as real strategies and tactical tips for any busy builder to apply to their own work 🛠️ Early guests include: ▪️Canva CEO Melanie Perkins ▪️Valar Atomics CEO Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors ▪️Loyal CEO Celine Halioua ▪️Star Catcher CEO Andrew Rush More founders in AI, aerospace, biotech, fintech and fertility to follow! Highlights and behind-the-scenes extras will be on Upstarts Media, too :)

Alex Konrad

33,267 views • 6 months ago