Weekly Dose of Optimism #128
Stargate, Operator, Unleashing American Energy and Crypto, Synthetic Eukaryotic Genome, Zipline, Contrary Tech Trends, Sacca on Ferriss
Hi friends 👋,
Happy Friday and welcome back to our 128th Weekly Dose of Optimism. It was a busy week over here at Not Boring HQ. But you know who certainly had busier weeks? Sam Altman and Donald Trump. Altman unveiled OpenAI’s leadership position in one of history’s largest projects and also released, Operator, a product that many folks believe will change how we get things done. Trump launched $TRUMP on a Friday, was inaugurated on a Tuesday, and introduced a flurry of Executive Orders throughout the rest of the week. So yeah, we had a busy week but everything is relative.
Let’s get to it.
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(1) Announcing The Stargate Project
From OpenAI
The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately. This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world.
Doesn’t get much bigger than this.
Stargate, which is a partnership between OpenAI, Oracle, Soft Bank, and MGX, plans to invest $500 billion over the next four years in US AI infrastructure. The scale of Stargate lands it in the company of other historically massive projects such as the U.S. Interstate Highway System, the Apollo Program, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative. As I said, it doesn’t get much bigger than this.
The plan is to immediately start deploying $100B and overtime up the investment into things like massive AI data centers, advanced computer and hardware capabilities, and the energy infrastructure needed to power it all. Ideally, this investment will create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.S., but if it’s successful, you’d also imagine they’ll be a wave of creative job destruction live we’ve never seen before. Stargate is pulling forward the AI revolution and ensuring that revolution happens right here on U.S. soil.
Behind all of the ambition, there’s of course some drama. Who is involved. Who was left out. OpenAI is taking operational responsibility for Stargate (and supposedly already has a Stargate team internally), while Soft Bank is taking financial responsibility (again, as a rule, never count out Masa.) Notably, xAI is not a named partner on Stargate, and Elon publicly questioned whether the money for the project existed. It’s all pretty confusing and intertwined…Elon is an ex-OpenAI co-founder, is now suing and competing against OpenAI, while Larry Ellison who is a known Elon-backer, is teaming up with OpenAI to make it all possible, and Trump is seemingly stiff-arming Elon on this deal but elevating him everywhere else. Thankfully, I think all of the gentlemen involved will be A-OK, despite some potential hurt feelings.
If you weren’t long AI before, Stargate should have you reconsidering…
(1a) Introduction to Operator & Agents
From OpenAI
Today we introduced a research preview of Operator, an agent that can go to the web to perform tasks for you.
Big week for Sam!
Yesterday afternoon, OpenAI released Operator, its computer-using agent that can perform tasks for you. Operator can handle both simple, repetitive tasks as well as more involved tasks that require web browsing and interacting with the digital interface, much like we humans do. It can fill out forms, book reservations, purchase ecommerce goods, etc, etc.
Operator is powered by the Computer-Using Agent (CUA) model, combining GPT-4o's vision and advanced reasoning. It interacts with graphical user interfaces (GUIs) in a browser, enabling it to perform tasks by “seeing” (via screenshots) and “clicking/typing” like a human. If it gets stuck on things like login, or payment details or recaptcha, it asks for user intervention.
Personally, I am pretty excited to use Operator. It’s definitely early, a bit clunky, and somewhat limited. But over time, as the models get better and the interface improves, I can imagine Operator (or its successors) becoming pretty useful in my day-to-day personal and professional life. Which will free me up to do cooler things than click around a computer screen.
(2) UNLEASHING AMERICAN ENERGY
From The White House
It is thus in the national interest to unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources. This will restore American prosperity —- including for those men and women who have been forgotten by our economy in recent years. It will also rebuild our Nation’s economic and military security, which will deliver peace through strength.
There’s been a flurry of announcements and executive orders over the first couple of days of the new Trump Administration. Some of them are really good, in our opinion. And some of them, we don’t fully agree with. Trump’s Executive Order on American Energy is fits into the first category.
The EO prioritizes domestic energy production, resource independence, and affordability by removing regulatory barriers and revoking climate-focused policies from prior administrations. A big focus of the order is to simplify and accelerate the permitting process for energy projects by reducing NEPA-related regulatory burdens.
The EO revokes Executive Order 11991 and limits NEPA by streamlining permitting processes, emphasizing efficiency and certainty, and aligning with deadlines from the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. It directs agencies to focus solely on legislated environmental requirements, avoiding ideological or non-statutory considerations.
If America is to enter its latest golden age, it’s going to need a lot of energy. This EO ensures that the path to achieving that isn’t burdened with unnecessary red tape and regulation.
More good news on the energy front: Trump said yesterday we’ll speed up electric generation buildout under emergency declaration.
We might actually get tired of winning… if it weren’t for all this extra energy!
(2b) STRENGTHENING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN DIGITAL FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY
From the White House
The digital asset industry plays a crucial role in innovation and economic development in the United States, as well as our Nation’s international leadership. It is therefore the policy of my Administration to support the responsible growth and use of digital assets, blockchain technology, and related technologies across all sectors of the economy.
Packy here. What a difference a week makes. With the presidential transition, crypto has gone from being de facto illegal to being a national priority.
The EO is pro-stablecoins and anti-Central Bank Digital Currency. It ends Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and secures crypto companies’ access to banking. It pushes for regulatory clarity, something the industry has been asking for for years. And it even calls for the evaluation of a “national crypto reserve.”
It’s just an Executive Order, but it seems incredibly sensible. Electric Capital’s Avichal Garg has a good summary here.
Energy and crypto in Week 1. Are we sure the President doesn’t read Not Boring?
(3) First Synthetic Eukaryotic Genome Completed
From Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News
Scientists at the Macquarie University in Australia worked with an international team of scientists to achieve a major milestone in synthetic biology by completing the creation of the final chromosome in the world’s first synthetic yeast genome. This achievement represents the completion of the global Sc2.0 project to create the world’s first synthetic eukaryotic genome from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker’s yeast) and a new-to-nature tRNA neochromosome.
Scientists have created the first fully synthetic eukaryotic genome using baker's yeast, marking a major milestone in synthetic biology. Using CRISPR-based genome editing, they corrected genetic flaws that hindered yeast growth under stress, like high temperatures and limited carbon sources. Practically, making the synthetic yeast more robust and resilient is essential for industrial applications, where yeast is used to produce medicines, biofuels, and sustainable materials.
At a higher level, this is a big milestone for synthetic biology. This is the first fully synthetic eukaryotic genome, showcasing our ability to design and engineer complex, functional life forms from scratch. Today yeast, but possibly tomorrow the creation of custom organisms for applications like sustainable drug production, biofuel development, and new materials.
You can just build things. And by build, I mean synthetically design and engineer. And by things, I mean baker’s yeast.
From @KellerRinaudo on X
We just made the first delivery to a customer (the Fire Dept) with Platform 2, Zipline’s next-gen automated delivery service. This will save people time and money, expand access to healthcare, reduce traffic, and transition last mile delivery to a zero-emission future
Video on X here.
We were promised flying cars, we’re not quite there yet, but at least we’re getting flying vehicles that can conveniently, affordably and safely deliver items to us.
Zipline has been at this for over decade — it’s taking on a challenge that is hard from a technical, regulatory, and cultural perspective, and it’s starting to make some headway. The vision for the company is to build a logistics network of autonomous drones to deliver both critical and non-critical items to people, no matter where they live. Think of Zipline delivering life-saving medicine to an 85 year old in rural Tennessee that would otherwise have to drive an hour to their local pharmacy. Or think of a lazy 28 year old getting Buffalo Wild Wings airdropped to them at 3:00pm ET on a playoff football Sunday. Zipline can, theoretically, do both. Go Birds.
The company completed its first delivery using its new Platform 2 delivery system. P2 is a new precise and nearly silent drone system designed for both urban and rural environments. It uses autonomous droids for doorstep deliveries and electric drones. It’s the company’s play into doing more retail and ecommerce deliveries.
Its first mission, however, was delivering supplies to firefighters taking on the LA fires. It’s more symbolic than anything. But as Zipline’s CEO posted, the company eventually plans to scale to scale to 1 million deliveries a day.
(5) Contrary Tech Trends Report 2025
Kyle Harrison and Anna-Sofia Lesiv for Contrary Research
The idea is that when people canvas for opportunities to build they look at the cutting edge of technological trends or societal trends (or both). So we put together a 300+ page report touching on each cutting edge. - Kyle
Packy here. Our friends Kyle Harrison and Anna-Sofia Lesiv put together a 300+ page research report covering a number of the technological and societal cutting edges we talk about in Not Boring, everything from energy to entertainment, relationships to commodities. It’s as information-dense a guide to the future as I’ve come across.
Kyle offered to share it with Not Boring readers first, so you can see the future just a little bit ahead of everyone else. And then you’ll keep seeing it, because I’m going to keep using the graphs they put together.
Like this one on mining, when I write about Earth AI:
Of this one on batteries when I write about Base Power Company:
Or this one on plane speeds when I write about Astro Mechanica:
There’s so much good information in there, on everything from uranium enrichment to cell therapies.
It’s not all good news — stagnating plane speeds and mining production is bad — but the good news is, there’s a lot of opportunity to make things better. The report is a great place to figure out where you want to contribute.
Ten years ago, I was a sophomore at Georgetown and didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. I remember Packy, who is 8 years older than me, basically sitting me down and saying something to the effect of: “you don’t have any excuses, there is some much information out there to learn, just start listening to podcasts, try Tim Ferriss to get started.” Since then, I’ve been pretty addicted to podcasts and I think they’ve changed the curve of my life.
One of the first episodes that really got me hooked was Chris Sacca’s first appearance on Tim Ferriss. Here was this Georgetown alumnus, who seemed like we could’ve been friends if we attended school at the same time, who had grinded his way into a career in tech and launched the best performing VC fund of all-time. It made things seem more attainable for me, and in many ways, gave me a kick in the pants I needed. As odd as it seems, I credit many of the positive things that have happened in my life over the past ten years to listening to that episode.
Anyway, Sacca was back on Tim’s pod again and did not disappoint. Go listen to it.
Thanks to HubSpot for sponsoring! We’ll be back in your inbox next Tuesday!
Thanks for reading,
Dan + Packy
Whoa! Saw the “Go Birds” on item 4 and had no idea there was a Philly connection here! Awesome!
It's good to see the direction of the Executive Orders, but this "legislation by EO" thing we've been doing for the past 15-20 years is such a massive signal of a dysfunctional legislative branch. Congress abdicates legislating → Executive branch writes overreaching EO → forces Justice to deny. If only our legislative branch could do its job!