Inside the Future of American Manufacturing [Startup Documentary]
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- Опубликовано: 20 фев 2024
- Hope you enjoy this deep dive into one of the companies I'm fortunate to work with at Founders Fund. I've gotten to know Chris over the past few years and loved hearing his story and understanding how he built such a big facility so quickly. If you want to go deeper into his story, I recorded a podcast episode you can listen to here: www.powerlaw.fm/episodes/chri...
I'm not personally an investor in Hadrian, but I do work at Founders Fund, which invested in the company before I joined.
Listen to my podcast: www.powerlaw.fm/
Enter your email here: johncoogan.com
ABOUT JOHN COOGAN:
I am the co-founder of soylent.com and lucy.co, both of which were funded by Y Combinator (Summer 2012 and Winter 2018).
I've been an entrepreneur for the last decade across multiple companies. I've done a lot of work in Silicon Valley, so that's mostly what I talk about. I've raised over 10 rounds of venture capital totaling over $100m in funding.
I work mostly in tech-enabled consumer packaged goods, meaning I use software to make the best products possible
CONTACT:
You can get in touch with me via Twitter: / johncoogan
Disclaimer: This video is purely my opinion and should not be regarded as a primary source. I am not a financial advisor and this is not a recommendation to buy or sell securities. Always do your own due diligence. 
Наука
Hey everyone! Took a few weeks off to work on some new videos that will be dropping over the next few weeks. I met Chris a few years ago and have been enjoying getting to know him more through my work at Founders Fund. Hope you enjoy the video, if you want to go deeper, I recorded a podcast with more context that you can listen to here: www.powerlaw.fm/episodes/chris-power-is-building-automated-factories-at-hadrian
Welcome back
13 years ago when I was in school for mech eng I spent a summer working at a medium sized aerospace parts supplier that heavily relied on CNC stations. During those months I learned that the craft in manufacturing these highly complex, highly valued and precise parts was closer to art than engineering because there was just so much of the undocumented know-hows that are critical to quality only resided inside of the brains of the folks who have been doing it for 20, 30 even 40 years. Many of them didn't even want to answer my 'stupid questions', let alone teaching me anything. I knew the gap in the market for automation existed but the knowledge transfer seemed like an impossible task especially with my lack of knowledge AI and machine learning at that time.
The story of Hadrian genuinely excites me. I will follow these guys and root for them. Turning art into science is always exciting.
Aerospace tech here with almost 2 decade of experience in the business, and I have had 25 year old engineers laugh at me when I said it’s more of an art due to the subtleties inherent to building high quality parts Based on the video, I think their greatest strength is that the younger engineers want to learn how to build things.
Australian guy somehow convinced a bunch of insanely intelligent dudes to work for him. How'd he do that? What a super power.
Money from an investment fund would be my guess.
His super power is his ability to think different
There is something that he is not telling us. It's just like when Elon Musk pretended to come from a normal, non-wealthy background.
Guys like him are not smarter or harder working or better than the rest of us in some way. They come from backgrounds that give them unfair advantages that have nothing to do with their capabilities. Elon Musk showed us that billionaires are really not geniuses.
@@eitkoml Say what you want about intellect, but they are certainly harder working.
Otherwise, you're free to go try it out yourself. And Musk never pretended to be working or middle class, he made it very apparent in a journalist interview that his father was wealthy.
@@user-nm9qd6bo6h They're not harder working. They do things like count time spent commuting, flying in private jets, playing golf, and drinking as time spent working. That's how they justify their false claims that they work 100 hour weeks.
Elon Musk made the false claim that he did not accept any of his dad's emerald mine money to start his first company. His dad then said that he did fun Elon's first company and Elon couldn't have done it without the family money. His dad also had to send people over to save Elon from driving the company into the ground.
I also don't have the wealth to work for free or the connections to get funding. Jeff Bezos had $300,000 given to him by his family to start Amazon. Mark Zuckerberg had $100,000 given to him by his family to start Facebook. The story is repeated over and over again.
“We can bet on America because we’re Americans, will figure it out”. It warms my heart that an Australian immigrant can come to America, see a problem and build a solution. It demonstrates the best of what America can be and that anyone can be an American
I feel the same
I am abroad ( french west indies ) SWE those type of videos and very engineering with big impact ( things that can only happen in the USA ) give me the energy to be like "Why not going to the USA?"
Very cool company. But I wonder why he wants to do it "for the American empire", instead of Australia or elsewhere...
Good question @@timblanche4153
@@timblanche4153 it'd be way easier in USA than in AUS
good to see young people in America getting into manufacturing.
"We can bet on America because we're Americans and we'll figure it out." Based.
Great doc as always John, I loved the amount of people from Hadrian you interviewed for this. American manufacuring will get back to greatness.
I'm 36. I always believed my generation and the ones to follow had some insanely resourceful, intelligent and capable people. It just took time for them to get the experience and connections to start to be able to realize their ideas and dreams. This company is an excellent example of the type of thinking and innovation that's going to propel us into the future. The founder has a keen mind for not only business but geopolitical issues as well. He's definitely the type of person you want on your team lol. I am willing to put money down that these guys end up blowing up huge. The ability for them to actualize super complex parts in a timely manor is priceless for the future of defense. Things change and the process for how we do things evolve as well. Automation is the future and people can still keep the art of doing it by hand alive for craft purposes and nostalgia if they wish. When it comes to the future of manufacturing, especially defense manufacturing, automation and software are going to have to be the future.
Great video, thank you for sharing. I often have the impression that many companies would benefit from the "building the machine that builds the machine" focus philosophy also outside the car and manufacturing industries.
100% - it's a really important philosophy
Great video John. My favorite so far. Loved the timeline.
I like it when you do documentaries on businesses
I'm extremely familiar with the industry and work in it, and I completely agree with the initial analysis that a bunch of the aerospace and defense supply chain is held up by aging machine shops. But then the result seems like they're recreating something similar to a Protolabs or Xometry. Don't get me wrong, I love a well run fabrication house, but maybe I'm just missing the bigger picture.
The two companies you mentioned seem to create parts that don't require the precision, sophistication, what have you, that Hadrian is going after by building for aerospace and defense. Do you see it differently?
@@jeremytopper9 Yeah I typically don't use Protolabs for anything more precise than +/- .005" tolerances. So there's some market share there.. but there is also still a lot of competition.
Also they don't seem to do other fabrication methods like welding, sheet metal, etc. It looks like it's 100% Aluminum milling at the moment. Which is a pretty small segment of the market.
I'm sure they'll grow their offerings over time and outsource the fabrication and surface finishing work as needed.. but I guess what I'm getting at is that when I was first watching, I was just thinking it was going to be something other than a well-run CNC shop.
But I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, I'm still rooting for them. And I'll probably send some work their way when they start expanding their offering more.
@@matts9728thanks for your industry knowledge and experience as a buyer from shops like that. Given that so much knowledge from the industry is in the process of disappearing with the baby boomers retiring, isn't the core thesis solid: that they can better capture the expert knowledge in code and make it possible for non-expert workers to turn out more precision manufacturing faster. Then they can scale that to 50 gigafactories if that scale is warranted and ensure that there are low cost high precision fabrication services all across America and the world. That seems like a fundamentally bigger vision than the shops you described but perhaps I am missing something.
Good to see people up to speed on the Theory of Constraints, and pointing software skills at it.
Very impressive startup, so far they have produced a very good CNC machining company. It remains to be seen if their approach is significantly better than other high end CNC shops. They collect machining data with off the shelf equipment, that many shops use, how they incorporate that data in their software is the key. They said they put machines on the software and not apply software to machines that everyone else does, it will be interesting how this unfolds.
great doc! always big fan of the content this channel puts out ❤
Love your content John you never disappoint ❤
Thanks for dropping
I really admire this type of risk taking.
As a founder bootstrapping a tech company this story is very inspiring.
Very interesting man and company. Hoping they grow super well
Missed your content , John
Means a lot!
@@JohnCooganPlusI was honestly thinking are you ok wherever you are cus it had been sometime I saw an upload and boom check my phone and there is the notification. It’s good to be back although you never left
Great documentary, you didn’t obnoxiously bud in to share your thoughts you just let the interviewees speak and share what they know. Perfect.
Very well done. Incredible.
This is what I call an inspiring story! More content with Chris, more interviews with him 🫡🫡
This is great!
I am 12 minutes into the video and only now am I starting to get an idea of what it is about. 6 times I thought about stoping to watch it because I just did not know what you were building up to. Is this just me or should you have put some kind of summary in the beginning?
not just you, don't worry, this company doesn't bring anything new to the tabel.
I disagree. I found the lead up compelling.
@@joythought can you be specific? What is it that you think is new?
I would love to see his pitch deck, it's easy to see the value of being more efficient and introducing automation into precision machining workflow. I guess what I'm interested in is how is this going to make money for the investors.
Great Content !!!
this is some good recruitment content
Great video, love the channel! Thanks for your interesting stories!
Chris is going to be a generational influence, and likely globally so.
Well done, John.
This looks just like a reasonably advanced CNC shop - by Asian standards. Since they’re supplying aerospace space parts which can’t be outsourced they might have an edge nationally but by world class manufacturing standards this looks ordinary. Maybe there is something that I’m missing?
This is even regular by American standards, I'm also failing to see where any valuable addition is that's being made by this company. Maybe he's just talking up investors that aren't familiar with the current state of automation?
I would agree. Looks and feels similar to Theranos using Siemens machines for blood testing 😂
Looks to me like he is trying to take production back to the US and compete with costs by eliminating the need to hire too many workers.
High automation, high adaptability, low employment costs. . .
YES this thread is exactly what my thoughts were, theranos and this isn't too irregular. Seems people outside manufacturing are clueless to the automation inside. AI Managment is where the leaps will be made.@@EastG123
just a puff piece to make Americans feel good while their empire crumbles....
So how is this company different from Protolabs?
Amazing guy
Banger, e/acc baby!
This guy rocks… also I love the idea of hiring who’s former was Home Depot rather than FAANG 😂
amazing
So first nuclear power is THE solution to the lunar solar constraints. See micro modular reactors. Second the thing regarding landing within 500 miles of a base bc regolith sandblasting everything around is accurate but exaggerated and easily mitigated by the fact that all structures will naturally need to be buried under 3 meters of regolith to protect them from the ambient radiation which is sufficient protection from the sandblasting effect. This was a great video of John and is much appreciated. Glad they're doing this.
I’d love to tour when I’m LA next month
As EE I work for a well-known market leader multinational company. that's pretty much what I do on a daily basis, analyze and improve the automation process of our manufacturing process.
But do you work in a hoodie?
But is your organisation on track to scale up to multiple localtions and 200x your fabrication output? That's why VCs are investing.
great profile! learnt a lot about stuff outside hadrian like the 500 mile rule on the moon. nuts. also havent heard monash pronounced like that :-)
Yes as someone who has been on the Monash campus a bunch of times thst pronunciation was a first. 😂
Hey John, really nice video! I was wondering if i can help you edit your videos and also make highly engaging shorts out of them.
That was so based! It really shows how great capital allocators founders have to be
I'm amazed they did this in LA and not literally anywhere in Texas. Dude started on Hardcore difficulty😂
there's actually a ton of interesting manufacturing stuff happening in LA / El Segundo area right now.
LA has always been a hub for manufacturing. Historically pioneering in manufacturing this is just another chapter in its history.
It's prolly easier to get investors in LA
@@MateusChristopherTexas triangle has strong vc connections and lots of capital looking for dealflow so that's probably not the driver. The likely answer is that LA is close to the valley and that's where he had his connections.
What is the difference between them and xometry/ protolabs?
Been in automation for almost 2 decades, didn’t see anything new here. Quote software could get you quote wit a step file in 5 seconds and generate G code. So what did he create?
Something you wish you did but now you are just a fan aka a hater
@@davidgonzalez5690 wish i did what? this is just a machine jobshop... i do automation machines, these type are our suppliers...
Xometry has a similar front end and some of their vendors have similar manufacturing capacity
I agree, nothing seems to be particularly novel. But they do have a nice clean machine shop. The CNC oil hasn't coated every surface in the entire building yet.
The only thing new is analyzing the tooling for wear. At least I have never heard of it.
19:57 I love that the miniature of this guy is with the headset(headphone) . Legendary . I laught so hard. Ok.. that being said. Let's continue looking that exciting company... I already went to their job.lever page.
Talk that book , oh yeah
Did you put Chris's company name in the description?
11:22 what the fuck is gardening leave??
As an Indian, I proudly acknowledge that the United States, a superpower, has played a pivotal role in technological innovation. While 30% of Earth’s surface is land and 70% is water, the entire airspace seems to belong to the USA. The current technologies we utilize are merely the tip of the iceberg; the USA possesses countless unimagined advancements. These innovations have significantly contributed to the progress of humanity. We aspire to revive the USA’s historical legacy of robust manufacturing, exceptional quality, and unwavering strength. Throughout history, the USA has shattered barriers and achieved the seemingly impossible. 🌟🇺🇸
Tethering ring space elevator is essential.
Soon they will probably add Overhead vehicles like what the semiconductor manufacturing industry uses to take each product to the next tooling step.
I worked at a machine shop and this guy is right. American labor is expensive and this is what we need to do to compete. His tirade about the "world order" is a bit stupid though imo
Why tho? China is competing aggressively and the fate of all free people is at stake...
@@kanishkchaturvedi1745 China is a failing state and poses no threat to the US
The future of your kids and kids around the world depend on that. So...
Isnt this just a machine shop but without the machinists?
Welcome to the future of industrial production.
More automation less workers.
Seems like the only new thing this guy brings to the table is an ability to pitch building a regular machine shop to VC funds..
TY! I fail to see the usp as well. The fact this dude was able to raise dough through private equity is really sus…
This guy could be Palmer Luckey’s brother. Love that we have these two dudes on America’s side.
They guy touched my heart... We still have people who believe kn God's grace... You will go far
Killer boots maaaaaan
Yo dug...
"I heard you like factories,
So i made you a factory inside a factory
which inherits from a abstract factory
so it can create new factories
But enough about programming in Java..."
Interesting startup but i didn't get what makes them special when you compare them to Protolabs for example
Protolabs doesn’t do high precision parts.
If Hadrian can scale 200x and lower fabrication cost then more manufacturing in America.
How about a link to hadrian? I see nothing...
whats the song at the start ?
How did Chris managed to secure private equity, what did he offer in return?
your mother....
@@lazynow1 yours more likely.
@@Ardeus WoW, of that the comes back that is the most cleaver you could think of, try better next time slug guts for brains, how do you like them apples..
@@lazynow1 as clever as as ya ass.
@@Ardeus ahhhh.....your little feelings are hurt....ahhhhhh.....do you need a little safe place........
So what is the difference to Xometry or the likes?
Didn’t Mazak in Japan have fully automated factories back in 70s?
There has to be something I'm missing about the moondust thing. If the Chinese can't be permitted to land anywhere near an American moon base because the engine will kick up a bunch of dust that will damage it, then I don't see how the Americans will be able to land near their own base either. It's not like the dust cares whose lander it is. Which would mean you have to build the entire thing all in one go, because if you try to do it piece by piece then every new delivery of materiel and personnel will break the stuff you've already built.
Remarkable story
He didn’t come from the stereotypical ivy league , ex-FAANG background and just managed to figure things out with straight hustle
That’s wild that he raised capital from PE investors and started a mini Search Fund by just cold calling 🤔
Chris is GOATED
19:49 - Does anyone know where such shoes / boots can be bought?
You can look into motorcycle/adv boots, you can see the reinforced part for protecting the boot from being worn from the shifter.
Im convinced this guy just played Satisfactory once instead and was like "why cant everything be like this" lol
Sooo. It's a regular aerospace job shop with in house software development. Instead of outsourcing that to SAP or Siemens or something. I'm really not seeing anything new here besides a lot of investment money right off the bat.
A manufacturing supplier that’s also a software company is a very unusual thing
A startup does not always have to be a new technology. Uber simply joined software and taxis together, Stripe sped up bank transfers, and airbnb combined short-term property rental with software. All these and many more startups dont actually make new technologies. They streamline a pre-existing process with software, like this company is doing.
for manufacturing biz it’s all about capability, quality, speed, and cost. if any company can strap all 4 aspects down in their own domain, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. if software can help to yield the maximum output, it’s like F1 race car capable of nimble maneuvering on the track of production instead of full autonomy production line like a fast freight train hurling down the road incapable of making tight adjustment. The industry they serving for based on their approach sounds like a good idea. 🎉
Yeah I'm kind of curious how they're different from Protolabs. The idea of sending a model out and getting an automated quote is not new. Same thing with loading the block and letting the machine run overnight. Proto has been doing both for years.
Ja there are some companies close by that have already min 80% automation. Fastems or erowa are big
i love the smell of lathe cnc cutting oil the smell fresh tar been laid and a coffee & smoke 1st up in the morning ha! the smell of gun powder fireworks
He quacks like a duck. He must be a tech bro.
Fantastic example, I feel proud leading company in Poland focused in IT/AI for manufacturers having over 50% of team with manufacturing experience.
Guy seems to have the right disposition.
I’m glad he’s getting so much money to help America invent machine shops
This video gives zero clues what actually is Hadrian doing. I know machine shops all around the world from small to giant corporate ones (Siemens etc) - I couldn't spot or hear anything in this video that would make Hadrian stand out. This video is pretty much unfortunately useless for anyone. It's just some life story and some blablabla. Protolabs is still actually the only entity that visibly actually does things on a very different level than others. Talk is cheap, show something or be forgotten.
I don’t know much, but to me it sounded like
1) common sense.
2) not elitist
3) solving problems in pairs of software+machinist
4) “20% of the work to get 80% done”
5) demographic shift: sector is retiring
6) identified dynamic of software shopping resulting in pretty dashboards and little automation
7) tool heads scanned as representation of degradation in software
8) “machine shop with 4 software companies and 1 robotics company”[characterization]
Everything seems realistic and not promising outlandish developments.
The guy struggled.
Sounds like the opposite of Elisabeth Holmes.
If I wasn’t a student and someone with money, I probably would bet on him.
😮
Based
David Brent :)
Hello everyone
I am very interested to see how much grant money Hadrian has received. Where can I find this information?
send him an email
Why do all of their leadership team say 'like', like 3 times a sentence.
They're tech bros from California
To make then seem more... likeable? ;)
thanks for the video, glad you are moving forward. I have some products I'm developing that may fit into your field.
how did he just land up in SF without a visa?
Is it required to make your voice go up at the end of every sentence to work here?
❤❤we make aluminum parts. We have Casthouse in lynwood and then send it to ur presses in two cities . We make aluminum products for windows, frames, we have die. Automated. Well, I have to get back o work. Frank Downey California
Golly gee, so ginning up wild investments has no part in it! Huh.
I hope i am not over-stepping, this interview would be more impactful if you covered the economic background/environment of the founder and business rather than the singular views/narrative of the founder.
Anyone else surprised John was THAT tall? lol
Tesla is the future of American Manufacturing
The future will be amazing when corporate America doesn't even need to have human workers with rights and a salary... I just wonder who will buy any products when those times become a reality and more than half of the current population have no work...?
Hmm maybe I'll teach manufacturing
What kind of manufacturing!
Narrative vids are good, like you mostly do, downvote for uploading a vid made with a *friend"
This is better than Joe
This is simply a fluff piece for a standard machine shop but with younger people
how do you propose we generate interest and motivate young people to build parts needed to run the world?
@@bradwuzhere the new effort to get young people into the submarine issue is an example.
Love the idea of this because I think this is the long over due future of manufacturing and bringing it back to the U.S. However, I hate to be cynical but I’ve become very wary of these large scale innovations that attract big money in a relatively short period of time. We seem to be living in the era of pump and dump startups on a scale that’s never been seen before. WeWork, Theranos, Sun Edison, Nikola, FTX…..and on and on and on. Billions of dollars poured into these huge operations with a proverbial who’s who in finance, politics and celebrity only to find the most rudimentary due diligence hadn’t been followed and in some cases down right neglected. All ideas with plausible, scalable and intelligent concepts and dynamic, intelligent speaking charismatic founders. I believe this concept is very much needed but how does anyone know it has any staying power in this transient climate of dynamic startups? All new startups should undergo the strictest scrutiny and any entrepreneur with conviction in there product not only should welcome it but hire a third party system to audit it and check all the boxes that were conspicuously missing from the aforementioned failures.
yikes
if he looks like an elon, sounds like an elon, is it actually an elon?
Oh look, it’s young Elon Musk
if you can get this accent right, you a billionaire instant for a decade or two also you can reach Saturn in 2 months
I’m glad he’s taking the lead however, if he thinks China will be the only competition he is way off. See India, see Russia…see Europe..China will evolve and while I can appreciate the numbers I think building so that we have the ability is way more important. Getting to the moon even with all the tech of today is extremely hard. But doing what he is doing is a big deal..it’s needed.