Julia DeWahl of Antares on building nuclear reactors for the US military
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Show Notes
Julia DeWahl is the cofounder of Antares, a company developing nuclear micro-reactors for the US military and critical infrastructure. She sits down with John to discuss the vision for the "Starlink of electricity", and why AI hyperscalers are driving a nuclear renaissance. They cover the bipartisan shift in nuclear regulation (and why the NRC’s old mandate made "zero" the safest number of reactors), and why true energy resilience requires more than just solar and batteries. Julia also shares lessons from the early days of Opendoor and Starlink, including why customer obsession sometimes means sitting outside a bagel shop.
Timestamps
(00:00) Lessons from SpaceX and Opendoor
(02:46) Introducing Antares
(06:30) The path to market
(12:20) Nuclear vibe shift
(15:11) Regulation
(19:21) Possible energy futures
(24:02) Stripe Radar
(24:55) Nuclear supply chains
(26:43) Antares origin story
(30:24) Funding Antares
(36:09) If Julia was energy tsar
(42:33) Restarting shuttered plants