The Factory's Quote is the Product

Machine shops’ value prop has come unbundled

Shops historically offered a bundle of services to their customer around usually a single type of production process (eg laser cutting, bending, powder coating, etc). Since finding, evaluating, quoting, and scaling with a shop was very involved, customers were extremely sticky.

This is still the case for most large scale production. But the system didn’t work for everyone and a revolution has started. Small startups who just wanted to buy a 25 parts, hobbyists building project cars, and even engineers at big companies who needed parts the next day for their prototype were delayed, ignored, and overcharged by shops who could only process a few, highest priority requests at a time.

Companies serving these markets with the help of new technology have now started the irreversible unbundling of the machine shop ecosystem:

Gold Mines & Self-Terminating Business Models

The Scooby-Doo ladder magnate isn’t just a cartoon punch-line, he’s a warning label. For forty years, Silicon Valley has been trained to worship businesses that compound indefinitely: SaaS dashboards that bill monthly, network effects that snowball, and margins that expand with every extra user.

Deep-tech plays in larger markets than SaaS but by a very different rulebook. Many businesses look less like revenue compounders than process compounder [1] and the revenue you do have looks like a discovery of gold. Finding gold is rare and it’s not necessarily a given you can strike it twice.

Basic Capital's Big Idea: Bet Your Retirement on Interest Rates

I just saw a Tweet for how Basic Capital can help you 5x the size of your retirement portfolio by borrowing money.

There’s definitely a way to lose all your money.

But more importantly, Basic butchers the entire philosophy of investing for retirement.

Your Credit Score is Worth More than the Plane

The airline business is brutal. Your seat availability today depends on aircraft orders placed a decade ago. Your inventory — empty seats — expire the moment the gate closes. Everyone from the mechanics to pilots are unionized. And competitors offer virtually the same product. In 2024, every major US airline lost money flying passengers [1]. Good thing that flying planes isn’t how airlines actually make money.

Dancing with Missiles

I wrote this essay back in school after spending months interviewing veterans and poring over declassified mission logs from the squadron my grandfather flew 100+ missions with during the Vietnam War.

The Wild Weasels were the “first in, last out” volunteers who intentionally drew fire from surface-to-air missiles to protect the strike packages behind them. I’m still struck by how much their story says about courage, politics, and the uneasy art of fighting a limited war under the shadow of super-power escalation.