About the Episode

Topics:

(00:00:00) – Intro

(00:03:13) – Catching up

(00:13:14) – Making Earth (even more) Habitable by Controlling Weather

(00:26:54) – Doug Burgum: Next Secretary of the Dept. of the Interior

(00:31:30) – Building Rainmaker

(00:44:19) – Are we short on clean water in America today?

(00:50:37) – Drones, precipitation, cloud seeding, and the future

Links:

Rainmaker

Augustus on X

Augustus’ Thread on Doug Burgum

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Here’s what we explored in the episode:

• Inspired by projects like China’s Green Wall, Rainmaker aims to terraform deserts into lush, habitable landscapes.
• Water scarcity can be solved by creating more water rather than just conserving to stay in the existing limits. 
• There are already severely water-constrained communities and farms, especially in the American west and Southwest. 
• Rainmaker’s cloud seeding program uses custom drones, radar, and safe, common chemical compounds. 
• Cloud-seeding is decades-old tech. The breakthrough was a new radar to precisely measure the effectiveness of cloud-seeding efforts. 
• China has more than 40,000 working on weather modification projects. The U.S. can catch up by supporting private sector innovation.
• Rainmaker is actively recruiting passionate engineers ready to work on cutting-edge tech.
• Being close to the frontier of innovation naturally drives the creation of new technologies and opportunities. Lots of examples inside Rainmaker. 
• A commission in the book of Genesis in the Bible to steward the garden and take care of God’s creation is an intrinsic part of Rainmaker’s purpose.

Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship

There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. – Naval Ravikant

You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important.  

Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start.