Power Law with John Coogan

Haven't done any solo episodes in a while but figured I could post this interview here anyway.

Hope you enjoy the conversation, I had a great time chatting AI with them!

I wanted to know the story of Grand Theft Auto, but I got so absorbed in the history of Strauss Zelnick that I had to do an episode about him. Fascinating career, tons of lessons. Hope you enjoy it!

Deep dive into Adam D'Angelo, very interesting career from building an AI app with Zuck in high-school to being a key player in the recent OpenAI drama. Hope you enjoy it.

Everyone is obsessed with the Las Vegas Sphere, but the story of the guy who built it (James Dolan) goes way deeper. Hope you enjoy this one!

Chris Power started a company in 2020 to build automated factories. The goal is to supply parts for aerospace and defense companies more quickly and affordably. His journey touches a bunch of interesting stories around private equity and venture startups, as well as the general decline of American manufacturing capabilities. Hope you enjoy it!

Parker Conrad, one of the great comeback stories in Silicon Valley history. Everyone should study his "compound startup" idea, completely contrarian to how every other enterprise SaaS company is built these days. So many great stories in here. Excited to dive in deeper.

Mike Shebat is the hardest working man in tech right now. He grinds 12 hours per day, 6 days a week, but he works in the most boring industry imaginable: the "light industrial staffing" market. VCs love this guy because he found a massive industry and is just going to outwork the competition to build a massive company. A bunch of fun lessons from this one, hope you enjoy it!

TJ Parker sold PillPack to Amazon for a billion dollars. Now he's out and living life to the fullest. He's a great follow on Twitter and has a bunch of interesting lessons from his startup journey. Oh and he was also hunted by the FBI?!?

The full story of George Hotz, starting as a kid in New Jersey, to hacking the iPhone, getting sued by Sony, then building a self-driving car company and eventually taking on Nvidia. Incredible person, hope you enjoy.

In this episode, I delve into the journey of A.J. Piplica, CEO of Hermeus, a hypersonic airplane company. A Star Trek-inspired fascination for aerospace, nurtured during his time studying at Georgia Tech and working at NASA, guided Piplica into his first professional role at Spaceworks Engineering. It was here he got an opportunity to lead Generation Orbit (GO), a subsidiary focusing on hypersonic aircraft.

Intriguingly, the seeds of Hermeus were sown at GO, where Piplica worked closely with Glenn Case, Skyler Shuford, and Mike Smayda, the future co-founders of Hermeus. They left the secure but limiting confines of GO to embark on a daring venture — Hermeus, betting on an audacious dream with six months of self-funded effort. Their journey involved facing skepticism, refining their business pitch, and navigating through a challenging investment landscape.

Their resilience paid off when Khosla Ventures, despite early setbacks, funded them to build a prototype engine. After demonstrating their technology's capabilities, the team managed to secure significant funding during a difficult pandemic-hit period, fuelled in part by contracts from the Air Force. The funding was used to build Chimera, their first full-scale engine capable of transitioning from an afterburning turbojet to a pure ramjet.

As Hermeus continues to grow, Piplica stresses the importance of hitting regular milestones, bridging funding gaps, and maintaining operations and growth. The process, he shares, involves a steep learning curve about government contracts, building lasting relationships, and responding promptly to shifting mission requirements. The vision is clear: to develop hypersonic technology that can cover large distances quickly, operate in contested environments, and rapidly adapt to changing mission needs.