Augustus Doricko
Founder & CEO, Rainmaker. On 2 shows, 6 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutive@ADoricko ↗LinkedIn ↗rainmaker.com ↗
Augustus Doricko is a Thiel Fellow who dropped out of UC Berkeley to found Rainmaker, a startup deploying drones and radar systems for cloud seeding to combat water scarcity. He gained widespread national media coverage following public debates surrounding cloud-seeding operations during the 2025 Texas floods.
2shows
6appearances
52statements
22resolved
12supported
5contradicted
55%fully supported
39said about them ↓ Everything Augustus Doricko said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
DiRico: Rainmaker and cloud seeding had no connection to Texas floods
“Rainmaker and cloud seeding had nothing to do with the flooding that unfolded”
DiRico: Marjorie Taylor Greene's weather modification bills lack scientific credibility
“I think it would be both disrespectful to the families involved and baseless and without any technical or scientific credibility if that legislation were to go through”
DiRico: Tropical Storm Barry would have caused Texas flooding regardless
“Tropical Storm Barry, the remnants of which blew into Texas, was going to cause inordinate flooding regardless.”
DiRico: Rainmaker suspended Texas cloud seeding over two days before floods
“It was over two days prior that Rainmaker had suspended all of its cloud seeding operations in Texas, because one, our forecasters and our meteorologists saw that there was going to be this severe weather event, and we needn't operate to produce more water whe…”
Doricko: Rainmaker's Elijah is NATO's only severe icing-capable drone
“The Elijah is the only drone in all of NATO that can fly in severe icing conditions.”
Doricko: China leads the US in cloud seeding engineered nanoparticles
“The Chinese Meteorological Administration, also through these sort of proxies that exist in the Middle East have developed much, much more sophisticated engineered nanoparticles than any United States operation has.”
DiRico: Rainmaker suspended Texas operations two days before flooding occurred
“It was over two days prior that Rainmaker had suspended all of its cloud seeding operations in Texas because, one, our forecasters and our meteorologists saw that there was going to be this severe weather event, and we needn't operate to produce more water whe…”
DiRico: Rainmaker's July 2 flight released 70g silver iodide and 500g salt
“On July second, we conducted 1:19 minute cloud seeding flight where we released about 70 grams of silver iodide and 500 grams of salt, table salt. That was released at about 1600 feet above ground level into two clouds that dissipated over the course of two ho…”
DiRico: Rainmaker flew a single 19-minute seeding mission on July 2
“On July second, we conducted 1:19 minute cloud seeding flight where we released about 70 grams of silver iodide and 500 grams of salt, table salt. That was released at about 1600 feet above ground level into two clouds that dissipated over the course of two ho…”
DiRico: Lack of federal weather oversight invites unaccountable foreign operations
“If we don't have access to weather modification technology, If we don't regulate this at a federal level and ensure that there's accountability and attribution for these activities, then other people, other nation states could be conducting weather mod in the …”
Doricko: Cloud seeding is the only way to supply water to Arizona
“Like you need it to come from either the mountains in Flagstaff or the Colorado River. And the only way to get it, there's cloud seeding.”
Doricko: 29 US States Have Proposed Legislation Banning Weather Modification
“The state of the union is 29 states this year have proposed legislation to carte blanche all weather modification and atmospheric engineering.”
Doricko: Banning Cloud Seeding Is Like Banning Rocketry or Fission
“I think that if you ban five seating, you're basically banning like rocketry or fission.”
Doricko: Decades of studies show no health impacts from cloud seeding silver iodide
“People have done 80 or 30 or 50 years, depending on the watershed, studies on the concentration of silver iodide that ends up in the water and the soil. And after decades of operation, you only see parts per trillion of this stuff. Like, you need super sophist…”
Doricko: Silver iodide is less toxic by lethal dose than table salt
“If you think about the, like, LB-fifty, like the lethal dose of silver iodide, it's less than salt. It's less than table salt. It's milligrams per kilogram with salt, and then it's 2800 for silver iodide. So this is like a resoundingly safe material to be usin…”
Doricko: No reliable data shows cloud seeding causes downwind drought
“The evidence of downwind drought is totally uncompelling. Nobody's provided reliable data there”
Doricko: Rainmaker will launch a land fund in 2026 to terraform desert
“I'm going to wait until Q one or Q two, 26 to do this, but we're just going to stand up a land fund and we're just going to start buying up the land that currently isn't arable, primarily in Arizona and California, because the same acre of land that's worth li…”
Doricko: Rainmaker supplies water more cheaply than desalination
“We can bring water more cost-effectively than even desalination.”
Doricko: China uses Wing Loong II military drones for cloud seeding
“China is retrofitting the equivalent of their MQ-Nine Reaper. So like our most advanced military drones, The equivalent of that in China, the Wing Long II they're using for cloud seeding missions.”
Doricko: Rainmaker Received Threats From People Mistaking Cloud Seeding for Chemtrails
“Some people that were misinformed about what cloud seeding is, that believed it to be chemtrails made threats against. Me, my company, et cetera.”
Doricko: True AGI may be impossible because AI lacks a soul
“If anything, I'm a slow takeoff guy. I don't even know if you can really get AGI. You can get something that resembles it maybe more and more, but it's not in sold. So it won't quite have a human thing, which is important.”
Doricko: UFC Will Host a Fight at the White House by July 2026
“I think that's also free money. I think that we live in clown world and there will be a UFC fight there.”
DiRico: China increased annual weather modification budget to $1.4B in 2025
“China recently, I think on the last time I was on TBPN, I talked about how they had a three hundred million dollar annual budget for their weather modification program. That as of 20, 25 has been up to 1.4 billion dollars.”
DiRico: China is deploying 100,000 cloud-seeding generators in Tibet
“But in building, ah, a 100,000 of these ground generators, and also using the Wing Long II and a bunch of their other military drones for aerial cloud seeding they're turning Tibet into, ah, a reservoir, a snowpack reservoir of unprecedented scale that will fe…”
The other half of the tape: Augustus Doricko's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 39 times in 11 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most John Coogan 31Jordi Hays 5Packy McCormick 1Danielle Strachman 1
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
TBPN 37
Sourcery 2
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- every mention in 2025, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Augustus's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TBPNLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Rainmaker | 5 | 45 | 47% 9/19 | full record on TBPN → |
| SOURCERYLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Rainmaker | 1 | 7 | 100% 3/3 | full record on Sourcery → |