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Augustus Doricko

Founder & CEO, Rainmaker · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

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.

7statements → 5claims → 3claims resolved → 100%fully supported → 3.71/5average certainty → 2.57/5average debate potential → 2said about them ↓

3 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 4 assertions · 1 opinion · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Augustus argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
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.”
Augustus Doricko Aug 15, 2025 ▶ 12:01 Rainmaker’s Secret AI Plan for Superintelligent Weather | Cloud Seeding · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Augustus Doricko on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Augustus Doricko said on Sourcery that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Augustus Doricko Aug 15, 2025 ▶ 11:49 Rainmaker’s Secret AI Plan for Superintelligent Weather | Cloud Seeding · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Assertion Not checkable as stated
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.”
Augustus Doricko Aug 15, 2025 ▶ 12:52 Rainmaker’s Secret AI Plan for Superintelligent Weather | Cloud Seeding · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Assertion Supported
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.”
Augustus Doricko Aug 15, 2025 ▶ 12:01 Rainmaker’s Secret AI Plan for Superintelligent Weather | Cloud Seeding · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Disclosure
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.”
Augustus Doricko Aug 15, 2025 ▶ 16:26 Rainmaker’s Secret AI Plan for Superintelligent Weather | Cloud Seeding · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Opinion
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.”
Augustus Doricko Aug 15, 2025 ▶ 36:07 Rainmaker’s Secret AI Plan for Superintelligent Weather | Cloud Seeding · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Prediction Held up
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.”
Augustus Doricko Aug 15, 2025 ▶ 46:40 Rainmaker’s Secret AI Plan for Superintelligent Weather | Cloud Seeding · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Assertion Supported
Doricko: US Government Attempted Hurricane Mitigation Under Project Stormfury
“With Project Storm Fury, the United States Weather Bureau in conjunction with the Air Force was flying out into the Atlantic to attempt to mitigate the severity of hurricanes. They did so back in the, what, seventies, sixties, seventies.”
Augustus Doricko Aug 15, 2025 ▶ 20:14 Rainmaker’s Secret AI Plan for Superintelligent Weather | Cloud Seeding · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea

The other half of the tape: Augustus Doricko's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes on Sourcery. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Packy McCormick 1Danielle Strachman 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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0122025episodes it came up in
000.51122025episodesmentions per episode
2025 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Rainmaker’s Secret AI Plan for Superintelligent Weather | Cloud Seeding · Sourcery with Mo Aug 15, 2025 21m
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