The Exchanges

Q The Salton Sea. Uh, that, that was a really cool case study. Uh, are there other kind of like, uh, Like, long-term projects that you think, uh, are kind of on the bucket list that you want to make amazing one day?

A Yeah, the Great Salt Lake is in a deficit of about 500,000 acre feet of water per year. Um, the Bear River is the primary tributary into the Great Salt Lake, and it has mountains with lots of juicy clouds from Utah to Wyoming to Idaho, all that flow into it. Um, I think that restoring the Great Salt Lake is like an American priority and a must, and even more interestingly than that, something in the distant future for Rainmaker is, um, the Winter Olympics in 2034 are going to be held in Salt Lake, and China In 2008 had this whole big show and dance where they made it rain before the parades. So it didn't end on the Olympic games. We want to show a force a decade from now to make more fresh power for all the Olympic games.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, the Great Salt Lake is in a deficit of about 500,000 acre feet”

Q acts and it gets bad and there's just all these balancing. And then also we do the mice studies, but does that really transfer? And you know, what happens when someone's like, you know, vaping pink liquid for, you know, 50 years, like we don't really know. And we're kind of figuring it out right now. Um, how, what, what gives you confidence about the, the low impact of this?

A So, you know, I, I really sympathize with people that are worried about this because it sounds on his face like crazy to be modifying the weather and to be dispersing chemicals. But, um, to your point about like vaping stuff for 50 years and not having longitudinal data on the health outcomes, like cloud seeding, even though Rainmaker is very innovative, even though a lot of new things have been done in academia that we're implementing from like the last five years, cloud seeding is 80 years old, dude. This was invented in the United States in 1945. GE has the first patent from 1946. 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 sophisticated instrumentation to even detect it in the first place. Um, and so there, there's been no negligible health impacts found to, uh, either people or agriculture or the environment. Um, and those studies, they've been done. And like, should Rainmaker replicate those? Should we continue Continue to do it just to prove it out further. Totally agree, but like, it's totally safe, and if you think about the, like, LB-fifty, like the, the lethal dose of silver iodide, it's less than salt. It's less than table salt. It's milligrams per kilogram, uh…

AI assessment note: “cloud seeding is 80 years old... studies on the concentration of silver iodide”

Q your mid twenties, like I, I, you know, anybody who's had a post go viral or sort of break containment knows what happens. Like your, your message requests on every platform are probably like, you know, very dark. Um, and, uh, you know, are you, are you, uh, you know, you, you seem like you're handling it incredibly well, but, uh, does it ever, does it ever get to you?

A That's really, that's really caring. Thanks for asking, man. Um, you know, like, I, uh, I view Rainmaker as the best means by which I can serve God in my lifetime, um, and I owe everything in my life to Jesus Christ because of all that he's done for me in this life, and then hopefully in the next. Um, so this This situation that I'm going through, ah, no big deal at all. Like, if, if it ends up on the other side with You know, ideally me having, um, gotten to educate and convince some people and bring them more water in places where they need it. I am happy to take the punches and the death threats. And, um, even if it didn't work out, uh, you know, I'm going to give it my all. And, uh, I was a high school debate kid, so I live for this kind of dorky.

AI assessment note: “This situation that I'm going through, ah, no big deal at all.”

Q the, on the right might say, you know, that's, you know, it's just wrong to be changing the weather or have some concerns there. People on the left are just, you know, maybe anti-science sometimes. Uh, how, how has it been trying to thread the needle? Obviously you're not trying to make everybody happy, but you need to get people generally bought into what you're doing to make things happen.

A Dude, water's a nonpartisan issue. Whether you want ecosystems restored, or you want more water for your farm, or you want urban development in your city, we want to bring you water. We can bring water more cost-effectively than even desalination. Um, and then when it comes to, like, the real fringe edges, uh, because everybody in the middle is bought into that mission of abundance, right, for whatever their, uh, particular issue is, um, you know, I personally believe that, like, Genesis one-twenty-six is the first Uh, commission that God gives man at the beginning of time is to steward the earth, the seas and the skies. Rainmaker is trying to embody that value set and be good stewards of the world as we take dominion over the skies. Um, and so that plays to some extent with the more tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists on the right. And when it comes to the left, some people think that like, you know, anytime you modify anything on the planet, humans always make it worse. Um, and that's just like not true. Um, but even if you believe it to be the case, Like, we've, we've messed up the planet so badly already. We might as well take deliberate action to try to repair it. Um, and so people on the far left are generally more game with that.

AI assessment note: “water's a nonpartisan issue... when it comes to, like, the real fringe edges”

Q but like, is anyone working on that? That feels important if you're really thinking about like terraforming certain parts of America, uh, and like reclaiming and just improving different biomes. Like how does that play in? Is that just a different startup? Do we need another company to build that? Is that something that you would eventually expand into? How does that all play into this, uh, like whole plan?

A Yeah. Rainmaker long-term is the terraforming company, right? We want to take, Any ecosystem and make it both symbiotically flourishing for humankind and the environment. Um, there's no companies that I know of doing reforestation, although there's a bunch of university labs that are spraying seeds from drones. Really cool, weird, clever thing where when the seed hits water, um, it unravels and sort of acts as like a little natural drill to drill the seed into the ground. That's pretty cool. I haven't seen it commercialized yet. And, um, someday I do want Rainmaker in the business of All sorts of different terraforming stuff, like planting trees, literally boiling the ocean, by the way, if you boil enough of the ocean, then you can create more clouds. Um, so we'll- You heard it here first.

AI assessment note: “there's no companies that I know of doing reforestation, although there's a bunch of university labs”

Q What are these, uh, Is there anybody besides you, uh, fighting to save, uh, you know, uh, the, the private and public, uh, just private and public groups from being able to do, uh, cloud seeding? Like, is it, is, are, are you the last man standing, uh, or do you have a team?

A So, well, I've got a great team at Rainmaker, and I'm really grateful for that. And we've got a bunch of farmers, um, that are Beneficiaries of our program go to bat for us because like they previously had to tear up their pistachio ranches or their pistachio orchards because they didn't have enough water for them, and now they're better able to farm because of the production Of water that we're, we're doing. Um, but you know that, that part where, or that like famous Stanford speech where Teal says, um, you know, you should go after a really small market. Like if there's lots of people involved and it's already too late. Well, I'm not like the last man standing. I'm kind of like the first man standing. Um, so it's other than the farmers that we're helping and the other great team members. I had a rainmaker running around the country. Um, it's, it's, uh, Augustus DeRica of the, uh, a couple States.

AI assessment note: “Well, I'm not like the last man standing. I'm kind of like the first man standing.”

Q that, the golden retriever's running outside, you're taking the horse down to the local, uh, golden retriever mode. Yeah, to the local, uh, saloon, and it just seems like, Like, it's the, it's the West, right? Again, you have new land that people can go live in, and that's just, like, a land of opportunity, and I think that'd be so cool, but, uh, yeah, what's your take on it?

A Dude, I mean, that's what the Central Valley was. The Central Valley used to be deserts and swamps, and now it is the most productive agricultural region on the planet. It produces, like, 30% of all of the fruits, and then the majority of, like, the red fruits in the United States. Um, we used to terraform all the time. Like the Hoover Dam was an attempt to terraform the West. Uh, I think that like people that, you know, like maybe it's a last man problem. Maybe it's Luddism. Um, maybe it's just like general, like, well, no, I won't say that. Um, but, uh, like we've just lost the desire to be great. I think in the United States we've lost a desire to like build the future and see the future through. Um, if I was just planting trees, Yeah, for sure. It would be easier. Um, you need the water though, so unless you're setting up enormous conveyance systems, which China largely is, and cloud seeding in addition to that, it's a non-starter. Um, there's a couple technologies, you know, I mentioned last time, like soil amendments that can get soil to retain more water, that would be good. Um, but, uh, you know, trees, they emit dust that creates like a majority of our clouds in some regions and induces precipitation. Cloud seeding Like, it mimics that natural process. It's just with the material that works a little bit better. Um, so Uh, yeah, man. Like, I, I plan to plant trees in th…

AI assessment note: “Dude, I mean, that's what the Central Valley was.”

Q kind of around you, and whenever there'd be a profile, Isaiah would be there, a couple other guys would be there, the nearest crew, the Pico grid crew, a couple other folks, Dirac, right? Uh, but is there, is there a new addition that we need an update on Gundo, or is there just like a whole separate crew that you're not even overseeing as the godfather of the Gundo?

A Dude, yeah, so the Gundo book club is a lot of these dudes, rather than being like, I don't know, 23 through 27 They're like, 19 through 23. Totally different cohort. A lot of cool companies. Teddy cohort. Durin finally made it, uh, to the Gundo from Georgia. That's really cool. Aries is sick. Um, uh, Chris, what was his last name? Ottoman. Um, yeah, he is building subsea vehicles. There's a whole new click and, uh, we're almost out of touch with us, you know, part of what made Gundo possible and like the initial vibe real possible was we were all running like pre-seed companies. So we had a lot of time on our hands and kind of just like around. And so we didn't even get to know these guys as well. Um, but they're a super tight click, like the original founding Group of gundo bros.

AI assessment note: “There's a whole new click and, uh, we're almost out of touch”

Q but yeah, like, like it feels like. We miss air in the sort of Doge era, like if we do enter a period of like deregulation in some areas, like some of these projects, you know, might be possible, but, um, yeah. How, how do you think about the salt and sea opportunity? And then just like, you know, if we're even capable of doing projects at that scale anymore.

A So, um, a related thing, um, Interestingly enough is like, I think that there should be way more alternative finance that startups employed. Um, I promise this is related. Um, I'm going to wait until Q one or Q two, 26 to do this, but, um, 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 like six grand in either of those places, uh, has the same soil quality that the central Valley does that would sell for like 70 to 500,000. Um, Like, we'll, we'll set up a subsidiary that we sell some equity in to get LPs involved so that we can terraform that and then flip the land or keep it as an agricultural asset that is only made viable because of the water that we bring. Um, it has to be a commercial interest. I don't think that we, you know, maybe America at one point had, like, maybe there's this idyllic previous America that existed. I'm not sure where people did things just for the public benefit, um, or because it was cool, Um, now, yes, it has to be cool, but moreover, like, there has to be commercial interest, and, um, yeah, I'm going to do exactly that, and I hope that somebody beats me to it for the sake of all of the benefit that'll come from it, but, um, if they don't, I'll make a lot more money because of them.

AI assessment note: “So, um, a related thing, um, Interestingly enough is like, I think that”