We are really excited to launch the Oklo Medium blog. Why now?
To start, this month we launched the Oklo Aurora, and a month ago we shared that we successfully prototyped our fuel. So even though things have never been busier, now is the time to share more about what we are doing with all of you, and the Medium platform is about being as real as possible. So we think this can be a great way for our team to share directly with you on an array of topics, including technical, personal, and policy topics.
Speaking of being real, let’s say this: there are a million things that can kill a startup and yet we’ve made it this far. Among them are founder disputes, poor business structure, the wrong investors, no money, too much money, growing too fast in the wrong ways, or more often, growing too slow.
All the things that cause most startups to fail are more difficult for a company with a long time scale, such as in “hard tech” or “frontier tech.” Small problems might be able to be ignored in a “move fast and break things” startup with a couple year timeline. But small problems can compound and grow in a company that has to keep executing over a five to ten year timeline. In this space particularly, we also have to deal with an incredibly regulated space, and a body of regulations not even built for advanced fission.
We have had to be disciplined in our work and relentlessly focused on developing a sustainable culture. We are pretty thrilled to get to this point, and to get here with the partners we have. We’re not under-capitalized, we’re not over-diluted, we have strong market signals, we have excellent partners, we have solid founders, great investors, and most of all an amazing team at Oklo!
What keeps us and our team going is the dream of making advanced fission a reality. We believe this is a key element to making a positive impact on the world on a few levels.
Probably the biggest motivation is the important role that an always-on, zero-emission plant can play in the environmental crisis we see all around us. More than ever, those that apply to be a part of our team (as well as investors) cite wanting to be a part of fixing these problems as their own passion. We are made up of people who aren’t satisfied to wait around.
But many are similarly motivated to be part of the Oklo team by a humanitarian drive. We want to bring reliable, affordable, and clean energy to remote places where people face true energy poverty. Reliable energy is the foundation for a developed economy. In many places in the world they are seeing the tradeoff between clean energy and reliable energy, but that does not have to be the case. Reliable energy means lights, internet, refrigeration, among other things — essentially, education, health, and prosperity.
We are also motivated by a sheer love of fission technology and what it can enable. The type of advanced fission Oklo is employing — fast spectrum fission with metal fuel — is one of the few that has reliably and successfully demonstrated reuse of fuel. This makes the incredible energy density of fission even higher, and puts humankind on the path for making clean energy while reducing nuclear waste.
We’re excited to dive into a number of these topics on subsequent posts. If you have something in particular you’d like us to cover, or any questions for us, please send your thoughts to hello@oklo.com!
Thanks for your support. We can’t wait to make this happen, and to have you with us makes it all the more sweet!
