#275 Jay Yu - Nano Nuclear Technology and the Future of American Energy

Project Hail Mary is an extraordinary cinematic experience. You're a great scientist, Dr. Grace. The world is counting on you. Storm Ryan Gosling. So I met an alien. Two worlds. One impossible mission. We're going to save the stars. Project Hail Mary. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Seed 1st March 14th and 15th in cinemas everywhere March 19th. J.U. Welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me. So blessed to be here. Yeah. So yeah, we met at Rob Luna's event. What about, I guess that was about a month or two ago. It we were doing some speaking event there. And he's been telling me, Rob's a good friend of mine. He's been telling me about you for a long time. Because I've been interviewing a lot of nuclear guys. He's like, you have to check this dude out. And so here you are. And I'm pumped, I'm pumped, man, to interview you. So very, very happy to be here. And I think my story will be different than many of your other guys. Not military background, but I would say a different background. But still being savvy and from the streets, I would say, is a key to kind of unlocking this different path I took, I would say. Yeah, I love stories like this. People that came from basically nothing or at least close to nothing. And really made something for themselves. Whether that's financially or through business or military career or whatever. It's just, there's so many people out there victimizing themselves today. That it's important to me to show people that like, hey, you don't, you don't have to come from money to make money. You don't have to be a superstar athlete to be a bad ass. You can make shit happen. No, that's kind of my thesis like growing up too. I was never, I would say, sad for myself. Like I would see some of my friends who lived in really nice neighborhoods and I would go to public school with them. And I'll literally be jealous and I'll see everything. But I was never sad like I lived in a forced story walk up on the last floor. And in a tenement building in New York, like when you see West Side Story, the fire scapes. That's what I grew up in. And it was a small three bedroom apartment with four kids there and my parents. My mom was a seamstress. My dad was a carpenter. He actually made French doors, which was pretty cool. But he would get up by every month at 6 a.m. in the morning, take the train up to the Bronx and then he'll make these beautiful French doors. And then my mom would go to the sweatshop essentially. So I am a sweatshop baby. And what that means is she would literally bring me with her because we couldn't afford daycare. And basically she would throw me in this cardboard box with, and this is not a typical carpe, but it's like a massive carpe box that's probably been transported from China. And they throw all these kids in there like a play pen. So literally it will be thrown in there. And we're all like hang out. And you know some of these kids don't even speak English probably. So I don't even remember. I just remember being thrown in there and like I'm playing with some random kids. But I think what it built in me was I recognize, I would say business to, so my mom would make five cents a zipper, you know for like what I'm wearing right now for some pants. And I remember watching her one day and she was going really slow with the sewing machine, buzzing, like moving it. And then these other ladies, the sides were like blasting. But I guess she was more scared. She was more, I would say safe. And I think that is almost a foreshadowing of my future where I wasn't safe. I was a risk taker. I'm a guy who goes all in. And she, so I asked her that question. I said like mom, why are you going so slow and the others are going so fast? And they're like, oh, the others are making a lot of money. I'm not making as much money. So I was like, why don't you make more money? And this is when I'm like three years old. And so I've recognized that at an early age, like certain things like that may be planted a seed in me for the future. So I recognize that, I would say. At an early age. I can't wait to dig in a little bit more. Before we do though, let me give you everybody gets an introduction here. Okay. Okay. J.U. founder, executive chairman and president of Nano Nuclear Energy, executive chairman and president of list technologies, the only US origin in patented technology for laser, uranium enrichment. Started your career as an analyst at Deutsche Bank on Wall Street, advocate for advanced nuclear energy and American innovation. Under your leadership, Nano Nuclear Energy reached over three billion market capitalization and value raised over 600 million to date, one billion of future financing structured. And became Wall Street's Cinderella story of 2024 is the number one top IPO performer. That's fucking insane, dude. Congratulations. You have a degree in psychology and you've said, I'm not supposed to be here. That's right. So we're going to talk about your live story, get into all things nuclear. But polymarket posted something pretty relevant to what we're talking about here recently. So polymarket says that there is only a 4% chance that the US grants a license for new nuclear, for a new nuclear reactor in 2025. Do you think it's possible that it happens in 2026? There's so many, I would say, developments happening that could possibly happen. So 4% I would say it's kind of low. I would probably push it towards 20%, but the larger reactors that are being brought back, there's a chance that happens where, but for a new company, I would say, not in the field where we're at, which is microreactors, but for maybe some of these larger ones out there that I'm not aware of. So you think there's a 20% chance that they'll approve it by the end of 2025 or 26? 26, no, 25. I mean, it's pretty much done. It's already done. But 26, there is a chance just because the current administration is being so proactive, and they're advocating, and even the Secretary of Energy is saying, under this administration, there will be a nuclear renaissance. So I feel like there's so much momentum in this space, and seeing some new nuclear reactor being granted, whether it's an old one that's being brought back and given to some new player, or I don't think any larger new ones will come online, but maybe an existing one that will be given to a new player potentially. Gotcha. Yeah. Gotcha. Do you know how many reactors are we have there, non that aren't working right now? I mean, I don't know exactly to that, but there's currently about 94 civil nuclear reactors in the US, and they bring more back online, I would say. So it might be at 95, 96 soon, but that was the last number I researched. Right on. Yeah. Right on. Well, a couple things to knock out here real quick. Everybody gets a gift on the show. Okay. So you make nuclear reactors. I make gummy bears. So it's a lot gummy bears. Good deal. Yeah, I love gummy bears. And then I got a Patreon account. It's a subscription account. And they're the reason that I get to be here with you today. Right. So one of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask every guest a question. And this is from a former Navy Nuke guy, Steven Casey. I'm a former US Navy nuclear power operator of eight years. What is the realistic risk associated with large-scale SMR use? We had two years of intensive training before operating a reactor. Nearly all nuclear accidents have been from a lack of training, slash disregarding safety protocols, which would seem to accelerate with wide scale SMR distribution. Recall Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and SL1 in Idaho, a US Army reactor experiment, all of which melted down based on failure to follow proper procedures. Is this level of training for an SMR going to be sufficient to prevent an accident? Yes, it will be. And also, we have to look at the technologies here. The technologies for small reactors and microreactors, many of them are not using liquid coolants, like the big civil reactors, like what Chernobyl and Fukushima, what happened there. So these reactors, the new nuclear technologies, they use fuel like triso, which we use at Nanonuclear, where it's coated with essentially tank armor. And it passively cools, it could never explode. So training will be in a different type of level, I would say. But the safety profile is totally different. For example, we're building our Chronos MMR on the campus of the University of Illinois. And literally across the reactor is dorm rooms. Wow, so to answer this question, is it a totally different ballgame here? I would say with new nuclear technologies with microreactors. This is called a Gen 4, or the walkaway safe reactors. I would call it. Okay, that's good to know. All right, Jay, so let's get into your life story. We got into it a little bit about where you grew up. I think we got to about three years old. Yeah, sure. So I'll take you to step back. So my parents are from a farm in southern China by Hong Kong. So in that tropical weather, basically I came here when I was one year old. So I don't even remember anything about China. I grew up on the Upper West Side of New York. Why did they come here? They came here for a better life. China is not the China back then. I remember my dad saying to me, when he was extremely poor, he would just eat rice and salt. Having chicken would be like, looks a luxury delicacy. It was really bad back then, I would say. But the China now, when he goes back, he wants to live there. Because he speaks the language over here. He never really took on English. He knows enough to get by, but because New York City, you could live in a cultural bubble. So there's Chinatown. Right? My parents literally would just go shop in Chinatown, pick up the food, see doctors there, do all their living day-to-day living there, buying things, medicine, pharmacies, and then just bring it back to the Upper West Side. So that culture didn't have to change for them. And New York has that with the Latino community, with other cultures as well. You could live in a cultural bubble. So my parents really never learned full-on English, even though they've been here, like 40-something years. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So your dad would go back to China today, you think? Oh, he's been back. He loves it there. Recently, though, he's been diagnosed with early stage dementia. So he's kind of rehabbing here and figuring things out. But yeah, he wants to live in China. He just loves it. It's in a whole new world. You go to some of these cities. They're more, I would say, technology savvy than the US. Like, everything is at a fingertip. Everything, no one carries cash anymore. It's happening here, obviously, because... What do you think about that? A lot of people are worried about a cashless society, social credit score, all that kind of shit. That's all going on over there. Well, then you add in crypto. This whole digital renaissance, too, is happening. That hard asset that cash you would transact with merchants are fading. Right? Everyone taps now. China's been tapping for a while. No one carries cash anymore. He loves it out there just because certain areas, he's lived in certain villages. It's cheap. So he could live like a king out there. Where in Manhattan, it's so expensive. With inflation, where out there, it's controlled, I would say. What do you think about that? Damn, what's... Want to go live in? I mean, he's been traveling out there. He'll ask me for some money. He's like, hey, son. Like, I'm having a good time out here. And you know what? When I look back at his life, too, he was top of his class in high school. And then when his teachers all said, hey, what college are you going to? He said, I'm not going to college. My mom said I have to work. So he picked up a trade, which was carpentry. So he's always been a studious person. Like, every single day I see him reading the paper, reading books. And I felt bad for him growing up because I know his potential would have been tremendous. He could have been a scholar. But because of his circumstances, he had to pick up a trade. And now that he goes back, he feels amazing. Like, he could be someone. I would say. So I support him on that because, you know, he put in the work to raise me. And I never had a close relationship with him. I think because of the cultural difference. And my, I would say, Chinese is basically kindergarten level. So I could never argue with my parents. It's like, stop. Or like, I'm hungry. You know, like, I could never really get into it with them. So that is fucking wild, man. So I, so I could talk about the foods I like and things. But I could never get deep, like emotionally connected with my parents. And I think that is the issue with me being Americanized. It's just I lack that, like, understanding of their history. They would tell me certain things. And I understood, you know, parts of it. But I never understood the whole picture, I would say. If you spend any time hunting, you already know venison is one of the cleanest proteins you can eat. It's lean, it's high in protein, and it's loaded with iron and B vitamins. No feedlots, no confinement. None of the stuff that comes with mass-produced beef. But the access deer on Maui are in a different category of their own. Different animal, different environment, different diet. And you can taste it. It's cleaner, milder, far less gamey, and nutritionally impressive. Really unique meat. The problem is, you can't just go out and get it. 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Go to MauiNewyVenison.com slash S-R-S right now. So, are you, would you consider yourself close with your parents? No, of course, I'm close with my mom and my dad, but you know, I just don't, because I have to operate so many companies and my time, I try to visit him, like currently he's in the hospital, my dad, of course, for the re-having from dementia, and also he heard himself recently. So he is getting older, so I'm trying to visit him more, spend more time with him. And he really enjoys my time when I see him. I think he'll ask me for money, and I'm like, why? Why? You're in the hospital, but I think he's giving it to the nurses. Maybe he's like, yes, scrub my balls or something. I don't know, right? Who knows? Who knows what's happening? And I'm like, why do you need money? And he's like, just give me one. And then I think his early dementia is kicking in, he'll say to me, every time I'm going, he's like, are we going to have a barbecue tomorrow? And I'm like, yeah, like, what do you want? You want some sweet sour pork? Like you know, like, you want some barbecue chicken? Like, so I just play along with some of this stuff, he says. And you know, I'm just adding to the fun. Yeah, yeah. I'm making him happy. I just, all I care about is just making the guy happy. That's cool, man. That's cool. So how do I mean, so how did you grow up in the Bronx? No, I grew up on the Upper West Side. Yeah, he worked in the Bronx. So I grew up on the Upper West Side. There's a movie out there called Little Menhan. And it's about a kid who grows up pretty much in the one mile radius of men. That's like my life. So I grew up on the Upper West Side. I would say a few avenues away is Central Park. You know, it's close to synagogue. And then I grew up with a lot of Latinos. So early on, they would teach me curse words. So I'll learn all these curse words. And we'll be at like the park or playing basketball or even manhunt in the museum of natural history. That's a pretty cool situation. Stick ball on the street, right? So I grew up like that typical inner city kid life. But it got me in trouble. Like those words they taught me in Spanish, I would regurgitate it to other Spanish kids. And they're like, and I got into many fights because I remember one time I said, something about your mother is dead. All right, it translated to something like that. And the guy was like, my mom is dead. And then I was like, fuck. And then he waited for me to jump me with like 10 other kids. So literally I grew up like that inner city life. And I think it built a lot of character in me. But yeah, I would never trade it. Now, like I really enjoy living and growing up in manhunt. And a lot of people, how do you grow up in manhunt? It's crazy. They are residential pockets of it, you know, like the Upper West Side, where it is more residential. There's not like skyscrapers everywhere. Right? Yeah. I've always wondered what childhood would be like in manhunt. It's, you can't have any guns. Every, that's why I don't live there. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it's just like in a whole other world than me. I grew up out in the woods. So, yeah. But, um, so were you, were you into entrepreneurship business? Is it a young age? Yeah, I think, you know, living in manhunt, you have that social, economic kind of separation, right? You see just, just moving over one block, there's million dollar homes, right? Condos, brownstones. And you move to avenues away, it's tenement buildings, walk-ups, no elevators. You know, and I call it railroad apartments, where it's a long narrow hall, and it's like, there's your kitchen, there's your bathroom, there's your first bedroom, and then it leads into another small bedroom. So, the discrepancy is always there. And this is why I think there's a new mayor, right? Because he's saying, hey, I'm going to try to fix that discrepancy with the rich and the poor and give more of that medium sense to people where they could have a better life, right? So, I grew up in that type of situation where I see kids having all this, you know, like luxuries, and they could eat certain things, and I couldn't, and now what asked my parents, like, why can't I do that? But I realized that look, you know, we just didn't have it financially, right? Yeah, yeah. What, um, go down a little rabbit hole, I mean, you live in Manhattan, right? Yes. What is the sentiment about M. Donnie, you know? Um, I think, I see a lot of people excited, I also see a lot of people pissed. So, I think initially there's that Matt Rush situation with anything that happens that's new, and, you know, in the New York Post, I was reading, you know, a ton of people are buying houses in Connecticut because they're trying to get out now, especially the, the, the, um, the ultra-high net worth, they're just trying to move out because of the increased taxes, right? God, if you add one, two percent, that makes a huge difference to some of these larger whales, I would call them. So, this is frenzy of buying houses kind of in the surrounding tries state area, um, and getting away from that. But at the same time, you know, I was in that world, right? Like, I was in the world where my parents didn't have much money. So, I recognize why people voted for him, right? So, people with, let's say where I'm at now, they're, I see why also, they want to run away, you know, because they think, this is me too much, too much liberal things going on. Like, even the police already, um, I mean, it's, it's been, it's been well known that they don't have enough power anymore. Like, people aren't scared of the police, right? When I grow up, we're, we're, who's terrified. Like, you're smoking a joint somewhere on the corner, you're like, oh my god, oh my god, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna, then, then not only that, your parents, you come from immigrant parents, they're gonna whip your ass, you know? Like, my mom, my dad will, you were probably growing up, right when Giuliani and, yeah, sorry Eric, we're coming in the city up, right? Yeah, actually, I remember Giuliani when he was, um, when he was getting, like, advocating for votes, he was out on a subway stop. I came out and he's like handing out, like, vote for me. No, no, I remember, I was, I was, I was, I was, I think I was in high school, like, for something, but I remember all of that, too. Um, you know, yeah, when that all happened, you know, New York was a different place. I remember, you know, I think, I think Bloomberg started that, like, stop in frisk, the situation, and then, you know, and then he went back when, I think he ran for President recently, and he was like, oh, that was wrong with me. But, is it wrong? Like, you know, does it make New York safer? You just have to think about this stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you think? I mean, are you excited? Are these in there? You got to, I mean, I'm always indifferent about things. I mean, I don't like the fact that there's, there will be higher taxes potentially, but, you know, like I said, I've been on both sides. So, you know, I'm indifferent. I have to see what he accomplishes. Gotcha. Like, I can't really rush the judgment right now. Yeah, I'll say. Yeah. Good boy to be. Yeah. All right. Well, let's keep going with your childhood. Sure. Yeah. So, you know, grew up on the upper west side, went to junior high school, Columbus Academy, which was 10 blocks away. Then went to high school, called high school for environmental studies. So maybe once again, there's some type of foreshadowing there. And that was a mile away, right? And after graduating, I felt like, you know what? I'm just going to work and go to school. That's what many, I would say, New Yorkers through, they go to school and work at the same. So they commute, right? They're not, they're not going away to, you know, some universities and taking out massive loans. Like, I rather stay put, work at the same time, go to a city college where it's not that expensive. There's government subsidies. So that's what I did. But I took a long route. I started at one college, Baruch. Wasn't ready for college. So I left. And also, I think I just felt too poor in life. So I ended up working three part-time jobs. So, three jobs. And then I realized I need that paper. I need that diploma. So, I sucked it up. I actually ended up in community college. And you weren't like a phenomenal student or anything? Not book smart at all. I really hated school. I mean, I graduated with a C-Average in psychology. And the reason why I pick psychology is the easiest subject. So I literally wanted to just get the fuck out. Literally. A C-Average? C-Average. I was like, let me get the fuck out. But let me get out, right? And I graduated and I was like, that's all I need. That piece of paper, because that's not going to determine my future. I'm going to determine my future. And during that time, I would say, this is when I call it the matrix happened for me. And the matrix, to me, is being able to figure things out and getting to where you want to get to. But doing it in a different angle, I would say like a loophole. You could call it. So I was going to school at City College in Harlem of New York and getting my C-Average degree up. I was working full-time at Columbia University, which is an Ivy League. So once again, that discrepancy there. What I realized when I was working at Columbia is value creation. So value creation, to me, is what can you do for that employer or that company to keep you or to keep promoting you? Right? So what I did at Columbia is they had this archaic financial system there. Like multiple systems, accounts payable, receivable, etc. And I learned every single financial system. And so when Columbia restructured their departments, they put a business manager in each one. And I was about 21 years old, didn't finish college yet. So I didn't even have my bachelor's degree, but I created value for them because I knew all their systems and how to operate that. So when they were restructuring, I apply for that. But the requirements was a bachelor's degree with three years of experience. Didn't have that, but I created value because I had, I learned all their archaic systems. So they gave me a chance. They gave me the job. And my assistant actually had her master's degree. Are you serious? Yes. So she was fucking pissed at me. She was like, who's this fucking young Asian kid? Is my boss now? And but I became the business manager of the history department. And I see you have a ton of history, a hero of things. So I admire that. And because I created value. And then what came with that is I get to take classes for free in Ivy League. So I'm like, hold, wait, you're telling me I could be a Ivy Leager, even though I'm getting a C minus average up in city college of New York and Harlem, right? There's only a couple stops away. So it was close by. And then at that point, you know, I was in charge of I think a dozen people in the in the history department. They all reported to a 21 year old kid, but because I created value. And I knew all their archaic systems. And I helped the professors with their financial reporting as well. Because they all get these massive grants, right? And I was able to, you know, like put them together, report it properly and then also help help with their travels and etc. expenses. So that part created value. And then the next part is what I realized too is at CUNY's or city colleges in New York, you get the tier two, three jobs, right? You get different companies recruiting these students from the tier two, tier three companies. Tier one companies go to the Ivy Leagues. And there, and then I said to myself, I need to become a student. The only reason, so I could get into the job database. So that's what I did. And this is where the matrix happened for me. I was able to convince the dean to let me in that I'm going to take, this is after I graduated. I just graduated with my psychology degree C minus average. He was like, you got to see minus average. Like, I can't let you in here. And I'm like, look, I just want to take a few classes. It's not a big deal. And then I got recommendations from the professors I worked for. So they all wrote me recommendations. So the dean's like, fine. So I started becoming a student. Obviously, I'm going to fail. Like, I didn't care, right? I cared about the job, the tier one jobs in there. And guess where that job came from Deutsche Bank, which is an investment bank. I sixty Wall Street in Manhattan. So I said, okay, I'm going to apply for all these investment banking jobs. I would literally make it to the top three of each one, but I had no experience. Right? And then at Deutsche Bank, the managing director, I literally said to him, look, I'm going to work harder than anybody out there on the trading floor. I work full time. I went to school full time. So hard work was nothing new to me. And I'm going to bust my ass and I'll learn everything. It's a job. You know, I'm going to do it every day. I'm going to get really good at it. I'll stay last here. You know, and he basically was like, I like it. And, you know, I graduated later. I was probably like 24. So most people graduate, what, 21, 22? I was 24. So it's a bit older, but more life lessons, I would say, and work experience than just coming out of college. When you talk about the matrix, what can you be a little more specific? Yeah. So the matrix to me is figuring things out, but doing it in a way where it's reachable. Right. Like for me to get that job on Wall Street, what happened to me is I grew up in Manhattan. So I said, where, where do you make money? Where, where's all the money coming from Wall Street? So how do I get there? Right. You figure out the goal and reverse engineer how to get there. Exactly. Okay. You just have to figure out how to get there, but doing it in a way where it's actually doable, right? Like the way I've done it. And this is why I say I shouldn't be here just because I figure things out. And I had friends too, for example, this was a slick thing on resumes. They'll put like they were, they went to school four years, but they never graduated. But the employer thinks you graduated. So they, but they could have gone part time for four years, right? So they'll submit their resume and a lot of these banks at the time, I mean, maybe back then, I don't know about now, but they wouldn't even check. I think they're HR departments. Oh, they have four years at this college. All right. Let me see. He has his degree. They'll let him in and they and some of my friends would get jobs too on Wall Street because they put four years. No, shit. Yeah. I didn't do that. I did it differently, but I got my C minus average. So they didn't graduate, but I did, you know. So yeah, I was there from up till 2009. This is when the big bank meltdown happened and the financial crisis. I mean, I think city bank was a dollar share. You know, everyone was was losing money. And it was every session. So I left. I saw my bonuses and my pay pretty much vanish. So I had to reinvent myself. How did you do that? So in 2009, laugh, I saved up some money and essentially, you know, started investing into startups and into yeah, into startups and seeing how these startups over time were being built. And I think that's where I learned how to build a company. What kind of startups were you interested in? For example, it'll be very diversified. I didn't know what I was doing, right? So I would just put small amounts of money like 10 grand, 20 grand into certain things. But the real experience I learned from that was, you know, when you lose, you don't lose the lesson. So many startups fail. Let's let's admit that. But mainly what what I realize is the egos of the founders. Also the capabilities of the egos of the founders. What do you mean by that? When I say that is founders when they raise a certain amount of money, their heads get big. They get their 50 minutes of fame and they think, oh, I made it. But to me, that's just the first step. You got to keep going. But many of these founders that I've invested in, they had the egos. They didn't have egos before, but once they got money, it changed them. And they became bad operators. They weren't genuine with what they actually say they're going to do. Right? So I think that that is one of the issues I've seen on how many of these startups fail is the egos of the founders or the executives. They won't listen anymore. They don't care about their shareholders, what they say. They're just going to do whatever they want to do. And some of them even commit fraud. Some of them buy cars from themselves, do things. I mean, this is how it works. Right? Like if your intentions aren't good from inception, it's never going to be good. What else do you look for the founders? I look for integrity. Their story too is important about their life, I would say. It's not even about track record. It's more about their integrity and what they've gone through, like myself. And who surrounds them too? Talking to some of their other executives, if they're like buddy buddies, and they don't really care how you feel in the future, like you could sense these things. And this is where I guess I have a good knack for that. I have a good knack with meeting someone in the first five minutes. I could tell who they are. I mean, I could tell from their voice. You know when you meet people and you sense like they're fake, I could sense that. And I lose interest really fast with people like that. But you could sense these things. You could ask certain questions. And you know, you've been part of some agencies that interrogate things. Right? So the subtle type of things, like, oh, oh, you said that you raised a hundred grand and you put 50. But now I realized you didn't put that money in. So you know, these little clues, like you, you, you'll, you'll just talk to them over dinner or a drink. And they'll, they'll, they won't connect. Right? These certain little lines they say to you in the beginning won't connect the second or third time you meet them. Yeah, so founders is integrity, egos, right? You got to stay humble, even if you raise a lot of money or do things. And I think that's why I've been successful is because I say what I'm going to do and also I'm a genuine person. I'm probably a guy where if we do a handshake deal, I'll honor that deal. Right? Like that, there's very few people I think in this world that would do that. These days, like everyone cares about themselves. Yeah. And I care more about the longer term than the short term. Like a long play. Yes. I'm in it for the long haul. Nice. And this is where also, you know, transitioning into nano, we could, we could talk about that. If you want. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, talk about that. I mean, so the number one IP of 2024, yes. Yeah, and I'll tell you a little bit about that too. So, you know, let's, I don't blame a lot of the people who bet against nano because if you look at it from their perspective, you have this big Asian guy from New York City, public school kid, never took a company public like from inception. And I don't know where he's building nuclear reactors, impossible. So, you know, what happened is a ton of hedge funds bet against us. And they said, no way this is happening. And but they don't understand my history. They don't understand I came from nothing. So I have nothing to lose. Right? Like, I have something to prove. I have a legacy to build my CEO who I recruited. He went to the top boarding school in the UK. He was poor. How did he get there? He wrote his own essay to get it. His IQ was off the charts. He's a nuclear physicist engineer worked in nuclear subs, ministered defense, worked at Rolls Royce. So he has everything. But they bet against us because they like, this is not possible. These guys are going to do this. But they don't understand that we worked till 4 a.m. in the morning. While they're, they're all asleep, I would say. We're grinding. We're, we're, we're, we're cut from the same cloth. We're going to battle. We're warriors, right? And they underestimated nano. And I think what happened is they bet against us. And you know, our stock ran. And I, I think we were up like six, seven hundred percent. We were the number one IPO performer in America. And it we shocked the world. And and not only that, like, all these institutional guys, money, banks, they start looking at us. They're different. They're like, wait, the people joining them. And the things they're doing, there's something here because why would these former US national leaders be joining J and James, right? And how's this possible? Like, how are these generals joining these guys? Like, who are they? It's because when I meet them, I could do a handshake and I honor my work. And I've delivered. So that, that is kind of what I'm built about. And even my CEO, when I recruited him, he was, he told me I was crazy. He said, you know, I changed countries and industries. And you, you're bringing me back into nuclear. He's like, there's no money in nuclear. And I said, no, I think, you know, there's a certain area in nuclear micro reactors, which is categorized as 20 megawatts or less. There's no commercial micro reactor in the world. So if we able to jump in, we can make some noise there. And you know, what I realized about nuclear physicists and engineers is they're almost like doctors where if there's a dying person in front of them, they're going to help them. But their curiosity of building something is what drives them. So he naturally said, okay, I'll take the sleep of faith with you. And ever since then, he's like, thank you. You know, like, you changed my life. And you were right. I didn't see something that you saw. But what I saw at the time is I saw solar and wind, especially many stocks. They were tapering off. They were already really high. Governments, subsidies have boosted them. And, you know, all these countries that were talking about net zero goals by 2035, 2040. How are you going to get there without nuclear? That was my thesis. I was like, I don't get how all these countries are going to reach these net zero goals and is and decarbonize their countries without nuclear. And then this is where kind of the aha moment when I brought in my number two, we said, this is where we're going to focus on. And then I could tell you what happened next. We've all seen it. The Department of War is operating in a world that's changing faster than ever. That's why so many guests on my show talk about the importance of continued innovation and technology in the military. But here's the problem. Working with the Department of War can be complex. For many companies, the process isn't always transparent. 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No, I was just by myself. I was able to... What else is really good at is picking trends in the future. So one trend I was very heavily involved was cannabis. The rise of cannabis. In New York City every corner has a cannabis store now. But back then everything is illegal. What happened here was in Canada, there was a tremendous amount of companies that were going public up in Canada. I invested in many of those companies that were pre-IPO or private companies. So I had that knack, I would say, of predicting that as well. And then in the meantime, I was investing into other companies' biotechs. But once again, many of them failed. But the ones that I picked, like the sector focused ones, many of them were succeed. Not all of them, but many of them were succeed. And then, for example, gold. When gold was 900 and ounce, I actually liked the price of gold at that time. Now we reached over 4000 and ounce. But I remember I was in London and I was with a hedge fund buddy of mine. And we were in the richest area of London, which is called Mephire. And I was like, I really like it. But I'm tired of writing a check to these companies and not knowing. And then the executives can't execute an operate. So I was able to convince him to to put a structure a deal together. He was able to find an asset up in Canada. We raised company, raised money, and took it public. And it was called Mephire Gold. So I think right now, it's still worth 300 something million. We've raised over 100 something million. And there's been a tremendous amount of interest now in that. So I've always had a knack for picking, I would say, sectors. But when I turned 40, and this whole nuclear thing, like I had this feeling about nuclear, I said, you know what? I'm tired of writing checks to people. I'm going to invest in myself. And when I used to go with some of these company executives to, they call it non-deal road shows or deal road shows, meaning they're raising capital or they're marketing their company. I was never impressed by these guys. I would go and they'll raise all this money. And I'm like, that's it. This is what I'm up against. And I said, I'm going to build, I think I could build the company better than these guys. And my thesis was right. But it takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of human capital connection. Like for instance, let's go back to Nano. I looked up which universities in the world are top in nuclear engineering. And I flew to UC Berkeley and I met with the chair of the department at his favorite cafe on campus. And I said, you know, I want to build a microreactor. And I'll pay you for it. But you know, you just have to believe in me and join me. And I was able to sell him on this idea. And because he's so, like I said, nuclear engineers are so inquisitive, they're like, okay, we'll see. We'll see what you could do. Right. So I was able to bring the chair of that department on. Then I said, okay, with my capital markets background, I said, you know, you see a lot of these biotech companies, they have one drug. And if they don't make it to the FDA approval, it tanks the whole company. So I wanted to diversify or hedge myself. So I went to Cambridge in the UK and I met the chair of that department. And I said, hey, I want to build a microreactor. I want to hire you two different designs, which will be hedged in case something happens one or the other doesn't succeed. Right. So we put world class technical teams together. And then I was able to raise the seed capital from the former sea level executives of UPS, the largest transportation company in the world. And I said, look, we want to make nuclear scalable, transportable, and they said, we know transport. But they knew nothing about nuclear. So what what they did is they went to Morgan Stanley and they talked to their energy desks and they said to Morgan, tell us everything about nuclear, small nuclear. What do you like about it? And they basically helped us. They they said, you know, we're bullish on nuclear. We see great things for coming as small nuclear is rising. There's there's a lot of buzz about it. So I was able to now get my seat money to pay these these world class technical guys to start designing and structuring and developing the microreactor designs. Right. So that's how I was able to get these world class people. But once again, it took a lot of my, I would say human capital convincing. And I think these days, what I did, people are copying now too. So I see a lot of now new nanos popping up all over the place like every single week. There's a like a new nano. Right. So were you the first one in the space? We were the first one to be publicly listed. Okay. So microreactors have been around for decades. But we're looking to commercialize it. Right. Like remember, there's no commercial lies, microacto in the world. So that was a new frontier. And so we were the first publicly company to be listed as a vertically integrated microreactor. Okay. Okay. What I mean, what So we kind of, you know, you talked about net zero and renewables and green energy and all that kind of stuff. But what would what would gut your interest specifically in microreactors? Yes. So number one for the business side was there was no commercial microreactor. Number two was there's a lot of historic data around different types of microreactors. And then three of my CEO had a lot of connections also with his previous like nuclear kind of networks about that. So we decided to focus on that because the use cases are way different than civil nuclear actors. Right. If you're able to transport and scale nuclear, think about about island communities. Right. Northern communities in Canada that run on diesel. Right. So essentially replacing diesel generators. Right. With consistent base load energy. Think of natural disaster release being able to bring it in. Think about military deployment. Right. If you think about what's happening these days, especially in Russia and the Ukraine, it's a new frontier. You have drones fighting and how are drones powered? Right. So energy is the X factor these days. Right. And then you see Russia right now hitting all the energy systems in Ukraine. Right. If you're able to bring a transportable microreactor, right. You have energy in different locations. So this helps the democratize energy across the world. But also it helps lift humanity. So if you think about Africa, Africa was a use case for us. The whole continent has no national grid. Right. So you have a lot of these remote communities. Right. But if you think about uplifting humanity there, there's certain areas that have no hospitals. You know, you could bring in a microreactor and now you have desalination. You could build hospitals. There's so much you could do water. Right. So all of this is a X factor. And this was the thesis too. Besides the net zero goals of all these countries is lifting up humanity. Being able to bring energy to the front lines of different situations. Like right now, the army is has a massive program. They're launching a whole microreactor program funding that. Right. So the world is changing. Military is changing. NANO this year also won at the recta phase two award with the closest joint military base in DC. Right. And they want to be able to have energy off grit. So in case something happens. So they're looking at our we call it chronos MMR, which is micro modular reactor. And we're doing a feasibility study there now, which we want that award. And we're looking at certain areas on the base where we could install that for them. Right. And they're very excited about this. We're very excited about this. But that is going to be a use case for us for the military aspect as well. Wow. I mean, did the AI race or any of that kind of stuff? Oh, yeah. No. I mean, put an impact into your discussion as well. Yes. I mean, we didn't know this was all going to transpire like this with AI data centers and all the big tech companies pouring in. You didn't know this bad. I mean, so this is holy shit. Yeah. This was just, yeah, this was just a perfect storm. This is a rare situation where you know, you have government backing everything. You have the giant tech companies pouring in because of AI and data centers. And then you have now also a new generation of technology that's come on that's walk away safe that can never explode. So it's just this marriage of this opportunity and time, right? It's just a rare situation. And once again, this is where the matrix happens. And I believe there's a higher power pushing that to and what I mean by that is there's certain things that is almost like no coincidence that happens while I was building that. For instance, my last name is you. And you know, I built an animal on my in my last office on the 38th floor. If you put that together, you 38 or is common in loan as you 308, which is uranium. Okay. Which is, you know, the the the fuel for for these reactors, right? And then and then when we go public, our stock, you know, we did a IPO at $4 a share. Our stock goes from $4 to $38. So this 38 number has been following me. And then yeah. And if you know Chinese culture, we like eights, right? Eights, eights, right? And so 30 has been following me. And then Nana was able to acquire out of bankruptcy, a leading microreactor technology that went bankrupt. It didn't go bankrupt because of the technology. It went bankrupt because the biggest funder passed the way. And he was a he was a former CIA guy. He's named Richard Helms, I believe. And I don't know where he got the money, but he funded he funded that company like $130 something million. And he passed the way in his family. I believe dating care about nuclear. So so as an opportunity for us now, we came in, bought that technology and it leapfrog now to becoming one of the leaders, if not the leader in microreactor technology in the world. And it came with guess what? 38 issued and pending patents. Are you serious? This is this is what I'm saying. This just been so many crazy things that happened that it's unbelievable. And now so when people attack us early on and we were the number one IPO performer, I just put my head down and work because I know it's going to work out itself for some reason. Like it's so crazy. There's just been so many things that it's just unbelievable. Let me add that movie Oppenheimer. You know, it came out. I think it won a ton of awards. I don't know if you watched this, but this is another goose bump moment for me. I was watching it. And Oppenheimer, you know, he helped build the first atomic bomb, right? Where did he recruit his scientists from? You see Berkeley and Cambridge. It gave me goose bumps. I was like, get the fuck out of here. Like Oppenheimer did this. I didn't even know. I knew nothing about it. I don't even read about Oppenheimer. I just did things myself. So these are the little things that are so freaky. I'm just like, it's almost unbelievable. And then what's unbelievable is, you know, within a year and a half, we raised since inception, over $600 million. I mean, we go from an unnamed group of guys and company, like they're not real. They're not doing this to now being one of the leaders. And now having the money to make this happen. It's not about if we're building it. It's about when now, right? So we shocked the world. And many of these nuclear guys are now looking at us different because they're like, wow, nanos are real players now. And not only that, like once again, we recruited world-class technical teams, but also former US national leaders. Like our chair of our advisory board is Rick Perry, right? Former secretary of energy under the last Trump administration. And then I hired the former CFO of the department of energy. And then I brought in a four-star general, Wesley Clark, former supreme ally, commander of NATO forces, right? And then I brought in General Terry Rubling. He was head of the Marines in the Asian Pacific. And apparently he is the real-life top gun, not Tom Cruise. Okay? So, um, you know, we brought so many high-level people to the table. And everyone's just like in awe and they're shocked. Because we came in and I felt confident guiding the company post IPO, because we have that grit, we just have that warrior spirit. And I think it's from the history and the upbringing I had. I mean, it's just a all-in type of mentality, right? I grew up with nothing. Like, like, what are you doing against? This means nothing to me. I'm just going to put my head down and build, right? Damn. That is fucking impressive, man. Congratulations. Thank you. Wow. You guys talking about sending some of these many reactors up to space too? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's part of, you know, the whole type of new frontier, right? Um, you know, I think I think with with SpaceX and with all these, you know, rocket companies going into space and raising tons of billions of dollars as well, one of the issues is energy, right? Like, if you're able to bring a scalable nuclear reactor and a transportable one to, let's say, the moon, right? And that's one of the mandates too. I think under this administration, they announced recently they want to put a reactor on the moon. They want to be the first country to do that. I mean, you're going against Russia and China, right? So they're trying to, they announced they want to focus on that. And our reactor design is perfectly for that. We have a design. We call it Loki that could go up there and and and and beyond the moon. How many different reactors do you have? So we have a portfolio reactors. I call it, I would say large, medium and small, but the large still being small. Okay. So our large one is called Chronos. It's a 15 megawatt electric output and 45 megawatt thermal. And then we have, what does that mean? That means it could power 15 megawatt electric. I would say it could power maybe 15,000 homes. Okay. Right. And then Loki is between one to five megawatts and then we have our Zeus reactor, which was developed by the University of Illinois professors that I recruited. And that design is, to me, it's probably the most simplest design in the world. And that is going to be under one megawatt. So that that is used for the military is really interested in that because that could be deployed in the frontline to power the drones to move the camps, the military bases. Right. So so yeah, we have a portfolio and they're all, I would say called high gas temperature reactors. And so so we keep the same type of designs and we kind of flow it down. And what that means is we also use that trisofuel. So trisofuel actually the government's poured billions of dollars into R&D into it. So many of these companies now they're developing micro reactors or SMRs or small modular reactors. They're all using that type of same combination like high gas temperature reactor with trisofuel because it makes the most sense. And and it seems like many of these other larger companies are also doing that as well. And and remember trisofuel it is coated with pretty much tank armor. It it it can never explode. It just passively cools. Right. If anything happens, there's like a auto shutdown. You shoot a rocket at it. The field doesn't explode again. It could it could it could crack but they never chemically kind of interact with each other. And and that's why we call it walk away safe. So we when we acquired the technology from bankruptcy. It came with two demonstration sites. One partnered with the University of Illinois. We reestablished that and recently we also broke ground there. We had a ceremony with the university and they're very happy that you know we're bringing this project back to life. So we broke ground and we're planning to submit a construction application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Q one of 2026. Wow. Yeah. So what that means is hopefully within a year a year and a half what will be able to pour concrete and steel and start building the reactor. And the reactor is buried on campus. And like I said right across the street from the reactor is dorm rooms. So this is why we call it walk away safe. And you think the university would allow that situation that happened if they didn't know from their experts that this is actually safe. Yeah. Right. So this is a whole new world a whole new nuclear technology and people have to kind of you know rewire their minds about nuclear now. I mean what do you think what do you think that unleashing nuclear. What's going to happen? What are we going to hit a golden age? Because everybody I've talked you're not the only new. Sure. I've talked to everybody's gone hell about it. Yeah. And you know in everybody's super going hell about it seems like this administration is getting rid of a lot of the red tape that it's been holding progress in the sector back for long fucking time. Yes. You know so what I mean I get first question I mean do you are you obviously obviously you wouldn't be in it if you didn't think the red tape was disappearing. So what I mean what is this unleash what is what is what is what is going to change in everyday Americans lives. I think you have to look at the whole kind of supply chain of things right. You have now AI and data centers being built. That's going to take years you know there's not going to be built overnight. And these are massive infrastructures right like Amazon's pouring tens of billions of dollars into this meta Google you know Oracle like a lot of these players are looking at nuclear as an option and Nvidia with Genshin Wang he recently said also that a lot of these small reactors are going to come online with these data centers right. So let's look at that whole kind of cycle you have energy as the X factor right it is the bottleneck right now. So with with these small reactors you're able to now create all this data centers and AI or be a part of the situation right. But you're able to do that how is it going to impact how's AI we hearing it every day how's AI going to impact our lives. So you need the energy to create the AI right in order to deliver it and change our lives. So you have this kind of whole cycle here but once again the X factor is energy. So if you're able to create a scalable factory fabricated situation where you can mass produce nuclear you have that base load energy it's carbon free and then you could deploy it off grid right. So you don't have that burden on the grid anymore right you could you want to build a data center bring it anywhere. I recently came back from speaking at the largest largest energy conference in in the UAE in Abu Dhabi. I was approached by company wanting to build data centers in the desert. How are you going to do that only way to do that is with nuclear right. So that is how crazy things are moving and the world is catching onto this right. You have now the Middle East very interested in this because they know oil is finite right. If they want to let's say they want their hands around energy in the future you're going to have to invest in nuclear. So there is a lot of interest from the Middle East right now with small reactors. The UAE just built I believe five of them. So nuclear reactors right. So they're all coming online too and they're all kind of changing their mindset like we can't just focus on oil anymore. Wow the Middle East is yeah is wow yeah. I mean what what about I mean that so I know in abundance of energy will jet launch artificial intelligence but what about production costs, transportation costs you know we were talking about space all that kind of shit I mean what what is a numbers guy Wall Street guy you know I mean you you would have a lot more inside than I would but I would I mean if unnuclear is truly unleashed and we have an over abundance of energy I mean that would that is my understanding that would throw us into some type of a golden age. Yeah great great point there I think this is why micro reactors are very important because let's say with our chronos MMR every piece of it is modularized so we could produce this in the factory right and it's and it adheres to road weight limits right every piece of it and the biggest part is vessels in nuclear reactors that's the largest piece we could we're able to design this and mass produce this in a factory kind of like the gigawatt factory with Tesla right like that is the mindset you need in order to get that golden age of nuclear because some of these other small reactors are still really big right where where you can't just mass produce every single piece yeah I'm sure but with a micro reactor you're able to do that and you're able to transport it and with our chronos it's buried so the surface of it will be a certain finite amount and then on the bottom we're able to connect the reactors almost like legal blocks right boom boom 15 megawatt so we can actually scale to one gigawatt if we wanted to and right now there's a tremendous amount of interest from AI data centers and large infrastructure companies to partner with us to co-locate some of that with our design right and also the the resilient part of it is if one reactor dies and you have multiple those keep going so you never lose energy wow right so this is this is blowing people's minds because now and this is also great for the military as well right if you get hit by a missile or something and it takes out one of our reactors but you have multiple the other ones are running still so you're never going to lose energy right so and this is what you need with a lot of these data centers because you can't have any downtime like that right so a lot of them are looking to co-locate and this is why you know you have the big tech companies investing now I'm partnering with a lot of these companies right interesting yeah interesting well Jay let's take quick break sure yeah and uh oh problem pick up 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building these glorious reactors so to me everyone has a Ferrari they have no gas for the Ferrari and this is where this kind of comes in here this actually stands for laser isotope separation technologies that's why we named it list technologies and in the very beginning i wanted this technology in nano but because it poses a proliferation and national security risk we have to separate the companies but in reality we just wanted the company in nano every management figure in in lists has to get a queue clearance for example and the reasoning for this is when you're we're dealing with enrichment and what is enrichment okay so i'll take you through kind of the cycle of the fuel so you take uranium or or yellow cake which you mine and you have to convert it into uf6 which is the gas and then this is where enrichment comes in the world currently uses centrifuges and this is why Putin he controls about i believe 40% of the world's enrichment so that means he has a ton of centrifuges the us you know because the nuclear infrastructure here essentially has been atrophied and we were the the largest exporter of nuclear services and fields back then we're the now the biggest importer right because the u.s didn't invest into this in so many decades so now with the nuclear renaissance happening you have to build back the actual infrastructure to support these reactors right and we don't have that yet we're we're building there but we don't have that yet so when i was looking at building nano i said okay one of the issues is going to be fuel and the enrichment side so centrifuges is the second generation of enrichment the first generation is gas diffusion the second is centrifuges and the third or the holy grail i call it is laser uranium enrichment okay and what that means is you're able to take a laser and excite to the isotope level to for enrichment right so for us let's break this down civil nuclear reactors you use 5% fuel up to 5% enrichment of the fuel okay small nano reactors go up to 10% and that's a Mars also with other microactite go up to 20% and that's called halo HALEU high assay low enrichment that's up to 20% LEU is up to 5% low enrichment and then when you go beyond that is weapons grade and is then consider HALEU or high enrichment uranium which is used for guess what submarines aircraft carriers and nuclear bombs right interesting so this is why we have to move list out it's because it poses a national security risk because technically we could keep going to that 99% we're not looking to do that we're looking for only civil use of this meaning the LEU and the HALU percent up to 20% so essentially in a single stage of the laser process we could enrich the 5% in two stages up to 10% of HALU and then we could keep going right so the what happened recently is Israel and the US bombed Iran remember what were they doing enriching because the US and Israel's scare they're going to enrich past the 20% and they're going to keep going right so this is the same type of security profile list is going to have you know what I did with this is early on I engaged all the regulatory bodies in the US and say look it's me J.U. from nano I'm not some other guy hooting grow up in New York City it's just me I want to build this company and I'm willing to hand you the keys to the laser room or whatever we're doing we just want to build the technology and I truly believe we'll be able to do this in a way where we could scale it commercially because that's been kind of the issue in the world is it could work in a lab but the scalability of these lasers and for this enrichment no one's really done before so the history of this is also kind of crazy it could be made into a movie so lists the origin of this is dr. Jeff Erkins he's 94 years old now he actually drives a car still and I told him don't drive just taking over but he doesn't even know how to use it get over you know so he's 94 and he has some freaky genetics and DNA but his story dates back to World War II he's dutch but he was put in it to a concentration camp in Indonesia and between 10 to 12 years old he had to serve hard labor like he thought he was going to die what happened next is the bomb dropped and it ended the war and what it did to that little kid is he dedicated himself to learning everything about the atom so then guess where he went you see Berkeley to get his PhD so it's almost like full circle again um you see Berkeley and now think of back to the future you know the Matt scientist and his garage building the car right uh that's what Jeff Erkins did he built a whole test loop of the laser in his garage and the craziest thing is the US government then has stopped him so he was technically enriching small amounts of this in his garage and there will be other nuclear experts that I've encountered that went to his garage and said I couldn't believe the governments allowing him to do this but also the damn thing worked so what happened next is there was a big um um company up in Canada it's called chemical they're publicly listed as well um I think they're like 30 40 billion dollar company they actually funded his technology um up in Canada and this was the late 80s and early 90s and then what happened next is for them to fund the next phase of this was going to cost a lot of money and then Russia the iron curtain fell they had to support their economy by selling cheap and rich uranium to the world so they decided not to continue with advancing his laser technology so he took his lasers all his paperwork and put it in storage and you see Irvine California we took it out of storage and this was created it is the only US origin and pen to technology so so this is a made in America technology and to me is a critical technology it's the critical technology because once again it could provide the enrichment technology for the whole fuel cycle which is needed drastically here in the US so you know that's one of the bottlenecks which is the fuel sign so this is why lists with nano is vertically integrated and this separates us from all the other reactor companies and so having our own fuel at a cheaper cost than anyone else separates us yeah right but also it can potentially like I said help you know help create fuel for aircraft carrier submarines we're not looking to do that but if the government one day wants to buy us out or invest into that or we make an exception then that could happen right so if you're able to now make it cheaper the enrichment than any other sensor for huge technology in the world or make it essentially obsolete then Russia is going to have a problem with the US China is building more reactors right now than the whole world put together are you serious so this is why national security energy is national secure China is building more reactors than the whole world put together and this is why the US and I believe the government administration is huh how long have they been doing that uh I would say this happened probably the last um decade I would say the last that they've been turning the corner because of the rise in technology and and the digital side in China they're now focused on energy they see that as a bottle every remember the other issue recently was the critical minerals right uh I believe the administration got really mad because China was restricting some of the exports of the critical minerals to the US so now the US is investing directly into these companies right because those critical minerals are used for armor for military use so once again it poses in national security risk if we don't have critical minerals and critical technologies like lists to actually events do you have an idea how far behind we are from um well from China um I mean this is why there's a big push for small reactors and companies like Nano to help mass produce this in the future right um they are the current administrations also bringing them back online a lot of these older reactors and kind of modernizing them as well their their point billions of dollars into larger projects as well so how much it's still not going to be enough so we need to continue to pour more um funding and and and also remove the bureaucracy right and that's another area where the executive orders recently help push that right it reduces timelines of the regulatory aspects right so we are moving in the right direction there's a tremendous amount of momentum but China's unleashing their energy through nuclear and we need to follow shit are you hopeful you gotta be hopeful oh yeah I'm very hopeful I mean this is why you know with listen nano we're very much um a part of the build back of the US infrastructure in nuclear and the capabilities of the new technologies in the future so this is why we're working with military here in the US um because we see this as an issue in the future right um having energy security sovereignty is a big issue in the US and we need to be a part of that they're growing up won't be long before the thought of a family holiday is just but with hilton's vacations all over the UK we don't need to go far to feel close and with connecting rooms confirmed when we book we'll have plenty of space to make the most of every moment everyone in the photo when time away means time together it matters where you stay booknowathilton.com hilton for this day and you're doing this list is going to be headquartered right out of Oak Ridge Tennessee correct yes um we're actually bring back those lasers and modernizing them and then also developing our new next generation of lasers to do the enrichment so um we made Oak Ridge Tennessee our home which is also if you think about it this is where the first fuel came for for the menhan project which is the first atomic bomb that dropped so it's almost full circle yeah so if you think about Jeff Erkins he's also considered a founding father of laser enrichment if you think about his life he almost died in that concentration camp the fuel created to save his life was in Oak Ridge Tennessee man that is so now it's that full circle of his life he's now bringing back his lasers here to demonstrate that to create the fuel that's needed for us right um so once again it's it's a freaky story um also lists our whole executive management team is from ASML ASML also creates these lasers but therefore semi conductor chips there will be no AI in the world without ASML and my whole laser executive team is from ASML so if they can't do this no one can okay they're the most brilliant laser scientists I know um we created at what I call that laser tiger team of the best of the best in the US and we're so pumped up we we really feel like we're gonna make this happen and if you're able to create fuel cheaper faster and more energy efficient than Russia or any other country in the world you know they're gonna be looking at us we're gonna have the edge in the US though right so this is why it's so important to actually back list technologies because it could be the X factor in the future where do we get all of our enriched uranium from right now a lot of that there's a lot of Russia yes we were buying you know billions of dollars a year and then you know they they now have you know certain acts banning that but with exceptions you could still technically get it if you need it right um I think that's some of the but eventually they want to never use Russia right but I think you still need that access but this is why the US recently you know um created a deal with the UK right to they call it I think the golden uh ages deal or something where you know they're looking to now focus on other countries where we could build that fuel capability or or to get that fuel from as well not just Russia but Russia once again controls about 40% of the world's sorry sorry we just say we're looking at other countries to produce some rich uranium well we're looking to get yet get some of that to offset that to offset Russia right to focus on how we could not depend on Russia why why would we do that when we have lists being built right why would we even waste our time fucking around with other countries exactly and this is why with lists next year's a pivotal moment for us because we're going to showcase the same results that Dr. Jeff Erkins um produced earlier and we're going to show in this single stage we could enrich to LU two stages Heyloo once we do that it's going to send shockwaves across you know the world in the US and then once we commercialize it it's going to be a big plus as well because commercializing it is saying now we built a business we got approval from the regulatory commission that will take also the same amount of time when all these reactors are built all these small reactors which is I would say early 2030s in or around them so the timing of this is in the next you know five to four years this is all going to come to life that's what we we hope to happen but we're all in on this um I think I think with lists you know I could become a billionaire you know that that is something that we definitely need in the future and the US should definitely get behind um and we'll be making a lot of noise I would say with lists next year because a lot of the things we're doing now are going to mature next year and people are going to see hopefully the government backing us and and state level federal level but you know we were we're also selected as one of the six companies domestic companies for the LEU acquisition program so creating fuel for the future that's a $3.4 billion over a decade award that goes that the only the six companies could bid for so we already got some recognition um also that that um the Air Force Innovation Unit also selected us to do some feasibility studies around that as well um so yeah it's it's happening it's happening but in the next I would say year or two we're really going to see a big difference and and we're going to reestablish that baseline with lists and with Dr. Jeff Erkins um and and and the funniest thing I want to announce also is like each I would say enrichment project has a name so what I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to Lord of the Rings now we're gonna name our project the return of the king right okay yeah so we're gonna bringing him back and this is once again a US origin technology so this is like we could pound our chest and say this is made in America right man that's cool yeah that is cool Dr. Jeff Erkins I'm bitten that sounds like that would be a good interview yes oh he talks a little slow but you you'll love him yeah I'd love to made him yeah you should he'll talk sounds like a he wrote his own book too it's called the nuclear imperative you could actually buy from Amazon right on yeah I want to write that down yeah the nuclear imperative yeah he wrote this a long time ago so now everything is full circle for him and and he uh we want to just create his legacy and and and and you know even his paperwork his CAD drawings they're so old that you know when when paper turns brown we have thousands of pages that I want to create a museum you know one day for him and to showcase that his life's work has now changed the world and made also the US stronger than any other nation in the world I mean that's incredible that is yeah that is something yeah anything else to discuss when it comes to this uh no we're just excited about what's gonna come and um you know there's tons of interests endless as well like from investors you uh I think recently Kathy Woods you know the famous investor Erk invests they wrote an article about US enrichment and that US enrichment needs to be built back faster if not a i's not gonna you know be at the full capacity because you you don't have the field to power the reactors and they listed five companies and I believe and list was selected as one of the benefactors right so large investors are even looking at us already right because they see the potential here they see that this is going to be the next generation of technology that changes the world now I'm excited for you thank you i'm real excited for you what else do you got going on um no those are my two I would say babies and I'm all in on that uh well you got your philanthropy yes yes uh sounds like that's pretty important to yeah it's very important so you know growing up in New York City too as a poor kid uh I turned to sports I played a lot of basketball um football like not the real football where you're tackling everyone but like flag football or um and and you know I was lucky because I joined organizations that supported me that kind of fostered me and took me to tournaments and paid for my uniforms and I just want to give that back kind of like pay it forward so um you know I I want to you know invest into kids and and and through sports and education right like teaching them about the real world but at the same time duplicate what was given to me when I was younger which is you know paying for tournaments uniforms uh so we have volleyball and basketball for inner city kids right now and you know we hire coaches um we run clinics and uh we do we throw certain events too to educate people as well we donate um so yeah that's very important to me just paying it forward um being blessed and and humble about things and I think that is necessary to add to kind of to the matrix to add to to the kind of higher power above right like you you give back you will receive so um and this is what I live by and this is why I think people like doing business with me because I'm a genuine person I don't look for the easy way out I'm I'm long term and this is why I want to create a legacy here right like I'm long term and then I'll long term in lists and and and I think this is going to help change humanity help change the world um and give necessary energy to humanity across every aspects um it's impressive man it's impressive thank you last question yes if you could uh recommend three people to come on the show who would they be definitely dr. Jeff herkins like a movie could be created out of out of his life um I will also recommend uh another um my my CEO actually of nano would be great he he has a very unique story as well and then um I would pick one friend of mine who also kind of led the same journey as me uh but native new yorker nothing was given to him and he would be able to come on and kind of when I say duplicate what I've done but he could give you a different perspective in a different topic and category so um I don't want to say his name because then uh he'll get gasped up right now who get he would be like oh my god I could go on this show so um those are the three I would I would definitely want to come on this show right on yeah well thank you yes well Jay love what you're doing man thank you thank you for coming to tenancy and and and doing this interview and uh hope to see again and I wish you the best of luck thank you so much for having me my pleasure here no matter where you're watching the shine ryan show from if you get anything out of this at all anything please like comment and subscribe and most importantly share this everywhere you possibly can and if you're feeling extra generous head to apple podcast and Spotify and leave us a review as a monk was manageable fast housing is madness embrace intelligent order fulfillment with ship station the only platform combining order management where else workflows inventory returns and analytics in one place what used to take five separate tools ship station does in one go to shipstation.com and use code start to try ship station free for 60 days