John Kiernan

All views personal. No investment advice.

[Bob McGrew @bobmcgrewai]

We started Arda in 2025 to speed up American manufacturing. We have spent the last year building with Anduril as our design partner. Today we are launching the company publicly on CNBC and announcing our Series A: $160M at a $1.5B valuation.

Our platform helps manufacturers design and operate manual assembly lines, putting designs into production faster now. Next we'll build automated lines that can be reconfigured as quickly as human workers, letting America make products that now require armies of workers in Asia.

[Erik Kriessmann @ekriessmann]

Hadrian x Lockheed x DoW 🇺🇸

Rebuilding America’s defense industrial base requires more than expanding capacity. It requires reinventing how we manufacture.

@HadrianInc is bringing its technology directly onto @LockheedMartin’s factory floor to scale production of our nation’s most critical missile systems.

This is how we rebuild the Arsenal of Freedom.

@SecWar @USDASDuffey @DeptofWar

[Bg2 Pod @BG2Pod]

LFG. 👊

[Invest America | Trump Accounts @InvestAmerica24]

Boom! 🇺🇸🚀💰
@TrumpAccounts

[Brad Gerstner @altcap]

Happy Friday! Never been a better time - ignore the doubters - keep building! Another banger @BG2Pod with @JensenHuang dropping next week! 🇺🇸🚀

[Invest America | Trump Accounts @InvestAmerica24]

Biggest upgrade to America's social contract since 1935.

Every American child now has a Trump Account, invested in the growth of our country.

https://t.co/s2WkVB6BUm

[Brad Gerstner @altcap]

Summary of US AI policy ahead of today’s mtgs:

Beat China.
Fast & Safe.
Follow the law.
Act like adults - stop scaring people.

We currently test all frontier models & only country to have sanctioned a model. And we have max open & closed competition.

And we are winning. 🇺🇸🚀

[Brad Gerstner @altcap]

EVERY CITIZEN UNDER 18 a shareholder in America’s great economy! The universal, private “401k from birth” is the greatest change to the social contract since social security. 🇺🇸🚀 @InvestAmerica24 @TrumpAccounts

[Brad Gerstner @altcap]

I started the Invest America Act / @TrumpAccounts w my kids @LincGerstner & @JackGerstner_ around a simple dream - that EVERY child / every citizen should directly own a piece of America’s great economic upside. 3.7 M kids getting investment acccts at birth each yr seeded w $1000.

I am grateful for the amazing bi-partisan support - and the vision & courage of @realDonaldTrump that made them a reality. 8 million kids today have accts & soon will be all 73 MILLION kids directly owning a piece of America’s best companies.

Today it was our family’s great honor to pay it forward to kids in Indiana - a state that has given so much to me.

And it was especially fun to get this note from my niece - a school teacher in Indiana - & to know how much this means to her daughter Memphis. 🇺🇸🤍🚀

[Brad Gerstner @altcap]

Disagree. Anthropic will IPO. The market knows how to price risk - see SpaceX. There is huge appetite to invest in the AI leaders. And its beneficial / critical that we bring even more transparency, scrutiny, accountability, & participation to these grt American companies! 🇺🇸📈

[Dave Portnoy @stoolpresidente]

Mandami and AOC sharing a good laugh while the names of 9/11 victims are read is quite the visual

[Cognition @cognition]

The world needs far more software than it can build. Cognition exists to change that.

We’ve just raised over $2B at a $48B valuation, led by a16z, Accel, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, and Avenir.

Since our round in May, run-rate revenue has grown from $492 M to almost $900 M.

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

What @MichaelDell and @altcap pulled off with these Invest America accounts is remarkable.

Today’s $250 airdrop from the Dell’s is so badass.

They’ve gotten a lot of kudos, but deserve even more.

Awesome example they are setting.

[Erik Kriessmann @ekriessmann]

Castelion has earned trust and credibility by demonstrating technology that creates an asymmetric advantage and can be built at speed, cost, and scale.

They’ve turned ambitious promises into flight-tested hardware and real production capacity for critical national security priorities.

We believe they’re building one of the most important defense companies of this generation.

Pumped to double down and proud to keep backing this exceptional team. 🇺🇸

[Karan Kunjur @KaranKunjur]

Our biggest round yet: @K2SpaceCo has raised a $500M Series D at a $6.8B post-money valuation. The round was led by @kleinerperkins and @ICONIQCapital, with participation from @CapitalG, @lightspeedvp, @AltimeterCap, @sparkcapital, Sands Capital, @ARKInvest, @TRowePrice, and other existing investors.

"Scaling” is probably the word I’ve used most often the past few months in conversations with our investors, customers, and employees when talking about what’s next for K2 Space in 2027 and beyond: 
--We’re going to continue to scale up mass production, to deliver against the $1B + in contracts we’ve won to-date.
--We’re going to scale up the satellite itself, from the 20kW Mega to the 100kW class Giga. Its no longer just 100kW, but we’ll save that update for another day.

The capital from the Series D will turbocharge this scaling.  

Thanks to everyone who has been on this journey with us for the last four years – let's keep building bigger.

[Brayden Parks 4⭐️DT @BraydenParks27]

I’m home Irish Nation☘️

[Meghan Reynolds @MeghanKReynolds]

If Silicon Valley is @AltimeterCap HQ, our Boston team is the beating 💙 of the org - the too often unsung heroes that keep the train on the tracks. (They are also the WAY more fun part of the team.) Our summer soirée always the best. Thanks @altcapcfo for hosting!

[Altimeter Capital @AltimeterCap]

Small team. Big ambition.

Every summer, we take a brief moment to celebrate the people behind Altimeter and everything we've worked hard to build together. It's a reminder that great investing starts with a highly motivated team, exceptional relationships, and a shared belief in excellence in all we do.

We have so much to be grateful for this summer and the best is yet to come!

(Pong champions not pictured!)

[Jamin Ball @jaminball]

Monster company

[Brad Gerstner @altcap]

Dear America,  

Starting today, on the 250th birthday of our country, millions of children will now benefit from a new & powerful American birthright - a privately owned investment account from birth. Every child a shareholder in the great American economy!

American capitalism is the greatest prosperity-creating engine the world has ever known. It has unlocked unprecedented abundance for our country and untold life-advancing innovation. From clean food & water to cars & planes to vaccines & cures to computers & phones.  Through depressions & world wars, through panics & pandemics, betting on America has been the best investment in human history. 

But far too many hardworking families feel like they are on the outside looking in - like the American Dream has become out of reach. 

The Invest America Act changes all that. Signed into law by President Trump it establishes the Trump Accounts - launching today - making every child a shareholder from birth.  Every account seeded with $1000 in America's best companies - making every child a direct participant in our stock markets & American capitalism.  

But it doesn’t stop there.  Representing the best of our civic traditions, an unprecedented outpouring of additional private  contributions into these accounts is already underway. Billions of dollars have been committed by philanthropists & corporations to tens of millions of children across the country. A new form of massive, direct philanthropy & corporate benefits directly to America’s kids is just getting started. From adopting all the kids of a school or organization to a city or state.  America is the most giving country in the history of the world - and Trump Accounts provide a new open source platform to enable anybody to contribute to anybody.  

Trillions of dollars will compound in these accounts over the next 20 years.   

But this is about more than just figures on an account statement. By investing in the next generation, our country is providing tangible opportunities to all future generations of Americans: an education, a first home, the ability to start a business, and the foundation for a lifetime of savings. Trump Accounts provide hope to those feeling hopeless - unlocking unlimited human potential.

Trump Accounts do this through a massive public - private partnership that empower the individual not the state.  They double down on free market capitalist democracy by empowering the individual rather than growing dependency on government.  Aligning citizens with capitalism rather than pitting them against it. 

Perhaps of equal importance, let us not lose sight of the fact that this is a movement that unites our country. Despite the many issues that divide us, this one big idea brings everyone together. From the most conservative to the most progressive leaders, we have found people of goodwill willing to step up and do the right thing to help the next generation. 

Trump Accounts represent the very best of our democracy and the American promise issued two hundred and fifty years ago today. I am grateful to all those who have partnered with us to get this far and we dedicate our tireless efforts to make certain that the Invest America Act achieves its maximum potential.  Let us advance into the future with a renewed sense of confidence, optimism and restored faith in the American Dream for EVERY American.   

Happy 250th Birthday, America!

Brad Gerstner
July 4, 2026

@TrumpAccounts @InvestAmerica24 @WhiteHouse @MichaelDell