MAT

Seizing the means of production @isembardgroup

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

starting to build out our factory library, which books should I get?

currently on the shelf, mostly stolen from my personal collection:

- How to build a car
- Price setting
- The origins of efficiency (shoutout @stripepress)

on the to get list:

- the Toyota way
-Material World @EdConwaySky
- the anduril thesis
- skunk works
- Apple in China
- Breakneck
- Build Your Own Metal Working Shop from Scratch

Focus I'm looking for is around the art of manufacturing + how great industrial companies/ ecosystems are built

[dany @danywander]

be obsessed with a books. collect them. research them. because they are your guide to go sideways. especially if you are a designer.

you don't need to see how other people solved the same problem you are working on. you don't need to see 200 other logos or uis because they do not let you create something new.

instead, open a book about japanese packaging, old maps, or soviet brutalism or whatever crazy beautiful book you have, not because you will find a visual reference there, but because you will find an analogy or connection.

when reference shows how other people solved the problem, analogy shows you how something completely different solved it with a similar principle. and this principle gives you a new perspective.

if you work on an ai assistant, do not look at other solutions. look at a golf caddie. they know more about the field than you do, they see what you might miss, they can suggest what to use, but they never take a shot. what if your assistant could follow the same logic? bring you to a solution, without giving it to you?

or if you work on a dating app, do not study tinder. look at jazz improvisation. they test their compatibility through interaction. maybe your app should give your matches some nice games, idk.

i am not saying that collecting references is a bad thing, but it is only half of your development. it trains your eye to see what is good and what is bad. while books open doors for a sideways that you'd never thought about and that trains your brain to see hidden connections in order to develop your creativity. and together they become your taste.

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

Britain has such a density of talent. Genuinely all they need is some direction and resource and they’ll build all the things doomers think we can’t build anymore.

Come join us putting parts into rocket engines: https://t.co/QHkCGCQe0p

[Isembard @IsembardGroup]

Imperial College Space Society builds a rocket engine with the help of Isembard. Watch the full film here: https://t.co/ic85wkwIoq

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

We're hiring for machinists rn and the age gaps are crazy, they're all either 60 or 20, no in between.

Machining is a skilled trade, you can't just study a degree to become qualified, you need years on the shop floor learning the ins and outs of making parts.

Companies basically haven't been bringing on apprentices in the name of cost cutting.

Clearest indication of how Britain just decided one day it didn't need to manufacture anymore for the past 30 years.

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

160,000 sqft being added to British manufacturing capacity

[Alexander Fitzgerald @AFitzgerald1992]

Today @IsembardGroup is launching the largest factory to open in London since WW2. (1/n)

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

＿＿＿＿＿＿
| We’re hiring |
|＿＿＿＿＿＿|
\ (•◡•) /
\ /
——
| |
|_ |_
Come join the future of British manufacturing 🇬🇧.

We’re hiring for machinists and CAM programmers across the board at our @IsembardGroup Milton Keynes factory.

- You get to make parts for space rockets, robots and next gen engines
- Full agency over your setup
- We beat any salary rate

DMs are open.

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

having moved from software to hardware I can tell you this ruthlessness is there. everyone’s fighting for margin and it’s not as un-automated as software ppl think. technology moves around fast.

[chris @cwamidon]

Longer truth nuke:

Hardware investing isn't a refuge from software commodification. There's no defensibility in most hardware. What's more, the way venture describes hardware as "cheaper, faster, at scale" is actually describing a race to the bottom that strips value from OEMs.

Sure, you can sell a lot of picks for a low cost and high demand and print. And you look up market and see most buyers are low profitability organizations, so you figure picks are the place to be. Strip back the layers and realize how much physical labor costs, and that every competitor pays the same for it. The second you build a mining robot you have a choice though: sell it and stay in the (fancy) pick business, which is a race to the bottom, or run it yourself and now you're the labor. The labor budget on any job is a multiple of the tool budget. And a pick gets priced against the next pick, while labor gets priced against the humans it replaces, with the cost of the robot doing it being the thing that's collapsing. It was only ever a bad business because it was made of people.

There's a brief moment in time right now where robotics has not yet been adopted at scale outside the factory, and broadly replacing physical labor is going to be a generational shift in how business gets done. That means there is a window in nearly every industry to eat up incumbents by doing the work they do today with robotics. It's ultimately a labor arbitrage. Incumbents have little way to combat it until they can buy a platform AND orchestrate it, and right now they can't because it doesn't exist in the market, so you have to build it yourself. And then figure out how to drive value with it.

But hardware commodifies, then orchestration commodifies, and ultimately the only thing that doesn't is owning outcomes: the contract, the liability, and the record of every job you've ever run on a customer's assets. A competitor can match your robots on day one but there's no way to buy ten years of history.

If you can replace full workflows with robotics and own that outcome, each additional workflow you can complete compounds your gravity. You start looking a lot like a labor force, which alongside energy and capital are the three fundamental forces of getting anything done. You essentially become infrastructure for the physical world.

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

I’ve decided to join the reindustrialisation train and help bring manufacturing back to Britain.

Will be joining @AFitzgerald1992 @IsembardGroup and opening a site in Milton Keynes.

New to manufacturing X - would love any suggestions on who to follow!

Factory incoming.

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

probably the best pre-idea accelerator in london rn

[Zain Mobarik @Zainmbrk]

we (@RedwoodFounders ) are hosting our demo day on sept 12th after our 8 week incubator

for context:
•⁠ ⁠we had 150 people build on nights and weekends across 8 weeks in preparation to go full-time
•⁠ ⁠⁠we provided office space for the 8 build weekends, took 0 cash and 0 equity
•⁠ ⁠⁠we have selected 6 of the best teams out of 40 to present at demo day
•⁠ ⁠⁠judges include VCs like Accel, Cur8 Capital and YC founders

come thru - link in comments

[Zain Mobarik @Zainmbrk]

we (@RedwoodFounders ) are hosting our demo day on sept 12th after our 8 week incubator

for context:
•⁠ ⁠we had 150 people build on nights and weekends across 8 weeks in preparation to go full-time
•⁠ ⁠⁠we provided office space for the 8 build weekends, took 0 cash and 0 equity
•⁠ ⁠⁠we have selected 6 of the best teams out of 40 to present at demo day
•⁠ ⁠⁠judges include VCs like Accel, Cur8 Capital and YC founders

come thru - link in comments

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

you can just do things.

seeing their mistake of offshoring manufacturing, the entire us govt has shifted focus to correct this, from stocking up on critical minerals (project vault) to now foundry school.

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

Welcome to the Foundry School!

Putting American workers first. A first-of-its-kind workforce program building the talent behind America’s manufacturing comeback. 🇺🇸

[Anglofuturism @anglofuturismco]

Treasures of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone

Britain has two exploration contracts at the bottom of the Pacific. Now, we face a choice about whether we'll remain only a customer in the electrical age. Join @CalumDrysdale and @tomough as they travel from Victorian oceanographers and metallic potatoes to China’s critical-mineral dominance, asking whether seabed mining could turn Britain into an electrostate.

0:01:16 - Why critical minerals matter
0:05:02 - The first deep-sea expeditions
0:14:34 - HMS Challenger and the birth of oceanography
0:25:45 - Sponsor: @IsembardGroup
0:27:31 - Who controls the international seabed?
0:31:25 - China's domination of critical mineral supply
0:36:42 - Britain’s deep-sea exploration contracts
0:46:06 - How Britain can secure its mineral supply

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

some good news out of the uk

[Ed Conway @EdConwaySky]

🪨It's not all that widely known, but Britain has one of the world's biggest tungsten resources.
And tungsten is one of the world's most important metals. Problem is, the mine has been out of action for years.
You may recall our film on this last year👇
Well now, some news...

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

Was speaking to a friend who works for the embassy in Beijing, she says there’s a general feeling there’s just not enough budget for anything which dampens motivations

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

Such a sad state of affairs

The UK is the second biggest destination for Chinese international students (over 100k come every year)

Has the largest population of Hongkongers outside of China

And yet.. does nothing with it

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

@photoncmndr +1 on DN Solutions, we just got the 2100LSYB.

2100 is the smaller version but we got the longer bed, subspindle+ y-axis. best value for money out there

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

Rotherhithe beach is such an underrated spot in London.

#Eclipse

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

Cannot do confirm the corgi at the start of the video is Archie from @UseCorgi @claudiaamaggi?

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

Queue in aldgate tonight for solar eclipse glasses.

went down two blocks and around the bend.

whichever corner store is behind this took some great initiative- they flew in 15,000 paid from Spain on a Ryanair flight - then did some brilliant marketing adding it to google maps

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

Price kept creeping up from £4.5 ending at £10

[MAT @muhammadaltalib]

Google maps reviews are top notch