Will McClure

founder @ STRisker. Building near real time understanding of what's happening in local gov. Short-term rentals. Data centers. Grid buildout. Future goat herder

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Space% being forced to support military, gov, and Mars dreams may materially impact the commerical biz.

It may not even hurt stock long term but it opens the door wider for Rocket Labs.

If I were to recommit us to holding for 3-5 more years this would be the core thesis.

[sourcery @sourceryy]

SpaceX employee #13 @_Eric_Romo on why we don't see many Falcon Heavy launches:

"Falcon Heavy is extremely expensive, in part because it's three Falcon 9s strapped together."

"SpaceX has been clear they would prefer not to fly that vehicle."

"And it makes sense—every time they fly one of those, they have to shut down the pad for longer than they would for a Falcon 9."

"So when you look at how much time it takes to launch one Falcon Heavy and how many Falcon 9s they could have launched during that time, it's actually economically better for them to launch Falcon 9s."

" They have to launch Falcon Heavies because they've got big contracts with Space Force. Our government really needs it. NASA really needs it. But in the commercial market, those launches don't happen very often."

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

This has been one of the most important tweets I've internalized as a founder, through spaced repetition.

Applies even more after 1st interaction. Currently at 3-4 to 1 of no replies with a $275k enterprise deal close to signing.

* does not apply to spammy behavior

[Ben Casnocha @bencasnocha]

Assuming "no reply" = "not interested" can be a costly mistake

Just because someone doesn't reply to your email doesn't mean they're not interested.

Some of the best things that have ever happened to me (investments, deals, network) involved being ghosted many times until a Yes

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Still waiting for someone to propose a true Texas sized state park from Palo Duro to Caprock Canyon.

One of the few places in the lower 48 where a state could create one of national park size and significance.

It'd be a crowning achievement for some legislator's career.

[Greg @gkamstra]

Texas ran a $33b surplus in 2023. Voters approved moving $1b of that into an endowment for parks, and now the state is on track to add ~1 new state park per year for a decade.

You love to see it!

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Decades long blue dog recruiting pipelines dissolved from '10-14. Replaced by more Ivy league types.

Establishment Rs pipeline fractured after '18.

Low salaries + more companies paying for gov affairs (not only typical lobbyist stuff) pulled additional qualified staff away.

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

Half of the Democratic staffers are third worldists who think overthrowing America is their moral duty. Half of the Republican staffers are just Classic Nazis.

The staffer class is bad.

[David Hambling @David_Hambling]

Another optical navigation system for GPS-denied environments - and it runs of a Raspberry Pi

[John Arnold @johnarnold]

Outside of the US, the Middle East has drawn the most data center investment given the combination of cheap power, abundant land, state-backed capital, streamlined permitting, proximity to users, and relative political stability. That's likely over.

[Alex Armlovich @aarmlovi]

The 1989-1991 Millennial Bulge cohort experienced our whole childhoods from the Super Nintendo (1991) to the GameBoy Advance (Summer 2001) as a time of unprecedented stability & prosperity that felt normal

It's hard to explain to zoomers & gen alpha what it was like

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

@highbrow_nobrow I spent summers around Gerry Spence in his late 80s. Some days he could summon the magic for 4, 5 hours.

A trial at that level? Nah

1-2 days with a partner on national TV? He'd give every ounce he had left for the chance.

We may see levels of oratorical sorcery thought lost.

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Data centers are now one of, if not the most, contentious issues we're tracking at city councils and county boards.

Funds and operators are starting to get serious about local and state government affairs staffing.

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Shoutout to Jesse Josephs, am independent local journalist, for breaking this before any Memphis or Nashville reporters.

Whether the AI bubble pops or not, there is so much money rushing around that a lot of communities are going to get steamrolled by to good to be true plans.

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

The small town I grew up in TN has been overrun by a "hybrid decentralized AI edge cloud" company.

Dozens of employees in a fleet of Broncos. Numerous properties with seller financing. Wined and dined foreign investors at a hunting lodge. Even started a school recently.

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Product names that could have been a school lunch menu.

I assume they were re-packaging cheap chips as AI ready.

Employees "we don't work all that much til investors show up".

They've missed payroll for a few weeks now, and now TBI is finally on the scene.

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Make it a little better https://t.co/anlOa6WijI

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

This harvest in TN, IL, & KY
I keep wanting someone to buck the million $$$ Deere fleets.

Open source mapping, Starlink, cheap sat imagery, lower robotic and sensor costs.

Some redneck somewhere must be retrofitting a fleet of '80s Cases to run autonomous, 24/7.

It's doable.

[Orikron 🇵🇹 骆培思 @orikron]

🇨🇳 China's fully self-driving electric tractor, the Honghu T70.

It can handle the *entire farm cycle* from plowing to sowing to care to cropping, while collecting real-time data on soil conditions.

It's already hard at work in the fields of Hebei and soon in the whole country.

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Start small

https://t.co/XtienJPwi1

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Don't forget to check stackoverflow

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Solar savings are even making it to rural West Tennessee.

Local electric co-op saved $98k in July from first month of a solar deployment.

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

One of my favorite moments in India this spring was seeing the number of first time fliers from Hyderabad to Goa

My seatmate (early 40s) spent the whole flight in sheer joy and fascination. Videoed 8 ppl before takeoff.

Always give up the window if its someone's first flight.

[Megh Updates 🚨™ @MeghUpdates]

🚨 BIG! India has lifted 302 million people out of POVERTY in 12 years — nearly equal to the whole of USA 🔥

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

Learned recently that the communities around where I grew up had 7-12%, similiar at suppliers, of folks employeed in commercial generator production going into 2000.

Thank you random Caterpillar exec from 1996 going all in on Y2K fears.

We should have a statute to honor you.

[Will McClure @willbmcclure]

If you're building in enterprise data/saas and your product has a search feature... take ~30 minutes to log those into a 'searches' slack or spaces channel.

What's being searched for between 7-11 on Sunday night drives the conversation/deal the next week.