a two-year-old mining company has raised $400M. @a16z, @khoslaventures and the CIA's venture fund are all on the cap table. @jclozano9897 co-founded @MarianaMinerals with @tbc415 and @baker_tilney, two friends from stanford. it's now worth $1.6B. they buy mines after the market gives up on them, then run them with software and AI. i asked him how you actually buy a mine, why AI's real bottleneck is metal, and whether he'd hire me for being good at claude code. nontechnical, episode 3. 00:00 $400M and the CIA's venture fund 02:19 you can just buy a mine 04:41 2 years, $400M, $1.6B 08:58 cold emailing VCs vs. their first check 13:46 when to buy a mine (right after the market gives up) 19:54 every mining truck is a robot without a brain 25:08 everything human-made is grown or mined 26:15 the cheapest AI company wins 28:31 AI's real bottleneck is metal 30:55 america doesn't have enough miners 33:27 space mining and asteroids 43:13 how a $1.6B founder hires 46:17 would he hire me for claude code? 48:43 "slop cannon"