Founders Fund was one of the earliest investors in SpaceX, investing $20 million in 2008. It kept backing the company, with a stake that could be worth more than $60 billion.
Scott Nolan was an early SpaceX employee who later became a Founders Fund partner. Axios spent some time speaking with him ahead of what's expected to be the largest IPO ever.
What follows is lightly edited for clarity and length.
An increasing share of regular folks in South Korea are going all in on the country's stock market — borrowing money so as not to miss out on the AI-fueled stock boom there.
Why it matters: The entire economy is now hanging on the success of a few chipmakers.
The latest: South Korea's KOSPI index, which crossed 8,000 for the first time on Tuesday, is up 207%from a year ago.
A few big, newly minted trillionaire chipmakers are behind the surge, including SK Hynix and Samsung.
The big picture: A mania for stocks has swept the country, as Bloomberg reported earlier this year.
Zoom in: And retail traders are borrowing to fuel the buying binge: Margin loans are at a record high, according to reporting earlier this month in the Korea Times.
Middle-aged and older Koreans are increasingly getting in on this — borrowing money so as not to miss out, "mirroring" younger generations but "often with larger sums at stake."
Threat level: Some of these folks are risking retirement money with leveraged bets — Korea already has a high poverty rate (40%) for older adults.
If the AI trade falters, the country's entire economy is on the line, writes Ed Yardeni at Yardeni Research.
"Asia's fourth‑largest economy increasingly resembles a giant leveraged bet on AI."
The bottom line: What could go wrong? See our piece on how American investors are using a record amount of borrowed money to bet on stocks.
Biohub, the Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan-funded institute, on Wednesday released what it says amounts to "a world model of protein biology."
Why it matters: Biohub says the system can compress years of protein research into hours or days, potentially speeding up disease research and treatment development.
Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta are teaming up with a nonprofit investor to accelerate new technologies using data centers as test cases.
Why it matters: The initiative, led by Elemental Impact, is among the clearest attempts yet to turn the massive buildout of AI infrastructure into a proving ground for new technologies rather than just a new source of emissions.
AI tools are reshaping the classroom and students' critical thinking — but school leaders are lagging on giving teachers formal guidance for using the tech, a new report shows.
The big picture: AI should amplify the best parts of the classroom and streamline work for already stressed teachers, education experts tell Axios — not create an added burden for educators or replace human connection.
No one snapped footage of my daughter Ava's first home run. I was umpiring behind the plate and couldn't ethically take out my iPhone to capture that moment in the New Mexico desert.
Why it matters: The home run doesn't exist in the cloud, but my mind recorded every detail. It will never be erased as long as I am me. That's the beauty of a memory created when we put the smartphone away.
