Contrary Research Rundown #57
The age of American manufacturing, plus new memos on Neuralink, Niantic, and more
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Research Rundown
When you think of technology in the United States, you think of Silicon Valley, software, and social media. Very rarely do you think about machine shops, assembly lines, and physical goods. But that wasn’t always the case.
During World War II, the U.S. manufactured 300K planes in just a few years. To put that in perspective, there are ~40K planes in operation today, both passenger and cargo. Total. In 1945, at the end of World War II, the U.S. was manufacturing more than half of the produced goods in the world. So what happened?
By 2002, the U.S.’s share of global manufacturing had fallen to ~28%. By 2010, China surpassed the U.S. to become the predominant manufacturer in the world. By 2018, China represented ~35% of global manufacturing.
But as international relations deteriorate and globalization starts to slow, manufacturing capabilities in the U.S. are becoming an increased risk to national security. The startup world has started to tackle the problem head on, and VCs have taken notice.
As of May 2023, robotics companies alone had raised $4 billion in venture funding thus far this year. Over the last 6 months globally there are 1.6K+ manufacturing-focused startups have raised funding. These companies have cumulatively raised $500 billion in funding. The first 15 years of the twenty-first century represented a bias among investors to low-cost internet and software startups. But things are changing.
Increasingly, companies are more willing to take on physical infrastructure and capital expenditures. Companies like SpaceX, Anduril, Boom Supersonic, and Hadrian are leading the charge in rebuilding the American manufacturing base. Increasingly, both companies and governments will look to U.S. companies to build U.S. goods. The rebuilding of the American manufacturing ecosystem is just getting started.
Neuralink is an invasive BCI company with a short-term goal of treating various neurological disorders such as quadriplegia. To learn more, read our full memo here and check out some open roles below:
Mechanical Engineering Intern - Fremont
Software Engineer Intern, Implant Team - Fremont
Vercel provides a software development workflow and deployment platform that for developers to work and collaborate. To learn more, read our full memo here and check out some open roles below:
Business Operations & Systems Analyst - US (Remote)
Software Engineer, Billing - US (Remote)
Niantic is a developer of mobile-based casual games. To learn more, read our full memo here and check out some open roles below:
Senior UX Designer, Pokémon GO - SF, Bellevue, Tokyo
Senior Software Engineer, Mobile Native - SF, Bellevue
Check out some standout roles from this week.
Regal | NYC or SF - Account Executive, Business Development Representative
Check | NYC, SF or Remote - Product Manager, Payroll, Software Engineer
Ramp | NYC - New Grad 2024 Software Engineer
Interested in climate tech roles? ClimateTechList.com is a comprehensive climate tech job board - featuring 30,000+ live job openings from over 900+ climate tech companies, updated daily. Check out their newsletter for updated jobs here.
After returning to replace Dave Clark as CEO of Flexport, Ryan Peterson announced the company was laying off 20% of its staff. To learn more about Flexport, check out our memo.
Bessemer recently published its Cloud 100 list including companies like OpenAI, Databricks, and Stripe. In addition, the firm shared a benchmarks report that included the detail that “nearly 25% of Cloud 100 members are already cash flow positive today.”
Patrick McKenzie, a strategic advisor to Stripe, and helped to build Stripe Atlas, shared a thread on the payment flow of Mercury and compared it favorably to the status quo. To learn more about Mercury, check our our memo.
Andy Weissman, an investor at USV, shared a post on open source software and "the AI stack.” He unpacks the value of open source, and the implications of similar openness in the world of AI. We’ve touched on this same topic in our deep dive.
Stack Overflow announced the company was laying off 28% of its workforce, with many sources citing the difficulty of competing with ChatGPT as a replacement for code support. Peter Nixey, a former power user of Stack Overflow, articulated this shift in his viral Twitter thread. You can also learn more about Stack Overflow in our Research Radio episode with the company’s CEO.
Early this week Convoy announced layoffs impacting the majority of the company’s remaining 500 employees. After the announcement, the company announced it was shutting down operations after having raised $670 million in funding. The company saw its revenue drop from $630 million in 2022 to $320 million this year.
Evan Armstrong published an essay entitled “Every Software Business Has The Same Playbook.” In it, he described the journey of Lattice from a mid-market single product to a multi-product platform after the launch of an HRIS product. To learn more about Lattice, check out our memo.
The Information published its annual list of the Most Promising Startups. The list included several companies we’ve covered, including Vannevar Labs, Hadrian, and Statsig.