ATRIUMsearch → argument graph
PredictionVideo · 9:15 — 10:05

Automating mining operations can increase productivity by 20% while improving safety.

Kalanick explains his mining automation venture, aiming to boost mine output and safety through robotics and AI. ✦ AI generated

Travis Kalanick · a16z Podcast · 2026-08-14 · original ↗

starts at this moment · 9:15

When we talk about mining, we're talking about, you know, we go to gold mine CEOs and we're like, would you like 20% more gold per year? We haven't heard no. Uh but they say prove it. And that's kind of the fun part. Um, but it means your opex is lower and it means by the way these mines are pretty damn unsafe. And so making these places way safer is also part of the purpose of what we're doing.

verbatim transcript · starts at 9:15

Transcript · around this moment

9:15intelligence? Well, it's it's chips and its energy. We know that. Where are the chips come from? Chips come from the ground. Where's the energy come from? And a lot of people are like, "Oh, it comes from the sun." Yeah, it comes from the sun. But how are you capturing it from the sun? From stuff made from the ground, right? So being in the ground at this sort of almost like this primitive of

9:41physical AI is like a super interesting place. And when you're automating that thing, it's super interesting. So when we talk about mining, we're talking about, you know, we go to gold mine CEOs and we're like, would you like 20% more gold per year? We haven't heard no. Uh but they say prove it. And that's kind of the fun part. Um, but it means your opex is lower and it means by the

10:05way these mines are pretty damn unsafe. And so making these places way safer is also part of the purpose of what we're doing. And so you go okay well I when I talk about mining I like to talk about digitized storage. What is digitized storage and mining? It's called land right? This is storage for the mining computer. And this is network, right? Cuz you're moving you're moving the rocks. This is

10:34network. Um this is me by one of those vehicles. Check that out. Okay. I'm standing next to a TCP packet. There's like eight people understood what I just said. But look at that [ __ ] thing. So fully loaded. That's probably like 2 million pounds. All right. And uh this is an autonomous mining machine operating on our stuff. There are probably about three drones that were injured in this in the in the

Around this claim