title: Weekly Dose of Optimism #185
author: Packy McCormick
content_type: article
publication: Not Boring by Packy McCormick
published: 2026-03-20T12:46:59+00:00
source_url: https://www.notboring.co/p/weekly-dose-of-optimism-185
word_count: 2146
Weekly Dose of Optimism #185
Brief
Packy McCormick’s latest “Weekly Dose of Optimism” highlights a cluster of bets on automating the physical world, with the strongest sections focused on industrial systems. The most relevant items are Travis Kalanick’s launch of Atoms and the reported Jeff Bezos plan to raise a $100 billion AI manufacturing fund. Kalanick’s post-Uber effort appears to have used CloudKitchens as a proving ground for full-stack physical infrastructure, now extending into food automation, autonomous mining haulage, and robotic transport platforms. Bezos’ rumored strategy is similar in spirit but larger in scale: acquire incumbent manufacturers in chipmaking, defense, and aerospace, then use Project Prometheus’ physical-world AI models to improve efficiency. Together, they suggest growing founder and capital interest in applying AI not just to software workflows but to real industrial assets.
The piece also surfaces a notable mining example: Mariana Minerals’ Copper One project in Utah, which combines autonomous extraction, refinery optimization software, and scrap feedstock integration to target 50,000 metric tonnes of annual copper output. Outside infrastructure, McCormick highlights two science stories: a UCSF Nature paper on direct in-body CAR-T cell engineering using CRISPR-based particle delivery, which dramatically reduces the complexity and cost structure of existing $400,000-plus therapies, and a small University of Arizona neuromodulation study suggesting focused ultrasound can accelerate brain-network changes associated with long-term meditation practice. Overall, the article is less a single argument than a curated snapshot of frontier work in robotics, industrial AI, mining, and biotech.
Why it matters
Travis Kalanick emerged from nearly eight years of stealth with Atoms, a robotics company spanning food, mining, and transport; his former City Storage Systems/CloudKitchens business had thousands of employees across 30 countries, was valued at $15 billion in 2022, and now includes Atoms Food, Lab37’s Bowl Builder robot producing 200 meals per hour with no humans, Otter restaurant software, and Picnic delivery.
Key details
- Atoms is expanding beyond food through the acquisition of Pronto AI—an autonomous haulage startup for mines and quarries founded by Waymo co-founder Anthony Levandowski—and is explicitly betting on wheeled, task-specific robotics rather than humanoids, including what Kalanick calls a “wheelbase for robots.”
- The Wall Street Journal reported Jeff Bezos is seeking to raise a $100 billion fund to acquire manufacturing businesses in sectors including chipmaking, defense, and aerospace, then improve their operations using Project Prometheus, an AI effort aimed at modeling and simulating the physical world.
- Mariana Minerals announced Copper One in Utah as an “autonomy-first” copper mine and refinery, with a plan to deploy PlantOS across heap leaching, solvent extraction, and electrowinning, restart mining with autonomous equipment orchestrated by MineOS, add copper scrap processing, and scale combined output to 50,000 metric tonnes per year.
- A UCSF team led by Justin Eyquem published a Nature paper showing an in vivo CAR-T approach that uses a two-particle injection system—one delivering CRISPR-Cas9 and the other a DNA template for the chimeric antigen receptor—to edit T cells directly inside the body; in humanized mice, one injection cleared detectable leukemia in nearly all animals within two weeks and engineered cells reached up to 40% of T cells in bone marrow and spleen.
- A bioRxiv preprint from University of Arizona researchers including Shinzen Young reported that in a randomized controlled trial of 24 meditation-naïve participants, transcranial focused ultrasound aimed at the posterior cingulate cortex during a two-week mindfulness program produced default mode network/central executive network decoupling associated with experienced meditators, with significance reported at p < 0.001.