Monitoring the Situation #3: Who Is Nick Land?
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How is the U.S. electricity grid failing and why does it matter now?
Nick Land's work is very vibey. It's really vibey. He has a intense prosaic writing style that is provocative, intentionally grandiose.
What's happening is new technology is being created, which is leading to a ton of demand for a thing, which is exposing the fact that we don't have a bunch of supply for that thing. And so now a bunch of supply is getting built to unlock new demand. And so new technology will get created, which will unlock new demand, which will expose more supply that hasn't been built, and and the flywheel will go and that's where we get, you know, prosperity and and ac economic growth and you know, GDP. America at
the finest.
Exactly. Like this is what it's all about, baby. This is why we're here, building companies in America.
In 2025, the grid is cracking under its own weight. Data centers are multiplying, home batteries are surging, and the line between energy and tech is starting to blur. On this third episode of Moderating the Situation, I sit down with A16Z general partners Catherine Boyle and Aaron PriceWright, along with Zach Dell, the founder and CEO of Base Power, to talk about the future of energy. We dig into how to make local power generation affordable, what most people get wrong about the data center build-out, and how we might actually fix the U.S. electricity grid. Then, Catherine and I are joined by A16Z's Eddie Lazarin to discuss the philosopher shaping parts of silicon. Valley's intellectual underground.
Nickland. Let's get into it.
Zach, welcome to monitoring the situation. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. So congrats on the Series C. For people who are unfamiliar, why don't you explain base the company mission and we'll get into the state of it today?
Yeah, base is an energy technology company working to bring affordable and reliable power to America. So we started the business almost three years ago now, focused on Texas homeowners and selling batteries on their homes and using those batteries as a grid resource when the grid is up and running, and then giving that battery capacity back to the homeowner when the grid goes out to protect their home from power outages. And we also sell power to the homeowner. So we're able to save people on the order of 10 to 20% a month on their electricity bills, that was kind of how we got started using off-the-shelf hardware, all custom-built software. And over the course of the last two and a half years, we've really built out this vertically integrated strategy where we're now building our own batteries, designing them, manufacturing them, doing our own installations, owning them, operating these batteries in the wholesale markets.
And now we're starting to enter other markets. So we have a regulated utility partnership model where we take our technology, our hardware, our software, And we sell up C utilities and help them do the same thing, lower costs, increase reliability on the distribution grid. So really the mission here is bring down the cost of electricity for all, make power more affordable, more reliable, do it through technology, vertical integration. Yeah, that's quick high level.
I feel like people talk a lot about generation with data centers and all new types of power and is it more gas plants or is it more solar or nuclear and pulling generation closer to the actual usage, but maybe talk to us about why energy storage is such an important part of the puzzle in keeping electricity prices down.
Yeah, so again, it all comes back to price, right? Electricity is a commodity and the best electron is the cheapest electron. And when you think about electricity prices, there are two components to price. One is the cost to generate the electron, and the other component is the cost to move the electron. And over the last 20 years, actually the cost to generate electrons has gone down very significantly, largely due to the build out of solar. Wind as well, but mostly solar, right? So cost to generate power has gone down, but the total cost of the electron has gone. Up, which means that the cost to move electrons, the cost of distribution and transmission has gone up really significantly.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How is the U.S. electricity grid failing and why does it matter now?
0:00–6:59
2
What role do home batteries and local power generation play in lowering electricity costs?
6:59–13:12
3
Why is Texas a unique testing ground for energy innovation and deregulated markets?
13:12–19:28
4
How does Base Power’s vertically‑integrated model help utilities tackle rising demand?
19:28–25:28
5
What misconceptions exist about the data‑center build‑out and its impact on the grid?
25:28–32:18
6
Who is Nick Land and why is he suddenly being discussed in Silicon Valley?
32:18–38:48
7
What are the core ideas of Nick Land’s “Xenosystems” and why do they resonate with crypto and AI circles?
38:48–46:27
8
How can listeners start exploring Nick Land’s work without getting lost in the philosophy?
46:27–52:35
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from The a16z Show
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