Julia DeWahl of Antares on building nuclear reactors for the US military
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What lessons did Julia learn from SpaceX and Opendoor that shape Antares?
Julia Dual is the co-founder of Intares, which is designing nuclear micro reactors for the military and other off-grid use cases. Cheers. Cheers.
Thanks for coming by. It's great to be here.
So you started out at first Open Door and then SpaceX. Uh what did you learn at each one of those that you took to Huntares?
Yeah, sure. I I think one of the the big things is always about customers, right? I mean at the end of the day, this is why you build a business. Um at Open Door a lot of us were pretty young starting the business. Um I was one of the early employees there and none of us had ever bought, let alone sold a house. So a lot of it was like learning what that was all about. Um and I remember in the early days we just uh were working on writing the copy for the website and we're like You've no idea what a homeowner's. So what can we do about that? We just went and sat outside a bagel shop for uh a Saturday and a Sunday morning and just bought people bagels and just asked them about their processes buying and selling a home and learned a ton and just and really l you know, thought about what language they were using, what were the pain points.
Um and that was really important to just like really get to know what we were trying to deliver on as a business. Um and then You know, fast forward to joining SpaceX after Open Door. I joined as Starlink was coming out of RD and into GoToMarket. That's why you know why I was why I was joining to lead that team and um the business operations there. And we launch and we get our first customers. And so I invited our first customers to come join us via Zoom for an all hands. And it was honestly the first time that many of the engineers had actually heard from the words of a customer themselves about The experience. And of course, everyone loved uh the internet, right? The fast internet was amazing. Rural Idaho, right?
This is like a dream. But when we got to talking about the setup process, uh everyone kind of was like, Oh, that sounds rough. They're talking about multiple Home Depot trips. They they didn't know if they had to cut down trees on their property, like they couldn't get a pole long enough. They're not. Uh And so, you know, what People kind of didn't realize how much the setup was so painful.
Yes.
Um and it led to basically this cross-functional SWAT team that was dedicated to mounting options to be sold alongside the dish. And like if you had first party or
third party?
Uh we did it ourselves actually. We said it's important that we have a good experience for that. 'Cause actually it's it's it is a it is a big a big part of the experience and so spun up a whole team, like a a lot of attention was given to mounting, which is like whoever would have thought. And I think, you know, customers again, they're just like they are the reason you start a business and um when going, you know, just bringing this back to Interior's. I mean, the reason we started uh Interiors was to say like the government, uh particularly military. Yes. needs more energy resilience, especially for critical infrastructure. We just do so much more now in the cloud, with satellites.
How does Antares define its mission and technology for micro‑reactors?
Um our you know our missile defense sites are sitting there like being powered by diesel generators still. Like, shouldn't we upgrade that?
Okay, so I'll bite. What is Ontario?
Sure, sure. We're we're building micro reactors, so small nuclear reactors. Um and we are building in particular for critical infrastructure, largely for the military, although we do think that as costs come down, um there will be an interesting commercial market too. But basically anywhere where you're off grid for sure. Or you just want resilience behind the the grid as it exists today, you know, if cyber attacks or whatever, the grid goes down, you want backup power. Um it's a really great option.
Okay. And if one megawatt is a small neighborhood, if one gigawatt is like a big nuclear power plant, like in The Simpsons, you know. Yep. Uh what are your SMRs? Sure, yeah. Sure, yeah. There's
basically three classes size-wise.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What lessons did Julia learn from SpaceX and Opendoor that shape Antares?
0:01–2:40
2
How does Antares define its mission and technology for micro‑reactors?
2:40–6:15
3
What is Antares’ go‑to‑market strategy for the military and critical infrastructure?
6:15–11:34
4
Why has the nuclear industry’s vibe shifted toward a renaissance?
11:34–14:48
5
How are new regulations making it easier to license small reactors?
14:48–19:10
6
What are the possible future energy scenarios for micro‑reactors?
19:10–24:20
7
How does the nuclear supply chain affect Antares’ growth plans?
24:20–30:42
8
What funding milestones has Antares reached and what’s next?
30:42–45:15
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