Hermeus Raises $100M Series B | Hacker News Reader

Hermeus Raises $100M Series B

hermeus.com

43 pointsjbredeche41 comments

"It’s a future I want to live in" - Sam Altman

Not sure what future he is referring to, but if he means mach-5 private drones (i.e., one or two passenger) then it is not the future I want to live in. We need to advance public transport for the masses and the use of renewable energy for it. We don't need hyper polluting single-digit passenger private transport for the ultra rich.

If, as suggested below, it is all a cover for developing hypersonic autonomous killer drones, count me out too.

I don't think it's a secret, from the page:

> and building for both commercial and defense markets

> We need to advance public transport for the masses and the use of renewable energy for it.

I don't think Sam Altman would disagree with this statement. He also recently led a $500 million investment in Helion (https://www.helionenergy.com/articles/helion-raises-500m/), with the goal of achieving net-zero fusion energy by 2024.

Also, a lot of major technological advances enjoyed by the masses today started off as niche defense projects (the Internet, GPS, modern flight, etc). If we're able to prove out the technology for the niche defense use-case, it's not out of the realm of possibility that it will eventually be worth investing in developments of the same technology in ways that may benefit the masses.

That said, it is true that Sam Altman does not hold a strict pacifist view on technological improvements in defense (i.e. funding of killing machines). That's a thornier debate.

Isn't 500Mio kind of nothing to get fusion working in 2 years?

No idea, I'm no expert on the matter. I'd also think that $100M to get hypersonic aircraft working in 1 year is also inadequate, so shrug.

Either way, he's deploying his capital in ways that advance each of these goals, and he notably has deployed more capital towards renewable energy than developing so-called "killing machines" (setting aside the possibility of subsequent mass-market inventions that spin off from military technology development).

>achieving net-zero fusion energy by 2024

LOL, unbelievable!

"On the path to hypersonic passenger aircraft, Hermeus is partnering with government agencies including the US Air Force and NASA to develop a series of autonomous aircraft that derisk the technology and solve urgent national security challenges."

All smiles and nicely dressed young people making future war machines.

So what? Do you think what's happening in Ukraine is bad right now? Do you think we shouldn't send them anti-aircraft weapons, drones, planes, whatever? There are bad people in the world who take advantage of those without the means to defend themselves, and I would much rather that America be able to defend itself (or her allies) than live under the thumb of whatever dictator had better weapons and the will to use them.

Because the US would only use the weapons to defend good causes, never to invade other countries or sell them to anyone doing anything bad. I don't think Russia being worse suddenly makes the US the good guys.

What's your proposal?

The US absolutely does things I don't like, a lot, but you know the old saying -- "compare me to the alternative, not the almighty." The only other superpower out there is China, a country actively committing genocide. The EU is a theoretical economic and regulatory superpower but won't ever be a full one because they don't have a strong military and depend on America's security guarantees. So maybe the US isn't a "good guy", but it seems like the best guy out of the ones to choose from.

maybe the bad people in the world is you ? wubba wubba wubba wubba woo woo woo

Maybe, or maybe it's the ones who invaded a sovereign country and bombed a maternity hospital, or maybe the ones committing genocide.

upvoted you because you agreed with me

I get the point you're trying to make, but almost no one in the picture is really smiling, and many are clearly not intentionally. That stood out to me. I wouldn't be surprised if they were told not to, perhaps even in an attempt to avoid comments like yours.

They're building machines that will be used to kill humans. Don't work for Hermeus and shame on Sam Altman for war profiteering.

There are machines out there that kill humans to keep other humans alive. Have you read the internet lately?

I think the talk of hypersonic civilian transport is basically a fig leaf.

I don’t think in a world with video conferencing and lie-flat business class, that there is a commercially viable hypersonic transport. Even the Concorde struggled and hypersonic transport is likely to have more even more fuel and space trade offs.

And the Carbon output per passenger mile is likely to be astronomical.

Now the military has a completely different set of trade offs and hypersonic vehicles and weapons have enough tactical and strategic importance that cost is not a huge limiting factor.

At the same time, there are people that will feel bad about supporting/working for a pure military company, so having at least the possibility of civilian transport soothes a lot of consciences.

How can they get to the point where they are building a 90 minute cross Atlantic flight for $15M, and the defense industry spends trillions to build Jets that cost billions. I know this is a press release and there are more details, but it does make me understand why Grover Norquist wants to shrink the government to the size it could be drowned in the bathtub.

Id presume that there’s all sorts of constraints that come up when making sure an aircraft is safe for a live human that make all sorts of design choices way more complex. Otoh I have no idea what I’m talking about!

Heard he's done pretty well at Y Combinator!

this literally is the product of that same defense industry. the same economic systems and incentives that created the F35 project is what's created this project.

supersonic transatlantic drones funded by in-q-tel is hardly an example of the virtues of small government.

Most of the science and research used to develop their designs are from said billions that went into designing those jets for the military.

From other commenters, it seems like money should be included with science and research. The cynical side of me (granted this a large part of me...) feels like this is a money transfer from government to private enterprise, that Sam Altman simply noticed that this would generate fat profits because the costs would be borne by taxpayers.

I’m so curious about the sound issue. They have this roadmap pointing towards passenger planes, and I want to know the solution to not destroying the sanity of innocent Oklahomans!

Assuming that that just isn’t all just happy marketing masking a more likely military oriented roadmap, as another commenter suggested.

Their tech is great and I enjoyed the design of their site, but I'm wondering if they align with the "move fast and break things" motto as I would never board a plane that was designed under that premise (even less, one that travels at Mach 5).

I read their "Company Tenets" [1] and, unfortunately, that seems to be the case as suggested by "Drive to Test Quickly" and also "Hardware Richness: To enable calculated risk" ... WTF!?

Also, what in the world is going on with their "Parables". Then a list of places to visit in Atlanta, then a list of dogs along with their positions within the company. Whew ...

[1] https://www.hermeus.com/about

I'm glad the ultrawealthy and militaries have a cool new option!

Congratulations to our neighbor!

Did Sam Altman earn all his money from investments? Did he have any successful startup?

> Did he have any successful startup?

He did not.

depends what you mean by "successful". loopt was fairly successful at collecting money from VC firms.

Altman failed upward from Loopt[1], ending up running YCombinator somehow. Maybe Paul Graham just really likes him.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopt

He is incredibly smart though which is clear from his talks and his writings. I don't mean to disparage him in any way. I was merely curious.

>He is incredibly smart though which is clear from his talks

Any specific non-start up talks I should listen to?

Because I listened to his start up talks, they are, ok I guess. I dont have anything negative or positive about it.

Lucky sob

"Open"AI, but no idea how they're doing.

Let's be clear here: these are supersonic drones, funded by the CIA.

This page is very careful to euphemize that these are drones, and that they are weapons of war, and that they are being paid for by the most lawless part of the US government.

Anyone touching or funding such tech should be ashamed of themselves.

Woah yeah

From their about page: On the path to hypersonic passenger aircraft, Hermeus is partnering with government agencies including the US Air Force and NASA to develop a series of autonomous aircraft that derisk the technology and solve urgent national security challenges.

Now, I don't think it's obvious or broadly agreed on that funding/starting a weapons manufacturer is bad per se, but it does change the narrative.

FWIW The Internet's development was funded by DARPA - The U.S.'s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. For better or worse defense/offense has driven significant innovation for humanity, which has created many non-violent related benefits.

Why should they be ashamed of themselves? We're witnessing in realtime in Ukraine that kinetic wars are possible in the developed world (something I personally thought was going out of vogue with countries leaning much more heavily on cyber & economic weapons) and the U.S. is the country I prefer to have overmatch compared to anyone else and uphold the fundamental post WWII global order. Would I rather this all wasn't necessary? Absolutely, but the world is what it is and we have to live in it.

I think there is a huge gap between "defensive weapons technology is important" and "america's torture and extrajudicial assassination department needs faster aerial murderbots". They are nowhere near the same thing.

I would probably be singing a different tune if they hadn't just attempted to hack Congress to cover up their torture program. There are lawful engagements and legitimate defense, and then there is the CIA, which almost makes a habit of publicly flexing how much the rule of law and the conventions of war do not apply to them.

For those unaware: In-Q-Tel is the CIA's VC arm.

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