Packy McCormick's latest dispatch from Utah doesn't just report on technology; it captures a palpable shift in the zeitgeist where previously fringe engineering dreams are becoming industrial realities. While the piece opens with a personal anecdote about air quality and home health, the core argument is a data-driven assertion that we are entering a period of unprecedented acceleration in biotech, space infrastructure, and automated manufacturing. This is not a collection of isolated wins, but a coordinated surge in human capability that challenges the notion of a stagnant economy.
The Biological and Industrial Renaissance
McCormick anchors the first major section on the explosive results from Eli Lilly's Phase 3 trial for retatrutide, a triple-hormone agonist. The data is staggering: patients lost an average of 70.3 pounds, with nearly half achieving weight loss comparable to bariatric surgery. McCormick writes, "These are bariatric surgery results in a shot, with a bunch of freebies thrown in." The argument here is that the technology has finally outpaced the hype, moving from gray-market curiosity to a clinically verified solution that also addresses comorbidities like osteoarthritis and prediabetes. This is a critical distinction; the drug isn't just shrinking waistlines, it's reversing systemic metabolic damage. The author notes that 72% of prediabetic participants returned to normal blood sugar levels, suggesting a potential pivot in how we treat chronic disease entirely.
However, the piece also highlights a parallel revolution in manufacturing. SendCutSend, a company bootstrapped on credit cards to solve the founder's need for fast custom metal parts, has reached a $1 billion valuation. McCormick explains that the company's success lies in attacking "soft costs" like quoting and billing, which traditionally swamp the actual fabrication cost in low-volume work. By automating these white-collar overheads, they are enabling a new model of on-demand production. This aligns with the broader theme of reindustrialization, echoing the context of small modular reactors where rapid, scalable deployment is key. Just as the artificial egg discussed later requires precise engineering to support life, SendCutSend requires precise software to support supply chains. Critics might argue that scaling this model to heavy industry is far more complex than laser-cutting metal sheets, but the valuation suggests the market sees a fundamental shift in how goods are made.
"People have been excited about reta on social media for a while, but it's still gray market, so this is a key step towards getting it to the general public, and just an astonishing set of results."
Engineering Life and the Stars
The commentary then pivots to Colossal Biosciences, which recently hatched chicks from fully artificial eggs. McCormick is quick to address the skepticism surrounding the project, noting that MIT Technology Review's Antonio Regalado called the marketing "pure Hollywood." Yet, McCormick pushes back, arguing that the engineering advance—the oxygen-permeable membrane that allows embryos to develop without supplemental gas—is the real breakthrough. This is not merely a parlor trick; it is a foundational step toward the company's stated goal of de-extinction, specifically the South Island giant moa, which laid eggs too large for any living bird to surrogate. The author frames this as crossing a threshold: "With this chicken breakthrough, it feels like humans have crossed a road."
This theme of crossing thresholds extends to the skies with SpaceX's S-1 filing. The filing reveals a company that is not just launching rockets but building a massive compute infrastructure. The financials are staggering, with Starlink generating over $3 billion in revenue and a massive AI segment projected to have a total addressable market of $26.5 trillion. McCormick writes, "There is no one operating at a higher level than Elon and the SpaceX team, across everything from terrestrial data centers to rockets to satellites." The piece highlights a strategic pivot where SpaceX is selling compute on Earth today but plans to deploy orbital compute by 2028, aiming for 100 gigawatts of annual launch capacity. This vision of redundancy—moving civilization beyond a single planet—is presented as a necessary hedge against existential threats. The argument is bolstered by the fact that the company is already securing billion-dollar monthly contracts for AI infrastructure, proving that the market is ready for this scale.
The AI Intelligence Explosion
Perhaps the most surprising claim in the piece concerns the capabilities of artificial intelligence in pure mathematics. McCormick details how a general-purpose reasoning model from OpenAI solved the Erdős Planar Distance Problem, an 80-year-old conjecture in combinatorial geometry. The model didn't just retrieve existing answers; it constructed a novel proof using algebraic number theory, a connection no human had previously made. Fields Medalist Tim Gowers endorsed the work, stating, "if a human had written the paper and submitted it to the Annals of Mathematics, I would have recommended acceptance without any hesitation."
McCormick admits to his own skepticism, noting, "I've been more skeptical about AI than I normally am about new technologies, and less excited than the average person in tech. Per the evidence that keeps coming out, I've been wrong." This admission lends significant weight to the argument. The speed at which models have moved from solving high school math problems to producing Annals-worthy research suggests a non-linear acceleration in capability. The author connects this to the broader narrative of optimism, suggesting that these tools will unlock solutions to problems that have stalled human progress for decades. A counterargument worth considering is the verification bottleneck; while the proof was peer-reviewed, the reliance on AI for such foundational work raises questions about reproducibility and the nature of human discovery. Yet, the fact that the model burned only about $1,000 in compute costs to solve an 80-year-old problem is a compelling data point for efficiency.
"The model isn't math-specific, it just thought for a long time and burned an estimated ~$1,000 max worth of tokens, which is pretty affordable for an 80 year old unsolved problem!"
Bottom Line
McCormick's strongest argument is the convergence of these disparate fields—biology, manufacturing, space, and AI—into a single narrative of accelerating capability. The piece effectively uses hard data to counter the prevailing doom-and-gloom narrative, showing that the future is being built right now, often in unexpected places like a laser-cutting shop in Reno or a lab in Utah. The biggest vulnerability in the optimism is the assumption that these technologies will scale without significant regulatory or ethical friction, particularly in the realms of genetic engineering and AI autonomy. However, the sheer velocity of the breakthroughs described suggests that the world may not have time to pause and deliberate before the new reality arrives.
The most striking takeaway is the shift from theoretical possibility to industrial execution. Whether it is a drug that reverses obesity, a factory that prints metal parts instantly, or an AI that solves ancient mathematical riddles, the era of "maybe" is ending. We are entering the era of "done," and the pace is only going to increase.