Packy McCormick's latest dispatch from Not Boring challenges the prevailing narrative of stagnation by highlighting a surprising convergence of military innovation, industrial revival, and medical breakthroughs. While much of the public discourse fixates on gridlock, McCormick argues that the real story is the rapid maturation of technologies that were, until recently, confined to prototypes. The piece is notable not just for its optimism, but for its specific assertion that the United States is quietly rebuilding its industrial base through private-sector agility rather than top-down mandates.
The Return of American Shipbuilding
McCormick anchors his optimism in the trajectory of Saronic, an Austin-based startup that has moved from concept to combat in the span of a month. He writes, "A system built by a four-year-old startup went from prototype to a live combat mission, a month after another Corsair performed the first known rescue of downed pilots by an autonomous boat." This rapid deployment underscores a shift in how defense capabilities are developed, bypassing the traditional decade-long procurement cycles. However, the gravity of this development cannot be overstated: the article notes that three autonomous boats were used in combat to strike an Iranian submarine and a ship-maintenance facility. While McCormick focuses on the technical success, the human and geopolitical costs of such escalation remain a critical, albeit unspoken, backdrop to this "good news."
The narrative then pivots to the economic implications of this technology. McCormick details Saronic's decision to locate its massive new shipyard, Port Alpha, in Brownsville, Texas, a move that promises to create up to 10,000 jobs. He contrasts this with a missed opportunity in California, noting, "California fumbled it, because local and state government failed to pass legislation around a proposed permitting framework in time." The argument here is clear: regulatory inertia is the primary enemy of industrial renewal. The author suggests that the failure of the California Forever project serves as a cautionary tale, while the Texas project demonstrates what happens when policy aligns with execution. This framing is effective in highlighting the tangible costs of political gridlock, though it risks oversimplifying the complex environmental and labor negotiations required to build such a facility.
"Proving that a startup can build autonomous boats that are useful in combat is huge, but proving that they can build a great American shipyard again might be even bigger."
Austin's Industrial Renaissance
The commentary expands to a broader theme of regional resilience, focusing on Austin as an emerging hub for both energy and robotics. McCormick highlights Base Power Company, which is finally deploying residential batteries within Austin Energy territory after years of operation elsewhere. He describes the arrangement as a "Win-Win-Win," where homeowners get backup power and the utility gains a dispatchable fleet during peak demand. This is a pragmatic solution to grid instability that avoids the need for massive new infrastructure projects.
Simultaneously, the article spotlights TerraFirma, a robotics firm backed by Kleiner Perkins, which aims to revolutionize construction. McCormick quotes their mission to "build the full technology stack needed to deliver an order-of-magnitude improvement in one of the world's oldest, largest, most important, but least efficient industries." The concentration of talent here is striking, with executives from SpaceX, Anduril, and Base all converging on this single venture. The argument suggests that the bottleneck in construction is not a lack of demand, but a lack of technological integration. Critics might note that the construction industry is notoriously resistant to change due to fragmented labor markets and liability concerns, but the sheer density of experienced founders in this cap table suggests a serious attempt to overcome those hurdles.
The Humanoid Revolution and Medical Breakthroughs
McCormick then turns to the robotics sector, distinguishing between factory automation and the emerging field of humanoids. He details Walden Robotics' $300 million seed round, noting that their robots are already working in Toyota factories. The key innovation, as McCormick explains, is the ability of these machines to learn tasks through demonstration rather than rigid programming. "They learn tasks through demonstrations, then improve through practice, starting with the annoying jobs in manufacturing and logistics that have remained hard to automate," he writes. This addresses a long-standing limitation in industrial automation: the inability to handle variability.
On the consumer front, the article introduces Sunday Robotics' ACT-2 model, which claims a 99% success rate in learning new behaviors from a single example. McCormick highlights the company's new metric for progress, "Solves," which defines success by scope and adaptation cost rather than just video demonstrations. "Progress in robotics is difficult to measure because demos vary by setup. Demo ≠ Solved," he quotes CEO Tony Zhao. This shift in metrics is a crucial step toward moving robotics from novelty to utility.
The final section of the piece shifts to healthcare, celebrating the FDA approval of Merck's Lipfendra, the first oral PCSK9 inhibitor for lowering cholesterol. McCormick writes, "Heart attacks can now be attacked back with antibody-like potency in a $10.50 daily pill." This is a significant leap from injectable treatments, removing a major barrier to adherence for millions of patients. The article connects this to Merck's broader strategy involving macrocyclic peptides, describing them as "the next wave of drug discovery." While the medical breakthrough is undeniable, the piece briefly touches on the cost and accessibility of such innovations, a factor that often determines real-world impact.
"Heart attacks can now be attacked back with antibody-like potency in a $10.50 daily pill."
The Open Source AI Race
The commentary concludes with the rapid evolution of open-source artificial intelligence. McCormick notes the release of Kimi K3 by Beijing-based Moonshot AI, a model that rivals top-tier closed systems in specific benchmarks. He writes, "It looks like an open model is competing with the big boys." The article also covers the release of Inkling by Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab, emphasizing the value of open weights for customization and inspection. "Open models competing is great because competition is great," McCormick argues, suggesting that this dynamic will prevent a handful of labs from monopolizing the future of AI.
This section carries a subtle geopolitical undertone, as the article acknowledges that the US government has previously restricted certain AI developments while Chinese models surge ahead. The argument is that open weights allow for a more distributed and resilient ecosystem, where value accrues to the many rather than the few. However, the piece does not fully address the security risks associated with releasing powerful models to the public, a tension that remains unresolved in the industry.
Bottom Line
McCormick's strongest argument is that the convergence of autonomous systems, advanced manufacturing, and open-source AI is creating a new industrial reality that is moving faster than policy or public perception. The piece effectively uses specific data points—from shipyard acreage to drug efficacy rates—to ground its optimism in tangible progress. Its biggest vulnerability is the tendency to frame complex geopolitical and social challenges as purely engineering problems, potentially underestimating the friction that regulatory and human factors will introduce. Readers should watch for how these technologies scale in the face of real-world constraints, particularly regarding labor displacement and international security dynamics.