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He Dropped Out of MIT at 19 to Build America’s Drone Arsenal. It’s Working | StrictlyVC LA 2026

Ethan Thornton started Mach Industries at 16, dropped out of MIT, and is now running six simultaneous defense programs: jet engines, cruise missiles, a surface-to-air missile system, and a new 40-foot VTOL strike aircraft just contracted by the U.S. Navy. At StrictlyVC Los Angeles 2026, TechCrunch Editor in Chief Connie Loizos sat down with the…

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Ethan Thornton started Mach Industries at 16, dropped out of MIT, and is now running six simultaneous defense programs: jet engines, cruise missiles, a surface-to-air missile system, and a new 40-foot VTOL strike aircraft just contracted by the U.S. Navy.

At StrictlyVC Los Angeles 2026, TechCrunch Editor in Chief Connie Loizos sat down with the Mach Industries founder and CEO for a rare on-stage conversation about what it actually takes to build a serious defense hardware company from scratch — and why the U.S. has no choice but to move faster.

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8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. @WakenBoi

    June 20, 2026 at 12:01 pm

    Nepobaby silverspoon

    • @rangeroverr3874

      June 20, 2026 at 4:17 pm

      I don’t think so what made u say that

    • @Observe411

      June 20, 2026 at 7:54 pm

      You probably majored in gender studies.

  2. @bobbobby1438

    June 20, 2026 at 12:11 pm

    Very smart kid

  3. @BrianDarcy-o1l

    June 20, 2026 at 5:11 pm

    Should ask him about implanting a hardcore profit-before-people ideology into AI robotics???

    • @w.e.b_b

      June 20, 2026 at 5:19 pm

      LOLOLOL so America should focus more on having people sharpening spears instead of developing a new weapon? Gtfo

  4. @viuo-o4p

    June 20, 2026 at 6:40 pm

    This guy raised over 100 million
    And have his employees design the weapons
    His weapons is worse then andril most of his weapons he designed already existed

  5. @ChaitanyaJongra

    June 21, 2026 at 2:55 am

    a great founder.
    moves really fast and gets shit done.

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Science & Technology

Neko Health raised $700M to scan your body. Is it worth it? | Equity Podcast

Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s Neko Health raised $700 million to build a business around scanning your body, but it’s not the only company centering its roadmap around a new kind of preventative healthcare. Midjourney is building its own body scanner, while Function Health has also raised significant capital to build out its preventative-health platform. Why…

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Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s Neko Health raised $700 million to build a business around scanning your body, but it’s not the only company centering its roadmap around a new kind of preventative healthcare. Midjourney is building its own body scanner, while Function Health has also raised significant capital to build out its preventative-health platform. Why are investors betting so big on this category?

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis talks with Farooq Abbasi, founder and general partner of Preface Ventures and an investor in Neko Health, about how Neko compares with other consumer-health startups. They discuss what has to happen for body scanning to become part of the broader healthcare system.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

1:44 From Spotify to Neko Health: the pitch that got him investing

6:22 Why preventative care is so hard to access

8:23 Inside a Neko scan

12:03 Scaling from Sweden to the world (sorry, not SF yet)

14:20 The dark side of VC-backed health: subscribers, not patients

19:14 Open Evidence and the rise of vertical AI in medicine

22:00 IPO or bust? What “winning” looks like in healthcare

24:12 Outro

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Bloomberg Technology

CoreWeave CEO on New AI Products, Computing Demand

CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator discusses the launch of Forge, a new suite of development tools designed to help clients train and improve AI models, as the company seeks to broaden its offerings beyond the “neocloud” label. He speaks with Ed Ludlow on “Bloomberg Tech” during the company’s first large-scale user conference in San Francisco. ——–…

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CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator discusses the launch of Forge, a new suite of development tools designed to help clients train and improve AI models, as the company seeks to broaden its offerings beyond the “neocloud” label. He speaks with Ed Ludlow on “Bloomberg Tech” during the company’s first large-scale user conference in San Francisco.
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CNET

OpenAI Dev Day 2026: Everything Announced in 15 Minutes

OpenAI’s annual Dev Day 2026 introduced dots, which are AI agents within ChatGPT that can execute tasks on your behalf and even answer phone calls and text messages. CEO Sam Altman also introduced a faster and more powerful model called GPT-6.1 Sol for professional coding and work applications. Read more about OpenAI on CNET.com: OpenAI’s…

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OpenAI’s annual Dev Day 2026 introduced dots, which are AI agents within ChatGPT that can execute tasks on your behalf and even answer phone calls and text messages. CEO Sam Altman also introduced a faster and more powerful model called GPT-6.1 Sol for professional coding and work applications.

Read more about OpenAI on CNET.com:
OpenAI’s Latest Personal AI Agents Have a Cute Name and Never Stop Working

Timecode Chapters:
0:00 Introduction & Codex Updates
0:22 Introducing AI Agents: Dots
1:18 How Dots Delegate & Automate Work
1:37 ChatGPT Space: Team & Agent Collaboration
3:06 Live Demo: Dots in Action
4:15 Hands-Free Catchup & Voice Features
4:53 Live Demo: Working inside ChatGPT Space
6:04 Integrating Dots into Slack & Workflows
7:56 Specialist Dots & Enterprise Availability
8:52 Launching GPT 6.1 Soul & UltraFast Speed
10:14 Decisions API & Luna Model
10:55 Codex in the Cloud & 3D Interactive World Demo
12:23 Refreshed Codex CLI & Real-time App Building
13:38 Autonomous Browser Control & Robotics Demo
13:51 OpenAI Marketplace Launch & Wrap-up

Video Credits:
Host: OpenAI
Scripted by: OpenAI
Producer: OpenAI & Jonathan Gomez
Camera: OpenAI
Video Editor: Jonathan Gomez
Thumbnail Designer: Tharon Green

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#openai #samaltman #ai #artificialintelligence #superintelligence #chatgpt #aiagents #aiagent #dots

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