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Andy Zhao Profile
Andy Zhao

@phandypack

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CTO @LimelightSteel | Disciple @ActivateFellows | Views are from somewhere between Boltzmann and Bessemer

Oakland, CA
Joined June 2009
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
@phandypack
Andy Zhao
4 years
Henry Bessemer figuring out how to dismantle the steel industry is a vibe.
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
5 months
RT @ilangur: more like
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@grok
Grok
6 days
What do you want to know?.
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
6 months
The existence of deep tech implies the existence of shallow tech. Love Ian's historical grounding that VC-backed companies have always been building hardware. Fairchild, Intel, Apple, Genentech.
@IanRountree
ian
6 months
Okay hear me out…
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
10 months
Choice in nuclear reactor design reflects something deeper about how these companies operate. Microsoft going for old as hell, legacy light water reactor. Google betting on fancy molten salt reactor. Amazon adding carbide coatings over uranium pellets.
@SimonMahan
Simon Mahan
10 months
Sep 20 - Microsoft announces Three Mile Island deal (Pennsylvania).Oct 14 - Google announces deal with Kairos (Tennessee?).Oct 16 - Amazon announces deal with X-Energy (Washington).
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
11 months
Favorite nugget:. Kaiser Permanente is a spinoff of Kaiser Shipyards in Alameda and Oakland, which employed ~79,000 people building steel ships during WW2. They provided hospital care to their employees and got really good at it.
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
11 months
An exploration of why I love Oakland and a few history nuggets .
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
11 months
West Oakland has been a hub for manufacturing and shipping for over 100 years!. Really fun to learn about how consistent the relationship between SF and Oakland has been for a century.
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
1 year
Thinking about the modern manifestations of different branches of science. Thermodynamics -> Turbine
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
1 year
17:45 to hear my sweet sweet podcast voice.
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open.spotify.com
Everybody in the Pool · Episode
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
1 year
So fun to run into @mollywood at the ARPA-E Summit and share my love of rocks and metal!.
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
1 year
RT @LimelightSteel: Lasers, angst, and hot tubs - how does this all relate to steelmaking?
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
1 year
Let's go build some big big lasers
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
1 year
@activatefellows was started by ARPA-E alums that wanted to empower scientists to turn their research into world-changing companies. @OliviaDippo and I would not be here without @ilangur and everyone at Activate that have supported us through magma and back again.
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
1 year
@ARPAE was started by my heroes Steven Chu and Arun Majumdar in 2009 as a moonshot program to support clean energy projects. The work that has come out of ARPA-E for the past 15 years has relentlessly inspired me to think and dream audaciously.
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
1 year
Blasting rocks with lasers to make metal continues to be the best job in the world. Grateful for this @ARPAE X @LimelightSteel collab. It means so much for the company, but also for me personally.
@ARPAE
ARPA-E
1 year
ARPA-E just announced $28M for 13 projects to advance zero-process-emission ironmaking and ultra-low life cycle emissions steelmaking⚒️. Learn more about the selected projects under the Revolutionizing Ore to Steel to Impact Emissions (ROSIE) program:
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
2 years
With some new twists from:. Silicon (Bardeen & Brattain, 1946).Gallium (Nakamura, 1993).
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
2 years
2000 years later, the same questions about Salt and Iron remain. But this time around, the Salt is for batteries (Volta, 1800). And iron is for steel (Bessemer, 1856).
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
2 years
In 81 BC, the Chinese emperor held a debate on whether to keep the state monopoly on Salt and Iron, or to abolish them in favor of a free market policy. Discourses on Salt and Iron is an ancient text that I'll rewrite for the 21st century one day.
en.wikipedia.org
@phandypack
Andy Zhao
2 years
Not a single soul:. Me: here is every thermal conductivity measurement of molten sodium chloride and iron since 1961
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
2 years
When I got really bored when writing my thesis, I also rewrote the wikipedia page hahaha . After, when I was discussing something with my PhD advisor, he told me I should read the Wikipedia page and that it was surprisingly good. Then I was like my guy. .
en.wikipedia.org
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
2 years
And here's my thread on high temperature measurements .
@phandypack
Andy Zhao
5 years
If you've ever driven into Las Vegas from California, you passed by this epic field of ten thousand mirrors, each the size of a garage door. Sunlight is concentrated to the top of a tower to heat molten nitrate salts over 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Here's a thread on hot salt 1/n
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@phandypack
Andy Zhao
2 years
If you'd rather read twitter threads instead of a 30 page pdf, here's a thread on modeling (surprise guests are silicon manufacturing and Oppenheimer).
@phandypack
Andy Zhao
4 years
It's honestly insane to me that humans can make silicon 99.9999999% pure. Here is an ape with less hair, who can arrange 1 billion silicon atoms perfectly with just 1 impurity, into a 500 pound ingot of silicon that gets sliced and diced into our computer chips.
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