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I watched the teaser of this podcast last night. I immediately tried to buy stock in the kids company. Mac Industries.

This kid(22)is so smart, he started building weapons when he was 16. Dropped out of MIT to start Mac Industries. Now, he has $100 million contracts with the US military making drones.

It made me proud that there are still young white men that are not obsessed with social media.

I was amazed listening to this 22 year old kid. He is that smart.

Anyone else hear of him ?

1 posted on 03/13/2026 12:09:39 PM PDT by woodbutcher1963
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To: woodbutcher1963

I have not heard of him, but the fact he dropped out of MIT, where everyone knows they are elite - and also want recognition for it, to make and sell stuff shows he is singularly focused.

financial success usually comes to focused and driven people.


2 posted on 03/13/2026 12:24:25 PM PDT by PGR88
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To: woodbutcher1963
"This 22-Year-Old Built a .50 Cal Rifle Out of Home Depot Parts "

Photos or it didn't happen.

3 posted on 03/13/2026 12:39:00 PM PDT by Paal Gulli
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To: woodbutcher1963

Was that him who flew by wearing a gold and red armored suit?

God bless America.


4 posted on 03/13/2026 12:39:18 PM PDT by MikelTackNailer (Reality is what you imagine it to be.)
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To: woodbutcher1963

When I was in 5th grade, our class went on a field trip that included a stop at the Pennsylvania State Police Training Headquarters. They had a museum there of homemade weapons that they had confiscated over the years.

They never should have shown these things to an active 11 year old mind with unlimited curiosity.

The one that really caught my attention was a 12 gauge Rat Trap Shotgun

It was a 1x6 about 10 inches long, mounted vertically to a piece of 2x6 that lay flat on the on the floor. There was a piece of 4 inch piece of 3/4 inch black steel pipe drilled into the vertical 1x6, a piece of homasote board covering the backside of the 1x6 with a roofing nail through the board to act as a firing pin, lined up to hit the primer of a 12 gauge shell placed in the pipe.

A rat trap was mounted on the homasote board so that when it went off, the clamp hit square on the roofing nail, driving it forward, causing the shotgun shell in the pipe to go off.

A piece of monofilament fishing line connected to the trigger on the rat trap to cause it to go off.

What an educational field trip for a 5th grader.


8 posted on 03/13/2026 12:54:40 PM PDT by tired&retired (Blessings )
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To: woodbutcher1963

RE: a 22 year old built a 50....

Could the average 50 year old build a .22?


10 posted on 03/13/2026 1:01:23 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
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To: woodbutcher1963

I was on a cross country road trip the last four days. I listened to this podcast.

I thought the kid was impressive. His theories on how war fighting is going to change over the coming years was an interesting listen.

My one gripe is when he veered off his area of expertise he spoke with “authority”, but his understanding of some things was thin. That happens with a lot of these young geniuses. Wisdom that comes with experience will round off those edges.

It was worth a couple of hours of my time on I90.


14 posted on 03/13/2026 2:02:59 PM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: woodbutcher1963

And why does it matter that he’s white? Wouldn’t it be just as good if he was a black kid?


15 posted on 03/13/2026 2:03:57 PM PDT by bigdaddy45
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To: woodbutcher1963

The conversation about the .50 is about 1:27 in. It wasn’t a Barrett knock-off, more of a homemade musket using a more sophisticated propellant than black powder.

He used deer feeder batteries to electrolyze hydrogen and oxygen from water (carried in a backpack), then piped the oxy-hydrogen gas (as propellant) into a “barrel.”

He says he made the “barrel” from random pipes, and he repeatedly refers to it as a “rifle” but never address how he put rifling in a generic pipe he bought from Home Depot or Amazon. Then he’d ignite the propellant gas with a spark and launch 1/2” ball bearings from it. No mention of rifling and use of a ball bearings as projectiles gives me to believe it was a smoothbore.

But he never test-fired it because Mom put the kibosh on the idea of exploding hydrogen gas that close to his face (exactly my argument against bullpup rifles).


20 posted on 03/13/2026 2:46:01 PM PDT by Paal Gulli
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To: woodbutcher1963

Looks like Sequoia Capital is invested in it.

https://sequoiacap.com/our-companies/?_categories=defense#all-panel

I try to keep up with drone and rocket companies but I hadn’t heard of this one. Not surprising because there are a lot of non-public players and this one is basically a startup. If the technology works they will have a lot of bigger players wanting to buy them.


23 posted on 03/13/2026 5:22:07 PM PDT by Pelham (President Eisenhower. Operation Wetback 1953-54)
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To: woodbutcher1963

During WW-II, guerrilla fighters in the Philippines used makeshift shotguns made from sections of pipes that were discharged by slam firing. After the war an American company produced and sold these shotguns in the US. My uncle owned one.


27 posted on 03/14/2026 8:01:14 AM PDT by The Great RJ
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