Issue #32 — Hadrian

Manufacturing is the backbone of America. It's what built this country.

But somewhere along the way, it got shipped across the sea. An industrializing Asia with inexpensive labor was, and still is, a recipe for making things somewhere else. Which, for most products, isn't a problem. A T-shirt made in China isn't a national security threat. It’s cheaper for you, me, and beneficial to companies. That’s capitalism.

But as COVID taught us, when supply chains get squeezed, America has some soft spots. Semiconductors, batteries, critical minerals, and the ingredients in our meds. Add in the parts that go into our planes, missiles, and subs — no, not an HT sub, Tommy — and you get the picture.

But something strange is happening in America. A great big wave of reindustrialization. Like the one Cody rode in Surf’s Up (all-time great movie). Nox Metals, for example. A Detroit startup run by a 20-something-year-old cutting metal with robots and shipping it overnight. What under-50-year-old wants to get into manufacturing?? But this is the wave. American know-how and new age-tech. And it’s working.

This week we’re featuring a company rethinking American manufacturing, led by a man from Down Under. Introducing Hadrian. A company whose founder has the explicit goal of making manufacturing cool again. Like a 20-year-old at a bar telling their friends they'd rather build things than work in finance.

Okay but how

During my time in public accounting, I got to tour several manufacturing plants. Some of which were multi-billion-dollar public companies that have been around for decades. Was I entirely excited about doing an inventory count over Christmas at 11 pm? Not exactly. But if you've never been inside one, it's a real experience. You get to see how things are actually built.

The commonality in every plant? There was a guy or gal who'd been doing the same task, building the same component, for DECADES. Why? Because back in year one or two, when the company was a fraction of what it is today, they became the master. Why replace Bob when he does it better than anyone?

Here’s the system Bob lives in as a skilled machinist. He takes a design, writes very specific instructions for a CNC machine, and guides it through the job. Then he does it all over again for every new custom order.

That’s exactly what Hadrian’s founder discovered after calling hundreds of manufacturers. In practically every plant there's one guy who knows how to make the part. When he retires, so does the part.

So how do you fix it? Incredibly smart software. Hadrian’s is called Opus. In their own words:

So it reads the design, writes the instructions, and checks the work as it goes. Setup takes a couple of hours, and the machine can run on its own overnight. No more waiting on Bob.

Should you expect to walk into a Hadrian facility and see no humans? No. Software handles 80-90% of the work, and humans handle the rest.

Now, let’s go back to the T-shirt example. Most of what goes into it is the same across every other T-shirt in the world. It's that last little bit that makes an Adidas different from a Nike. Hadrian is making the same bet with precision parts. Build machines and software in such a way that 80% of your capex can switch from product to product. Same machines, line, and software. But a different end-product.

And in manufacturing, that flexibility may be the difference between surviving and not. More on that later.

The guy who started it

Chris Power. To be frank, he’s a doer. A guy who makes shit happen. A guy who rolls hard sixes.

Highly encourage you to listen to Ti Morse’s full interview with him, where you’ll get a sense of who Chris is and what he’s building. Also shoutout Ti for having a great podcast & socials. Go give him a follow.

When asked about maintaining a high pace, Chris responded with two answers. The first… a methodical answer on time and hedge management.

The second…? “Sometimes you just have to roll a hard six.”

This must be why my friends don’t like playing Monopoly with me. I’m over here rolling what seems to be a bunch of hard sixes and striking a royalty deal on your railroads. You can do royalties in Monopoly? Yeah, welcome to the Deas household. Get with it or get put out of business.

So how does an Australian e-commerce guy end up in American manufacturing? History, really.

Chris noticed that empires on the decline tend to outsource their core industries, and he didn’t love the direction America was heading.

So in 2019, he moved to America with $6,000 and started cold calling manufacturers. He noticed the big automation gap and “Bob” problem in aerospace & defense and got to work.

In 2021, Hadrian was born. And after their $1.37B Series D, they're sitting at a cool $7.87B valuation. But don’t expect a slowdown any time soon. There’s a long road ahead to change the status quo of American manufacturing. But maybe we just need an e-commerce Aussie to do it.

The honest take

Manufacturing is expensive. Like $40-for-a-6-oz-jar-of-honey-from-your-local-farmers-market expensive.

And to make money, you need to spend money. In the world of big defense contractors, you need to have your facility ready-to-go to win the work. Translation? Spend $100M in capex to even bid on a contract. Lose the contract? Now you’re holding very expensive machines for a job you don’t have. Not what you’d call an ideal situation. And it’s the reason why the loss of one or two contracts can kill a company.

That’s why flexibility matters and why Hadrian is making a massive bet on it. If you build your capex in a way that can service multiple products, you can bid on five different contracts and afford to lose four of them. It’s a risk-mitigation play.

And they’re putting money behind it. Four sites and nearly 3 million square feet as of their latest release.

Big money. Big contracts. Big problems to be solved.

Chris knows the odds, too. He's said before that Hadrian might flat out fail.

But sometimes you just have to roll a hard six and make it happen. And I think Hadrian is just the right company to do it.

If they pull this off

American manufacturing gets dragged into the modern age. Software-run factories building what America needs, when America needs it, and in America. Built by the younger generation.

And because the factories are flexible, they can pivot to whatever the country needs most. The Alabama site was built for submarine parts, but could be expanded to take on drones and munitions. As Chris put it himself, “Production is now the frontline of deterrence.”

So where does this all end up? In a corner booth at a dive bar out in Left Field, where a 22-year-old college grad is bragging to their friends that they're heading off to build things in American manufacturing.

Want to work out there?

Good. Because Hadrian has a spot for you. 143 open positions as of 10/4/2026, and they’re still growing. No experience on a factory floor? No problem. Hadrian will train you in 30 days.

Open roles → https://www.hadrian.co/careers

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