Fantastic deep dive on turning legislation into actual execution. The upside-sharing provision is genius because it flips the incentive structure so companies can't sandbag their projections to extract more subsidy. I worked on a smaller-scale grant program a while back and we had exactly this problem where applicants would lowball expected returns to justify bigger asks. The IRR-vs-hurdle rate framework is also smart becuz it forces everyone to speak the same analytical language instead of negotiating based on vibes or political pressure. One thing that stood out is how much discretion you had to work with, being able to set rolling deadlines and allocate capital dynamically across segments gave the team serious flexibility to respond as the landscape evolved.
Jordan - thanks for the comment. I am not sure about the FOIA requests. As I say in the piece and Secretary Raimondo said at CSIS in early 2024, the leading edge companies alone requested more than $70 billion. Happy to chat about the pod (which I always enjoy listening to!)
This is such a valuable substack. I really appreciate you guys putting this type of content out for anyone. Its awesome. Thank you. Really great work
Fantastic deep dive on turning legislation into actual execution. The upside-sharing provision is genius because it flips the incentive structure so companies can't sandbag their projections to extract more subsidy. I worked on a smaller-scale grant program a while back and we had exactly this problem where applicants would lowball expected returns to justify bigger asks. The IRR-vs-hurdle rate framework is also smart becuz it forces everyone to speak the same analytical language instead of negotiating based on vibes or political pressure. One thing that stood out is how much discretion you had to work with, being able to set rolling deadlines and allocate capital dynamically across segments gave the team serious flexibility to respond as the landscape evolved.
Thank you for your comment! The discretion was hugely helpful to us
also podcast wen
Todd are the initial requests FOIA-able yet? Would love to know how much the fabs initially wanted
Jordan - thanks for the comment. I am not sure about the FOIA requests. As I say in the piece and Secretary Raimondo said at CSIS in early 2024, the leading edge companies alone requested more than $70 billion. Happy to chat about the pod (which I always enjoy listening to!)