150x

Giving Tuesday and the case for Speculative Technologies

Today is giving Tuesday. Per tradition, I’m reminding you that Speculative Technologies exists because people like you support us.

But giving is the wrong way to think about it. Money is a tool for enabling more of what you want to see in the world. We’re selling a world with more wonderful technology, more ambitious research, and more pathways for talented scientists than just academia or startups.

Supporting Spectech is also how to keep your finger on the pulse of what science and technology is coming after the next big thing. Take the Brains research accelerator: because it’s domain agnostic, it’s basically a cross-section of what the most ambitious scientists want to work on, and supporters get an inside look.

Supporting a fellow through the program takes $60k. That covers staff time (the program is operationally heavy and we work closely with the fellows), mentor honoraria, and travel/ events (we’ve found that it’s incredibly important that the fellows meet each other and present live to potential allies).

$60k is not a small amount of money. But it’s also $6000 from 10 people or $600 from 100 people. Coordination is powerful. And when a fellow successfully starts a FRO or ARPA program, that $60k has unlocked $10M or more. That’s more than 150x leverage.

Since the first cohort in 2024, our fellows have gone on to raise $40M of philanthropic and government money to run ambitious programs in health, climate, materials, and space.

If we’re able to get more than the bare minimum to run the program, there are so many things we could do:

• Create tools to help the fellows iterate faster and help them roadmap their program

• Hire a director who could spend all their time making the program better

• Give the fellows seed money to start working on their programs immediately

We already have several anchor donors who have committed 20% of the program’s budget for the next several years. If you want to join their ranks, please reach out. You can support us in smaller ways here or sign up for a paid Substack subscription.

Today is also a great day to become a supporter because we’re hosting a supporters call on Wednesday December 3rd at 8p EST, where we’re sharing what we’ve been up to, a peek at what’s coming next, and giving supporters a chance to ask us about anything.

However you choose to be involved — we’re grateful for you coming on this journey with us.

—Ben