Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc (@ChadCazel) header
Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc (@ChadCazel) profile picture

Building @BlackwingVC โ€ข Investing in America's future (@ValarAtomics, @Atomic_Inc, @AskariDefense) โ€ข Optimistic Midwest farm boy โ€ข Soli Deo Gloria

California, USA
Joined January 2021
Photo by Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc (@ChadCazel)Photo by Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc (@ChadCazel)Photo by Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc (@ChadCazel)Photo by Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc (@ChadCazel)Photo by Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc (@ChadCazel)Photo by Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc (@ChadCazel)Photo by Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc (@ChadCazel)Photo by Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc (@ChadCazel)
Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc retweeted
We're honored to be named to the AD 50. Every company on this list is betting that America can build again, at scale, and it's truly special to share this with so many incredible builders. Thank you to our team, customers, and partners. Back to work!
The 2026 American Dynamism 50 is here: our annual list of 50 companies, from within the a16z portfolio and beyond, building for America's future. This year's theme is Production is Deterrence. "America's ability to prevent conflict depends on what it can build, how fast it can deliver, and how long it can keep going." A new generation of defense companies is moving from prototypes to full-scale production, and the industrial base has to keep pace. This year's list is organized around three pillars: 1. Systems: the drones, ships, missiles, aircraft, and spacecraft that deter conflict. 2. Factories: the plants, tools, and software that build them. 3. Inputs: the materials and power they're made of and run on. Get all three right, and the impact reaches well beyond defense, to skilled jobs, revitalized communities, and the supply chains behind energy, housing, and everyday goods. Meet all 50: a16z.news/p/ad-50-2026-produโ€ฆ
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Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc retweeted
Your biggest edge is leaning into who God uniquely created you to be And it's utterly magnetic when you embody this form of spiritual authenticity Neither deny your nature, nor resist who He is molding you into. Grace abounds for every flaw
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Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc retweeted
.@BlackwingVC has the best merch. Thanks for keeping the team dialed in @ChadCazel @Pete_DiSalvo_BW ๐Ÿซก
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Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc retweeted
Our cap table is STACKED!!! ๐Ÿ”ฅ Takes a village to build a startup. Humbled and honored by the people I get to work with.
America is about to move an extraordinary amount of steel and machinery. Weโ€™re backing the team building the robotic heavy-lift aircraft to put it there. Welcome @_dynamo_air to @BlackwingVC. @ethanblagg
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America is about to move an extraordinary amount of steel and machinery. Weโ€™re backing the team building the robotic heavy-lift aircraft to put it there. Welcome @_dynamo_air to @BlackwingVC. @ethanblagg
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Learned today about the Quaker โ€œclearness committee.โ€ When someone faces a major decision, a small group gathers to pray, sit in silence, and ask questions. No advice. No argument for an outcome. The purpose is to help the person discern clearly where God may be leading. I really like the restraint of that.
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Augustus has a rare ability to make an ambitious idea sound obvious once he explains it. Great to see @RainmakerCorp getting the attention it deserves.
"It's a big hot topic in the weather world ... but there really can be some positive benefits from something like this." - @haleymeierwx Water scarcity continues to be front page news, and it was great to chat about cloud seeding and the future of weather modification with @foxweather on yesterday's show. Full interview in the comments
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In hindsight, Blackwingโ€™s founder thesis makes a lot more sense.
New matrix just dropped:
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Americans used to build machines that became heirlooms. Feels worth getting back to that. 160 antique John Deeres. My grandpa was a fairly normal Southern Illinois guy.
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Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc retweeted
Rainmaker has raised $100M to become the worldโ€™s best lab for weather modification and atmospheric science. Thank you @noavctech @upfrontvc @DCVC @lowercarbon @DreamVenturesVC and other visionary partners. We are aggressively hiring and scaling our research org to create a flywheel of atmospheric data collection, synthesis, understanding, and intervention. We will solve the weather and we will set the stage for the terraformation of Earth. More in my essay below.
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Iโ€™m a big fan of American Moment and a friend of its founder, @NickSolheim. If youโ€™re a patriotic builder, spend a summer with them, then take what you learn back to building a stronger America.
NEWS: Applications are OPEN for the Summer 2027 Fellowship for American Statecraft! ๐Ÿšจ ๐Ÿ‘€ Get your career in DC started in mere months with a $3,250/month + signing bonus, benefits & networking funds. โš™๏ธ Apply by January 17 โ†’ americanmoment.org/fellowshiโ€ฆ
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Michael and I were on the founding team of the Thiel Fellowship and left to scale our work backing young ambitious minds and builders before anyone else. 1517 turns 12 next year. And though we fly humbly under the radar, you know some of our greats: Lambda, Loom, Mach, Positron, ntop, Deepgram, Rainmaker. As of last week, Fund I is at a 5X DPI. We were the first check before anyone else would have a serious conversation with these founders and by doing that, we (a teacher and philosopher) have turned $20M into over $100M which doesn't even include our SPVs to continue driving our wins home. There is nothing like building a small community that you believe in before anyone else, you see something special and cultivate the hell out of it, and then grow that into a force of nature with multiplying effects. Best is yet to come!
One of the crazier facts about venture is that it seems consistently possible to build a small community of college-aged kids that is incredibly talent dense, e.g.: - Thiel Fellows (ETH, Figma, I think Cognition) - KP Fellows (Opensea, also Figma) - Dorm Room Fund (Cursor) - Prod (Mercor, Etched, also Cursor) - Neo Scholars (Cog, also Cursor) Other than Neo (@neo) though, this hasn't really become anyone's dominant strategy.
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Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc retweeted
Hey America, start your morning tomorrow with @Ginger_Zee and @ADoricko talking about the future of weather mod live from El Segundo on @GMA
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Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc retweeted
The best college is no college
America's best colleges 2026-2027, per TIME. 1. Stanford University 2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 3. Harvey Mudd College 4. Princeton University 5. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 6. California Institute of Technology 7. University of Pennsylvania 8. Columbia University in the City of New York 9. Claremont McKenna College 10. Harvard University 11. Yale University 12. Babson College 13. Cornell University 14. University of Virginia-Main Campus 15. University of California-Berkeley 16. University of Florida 17. Carnegie Mellon University 18. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 19. University of Notre Dame 20. Georgetown University 21. Lehigh University 22. Vanderbilt University 23. Dartmouth College 24. Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 25. Brown University 26. Williams College 27. University of Chicago 28. Bentley University 29. Santa Clara University 30. Stevens Institute of Technology 31. Rice University 32. University of Southern California 33. Villanova University 34. University of California-Los Angeles 35. University of California-San Diego 36. CUNY Lehman College 37. Davidson College 38. California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo 39. Northwestern University 40. Duke University 41. Johns Hopkins University 42. Berea College 43. University of California-Santa Barbara 44. University of Wisconsin-Madison 45. College of the Holy Cross 46. Washington University in St Louis 47. CUNY Bernard M Baruch College 48. Boston College 49. Washington and Lee University 50. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 51. Fashion Institute of Technology 52. William & Mary 53. Florida State University 54. Brigham Young University 55. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 56. Bucknell University 57. University of Connecticut 58. Binghamton University 59. Colorado School of Mines 60. Swarthmore College 61. University of Delaware 62. Florida International University 63. University of Maryland-College Park 64. Bowdoin College 65. Colgate University 66. Amherst College 67. CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice 68. Lafayette College 69. Wellesley College 70. University of La Verne 71. Citadel Military College of South Carolina 72. The University of Texas at Austin 73. Virginia Military Institute 74. North Carolina State University at Raleigh 75. Massachusetts Maritime Academy 76. Pomona College 77. Worcester Polytechnic Institute 78. SUNY Maritime College 79. Texas A & M University-College Station 80. Colby College 81. Fairfield University 82. Clemson University 83. Emory University 84. Purdue University-Main Campus 85. Molloy University 86. University of San Diego 87. University of Georgia 88. New York University 89. Middlebury College 90. University of California-Davis 91. George Washington University 92. Hamilton College 93. Maine Maritime Academy 94. Barnard College 95. New Jersey Institute of Technology 96. Trinity College 97. University of Richmond 98. Yeshiva University 99. The College of New Jersey 100. Wake Forest University
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Midwestern dad portfolio update: the beans are absolutely ripping. โ€“ at Illinois, USA
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Chad Cazel ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ/acc retweeted
Rainmaker just produced ~19M gallons of water in Alaska via next-gen cloud seeding over 3 hours of operations. We are the first company to provably produce precipitation in Alaska. As promised, weโ€™ve linked our white paper and relevant data. In the future, Rainmaker will protect and restore glaciers with man-made snowfall. Immediately, this demonstration shows how Rainmaker will add new water to the Colorado River and Great Salt Lake in the coming months. We turned around this analysis and white paper just a couple days after operating. There are many data sources I want to deepen our understanding of the atmosphere and increase our provable production; weโ€™re building the instruments to collect that data in subsequent operations. But at Rainmaker, we wonโ€™t tout LOIs, simulations, or lab tests. What matters is physically measuring that youโ€™ve affected the atmosphere; proving that weโ€™ve produced water. We prefer sharing only the tech that has proven to make more water for farms, industries, and ecosystems in need. Expect a regular cadence of these from us as we build the best atmospheric science lab in the world. Feedback is welcome in the interim. Rainmaker Century. rainmaker.com/blog/alaska-vaโ€ฆ
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Thanks for hosting us @rileymeik and @bobbyfijan and showing us what youโ€™re building at @americanhousing. America needs a lot more homes. Especially starter homes young families can actually afford. The answer is to build. โ€“ at Austin, TX
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Bonus: spotted an @ImpulseLabs stove in the wild. Very cool seeing @sdamicoโ€™s hardware already shipping into new homes. Many more, please.
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