To power AI, Khosla and a16z bet this startup can reinvent mining

The last century was fueled by oil and gas. Turner Caldwell is betting the next century runs on metals. “We’re entering a metals-driven economy,” said Caldwell, CEO and cofounder at Mariana Minerals, a software-focused mining startup. “Lithium and copper are going to be core, but our mandate needs to be broader than that. We’re starting to chase aluminum, which goes into lightweight alloys and plays a major part in the electrification of the economy. We’re looking at magnesium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, uranium, and rare earths. The beauty of the software backbone we’re building is that we’re architecting it to be as generalizable as possible for all the metals the modern economy depends on.” Metals are the unseen but ubiquitous foundation of our economy (and our world) as we understand i