Motion Blur20 Kesä 2025

Craving Commodities

We are back after a short summer break! Our first order of business, commodity companies. But not the ones you’re thinking of, we’re talking about businesses that make and sell commodities.

Most investors shy away from commodities because they imply heightened competition and structurally lower margins (and returns). But there are benefits – commodities imply massive scale, and many of the incumbents are huge as a result. Which begs the question, can startups break into these markets and capture some of the upside?

Grant believes there’s real opportunity to do just that within in the American Dynamism Cinematic Universe. Companies like Shinkei, Solugen, and others are finding ways to provide products at structurally different cost profiles, and that opens the door to large outcomes.

We wrap up the podcast by exploring how Hammad thinks about the topic and how it relates to software companies.

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🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

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Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

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