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I Built $200M Nuclear Energy Startup at 19 | JC.B, Fuse

EO08:00Added Aug 31, 2026

JC B. is the founder and CEO of Fuse, a pioneering fusion energy company. He started Fuse at just 19 years old, and by age 23, he has grown it into a $200M-v...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Intro

  2. 00:00Fuse. We're on a mission to accelerate
  3. 00:02the world's transition to fusion energy.
  4. 00:04One of the only fusion companies that's
  5. 00:06actually making revenue. Started a
  6. 00:08company almost 6 years ago now. I was 19
  7. 00:10at the time. Yeah. Never went to
  8. 00:12college. I never even submitted an
  9. 00:14application. Why do I need to convince
  10. 00:16an admission officer to like let me sit
  11. 00:18in a classroom for 4 years to then get a
  12. 00:20piece of paper that says I can
  13. 00:22potentially do something versus just do
  14. 00:25something and prove you can do it. life
  15. 00:26is too short and there's like 7 billion
  16. 00:28or more people on earth. So you just
  17. 00:31always ask yourself like why am I doing
  18. 00:33something that actually matters or like
  19. 00:35how can I contribute and I felt that
  20. 00:37there's a a real way to contribute to
  21. 00:39work on something that could be um
  22. 00:41civilization altering starting company
  23. 00:44was the fastest way to make progress I
  24. 00:50thought I'm Jes I'm the founder and CEO
  25. 00:54of fuse we're the only fusion company
  26. 00:56that has delivered experimental results
  27. 00:58of a new technology ology that was no
  28. 01:00one has built it before and published
  29. 01:02the results in nature. We've raised over
  30. 01:05$50 million of capital. We work with the
  31. 01:07US military and US government. March 13,
  32. 01:10we we've proven the machine at scale and
  33. 01:12now we have contracts to commercialize
  34. 01:17[Music]

  35. Stop Wasting Time In School

  36. 01:20it. My father's a nuclear physicist, so
  37. 01:22growing up was just very curious about
  38. 01:24how the world works. You know, I've
  39. 01:26always liked to work on hard things and
  40. 01:28explore research topics. And then I very
  41. 01:31quickly learned that maybe spending time
  42. 01:33in academic environment was not the
  43. 01:35fastest way to make progress on
  44. 01:37technology. So that's why I decided to
  45. 01:39start you know my own company. I had
  46. 01:41started a nonprofit in education. The TS
  47. 01:44as a teenager things it was really hard
  48. 01:46to you know build things. It's you can't
  49. 01:48even get a credit card as under 18 which
  50. 01:50is you know pretty funny. you know, you
  51. 01:52cannot open a Shopify online store if
  52. 01:55you're under 18, which is kind of
  53. 01:56ridiculous considering all the other
  54. 01:58things you can do. So, I started a
  55. 02:00nonprofit to essentially liberate
  56. 02:02teenagers to dare and and to create. And
  57. 02:04we were funded by Google.org, the
  58. 02:06Canadian government, and and others. And
  59. 02:08we built that into pretty uh successful
  60. 02:11program. And we had some teenagers that
  61. 02:13now are off to doing great things. What
  62. 02:15I've done to date is a good example for
  63. 02:17others to realize that it's possible. If
  64. 02:20you really want to build something and
  65. 02:21you truly have the grit and tenacity,
  66. 02:23you can. A lot of people, you know,
  67. 02:26being young is has a competitive edge
  68. 02:28because you're naive and you've got a
  69. 02:29lot of stamina and energy. Definitely
  70. 02:31those early wins give you an early taste
  71. 02:34at freedom. You know, choosing to start
  72. 02:36as early as possible maximizes, you
  73. 02:39know, your chance at getting it right.
  74. 02:40And even if you fail, you make you burn
  75. 02:42yourself a little bit, as long as you
  76. 02:44don't die or don't go to jail, I think
  77. 02:46everything else can be tolerated and

  78. Build Your Own Playbook In-House

  79. 02:54repaired. You know, I felt that there's
  80. 02:56a a real way to contribute to work on
  81. 02:58something civilization altering like a
  82. 03:01civilization scale and and history.
  83. 03:03every technology progress or
  84. 03:05civilizational development has been tied
  85. 03:07to like how much kilowatt hour is
  86. 03:09available per capita. So when you think
  87. 03:11about the industrial revolution and how
  88. 03:13that enabled the whole human prosperity
  89. 03:16and and technological advancements and
  90. 03:18you can tie that to coal afterwards and
  91. 03:20chemical era and I believe that fusion
  92. 03:22would unlock the next level of human
  93. 03:24prosperity you know the rise of the
  94. 03:27social middle class the rise of AI of
  95. 03:30quantum technologies like all of those
  96. 03:32critical technologies they need energy
  97. 03:34and without energy we can't have AI like
  98. 03:36how would you power all the data centers
  99. 03:38do you want it at the cost of people not
  100. 03:40being able to turn their lights on at
  101. 03:42the house. I don't think so. And so we
  102. 03:44will need significantly more energy and
  103. 03:46fusion is not the only ways to actually
  104. 03:48make that. So Titan is the world's
  105. 03:51highest power and highest energy
  106. 03:52impedance match Mars generator of its
  107. 03:55kind. What that matters to think about
  108. 03:56it as a giant battery that releases all
  109. 03:59of its energy really fast like in a
  110. 04:01billionth of a second. It's a very
  111. 04:02important question to ask. Is this a
  112. 04:04scientific nonprofit or is there a
  113. 04:06business here? cuz a lot of time people
  114. 04:08solve are building companies and I I
  115. 04:10wonder if that's better to be like a
  116. 04:12scientific research that's like
  117. 04:13nonprofit funded or grandfunded versus
  118. 04:16is this a business or a real company.
  119. 04:18Then the second is like really to
  120. 04:20question the fundamentals and what we've
  121. 04:22done for Titan was built in-house like
  122. 04:24over 80% of the Titan subsystems and
  123. 04:26components were built in-house at Fuse
  124. 04:28and so we took on the project knowing
  125. 04:30that we have the capacity to solve a lot
  126. 04:32of the problems and we vertically
  127. 04:34integrated which meant that as problems
  128. 04:36were arising we were able to solve them
  129. 04:39inhouse. building companies like you you
  130. 04:41always are updating the operating system
  131. 04:43is like an app you know and you you have
  132. 04:45to constantly debug and upgrade the
  133. 04:47operating system and you need different
  134. 04:49version for every 6 months or so. So you
  135. 04:51know very intentionally taking time to
  136. 04:53be introspective and to think about you
  137. 04:55know what has changed now. This is not
  138. 04:56the same company that it was before.
  139. 04:58Obviously the core fundamentals are the
  140. 05:00same but you know the way it operates is
  141. 05:03is different and bringing the right
  142. 05:04resources you know around you. You know
  143. 05:06there's people who are really good at
  144. 05:08the early stage and then you need a
  145. 05:10different type of skill set and and
  146. 05:11culture for growth stage and bringing in
  147. 05:14different people at the right time and
  148. 05:16having the introspection to think of
  149. 05:17what needs to be changed, what bugs need
  150. 05:19to be fixed and how to upgrade the
  151. 05:22operating system for the next phase is
  152. 05:24very

  153. Young Founder Should Seek These People

  154. 05:30important. Certainly the company has
  155. 05:32come close to running out of capital at
  156. 05:34few moments in time. you know we we had
  157. 05:36some you know technology that at some
  158. 05:37point you know did not go as we had
  159. 05:39planned or we had run out of capital and
  160. 05:41we had to make really hard decisions but
  161. 05:43you know these are the moment that
  162. 05:44really define who we are you know just
  163. 05:46building this connective tissue as a
  164. 05:48team and this resilience the one thing
  165. 05:50that has been really awesome is like I'm
  166. 05:52young myself but we've built a team with
  167. 05:54you know some really experienced people
  168. 05:56from different aspects uh of the
  169. 05:58government I had the fortune to work
  170. 05:59with some really smart people with some
  171. 06:02of the best people I've met fortunate
  172. 06:04enough that they're now part of one team
  173. 06:06and we're multiple vectors pointing in
  174. 06:08one direction and just if you're humble
  175. 06:10and you bring people that really can
  176. 06:11compleiment you that's a strength not a
  177. 06:13weakness. It's really important to be
  178. 06:15audacious and daring but also humble and
  179. 06:18it's your challenge to figure out how to
  180. 06:20overcome that will save you a lot of
  181. 06:22peace and help attract some great people
  182. 06:24where you recognize your weaknesses and
  183. 06:26vulnerabilities and build around them.
  184. 06:28that team is that mindset like most
  185. 06:30people actually want to be in
  186. 06:32environments where you know they're all
  187. 06:34contributing and learning from each
  188. 06:35other that's at least a healthy
  189. 06:37environment. We also really care about
  190. 06:39you know people who are just focused on
  191. 06:41getting done and you know getting
  192. 06:43the job done whatever it is versus know
  193. 06:45just talking. So we we have a really
  194. 06:47default for people who take agency who
  195. 06:50are autonomous and just want to get
  196. 06:52done who are really curious and third
  197. 06:54just give a you know like the
  198. 06:55people on our team really care. They
  199. 06:57stay up till 4:00 a.m. when we have a
  200. 06:59mission. They work on the weekends. They
  201. 07:01just go out of their own way to to do
  202. 07:03the job and like pick up the trash if
  203. 07:05needs be. You know, give a and care
  204. 07:07and just want to get done and just
  205. 07:09focus on that. I think you can get a lot
  206. 07:13done. It's It's actually really funny
  207. 07:15when people think that entrepreneurs are
  208. 07:17very big risk takers. I think like great
  209. 07:19entrepreneurs are really good like risk
  210. 07:21hedgers. Like the day you start the
  211. 07:23company, you've taken the most amount of
  212. 07:24risk and then your job all along is to
  213. 07:26retire risk and like choose very
  214. 07:28selectively which risk to derisk first
  215. 07:31and how to sequentially do that. for
  216. 07:33founders to think about risk mitigation
  217. 07:35as well as know equipping yourself with
  218. 07:37the right tool and most importantly with
  219. 07:38the right people.