The time to be in Palo Alto was 1997.

When nobody believed in the internet, but a handful of people in hoodies and garages did. When code was clunky, broadband was dial-up, and Google was still called BackRub.

But that was then.

The time to be in El Segundo—a 5.5-square-mile pocket wedged between LAX and the Pacific—is right now.

When nobody believes in the future of American manufacturing, but a handful of people in workboots and converted hangars do.

That’s where the next generation of American infrastructure…

Everything from rockets, reactors, and robots…

Is being prototyped.

While most still obsess over apps and influencers, a new industrial stack is rising…

AI chips. Drones. Quantum engines. Space stations.

Palo Alto has code. El Segundo has thrust.

Today, I’m going to walk you through the shift no one’s ready for…

I’ll also drop 5 predictions that’ll either age like wine—or dynamite…

And show you why this may be the last chance you get to be early.

The Pendulum Swings

For the past 30 years, we built an empire of software. We outsourced the atoms and got high off the bits.

They optimized our dopamine. They streamlined our checkout flows. They scaled our unicorns. And they flew to heights that would make even Icarus weep.

Apps replaced entire industries. Markets became networks. Life became a screen you could scroll through endlessly.

But it all came with a cost.

We forgot how to build things. Real things. The kind of things that make civilizations stay civilizations—bridges, batteries, grids, and the industrial muscle to defend them.

But now, the pendulum is swinging back.

Reality is reasserting itself.

VCs in Teslas are lining up to invest in things that can’t be built with software apps like Figma. In fact, four of the top 10 venture-backed U.S. companies are already hardware-centric, including space, robotics, and industrial-tech firms.

Why? Because you can’t run AI on a meme. You can’t decouple from China with a UX refresh. You can’t power a city with chatbots.

You need hardware. You need 21st-century factories. You need physics.

You need…

A Hard Tech Renaissance

SpaceX was founded in El Segundo in 2002, at 1310 E. Grand Ave.

And since then…

This little strip of California has quietly become the intellectual engine behind what may be the most important shift in American innovation since the first check was cut on Sand Hill Road.

As SpaceX succeeded, it became a talent gravity well.

Engineers left their software jobs to start their own companies—automating factories, building drones, reinventing nuclear reactors.

The old aerospace belt became the beginnings of a new industrial frontier.

Where Palo Alto builds abstractions, El Segundo builds mass.

And in a world that suddenly remembers the importance of factories, rockets, and sovereign infrastructure… you can feel the center of gravity shifting.

But this isn’t just a California story. What started in El Segundo is already reverberating across America.

You see it in Ohio, where defense startups like Anduril are opening multi-million-square-foot drone factories.

You see it in Arkansas, where lithium is being pulled out of the ground to power the EV supply chain. In Pittsburgh, where robotics is being reindustrialized. In Texas, where chip fabs and fusion labs are growing side-by-side.

This isn’t a trend—it’s an industrial realignment. And the smart money is already moving.

Don’t Miss the Bus

In 1997, the smartest people you knew were quietly moving to Palo Alto.

To build something that didn’t exist yet.

Today, the smartest engineers are quietly thinking of moving to El Segundo or a number of other emerging hotspots. To build everything we forgot we needed.

The next SpaceX is already there. The next Bell Labs. The next DARPA. The next Tesla.

And while the world is still busy scrolling…

El Segundo is building.

We’ll dive into my 5 “hot take” predictions on this front tomorrow.

First, here’s all you need to know…

This trend is JUST ONE reason why James Altucher, Jim Rickards, and Enrique Abeyta are going “all-in” on ONE stock.