Max Buchan
31 Jul 2026Situational Awareness | AI Stocks Fall | OpenAI Join Us | Ebay Scandal
Max Buchan: Valarian's $50M Series B and Enterprise Push
Max Buchan joins the studio bearing Valarian-branded Barbour jackets and discusses the company's $50M Series B. He explains how Valarian hardens the Kubernetes layer upward into 'enclaves' for running sensitive workloads, how enterprise demand to own AI infrastructure with open weights took the business from government-focused to a 50/50 government/enterprise split, and the meaning of Nikesh Arora's large personal check. He also covers compute scarcity, a tier-one bank running daily trading flows on open-weight models inside Valarian, and his take on self-regulation in the AI pacing debate.
30 Jan 2026Synthesia $200M Series E, EU Sovereignty, Dario Warns us All, Demis Feeling Bubbly
Max Buchan Returns: Valerian, Digital Sovereignty & Greenland
After teasing Trump's Greenland bid and skimming Dario Amodei's AI-risk essay, the hosts welcome back Max Buchan, whose company Valerian builds secure virtualized enclaves, 90% for defense. He argues for resilience over reinventing the whole tech stack, discusses the Venezuela precedent and over-reliance on the US, laments that the UK has no defense unicorn while the Pentagon wants 10-15 more, and positions Valerian as middleware above hyperscale clouds.
6 Nov 2025Sama vs Musk, Coinbase Call, Concept Fund 2, Bending Spoons $270M, Monzo CEO exits, Specter News
Max Buchan: Valerian & Europe's Defense Tech Boom
Valerian founder and CEO Max Buchan explains the dual-use infrastructure company serving enterprises and an increasingly defense-heavy customer base, arguing the Trump administration — not Ukraine — was this year's catalyst for NATO spending, while UK procurement remains slow. He contrasts US 'how can I help' founder culture with UK risk aversion and tall poppy syndrome, defends polished branding and transparency in defense tech, and predicts consolidation into two or three European 'neo-primes,' with Valerian aiming to be one and already eyeing acquisitions.
5 Nov 2025etn. Episode 7
Max Buchan (Valerian): Defense Tech & Europe's Rearmament
Valerian founder and CEO Max Buchan explains how the dual-use infrastructure company was "dragged backwards" into defense, why the Trump administration — more than Ukraine — triggered NATO's spending surge, and how landing US government customers first helped sidestep UK procurement's multi-year timelines. He compares fundraising cultures across the UK, US and EU (including UK tall poppy syndrome), discusses defense branding in the post-Anduril era, and predicts consolidation into two or three European "neo-primes" as Valerian scouts acquisitions.