How a High School Dropout Wants to Give America an ‘Unfair Advantage’ Over China

OXON HILL, Md. — Cheap energy can give the United States an “unfair advantage” over foreign adversaries, the founder of nuclear energy startup said Thursday.

“One of our main goals at Valor is to give the United States an unfair advantage in energy cost. If you’re gonna go into a fight, especially geopolitical fight, I would recommend going in with an unfair advantage,” said Isaiah Taylor, founder and CEO of Valar Atomics.

“The unfair advantage that we’d like to give the United States is just having the cheapest and the most energy in the world. If we can give the American people that advantage, you can build a lot on top of that,” he said in an interview with Derrick Morgan, executive vice president of The Heritage Foundation, at The Forum, a conference for conservative leaders.

Taylor dropped out of high school at age 16 to work as a computer programmer. He later ran an auto shop, which he said was successful, and a software company, which he said wasn’t.

“Dropped out of high school and taught myself how to code. It beats sitting in classroom,” he said. “It was not super obvious to my teachers, but I think it’s worked out pretty well.”

In 2023, at age 24, he founded Valar Atomics to build, manufacture and provide access to low-cost energy for factories, aimed at making industrial energy cheaper.

“When you start to understand, like, how can you build things with a lot of cheap energy and what sort of advantage does that accrue to you as an entrepreneur, as an manufacturer, as an economy, it’s pretty extraordinary,” he said.

Building something and having children should be the key goals of young people, said Taylor.

“Humans in general are problem solvers and builders. If you break down the two fundamental activities of people do is they build things, and they have children,” Taylor said.

He noted that might be less of an issue in Washington, where the focus is on making laws and public policy research. However, he added, “If you’re doing that well, it will help people have children and build things.”

In May 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reform nuclear reactor testing. Among other things, it directed the Energy Department to establish a fast-track pilot program to bring at least three advanced test reactors to criticality on U.S. soil by July 4, 2026. Valar Atomics was selected for this program in August 2025, and its Ward 250 reactor was one of three to reach criticality in June 2026.

Taylor emphasized keeping the United States competitive with China and said Americans would be able to use nuclear-powered electricity.

“Economics is quite simple. It’s just making things,” Taylor said. “So countries that make things that are useful to people are economically strong, and in countries that do not do that are weak.”

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