![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TAO_5048-1-e1790184378193.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For most of the last decade, AJ Scaramucci has built companies nobody outside his network was watching. He backed a bitcoin miner years before it became a Trump family venture. He wrote the first check into a satellite ground-station startup when its founder and her husband were the entire company. He quietly amassed a collection of comics, trading cards, and even dinosaur bones that he now argues belong in asset classes comparable to gold and bitcoin. And he assembled it all under one investment thesis he has been developing since college.<\/p>\n
Solari Capital, the venture firm he is taking out of stealth today, has deployed roughly $350 million across early-stage investing, late-stage growth checks, and in-house incubations since its founding.<\/p>\n
Scaramucci\u2019s route began in science, far from finance. Describing an interest in \u201camateur astronomy\u201d as a kid, Scaramucci said he worked in a bioelectronics lab, studying implantable therapeutics and the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway, before moving to the Bay Area and taking a job at Tesla in 2013, then a rotation through Google, where he briefly worked alongside Eric Schmidt.<\/p>\n
Scaramucci traces his current thesis to April 2012, when he sat in his dorm room at Stanford reading Peter Diamandis\u2019 Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. He described it as something of a spiritual successor to Ray Kurzweil\u2019s 2005 book \u201cThe Singularity Is Near, calling the pair \u201cthe Old and New Testament,\u201d as both predicted the shape of the current AI boom years before the underlying technology existed.<\/p>\n
He immediately started working to get to know Diamandis via methods Scaramucci describes as \u201cbrute force\u201d: emailing XPRIZE\u2019s general inbox \u201cdozens of times,\u201d failing, and eventually finding his way in through Chris Lewicki, then-CEO of the asteroid-mining startup Planetary Resources. By 2015, he was an entrepreneur-in-residence under Diamandis, building the CAR-T cell therapy startup Cellularity and the education venture Abundance Group. He later worked at Kai-Fu Lee\u2019s Sinovation Ventures, splitting time between San Francisco and Beijing.<\/p>\n
Scaramucci traces the same \u201cbrute force\u201d instinct to his upbringing. The oldest of five children in what he called \u201ca big, loud Italian family,\u201d he watched his parents go from a one-bedroom apartment above a fire station in Tarrytown, N.Y. \u2014 \u201cnegative money in debt,\u201d in his description \u2014 to a house in posh Manhasset, Long Island, by the time he reached high school. His mother, a chemical engineer, and his father, serial entrepreneur Anthony Scaramucci, gave him \u201ca front row seat to [the] American dream.\u201d That upbringing, he said, shaped his sales-first, ask-forgiveness-not-permission approach to sourcing deals and mentors alike.<\/p>\n
Andrea Pasinetti, founder of the AI education startup Kira Learning, a Solari portfolio company, met Scaramucci at Stanford roughly 10 years ago, when Scaramucci was an MBA student. \u201cHe basically shared his worldview with me when we first had lunch. He started talking to me about programmable reality,\u201d Pasinetti said. \u201cThere\u2019s a remarkable consistency at a macro level with AJ that also permeates the micro.\u201d<\/p>\n
But what is Programmable Reality, really? As Scaramucci describes it, it\u2019s the idea that as computational power keeps compounding, biology, intelligence, physical matter and money all become substrates that can be engineered with software-like precision, rather than domains governed by trial and error, intuition or manual labor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ramifications of the programmable reality thesis are that every bit in the universe becomes programmable,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like the sequel to software eats the world,\u201d he added, citing Marc Andreessen\u2019s famous 2011 essay, \u201creality becomes programmable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The thesis splits into four verticals, each with its own roster of bets:<\/p>\n
Programmable Intelligence covers AI, compute and foundation models. Solari\u2019s positions include xAI, the lab behind Grok, now folded into Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (Nasdaq: SPCX) following SpaceX\u2019s all-stock merger with xAI; Suno, the generative-music startup; Physical Superintelligence, an AI-native physics lab; and Kira Learning, Pasinetti\u2019s AI-native K-12 education platform.<\/p>\n
Scaramucci has backed Kira \u201cfrom day zero,\u201d according to Pasinetti. Kira\u2019s technology is now used as part of a broader AI-in-education push in El Salvador, where a pilot cohort of 171 public schools recently posted PISA-for-Schools results that officials and the OECD described as comparable to Germany and Sweden\u2019s 2022 averages. El Salvador\u2019s national PISA scores outside that pilot remain well below OECD averages, and Pasinetti cautioned that AI in education \u201chas to be done right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Programmable Biology spans computational drug discovery, gene therapy, immunotherapy and longevity. The portfolio includes Tessera Therapeutics, which is developing all-RNA \u201cGene Writing\u201d therapies; Gameto, which engineers stem-cell-derived ovarian cells for IVF; Orionis Biosciences, which uses AI to discover molecular glues for hard-to-drug cancers; Prolific Machines, which applies optogenetics to biomanufacturing; Cambrian Bio, a clinical-stage longevity company; and General Medicine, a chat-first healthcare marketplace co-founded by Elliot Cohen and TJ Parker, the PillPack co-founders, alongside former Amazon Health executive Ashwin Muralidharan, who serves as CEO.<\/p>\n
Our understanding of the immune system and the genome is still nascent but accelerating, Scaramucci said, \u201cparticularly because you can design drugs increasingly in silico. I can run simulations as opposed to doing wet lab experiments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Programmable Matter covers aerospace, defense, energy, materials science, semiconductors and robotics. Holdings include Varda Space, which manufactures pharmaceuticals and materials in orbit; Apex Space, which builds satellite buses at production-line speed; Giga Energy, which builds modular AI data centers; Base Power, which makes home batteries that function as a distributed grid resource; General Biological, focused on critical-industry supply chains; and Northwood Space, a phased-array ground-station startup founded by Bridgit Mendler.<\/p>\n
Solari wrote the first check into Northwood \u201cwhen it was a baby company,\u201d Scaramucci said. The startup now has over 100 employees and has raised over $100 million. He cited recent progress in humanoid robotics \u2014 \u201cwe\u2019ve seen robots beat Usain Bolt in a 100-meter dash. That literally happened a few weeks ago\u201d \u2014 as evidence that embodied AI is catching up to language models quickly. \u201cWe passed the Turing test effectively four years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen that has a body and it has senses\u201d is, in his view, the next unlock.<\/p>\n
Programmable Finance covers monetary-debasement hedges, fintech, blockchain infrastructure and decentralized finance, including Genius Terminal, a non-custodial multi-chain trading terminal; Fission Labs, which tokenizes venture-backed private companies for liquid secondary trading; and Architect Financial, which Solari describes as the first U.S. derivatives exchange built specifically for the AI economy.<\/p>\n
Solari\u2019s investing style, Scaramucci said, leans heavily on long relationships rather than cold outreach to founders it doesn\u2019t know. One clear example: American Bitcoin, the Bitcoin miner co-founded by Eric Trump that went public this year via a reverse merger. Scaramucci backed a $220 million financing round in the company last July, Fortune exclusively revealed at the time, with Solari alone contributing more than $100 million.<\/p>\n
The bet traces to U.S. Bitcoin Corporation, where Scaramucci backed Asher Genoot, Mike Ho, and his Stanford Business School roommate, Matt Prusak. That company merged into Hut8, now a $10 billion publicly traded company, which later spun out American Bitcoin. \u201cThat story is one of really like an 11-year friendship with Mike and Asher,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That trade sits inside a broader, deliberately contrarian view of where value is being created. Noting that gold and bitcoin together have created more market capitalization since 2008 than the entire \u201cMagnificent Seven\u201d group of tech stocks, he argued that \u201ccurrency debasement\u201d is a defining reality of 21st-century finance, with the \u201caverage life expectancy of a given currency\u201d running around 26 years. That view extends into Treasure Trove, the collectibles holding company he launched earlier this year and has since used to buy a first-appearance Iron Man comic for $2 million and, separately, a record-setting Pok\u00e9mon card.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think of collectibles as the cultural store of value in the same way gold might be the physical store of value or Bitcoin might be the digital store of value,\u201d Scaramucci explained. \u201cI\u2019ve been in the market buying a lot of one-of-one Grail assets because these Grail assets have unbelievable, uncorrelated returns. \u2026 I view them as a debasement trade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pasinetti pointed to Scaramucci\u2019s interest in dinosaur fossils as an example of his timing. \u201cThis was probably a year and a half ago, two years ago, he was talking about \u2026 the short supply of T-Rex fossils,\u201d Pasinetti said. \u201cJust a few months ago, Sotheby\u2019s transacted the most expensive T-Rex fossil, and AJ was talking about that very one a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scaramucci called the collectibles market a \u201csleeping giant\u201d that institutional capital has largely ignored, and pitched Treasure Trove as a way to open it up to ordinary investors, not just the ultrawealthy. \u201cIt\u2019s a $25 trillion asset class that has not been properly institutionalized,\u201d he claimed. It\u2019s the flipside of programmable reality, he explained: one trade is \u201cthe AI trade or the singularity trade where computational power continues to double \u2026 But there\u2019s also this other trade happening, which is the scarcity trade or the cultural trade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Solari also builds companies in-house, and Scaramucci said that incubation arm is central to the firm\u2019s identity. Radial Health, an interventional psychiatry chain treating treatment-resistant depression, bulimia, anorexia, addiction and PTSD with transcranial magnetic stimulation and ketamine, is the flagship example. He built it alongside Cohen and Radial CEO John Capecelatro; public filings list Alex Klokus as a third co-founder, along with Anthony Scaramucci. The company has since raised follow-on funding from General Catalyst, the Box Group, the Emerson Collective and SV Angel, and now appears on the Nasdaq Private Market as a pre-IPO name.<\/p>\n
Pasinetti recalled hearing the idea early. \u201cHe talked about his view on programmable biology and started talking about psychedelics as interventions for PTSD and other mental health disorders. This was before the conversation was mainstream,\u201d he said. \u201cThen you start reading headlines \u2026 that play back elements of the vision he had described a year before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Solari\u2019s incubation model runs alongside SALT, the investor conference and media business Scaramucci co-chairs, which he described as an informal investor-relations function for the portfolio; its five to seven events a year draw roughly 10,000 attendees combined.<\/p>\n
The firm\u2019s approved list of backers includes SV Angel founder Ron Conway, Breyer Capital\u2019s Jim Breyer, Bain Capital co-chairman Stephen Pagliuca, former Alphabet chief executive Eric Schmidt and Diamandis, who has founded more than 25 companies in longevity, space, venture capital and education \u2014 several of them mentors Scaramucci has known since his 20s.<\/p>\n
\u201cAJ is an exceptional investor and operator \u2014 a rare combination in venture,\u201d Conway told Fortune. \u201cHe has the instincts to identify great founders early, tenacity and the ability to recruit world-class teams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pasinetti compared Scaramucci to a sort of reverse Cassandra, the prophet from Greek mythology cursed to see the future accurately but never be believed. \u201cAJ has a perpetual fear of Cassandra prophecy,\u201d Pasinetti said. \u201cHe is able to see things that seem outlandish at first, but become kind of consensus after a year or a year-and-a-half of his working on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked how quickly these technologies will reshape the economy, Scaramucci pushed back gently on the premise that AI adoption has stalled, arguing that any lag in real-world deployment is structural rather than a sign the thesis is wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually think that things in the digital domain are moving even faster than expectations,\u201d he said. \u201cThe notion of having fundamental mathematics or physics or chemistry or biology breakthroughs \u2014 we\u2019re starting to have that now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that reality, well, you have radical abundance,\u201d he said of the world Programmable Reality points toward. \u201cIdeally the optimistic take is that food, water, shelter and basic needs are covered \u2026 I\u2019m less of a doomsday-er than I am an optimist.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can expect from us to continue to double down on this nature of programmable reality,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a thesis that I think has a lot of multi-decade staying power.\u201d<\/p>\n
For this story,\u00a0<\/em>Fortune\u00a0journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Exclusive #Scaramucci #stealth #million #bet #Programmable #Reality<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For most of the last decade, A… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[157,2492,2106,673,8328,8288,2673,6172,889],"class_list":["post-5254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-bet","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-exclusive","tag-million","tag-programmable","tag-reality","tag-scaramucci","tag-stealth","tag-venture-capital"],"yoast_head":"\n