The Ocean Company just closed a $46 million round led by a16z American Dynamism. Co-founder and President Will O'Brien argues this is the opening move in treating the ocean not as a destination but as a permanent economic zone, and eventually a place where humans actually live.
The core argument, co-written with Not Boring's Packy McCormick, is that humanity has always treated the ocean as a visiting relationship: exploit it, explore it, leave. O'Brien wants to build the infrastructure that ends that pattern. The essay traces a history of the ocean economy most readers will not have encountered, grounding a large ambition in specific precedents and physical constraints.
The full piece is worth reading for that history alone, before it gets to the economic thesis. The raise is done. The company, Ulysses, now has to build. What permanent ocean infrastructure actually looks like, and who controls it, is the question this essay sets up without fully answering.
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