I believe indifference to exploration and learning is the biggest threat
Thankfully, it only takes a very small number of people to actually make scientific progress. Using your examples of buried dead organisms and uranium, how many Americans actually understand the Otto/Diesel cycles or nuclear fission? Maybe 1% have a vague hand wavy knowledge, but the number with working functional knowledge (i.e. could actually contribute to building a new engine/reactor) is probably less than 50,000 or so.
he's a consistent, ideological antifederalist who thinks decentralization is the way to go.
Wouldn't that actually make him a federalist? Federalists support the type of government called a federation, which is what the Articles of Confederation originally created and the Constitution sort of maintained.
Not only was it technical wizardry, but it was a huge gamble.
According to the article, Take AWS for instance. The business had no right to succeed. It violated all sorts of textbook rules about brand elasticity, market positioning, core competency management and so forth.
He lambasts Google for the same risk taking with Google+
By just throwing the RJ Metrics data at the VC's like that, aren't you asking them to do a lot of extra work that they shouldn't have to?
Wouldn't it be better to prepare some sort of story for you data, present that to them, then say, "Don't just take our word for it, take a look at the data for yourselves"? That way, they're sure not to miss the major components that differentiate your company.