Chris Power always believed U.S. manufacturing was backward but says he learned how "horribly right" he was after he arrived in the U.S. from Australia in 2019 and toured a bunch of small, old-school machine shops. The then-28-year-old college dropout undertook what he calls a "ludicrously difficult" endeavor to build a high-tech plant in America to make metal precision parts for multinational aerospace and defense outfits. The company claims that its Torrance, California, factory can make spaceflight-grade parts 10 times faster and more than 40% more efficiently than legacy manufacturers. Power employs just 170 workers, some of whom run 10 machines at a time. All receive equity in the firm. Hadrian is growing at rates of 20% or more each month, despite not having set up a sales team until this spring. Power plans to establish additional factories-he's now considering locations in Texas, Arizona and Virginia. "If you want something made, we'll make it for you, higher-quality, faster and cheaper," he says.

This story is in the print issue of the August/September Forbes magazine.