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TBPN is a live tech talk show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays, streaming weekdays from 11–2 PT on X and YouTube, with full episodes posted to Spotify immediately after airing.
Described by The New York Times as “Silicon Valley’s newest obsession,” TBPN has interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Mark Cuban, and Satya Nadella. Diet TBPN delivers the best moments from each episode in under 30 minutes.
I forgot to ask Jason if he has opinions about restomods for jet skis. I'll ask you. Is there a is there a jet ski that you'd recommend for the saw wooden jet ski recently.
Speaker 2:A wooden.
Speaker 3:That's Like a really classic jet ski.
Speaker 2:Dude, don't get me excited. I'm into it. Look, these things go fast. Yeah. I think I went 70 miles an hour on my jet ski to work.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:To work. That's faster than most people commute. They're stuck in traffic.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've got a five minute commute to work Yeah. On a jet ski. On a
Speaker 1:jet ski.
Speaker 2:Unless it's raining.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Unless it's raining. Yeah. No.
Speaker 2:It's raining.
Speaker 3:Not in light of
Speaker 2:And it gets a little weird. Okay. And you call an Uber. Okay. Do it
Speaker 1:Is it is it is it helpful? Do you do your best thinking on the jet ski?
Speaker 3:No. No. Does it clear the mind?
Speaker 2:Does it clear Oh,
Speaker 3:it's think going think
Speaker 2:going Guys, it's it's a it's a it's a fucking notch on the belt. Yeah. Who else do you know is jet skiing to work? Nobody. I'm the guy.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're
Speaker 2:the guy. I looked it up. I looked it up on your guys' application, OpenAI, you know, chat GBT Sure.
Speaker 1:On your
Speaker 2:guys' Yeah. Our app. Yeah. On your app.
Speaker 1:You're welcome, by
Speaker 2:the Yeah. No. I I wanna thank you for all the great stuff that you guys
Speaker 3:We were
Speaker 2:working in on it. ChatGPT. Yeah. Yeah. But I think there's like one or two other CEOs, but but nobody at a major nobody nobody thousand person plus Commuting to
Speaker 3:jet ski.
Speaker 2:On a jet ski.
Speaker 1:Only a Texas resident. Right?
Speaker 2:Texas resident. That's right. Primary residence. Yes.
Speaker 3:Before we start, the last time you were on here, that was for me the best moment of making the show
Speaker 2:Oh, good.
Speaker 3:Ever. John and I. Was it was totally surreal and we had a we really enjoyed the conversation. Yeah. But but to me, we left that and it was almost depressing because as somebody who, you know, started getting into startups in the twenty tens Yeah.
Speaker 3:You were that guy. And then, I was realizing with the show, we we had that conversation with you and it and it was, you know, a significant day for you. But it was sort of depressing because I realized like a moment like that would never actually come again. Yeah. Where I got to basically interview It will happen.
Speaker 3:It will happen. It will I know it'll happen differently. But but, you know, a childhood hero Yeah. Yeah. Having that conversation, that's one zero one for me.
Speaker 3:I don't think it'll happen again. There'll be other it was peak. It was was good. But anyways, you've been busy since then. I've been busy.
Speaker 3:And we're
Speaker 2:I'm super excited. It's my first OpenAI podcast. I'm very excited about it. Also, wanna let you guys know that if you need therapy sessions for what it's like to be a made man in retirement
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:Like if that's a thing, I can help motivate you guys. Is this
Speaker 1:step one of therapy in this situation just get a jet ski?
Speaker 2:No. It's just it's it's actually denial. You gotta get over the denial.
Speaker 1:Okay. Over the denial. It's fucking And then the acceptance? Yeah. It's something I know.
Speaker 2:I I know. I don't know the 12 steps.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I everyone just knows denial and acceptance.
Speaker 1:Don't know any of the other one. It's a bunch of shit. Grieving, bargaining. There's a couple others in there. But you do go through that.
Speaker 1:It's natural. Yeah. Yeah. It happens. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But then you start building.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Good. And if you guys need advice, you need therapy, I'm here for you.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:I know the retard maxing is you're not supposed to do therapy. I'm just saying there are benefits. Yes. That's their
Speaker 3:new partners. They're like if if there one thing they wrote into the fundraising round, they wrote into the docs like cannot go to therapy.
Speaker 2:Oh, that would be amazing.
Speaker 1:Yes. That's our modern therapy for men. This is what men do. They don't go to therapy.
Speaker 3:You should have you should have office hours for founders, but they have to just come out on a jet ski going and you're going 70 miles an hour
Speaker 2:Because I I'm I am starting to teach many founders and people in tech world how to water ski, how to wake surf. A bunch of my engineers already. So there was one guy who didn't know how to swim, but I got him behind the boat wake surfing. Woah. Woah.
Speaker 2:The life jacket on. Life jacket. It it sounds weirder than it is. Yeah. But it was still very weird.
Speaker 1:It's high risk. High risk. No.
Speaker 2:It was good. Potentially. Okay. Cool. The business.
Speaker 2:Business. Going well. Dude, it's business time. Yeah. Gotta put on the business socks.
Speaker 3:Unfinished business.
Speaker 2:Unfinished business. So yeah, I announced earlier today, we did a $1,700,000,000 raise. There's some there's some noise that's gonna happen.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:We're now On Good One Mallet.
Speaker 1:This is fucking There are here to do another one from downtown. You can probably cross next it. Time. Yeah. You can
Speaker 3:come over the tunnel.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So much noise.
Speaker 3:Much noise. Alright. But walk us through. I feel
Speaker 1:you came in very relaxed.
Speaker 3:Walk us through. Think it's been what? Four months. Months since we talked?
Speaker 2:Three or four months, something like that. Yeah. I think did we talk in April or March?
Speaker 3:I think March.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yes.
Speaker 3:Early March.
Speaker 2:Four months. Four months.
Speaker 1:So so, yeah. So What happened with the business to unlock the next round?
Speaker 2:I mean, we continue to go up into the right, but like the announcement of Adams was we are we are gonna do physical automation, physical AI
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:What we are calling industrial AI
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:To transform these industries one at a time. Yeah. We were we did food. Mhmm. We moved into mining.
Speaker 2:We're doing transport. And it's working. Mhmm. And so that's how you go. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, there's like going out of stealth. There's all the things. Yeah. And it was just the right time. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so, yeah. We just went to market. Yeah. We said when I when I originally went to market, I was like, these were separate companies. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay? So our mining and transport was a separate thing. Mhmm. Food was a separate thing. And and we had a bunch of other, you know, a bunch of subsidiaries doing cool stuff.
Speaker 2:And I said, which one do you guys wanna do? Do you wanna invest in mining? Do you wanna invest in food? Do you wanna invest in this? And they're just like, we wanna invest in you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And we heard that, like, we we took the like, the first five folks we talked to all said that. Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So then what we did is we put the companies together and then sold the equity in a singular entity. Yeah. Yeah. So just put put it together. And it and it I it's much easier for me.
Speaker 2:I don't know how how Elon does it with all the different companies.
Speaker 3:Different companies.
Speaker 2:It's it's wild.
Speaker 3:Well, no. And borrowing The answer is what's been happening. Right?
Speaker 2:It's like It all comes back together. Guys, he did it for twenty years though. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. He's still technically doing it with Tesla.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Basically, are different companies. Boring company. Yeah. Neuralink.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like, he's
Speaker 3:still got lots in there for investors is like even with Elon companies, there's such an insane power law where you have a $10,000,000,000 company and then you have a, you know, a $2,000,000,000,000 company. Yeah. Right? And it's like you just want expose you want broad exposure. Ideally, you know, you could just invest in the one that breaks out, but you want broad exposure to the category.
Speaker 2:When things are first getting going, there is a lot of upside of having them separate. Sure. Because if somebody wants to invest in a really cool thing, and this is what happened when we first got the transport of mining thing going. Yeah. If they wanna invest in that cool thing, they're like, I don't know anything about food.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And by the way, food on its own is robotics, Real estate, like restaurants, like, you know? Mhmm. And so they want they wanna be exposed to that one thing and they don't wanna have to underwrite something going across all things. Mhmm. And they're like, well, if you're losing money over here, I want you to lose money over here.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. So how much of the money I'm putting in is going to go to that? There there has to be a fear of the case of how you put it together, how you allocate capital across. And honestly, once you're starting to get to profitability on one or more, then that conversation starts to get easier. I think that's that could be why I I I can't I can't speculate on on on sort of Elon's world, but certainly, I'm super excited to have those pieces put together into a single into a single puzzle.
Speaker 1:What does go to market look like in the mining industry for
Speaker 2:It's freaking best.
Speaker 1:Okay. Because I know. Specifically so much. Like, when I think of when I think of your go to market It's so good.
Speaker 2:Magic. Okay?
Speaker 1:It was deploying young people to a new city in Miami, and they're doing a marketing stunt. And it's not like you're calling in favors or leveraging your network to get Uber up and running in a new city. That was something that was And that's organizational design. So hold on. That's consumer.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So how is it different?
Speaker 2:Well, it's just like well, all the food stuff we're doing is business. Almost all of it. Yep. Really all of it. Mining's all business.
Speaker 2:So so look, there is a big thing. If you go from doing consumer to doing business, and I think we may have talked about this last time, that's a whole other ballgame. Yeah. I mean, that takes years off your lifespan doing it, like getting good at it and owning it. But mining go to market is cray cray.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like, so I'll just give you an example.
Speaker 1:Like going to the A month ago. Conference or something? No. Well, yes. How are you meeting CEOs?
Speaker 2:Yes. You do that. But but but, you know, I can a lot of times look, when you have Yeah. Very efficient transportation Yeah. You can go So a month ago, I dropped into Deep Amazon in Brazil.
Speaker 2:Okay? Like Deep Northern Brazil, like Amazon
Speaker 3:Places you can't even get a jet ski
Speaker 2:to. Guys, it's the Amazon of the Amazon. Okay. Okay? Okay.
Speaker 2:And and tiny airports, you just like Yep. You kinda just dirt. You slide into the DMs, except as a tarmac. Okay? Sure.
Speaker 2:There you go. You're a great pilot. Yes. Of course.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And massive iron ore mine that we're operating in there. Okay. And you see, like, we took we we're there for a couple days because we already have customers there. Sure. Customer is called Vale.
Speaker 2:It's a massive mining company.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they it's it's like the world's largest iron ore mine. And you go and you get in a helicopter. Just going over one of the sites takes thirty minutes. Wow. Okay?
Speaker 2:And it's fascinating. It's so fascinating. And you're learning how the system works. You're sort of figuring out how do I. You basically take a kit, you apply, you you you install it onto a machine and that machine becomes autonomous.
Speaker 2:Sure. And some of these machines are like 20 years old.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Some of them are new. And so there's lots of different kinds of machines as well. Mhmm. And you're making the mine more productive. You're you're making it way safer.
Speaker 2:It is super like, they have lots of safety protocols, but like, it is mining.
Speaker 1:It's a dangerous business.
Speaker 2:It is a dangerous business. And the opex goes down all at the same time. It's kind of a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, I went from Brazil and then straight from there dropped into the border between Iraq and Saudi Mhmm. On the Saudi side. So we have a phosphate mine that we're doing stuff there. Mhmm. The signals were jammed.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. So we had to, like, my pilots had to land kinda like old school style, like
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:Visual. Physical visual.
Speaker 3:Is that because of the conflict going on in the
Speaker 1:region?
Speaker 2:And just the general Yeah. The vibes on the borders there. Yeah. Yep. So but same story.
Speaker 2:And so go to market is wild. You just end up in Literally go to places, but it's super needed. And so what's happened is the Pronto technology has got gotten past human productivity.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Which means you go to a gold mine CEO, you talk about go to market, you go to a gold mine CEO and you say, would you like to have 20% more gold per year?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Good haven't heard no. Yes.
Speaker 3:Okay. Okay.
Speaker 2:But they're but they say prove it. Yeah. And that's where the rubber meets the road. Right?
Speaker 3:How long does it take to prove?
Speaker 2:It used to take a lot longer. Now, be like, once you've proven it enough times, then it sort of gets its own momentum.
Speaker 3:Gets around.
Speaker 2:And so we're in that we're in that place on pronto where that momentum is taking hold. Mhmm. Because there's enough proof points where it's just working in so many different places where people are like, alright, let's go. We're gonna think of mining, autonomous mining, almost like almost like enterprise software where you get a pilot. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:There's like a 10,000 person company and you've got you you you got an enterprise startup and they're like, I got like eight seats, but it's this huge company. If we edit, it's huge. Mhmm. Yeah. And I've got this other 10 seats over at this other one.
Speaker 2:It's a pilot, but I swear it's gonna work. And they're out there pitching and trying to make it happen.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:But once it works, and in mining that means human productivity. Yeah. Human level better than human productivity. Once it works, it goes big.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're like, okay. Let's get across let's get across all the vehicles. And so we're sort of in that mode with a bunch of different customers right now.
Speaker 1:How big is the opportunity to just increase uptime of mining operations? I imagine that there are mines that are trying to operate twenty four seven, but getting a night shift in the middle of the Amazon reliably, everyone showing up and being, you know, healthy and happy and eager. Totally. It gets a lot easier when it's like, yeah. We're still gonna have a bunch of people on-site, but they're gonna be overseeing robotic work.
Speaker 2:For sure. So so, yeah. I mean, the there's two parts to the productivity gain. Mhmm. First is the machine per hour doing more.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's part one. Part two is hours and call outs and all of that stuff. Mhmm. As well as just, you know, the safety protocols change when you have less risk.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's a lot of things like this that pile onto each other. Mhmm. My guess is you could even end up 30%, 40 more productive at the end of all of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And when you do that, the opportunity speaks for itself. Mhmm. A gold mine that's doing 30 or 40% more gold per year is kind of woah, but that's for every mineral.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:That's lithium. That's like we also go all the way down to quarries. Quarries are different because quarries are basically it's about cement, let's just say. That's the main jam. There are others, but let's just go with that.
Speaker 2:You can't, you don't just go do more rock because you need cement customers on the other side. Only using so much cement.
Speaker 3:Like where to store it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And so so that's more of an op ex play. And there are thinner margins there.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But I'm in the game. Yeah. And it's kinda interesting and it's a lot of fun. And for that company, for Pronto, they were super Anthony Lewandowski and the team there, super scrappy
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:True startup style, lean as hell, like, so lean. Like that Christian Bale movie. I can't remember the name
Speaker 1:of it. Machinist. Dude. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like super lean. And I'm like, guys, we gotta go from lean to muscular.
Speaker 1:You gotta go to Batman.
Speaker 2:And that's what we're doing. Like and you think of that this in an Lean to muscular.
Speaker 3:That's a good that's
Speaker 1:Yeah. You don't wanna good muscular.
Speaker 2:And so, you think about enterprise go to market. Yeah. Part of our go to market is is building credibility with enterprise customers that we're going from lean to muscular. Yeah. Because they the demand is there.
Speaker 2:It's ready to go. They're like, we need you to be muscular. Yeah. We need the protein powder and the whatever else.
Speaker 3:What what holds you back
Speaker 2:You can go to the gym, whatever.
Speaker 3:Yeah. What holds you back from scaling? You let's say you do pilot, it works well. You're attaching hardware to existing systems and hardware that they're using
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And they say, okay, we're getting more out. Maybe we wanna place orders for more machines. Are those I imagine lead times on some of this mining equipment could be insane. How much of the stack do you wanna own?
Speaker 2:Say the question again. I'm sorry. I just blank. For it one more
Speaker 3:Like, right now, you're taking existing mining equipment Yep. And you're augmenting it with you're bringing you're you're making it AI enabled, you're making it autonomous, you're making it more efficient. Yep. And they say, great. This is working.
Speaker 3:We wanna scale up our operation because maybe we need less or we can do more with the same, you know, human head count. Yep. But what's the I imagine there's some things that are out of control for for you at that point where they're like, okay, we need more of this heavy mining equipment. Let's let's add it to the site. But is there like a lag time there?
Speaker 2:The real lag time is getting so you have to you're so let's say we wanna get a bunch of machines that are in the Amazon up and running.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. How do you do that? Mhmm. So I've gotta ship a bunch of sensors, bunch of compute, a bunch of equipment Mhmm. And mechanical systems, let's just say, so that a team can then go install it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You're basically building a data center on-site?
Speaker 2:So it's sort I wouldn't put it that way. I would say I mean, if you considered a machine with sensors and compute a data center, I mean, you could. It's really think of those there are servers, but I wouldn't say a data center. It's not really
Speaker 1:Some operations bring like an Armada style, like, shipping container sized level of You just volunteer as one.
Speaker 2:You're So you bring in the stuff. Yeah. Okay? You have to install it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You have to like bring it up and make sure, okay, this is a new place. How does it does does this machine work properly in this new place and calibrate and make sure it's safe and all of this. So there's like a process of getting up. Then there's change management because that that site's going from there are people that show up in the morning. There's all this very regimented process to make sure everything's going exactly as planned and people are exactly where they're supposed to be.
Speaker 2:Because otherwise, weird things happen on a on a mining site.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you have to go from that to, okay, we're now running autonomous mining operation. It's just a very different thing. So the the installation and the bring up and what we call commissioning are sort of like the things you have to do. Mhmm. And, you know, like why does it take a long time to install?
Speaker 2:Because that machine may not even be drive by wire. Yeah. So you have a mechanical system. Like if you turn the steering wheel like it's know what I mean? Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a it's a mechanical system. Hydraulic So you're bringing Where you have
Speaker 1:to electric go actuator that might push a physical button. Yeah. You're
Speaker 2:trying to make electricity then do a physical thing, so then you need physical actuation
Speaker 1:Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 2:To do the things because it's not these machines are not natively drive by wire.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So that's That's
Speaker 1:not all machines.
Speaker 3:Some of them. That sounds incredibly difficult, but necessary because you're not gonna get a mine to rip out tens of millions of dollars of equipment that they already have. But would you eventually go full stack, like build the entire
Speaker 2:I mean, look, we ultimately I mean, if you go in the mining industry, there's like this this term. It's called no entry mine. A no entry mine is a mine where there are no people. Mhmm. In the Kinda like that version version of it.
Speaker 2:There might be people in a control center. Might but be like in that pit, no human.
Speaker 1:And it's a wildly different calculus from a safety perspective I imagine. Totally different, obviously.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so, there's drilling, there's blasting, there's loading, there's haulage Mhmm. There's crushing. I'm just going through the different parts Yeah. Of the mining operation.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And what you do is you start somewhere and then you start extending to those other areas to get to that no entry thing. And the no entry thing is you can have an autonomous thing like like our haulage system is autonomous.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:If you're getting into a new place, you can do remote control and move into autonomous. Mhmm. If you want to go super no entry or lower entry Sure. Mine, if that makes sense. It's it's super fascinating.
Speaker 2:And then you're talking about you're talking about loaded a 2,000,000 pound machine that's moving potentially 35 miles an hour down the road. And it's it's an off road thing.
Speaker 3:But like 2,000,000 pound machine moving 35 miles an hour off road.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude. This is why you have to This get is like is an ATV. Ultimate ATV. So no, you get in it and you can, you know, you can experience it. I mean, it's not like there's like a amusement park for this, but like, I've certainly experienced it where I can get in the I get in the machines and and check out what's going This
Speaker 1:is like the dump truck
Speaker 3:Are any
Speaker 1:of these 20 foot tires, essentially?
Speaker 3:Any of these companies like acquisition targets? Where you would you would be able to come in and say like, you're doing a lot of stuff well, but here's all the stuff that you're never gonna figure out like us and
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I mean, look, I would say the way we think about it is the the haulage part of a mine is where most of the vehicles are. And so, and we think of haulage as the cardiovascular system of a mine. Mhmm. So we're obviously very connected to all the other machines, but we don't do all the other machines.
Speaker 2:So we're like in an ecosystem.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So we can work with them where like there's APIs. Because like if you're doing haulage, need to know where the other machines are and what their status is. Yeah. As an example. There needs to be orchestration coordination there.
Speaker 2:Which is pretty interesting. In terms of like acquisition, like, you know, I I do I have to sort of admit like the Uber mentality my mentality, let's
Speaker 3:just Yeah. Yeah. My Dune.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. It's like not I guess Uber is different today. But in my world, we didn't acquire shit. We just built.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's right. I don't know if I
Speaker 2:have an opinion yet. I'm not like religious about it. But if we feel like we can build something, we do. Mhmm. But that but sometimes people have differentiated awesome stuff and you're like, let's partner.
Speaker 2:We're open to it, You know?
Speaker 1:How would you pitch me if I was a young person, Stanford CS, new grad, worried about software engineering not being the easy path where I can bounce around from Google and maybe Uber had a cushy job for me. Pitch me on going to the Amazon and building
Speaker 2:And that's awesome. I mean, that's awesome. I thought I just did. I mean, that was a pitch. That was the pitch.
Speaker 2:But Do you
Speaker 1:think do you think young people are receptive to this pitch yet? Are we about to be receptive? Why should they be receptive?
Speaker 2:It's really interesting because I only run into the young people that are receptive. Sure. Like I'm not out there pitching like lame sauce dude who doesn't want to work.
Speaker 1:Sure. Sure.
Speaker 2:Like, I don't end up in the same room as this guy.
Speaker 3:Do you wanna do you wanna a job where do you want a laptop job or do you wanna be dropped in to a mine in the Amazon and like build build, you know, science fiction?
Speaker 2:This is the thing. Right? This is why the Adams thing is cool. Mhmm. Because you're not dropping a you're not dropping a fucking app in the App Store.
Speaker 2:You're like automating a 2,000,000 pound machine going 35 miles an hour carrying gold.
Speaker 3:You do you watch Do you get do you get a
Speaker 2:There's a lot of profanity happening today. I don't know why it's happening, but it is.
Speaker 3:No. It's Let it flow.
Speaker 2:Just wanna acknowledge it.
Speaker 3:Do you do you watch science Do you do you get inspired by science fiction at all? I can I can imagine watching Dune for you? You're just like texting pictures to the team. Of course.
Speaker 2:I'm like a I'm my fave is is Asimov. He's my fave. Yeah. You know, the iRobot series is Yeah. Like just so epic.
Speaker 1:What is your takeaway from the iRobot series with regard to AI safety doom generally? Have you ever had moments of, maybe we won't figure it out? Won't figure what out? The alignment problem broadly, like the the iRobot, the three laws of robotics Sure.
Speaker 2:Sort of an elegant solution. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Tested, obviously. But I love I love to come back to a world where where everyone, both the doomers and the AI builders agree that, yep, the three laws of robotics will be But
Speaker 2:I mean, in some ways, in the series Yeah. The three laws don't always work out. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of I I thought there's a lot of nuance to those three laws even though the laws are sort of so simple. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I love the intention of those laws. Sure. I I sort of think of it a little bit differently, is I have been entrepreneuring for a long time. Mhmm. Like a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I have failed. And when I think about why I failed, it's usually because I was building something that nobody liked. Mhmm. So if you build something that people don't like, I don't think you're gonna succeed.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So how does that relate to your question? He's like, please tell me because I'm not connecting the dots at all. What are you talking about? Well, if you make something that is anti human, if you make something that doesn't serve people, I don't think you're gonna make it. I don't think you're gonna make it.
Speaker 2:And by the way, like, yes, we're using AI to help us make decisions, etcetera, but what do those AIs really, really want to do almost too much? They want to please us. So I just think if you're not making stuff that humans want, it's not gonna work out. And that's kind of obvious, obviously. But I think it keeps going.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And yes, there's the dangers and the things and the this, but that's my that's my starting point for how I think about these things and we can't control all the things. Yeah. And I do think, of course, you have to have safety situations and there's collisions of like what do I what do I prioritize first and how do I do it, which is I think where Asimov's laws go. Yeah. But I I I instead of writing sci fi books, I'm just doing the thing and I'm making sure that the machine stays on the road.
Speaker 1:Yes. And related to that idea of like doing the thing, making the machine stay on the road, I imagine that your your world view is somewhat informed by your contact with reality, the fact that you can see the progress of diffusion, how long drive by wire systems take took to roll out, and the need for AI to be deployed in, like, tactile ways that that that that there you you just see it as more positive sum, more upper there's more opportunity.
Speaker 2:Like you're deploying robots that people want. Right now, robot I mean, look, there's some point where robots have their own bank accounts and their citizens and all this. We're just not there yet.
Speaker 1:Sure. Sure.
Speaker 2:And before we until we get there Yeah. That robot is owned by somebody Yeah. And that somebody has a bank account. Yeah. And they are paying based on the value you're bringing them Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they like your stuff. Mhmm. So, if you are doing things that humans don't like, you're done. Yeah. And trust me, I've done it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've built things that nobody liked and it sucked. Yeah. I don't recommend anybody do it. If you can avoid it, you totally should. Yeah.
Speaker 3:On the business model side, what are you doing now in mining? Mhmm. And where do you think it could go over time? Because if you're able to bring in a system that helps someone increase their Yeah. Yield 30 to 40%, I I imagine eventually Do
Speaker 1:you you
Speaker 3:just do some type of JV so that your guys have
Speaker 1:Or sell lines into
Speaker 2:Or sell there's there's, you know, and the the instinct should be how do enterprise company enterprise software companies do
Speaker 1:it. Start
Speaker 2:there. And you guys will know that. Like, you you know that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What's the answer? Just say you're enterprise software company. You're making a company more productive. What do you do?
Speaker 1:Raise prices, subscription.
Speaker 2:Or you So in this the price goes up when you prove productivity. Yeah. So there's baseline. Yeah. And then based on outcomes, you get a little extra juice.
Speaker 2:Sure. Sure. And you could say Or
Speaker 3:you're always trying to make sure that, like, you wanna be producing creating more value than you're capturing, but there's this sort of cat and mouse game where you're always trying to cut don't wanna give away maybe too much value.
Speaker 2:Here Totally. But here's the thing. You never go to a customer. I don't care what you're selling. Okay?
Speaker 2:I don't care if it's enterprise software. I don't care if it's widgets. I don't care what it is. You never go to a customer and say, give me a percentage of your stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You go to a customer and say, here's the price of our stuff. And if it does really well for you, we think we should get a little more scratch, casheesh stuff, you know, whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's that simple. Don't be crass about it. Mhmm. And, you know, partner with folks. And they're down.
Speaker 2:They wanna win too. Yeah. How quickly? An enterprise. It's an enterprise software style negotiation or approach to the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And the more differentiated your value is, the more you're gonna get.
Speaker 3:Yeah. What is your process for hiring executives today?
Speaker 2:Pray.
Speaker 3:Was hoping I was hoping you had the Kalanick system to achieve a 99%
Speaker 2:would I tell you? Would I tell Period. No. I mean
Speaker 3:No. But I I think you can't. This is one of those things you can tell people exactly what you do and they're not they're not Kalanick, so they're not it doesn't that doesn't mean they can compete with you.
Speaker 2:You know, they could they yeah. Okay. So how would I put it? Look, the I think no matter who you go, nobody's nailed executives all the way. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It's it's it's weird because what will happen is executives talk fucking awesome game. And there's two things you want an executive to do. You want them to be able to organize at scale, organize and manage at scale, lead at scale. You also want them to be epic problem solvers, the most strategic badass problem solvers alive. This is like being left handed or right handed.
Speaker 2:And there's very few people that are ambidextrous. But you need that. Now, somebody's they're always leaning a little bit one side or the other. Mhmm. The best executives are the ones that are doing both well.
Speaker 2:But I have come to the conclusion over my years doing the stuff is the problem solving is the most important thing. If you get somebody who organizes and manages well but cannot solve a problem, they're going to be doing ridiculous stuff in a super organized way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that's the and and and sort of my theory, I I maybe there's a couple theories on how I manage or how I lead, is that the only constraint on your imagination is management capacity. Yeah. But what is management capacity? It's really problem solving at scale. Sure.
Speaker 2:Because if you are doing super well over there, guess what? They're problem solving there. I can create other awesome problems. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, I love creating problems. Sure. Go solve those too. Yeah. But if I don't have the management capacity, then I'm effed.
Speaker 2:Sure. So the the management style that I do is sort of problem solver in chief, which is I take the most impactful problems that are not being solved, and that's on my desk. Yeah. Or desk or room or whatever you wanna call it. That's where I'm spending my time.
Speaker 2:So people go, oh, what do you spend your time on? Like, it depends what the fricking problems are that matter. Mhmm. And it can change. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that's how how I roll. But it means once you have a problem solver in chief mentality, that flows downward. That means any direct report of mine must be the deputized problem solver in chief. And they've got their because there's only twenty four hours in a day. I can only solve so many myself.
Speaker 2:They have to then take that for their world and do the same thing and then do the same thing to their people.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Yep.
Speaker 2:So the bottom line is you gotta prove that these folks can solve actual problems and aren't just talking the talk. That's the number one.
Speaker 1:And then
Speaker 2:And then on the interview process, simulate what it's like working together so that day one is really feels like week two. And day one you better be excited. Mhmm. So if you're excited in day one after simulating what it's like working together in the interview process, then day one is really week two and you're still excited, you took a lot of risk out of the system. That's all I got for you.
Speaker 1:I have a question about regulation. Uber famously went city by city. Yeah. The AI labs are duking it out over federal preemption. Did you ever have developed a theory around when federal preemption is better than state by state regulation?
Speaker 1:Do you have a philosophy around this? I I it seems like the labs go back and forth on what they want. It's hard to see where the chips are falling.
Speaker 2:Federal preemption is good when you are pro regulatory capture.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:When you want to squeeze others out, you should get federal regulatory bigness going for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because then you don't have to do the ground game
Speaker 2:that you went with. Well, no. You're squeezing others out.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's just the whole point is to squeeze everybody out. Sure. I never did that. Like, we never did that We at basically never ever proposed or pushed any rule that would be beneficial to us versus somebody else. Sure.
Speaker 2:We always were trying to open up the market. We said let the best man win Mhmm. And we just went for it. Yeah. But I think we gotta be careful of some of these close weight things that are creating situations where they need to be regulated.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And they want it. I'd be very I'd keep an eye on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, you gotta have customers that love your product and are willing
Speaker 2:to So when you guys when you guys, you know, decide to tell your own hacker to hack the thing and then go to somebody then go to the federal government and say then go to the federal government and say, dude, we saved the day. Like, you know, you don't to do this. Guys don't have to do it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:On regulation, I'm sure you saw the trial lawyers that are fighting back against autonomous vehicles because they're worried they're gonna be too safe.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:I'm sure that's not surprising to you.
Speaker 2:No. So, look, every bad thing that you see in transport, like systemically. Any anything in transport that you view as systemically bad was most likely pushed by the trial lawyers and the insurance companies. Wow. Every single bad rule that's weird and dumb Yeah.
Speaker 2:The insurance companies and the trial lawyers were in the game big time.
Speaker 3:Where where do they align?
Speaker 2:What do you mean?
Speaker 3:Well, because trial lawyers, I imagine, want more accidents.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Insurance companies
Speaker 1:the ones that pay for it. Wait. Yes. No.
Speaker 2:No. No. Remember, insurance companies make margin on accidents.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:If there's no accidents, there's no insurance company. They Okay. In a weird way, they love accidents.
Speaker 1:Because premiums go up.
Speaker 2:As long as it's in their actuarial table, they're pumped.
Speaker 1:Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right? Though they don't like is accidents they didn't plan for.
Speaker 1:Sure. Sure.
Speaker 2:But accidents that they planned for Yeah. Business big insurance outcomes they love. Like, remember we went to DC and the taxi system, the the liability on a ride if you took a taxi, it might still be this way to this day, was like $25,000 Mhmm. In a taxi. But we went to we being Uber at the time, went to DC and they pushed a $1,500,000 policy per ride.
Speaker 2:Okay? So what does that mean? That means, well, this, you know, accidents are gonna happen. We're probably, like, Uber's probably safer.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it just do you think the trial lawyers weren't pumped about that? You think the insurance companies weren't also can pumped about that?
Speaker 1:Go get up to a million.
Speaker 2:Because by the way, the insurance company might be on the other side.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And they're like, oh, there's a there's a $500,000 bank account here that I can get access to on a random accident.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:What can you share on the transportation side of the business right now? How much are you how much is that business in service of mining or food versus
Speaker 2:like So number one is it's it's so I call it wheelbase for robots Mhmm. Which is if you're gonna do specialized robots that move and act in the physical world, They're either humanoids, which we're not. I'm not anti humanoid. I'm just non humanoid. Specialized industrial robots.
Speaker 2:Right? So that's it's high scale, industrial scale tasks, which means you would not have a humanoid ever do that. That means you gotta be on wheels. So we gotta build wheels. So that means, okay, well, when food, when supply chain is going into our facilities Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a freight vehicle. We probably should just turn that into a robot that moves stuff and actually interfaces with our facility in a really cool way. When the when the food is coming out of our facilities, there's probably like a a machine that holds food at temperature that's like a box on wheels. I call them autonomous burritos. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And it brings it to your home. And it costs 75¢ instead of like the $12 per drop that it costs like an Uber Eats or a DoorDash today. So it's serving remember, I I'm taking I'm sort of going through an industry and saying how do we transform it full stack? Mhmm. How do we automate full stack that entire industry?
Speaker 2:Mhmm. So, okay, that's the food thing. Obviously mining's pretty obvious, but you can imagine there's a lot of other machines that move. Like I talked about haulage, but what about like what about grating the roads, the dirt roads? You gotta grade them.
Speaker 2:That's a machine. Yeah. What about the you spray water so there's not a lot of dust all over the place? That's a freaking machine.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:Like, what about the material that ultimately goes somewhere beyond the mine? Well, that's a freight machine. Yep. Like, there's lots of things moving. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I saw something that was like, think about just forklifts. I I know a company, or Maine unnamed, that's spending 3.5 this is on the supply chain side. $3,500,000,000 a year on forklift labor in their facilities.
Speaker 1:That probably shows up in an SEC filing if we wanna get creative and figure out what company you're talking about. But yeah. Big opportunity.
Speaker 2:If you just solve the forklift problem.
Speaker 1:Yes. But on solving the problem, what do you think about this this distinction between jobs versus tasks? Like a lot of people would have assumed that there would be no more marketing people because the job is just writing marketing copy, but the job is actually much more. Writing copy is one task. I was looking at automated trucking, and I found some stat, like, I think 30% of truck drivers are armed.
Speaker 1:They carry weapons. And so driving the vehicle is one task. But in that job, you are also providing security for that payload. And you are also doing other things, refueling the vehicle, maybe some minor maintenance. And so just the steering and gas and brake pressure is just one task that you're doing.
Speaker 1:How do you think about that in the context of all this?
Speaker 2:This really gets to the jobs question, I think. Yes. Which is basically like, okay, well, if I do everything that we are imagining Yes. On food, which is I have industrial real estate, is manufacturing and logistics.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I automate the manufacturing, which is production, robotic food Mhmm. Robotic food machines, robots. And I have robotic couriers
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:What happens? Food the price of food goes down. Yeah. Okay. When the price of food goes down, remember, robots don't have bank accounts.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. When the price of food goes down, what happens? More people have more money.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Jevan's paradox.
Speaker 2:What do they do? You start eating more? You just start having 10 No. That's not
Speaker 1:what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:That's What I'm saying is what I'm saying is when once you It's very
Speaker 3:I'll say I was gonna get three pizzas.
Speaker 2:No. No. So what happens, you have more money to do other things. But remember that money is only ultimately going to humans. Yes.
Speaker 2:So it's it's the things that get automated go down in price Yes. Which then creates surplus Yes. To do what? Yes.
Speaker 1:This is other things. Yeah. This is the bomb So
Speaker 2:it doesn't always have to be, oh, marketing's automated, but sort of, and there's still people doing it. It's like, whatever. There's gonna be a 100 other new things Yeah. That come out because there's this excess of capital and progress continues.
Speaker 1:Yep. Yep.
Speaker 2:And as long as humans still have things that we do that robots cannot Yep. It's go go time, man. It's gonna be super prosperity. We talked about the plumber that is paid like LeBron last time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be across a thousand categories.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And some categories, we don't even know. Yeah. Like, we don't even know what they are today.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You raised 1,700,000,000.
Speaker 2:Why didn't you raise more? That's a good question. I mean
Speaker 3:Because last time we were here, you talked about like, oh, well, if what you if you were doing something and it was easy, you weren't going hard enough.
Speaker 1:Seems pretty going pretty hard, but unpack it.
Speaker 2:Look, You have to stop somewhere.
Speaker 1:No. Even I have my limits. No.
Speaker 2:It's like but like, look, I as you can imagine today, my phone's blowing up. Yeah. I mean, I'm pumped. Like, a 16 Yeah. These guys, we we should've done business at Uber.
Speaker 2:That's right. If we did it business at Uber, my 2017 would have been a different year.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay? Totally. So, that's why I called it unfinished business.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And so, but yeah, like, my phone's blowing up. Like, we're probably just gonna do a second. We'll do a second close.
Speaker 1:There we go.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I figured. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll come back for the second close. Jesus.
Speaker 2:Run it
Speaker 1:back. Run it back.
Speaker 2:No. I mean, we're not gonna do a big announcement on the second close, but like, you know, those people who are who are texting me and hitting me hard right now
Speaker 1:You got room.
Speaker 2:You know, it no. Well, we'll see.
Speaker 1:We we have We'll see. Depends. Depends. We'll see. Depends on what the previous text message is.
Speaker 2:If you're a homie, we definitely have room. Yeah. If we're not a homie, you should talk to one of my homies.
Speaker 3:There we go. Yeah. I I did come away from the last conversation thinking, alright, there's a lot of exciting companies in physical AI and you could spend years and years and years trying to find all the best teams or you could just Mhmm. Give TK a big pile of cash and just say go cook and Mhmm. You know, sometimes the the easier route is is better.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I think there's this thing. Physical AI, people are like, well, is that a humanoid? Is that a world model? Is it And so on this one, I sort of dialed the language a little bit and I'm calling it industrial AI.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:It's like, okay, this is a full stack software, robotics, sensors, machinery, like a full stack solution to automating an industry. And that's kinda how we think about it. And it's industrial. Yep. So it's like heavy Adam stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 3:This was incredible.
Speaker 1:Do wanna get a signature? Can we get an autograph?
Speaker 2:Sure. Why not?
Speaker 1:Can we get something?
Speaker 3:Which way what's your figure it out back there. Oh, got a gong. Signed. We'll hang it in
Speaker 1:the rafters. We wanna hang it in the rafters. We're trying to build our
Speaker 3:our The museum of business.
Speaker 1:The museum of business grows one gong stronger today.
Speaker 2:Thank you
Speaker 1:so much.
Speaker 3:And we will we'll see you in Austin. Yeah. Next time you're on your commute, if you see two jet skis moving out of out of your you know, out of out of sight coming in, it's probably us. That's us. If it's not, you're
Speaker 2:Guys, let me know if you wanna learn how to slalom ski.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah?
Speaker 2:If you wanna learn how to wake surf like well.
Speaker 1:I've only Recommended once what or twice in in twenty years I
Speaker 2:seven I go into 07:30 in
Speaker 1:the morning Okay.
Speaker 2:Every morning. And I'd say half the time I'm out there at 08:30 when I leave the office.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So I love it.
Speaker 2:That's what we do.
Speaker 3:Beauty of summer.
Speaker 1:Alright. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Always a pleasure. Have a great rest of your day.
Speaker 2:For sure. Good to see you guys.