00:22:19 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:22:19] S0: Outside policy bureaucracy, what do you think we as an ecosystem, founders, investors, operators, what can that level of ecosystem do to try and take tech to the next level? [00:22:28] S1: I think just dream bigger. [00:22:30] S0: Dream bigger. [00:22:30] S1: I mean, a good example is like raising from a European VC. And obviously this is not true for every European VC, right? But I'm generalizing a little bit. But raising from a... The median experience with a European VC is neutral to negative. For example, let me get an example. I've been asked this question like basically, I pitch a company, this is a plan, blah, blah. And then the first assumption this European VC made is like, But how is it possible to build a trillion dollar company in The UK? But I'm like, But we will expand beyond The UK and we're going to go to more markets, blah blah. Right? It was just so... She just... Like, this piece she just cannot understand, like, just cannot imagine. Like, you can go beyond The UK. Right? So I just like, look. And there's a subtle quality of like, look, I'm not going waste some more time. Like, look, you know, we're going to spend our time on investors that actually at least can believe there's a possibility that's going to happen, right? [00:23:40] S0: That's crazy. It feels like they're in the wrong job, right? I can't imagine a trillion dollar outcome.
00:23:40 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:23:40] S0: That's crazy. It feels like they're in the wrong job, right? I can't imagine a trillion dollar outcome. [00:23:44] S1: And I can tell you, this is like a top tier VC, like a brand name VC that's... Wow. But it was like very, very disappointing, right? Whereas the median experience for a USB C, even if they say no eventually, but at least you can have a level conversation like, Okay, this is a possibility, blah blah. And they can at least see a glimpse of that could happen. Even as simple as this, just this difference in attitude, it's just like, Okay, next time I fundraise, why do I even bother European VCs? I just know most likely the experience will be negative. Obviously, there's exception to every rule. There are some great European VCs out there too. But yeah, it's just why are you doing this job? [00:24:41] S0: What else do think they need to do to improve? Is it about being able to dream big and see the vision? There's that classic meme of like always caring about financial results and a financial model. Does that play out in reality? Like what other things are European VCs doing that is like a bit dumb?
00:24:41 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:24:41] S0: What else do think they need to do to improve? Is it about being able to dream big and see the vision? There's that classic meme of like always caring about financial results and a financial model. Does that play out in reality? Like what other things are European VCs doing that is like a bit dumb? [00:24:55] S1: Ultimately, think as a VC you need to be, like any investor, you need to be risk neutral. Right? And especially in the VC class, risk neutral basically means that you need to invest in outlier outcomes, right? And you know, if let's say a company pitches you like, you know, I mean I always use this example, right, but no disrespect to, you know, but B2B SaaS is a... You know, if you get pitched B2B SaaS versus like, building this potentially number one company in this category, large category, I think European VC would like the B2B SaaS company more, right? [00:25:36] S0: The safe bet. Yeah. When you look to future capital, do you think you will be looking to The US, especially given that you're going to be expanding across that market? [00:25:46] S1: In reality, a lot of the European VCs' money actually come from The US anyway. Yeah, it's true. Right? So does it really matter who the GPs are? [00:25:52] S0: Yeah, and it's one of things that really bothers me is that, like, we celebrate European VCs, and it's like all of your LPs are American. So all the value is captured and transferred to there anyway. [00:26:03] S1: Yeah, so, I mean, if the older capitals are basically the same, then I'll prefer working with a GP, you know, that I like with.
00:26:03 · Alan Chang, Sebastian Johnson
[00:26:03] S1: Yeah, so, I mean, if the older capitals are basically the same, then I'll prefer working with a GP, you know, that I like with. [00:26:12] S0: Yeah, interesting. And you've obviously raised a lot of money, you're now, you're profitable anyway. At what point do you think you're going to be, if you will need to raise again, like is it going be for big hardware infrastructure projects? Like, when are you gonna think about recapitalizing? [00:26:26] S1: No plans yet. Right now, we just focus on... [00:26:29] S0: It's a long way away. [00:26:30] S1: Yeah. Building the company. [00:26:31] S0: Interesting. I wanna touch on two things that you've sort of teased It's like you've talked about recycling. You've talked about fusion as like possible things, you know, way down the road map. Why are those two areas areas that you're interested in? [00:26:44] S1: Let's start recycling. It's a very energy intensive industry. And essentially, our core business is low cost power. And if you're able to... If you have access to low cost power, can basically reduce the unit costs of recycling and therefore build a competitive advantage. It's always been our plan to start with power, but then go downstream. Well, downstream of power. Yeah. And also go upstream of power to lower the cost of power, but go downstream to not only sell power for cheaper, but get the benefit ourselves. [00:27:32] S0: So leverage the cheap power to build things that are parented? Could that be like data centers? [00:27:37] S1: Data centers is one area we're looking [00:27:39] S0: at. Interesting.
00:27:39 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:27:39] S0: at. Interesting. [00:27:42] S1: But no plans yet. [00:27:44] S0: I saw the European directive that wants all data centers to be carbon neutral by 2030. [00:27:53] S1: Not gonna happen. [00:27:55] S0: No. I thought that was. [00:27:56] S1: I think that's a statement. I think a statement is said by someone who doesn't understand power. Yeah. It's not... I don't think it's feasible. Well, can do it, but not economically feasible. [00:28:08] S0: Yeah. Do you think that should be an ambition? Does carbon neutrality matter? [00:28:12] S1: I don't think it's the right goal. Yeah. Right? Like, just like any engineering system, like, it's all about torrents. Right? Like, when you ask an engineer, like, you know, I want, this piece of software to have high uptime, then the engineer goes, Okay, how many lines do you want? Obviously, for example, you can over provision your cloud resources to guarantee super high uptimes, but that's going be very expensive. So reality in day to day engineering, make trade offs all the time. You'll be like, Okay, given cost is a constraint, obviously, this is the uptime we can guarantee. This is true for carbon too. Why are we saying we have a zero tolerance towards any carbon? And that's just not the right objective, [00:29:13] S0: It [00:29:16] S1: should be a constraint, not objective, right? [00:29:17] S0: Yeah, interesting. So yeah, if you play that out, would you like to see The UK firing up coal again given the right... You know, given how high energy prices are? Are we at that point where we should be firing up coal, digging
00:29:17 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:29:17] S0: Yeah, interesting. So yeah, if you play that out, would you like to see The UK firing up coal again given the right... You know, given how high energy prices are? Are we at that point where we should be firing up coal, digging [00:29:29] S1: We should be doing everything. Yeah. Right? Coal, gas, solar went everything. [00:29:34] S0: Everything. [00:29:35] S1: Like, I... Like, China's a great example of doing everything. China has more solar under construction than the whole world combined, times two. But also more coal, more gas, more of everything. [00:29:53] S0: Yeah, and as a result, the energy has just absolutely exploded. [00:29:56] S1: Yeah. Energy is a proxy to the real GDP, right? So there's a lot of fake GDP from civil services. That's not the real measure of real productivity of the economy, right? So the amount of energy a country consumes is a pretty good proxy of the actual output, right? And if you look at The UK, the consumption per capita has gone down by 25% in the last twenty five years. It's gone the wrong way. Even if you look at US, it's been flat in the last twenty five years. So it's not going that well either. Interesting. So if you just extrapolate the existing trend line, a matter of when China will be the new superpower.