00:29:56 · Alan Chang, Sebastian Johnson
[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. [00:30:46] S0: It makes for a much better comparison to the experience of real life people, I think, as well. I mean, I think if you told people you look at UK GDP growth, it's probably I think it's still 30% over the last twenty years, 30% richer as a country than it was twenty years ago. Absolutely doesn't reflect reality, I don't think. And it's interesting because that using the energy consumption per capita is probably a much more accurate representation of the way that people are experiencing wealth in a society. I want go back to fusion, though. So, you know, you're saying we should be doing everything. There are lots of fusion companies kind of, like, raising money, doing interesting things. Why is that something you've got on your radar?
00:31:23 · Alan Chang
[00:31:23] S1: Fusion is something that's... Like, let let... Let's be let's be straight right. No one knows whether it works economically. Look, we know the physics work. We don't know whether economics actually make sense. And I think anyone who's saying otherwise is... Don't know what they're talking about or lying or both. But think if it works, can change a lot of things. It's like a step change for humanity. So at the same time, it's obviously a huge and dream challenge that would take at least ten years, maybe more. And what I really dislike is if you're building a fusion company from scratch, for at least ten years, you're dependent on the same investors we're talking about. And these investors are very finicky. They see you miss a milestone, or the market turns out, or there's this new hot thing that they want to fund instead, you're by default dead. Imagine if you're an engineer working one of these companies, right? You always have this fear, right, in your mind, am I going to have a job tomorrow? And I don't think that's a great environment for engines to innovate, right? Like the best environment to innovate is like, Okay, it's like this environment where not only the usual criteria, which is like, it's an innovative environment that's you can build things and try new things, but not have to worry about the basic things of life, which is like, am I can I am I going to get a paycheck next month? Yeah. So basically, our plan is like I mean, we actually lay out a three step plan pretty clearly, publicly, right? Step one is basically about building a fully integrated energy company from scratch using existing technologies. So we're not taking any technical risk, technology risk. But step two is about going downstream and owning and optimizing the grid. Step three is about fusion. What we want to do is use the cash flow we build from step one and step two to fund this big bet that, know, be truthful. We don't know whether it'll work, but it's worth a try. But even if it doesn't work, it doesn't mean the company's dead.
00:33:46 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:33:46] S0: Yeah, yes. You're building the environment to let innovation flourish. It feels like you're almost taking the best of, like, academia, which is where, you know, you don't have to worry about financial milestones, don't have worry about keeping investors happy, actually but doing it in an environment like [00:33:59] S1: this. I think a better analogy would be like, if you look at the, you know, hyperscalers, Google is a great example, right? Like, you know, they have bets such as quantum computing, right? Like, they've been doing this for a couple of years, and, you know, no one knows whether it'll work or not, right? If it works, [00:34:15] S0: great. Transformational. [00:34:17] S1: Right? If it doesn't work, like, Google's fine. [00:34:19] S0: It's insignificant, yeah. Interesting. It's like the same as, like, the Amazon model, right? You know, like AWS was one of their 50 bets that they were making, that was one that hit big. How have you found the transition from operator, very early senior operator at Revolut, to being a founder yourself?
00:34:19 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:34:19] S0: It's insignificant, yeah. Interesting. It's like the same as, like, the Amazon model, right? You know, like AWS was one of their 50 bets that they were making, that was one that hit big. How have you found the transition from operator, very early senior operator at Revolut, to being a founder yourself? [00:34:36] S1: I think the key difference is, you know, the mindset of, you know, the buck stops with you. I think it's a big transition, right? Ultimately, like, you know, you always have this kind of safety net knowing, okay, if you screw up, someone else will clean up your mess for you. Versus now the buck stops with me, right? So I think there's this big mental difference. Yeah. I'd say second is like doing a lot more things that I don't enjoy. Right? Yeah, like there's a of aspects on my job that I dislike, but I have to do it anyway because... [00:35:28] S0: What are the things you don't like? [00:35:29] S1: I mean, this happened until a couple months ago. Yeah, we... The design team was very, very small, and we needed to ship this new... We were shipping 2.0 at the time, and and, yeah, the design team... Yeah. We we had to make... Create, like, effective state machine for engineers to, okay. In fact, they... Like, if if if this is a user state, what would the screen look like, etcetera? It's a pretty tedious, you know, job. And no one no one's doing it, so I had to learn how to do it. [00:36:09] S0: Well, that's like real founder mode stuff, right?
00:36:09 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:36:09] S0: Well, that's like real founder mode stuff, right? [00:36:11] S1: -Yeah, so it not enjoyable, right? It was very painful. Like, I remember, yeah, I was in Asia at the time. There was like eight hour difference, and I'd stay up until like 4AM, 5AM. -Wow. -And I did that for like three weeks, and it was like, it's not fun. [00:36:28] S0: Do you prefer the founder role given the things you don't like? [00:36:31] S1: I mean there are more pluses than minuses. [00:36:35] S0: Ola, I want to finish on a few quick five questions if that's alright. Sure. What area of, you know, call it climate tech or energy infrastructure do you think is being massively under invested in right now? [00:36:47] S1: So first of all, I always want to correct you, like climate, I really dislike the term climate tech. Climate Like tech, think, should not be an industry. Right? Climate tech, it's like calling the aviation industry like safe tech. Right? Like, building a safe plane is a byproduct of building a good [00:37:07] S0: plane. Okay.
00:37:07 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:37:07] S0: plane. Okay. [00:37:09] S1: Right? So climate, you know, the climate issue, the climate crisis is a byproduct of building, you know, not building great. So responsible building is just... So climate change is not an issue, right? The issue is responsible building. And you should never forget, should never conflate the difference between objective and constraints. Climate is a constraint, non objective, right? It should be objective like, Okay, I hope one day we don't have this climate issue anymore. It should be like, we should get wealthier. We should be more productive. We should increase quality of life, right? And climate should be a constraint, not objective. [00:38:02] S0: But where do you think, I guess, even if you look at it just like energy infrastructure, whether it's... Or any infrastructure, like, where do you think we are massively underinvesting in to pursue those objectives, whether it's massive wealth creation? Where should we be focusing more of our time and resources?