The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
00:00:00 · Vidit Agarwal, Justin Lopas, Vidit Agarwal
[00:00:00] S0: Hi, I'm Vidit, the founder and host of this podcast, the high fives. [00:00:03] S1: Hey, I'm Justin Lopez, co founder COO of Base Power. [00:00:07] S0: Justin, I'm pumped to do this. And I'm also a bit nervous because everyone I spoke to said to me, Justin is intense. Justin is direct. Justin is no BS. So I feel... Hopefully, I do a decent job today, man. [00:00:21] S1: Yeah. Well, I'm glad that they said that, but, no, I'm friendlier than people will say. At least I hope. I don't know. You can give me a review at the end of this and tell me if I was too direct or too much of a jerk. [00:00:33] S0: Okay. We'll do that. And you can give me a review if I ask good questions, so let's do that at the end. [00:00:37] S1: Good. Will do. [00:00:39] S2: What if we could reimagine the traditional notion of a high flyer? Hey, friends. Welcome back or welcome to the High Flyers podcast where we do reimagine a high flyer, showcase the brightest and most relatable role models and companies and their journey from sunrise to today. As one of the premier products in our Curiosity Centre lineup providing on demand intelligence to help you be 1% better every single day. I'm your host, Viridh Tagawal, and let's have some fun.
00:00:39 · Vidit Agarwal, S3, Vidit Agarwal, Justin Lopas
[00:00:39] S2: What if we could reimagine the traditional notion of a high flyer? Hey, friends. Welcome back or welcome to the High Flyers podcast where we do reimagine a high flyer, showcase the brightest and most relatable role models and companies and their journey from sunrise to today. As one of the premier products in our Curiosity Centre lineup providing on demand intelligence to help you be 1% better every single day. I'm your host, Viridh Tagawal, and let's have some fun. [00:01:15] S3: Our listeners have called this podcast the meticulously researched biography unveiling the extraordinary lives and decisions of the most remarkable individuals and companies from around the world. We hope you're enjoying our catalog of 200 plus episodes since we launched in 2020 with many of our guests appearing in rare public interviews. It's now time to explore your curiosity. Please enjoy. [00:01:40] S0: Let's set the scene with some fun facts. Where were you born and where do you live now? [00:01:45] S1: Born in Southfield, Michigan, just outside of Detroit. Live now in Austin, Texas. [00:01:51] S0: Yep. And we will talk about that journey shortly. And work, what was your first job and what do you do now? [00:01:57] S1: First job out of school was a manufacturing engineering role at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. And now I lead part of the team here at Base Power and started it. Yeah, all all problems are my problem to solve eventually, I guess. [00:02:12] S0: SpaceX was your first job out of school? Wow.
00:02:12 · Vidit Agarwal, Justin Lopas
[00:02:12] S0: SpaceX was your first job out of school? Wow. [00:02:15] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Went there full time. I had internship. I'm sure we'll get into some of that. But Yeah. Did an internship there in my sophomore year and then decided to join back full time. [00:02:23] S0: And what year was that? [00:02:25] S1: 2016. [00:02:27] S0: Right. So ten years ago. Ten years ago. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Ten years ago. Yeah. Nice. And Justin, as you know, the purpose of this show is to reimagine the concept of a high fly, to go beyond people's shop titles and celebrate their human story. Is there a person you know who you feel hasn't got the recognition they deserve? [00:02:43] S1: Well, maybe this is a little bit too close to home, but my wife Connie, I would say has not gotten the recognition she deserves. She's... So she started a company called Refi about six months, maybe twelve months before Zach and I started Base Power. And it's a really cool company doing some stuff in the real estate space. I'll let her tell her story at some point, but I just to answer your question, I think she has built something very cool and has done it on extremely limited resources with her co founder and this sort of, yeah, built a really impressive operation in addition to being an awesome person. [00:03:13] S0: Very cool. And I've heard a lot about her parents being the pseudo chefs for Base Power.
00:03:13 · Vidit Agarwal, Justin Lopas
[00:03:13] S0: Very cool. And I've heard a lot about her parents being the pseudo chefs for Base Power. [00:03:19] S1: Yeah. They have up until the... Over in the next few months where where they're going back into retirement, but we told them they had a Chinese restaurant in Chicago for many years. And I was complaining one day to them about DoorDash and just being unhealthy. They're like, we'll just cook meals for you. And now they cook meals for whatever it is, six, 600 people here in the Austin facility, 500 people every day with a few helping hands in a rented kitchen down the street. And so it's been a good ride so far. That's right. [00:03:43] S0: That is incredible. Every day. Wow. That is a commercial operation. [00:03:46] S1: Lunch lunch and dinner. Yeah. About 500 people here in the factory and then over in the HQ building.
00:03:46 · Justin Lopas, Vidit Agarwal, Vidit Agarwal
[00:03:46] S1: Lunch lunch and dinner. Yeah. About 500 people here in the factory and then over in the HQ building. [00:03:53] S2: Back to the episode in a moment. Something I've heard a lot from business owners and leaders is that speed only matters if you still feel confident in the output. And it's particularly an important point in this world of AI. Answer to that is Accountable Intelligence. AI that shows you what it's doing and works from your own real data and is designed to keep you in control before anything happens. As Xero puts it, most AI asks you to trust it. Accountable intelligence shows you why you can. And that's how it works with JAKS, Xero's in platform AI finance partner. So whether you're running the business, advising the client, or working with your board, JAX ensures that you get the upside of automation without giving up any of the control. If you want to see this practice, head over to xero.com/highflyers for 90% off your plan for the first six months. Terms apply and go to the website. That's xeroxero.comhighflyers. Now back to the episode. [00:05:03] S0: Let's wind back to the clock and go to your sunrise as I call it, your childhood, your upbringing. This one's fascinating because you haven't really talked about this much in a public sense. You mentioned Michigan, you mentioned Detroit, the Midwest. Tell me about your memories. What are your memories of growing up there?
00:05:19 · Justin Lopas
[00:05:19] S1: Yeah. So I was... Like I said, I was born in Southfield, which is just a suburb just North of Detroit. Actually, I only lived there till I was one years old, and then we moved to Evanston, Illinois, suburb also north, but of Chicago. I lived there until I was 13 and then back to the Detroit area in a different suburb, but very close by for high school and college. And upbringing my upbringing was honestly kinda average and middle class and boring Midwest suburbs. I was just actually back there last last weekend and it always reminds me of what feels like home. But my... Both my parents are from the Chicago area. Actually, wife's from Chicago also. And dad was in the auto industry for his whole career, as you'd imagine, being from that area. Worked in various different roles in sales and finance and supply chain. And I was an engineer earlier on in his career and sort of inspired me to go into engineering. And yeah, I was always sort of tinkering with stuff growing up. My dad's really into cars, still is, I am as well. And we'd be working on cars and going to the track or doing house projects. We did an addition on the house and my dad loves architecture and building stuff. And so we did basically all the work ourselves and just got a sort of firsthand practical understanding of working with your hands, sort of the practical side of engineering. And that's why I ultimately decided to go into engineering later. One interesting thing that I think you probably haven't talked a ton about though is... So my dad worked for different companies in the auto industry. Chrysler when I was born and then various different auto suppliers and truck suppliers. And we, he, these are like big old slow companies that were like not innovative or at least not particularly innovative and didn't have great corporate cultures. I remember that one week he told me they're allowing us to wear jeans on Fridays, and it was like a big deal. It's like everybody's talking about jeans and jeans, Friday jeans at the office. And so because of that, didn't really like work. He was never into work in a totally different way than when I went to SpaceX. Was like, oh, man. People are into work. They enjoy it, they're here for a mission, they're motivated, they're thinking about and talking about work outside of work.