00:22:34 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:22:34] S0: And and remember, our audience is nontechnical, so Okay. We're probably hearing a little bit of a Okay. A buzz buzzwords k. Buzzword alert. [00:22:41] S1: Okay. Got it. Yeah. Data driven approaches just mean you've, like, trained a model Mhmm. On it, and, like, think of a large language model or a foundation model, right, like Chatuchipiti or Claude. It understands images and then it gives you text back. Mhmm. Vision language action models are kind of a similar sort of architecture. There is what's called a vision language model backbone and then there's like an action expert that basically takes his input like a prompt, go do this thing, some pictures of the world, some sensor feeds. Right? And then it spits out like, here's the the way to control the vehicle. Oh. So that's one approach. There's like, you know, a bunch of traditional approaches, you know, sort of like auto... Autonomy in this in this space isn't super new. Mhmm. What's new for us is that we're moving a lot faster. [00:23:22] S0: What percent like... Do you have any metrics like compared to just like traditional mines in The US compared to when you guys onboard and take over point in the mine where everyone's just like, this mine is cooked, but you guys are coming in and buying it up? [00:23:34] S1: Yeah. That's a good question. So I would say, like, the lithium facility that we're building in East Texas, we'll get that done and ramped next year. Mhmm. So from project inception to, like, full production ramp was less than three years. [00:23:51] S0: Mhmm.
00:23:51 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:23:51] S0: Mhmm. [00:23:52] S1: The equivalent facility run by a more traditional company, it'd probably take, six or seven. [00:23:57] S0: Okay. So about half the time Yeah. Faster. Yeah. [00:24:01] S1: And that's the first project. We wanna get that like four x faster. [00:24:05] S0: Four x faster. Wow. Yeah. So what are you guys trying to, you know, provide these industrial materials and these ores for? Right? Like, obviously robotics is one thing. Oh, I mean So What's your biggest, like, what's your biggest customer? Right? I I I I find out like Yeah. You're getting all these these ores and you're refining them Yeah. Who's coming to you and saying, hey, we want first rights on this. Right? Because for me, it seems like almost like a GPU equivalent where, hey. We want GPUs. We want ores. Who... Who's your biggest [00:24:31] S1: First of all, I would think about GPUs, like, are a commodity that follow, like, commodity markets, and, like, metals were one of the original commodity markets. [00:24:39] S0: Right. [00:24:39] S1: So it kinda goes the other direction. Uh-huh. But [00:24:42] S0: Not technical. Not technical.
00:24:42 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:24:42] S0: Not technical. Not technical. [00:24:44] S1: So like the lithium that we're refining in East Texas, that's gonna go to a battery company. Mhmm. Copper is, you know, one of the most, maybe the most... It's copper and aluminum, are the most... Well, and aluminum and iron are the most like common metals used across the globe. Right? Right. And so there's actually like a super healthy market for copper. So we we sell our mark... Sell our copper directly to the market. Mhmm. And it's a very liquid market because copper is in super high demand, same for aluminum, for iron. Right? One of my friends actually, he used to be a consultant. Told me something when he was working with a mining company Right. Once as a consultant. Mhmm. But they had this phrase that really stuck with me which is like, if you think about everything that you interact with in the world Yeah. It's either... Like everything human made is either like grown or it's like mined. Sure. I think that's where it starts. [00:25:30] S0: So just those two. [00:25:32] S1: Think about it. Okay. What what else is there? I can't... Made. Right? Like, there's... Those are the two things. Alright. Let's [00:25:39] S0: let's assume those are the two things. [00:25:40] S1: No. I'm telling you those are Okay. The two [00:25:42] S0: Those are the two things. I'll trust you.
00:25:42 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:25:42] S0: Those are the two things. I'll trust you. [00:25:44] S1: Alright. But no. Like, look at this restaurant. Right? Like, the wood was grown somewhere. It Seems like fake wood. Right. Plastics come from petrochemicals Mhmm. Hydrocarbons, basically. Mhmm. Like, this fork is metal. You know, this is ceramics. Like, it's literally like you either dig stuff out of the ground or you, like, grow stuff. [00:26:02] S0: Right. So what you're saying is you are the most important company on earth. [00:26:05] S1: That is not at all what I [00:26:06] S0: was saying. No.
00:26:06 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:26:06] S0: was saying. No. [00:26:07] S1: But my point is is that there's like a super healthy market for for repurchasing these Right? Like there's no... So when you're building stuff like this, like it's very interesting. So I think in the like software world, which I think you're analogizing this to, like, like, the the huge battle is product market fit, right? Like, you need to build a product that people like and that you can sell, right? Mhmm. And so there's this, you are trying to find a product that fits the market. Mhmm. For us, it's it's very different. Commodities are fundamentally like, the market needs them. They're all the same. They're indistinguishable. So the only thing that separates a commodity, one commodity company from another commodity company is like the cost at which you produce those goods. It's actually like interestingly like very similar to like tokens actually. So you can like think about tokens, like tokens are just like intelligence in a token. Right. And like however you get that token doesn't actually matter. They're all the same. Mhmm. It's the content of the token that actually matters. And so the only thing that separates, like, different AI companies, right, is, like, their cost of producing those tokens. Mhmm. [00:27:02] S0: And the
00:27:02 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:27:02] S0: And the [00:27:02] S1: ones who are cheaper and more effective and more efficient at producing those tokens will, like, win fundamentally because, like Right. The actual, like, content itself is indistinguishable. Exactly. Like, if I give you, like, the answer, whether it's from Gemini or whether it's from ChatGPT, right, like, the point is the answer, not the actual, like, way it was gotten. And so Mhmm. The only thing that separates the two of them is, like, the cost of those things. And you could get into, like, other pieces, but that's maybe a good analogy. So it's very different. Like, software... Like, traditional SaaS businesses, you're, like, trying to find a product that fits the market. Mhmm. For us, the market's already there. Right? Like, the market... People need copper. It goes into wire. It goes into, like, everything electronic. Mhmm. People need aluminum. It goes into cans. It goes into... It's a... It's used as a conductor for transportation of electricity. People need lithium. It goes into batteries. It goes into a bunch of stuff. It actually goes into your iPhone screen. So people need these metals. Yeah. So [00:27:48] S0: And they'll always need them. Right? They'll always need them. [00:27:50] S1: As far as we know.