00:28:51 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:28:51] S0: Right. [00:28:51] S1: And so the actual bottleneck is not like the human imagination. Like, people know what they wanna build. They've got, like, a million ideas. Uh-huh. The problem that we're gonna run into is that, like, we're gonna be bottlenecked on our ability to produce these metals fast enough and cheaply enough. Right? If, like, if... Think about, like, lithium for lithium ion batteries. Right? Like, at one point in twenty twenty twenty nineteen, the price of a kg of lithium was, like, $20, and then it went up to, like, $80. And like that that cost delta, right, has to get passed on to the consumer. Exactly. And so it's a constraining factor on demand is the way to think about it. So it's less about sort of like... The way to think about it is like we've got all these amazing ideas of all this like cool stuff we can build in the future, whether it's robots or self driving cars or AI data centers or defense tech or like all these kinds of things. Right? And the thing that actually constrains you is like can you build enough of them cheaply enough given the supply of metals that you have. [00:29:44] S0: So how are you able or what do you envision in a perfect scenario where you guys are able to deliver those materials, know, at a cheap at a cheaper price point for the consumer? [00:29:53] S1: Yeah. So that like... Sell directly to consumers. Yeah. We sell to all the industries that build stuff for consumers. Yeah.
00:29:53 · JC Lozano, Ryan Deng
[00:29:53] S1: Yeah. So that like... Sell directly to consumers. Yeah. We sell to all the industries that build stuff for consumers. Yeah. [00:30:00] S0: Like, how do you see those costs not being passed on and lowering them so that, like, people are able to Yeah. You know, do some crazy stuff with that. Right? Because imagine we had more data centers. Right? What could we do with those? [00:30:09] S1: Right? Lots more tokens. [00:30:11] S0: Lots more tokens. We we need to focus on tokens per second, though. Okay? And don't we need more tokens. We need faster tokens per second. [00:30:17] S1: Is that what it is? Okay. [00:30:18] S0: I'll just do it.... Podco sessions are not good anymore. Okay. Not good anymore. I I want fast, cheap inference. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Got it. Understood.
00:30:18 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:30:18] S0: I'll just do it.... Podco sessions are not good anymore. Okay. Not good anymore. I I want fast, cheap inference. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Got it. Understood. [00:30:28] S1: So the way we make it cheaper Mhmm. Fundamentally is... Well, there's there's two things. So one way to think about it is like making it cheaper. Mhmm. Another way to think about it is just like whether or not you're gonna be able to meet the demand at all. Mhmm. And so before you have... Before you can make stuff cheaper, you have to make it to start. Exactly. And so the problem we have in The US and the problem we have in the Western world is like, just don't have enough of the people who are trained in these skills to do this effectively. Like, that's the core problem. The market's gonna keep growing. Like, demand will keep rising. And so what we're struggling with is actually, like, we don't have enough miners. Don't have enough haul truck operators. Like, don't have enough people who know how to run chemical refineries or to build this, like, large It's [00:31:05] S0: labor constraint, actually,
00:31:05 · Ryan Deng, JC Lozano
[00:31:05] S0: labor constraint, actually, [00:31:07] S1: more than that. That is the start. Exactly. A labor constraint. And so like the only mines that are able to operate profitably right now are these like massive massive mines who get amazing economies of scale and then that allows them to like pay their labor force like very very well. Mhmm. Relatively speaking. And so the point is is that like the first part you have to clear is, like, can we even get these metals? Mhmm. So that's the first thing. And then that is where, like, all the autonomy comes into play. It's just, like, enabling us to go after these different types of metals. And then once you're, like, actually able to do the projects, then you can think about optimizing them, pushing them to the left of the cost curve, and basically like making them cheaper. Mhmm. But the first thing is just like a feasibility thing, like can we go and build these things? Do we have enough people to do it? Mhmm. So that's kind of like the the first part of clear.
00:31:07 · JC Lozano, Ryan Deng
[00:31:07] S1: more than that. That is the start. Exactly. A labor constraint. And so like the only mines that are able to operate profitably right now are these like massive massive mines who get amazing economies of scale and then that allows them to like pay their labor force like very very well. Mhmm. Relatively speaking. And so the point is is that like the first part you have to clear is, like, can we even get these metals? Mhmm. So that's the first thing. And then that is where, like, all the autonomy comes into play. It's just, like, enabling us to go after these different types of metals. And then once you're, like, actually able to do the projects, then you can think about optimizing them, pushing them to the left of the cost curve, and basically like making them cheaper. Mhmm. But the first thing is just like a feasibility thing, like can we go and build these things? Do we have enough people to do it? Mhmm. So that's kind of like the the first part of clear. [00:31:48] S0: Mhmm. So I'm sure like with building this company and keeping that in mind, you have some sort of vision of the future. Right? Because obviously Sure. You're towards something that, you know, we can anticipate, you know, will change the world in terms of how you're supplying everything to everybody. What do you envision the world is like in ten years? Right? And I just I want this. I I wanna I wanna know. Yeah. I wanna I wanna tap into that brain. Right? Because you're on the frontier of of of the supply chain and and how you're supplying these materials. [00:32:17] S1: Yeah.
00:32:17 · JC Lozano, Ryan Deng
[00:32:17] S1: Yeah. [00:32:17] S0: You're seeing firsthand what people are building for these consumers. What is on the horizon for us? Is Terminator three coming? [00:32:24] S1: I I don't think so. Okay. No. I don't like... I I don't know, fundamentally. What I what I do believe and what we believe as a company is that like the best way to move forward is like make the pie bigger for everybody. Right. Right? Like that is the most important thing we can do with the time we have. I think it's just like trying to figure out how to make this pie bigger and bigger for everybody here and everybody across the world. And so like that's how we see the company mission flowing into that is like if you have more metals brought to market, things become cheaper, things become... Like, more people can get access to the same amount of goods, the same amount of quality of life, like all these different pieces. And so, like, if you are enabling that, you're enabling the pie to get bigger for everybody. And I think, you know, at least for me, I'm like a very much an optimist. And so like for me, the future is like, okay, how do we like make the pie big enough for everybody that we're all able to like participate in this future of abundance, this future of like metals abundance fundamentally. And I think if you have that, it unlocks a bunch of like things like energy abundance, it unlocks a bunch of things like sort of like technological abundance, but like that is the future we're trying to build towards. I don't know exactly what it looks like. It's a great question.