00:00:00 · Zach Dell, Sachin, Adam Miller
[00:00:00] S0: I genuinely believe it can be one of the biggest companies in the world. People can try, but, like, we're coming for all of it. Rockefeller built the biggest company in the world, and he got so big that the government pulled it apart. Like, that's kinda winning. Yeah. Like [00:00:15] S1: This is Zach Dell, the CEO and cofounder of Base Power. After our last video, we decided to release the entire uncut interview with Zach. If we were [00:00:25] S2: to kind of observe your internal monologue, what would surprise us? [00:00:29] S0: I have a very recognizable last name. That was a big source of motivation for me. It's like, I'm gonna prove that I'm capable, and it's not just my dad, you know? Like, and now I feel like I'm in a different place, and I'm part of a team that needs me. And I need them, and we're in it together. And we're taking on, you know, the world and doing something big and hard and important. [00:00:50] S1: In this interview, we get into what Zach learned from Josh Kushner, how Base Power competes with Tesla, and why Zach sees his company as a national security issue. This is not an incremental company. It feels particularly revolutionary. It feels like it's a company that could literally save lives. [00:01:05] S0: If America is going to lead in energy, we must have an American engineering led, technology focused, r and d driven, energy technology company or else we're screwed. How you going? Hey, guys. Good. Good to see you. Yeah. Thanks for coming.
00:01:05 · Zach Dell, Sachin, Adam Miller
[00:01:05] S0: If America is going to lead in energy, we must have an American engineering led, technology focused, r and d driven, energy technology company or else we're screwed. How you going? Hey, guys. Good. Good to see you. Yeah. Thanks for coming. [00:01:22] S1: Yeah. Thanks for having us around here. This is a really unique office for a start up. [00:01:26] S0: Yeah. That's kind of the point. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. [00:01:30] S2: I think something else that's unique is the energy in Austin. This is our first time here, but we've been blown away by how friendly everyone is, the energy and the air. It's so different to San Francisco. [00:01:39] S0: It's a very unique city. I'm very biased because I grew up here, but I think it's the greatest city in the country. And it's very early in its rise. When I grew up in Austin, it went from a small town to a big town. Now it's going from a small city to a big city. And being part of that inflection is a lot of fun. Yeah. [00:01:57] S1: Do you think there's something about the sort of DNA of Base that it had to be started in Austin?
00:01:57 · Sachin, Zach Dell, Adam Miller
[00:01:57] S1: Do you think there's something about the sort of DNA of Base that it had to be started in Austin? [00:02:03] S0: I think that it probably could have been started somewhere else, but we'll never know. And look, we're an energy company and Texas is the energy capital of the country. I think hopefully soon we'll be the energy capital of the world. Texas is an incredible place to build businesses too. Austin has emerged as a hard tech place, right? Where people are kind of coming to work on hard physical problems, lots of mechanical, electrical engineers, lots of software engineers, lots of operators, you know, people who are really focused on execution physical world problems. And so it's kind of emerged around us as a great place to build that kind of company, but who knows? We may have been able to pull it off somewhere else, but we'll never know. [00:02:47] S2: I've got a pretty deep one to start off with. We're gonna go into base and everything very soon. But how would your family and partner describe you in a way that you wouldn't describe yourself? [00:02:58] S0: That's an interesting question. I mean, you have to ask them, how would my wife describe me in a way that I wouldn't describe myself? I I don't I don't know. I mean, I hope that she would describe me as, you know, a source of love and energy and support and someone who really cares about her and our family. Someone who's very loyal and feels a deep sense of responsibility. Yeah. And thoughtfulness around the things that I do and spend my time on. [00:03:37] S1: Love that.
00:03:37 · Sachin, Zach Dell
[00:03:37] S1: Love that. [00:03:38] S0: But I don't know, it's a hard one. [00:03:39] S1: Yeah. When I sort of look at your background, you worked in venture capital, you worked in private equity, you started a bunch of companies. There's nothing there that indicates to me that this is a person that was gonna go start an energy company. It's a very unique thing. If I... If you told me more about your sort of background and growing up, were there any signals that this would one day be the company that you'd start?
00:04:01 · Zach Dell
[00:04:01] S0: Yeah. I actually disagree. So I started my first company in the eighth grade. Started my second company, my junior of high school, my third company, my sophomore year of college. I think it was pretty obvious that I was going to be an entrepreneur, wanted to be an entrepreneur. The company I started in college was an energy adjacent company. I think it's more of a company in air quotes is more of a research project than a company. And we can talk about that if that's of interest, but, I really only went into investing because I wanted to learn what good looked like and I needed to develop a skill set, right? Sharpen the tools. I had a very dull tool set at the time And I saw Blackstone as a place to learn and a place where I could surround myself with people who were really capable and intense and would push me. And I'm a very competitive person and I like being around elite competition. And I think, you know, you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And so I wanted to sit next to people who were smarter than me, worked harder than me, had seen more than me, so I could just push myself to a limit and see if I could hang. And that's really what Blackstone was to me. It was a tool sharpening exercise and boy did it sharpen my tools. Like it was incredibly effective and I grew up there. And I didn't spend all that much time there. I mean, I there for like a year, right? Like I interned there before and whatever, but so I didn't have this like, you know, illustrious investing career at Blackstone. Like I was an analyst and, you know, it was Bob and Tilton poll. I wasn't there that long, but I learned a lot and I worked with some really smart people. And when I made the jump to Thrive, that was really about broadening the horizons and getting closer and closer to the original thing, is entrepreneurship and seeing what great entrepreneurs look like and how they work and same thing. I didn't have some illustrious, you know, investing career at Thrive where, you know, I led all these incredible investments and I was there for two years. Right? Like I, you know, Thrive has had incredible success in the last, you know, five years and I get, I should receive 0.0% of that credit, right? Like, I was there for a little bit of time. I did some interesting work. I asked some good questions.
00:05:56 · Zach Dell
I learned a lot, But those were, I would say both of those stops were kind of part of my maturation, part of the learning, part of the context building, the tool sharpening, the weaponization to get to the point today or three years ago when we started the company where I actually am capable of doing the things required to just get started. But what I will tell you, and maybe I'm taking this a little further than you'd like, but I think it's relevant is when we started the company three years ago, and Justin would tell you this from Jared or Cole or Dana or Scary or anyone who was here in the in the earliest days, like, I was not the CEO today... That the company needs today three years ago. I had to become the person that I am today to lead the company today. I can tell you, look you both in the eye and tell you, like, I am not the CEO of this company needs in five years. I'm not the CEO of this company needs in ten years. I have to become that person. Right? Like, I'm on a journey. I have a slope. I hope that slope is quite steep. Everyone here is betting I can become that person. I'm betting I can that person, but it's not a given. And I have to show up every day and like chop wood, carry water, do the work, become that guy, become that leader that the company needs. And so I wasn't that person, you know, in my first company in high school or my, you know, or second company in high school, fir... Third company in college, at Blackstone, at Thrive. Those are parts of the journey. Right? It's like trust the process, like just show up, wake up every day, work really hard, do the damn thing, try to figure it out, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, and become that person over time. So fair, there's no like, you know, you couldn't have you couldn't have known that that that was the slope, And we'll see how the next five and ten and fifteen, twenty years play out. But that's kinda how I think about it. It's like a constant iteration to become the person that you wanna be in the future.