00:17:48 · Sachin
[00:17:48] S1: Something that was felt sort of unique about studying this company was that it feels like it's a company that the world particularly needs. This is not an incremental company, it feels particularly revolutionary, it feels like it's a company that could literally save lives. Can you sort of describe in your own words why Texas needs a company like Base and sort of why eventually America's gonna need a company like this?
00:18:10 · Zach Dell
[00:18:10] S0: Yeah. I mean, energy is the input to everything, right? And, you know, I could quote all kinds of stats and charts and data around energy consumption per capita and GDP per capita and the correlation between the two and how decreasing the cost and increasing the availability of power makes people's lives better, right? And intuitively it makes sense. If power is less expensive and more reliable, things become easier, right? But if we take a step back and we look at the big picture of energy and we see what's happening in the world and we look at places like China who are just, you know, countries like China that are massively scaling their energy production and what that's going to allow them to do, the investments that's going to allow them to make, the bets that's going to allow them to take over the next many decades. We see a pretty grim future if we are not able to place those same bets, right? If we're not able to take those same risks, if we're not able to make those same investments in our future and if we don't aggressively try to inflect our capacity to generate and consume electricity in The US and, you know, looking further out in ten, fifteen, twenty years, we are not going to be able to compete with the nations that do. So it's going to become a national cons... National security concern. So it's actually less about... Look, we could talk about Texas. Right? Texas is an island grid. It's a massive consumer of electricity at as high renewables penetration. Why? Well, because it's in the middle of the Sunbelt and in the middle of the wind corridor. So there's a lot of solar and there's a lot of wind. Right? That means there's a bunch of volatility, which means you need a lot of batteries. The batteries are coming. A lot of them showed up in the last couple of years. That's muted volatility while demand is continuing to grow, load is continuing to grow, more shoreline wind are coming online, the volatility is likely to come back. There's gonna be more barriers to get built built out. We can talk about the the fuel mix and the load growth and all of these fun things that all of the grid wants like to talk about. But the more important point is we have to set ourselves up for the wonderful abundant future that we all want in ten, twenty, thirty, forty years.
00:20:21 · Zach Dell
And if we don't make investments today in establishing a platform level energy technology company that can usher in this kind of abundant energy future, we're gonna get left behind. Because the paradigm, it's... If you look at the energy companies of America today, there are some big companies. There are some very powerful strong companies, but they're all oriented around the old paradigm. Right? They are oriented around coal and natural gas. They're not oriented around solar and storage. And some of them have dipped their toes in certain things, but they're all already trying this old paradigm. And they're also not engineering led technology focused R and D driven companies. And that's the most important point. Right? And 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. Like, it's just it's just not going to happen. And you, you know, Anduril, this this is same thesis. Right? It's like, if the greatest defense technology company in the world is going to get built, it better be built in America. Right? As as I feel the same way about energy. If the greatest energy technology in the world, the greatest energy technology company in the world is going to be built, it better be in America. So why not us? Why not Texas? Why not now? And that's that's kinda how we get here.
00:21:40 · Adam Miller
[00:21:40] S2: I feel it. I I love your storytelling. We're gonna go into the Jen Taylor model in a second. But before, I wanna circle back to something you said. You said Josh helped you kind of psychologically get over this chip on your shoulder. I want to understand that a little bit more, but also what he saw in you to lead your seed round and to go after this big mission.
00:21:58 · Zach Dell
[00:21:58] S0: Yeah, I think you'd have to ask Josh. Mean, he has an incredible eye for talent and he's hired tons of people who are much better than I and tons of things. But look, I think Josh is a very thoughtful person who really helped me see myself more clearly and I think had gone through kind of similar things to me and kind of gave me permission to feel certain ways and think certain things and just help me mature in a lot of ways. And, you know, the seed round, you know, I think about it less around what did he see that that made him wanna invest, you know, in the seed round and more about the seed round was done when I joined Thrive, right? Like I joined Thrive and the the whole kind of conversation with him was, hey, you know, let's go invest together. And then at some point you build a company and we'll back you. It wasn't, it was less around the like, okay, well, you know, how much we're gonna invest and what's the valuation? It was like, you're gonna build a company, we're gonna support you. And that's kind of how Josh works is he's very partnership focused. And I think, you know, he helped me really, take ownership and responsibility for like my own future and my own wants and desires and less about what the world thinks and, you know, what the people say and, you know, you know, it really shined light on the fact that like, they're gonna love you, they're gonna hate you, it's gonna go back and forth, you know, and then the day, like, all that matters is, you know, the people in your inner circle, your family, your friends, your team, like, they respect you and they, you know, that that's really what matters, right? It's like, that that that inner ring, and that's kind of Josh's thing and I learned... I really learned that from him for that.
00:23:41 · Sachin
[00:23:41] S1: Yeah. That inner ring essay is great. I think Patrick O'Shaughnessy talks quite a lot about it. It... It's powerful. And going on to Base Power now, I think when people think about energy companies, they think about these asset heavy, capital intensive, low margin businesses that are run by these big old companies and it's very monopolistic markets. The venture capital model is typically very different for that... From that. And so how did you sort of set up the company so that you could attract venture dollars like this? You've raised a huge amount of money now and it's a very sort of contrarian venture play.