Moonshots with Peter Diamandis - Managing Risk to Build a Moonshot Venture w/ Marc Lore & Austin Russell | EP #103

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

In this episode, recorded during Abundance360 2024, Peter, Marc, and Austin discuss what it takes to achieve your Moonshot and how their companies are embracing exponential change.  01:00 | Journeys of Resilience and Risk 04:35 | Revolutionizing Autonomous Driving with Luminar 20:20 | The Rise and Fall of Kitchen Delivery Austin Russell is the founder and CEO of Luminar Technologies, a company specializing in developing advanced lidar sensors for autonomous vehicles. He was recognized as the youngest self-made billionaire in 2020 after Luminar went public. Marc Lore is an American entrepreneur known for founding Jet.com and serving as the CEO of Walmart U.S. eCommerce after its acquisition. He is also the founder, chairman, and CEO of Wonder Group. Learn about Luminar: https://www.luminartech.com/  Learn about Wonder: https://www.wonder.com/  Learn more about Abundance360: https://www.abundance360.com/summit  ____________ I only endorse products and services I personally use. To see what they are,  please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:  Get started with Fountain Life and become the CEO of your health: https://fountainlife.com/peter/   AI-powered precision diagnosis you NEED for a healthy gut: https://www.viome.com/peter  ____________ I send weekly emails with the latest insights and trends on today’s and tomorrow’s exponential technologies. Stay ahead of the curve, and sign up now:  Tech Blog _____________ Connect With Peter: Twitter Instagram Youtube Moonshots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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for info on kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. Getting to 99% is actually relatively easy. It's all about that last 1%. You're faced with these tough decisions all the time where you're getting new information in every day and you have to remain totally objective. Were there times in every venture where it almost failed? Yeah.

When you're going for a moonshot, you've got to be hit with a lot of skepticism. You're asking people the question, why? Why doesn't this work? Why doesn't that make sense? And if you're not getting good answers back, if you're like, hmm, I'm not convinced, you didn't convince me why this thesis doesn't work. Then you know you've got something. The guts it takes to actually stop and say, no, no, no, the data says we have to go here and reverse, reinvest. That's hard to do.

When you can create economic value, you can do good for the world at the same time. It's about that impact that you're having. Where did you both fly in from? You just landed from where? I just landed, yeah, I was just with the Nvidia leadership over at the GTC up in the Bay Area, actually, and then here and then going off to Florida. Awesome. And mark yourself?

New York. Yeah, so I've really gotten to know you guys just over the last couple of years and so grateful to have you here and Your journey is epitomize resilience and risk and so what I'd love to do is just begin so everybody can understand in The essence of your story. Then I'll go into some of the key questions. So Mark, would you recount your entrepreneurial journey real quick to get to Wonder and where you are now?

And congratulations on $700 million raise last week, I think. It's amazing. Thank you. Extraordinary. So diapers.com, jet.com, wonder, please. Please. Yeah, I spent both diapers.com and jet.com were e-commerce companies. So I basically started diapers.com back in 2004-ish, five, 2005.

And it was basically a website for new parents to buy everything for their baby and then eventually everything for their pet and then eventually everything. And sold that to Amazon in 2011. Worked inside Amazon for a couple years and then started another e-commerce company called Jet.com. And then two years later, Walmart bought that.

And- How much? 3.3 billion. Not bad. Yeah. Two years later, you bought that. How much? $3.3 billion. Not bad. Yeah. Two years later, you heard that part? Yeah. The exception, not the rule. Yeah.

And then went in it and became the CEO of Walmart e-commerce for about four plus years. And then, yeah, then started Wonder. And you happen to own a sports team or something like that? Minnesota Timberwolves. Yeah. Pretty amazing. Um, and, uh, yeah, I guess, uh, who just came in? Oh, Eric Schmidt came in with you on that recently. Didn't he?

I can't confirm or deny. Oh, okay. And, and, uh, wonder does what? Cause we'll come back to that in a little bit. Yeah. I think, I think the best way to explain it is we're creating the super app from the all time, but it's a next generation of food delivery. It's completely vertically integrated, so,

just like a normal delivery aggregator that does the delivery and sells the food via an app, we have that, but we also own all the restaurants on the platform. And we've invested hundreds of millions in food science and culinary engineering to be able to cook 30 different cuisines out of a 2,800 square foot kitchen with only three pieces of electric cooking equipment. There's no hoods, there's no gas, no open flames, no waste, very lightly skilled, lightly trained labor. So we're able to pump out an extraordinary amount of volume in a small space we can locate

very close to the customer. We don't deliver more than six minutes in the city from the physical location, and we could deliver very fast hot food, really high quality. You could order multiple restaurants from a single checkout, and we have everything from fast, fine food like steakhouse, Jose Andres, Michael Simon, Mark Murphy, and we have barbecue, burgers, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, basically anything you could want at that single location And it's got a little sit-down, but mostly pick up and delivery

So remember we talked about the 60s of exponentials, right? He's basically digitized and dematerialized Demonetizing and democratizing all those restaurants into a convenient venue And we'll come back to that. Thank you for that quick summary. I don't think, I don't think you've ever done it that quickly. Let's chat about your life experience here, Austin. Um, for, I just heard backstage that you were, you were a competitor or one of our early X prizes. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's funny.

I mean, uh, you know, going back, I I think, back when I was like 16, 17, I remember the XPRIZE was like an inspiration there. Which XPRIZE was it? Yeah, this was actually the Tricorder there too. That was, yeah, there was like an OG. I think there's still some OG video of me from like 10 years ago. I was like trying to be like a team lead for the Tricorder. Yeah. But yeah, there's amazing stuff that you guys have.

And then, obviously, later on, I ended up building Luminar. What does Luminar do? Yeah, so Luminar, we create these laser sensing systems, a LIDAR and an AI software for major automakers to be able to enable next generation safety systems and autonomous driving capabilities on production cars. So, the whole idea is basically, there's a lot of companies that have been trying to

replace drivers with fully driverless vehicles, RoboTax, anything, the whole goal we've had is enhance drivers, increase the capabilities, and ultimately be able to create the uncrashable car, so to say, by enabling, you know, when the car senses that if you're going to get into a collision scenario, you know, take over the braking system, take over steering wheel, get you out of that. And that's enabled by this,

breakthrough lidar technology that we created, and the software that automakers have really started adopting in mass. Now, lidar, I I think I remember it's like laser imaging radar type of, is that what it roughly means? Yeah, yeah, basically it's using these custom lasers you build to measure the exact distance to different objects out in the field of view.

I remember when the first Google Autonomous car came out, it had a Velodyne LIDAR on the roof that was a spinning thing. It cost about $150,000 and weighed like, it was like a coffee can size. What does one of your Lidars cost now? Or look like now? No, no, it's a great question because it's funny,

I mean, I'm sure you guys have all seen the autonomous test cars and other things that are out there. And this is a huge problem from a cost and economic standpoint. They've historically been like the huge roof racks full of sensor and a supercomputer in the trunk that's required to run the thing.

So the whole point of what we were doing is creating something from the ground up, from the chip level up that could have significantly improved performance and get the cost down from $100,000 down to under $1,000. And that's exactly what we did. So basically we've sort of transformed that from those kind of tuck-y-fried-chicken-bucket-looking

things to a seamlessly integrated sensor on production cars. And now that's getting to go out in amazing brands, like ever ranging from Volvo to Mercedes to beyond. And congrats to both of you for your extraordinary success on these. I want to talk about an underlying theme that I spoke to both of you about here, which

is when you're going for a moonshot, whether it's building Luminar or building your multiple companies Mark and Tulosa which is your vision of a city of the future You you've got to be hit with a lot of skepticism like you're you're crazy for a 20 year old or for somebody who's you know Not had you know, not had restaurant experience. And so can you talk, one second,

and name this theme after our conversation, Mark, embracing risk and resilience in moonshot ventures. I think that's probably one of the most important elements we can talk about here. How do you think about that? I mean, first, I think it starts with having an A of K. You know, I think I've been in e-commerce a long time.

I sort of know too much. It's hard to have that clean blank slate to rethink a completely new vision. You kind of know too much and your brain gets programmed to think a certain way. And so when people bring me e-commerce ideas, I have a really hard time. I can point out why it's not going to work and see it very clearly. It's hard to have that clean slate to rethink without any information, and I think that's one of the things entrepreneurs do really well,

is when you don't know, and it's true, didn't know anything about the restaurant industry specifically, but can rethink from a clean slate what might a step change look like, and then really think about that vision and then do all the things to work backwards from that vision and then start knocking down all the barriers along the way.

But you have to have that naivete to sort of rethink. I don't know if. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Same way, right? Same thing. I mean, you weren't in the automotive industry, you weren't in the restaurant business.

And I mean, but the reality is most disruptions in industries occur from people who are not in the industry. In fact, I know very few companies that have gone from one generation of technology to lead the next generation of technology. I don't think like anybody. And so how, what's your advice for entrepreneurs, to embrace that kind of, I mean, when people tell them you're crazy, you have no background, how did you develop sufficient confidence in yourself?

By the way, we did see this as well with Elon, had no rocket business, no car business before. Yeah. I mean, just starting with something simple like diapers, for example. So when started diapers.com, the thinking was, I had a baby at the time and you couldn't get diapers delivered to your door at normal prices. If you went online to Amazon or whatever, they were like $10 more a box.

And I just thought that was strange. It makes like parents are busy. You want to have diapers delivered. And so when I started asking people and said, I want to start an e-commerce company where we deliver diapers overnight to people at Walmart prices. That was sort of the original vision. And people in the industry said, that's not going to work.

That's crazy. It's too heavy. It's too expensive to ship. It's already a loss leader in Walmart. Now it's going to be a bigger loss leader. The math doesn't work. And so everyone just kind of ruled it out. Procter & Gamble and Kimberly Clark, the diaper manufacturers,

wouldn't sell us diapers for years because they kept saying, it's never going to work, so we don't want to be caught up in this and selling you that. But, to answer your question, you ask all the people in the industry questions and you keep questioning and see if they've got an answer to the sort of original thesis. questions and you keep questioning and see if if they've got an answer to The sort of original thesis and the thesis was yes, it's a loss leader and it's gonna be a bigger loss leader

but you also have many more products online to monetize the loss over and When you start hitting people and say yeah, I know it's a loss But there's a reason why it's a loss for Walmart it drives traffic and they buy everything else So what if we use it as a loss, a bigger loss albeit, to sell them everything online? There's millions of products we can sell them online. For anyone who's there to buy diapers, they're likely needing the other things as well.

Yeah, and buy everything. And now, it's pretty commonplace now that online, people will sell diapers at a huge loss because it's a great way to attract and retain new parents, which are big spenders online and all the math works out. But you're asking people the question, why? Why doesn't this work?

Why doesn't that make sense? And if you're not getting good answers back, if you're like, hmm, I'm not convinced, you didn't convince me why this thesis doesn't work, then you know you've got something. So it's good to have your vision. You have to stand by your conviction and not try. Question, question, question.

And not fool yourself as well. Austin, I know you're a first investor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an amazing journey. You know, what's funny and what's even true in the early stages of what we had to do is that it's that same kind of situation where when you try to disrupt something... How old were you when you started Luminar? You know, I was what, 16, turning 17 at the time.

And your vision was what? What did you say when you... Did you have a PowerPoint deck? More like a lab. More of a lab. You know, than a PowerPoint deck. Hardware talks, bullshit walks. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. It's much easier to create the PowerPoint than it is to do it. So yeah. But yeah, it was the same exact kind of situation there, too, where you have all the naysayers. You have the folks that are like, hey, it's the same exact kind of situation there too, where you have all the naysayers, you have the folks that are like, hey, there's no way you're going to do this much less like as a 16, 17-year-old trying to create some new lidar system to beat out the Googles and Apples and every major automaker to developing a technology.

So you have to bet on yourself. Obviously, you have to be very well-researched and really know what you're talking about and have the conviction to do it. But, you know, it's, yeah, it's the same kind of situation. And you encounter those same kind of cycles all throughout the journey. That's not something that's even just necessarily unique. It's just in very different forms, right?

And so, are you constantly just like rechecking your premises and heading out with greater conviction and finding evidence to support yourself? Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely and and that's where you know, we deal with the same kind of stuff today there And I think in this case like for example for the broader, you know autonomous vehicle industry, it's sort of gone through this whole Transition, you know in that broader like in this case now, it's the Gartner cycle, you could call it.

It's gone up, you have the peak of inflated expectations. It's probably at the bottom of the trough of disillusionment phase and now onto the enlightenment phase. And that's probably rightfully justified because most of the stuff in the broader autonomous vehicle industry, of these promise of all these self-driving cars you know taking over cities you know doing everything didn't quite quite materialize right do you

remember our conversation with Elon? Yes, yes, I do. We're at a friend's birthday party and Elon's there and Austin is there and I pull Elon over I say I pulled East Austin over said okay Elon meet Austin I pulled East Austin over, I said, okay, Elon meet Austin, Austin meet Elon, Austin makes LIDAR. And Elon's like, nope, no, he's, if a human driver can see with visual eyes only, then autonomous cars only need visual eyes. He's very convinced.

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, and I think that absolutely unquestionably was the... What he was right on was in 2015 when he had to make the decision for that around like, hey, what kind of systems are you going to use? What are you going to do? Use that $100,000 like spinning bucket and put it on every car? That's not going to happen. So, I think part of the whole point is that now for the first time, there actually is

a solution that can enable the next generation of safety and autonomy. And the reality is that, our bet is that it was gonna be way more difficult than what people were anticipating to do this. And that the existing systems were just not gonna be there enough to solve the problem. And that's part of the whole point is with the LIDAR,

it's not just guessing what's going on, you actually know with ground truth exactly where it is. Because for safety systems and self-driving and all that it's it's not about the 99% getting to 99% is actually relatively easy it's all about that that last 1% you know it's you can't run over one of them every hundred people that you see for example so you know it's like a it's very very real folks so you know yeah breakthrough so. So that's what it takes. Everybody, I want to take a short break from our episode

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Go to fountainlife.com backslash Peter. It's one of the most important things I can offer to you as one of my listeners. All right, let's go back to our episode. Mark, you could have, you know, you sold your companies. You had, you know, what is that? Many, many, many commas in the bank worth of capital from your successes. You could have sat back. You didn't.

What was the creative process of getting to wonder? capital from your successes, you could have sat back. Um, you didn't. What, what was the creative process of getting to wonder? What, what were you, were you just a junkie about creating something new? What was it that, that lit you on fire to go in and why that industry? Yeah, I think, you know, like most entrepreneurs, you, you sort of can't, you love to build. I love to build stuff from nothing. Um, but then you see a problem and, you love to build. I love to build stuff from nothing. But then you see a problem and you think you have maybe a possible solution to it.

And then it just starts to build and build and build. And then it has to be. So what was the problem that you saw? I think, well, I was watching food delivery explode in the U.S. where 100 billion now in food delivery in the U.S. expected to go to 500 billion by 2036. Was this during COVID? Was it the situation before COVID?

Before COVID. Before COVID. And was just watching what was happening in food delivery. People were paying a incredible premium for convenience and they were tolerating slow delivery, cold food, inaccurate orders, bad customer service. It just didn't feel like that was the future. It reminded me of the early days of e-commerce where you had marketplaces and things, and

then Amazon comes along with this vertically integrated first-party, elevated customer experience. I just felt like that was the next generation of food delivery. Somebody was going to come and vertically integrate and take the value proposition to a whole other level and be able to deliver food fast, hot, with great customer service and all the things that weren't happening. And that was through the original thinking, but that's the way the idea started. Then it was, but let's talk about what your original,

original idea there because you did a major pivot, which is, I want to talk about that pivot as well. So your original idea was you were going to build these, uh, these kitchens on wheels, right? Yeah. So the, the, the vision was to vertically integrate and take the customer value prop to a whole other level. And the thinking was, why do we cook and then deliver? What if we delivered then cooked?

And so we basically, in the back room at Stady Sprinter Band, had one piece of technology. And we were able to cook really high quality food, really fast, under like 10 minutes, where the driver who drove there was actually able to cook because it was so simple. And that was the original thinking and it worked. Customers absolutely loved it. You rolled this out wearing New Jersey, wasn't it?

In New Jersey suburbs, yeah. We had 400 trucks on the road. Customer scores, repeat rates were incredible. Customers loved it. We got to unit economic positive, things were going really well. But, and this is where the but comes in, yeah, I wasn't the CEO at the time, so I was the executive chairman, but we had tested doing the same thing out of a brick and mortar, you know, with a couple of seats in the front and pick up and delivery. The thinking was, if we set a really tight delivery radius, can we get the same scores that we got on the trucks?

We also would be able to have multi-restaurant ordering, which you couldn't do on the truck, because each truck had one or two restaurants. But if you get all 30 restaurants and you can get them all delivered together, that was, on the customer side, we proved that we can deliver with the same quality as the truck if we keep the radius, but we had the ability to scale. It worked in urban, suburban, rural area, the brick and mortar.

Trucks were really more of a suburban play. And the unit economics were better because we were able to distribute the labor across many more orders, so we were able to do a better job there So what's interesting here what I'm hearing is the fact that you were testing along the way you were getting data It wasn't an opinion It was actually the numbers and you weren't trying to take this to scale you were you were doing this on unit economics and on a square

kilometer Basis yeah, this is where risk comes into play though I think is you know, I like to say we were we were digging for silver when we found gold and as an entrepreneur, you know, you're faced with these tough decisions all the time where you're getting new information in every day and you have to remain totally objective and you can't get wed or hung up on what you told investors, what you told customers, what you told anyone, if there's a better opportunity. You guys reflect on that one second, right? Let's hear it for that, because the guts it takes

to actually stop and say, no, no, no, the data says we have to go here and reverse, reinvest, that's hard to do. Yeah, the CEO, and he'll say this, he couldn't do it. The trucks were working in his mind. It was profitable, customers loved it. And my recommendation was, yeah, but this is so much better. You were the principal owner, right?

Was it all your capital at this point? Or most? No, we still had, we said we had a significant amount of venture at that point. But you had enough capital of your own to be able to say, no, we have to go this direction and that's, that is so important not to get stuck in a local, uh, a local maxima when you see the evidence that just over the other hill, there was something much better.

And to know that if you don't do it, eventually you're going to get disrupted by this better. Yeah. Every, everything you've done up to that point is the sunk cost. you don't do it, eventually you're gonna get disrupted by this better idea. Everything you've done up to that point is a sunk cost. You can't count it. Most people though, they just can't get over that it's sunk. I already said this, that doesn't mean anything. From today forward, what's the best investment

you could possibly make with investors' money? And it took a lot to basically say, we're gonna take revenue to zero, we're gonna stop the trucks, we're gonna sell the trucks, we're gonna take going to stop the trucks, we're going to sell the trucks, we're going to take a loss on the trucks, and we're going to start over with brick and mortar. And the investors got comfortable and bought into it, but I think we're still skeptical. This is going back 18 months ago. And now, I mean, people don't even know how to say that we're trucking.

Don't look back. No, no. Austin, have you had a similar experience at all? Actually, yeah. It's funny. We had a few that maybe not quite as dramatic in terms of pivot or anything for the business. But I would say probably the main one

was going back to the driverless vehicles versus enhancing the safety and the safety focus on that was a big thing of where, like I said, pretty much, you know, I mean, what, three, four years ago, it was actually, funnily enough, like, considered extremely contrarian to try and do what we were doing to put our technology onto production vehicles. It was almost, you know, unheard of to be able to try and do that. And the thought process was that ride hailing and other things were the way that it was going to go. The Uber's this world we're going to take over with. There was a lot of confidence.

It was just a few years away. Yeah, yeah, it was a few years away. And that was where really saying, hey, guys, we're going to bet the company on this by really just going all in on the safety focus, work on production vehicles. Don't invest a ton in the driverless side.

And frankly, even more today, like I've actually, even more recently as we kind of focus in on cost and really drive that for, okay, what are the things that aren't going to drive those kind of near-term returns, is that even less so for the remaining stuff that we had on the autonomous vehicle side, which saves a decent amount, just really focus all in on how you improve safety, how you improve systems with drivers. And yeah, like I said, it was kind of radical at the time,

but I think step by step being proven right and soon be validated with these upcoming major vehicle launches that we have. Mark, you able to talk about your financing publicly? Yeah, yeah, it's public. How much did you raise at what valuation? We raised, we just completed a $700 million round, safe note. Safe note? Not priced.

Okay. Yeah, and it basically converts in at IPO. Not $7 trillion. That's smart. We were just talking about that backstage, yeah. What, the $7 trillion raise? No, no seven trillion. We were just talking about that backstage. What, the seven trillion dollar raise? No, no, no. Exactly.

Sam Altman sucked all the bravado out of the room when he said he was going to raise seven trillion dollars. I tried adding AI at the end of Wonder. It didn't work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. It's funny, we were talking about it. It went through for the early phases.

We also did a bunch of like safe notes. It's all about doubling down on yourself, betting on yourself. That's the thing. If you really believe what you're going to do is going to be successful and more valuable, it's a really smart way to build that and to do it so you don't have to get hugely diluted at times where there's always cycles in the business and it's funny even through the 12 years I've had with Luminar. There's always cycles where it's like there's this huge dislocation or misalignment between perceived value, actual value, and that's where

bet on yourself. You do that, you know where it realizes and that's how you can end up owning a huge stake in the company and then not diluting the folks that ride along the journey with you. you know, owning a huge stake in the company and then, you know, not diluting the folks that ride along the journey with you. Austin, last year this time, you were in the back of the room. I had Tony Robbins on stage here. And you were on the verge of becoming the owner and chairman of Forbes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a whole journey.

And yeah, I'm not even sure it was public at the time. So that was a thing where I had a vision for the whole next generation of capitalism and excited to ultimately have to see that through. I mean... Are you able to share maybe some lessons learned in general out of that? Because I mean it I know it was a wild roller coaster ride and I don't know you said you'd be open to talk about it some but I don't know what is comfortable or not. Oh yeah no I mean I mean it's an ultimately your path yeah, no. I mean, it's... And ultimately, it passes at this point, but it's relatively straightforward.

I mean, they had the vision around the next generation of capitalism, but at the end of the day, I think we... I signed up to sort of a fully funded deal for that there too with some partners, but ultimately didn't end up delivering on the obligations that were had. So that's kind of how things were. You take risks with these things, but at the end of the day, yeah, I think what I'm absolutely still very much excited to see and what the whole, I would say, origination of kind of

that concept was all comes back to the Luminar and the whole, I would say, origination of kind of that concept was all comes back to the Luminar and the journey that I've had personally through this of showing how when you can create economic value, you can do good for the world at the same time. And that's sort of what I mean by the whole next generation of capitalism is that being able to make an impact on the world.

And that's in the case of like Luminar, for example, we have this broad vision around saving as many as, you know, 100 million lives and 100 trillion hours of people's time out on the road. And that over the next 100 years. And that's where everything that we do at Luminar rolls up to that vision. Because if we're able to solve for the majority

of vehicle accidents, you know, in the industry, that's the magnitude and level of impact that you have and of course yet You can create, you know hundreds of billions of dollars of value in that at the same time as you do that But it's about that that impact that you're having and I think that's personally what's inspiring me and and as I LuminR is and always will be that's my my my passion and drive and what I spend the time on to be able to help realize that vision and make it happen. Did you see the movie Oppenheimer? If you did, did you know that besides building the atomic bomb at Los Alamos National Labs,

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viome to give my listeners a special discount you'll find it at viome.com slash peter mark um i want you to reach deep on this one what are the hardest things you've had to do as a as an entrepreneur because that's where where one really you know, your steel and your soul and your, what have those been over your, because you've had such an incredible success story on success after success. I'm sure there's a lot of hard stuff along the way. A lot of hard stuff. No, I tell people all the time that want to be entrepreneurs, it's hard.

It's hard. I mean, you're working, you're giving up a lot, you're working 100 hours a week. I like to say it's like you're eating glass every day and you're hoping you don't get cut on the way down. That's the way it feels in the early stages. I believe you know. And people don't get it, they see all the success and things, but it's really hard.

It's hard, it's always hard raising money. And it's hard to execute against a vision that people aren't skeptical of. Which is harder, the raising money, the executing the vision, the hiring people who know what the hell they're doing? What are the, help me distill them for a second because people look at you and say, oh my God, you know, success, success, success, success, and then. I know it's hard to pick which one, you know, it's, it's, it's all hard.

Um, I think at different stages, different parts are harder than others. I think early on, easier to raise money harder to recruit great talent. Later, it's easier to get great talent, harder to raise money. And then ultimately when you get more mature, it's a mix of everything, you know, where there, where there are times in every venture where it almost failed? Yeah. Yes. I mean, you do it sometimes.

What kept you from failing in those almost failure moments? I think just being relentless. I think it is, at the end of the day, it's being relentless. You believe in the vision, you believe in the model, and you have to just put the hard work and time in and find a way. And so it involves thinking about it 24-7 and trying to figure out there has to be a way that this it makes sense. And it's usually the hard part though, is always getting that balance between

how much capital it's gonna take to realize the vision and whether that's gonna offer investors a good return relative to the risk. And so either you have to reduce risk or increase the probability of getting there and getting that right balance right and just thinking about all the possible things you can do to either reduce risk or increase probability.

And many times, ironically, the best way to increase the probability of getting there is actually to take risk. Yes. And sometimes not most time, many times it's taking personal risk as well. And that builds more conviction. Because you basically jumped and you got to build your parachute on the way down. Yeah, pretty much. Same for you, Austin?

Oh yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, there's times where throughout the early days of Luminar where we put everything on the line line to make sure and ensure the company's success. And I think that's just where you have to have the conviction, obviously. Reality checked, of course, but as is the case, like I said, you go through the cycles there. And it's so funny because it's like history repeats itself over and over again,

where you do the right things, you have to go build out the systems, do what you say, say what you do, prove it out, get to that next step, do what you say, say what you do, prove it out, get to that next step. And in our case, it's this big launch that we have ahead there too, for our first major global automaker. And that's what we're really excited about there too. And proving that out to show how, for example, at a kind of industry level, how the kinds of capabilities that can be realized and the benefits of autonomy are real, it can happen. It actually can go into cars that you can buy.

It's not just some theoretical concept. Those same kinds of principles. Obviously, it's on a different scale now than it was in the early days. You see the examples. I've had some great lessons from other entrepreneurs throughout throughout the the years everything, you know mentioned when we We said Elon back back in the dam in Tesla has had their own very, you know

crazy moments along the way for example in our industry and Everyone's Some crazy story, right? Exactly. It's just the way it is. It's always... You haven't heard the ones who didn't succeed because they gave up along the way. The passionate and persistent human mind. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Mark Lohr and Austin Russell.