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Speaker 1: Our next guests are doing both.

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Speaker 2: Zapata AI, a Boston based startup out of Harvard University,

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Speaker 2: is going public via a spack following a merger with

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Speaker 2: former IndyCar driver Michael Andretti's firm, valuing the total company

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Speaker 2: at about two hundred million dollars. Zapata's software helps racing

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Speaker 2: teams model where a car's tires are sliding on the track,

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Speaker 2: which is very important in terms of adjusting certain functions

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Speaker 2: to shave tenths off every lap. I'm joined by Michael

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Speaker 2: Andretti as well as Zapata AI CIO, Christopher.

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Speaker 1: Savoy and t great talking to you guys.

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Speaker 2: I have to start with a question Michael about your company,

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Speaker 2: your family company, and F one, because when I was

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Speaker 2: teasing this slot coming up, I got a message from

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Speaker 2: a viewer who said a lot of stories going around

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Speaker 2: that Andretti will get FIA approval to be the eleventh

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Speaker 2: team in F one. God, I hope. So what's the

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Speaker 2: state of that challenge?

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Speaker 3: God, I hope. So we're not there yet.

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Speaker 4: We're working, uh, you know, we are waiting for the

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Speaker 4: f I A to give their decision on what they're

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Speaker 4: going to do in that area.

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Speaker 3: We're hoping that, you know, we get an answer here soon.

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Speaker 4: But you know, we feel pretty good about it, but

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Speaker 4: you never know until it's done. But we're we're if

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Speaker 4: this comes through, it's going to be very exciting for us.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, why do you think it's so hard, especially with

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Speaker 2: you know, to be fair, such a legendary name, such

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Speaker 2: a legendary brand, It just makes sense to pair with

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Speaker 2: F one.

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Speaker 1: It would help to boost your business and theirs.

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Speaker 4: Well, we believe in that, you know, along with you know,

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Speaker 4: bringing General Motors and Cadillac brand as well to to

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Speaker 4: the series I think is huge as well.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, we're we we are a little questioning.

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Speaker 4: That, I think overall though, I think the support is

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Speaker 4: heavy for us, and uh, you know, especially public opinion,

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Speaker 4: which is very important and and so you know.

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Speaker 3: We still feel positive. But again, until it's done, you know,

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Speaker 3: we'll have to sway and see.

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Speaker 2: All right, well we got that out of the way, Christopher,

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Speaker 2: I want to ask you about.

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Speaker 1: Zapata what you can do for Andretti.

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Speaker 2: But first why spack You know, this is something that

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Speaker 2: shareholders have been less excited about recently, and a lot

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Speaker 2: of them in this case have already cashed back out,

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Speaker 2: So why would you go public this way?

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Speaker 3: Sure?

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Speaker 5: I mean, at the end of the day, this is

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Speaker 5: about becoming a publicly traded entity. There are other mechanisms

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Speaker 5: to go public, like an IPO, a traditional IPO. There

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Speaker 5: are advantages and disadvantages to all mechanisms. This fact we

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Speaker 5: like from a management perspective because we don't have to

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Speaker 5: go out and raise the money. The money is already

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Speaker 5: raised in the trust and you know, it can be

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Speaker 5: a real time stink on management to have to go

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Speaker 5: out and raise the money as part of an IPO process,

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Speaker 5: which I've done before. So there's that advantage. It tends

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Speaker 5: to be a chief and more expedient way of becoming

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Speaker 5: a publicly traded edity and for Subpata becoming what we

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Speaker 5: believe will be the first publicly traded pure play generative

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Speaker 5: AI company. It's an exciting opportunity for us.

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Speaker 2: You say AI and that gets everybody obviously listening.

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Speaker 1: But I just came back from Spain where my daughter

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Speaker 1: spent the.

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Speaker 2: Last couple of months and I helped her put her

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Speaker 2: as a patas on every day.

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Speaker 1: What does your company have to do with AI? What

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Speaker 1: do you actually do at Zapata?

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Speaker 5: We use AI to do numeric analytics. So the racing

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Speaker 5: example is a great one. We are able to predict

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Speaker 5: things that you can't do with sensors on the vehicle.

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Speaker 5: There are lots of sensors on there, but there are

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Speaker 5: no sensors for things like the slip angle of the tires,

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Speaker 5: which feeds into the tired degradation models, which tell us

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Speaker 5: when we should pit a car, for example. And those

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Speaker 5: same numbers can be used in a lot of industrial

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Speaker 5: basis for optimization of manufacturing processes, for optimization of drug

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Speaker 5: discovery to find the right chemicals. Uh So these are

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Speaker 5: wide ranging things, and we're unlike you know, chat EPT

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Speaker 5: and these things that are concentrated mostly on language. We

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Speaker 5: are doing numeric analysis and predictive analytics with par Michael.

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Speaker 2: You and I come from a time before even Throttle

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Speaker 2: by Wire, but now it's all about software. How key

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Speaker 2: is software to winning races?

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Speaker 3: It's very key, and it's going to become even more key.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 4: I think to be able to predict, uh you know,

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Speaker 4: when to pit and things like that is going to

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Speaker 4: win us a lot of races in the future. I'm

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Speaker 4: confident of that. So it's things like that that are

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Speaker 4: you going to be very important? And uh, you know,

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Speaker 4: for us to be teamed up with a company like

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Speaker 4: Sapota is very exciting because we think it's going to

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Speaker 4: be a huge advantage of it for us in the future.

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Speaker 2: Christopher, what do you what do you need in terms

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Speaker 2: of data access for your software to work best?

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Speaker 1: Is that the biggest challenge.

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Speaker 5: I think for all AI, for all machine learning types

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Speaker 5: of applications, you need to start with data. You know,

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Speaker 5: garbage and garbage out if you don't have big data. Fortunately,

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Speaker 5: with the Andretti team, they've been collecting in the unique

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Speaker 5: car series data for years. We have over twenty years

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Speaker 5: of historical data, terabytes of data to start with, so

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Speaker 5: that helps us with our predictivity. So yeah, companies that

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Speaker 5: have data, companies that have joined in in this big

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Speaker 5: data revolution and have digitalized their performance are going to

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Speaker 5: have an outsize of advantage in this market with AYI.

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Speaker 2: What else are the difficult parts of the business, Christopher?

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Speaker 2: I mean our programmers, for example, people writing code difficult

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Speaker 2: to get right now.

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Speaker 5: This is a challenge and it's also one of the

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Speaker 5: reasons why going public helps us. We're up against other

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Speaker 5: public companies that have access to the public capital markets,

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Speaker 5: the big tech companies. We're all competing for talent. This

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Speaker 5: talent is not a diamond dozen. These are tough people

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Speaker 5: to get with this training. We have to do more

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Speaker 5: in talent development, I think in the country to get

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Speaker 5: these people. We're competing not just locally, but internationally and globally,

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Speaker 5: so that is a challenge. We've responded by being globally remote.

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Speaker 5: We hire people all over the world on several continents

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Speaker 5: to do our work, and you have to be flexible

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Speaker 5: that way with your workforce.

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Speaker 2: Michael, what do you think about the future of racing?

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Speaker 2: I mean, beyond the software technology, it goes to powertrain, right,

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Speaker 2: and we're starting to see a new series Formula E

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Speaker 2: for example with the cars. Moto E is is what

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Speaker 2: Moto GP is trying in terms of electric racing. But

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Speaker 2: it doesn't move the needle for me, right, I need

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Speaker 2: to hear it, I need to feel it, I need

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Speaker 2: to smell it for it to be exciting.

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Speaker 1: Am I just a dinosaur?

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Speaker 4: I wouldn't say here a dinosaur. I think there's a

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Speaker 4: lot of fans that still feel that way. But if

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Speaker 4: you do go and experience a a Formulae race it's

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Speaker 4: quite exciting events, you know, I think you just have

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Speaker 4: to go there with a different frame of mind. But

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Speaker 4: there are other technologies that are out there that could

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Speaker 4: still be the future of racing.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 4: Hydrogen is one of them. They just announced the new

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Speaker 4: Extreme H series that's going to come out in twenty six,

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Speaker 4: which is going to replace Extreme E, which was the

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Speaker 4: electric series in off road racing around the world.

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Speaker 3: So we look to be a part of that. So,

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Speaker 3: you know, I don't know where it's going. You know.

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Speaker 4: Then you also have biofuels, which is where Formula one

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Speaker 4: is going, where Indy Car is right now.

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Speaker 3: So there's a lot of different ways this could go.

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Speaker 4: So you know, there's still I think there's probably going

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Speaker 4: to be two different types of race, and I can

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Speaker 4: see electric staying around, and I can also see other

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Speaker 4: types of fuels.

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Speaker 3: Like hydrogen and biotechnology.

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Speaker 1: All right, Michael and Christopher, great spend some time with you.

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Speaker 1: Thanks both for joining US.

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Speaker 2: Andretti acquisition co CEO Michael Andretti as well as a

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Speaker 2: pot of AI CEO Christopher Savoy