WEBVTT - Making Palm Oil Without Palm Trees 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:24.076 Pushkin. Palm Oil is vegetable oil made from palm trees, 0:00:24.636 --> 0:00:26.716 and it's hiding in a ton of the stuff we 0:00:26.836 --> 0:00:30.916 use every single day. Palm Oil is in chips, it's 0:00:30.956 --> 0:00:35.036 in crackers, cookies, peanut butter. It's also in soap, it's 0:00:35.076 --> 0:00:38.956 in shampoo, it's in detergent. Palm oil is in lotion, 0:00:39.476 --> 0:00:44.076 it's in lipstick. And you can't even tell by looking 0:00:44.116 --> 0:00:46.516 at the list of ingredients whether a thing you're holding 0:00:46.516 --> 0:00:49.396 in your hand has palm oil in it, because it 0:00:49.436 --> 0:00:53.116 might be listed as vegetable oil, or as spheric acid, 0:00:53.276 --> 0:00:57.076 or as sodium laurel sulfate, or as lots of other things. 0:00:57.796 --> 0:01:00.956 Palm Oil is in so many things because it is very, 0:01:01.116 --> 0:01:05.876 very useful, but also growing all the palm trees to 0:01:05.956 --> 0:01:09.436 make all this palm oil turns out to be really, 0:01:09.516 --> 0:01:12.996 really bad for the planet. So it would be great 0:01:13.276 --> 0:01:15.796 if somebody could come up with a cheap, scalable way 0:01:16.116 --> 0:01:25.836 to get palm oil without palm trees. I'm Jacob Oldstein, 0:01:25.916 --> 0:01:28.116 and this is what's your problem. My guest today is 0:01:28.156 --> 0:01:32.476 Shaa Tku. She's the co founder of C sixteen Biosciences. 0:01:32.916 --> 0:01:36.756 Shaa's problem is this, can you get yeast to make 0:01:36.756 --> 0:01:39.836 a molecule that does basically all the good stuff that 0:01:39.876 --> 0:01:42.676 palm oil does, so that you can get what is 0:01:42.756 --> 0:01:50.876 basically palm oil without palm trees. Why is palm oil 0:01:50.996 --> 0:01:52.116 so great. 0:01:52.716 --> 0:01:54.796 It's really good at what it does, and it does 0:01:54.836 --> 0:01:58.156 a lot of things. So palm oil is a is 0:01:58.196 --> 0:02:02.396 an oil, is a vegetable oil, and oils and fats 0:02:02.476 --> 0:02:05.236 show up in a lot of products. They show up 0:02:05.236 --> 0:02:07.836 in food, they show up in cleaning products, they show 0:02:07.916 --> 0:02:12.636 up even in biodiesel and sustainable aviation fuel and lubricants, 0:02:13.516 --> 0:02:17.716 and palm oil is the most popular among them because 0:02:17.756 --> 0:02:21.876 it can do the most things, so it really drives performance. 0:02:22.116 --> 0:02:26.916 In things like soap. It is the molecule responsible for 0:02:27.036 --> 0:02:29.396 foaming and cleansing, which is exactly what you want a 0:02:29.436 --> 0:02:33.556 soap to do. And in things like peanut butter, the 0:02:33.636 --> 0:02:37.156 profile of palm oil is the reason that your peanut 0:02:37.196 --> 0:02:42.556 butter stays together with a really smooth, spoonable emulsion, and 0:02:42.596 --> 0:02:44.276 if you take it out, you have that layer of 0:02:44.356 --> 0:02:48.876 oil separation. So it's really it's about function and performance 0:02:49.036 --> 0:02:53.356 across a very wide range of consumer goods, and no 0:02:53.596 --> 0:02:57.916 other vegetable oil has the same profile that can drive 0:02:58.236 --> 0:03:03.396 those performance properties. And so even if a company wanted 0:03:03.436 --> 0:03:07.836 to replace palm oil in their products, they really haven't 0:03:07.876 --> 0:03:11.436 been able to because they end up having to sacrifice performance, 0:03:11.476 --> 0:03:13.836 and nobody wants to sacrifice performance. 0:03:14.396 --> 0:03:16.756 Why is palm oil bad. 0:03:17.876 --> 0:03:20.116 The only problem with palm oil is the way that 0:03:20.156 --> 0:03:24.316 it's produced, and the way that is produced primarily today 0:03:24.836 --> 0:03:29.996 is by converting land. The tree it really thrives in 0:03:30.036 --> 0:03:32.876 about a five to ten degree range around the equator. 0:03:33.636 --> 0:03:37.796 That land right around the equator is typically primary forest 0:03:37.956 --> 0:03:43.196 tropical rainforest, which is some of the most biodiverse precious 0:03:43.276 --> 0:03:47.076 land on Earth. Their carbon sinks. Thousands of animal species 0:03:47.116 --> 0:03:51.076 call these home, and palm growers over the past few 0:03:51.116 --> 0:03:55.276 decades have really been moving to clear that land. They 0:03:55.316 --> 0:04:00.036 slash and burn it, which emits tons of carbon dioxide 0:04:00.076 --> 0:04:02.956 into the air. They clear the land and they convert 0:04:02.996 --> 0:04:07.396 it to these single crop palm oil plantations, and so 0:04:07.476 --> 0:04:11.756 the main impacts are carbon dioxide emissions. The palm oil 0:04:11.796 --> 0:04:15.956 industry is responsible for about two percent of global greenhouse 0:04:15.996 --> 0:04:19.676 gas emissions, which is more than the entire global aviation 0:04:19.796 --> 0:04:23.596 sector just this one crop. It has an impact on 0:04:23.716 --> 0:04:27.636 land use, which is converting this sort of precious biodiverse 0:04:27.876 --> 0:04:32.836 rainforest into monoculture where other things can't grow, the impact 0:04:32.876 --> 0:04:35.476 on wildlife, and then I would say, last, but not least, 0:04:35.556 --> 0:04:38.236 or sort of the impact on the humans that live there, 0:04:38.596 --> 0:04:41.876 which is it pollutes the air and the water streams. 0:04:41.876 --> 0:04:44.276 But it also puts lots of people out of their 0:04:44.396 --> 0:04:48.756 home and forced into lowage, very hard labor conditions. 0:04:49.716 --> 0:04:53.956 So okay, so that's the broader context. You personally, as 0:04:53.956 --> 0:04:57.196 I understand it, got into the palm oil or alternative 0:04:57.196 --> 0:05:00.076 palm oil business more or less when you were in 0:05:00.116 --> 0:05:02.316 business school, right, you met your co founders in this 0:05:03.156 --> 0:05:07.356 class the title of which I love, class called revolutionary Ventures. 0:05:07.476 --> 0:05:10.356 Great class name. What what exactly happened there? 0:05:10.836 --> 0:05:14.156 We just start asking, Okay, palm oils and fifty percent 0:05:14.156 --> 0:05:18.316 of products on supermarket shelves. It's really it's one of 0:05:18.356 --> 0:05:21.676 the worst emitters from a greenhouse gas perspective, and every 0:05:21.756 --> 0:05:25.876 major consumer packaged goods company knows it and has admitted 0:05:25.876 --> 0:05:29.636 it and has a palm oil policy to switch from 0:05:29.716 --> 0:05:31.236 what they call conflict palm oil. 0:05:32.276 --> 0:05:35.476 But they've all failed, sort of like the net zero 0:05:35.876 --> 0:05:38.156 of consumer packaged goods. 0:05:38.636 --> 0:05:42.396 Definitely, definitely why and why has it failed. Why has 0:05:42.476 --> 0:05:50.116 agriculture failed to solve this problem? And could microbiology create 0:05:50.196 --> 0:05:52.196 a new way to solve this problem? And what would 0:05:52.276 --> 0:05:54.876 have to be true? And we just got started with 0:05:54.956 --> 0:05:58.636 that really simple question and one thousand dollars from MIT, 0:05:59.556 --> 0:06:02.996 and we started thinking from first principles about how what 0:06:03.036 --> 0:06:05.316 would have to be true, and then we started playing 0:06:05.316 --> 0:06:07.316 around in the lab. And that's how we got started. 0:06:07.956 --> 0:06:12.796 I mean, you have this very abstract idea, let's find 0:06:13.276 --> 0:06:16.516 something that can do what palm oil does without palm trees. 0:06:17.956 --> 0:06:20.996 How do you get from there to a product? 0:06:21.116 --> 0:06:24.396 Yeah, So the basic idea was, today we make oils 0:06:24.396 --> 0:06:31.596 and fats from petroleum or animals or plants, what if 0:06:31.596 --> 0:06:35.996 we looked at the fungal kingdom microorganisms instead? And so 0:06:36.076 --> 0:06:39.236 the very first step was defining what would have to 0:06:39.276 --> 0:06:42.476 be true at scale for this to succeed. So we 0:06:42.596 --> 0:06:45.916 knew we needed to make I mentioned earlier palm oil 0:06:45.996 --> 0:06:47.796 is so good at what it does because it has 0:06:47.836 --> 0:06:53.036 this really unique profile of fats and not drives performance. 0:06:53.036 --> 0:06:55.596 So it can do lots of different things. It's like 0:06:55.756 --> 0:06:57.796 remarkably useful in many. 0:06:57.596 --> 0:06:59.596 Ways exactly, So we knew if we were going to 0:06:59.636 --> 0:07:03.436 solve this problem we had to nail that profile because 0:07:03.436 --> 0:07:05.476 you had to be able to do all of those 0:07:05.676 --> 0:07:07.476 things remarkably. 0:07:07.076 --> 0:07:10.276 Well, it's not obvious to me that that's the case. 0:07:10.316 --> 0:07:11.996 I mean, I feel like you could just bite off 0:07:12.036 --> 0:07:14.036 some of it, right, if you could do the foaming 0:07:14.116 --> 0:07:17.076 part so that you could get palm oil out of shampoo, 0:07:17.196 --> 0:07:19.316 like that would be a big deal, right, I. 0:07:19.236 --> 0:07:24.516 Think that's true. But at this point we had a 0:07:24.516 --> 0:07:28.236 big idea and this really was this really was a 0:07:28.476 --> 0:07:32.236 big problem we were trying to solve, and so that 0:07:32.316 --> 0:07:34.396 was how we thought about it. And so the first 0:07:34.396 --> 0:07:37.956 step is can you find a micro organism which can 0:07:37.996 --> 0:07:42.276 make oil, which can make this profile, this profile that 0:07:42.356 --> 0:07:45.076 looks and functions like pome And just. 0:07:44.956 --> 0:07:48.436 To be clear, why is a micro organism better than 0:07:48.476 --> 0:07:49.076 a plant? 0:07:49.876 --> 0:07:52.996 One of the I think big promises of this field, 0:07:53.076 --> 0:07:56.836 and when we started thinking about it is plants have 0:07:56.996 --> 0:08:02.276 big footprints, and right now they require specific conditions of 0:08:02.356 --> 0:08:07.436 growth on arable land, and microorganisms don't need arable land. 0:08:07.636 --> 0:08:11.236 They don't need to convert rainforest and clear them and 0:08:11.276 --> 0:08:14.316 convert them into plantations and kill all the life that 0:08:14.356 --> 0:08:21.156 lives there. Microorganisms can be produced in factories anywhere in 0:08:21.196 --> 0:08:21.596 the world. 0:08:21.916 --> 0:08:25.436 They just need a big metal tankt rate heat, and 0:08:25.476 --> 0:08:26.396 some sugar. 0:08:26.076 --> 0:08:29.796 Technricity, some basic, some basic things. I think that was 0:08:29.836 --> 0:08:34.396 the primary sort of concept. The hard question was can 0:08:34.516 --> 0:08:38.836 microorganisms actually make the products? And can they make them 0:08:39.156 --> 0:08:42.556 scalably and can they make them cost effectively? So can 0:08:42.596 --> 0:08:46.196 you make the right product at scale and cost competitively? 0:08:46.356 --> 0:08:48.996 That was the sort of unknown part and that was 0:08:49.036 --> 0:08:52.276 what we had to figure out first. And we basically 0:08:52.316 --> 0:08:58.396 started by screening thousands of microorganisms against that criteria to say, 0:08:58.796 --> 0:09:03.876 could we find an organism that makes the right oil profile. 0:09:04.876 --> 0:09:08.756 It is, in theory robust enough to scale to super 0:09:08.836 --> 0:09:11.956 large volumes, because there's tens of millions of metric tons 0:09:12.036 --> 0:09:15.676 of palm oil produced a year, and again we're thinking revolutionary. 0:09:15.756 --> 0:09:19.476 We've got to go really really big and can compete 0:09:19.516 --> 0:09:21.076 on cost and so it's got to be a really 0:09:21.116 --> 0:09:23.996 efficient production system. And so that was the first set 0:09:24.036 --> 0:09:25.716 of questions that we asked. 0:09:26.876 --> 0:09:31.836 And when you're trying to find the right micro organism, 0:09:33.236 --> 0:09:36.596 are you you're looking at the literature? Is there some 0:09:36.676 --> 0:09:40.236 point where you start like growing yeast in a tank? 0:09:40.316 --> 0:09:42.276 I mean, what is it? How do you find how 0:09:42.276 --> 0:09:42.756 do you look? 0:09:42.956 --> 0:09:47.756 Yes? And yes, so you start with the literature, and 0:09:47.796 --> 0:09:50.036 you start with history, and so you look back and 0:09:50.076 --> 0:09:54.916 see what have people made successfully in the past and why, 0:09:55.516 --> 0:09:57.676 And you know, a lot of work had actually been 0:09:57.716 --> 0:10:01.316 done for things like biofuels in the past, which is 0:10:01.796 --> 0:10:05.076 similar to the profile that we were making. There were 0:10:05.396 --> 0:10:10.196 reasons we thought biofuels didn't work as well, but there 0:10:10.236 --> 0:10:13.196 were technical proofs of concept there. So we got to 0:10:13.276 --> 0:10:16.556 learn a lot from history, and then we looked at 0:10:16.596 --> 0:10:19.676 the literature for sure, and one of the things we 0:10:19.796 --> 0:10:23.556 learned is that again, getting this specific profile of palm 0:10:24.236 --> 0:10:28.876 is really different than how most industrial microbiology works today. 0:10:29.276 --> 0:10:33.836 Most companies are making fairly simple molecules. They're making alcohol, 0:10:34.276 --> 0:10:38.276 they're making a single molecule protein artificial. You know, vanilla 0:10:38.396 --> 0:10:43.316 is almost one hundred percent made from fermentation today, single molecule. 0:10:44.076 --> 0:10:47.196 This was a complex molecule, and so we quickly learned 0:10:47.276 --> 0:10:51.836 we needed a different type of microorganism, not one that 0:10:51.956 --> 0:10:55.836 was necessarily the best factory with the best set of tools, 0:10:56.556 --> 0:11:01.796 but instead a strain which was just really good at 0:11:01.956 --> 0:11:07.756 getting fat. And so these are referred to as oleagenous. 0:11:07.916 --> 0:11:11.276 Oleaginous means oil, and so there's a whole set of 0:11:11.436 --> 0:11:15.196 oleagenous organisms that naturally produce that, And so that was 0:11:15.236 --> 0:11:18.956 the first unlock. They had not really been used in 0:11:18.956 --> 0:11:23.036 industrial scale production historically, so we were going to have 0:11:23.156 --> 0:11:25.836 to build a lot of the tools and the know 0:11:25.996 --> 0:11:27.876 how to be able to grow it. But it was 0:11:27.956 --> 0:11:30.756 really promising. And so then the next step was you 0:11:30.836 --> 0:11:33.116 start to grow it. You get a strain, you do 0:11:33.316 --> 0:11:37.476 really small scale experiments in the lab, and you just 0:11:37.596 --> 0:11:40.516 try to get something which vaguely looks and functions like 0:11:40.596 --> 0:11:42.476 palm oil. And that was that was sort of the 0:11:42.476 --> 0:11:43.756 first big breakthrough for us. 0:11:47.556 --> 0:11:52.396 Did you consider surely you considered synthetic biology? Right like, 0:11:52.476 --> 0:11:56.156 right there in Boston there's a giant at least one 0:11:56.196 --> 0:12:00.276 giant company that you know, their whole business is taking 0:12:00.396 --> 0:12:05.596 yeast and genetically engineering the yeast to produce things other 0:12:05.636 --> 0:12:08.796 than the yeast usually produces. Did you consider that? 0:12:09.196 --> 0:12:13.276 So that was I think maybe our first hypothesis. What 0:12:13.316 --> 0:12:17.676 we learned was it actually doesn't have to be that 0:12:17.836 --> 0:12:22.996 hard like nature. Nature actually does a lot of really 0:12:23.076 --> 0:12:26.676 cool stuff, uh huh, And if we can just work 0:12:26.756 --> 0:12:32.556 with what she nature has already done, that's really promising 0:12:32.636 --> 0:12:35.956 for actually getting this thing to scale and be cheap, 0:12:36.396 --> 0:12:38.636 and I think like, when we look at synthetic biology, 0:12:38.796 --> 0:12:40.916 that was the field that we were sort of enamored 0:12:40.956 --> 0:12:43.316 with at the time and that we thought was very promising. 0:12:44.076 --> 0:12:46.156 But it's a hard field to scale. 0:12:45.796 --> 0:12:50.396 Commercially, notoriously. Right, It's been like on the cusp of 0:12:50.436 --> 0:12:52.636 being huge for twenty years, right, And. 0:12:52.556 --> 0:12:56.276 So looking around the cusp of synthetic biology, but saying, like, 0:12:56.796 --> 0:13:00.556 how do we just like really focus on solving the problem. 0:13:00.676 --> 0:13:04.076 It doesn't have to be the shiniest toolkit it needs 0:13:04.116 --> 0:13:06.636 to solve the problem. Maybe if we take it a 0:13:06.676 --> 0:13:09.996 little bit simpler. And so instead of taking one of 0:13:10.036 --> 0:13:14.396 these sort of industrial microorganisms with a standard toolkit and 0:13:14.436 --> 0:13:18.356 implying all applying all the tools of engineering and trying 0:13:18.356 --> 0:13:21.636 to really force a yeast to do something that it 0:13:21.716 --> 0:13:25.236 doesn't do naturally, what if we've found a yeast that 0:13:25.316 --> 0:13:28.756 actually has evolved for centuries to do exactly what we 0:13:28.796 --> 0:13:31.956 want it to do, and we can force it through 0:13:31.996 --> 0:13:36.916 faster cycles of evolution, and we can use rapid experimentation 0:13:37.196 --> 0:13:41.436 in data to understand better than ever how it grows 0:13:41.596 --> 0:13:45.676 and optimize its performance of growth. That sounds a lot 0:13:45.716 --> 0:13:49.396 more promising to actually building a commercially viable solution to 0:13:49.476 --> 0:13:51.316 this problem, and that's where we landed. 0:13:51.796 --> 0:13:55.676 So it seems like the like the fact that there 0:13:55.676 --> 0:13:59.916 are oleagenous micro organisms that you know, oily micro organisms. 0:13:59.956 --> 0:14:03.556 Basically it suggests that the production of oil is like 0:14:03.676 --> 0:14:07.196 profoundly conserved, right, Like we get oil from plants and animals. 0:14:07.276 --> 0:14:11.116 But this fact that it's that there's oily yeast too 0:14:11.316 --> 0:14:15.036 is encouraging in your quest. It's like, oh, there's everything 0:14:15.116 --> 0:14:17.436 that lives makes oil, and some things that live make 0:14:17.516 --> 0:14:19.116 a ton of oil. Let's look at the things that 0:14:19.156 --> 0:14:20.556 live that already make a ton of oil. 0:14:20.676 --> 0:14:23.556 Yea. Yeah, And it also I think, just says something 0:14:23.596 --> 0:14:26.356 about the value of oils and fats, right, Like, there's 0:14:26.556 --> 0:14:30.156 there's clearly a need for these molecules across across lots 0:14:30.156 --> 0:14:31.116 of appleties. 0:14:31.116 --> 0:14:35.756 The reason they're in everything at the store. So, so 0:14:36.356 --> 0:14:39.556 is there some moment where you're like, we found it, 0:14:39.676 --> 0:14:45.716 We've got the magic yeast. You're still waiting for them. 0:14:46.076 --> 0:14:48.876 No, it's a good question, I mean, I think, and 0:14:49.196 --> 0:14:52.476 look like science is never a street line. And so 0:14:53.156 --> 0:14:57.036 in the early days, you know, we had we our 0:14:57.196 --> 0:15:01.356 first approach to this was slightly less simple, right, It 0:15:01.396 --> 0:15:08.476 was a little more innovative and clever, but much harder 0:15:08.516 --> 0:15:10.436 to scale. And so I think we thought we had 0:15:10.476 --> 0:15:13.756 that moment and then we had another. 0:15:13.756 --> 0:15:16.476 Wait, wait, tell me, tell me about the one that 0:15:16.516 --> 0:15:19.156 didn't work. Uh, what was the one that ended up 0:15:19.196 --> 0:15:19.916 being too clever? 0:15:20.116 --> 0:15:23.116 Yeah, so it was. Actually so most of most of 0:15:23.156 --> 0:15:29.716 industrial biology today is a single micro organism, engineering, you know, 0:15:29.756 --> 0:15:32.756 the hell out of it, and then scaling it. And 0:15:33.276 --> 0:15:37.276 we sort of said, okay, but actually, in nature again, 0:15:37.316 --> 0:15:39.716 I think we've we've always been very inspired by what 0:15:39.836 --> 0:15:45.396 happens in nature. In nature, you see microorganisms coexist in 0:15:45.476 --> 0:15:50.836 our microbiome, for example, or in lichens on rocks. And 0:15:50.916 --> 0:15:53.916 so what if we took a micro organism like a 0:15:54.036 --> 0:15:57.236 yeast that was really good at making oil, and then 0:15:57.316 --> 0:16:01.836 we took one but the yeast needs sugar, and so 0:16:01.876 --> 0:16:05.436 then what if we combined it with an algae that 0:16:05.516 --> 0:16:09.236 was photosynthetic, and so then you don't need sugar, you 0:16:09.276 --> 0:16:09.956 just need the sun. 0:16:10.796 --> 0:16:14.396 That is indeed clever, so you're lowering your input costs. 0:16:14.396 --> 0:16:16.556 Exactly, I need to grow them in the same pot, 0:16:16.636 --> 0:16:19.876 which really nobody had done before. And so this is 0:16:19.916 --> 0:16:25.236 actually our first patent filing. This coculture of yeast and algae. 0:16:25.276 --> 0:16:28.716 And it's actually our first logo for the company, which 0:16:28.796 --> 0:16:33.556 is hideous but made in Microsoft PowerPoint. 0:16:33.756 --> 0:16:36.196 And turned out to be based on an assumption that 0:16:36.236 --> 0:16:38.916 didn't work. It sounds like, but I think it just would. 0:16:38.676 --> 0:16:40.796 Have been very hard to scale it. 0:16:40.636 --> 0:16:44.036 So you have this very elegant idea, which I love 0:16:44.116 --> 0:16:48.596 because it's so satisfying and efficient. What happens, So. 0:16:48.596 --> 0:16:53.716 That's working, and what happens is actually I was at 0:16:53.756 --> 0:16:56.876 a trade show. I was at a food tech trade show, 0:16:57.076 --> 0:16:59.636 just walking the floor. This is really early days. It's 0:16:59.676 --> 0:17:02.596 just me and my co founders. We've like soft committed 0:17:02.596 --> 0:17:04.636 to this concept. And I'm just walking the floor to 0:17:04.756 --> 0:17:07.516 trade show trying to see who cares about palm oil 0:17:07.596 --> 0:17:11.676 and is anybody you know interested? And I run into 0:17:11.676 --> 0:17:15.716 someone who's got a bunch of clever ideas on basically 0:17:15.796 --> 0:17:23.196 waste stream feedstocks so cheaper than sugar, available in millions 0:17:23.196 --> 0:17:27.516 of gallons per year, really scalable, cheap, up cycled. 0:17:28.356 --> 0:17:33.036 And just to contextualize that, I mean, growing yeast is 0:17:33.156 --> 0:17:35.156 very simple, and people say all you need to do 0:17:35.236 --> 0:17:38.196 is feed them sugar, but you're pointing out here, like 0:17:38.356 --> 0:17:39.596 sugar is not free. 0:17:39.716 --> 0:17:40.396 Sugar's not free. 0:17:40.996 --> 0:17:44.356 Palm oil is like very efficiently produced and very cheap, 0:17:44.436 --> 0:17:48.076 and so even the input cost of the sugar is important, 0:17:48.156 --> 0:17:50.076 is an important cost that you need to drive down 0:17:50.076 --> 0:17:50.556 if you're going. 0:17:50.516 --> 0:17:52.996 To be for rich. It's all math. And I think 0:17:53.236 --> 0:17:57.956 when like to sort of to anchor this around the 0:17:58.036 --> 0:18:01.996 key problem at this point, the scientific solution we had 0:18:02.396 --> 0:18:06.956 was elegant and clever, but we're also trying to build 0:18:06.956 --> 0:18:12.876 a business, and I think, you know, oftentimes science based businesses, 0:18:14.156 --> 0:18:16.116 it's easy to forget that, you know, And I think 0:18:16.476 --> 0:18:19.316 we were really trying to anchor and say, yes, this 0:18:19.396 --> 0:18:22.316 is elegant and clever, However, how do we build this 0:18:22.436 --> 0:18:26.116 into a sustainable, profitable, scalable business over time? And we 0:18:26.156 --> 0:18:29.396 were really early, but I think we were always anchored 0:18:29.396 --> 0:18:33.196 towards that in the early days. And sugar and where 0:18:33.236 --> 0:18:35.836 we got our sugar and what we paid for our 0:18:35.876 --> 0:18:41.356 sugar was sort of the critical question we unlocked as 0:18:41.356 --> 0:18:44.356 an insight that we needed to solve from the early days. 0:18:44.476 --> 0:18:48.276 This is the fundamental sort of techno economic problem. And 0:18:48.356 --> 0:18:51.756 so it seems I don't want to attach too much 0:18:51.836 --> 0:18:57.116 to the photosynthesis solution, but just to be very clear. 0:18:57.436 --> 0:18:59.996 I love that solution. It seems like you're solving the problem. 0:19:00.596 --> 0:19:03.236 Why why didn't you go that way? 0:19:04.516 --> 0:19:08.196 To two reasons. One was sort of biology and one 0:19:08.236 --> 0:19:14.316 was manufacturing from a biology perspective. Clever, but you know, 0:19:15.796 --> 0:19:19.356 actually still really hard to get two micro organisms to 0:19:19.516 --> 0:19:24.276 grow in sync efficiently together, which again all goes back 0:19:24.316 --> 0:19:28.236 to the math or the technoeconomics of making this scalable. 0:19:28.596 --> 0:19:32.116 And the second was a manufacturing problem, which is, because 0:19:32.156 --> 0:19:34.836 it was so novel, we would actually need to build 0:19:35.036 --> 0:19:39.756 totally new bioreactors to support this, and then you're not 0:19:39.876 --> 0:19:43.916 only a technology company, you're now manufacturing all the parts. 0:19:43.956 --> 0:19:47.716 It just would have become too much and too expensive. 0:19:48.116 --> 0:19:53.756 Okay, too clever, too too too far, too far out 0:19:53.876 --> 0:19:56.276 beyond the technological frontier at some level. 0:19:56.356 --> 0:19:59.556 And so back in sugar being the core problem that 0:19:59.596 --> 0:20:03.156 we needed to solve to make this work, we started 0:20:03.196 --> 0:20:06.876 trying a bunch of you know, waste, things that would 0:20:06.916 --> 0:20:11.076 be totally not obvious an organism could grow on them, 0:20:11.556 --> 0:20:16.036 things that didn't have tons of residual carbon, things that 0:20:16.116 --> 0:20:19.436 had inhibitors, things that were known to actually inhibit growth, 0:20:19.516 --> 0:20:22.556 not enable growth. And we started growing. And this is 0:20:22.556 --> 0:20:23.636 again very early. 0:20:23.516 --> 0:20:25.796 Days, you're looking for all those things because they're cheap, 0:20:25.796 --> 0:20:27.836 because you're looking for a thing that's cheaper than just 0:20:27.956 --> 0:20:33.156 buying granulated sugar or whatever you buy for regular yeast. Yeah, 0:20:33.396 --> 0:20:34.356 cheap and abundant. 0:20:34.436 --> 0:20:37.796 Cheap and abundant. And this is this is early days, 0:20:37.876 --> 0:20:40.676 So it's scrappy science. It's just me and my co founders. 0:20:40.676 --> 0:20:43.996 We don't have any sophisticated lab tools. But we get 0:20:43.996 --> 0:20:46.436 some of those samples and we start growing our yeast 0:20:46.876 --> 0:20:50.676 and it turns out the yeast grows on anything. 0:20:51.476 --> 0:20:52.316 Oh that's great. 0:20:52.436 --> 0:20:54.556 This was one of our This was maybe back to 0:20:54.596 --> 0:20:57.796 your question, one of our biggest insights and breakthroughs. Yeah, 0:20:57.796 --> 0:20:59.236 and it was a really important one. 0:20:59.356 --> 0:21:01.436 Say like what if we just give it garbage? 0:21:01.636 --> 0:21:02.516 Totally it works. 0:21:02.556 --> 0:21:03.436 It's eating garbage. 0:21:03.476 --> 0:21:06.116 And we later literally did that, like we we food 0:21:06.116 --> 0:21:08.276 waste to something people talk about a lot, which is 0:21:09.196 --> 0:21:12.636 an unsolved problem on many fronts. But we worked with 0:21:12.836 --> 0:21:15.556 you know, food waste collection here in New York, and 0:21:15.596 --> 0:21:19.756 we just basically fetied garbage and it was growing. There 0:21:19.756 --> 0:21:22.676 are other reasons I think that's hard to scale, but yeah, 0:21:22.756 --> 0:21:26.676 basically we found not only can our yeast make this 0:21:27.796 --> 0:21:31.876 hard to replicate profile of palm oil that nothing else 0:21:32.076 --> 0:21:37.756 has produced naturally before. Aside from palm oil, it can 0:21:37.836 --> 0:21:41.636 also grow on anything. It can eat anything, and that 0:21:41.956 --> 0:21:44.996 was a key unlock for So we'd solved the product 0:21:45.276 --> 0:21:47.596 side of it, and now we were well on our 0:21:47.636 --> 0:21:50.076 way to solving the cost side of it and the 0:21:50.076 --> 0:21:51.116 scalability side of it. 0:21:51.436 --> 0:21:57.356 The particular strain of yeast, when do you find that, like, 0:21:57.396 --> 0:21:58.276 what is that moment? 0:21:58.356 --> 0:22:04.796 Pretty early, actually, pretty early, we had identified, based on 0:22:04.836 --> 0:22:10.276 our criteria of the right profile and from literature, a 0:22:10.356 --> 0:22:14.156 believable ability to scale, So things like can it grow 0:22:14.396 --> 0:22:18.916 on a wide range of temperatures without breaking? Or is 0:22:18.956 --> 0:22:22.156 it really fragile? And if the temperature changes. All of 0:22:22.156 --> 0:22:26.836 these things model into cost at scale manufacturing. So we 0:22:26.876 --> 0:22:30.076 screened for those things pretty early, and we pretty early 0:22:30.116 --> 0:22:33.236 on had identified the yeast strain that we work with 0:22:33.316 --> 0:22:35.436 today as the best version. 0:22:36.316 --> 0:22:38.876 So tell me about tell me about the strain of yeast. 0:22:39.556 --> 0:22:45.156 So it is oleagenous, so it naturally produces oil and 0:22:45.196 --> 0:22:48.076 it's really good. So basically it can produce up to 0:22:48.196 --> 0:22:53.076 ninety percent of its body weight in lipids in facts. 0:22:53.596 --> 0:22:59.196 When we started working with it, which was seven years ago, 0:23:00.316 --> 0:23:03.316 the genome had been sequenced, so there was enough data 0:23:03.396 --> 0:23:07.436 about it, and there were a couple of universities that 0:23:07.716 --> 0:23:10.996 had started to do work on it. So we weren't, 0:23:11.076 --> 0:23:13.916 you know, the first people to discover it, but it 0:23:13.996 --> 0:23:17.556 wasn't something that was really ubiquitous like a baker's yeast 0:23:17.636 --> 0:23:20.836 or a brewer's yeast, and so we had enough data 0:23:20.956 --> 0:23:24.436 to believe that it was compelling and we started working 0:23:24.436 --> 0:23:24.756 with it. 0:23:25.156 --> 0:23:26.716 What's what's it called? 0:23:27.796 --> 0:23:30.556 It's we don't really say the name of it. 0:23:30.596 --> 0:23:32.796 Isn't it in a patent? You didn't patent the name of. 0:23:32.716 --> 0:23:34.676 It it is, but they haven't been published yet. 0:23:35.676 --> 0:23:40.076 Okay, well, I'll keep my eye out. So you've got 0:23:40.116 --> 0:23:46.596 your yeast, you can feed at garbage. And this is 0:23:46.756 --> 0:23:50.316 like what kind of scale are you doing this set like? 0:23:50.516 --> 0:23:53.836 Is it like like a like a lab bench? Is 0:23:53.876 --> 0:23:55.756 it like a pot? 0:23:56.276 --> 0:24:01.756 It's both. In the early days when we were sort 0:24:01.796 --> 0:24:05.156 of looking to get our first round of funding, we 0:24:05.156 --> 0:24:07.956 were going, you know, on stage at y Combinator for 0:24:07.996 --> 0:24:09.436 something called Demo Day. 0:24:09.876 --> 0:24:12.236 So why Commeter is the famous startup incubator. 0:24:12.276 --> 0:24:16.316 Correct, So they'd taken a bet on our revolutionary venture 0:24:17.116 --> 0:24:20.196 and we were so early, I mean We basically had 0:24:20.236 --> 0:24:25.636 some some shape flask, so millileater. But at the end 0:24:25.716 --> 0:24:28.436 of demo day, you know, we're still We're a science 0:24:28.476 --> 0:24:31.676 project at this point with a really big market. And 0:24:31.756 --> 0:24:35.916 so we had this i'd say pressure to want to 0:24:36.476 --> 0:24:39.236 make it real. One of you know the things about 0:24:39.396 --> 0:24:44.156