Speaker 1: Technology d couples Labor from location. We remove the geographic
Speaker 1: restriction to hiring, because with remotely operated forklifts you can
Speaker 1: have someone doing that exact same work in the exact
Speaker 1: same warehouse but be sitting thousands of miles away. So
Speaker 1: our customers are using our remote operation platform to connect
Speaker 1: people all around the country who want need to work
Speaker 1: with the hundreds of thousands of essential jobs that must
Speaker 1: be filled to keep our supply chain intact. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the restless ones. I'm Jonathan Strickland. As you may know,
Speaker 1: I've spent the last fifteen years covering technology and learning
Speaker 1: how it works, demystifying everything from massive parallel processing to
Speaker 1: advanced robotics and everything in between. Yet it's the conversations
Speaker 1: with some of the most forward thinking leaders, those at
Speaker 1: the intersection of technology and business, that fascinate me the most.
Speaker 1: Elliott cats and shy Magsimov are working at Phantom auto
Speaker 1: on some really tricky challenges related to autonomous vehicles. Phantom
Speaker 1: Auto's mission is to provide solutions that address gaps in
Speaker 1: autonomous vehicle capabilities, and one way you can look at
Speaker 1: that is how machines are very good at dealing with
Speaker 1: a limited number of variables, but as you add more
Speaker 1: and more variables and you make a system increasingly dynamic,
Speaker 1: machines can struggle to keep up. Situations that a human
Speaker 1: could handle by drawing on similar experiences or using free
Speaker 1: association or trial and error are beyond machine capabilities, at
Speaker 1: least for now anyway. And when it comes to driving
Speaker 1: a vehicle, dynamic situations are the norm. Under controlled can
Speaker 1: editions and autonomous system can excel, but the world is
Speaker 1: rarely organized into such standard scenarios, and that's one area
Speaker 1: where Phantom auto can help. The company creates solutions in
Speaker 1: which a human operator can control a vehicle, such as
Speaker 1: a forklift in a warehouse from a remote location in
Speaker 1: real time. Using a combination of cameras, sensors, actuators and
Speaker 1: wireless connectivity, the operator can control the vehicle as if
Speaker 1: they were sitting in the driver's seat. I was beyond
Speaker 1: excited to talk about that technology, but first I wanted
Speaker 1: to learn more about Elliott cats, whose vision is all
Speaker 1: about leveraging tech to make a difference in the world,
Speaker 1: and shy Maximov, who builds solutions that make those ideas possible.
Speaker 1: I am so excited today to have this conversation. We're
Speaker 1: going to be talking about a lot of things that
Speaker 1: I find absolutely fascinating and I want to welcome both
Speaker 1: shy and Elliott to the restless ones. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Ji. Thank you, thanks for having us so. First, Elliott,
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could start us off by
Speaker 1: telling me a bit about how you first got interested
Speaker 1: in technology. Yeah, absolutely so. I grew up in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: really before it was silicon valley, but I kind of
Speaker 1: came of edge during the first dot com boom. So
Speaker 1: I saw from a relatively young age how quickly and
Speaker 1: broadly technology can be adopted by society, and that's when
Speaker 1: I really got interested, and and not so much in
Speaker 1: technology for technology's sake, but really technology that could help
Speaker 1: make broad, sweeping positive societal change. So I'm mainly attracted
Speaker 1: to technology that I believe can create material net positive change,
Speaker 1: enhancing people's safe the or their health or just the
Speaker 1: general quality of their day to day lives. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that DOT COM boom, that's also a time of learning,
Speaker 1: lots of lessons. You know what is working in that
Speaker 1: realm of technology that can make positive change in the
Speaker 1: world versus technology that, without the proper planning, can end
Speaker 1: up falling apart. Shy, I'm also curious about you. When
Speaker 1: did you first start getting interested in tech? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: got a slightly different story than Eliot I. I grew
Speaker 1: up in Jerusalem, in Israel, so pretty far away from
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley. I remember when I was six seven years old,
Speaker 1: I used to wake up at night and see my
Speaker 1: dad playing video games. So my dad was a video
Speaker 1: game addict. So I saw that growing up and I
Speaker 1: got into computers, playing within real time multiplayer on the computer,
Speaker 1: connecting land and and things like that. So that's how
Speaker 1: I got, you know, my my initial passion to computers.
Speaker 1: I started to learn about networking communication and had a
Speaker 1: deep passion for wireless connectivity and built on communications. Later
Speaker 1: on I got to white combinator and went to Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley for the first time. I barely spoke the language
Speaker 1: at the time and that came in and presented the company.
Speaker 1: We were doing at the time, some e commerce social
Speaker 1: website that turned into a search engine that later got
Speaker 1: acquired by Apple. So it was an interesting journey there.
Speaker 1: But I would say, you know, for me, technology is always,
Speaker 1: you know, something that is fascinating just seeing it and
Speaker 1: what it could change in this world. What the things
Speaker 1: that you can create and build makes you so excited
Speaker 1: to do something that really matters. Shall you touched on
Speaker 1: something I definitely wanted to ask you about, because having
Speaker 1: someone who is a serial founder of companies is really
Speaker 1: exciting for me. What is it that motivates you when
Speaker 1: you're founding these companies? Is it just that you you
Speaker 1: have a spark of an idea and you have to
Speaker 1: see it to fruition? For me, it's a deep passion
Speaker 1: for technology. You know, I was inspired by the Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs and the Mark Zuckerberg of the world when I was,
Speaker 1: you know, a teenager already, and you know then there's
Speaker 1: solving big problems, changing the world as the results and
Speaker 1: doing something that matters and leading teams building something that
Speaker 1: can really, technologically speaking, make a leap in in our
Speaker 1: day to day and how we used to do stuff.
Speaker 1: Just a be passion for technology. Elliott, we're going to
Speaker 1: be talking about things that have kind of a then
Speaker 1: diagram overlap of autonomous vehicles. Did you become interested in
Speaker 1: autonomous vehicles, partly because this is a technology that is
Speaker 1: poised to have a tremendous positive impact if we get
Speaker 1: the technology right. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, as
Speaker 1: I said before, I'm attracted to technology that I believe
Speaker 1: can create material net positive change. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to our current status quo with passenger vehicles, for example,
Speaker 1: more than one point three million people die from traffic
Speaker 1: accidents every year worldwide and, to put that into a
Speaker 1: pretty sobering perspective, that death toll is equivalent to nearly
Speaker 1: eight fully loaded, seven forty seven airplanes crashing every single
Speaker 1: day in a given year in killing everyone on board.
Speaker 1: So you know, if that amount of planes fell out
Speaker 1: of the sky for even a week, we would likely
Speaker 1: shut down aviation as we know it. But for whatever
Speaker 1: reason we've kind of just accepted the fact that a
Speaker 1: certain amount of people are going to die each year
Speaker 1: driving on our roads. And I really am a true
Speaker 1: believer that autonomous vehicles can and eventually will change that.
Speaker 1: It's going to take a lot of time and a
Speaker 1: lot of hard work, obviously, to make that change, but
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, given that factual backdrop, our
Speaker 1: current status quo, it's a very worthwhile pursuit. And Elliott,
Speaker 1: you've tapped into something that I think really helps define
Speaker 1: restless ones, this idea of just because things are this
Speaker 1: way now doesn't mean that's how they have to be
Speaker 1: and that, through the application of technology, we can and
Speaker 1: envision and make that change. So Elliott, the Society of
Speaker 1: automotive engineers a while back define levels of autonomy from
Speaker 1: zero to five. Zero being there are no real driver
Speaker 1: assist features to speak of in the vehicle. Five being
Speaker 1: the vehicle does everything and there's no need for human
Speaker 1: oversight at all. When I talk to people I say
Speaker 1: we're probably to maybe on the cusp of three, but
Speaker 1: as that being too cynical, too pessimistic. Listen, we definitely
Speaker 1: have level two vehicles out on the road today and
Speaker 1: that's that's basically advanced driver assistance right. An easy example
Speaker 1: is Tesla auto pilot. But when we're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: what I would call truly autonomous vehicles, we do have
Speaker 1: an extremely small volume of level four vehicles that exists today.
Speaker 1: A level four meaning the vehicles are truly autonomous. You
Speaker 1: can be sitting in the back seat of the car
Speaker 1: with no one sitting in the passenger seat or up
Speaker 1: front at all, but you can only do so in
Speaker 1: certain very specific operational design domains, which means the vehicles
Speaker 1: can only travel at certain times a day in very
Speaker 1: limited weather conditions and in very limited geographic areas. So
Speaker 1: to expand to more vehicles operating in larger geographic areas,
Speaker 1: in in areas where there may be rain or even
Speaker 1: snow that is going to be very, very difficult. And
Speaker 1: the issue is just how hard this problem is to solve,
Speaker 1: because if you think about it, if every day today,
Speaker 1: when you drive to work, you have to make an
Speaker 1: unprotected left hand turn, you know that you, the driver
Speaker 1: in the car, are very, very likely going to successfully
Speaker 1: make that unprotected left turn a hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 1: And for an autonomous vehicle it has to be the
Speaker 1: same right and if an autonomous vehicle makes that turn
Speaker 1: successfully nine times in a row but crashes on the
Speaker 1: thousandth attempt, that's arguably the worst automotive grade product in history.
Speaker 1: So it's an extremely high safety bar that the autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicle players need to hit and again, it's going to
Speaker 1: take a very long time to get there, but I
Speaker 1: do believe that it's a very worthwhile pursuit. Yeah, shy,
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about the guiding principle
Speaker 1: early on with Phantom motto. Yeah, it comes from my
Speaker 1: experience with wireless connectivity and Communication. You know, as we're
Speaker 1: talking right now, we can be in different places at
Speaker 1: the different times and still hear each other, see each
Speaker 1: other and help each other. Right. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to the future of technologies, when you look at the
Speaker 1: four g even and then five g and sixty in
Speaker 1: the future we're going to have more and more wireless
Speaker 1: connectivity and infrastructure and also technologies that would allow us
Speaker 1: to almost be in a different place in real time.
Speaker 1: You're not actually going to be there physically, but you
Speaker 1: will be able to help out. And we're looking at AI.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember when it started Phantom, before I
Speaker 1: came up with the idea, I started working on autonomous
Speaker 1: system and I built my first AI application. And getting
Speaker 1: a data set online gets you of accuracy, and then
Speaker 1: everything else is getting more and more difficult as you
Speaker 1: continue to develop your software and machine learning and practice
Speaker 1: more data. But it doesn't just get more difficult linear,
Speaker 1: it gets more exponential as you go towards the top.
Speaker 1: Once you're a ninet, you need trillions of data sets.
Speaker 1: So when we're looking at the technologies they're there. The
Speaker 1: problem is they can't cover the entire all the use cases,
Speaker 1: all the edge cases. And then I thought what if,
Speaker 1: with low latency communication, somebody can help out? It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they can jump in in the middle of driving,
Speaker 1: but if the vehicle recognized it as a problem and
Speaker 1: then it can slow down and stop in place, wait
Speaker 1: until someone remotely connects to it to figure out whether
Speaker 1: they need to to the sideway of the world or
Speaker 1: continue to do something around an object that is an
Speaker 1: obstacle that's in front of it. Broad construction areas, right,
Speaker 1: whether conditions. So that's when I thought, you know what
Speaker 1: if we have that human capability? So I started working
Speaker 1: on an engine for a video communication and data that
Speaker 1: allows you basically to see what's going on from the
Speaker 1: sensors like human, not like a machine. Right then be
Speaker 1: able to send commands back to the vehicle, assist the
Speaker 1: vehicle or remotely driving in certain cases that are very limited,
Speaker 1: at the speed, limited the constraints, and that basically resulted
Speaker 1: in the idea of a human in the loop. Right.
Speaker 1: So think about someone that can be sitting far away
Speaker 1: from where the vehicle is and getting a request. Hey
Speaker 1: know there's a vehicle in trouble here, can you help out?
Speaker 1: They assess the situation and, depends on the conditions, they
Speaker 1: can help out in different paths. Right some would be
Speaker 1: a bit more involved than others. That was the general idea.
Speaker 1: But more than that, something that we keep forgetting is
Speaker 1: computers have been out there now for forty or fifty
Speaker 1: years and there's still not perfect. There's no single computer
Speaker 1: syst them that you can say hey, no, that can
Speaker 1: never fail. It's a hundred percent secure from anything in
Speaker 1: any bugs, any edge cases, and I think that combination
Speaker 1: of machines and human at the same time is the strongest.
Speaker 1: If we can work together to accomplish autonomy, it's going
Speaker 1: to be much better and it's not this kind of
Speaker 1: a vivid idea of like a rosy picture of people
Speaker 1: and computers. I think we practice it every day when
Speaker 1: we're working on our computers and we see that there's
Speaker 1: certain things that we still gotta do, and I believe
Speaker 1: it that and I think that's not going to change.
Speaker 1: I think that's going to be the next couple of
Speaker 1: decades to come. We're still going to need to have
Speaker 1: human in the loop in every computer system, especially mission
Speaker 1: critical systems that we all depended on and we need
Speaker 1: that for our psychology and we need that to make
Speaker 1: them work and we need that to really deploy autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicles at scale. That's it must have. Yeah, you've touched
Speaker 1: on so much that I love to talk about on
Speaker 1: this show, like I love the idea of Ai being
Speaker 1: more about augmented intelligence, where the AI and the humans
Speaker 1: are working together so that the AI is an a
Speaker 1: willing people to do their jobs better than they could before,
Speaker 1: as opposed to the AI has stepped in and humans
Speaker 1: have become unnecessary. I find it phenomenal that the convergence
Speaker 1: and technologies have enabled this approach, largely in the sense
Speaker 1: of of that low latency, because that was, I think,
Speaker 1: a huge hurdle for us to overcome, and we're entering
Speaker 1: into a world where we're getting that same sort of
Speaker 1: low latency, high throughput capability, but now we're not constrained
Speaker 1: by tethers, which obviously, in the in the case of
Speaker 1: being able to potentially control a car remotely, is absolutely critical. Right.
Speaker 1: You can't have any latency there. When you're talking about
Speaker 1: moving a vehicle that has some form of cargo in it,
Speaker 1: whether it's people or products or whatever, and there are
Speaker 1: other vehicles on that road as well. There are real
Speaker 1: time events that are happening, so you have to be
Speaker 1: able to see and react in that real time as
Speaker 1: if you were physically behind the wheel of the car.
Speaker 1: I'm very curious about what your approach was to ensure
Speaker 1: that low latency, to enable this technology. Right. So we
Speaker 1: can talk about the approach of specifically how we solve
Speaker 1: for low latency and communication, but before we get there,
Speaker 1: I think just taking a look at the history, right.
Speaker 1: So we started a couple of decades ago. I think
Speaker 1: even when I was a child, like ten years ago,
Speaker 1: video communication like the one we're having now, you know,
Speaker 1: that didn't exist at the time, and let alone like
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, when it was only just giant phones,
Speaker 1: when I don't even have to make a phone call
Speaker 1: and you barely can hear the other person, you know.
Speaker 1: So you can see that there's progress and evolution around
Speaker 1: communication that is definitely trending in the right direction to
Speaker 1: enable things like that. If you read online about five
Speaker 1: g low latency capabilities and and in the future of
Speaker 1: things like six G, everything points that we're working on
Speaker 1: getting low latency communication. So first of all places or
Speaker 1: areas where it may not be the case yet, it
Speaker 1: will happen eventually and we're a big believer in that.
Speaker 1: So that's number one. Number two is the design of
Speaker 1: the vehicle. We believe that the vehicle safety sensor system
Speaker 1: must be intact in order for a remote operator to
Speaker 1: get in. So meaning if the safety system is disabled
Speaker 1: or not working or as a problem that dissevered with
Speaker 1: the vehicle, the human operator will not intervene with the vehicle.
Speaker 1: They can guide, they can give some information, some logs
Speaker 1: and pointing a direction to the vehicle, but they can't
Speaker 1: really drive it. They can only drive it when the
Speaker 1: safety system is working, and the safety system is the
Speaker 1: baseline protection of the vehicle. That's how we should think
Speaker 1: about it, almost like a guardian. Think about like a
Speaker 1: circle around the vehicle, like your Aida System Today, and
Speaker 1: the idea is that the remote operator can communicate with
Speaker 1: that system and say, Hey, you know, you're now detecting
Speaker 1: an object, but listen, if you reduce that distance from
Speaker 1: an object but another a couple of inches backwards, closer
Speaker 1: to the vehicle, then you will be allowed to proceed. Right.
Speaker 1: So that that's a huge idea. Now it's all within
Speaker 1: predefined area of operation. So again we have a guardian
Speaker 1: for the vehicle, and this is one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why we are not working with forklifts in warehouses, where
Speaker 1: you don't have that same problem like auton was vehicles,
Speaker 1: where their safety systems are just not not there yet.
Speaker 1: You know, they're overly conservative. You can't really adjust them
Speaker 1: because there's too much risk on the table. And we're
Speaker 1: looking at the forklift in the warehouse. The speed is
Speaker 1: much lower, so you're allowed to work together with the
Speaker 1: safety system to achieve the task, which is to drive
Speaker 1: to somewhere, pick up a palette, places on the racks
Speaker 1: or load the truck and so on. Some places really
Speaker 1: have a bad network right as five g continues to
Speaker 1: roll out in different places all around the country. We
Speaker 1: have a niche today that we're very successful at and
Speaker 1: we're proud that we're making impact in the labor and
Speaker 1: logistics where the market really needs Phantom today, and that's
Speaker 1: in closed environment. Right. So in the closed environment, when
Speaker 1: you have a warehouse or the yard operation areas where
Speaker 1: you can actually install better network conditions, you know if
Speaker 1: you have an issue with the networking, you know, you
Speaker 1: map the network, you see that there's not enough bandwidth
Speaker 1: for upload or download and and basically your request to
Speaker 1: get a better network conditions in this specific area. And
Speaker 1: there we go. So that's the infrastructure side. Now the
Speaker 1: text site. We have the ability to bond multiple networks.
Speaker 1: You can think of it as it can be a
Speaker 1: couple of networks together. Each packet of our software is
Speaker 1: being sent to the best network available, right. So you
Speaker 1: have basically packets routing and each package that its own criticality. Right.
Speaker 1: So if you have a data channel versus a video
Speaker 1: channel and the data is to break system, so you
Speaker 1: have to have that over all the channels, to have
Speaker 1: multiple redundancy layers where you know something that is less important. Right.
Speaker 1: So we have some prioritization and bonding systems that would
Speaker 1: build some deep technology and I P that. You know,
Speaker 1: we spent a lot of time with money working on
Speaker 1: the first couple of years of the company. That same
Speaker 1: technology works for cars, for trucks, for forklifts, for you know,
Speaker 1: delivery robots, and we believe again, as the future and
Speaker 1: infrastructure continuous to evolve, that's going to apply there as well.
Speaker 1: And I definitely want to talk more about the forklifts
Speaker 1: in particular. Can you talk a bit about some of
Speaker 1: the challenges that this remote operation helps solve? I know
Speaker 1: that like labor shortage being a huge one, obviously. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, we are squarely in the logistics sector.
Speaker 1: Our hottest application right now is remotely operated forklifts. We
Speaker 1: also do work with yard trucks and distribution center yards and,
Speaker 1: first and last, mild delivery with robots. But when you're
Speaker 1: talking about the logistics space, you hit the nail on
Speaker 1: the head right. There's been a labor shortage in the
Speaker 1: sector for decades. That's become much more acute in the
Speaker 1: past couple of years, in which many believe, for a
Speaker 1: myriad of factors, is our new status quo. And our
Speaker 1: customers have traditionally had to hire, for example, forklift operators
Speaker 1: that are in commuting distance of their facilities. But our
Speaker 1: Technology d couples Labor from location right we remove the
Speaker 1: geographic restriction to hiring because with remotely operated forklifts you
Speaker 1: can have someone doing that exact same work in the
Speaker 1: exact same warehouse but be sitting, you know, up to
Speaker 1: thousands of miles away. So instead of having to hire
Speaker 1: people only within commuting distance of the facility. We're turning
Speaker 1: that Labor pool into literally anyone located pretty much anywhere.
Speaker 1: So our customers are using our remote operation platform to
Speaker 1: connect people all around the country who want need to
Speaker 1: work right especially coming out of the pandemic, with the
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of essential jobs that must be filled
Speaker 1: to keep our supply chain intact. Labor is the key
Speaker 1: top line problem right now for our customer base. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a deep appreciation for how delicate the
Speaker 1: supply chain was until the pandemic and we saw the
Speaker 1: disruption of the supply chain acted out on a global scale,
Speaker 1: affecting every industry, particular lead computer and Electronics Industries, as
Speaker 1: the semiconductor shortage exacerbated that problem, and I realized that
Speaker 1: you could think of the supply chain operating almost like
Speaker 1: an electric utility and that it's frequently operating near Max
Speaker 1: capacity and that anything that would push it beyond that.
Speaker 1: Suddenly you realize how delicate the system was and when
Speaker 1: you pair that also with this growing trend of a
Speaker 1: desire to work remotely, which is happening both in white
Speaker 1: color and blue color jobs, you realize that this is
Speaker 1: also a solution for that as well, where it enables
Speaker 1: people to have that kind of life where they are
Speaker 1: able to work remotely. If covid taught us anything, it's that,
Speaker 1: you know, remote work is probably here to stay. Right
Speaker 1: the face of work, I believe, has changed forever, but
Speaker 1: times like Covid have taught us that there are times
Speaker 1: when remote work isn't just a nice to have, it
Speaker 1: is a half to have. And what we're doing is
Speaker 1: we're providing warehouse workers that same privilege to work remotely. Right,
Speaker 1: I think that we have an ability to positively impact
Speaker 1: the lives of, you know, the backbone of our supply chain,
Speaker 1: these warehouse workers, while at the same time providing a
Speaker 1: technology to their employers that is solving one of their
Speaker 1: major challenges, which is not only finding labor but retaining
Speaker 1: that Labor right, because a lot of times working in
Speaker 1: a warehouse is really hard work in a pretty tough environment,
Speaker 1: and their safety issues. To write. One in ten forklifts
Speaker 1: are involved in a in an accident each year which
Speaker 1: can cause, you know, serious injury, sometimes even death, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: So if you can remove those operators out of that
Speaker 1: potentially hazardous and definitely uncomfortable environment in put them into
Speaker 1: an office environment where they're sitting with other colleagues and
Speaker 1: they're doing the exact same job, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: seventy degrees and they can have a cup of coffee
Speaker 1: while doing that. We strongly believe that that is going
Speaker 1: to be preferred by both sides, meaning the employers, the
Speaker 1: companies and also their workforce. Conventional Thinking says you have
Speaker 1: to pay more to get more. I want the world,
Speaker 1: but t mobile for business uses unconventional thinking to deliver
Speaker 1: premium benefits for better R O I, from customized five
Speaker 1: g solutions to three sixty support. We help you reach
Speaker 1: your business goals right now. I want it now, innovating
Speaker 1: to improve business today and tomorrow. That's unconventional thinking from
Speaker 1: t mobile for business. Capable device required covers are available
Speaker 1: in some areas. Some US require certain planter features. C
Speaker 1: T MOBILE DOT COM. Moving on to dad, because that
Speaker 1: has become the currency of the modern world. How does
Speaker 1: data gathering and analysis play a part in your strategy?
Speaker 1: This is a great question. I think we're only scratching
Speaker 1: the surface when it comes to the data in general
Speaker 1: in this world and we're looking at specifically what Phantom
Speaker 1: is doing, and you know autnoms vehicles collect data today
Speaker 1: with drivers that are sitting as safety drivers in the vehicle, right,
Speaker 1: and you have to practice and drive with people in
Speaker 1: order to collect data, to teach the machine how to
Speaker 1: drive without people. Are Approaches saying, you know, if you
Speaker 1: can get to commerce and really operate in the way
Speaker 1: that creates value, true value, not just a safety drivers
Speaker 1: sitting there without any value for for people or consumer
Speaker 1: or logistics, you know in our case, and then collect
Speaker 1: that same data while the vehicles being operated remotely and
Speaker 1: contributing value to the warehouse or to the road. It's
Speaker 1: such an amazing model. You're basically getting paid two collect
Speaker 1: data on the system and you can practice with this data.
Speaker 1: But even more than that, what's interesting is you can
Speaker 1: use models in the cloud that read that data and
Speaker 1: respond back with what they would do during this time
Speaker 1: of operation. Let's say a model that needs to compute
Speaker 1: the best path for the vehicle, and you can also
Speaker 1: magic with what actually happened with the remote operator guidance
Speaker 1: for the vehicles. They'll say if it's in the forklift
Speaker 1: in the warehouse, right. So you basically have this kind
Speaker 1: of training. said that, not only is being collecting the data,
Speaker 1: but can also train in the back end and compare
Speaker 1: the results of the bottom line. So it's such a
Speaker 1: great way to get into the market. I think of
Speaker 1: it like an entry point that is very business effective.
Speaker 1: I mean there are many ways to collect data. The
Speaker 1: problem is they're not really effective when it comes to
Speaker 1: cost right you just have to spend a lot that
Speaker 1: you have safety drivers and vehicles driving around for no value. That,
Speaker 1: I would say. Again, we're the early phases there of
Speaker 1: that technology. I think in the future we're going to
Speaker 1: see more. There's a lot of discussions about edge technology.
Speaker 1: If it's the autonomy is going to sit in the
Speaker 1: vehicle or some of it is going to be in
Speaker 1: the cloud, it's probably going to be a combination of
Speaker 1: the two. It's just like our Syria on our phone.
Speaker 1: And again that back to the communication infrastructure and connectivity.
Speaker 1: Nothing can be deployed without connectivity and build time communication.
Speaker 1: So it's a backward necessity for the vehicle to begin with.
Speaker 1: So why not use it to gather board data and move,
Speaker 1: you know, create value at the meantime? Elliott, you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: right at the top of the show, that you were
Speaker 1: really interested in technologies and solutions that can have real
Speaker 1: material change, positive change, in the world, and I'm curious
Speaker 1: is there any sort of specific challenge, like maybe even
Speaker 1: a global challenge, that you would really like to approach
Speaker 1: an attempt to solve, either through Phantom auto or through
Speaker 1: some other venture down the line? Yeah, absolutely. When you
Speaker 1: talk about operating a forklift right, this is a dangerous job.
Speaker 1: Want in ten operators get into an accident each year,
Speaker 1: severe injuries, even death, and so if you can move
Speaker 1: those people out of harm's way, out of that potentially
Speaker 1: dangerous environment and into an office environment, that is a
Speaker 1: huge win. In addition to expanding the Labor Pool for
Speaker 1: our customers, we're also diversifying that Labor Pool. So we have,
Speaker 1: you know, people working for us today that are able
Speaker 1: to remotely operate forklifts. One is a wheelchair user. He
Speaker 1: was injured during his service in the military, so you
Speaker 1: know he he would not be able to operate a
Speaker 1: forklift in the way that one you know drives a
Speaker 1: forklift in a warehouse today, but he can remotely operate.
Speaker 1: We also have neurodiverse individuals, operators that have autism, and
Speaker 1: we are quite literally bringing jobs into their homes where
Speaker 1: they're fantastic remote operate leaders. They can do this from
Speaker 1: their homes, they can operate vehicles across the country, and
Speaker 1: so there's real impact here. Obviously we have primary goals.
Speaker 1: The first goal is to kind of change the face
Speaker 1: of work and hopefully build a game changing business around
Speaker 1: doing that. But the second goal, which is equally as important,
Speaker 1: is that aspect of positive societal impact. If we can
Speaker 1: really make positive change for different individuals along the way
Speaker 1: and open up new avenues for people to do work
Speaker 1: where they formerly could not operate machinery of this nature,
Speaker 1: that's the real win win for us. Yeah, that's phenomenal, Elliott.
Speaker 1: I mean this idea of the technology not just enabling
Speaker 1: business solutions but also addressing things like accessibility and providing
Speaker 1: an outlet for employment for people who are completely capable
Speaker 1: of doing the job. It's inspirational because we're looking even
Speaker 1: beyond the critical role that this plays for business operations
Speaker 1: to remain intact. Before I could let my guests go,
Speaker 1: I needed to ask Elliott cats shy maximum one more thing.
Speaker 1: We call the show the restless ones and I have
Speaker 1: my own definition of what a restless one is when
Speaker 1: it comes to things like leadership and in technology. But, shy,
Speaker 1: I will start with you. I'm curious when you hear
Speaker 1: that term the restless ones, what comes to your mind? Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a that's an important question. First, it's really about working,
Speaker 1: not just for the sake of making money, but really
Speaker 1: having ambission, having an ambition and inspiration, something to work
Speaker 1: for that is beyond what's out there. We just talked
Speaker 1: about this wheelchair and artistic people that work at Phantom.
Speaker 1: I would work day, night and weekends if needed to
Speaker 1: make sure that those people get jobs, because the is
Speaker 1: something that can make a change that is positive in
Speaker 1: the world. So restless for me it's making sure that
Speaker 1: your mission and in the vision, you're doing everything you
Speaker 1: can to achieve it. Thank you. Shy Elliott, same question.
Speaker 1: What does being a restless one mean to you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a very interesting question in the way I would
Speaker 1: interpret it personally. To kind of tie together all the
Speaker 1: threads here, I consider myself a big thinker and I'd
Speaker 1: like to think that the things that I put my
Speaker 1: mind to and really put my time and effort into,
Speaker 1: I want them to have real purpose. And Shy and
Speaker 1: I are co founders of Phantom, but we have very
Speaker 1: different skill sets right, as I mentioned before, he's been
Speaker 1: an engineer basically since his bar Mitzvah. I had a
Speaker 1: certain vision, I had a certain idea, a way that
Speaker 1: I saw the world away that I could make impact,
Speaker 1: and I happened to be lucky enough to meet someone
Speaker 1: who not only shared the same vision but, from a
Speaker 1: technical perspective, could put that vision into motion. So I
Speaker 1: was restless in the sense that, hey, this is something
Speaker 1: that just makes sense to me, and I think Shay
Speaker 1: was restless in the sense that, you know, not only
Speaker 1: is this something that makes sense, it's something that's technically feasible,
Speaker 1: it's technically possible, and so when you get two people
Speaker 1: like that with a similar vision in the room, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be just restless enough to make it happen, because
Speaker 1: for us, we can't sit here and think about what
Speaker 1: if we have to create our own offense. We have
Speaker 1: to make that reality happen and it's what we think
Speaker 1: about all day, every day. Yeah, I just go back
Speaker 1: to that thought of just because things have been done
Speaker 1: this way doesn't mean that's the only way they can
Speaker 1: be done, and that when you adopt that as your
Speaker 1: philosophy and you realize that this is an opportunity to
Speaker 1: experiment and to attempt new things and to innovate. The
Speaker 1: results end up being phenomenal. Even in the failures, you
Speaker 1: learn right like even then. You you learn things like, well,
Speaker 1: now I know to go a different way, but if
Speaker 1: you've never if you just accept how things are done,
Speaker 1: then there's no growth, there's no learning and there's no change.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more and I think that phantom motto
Speaker 1: in most ways is no different than any other startup.
Speaker 1: And the way I I typically think about it is
Speaker 1: at a big company you can hit singles all day,
Speaker 1: but if you want to take a really big swing
Speaker 1: in the bat, if you want to attempt to hit
Speaker 1: a grand slam and really change the status quo, like
Speaker 1: if we succeed in the way that we want to succeed,
Speaker 1: we will change the face of work. Mean people that
Speaker 1: formerly had to go into warehouses and distribution centers every
Speaker 1: day and work in these environments and work in these
Speaker 1: conditions will have a better quality of life. And we
Speaker 1: believe that because, also for our customers, the business case
Speaker 1: pencils so beautifully that this can really create rapid change
Speaker 1: and we just can't take those swings of a bat.
Speaker 1: When you're in a large system, you have to have
Speaker 1: this startup environment where it's encouraged to not only think
Speaker 1: differently but act on that. Thank you. And so we've
Speaker 1: done it thus far for almost five years, and we
Speaker 1: really hope to continue to do it for many more
Speaker 1: years and remain restless and thus create that change. Gosh,
Speaker 1: I can't think of a better way to conclude this episode.
Speaker 1: Elliott shy, thank you so much for joining the podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you for this conversation. It was even more or
Speaker 1: inspirational and invigorating than I had anticipated, and I have
Speaker 1: to tell you my expectations were set pretty darn high. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Jonathan. We really appreciate you having us on.
Speaker 1: It's always a pleasure to speak with leaders in tech
Speaker 1: who have incredible drive, no pun intended, and it was
Speaker 1: obvious to me that shy and Elliott have that drive.
Speaker 1: Their collaboration is inspiring. Identifying a real world challenge and
Speaker 1: then building a solution to meet it, and to know
Speaker 1: they were working on these technologies before the issues with
Speaker 1: supply chain stability had become undeniable shows how forward thinking
Speaker 1: they are. It's also incredible to think that wireless connectivity
Speaker 1: has reached a level in which someone can operate a
Speaker 1: vehicle in real time from hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Speaker 1: I would refer to this use case as a reason
Speaker 1: why low latency connectivity is transformative. It opens up possibilities
Speaker 1: that would have been science fiction a decade ago, and
Speaker 1: that's before you even touch on what options open up
Speaker 1: when you have access not just to low latency but
Speaker 1: high throughput. I really do believe we are on the
Speaker 1: cusp of an era of unprecedented innovation. Making use of
Speaker 1: five g technology and beyond will usher in a world
Speaker 1: in which data analysis, automation and remote Operation Change Everything.
Speaker 1: These are the elements that are necessary in a world
Speaker 1: where working from home becomes the new norm, and we'll
Speaker 1: discover that through careful use of these technologies, we can
Speaker 1: actually improve operations, make our work more efficient and cut
Speaker 1: costs and ease pain points along the way. Thanks again
Speaker 1: to Elliott cats and shy Maximov for joining the restless ones,
Speaker 1: and be sure to join us on future episodes. We're
Speaker 1: I'll talk with more leaders in the tech industry. I'll
Speaker 1: see you then, m t mobile, for business knows, companies
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