WEBVTT - Interview With Gianni Kovacevic: Masters in Business (Audio) 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:04.320 Brought to you by B A s F. We create Chemistry. 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:12.040 This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.319 This week on the podcast, I have a guest named 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:18.680 Gianni Kovachevik. It's taken me a while to learn how 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.759 to pronounce that precisely. He is the author of My 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.560 Electrician drives a Porsche, and he is an angel in 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:33.239 venture investor specializing in energy and alternative technologies. UH. He 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:37.400 also just took a Tesla and drove from Toronto to 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:42.080 Boston to Florida, all around the United States, ended up 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.479 in California and went to the Tesla plant. That's where 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:51.000 his trip UH finished up, and we chatted about everything 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:57.520 from the new technologies, what's taking place in China, alternative energies, 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:03.240 the rise and continue demand for copper, and why oil 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:07.360 is probably not your best long term investment. If you 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:13.280 are at all interested in automobiles, electricity, venture investing, or 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:15.760 alternative energy, I think you'll find this to be a 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:22.280 fascinating conversation. Without any further ado my chat with Giannikovich Evic. 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.919 This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.080 My guest today is Gianni covic Efic. He is the 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:38.680 author of the book My Electrician Drives a Porsche, investing 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.760 in the rise of the new spending class. He is 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:49.160 also a venture investor as well as resident of Vancouver, Canada. 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.760 Speaks multiple languages, English, German, Italian, Croatian. Just for you're 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:58.440 only stopping it for um Gianni. Welcome to Bloomberg. It's 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:00.600 so nice to be in New York Berry. So so 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.280 let's jump right into who you are and what you 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.040 do when when people ask you, what do you do? 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:11.000 How do you answer that question? I am a curious investor. 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.360 I follow trends. I try to be um. You know, 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.160 I can turn myself to be a value investor, so 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.400 I'm not really a trader. I want to look at 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:24.120 deep value and effectively. I don't want to invest in 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:26.960 the story on page one is my friend Don Cox 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.520 would say that's the efficient market. I want to invest 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:32.800 in the story on page sixteen that's headed to page one. 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.720 So I'm trying to make a career out of investing 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:39.520 on page sixteen stories. So, so what's your background? How 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:44.480 did you get into this line of business? I'm from Vancouver, Canada, 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.560 and what software is to Seattle is what let's say, 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.720 energy commodities, natural resources are to Vancouver, Canada. So a 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.320 lot of my friends we grow up and they become stockbrokers, 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.800 other ones become geologists, engineers, and just you end up, 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.079 you know, entering the workforce and there it is. It's 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:07.480 so important to basically Canada, in that part of our country, 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.840 particularly that you're just indoctorate into it, no different than 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.359 someone from as I say, Seattle or San Francisco would 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.680 get involved in software computers. And for those people who 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.040 have never been in Vancouver, one of my favorite cities 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.959 in North America and absolutely beautiful. Um So let's talk 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:26.600 a little bit about the entrepreneurial spirit, which very much 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:32.359 colors your book you're writing, what you focus on. How 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:34.920 do you become an entrepreneur in a place like Vancouver. 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.960 I know a lot of people up there who ultimately 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:42.640 ended up moving to Seattle, New York, San Francisco, even 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.160 Los Angeles. What what's life like in Vancouver for a 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:52.200 entrepreneur who might be more interested in things like software 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.640 and technology than as as one friend calls its sticks 0:03:55.640 --> 0:04:00.600 and stones, timber and minerals. Well, that's where my heart 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:05.240 beats is supporting these things that I would say that 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:07.840 you don't want to give society what they think they 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.280 need or what they think they want. You want to 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.440 give them what they do not have and what they 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:14.640 what they don't already know that they want. We've seen 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:16.960 examples from them, from Henry Ford in the car from 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.680 the iPhone and Steve Jobs. The old joke is don't 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:21.520 skate to where the puck is, skates where it's going 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:23.960 to be absolutely and so when you're looking at that 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:28.080 as an investor, I'm looking for people that are listening 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:30.680 to the music, They're not getting confused by the noise. 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:35.640 Classic page sixteen story or stories as investors. So entrepreneurial 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:38.560 ship is you know people in groups that want to, 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.640 you know, buy into that. You can see it, like 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.400 Warren Bufett would say, when something is so obvious you 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:46.360 don't even need a pencil and paper to figure it out. 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:48.360 It's like, you know, we've all heard of those ideas 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.159 that even that that Internet protocol or that app or 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.760 that gizmo in the past years and just say, wow, 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:58.080 that'll succeed. It's just so intuitive. And I think when 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:01.839 you're creating these visions as an entrepreneur, you're also managing 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.160 you know, it's a lot of psychology, a lot of 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.440 a lot of sort of relationship building. The bigger and 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.599 organization gets you end up managing all these personalities. So 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.760 you want to find those mavericks that a create the 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.240 product that people want to need in the future and 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.560 they have the ability to stick handle that business as 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.120 it grows, you know, So how do you how do 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:23.800 you find that? While it takes a long time, I 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:25.680 think you need you know, years and years and years 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:28.200 of experience. You lose money, you win with this guy, 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.440 you win with that guy, and and you know, after 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.240 maybe fifteen or twenty years of experience, hopefully you can 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.240 narrow that down a little bit to have more winners 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.320 and losers. Don't don't we run the risk? Let me 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.080 push back a little bit on you. Don't. Don't we 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.040 run the risk of a little hindsight bias. Um. I 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:45.080 can't begin to tell you how many things that are 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:49.400 wildly successful today and everybody thinks, oh, sure, of course 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:51.919 that was a winner when they were first rolled out. 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.080 People look various scans at it. My favorite story is 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.000 Fred Smith, the guy who founded FedEx. It was a 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:01.440 graduate school paper and I think you got a d 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.520 and the professor said, why would anybody pay a premium 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:09.000 for overnight delivery when you have the post office? So so, 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.800 how much of of us looking at these things is obvious? 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.239 Is a little bit of hindsight bias as opposed to, 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.680 or ask differently, how can we really identify these things 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.440 in advance when no one really has a clue what's 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.080 gonna catch on or what's not? The answer is the 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.599 short answers. As you know, it's difficult. If it was easy, 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:30.880 you know, we'd all be billionaires, you know, And if 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:32.480 it was easy, they would call it snowboarding. You know. 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.560 It's something you learn in a few days. It's not. 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:38.159 I don't think when a trend gets underway, let's liken 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.960 it to a parade. It's very hard to create a parade. 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:43.800 But when you see it and when it's obvious, you 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.640 know you can it's going on. It's you want to 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:48.160 jump into that parade. You don't need to be the 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.120 lead float. You need just need to be in it. 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:52.680 You know, you need to understand. And because you have experience, 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.920 meaning you've kicked the tires, you don't go one day 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:57.960 to the next and say, oh, you know, um, Uber 0:06:58.080 --> 0:06:59.640 is going to be something that's going to be important 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:01.400 to the world. I think if you're you have to 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.200 sort of understand how mobile technology evolved, and you don't 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:06.919 come in one day to the next. It happened, you know, 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.080 with the iPhone in two thousand seven, apps started to 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:13.840 be developed. So already, hey, you use the first time, 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.160 you said, Holy smokes, this this works. I get it. 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:18.680 Uber has of course been a private company, so most 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.200 people out there can't investor don't have the ability to 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.360 invest in those things, you know, when you can go 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:24.640 on and on and on, and I think we we 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:26.440 talk a little bit about, you know, trend building and 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.040 the way people can get themselves versed on this stuff 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:33.080 is subscribe to bloggers, newsletter writers, go to really high 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:36.520 quality conferences, get the collective opinion of many people and 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.080 their ideas, and you yourself will come up with your 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.880 own sort of trends that you can follow. I'm Barry Ridhults. 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.440 You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.800 guest today is Gianni covic Efic. He is the author 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.400 of My Electrician Drives a Porsche, which is a look 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:56.000 at investing in the rise of the new spending class. 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.240 And let's talk a little bit about driving in cars. 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:05.080 And and you just completed a very interesting trip. You 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:11.480 went across country in a Tesla. How did that come about. Yeah, 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:14.800 the my book has nothing to do with fast cars. 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:16.880 It has everything to do with, as we say in 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.920 the subtitle, investing in the rise of the new spending class. 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.120 And it's this story about a young electrician and his 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:25.560 family doctor. So it's all about the electricity. It's all 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.160 about the electricity. And so so let's let's we're gonna 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.240 talk about this in a few moments. Let's talk about 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:37.360 the cross country trip and how that worked powered by electricity. First, 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.560 what made you think of doing that? We wanted to 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.480 do a special book tour. I wanted to have something 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:45.080 that's not your you know, you go to ten or 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.240 twelve cities. So I figured, m I can showcase to 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:50.400 the world. In my opinion, the future is now with 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.040 respect to electric cars. So you have to exaggerate these things. 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:55.080 You know, you've got to go from, you know, around 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.720 the entire nation. I was also able to visit more cities, 0:08:57.840 --> 0:08:59.679 I was able to talk to more people, and I 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.440 was able to engage with them. Be it be a government, 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.320 be at investors, be at regular society, and show them 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.920 physically that the future is now. We can do this. Now, 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.080 you can drive an electric car day to day across 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:16.120 the country whatever you wish. So where did you begin? 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.360 Let's let's trace your path. And you were tweeting this 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:21.960 out as you were traveling. What what did you Where 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:26.400 did you launch from? We started in Toronto, Canada, at 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:28.880 a major conference. It was one of the focused points 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:30.520 there where people would come and I had all the 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:32.439 sort of decoration on the car and I told them 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.200 what I'm going to be doing. And I drove to 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:37.600 Boston with a very skeptical German journalist, I will add, 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:39.720 someone who did not believe this would be so comfortable. 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:43.040 And I went from Boston all the way down to Pennsylol, Florida, 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:47.440 Toronto to Boston. How long did that leg take? It's 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.560 six hundred miles, just under six or miles. It took 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:54.280 me ten hours drive drive a couple of hours. How 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:58.240 how let's say you drive two miles about the range 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:02.400 of a Tesla to fifty Yeah, it's really getting between 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.199 the superchargers if you're doing cross country travel, so and 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:07.439 they're about between a hundred and fifty twitter and fifty 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.480 miles apart all the superchargers connecting all the major cities 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.199 today today today, already there. So you were able to 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.800 go from Toronto to Boston. So you drove two miles 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:20.120 to the first Buffalo. How long did it take charge 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.199 it up to go to the next charger. The computer 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.040 tells you how much time you need to get to 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.640 the next supercharger with a cushion meaning you have extreme 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.360 air conditioning on or extreme heating on or whatever. New traffic, 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.720 it's about thirty minutes between you have lunch time, at 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.319 the time of breakfast, the time of coffee. Some cities 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.440 it's only fifteen minutes because sometimes they're they're sandwich maybe 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.880 hundred hundred Toronto, Buffalo and from Buffalo, that's a whole 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.400 to Boston from Buffalo, isn't it? You go and do we? Yeah, 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.280 you do? You do Albany and just at the Rochester 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:54.560 and uh into So so it's a day from Toronto 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.520 to Boston. Well, let's reverse engineer. Because of the German 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.400 journalist he I said, we're gonna stop when you're when 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.880 you need to use the restroom, when you're hungry, and 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.280 by the time we got to Boston, we were not 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.320 fifteen minutes inconvenience because you have to stop. You have 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:10.120 to stop, and you got to stop into a restroom. 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:12.520 So now this is curated. The computer tells us where 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:14.439 we're gonna stop, and you have a p of chang 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:16.480 there you have. You know exactly what you're gonna do. 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:18.559 There's no curious where you get off the freeway. Oh, 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:20.920 or eating at you know this fast food joiner, that 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:22.880 fast food joint. You kind of know exactly what you're 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.520 up against when you get there. He was shocked from 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.560 a German perspective, which there may be a little bit 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.640 more skeptical, although they're huge consumers of of alternates, like 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.000 wind is all you fly into Germany, half the country 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.040 looks like it's covered in wind farms. All right, So Boston, 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.400 I actually met you when you went from Boston to 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.400 New York and then from New York down to Florida. 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:48.440 Now normally that's a good day and a half drive. 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:50.280 How long does it take you to get from New 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.080 York to Florida. Well, we took the slow route. I 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.080 stopped in all the cities. I was doing book events 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:58.720 about two days per city, so I would come in, 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:00.880 I would the car would be charged before I came 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.120 into the city. I have enough range forty miles to 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.199 do all my nonsense around the city. Of course, when 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:09.400 I'm sleeping, the car's charging. More and more hotels and 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:12.920 businesses are now catering to people to have these with 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.280 the destination chargers, not the super fast ones, but the 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.600 ones that charge it around over forty You get each 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:24.480 hour in your park, you get about exactly and you 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.920 move on. And this is I liken this to the 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.319 charging network system. We can get into some other things 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.520 that are happening in the with the incumbents. But it's 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.000 really like the Model T was perfected on the assembly 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:36.480 line and started rolling out in October of nine eight, 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.880 So it's really like before there was a network of 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.360 guests exactly. So we're and we can do things a 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:44.560 lot faster today, and there's an army of people that 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.240 will and are doing this. It's not one company, it's 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.800 not just Tesla anymore. By the way, did Tesla have 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:51.679 anything to do with your trip or were they just 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:56.679 a lucky beneficiary of your idea? Yeah, I know the 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.280 We did not ask for permission with Tesla. I bought 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.640 the car. I sent Ellen my book, which the title 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:06.160 may shock people, but of course the character the doctor 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.160 in the book buys a Tesla and adopts the Tesla 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.560 way of life and what they're now doing with merging 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.160 or attempting to merge solar city in Tesla, calling it 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.640 the Tesla lifestyle. A year and a half ago, I 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.000 was already saying that my book, that this is the future. 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.320 People want the package. They want that package where they 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:25.120 want to be completely independent from grid, from fossil fuels, 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.080 call it what you will in their homes for all 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.600 their transportation energy. And I'm gonna push back on that 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:33.839 independence claim and that green claim and a little bit sure. 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.360 But you ended up at the Tesla factory, right, is 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.840 that way you finished? Yeah? I ended up on me 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.720 fourth and one of the I believe founders and directors 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.679 of Tesla, Ira, Aaron Price, was having his Global Energy 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:49.560 conference that day. Was that part of the plan or 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:51.920 just a lucky claim? It was kind of a lucky coincidence. 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:53.400 So I got my factory tour in the day of 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:55.640 the conference, you know, parked my car right there. And 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.439 it was really a day of modern energy where a 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.240 lot of these people, a lot of these thoughtly ters 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:03.000 were together, and I got my tour of the of 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:06.800 the Tesla factory on that day, and it was it was, 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.800 It was incredible. It's a there's a tectonic shift going on. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:14.400 And until you've you know, really understood this from all angles, 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:19.400 how we create service by sell you know cars in general, 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.280 make the parts feed into it. Yeah, the world is 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:24.360 going through a tectonic shift, in my opinion. How many 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.960 cities did you work your way through? All told, it 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.520 was twenty five official cities, but I stopped in probably 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.040 a hundred when you when you count in the lesser towns, 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.280 and I stopped in a lot of universities, wanted to 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:38.560 talk to students and just just park the car. And 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.160 it's a talking point. What was the network of of 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.800 charging stations? Like? Did you ever find yourself? How does 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:46.880 the car find it? Do you ever find yourself? Do 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:48.560 you where am I going to find one of these things? 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:52.920 What's that network? Like? Yeah, it's it's comprehensive already, which 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.280 is actually quite shocking the fact that they only started 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.960 a few years ago. You tell the computer what two 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.720 cities you want to connect, and it says exactly where 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:04.160 you need to charge and how long. So it's kind 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.640 of a coup what Tesla has done already. And so 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.720 that's the city interconnection, the superchargers. His secret sounds like 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.760 it's the software as well as the network for sure, 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.720 the GPS. And then you have the destination chargers, which 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.040 are going to be installed by the millions by people 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.640 that own businesses. So they're gonna pay Elon Musk cash 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:26.280 money for this destination charger, which an electrician can install 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:28.440 in three or four or five hours, which means you 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:32.040 can connect any lifestyle point lifestyle point A to lifestyle 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.360 point B in any city, which means they've solved the puzzle. 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.840 I'm Barry Ridlts. You're listening to Masters in Business on 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:42.280 Bloomberg Radio. My guest this week is Gianni Kovia Sevic. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:47.920 He is a investor, entrepreneur, environmentalist, and author of the 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:52.040 book My Electrician Drives a Porsche. Uh. Let's talk a 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:56.400 little bit about realistic environmentalism. What does it mean to 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:01.600 be a realistic environmentalist. A listic environmentalist is someone who 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.400 is pragmatic I would call I would call them an 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:08.120 algebra ist. Algebra is so if we're looking at the 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.680 challenges that are surrounding energy around the world, where if 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.440 people want to make changes with the way we create, transfer, 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.080 and utilize energy, that's fine. You want to make policy, 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:19.560 that's also fine. You want to create that investment vehicles, 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:21.400 that's great, But you have to look at the other 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:23.800 side of the equation, because when you take fossil fuels 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.760 out of that equation, there has to be something on 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:28.920 the other side. You can't just wave your hand around 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.320 and say, let's not use oil anymore. Let's no, no 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:35.880 more coal. So if you understand that a realistic environmentalist 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.880 is someone who looks at all the variables and he's 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.480 in the middle. He's neutral, he's a solutionist, or she 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.320 is a solutionist. So I want to understand support invest 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:51.560 in all the elements that factually make that possible. We 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:55.160 can call a reduction and CEO two emissions, green gas emissions, 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:58.960 whatever it is, and that is a very large arena 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.640 on on the products, materials, building blocks that factually make 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.200 a reduction in CEO two emissions possible. So so let's 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:09.639 talk a little bit about vehicles like the Tesla um As. 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:14.720 As a person who enjoys cars, likes horsepower, is not 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:20.920 afraid of internal combustion engines. I always have two issues 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.320 with with in general, the prius Is and Teslas of 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:26.560 the world. And by the way, I love the Tesla. 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:30.440 I think it's a beautiful car, really well made, tremendous design. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.880 But here are the two issues I have. First, depending 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:37.160 on the part of the country you're in, you're charging 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.119 off the electric grid, and very often that is coal 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:46.560 fired electricity, which means you're not spewing junk out of 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.480 your tailpipe, but you are spewing junk out of the 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.520 source of the electricity. So why not have you respond 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:55.680 to that before I go onto the second one. Yeah, 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:58.919 that's an important question, and I liken that too. We 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:01.920 don't live in static Ville. Society lives in a place 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:07.600 called progress Ville. In two thousand seven, two around of 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:11.560 America's primary electricity was generated by coal. Just in the 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.000 past year, natural gas has surpassed coal as the primary 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:20.280 fuel source. So coal is now around thirty and falling 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:26.520 by it will be twenty of America's primary electricity. So 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.240 already it is the minority fuel source natural gas and 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.399 the others nuclear renewables. What have you are around se 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:38.320 America's fuel source and falling. So eventually this will continue 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:39.760 to fall. And remember, we're not going to go away 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.159 from coal because of policy, assets that are deemed on 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.000 economic or assets that are stranded. We have so much 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:50.800 natural gas, massive supply, lots of structure cleaner. And here's 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.919 the thing that everybody forgets. You run a pipeline to 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:58.640 an electrical generation plans and that's it. You're done. There's 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.080 no trucking, ship ing, there's no think about what it 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.040 takes to move all that coal by rail by whatever 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.520 means that's got to be really expensive. That gas is 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:11.840 clearly going to be the winner in the electrical generation 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.080 UM universe, at least for the foreseeable future. And we 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.400 see that the data recently showed that more people work 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.080 in solar today than working coal in the United States. 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:26.760 That's an amazing stat The second UM criticism I've heard, 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.720 and I don't know how accurate this is, UH, is 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.080 that when you look at things like the lithium batteries 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.840 and all the rare earth metals and unique elements that 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.360 go into making a car like a Prius or a Tesla. Uh, 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.600 there's a lot of really if you go all the 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.720 way upstream in the manufacturing process. There's a lot of 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:50.480 really bad manufacturing steps that take place to you know, 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.239 strip mind and get access this This is from not 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:58.520 necessarily very accessible parts of the world. How do how 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.480 do we respond to to that criticism that hey, this 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:06.360 creates as much heavy metal pollution as it saves in carbon. Well, 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.320 the real math and if you look at the UM 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.159 the Society of Concerned Scientists, they basically say that the 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.440 breakthrough or the break even is about nineteen thousand miles, 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.000 So it is true to create a full electric car, 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.080 there is some there's a little bit extra CEO two 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.240 emissions to create the car. According to their math, at 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:26.800 the nineteen thousand mile point, it's it's break even, but 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:28.919 eighteen months into it more or less something like that. 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:31.360 But it's it goes deeper than this because nothing comes 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:33.960 for Freeberry, nothing comes for free. People have to make 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:36.920 a choice. And that's what it might have of being 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.040 a realistic environmentalists. Just tell me what you like. You know, 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:42.800 what's the policy, what what's the will of the people? Where, 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.560 where's what's government want? Where where are the investors? Where's 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.280 the propensity to make this stuff possible? Because nothing comes 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:50.960 for free. If you want coal fired electricity, if you 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:53.320 want to use gasoline, if you want to keep searching 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:55.879 for fossil fuels, move it, refine it, move it again, 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:59.400 transport it, sell it, repeat every week. Okay, but that's 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.239 I don't believe that's where progress spell is. We are 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.760 going to go on the long course of time because 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:06.800 it's it's the future. It's just the smart way to 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.200 do it. And we should stop focusing on the cars 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.439 that you drive thirty minutes a day. The cars we 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.359 need to electrify are the taxis, the FedEx vehicles, the 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.080 urban buses. We can make them electric and we know 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:22.280 that because the world's largest automobile market has accelerated those 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:27.439 programs to electrify urban transport. Those are the cars that China. 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.440 We're talking China. I'm Barry Ridholtz. You're listening to Masters 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:35.359