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Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is What's Your Problem?

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Jason Ballard. Jason is the co-founder

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Speaker 1: and CEO of a company called Icon, and his problem

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Speaker 1: is this. can you use 3D printing to build houses

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Speaker 1: that are cheaper and better and maybe more interesting than

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Speaker 1: the houses that we build now? As you'll hear, ICON

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Speaker 1: has 3D printed a few hundred houses, and they're currently

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Speaker 1: trying to scale up so that thousands of houses can

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Speaker 1: be built using their system. Before he started ICON, Jason

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Speaker 1: was a seminary student at one point. He got a

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Speaker 1: master's in lunar construction, as in building on the moon.

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Speaker 1: And he also started a company that he describes as

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Speaker 1: a combination between Whole Foods and Home Depot. In our conversation,

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Speaker 1: we talked about all of those things. But to start,

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Speaker 1: I asked Jason why he eventually set out to build

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Speaker 1: houses in a new way.

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Speaker 2: The whole purpose of technology is to sort of bend

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Speaker 2: the world toward the things that we want. And so

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Speaker 2: there was this like idea of like imagining a way

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Speaker 2: of building that was faster, that was lower cost, but

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Speaker 2: actually improved quality instead of decreased quality and left tremendous

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Speaker 2: design opportunity still on the table. I don't know if

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Speaker 2: you've ever talked to a builder, but there's this like

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Speaker 2: terrible saying among builders, like you can either have it fast,

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Speaker 2: cheap or high quality. You can only pick two of

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Speaker 2: the three. And that seemed completely unacceptable to me as

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Speaker 2: like a default setting for something so basic. I mean,

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Speaker 2: we're talking about food, water, shelter are the basic things

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Speaker 2: we need.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, we've gotten much more efficient at food and water, right? Like, Clean,

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Speaker 1: cheap water is an underappreciated miracle that we have, at

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Speaker 1: least in this country, in the developed world. Food has

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Speaker 1: gotten profoundly cheaper, but building a house has not gotten

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Speaker 1: much cheaper. There have been strangely few productivity gains. It

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Speaker 1: looks the same as it did to a large extent, whatever,

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Speaker 1: 50 years ago, 70 years ago.

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Speaker 2: I mean, my office is probably slightly hyperbolic, but we

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Speaker 2: have been building with plain lumber and bricks and mortar

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Speaker 2: for something rounding to a thousand years. You know, we

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Speaker 2: invented like nail guns and power saws and things like that,

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Speaker 2: but the sort of fundamental principles in approaches to building

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Speaker 2: haven't changed in an awfully long time. And look, we

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Speaker 2: built a civilization or a few on these paradigms, but

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Speaker 2: it's clear that we're like reaching the limits of what

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Speaker 2: they can do for us. And, you know, then it

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Speaker 2: was 2018, now it's 2026, but sort of the same idea,

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Speaker 2: like where's Wakanda? Like where's Rivendell? Where's this like world

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Speaker 2: of the future we're supposed to have by now. Like

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Speaker 2: houses are getting more expensive and we don't even like

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Speaker 2: really like these things. Like it's like rather soul crushing

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Speaker 2: when you look at most new neighborhoods getting built in

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Speaker 2: the world today. And it just felt like both a

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Speaker 2: cool problem, an important problem to solve. But then also

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Speaker 2: you could imagine all these like very cool things that

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Speaker 2: could happen as well if you figured out how to

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Speaker 2: build with robots. And so all of that was the

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Speaker 2: setup for 2018, which is like we have got to

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Speaker 2: show the world that something new is possible so that

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Speaker 2: these conversations about construction aren't always so like damn depressing.

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Speaker 1: When do you discover 3D printing? When do you think, oh,

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Speaker 1: maybe 3D printing will solve this problem?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so at the time when I first had the idea,

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Speaker 2: I was working at a sustainable building and remodeling company

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Speaker 2: called Treehouse.

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Speaker 1: The company you had started.

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Speaker 2: Correct. Imagine Whole Foods took over Home Depot and that'll

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Speaker 2: kind of get you in the ballpark of kind of

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Speaker 2: what the company was like.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Clientele at the time, even though we're trying to drive

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Speaker 2: down costs the best we could, was like a rather

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Speaker 2: high in clientele. And so we're going into some of

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Speaker 2: the nicest homes in Austin and ultimately Dallas as well.

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Speaker 2: And they have like all these problems with air quality,

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Speaker 2: with like basic building material quality, beauty. And it's like,

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Speaker 2: something is wrong with the way we're building. If like

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Speaker 2: the nicest houses in town have all these problems, it wasn't,

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Speaker 2: you would expect sort of the rich people to have

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Speaker 2: all this sorted out. But even with the nicest homes

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Speaker 2: in town, there were these like real problems. And it

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Speaker 2: was like, you know, we don't just need to like

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Speaker 2: improve like what we're doing. We don't need to like

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Speaker 2: automate drywall hanging or whatever, like something's really wrong here.

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Speaker 2: And so again, I kind of made this spreadsheet of like,

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Speaker 2: got to be faster, got to be lower cost, got

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Speaker 2: to leave aesthetics and beauty on the table, needs to

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Speaker 2: be sustainable, needs to be resilient. And I kind of

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Speaker 2: looked at everything. I looked at SIP panels and ZIP

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Speaker 2: panels and prefab and modular and shipping container housing. Probably

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Speaker 2: the weirdest thing I looked into was growing houses out

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Speaker 2: of fungus, but really just like a full, no stone

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Speaker 2: left unturned kind of approach to like, what could we

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Speaker 2: possibly do? And it was only with 3D printing, even

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Speaker 2: though at the time no one had ever done it.

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Speaker 2: Nobody had ever printed an occupiable building. There were some

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Speaker 2: like research efforts at universities But it was like you

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Speaker 2: could believe with 3D printing that like, oh, that could

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Speaker 2: be cool and beautiful. And that material is very simple.

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Speaker 2: And a robot should be faster and lower cost than

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Speaker 2: a bunch of human laborers. And it is stronger and

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Speaker 2: all these kinds of things. So it wasn't clear that

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Speaker 2: it would work at the time. But it just felt

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Speaker 2: so like compelling to try. It was the only thing

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Speaker 2: I could find for which you could even imagine working.

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Speaker 2: all those things being true. It's just like, well, we

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Speaker 2: got to try.

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Speaker 1: All those things being, it could be fast, cheap and

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Speaker 1: beautiful and good.

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Speaker 2: And strong and safe. And like, yeah, you didn't have

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Speaker 2: to make these trade-offs, right? They're sort of, you're forced

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Speaker 2: into with conventional approaches to buildings.

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Speaker 1: So you have this dream. And as I understand it,

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Speaker 1: South by Southwest in 2018 was kind of a key

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Speaker 1: early moment, right? Tell me what happened there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we kind of had to bootstrap the company.

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Speaker 2: There was two other co-founders, myself, a gentleman named Alex LaRue,

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Speaker 2: who was like the founding CTO and engineer. And then

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Speaker 2: my other co-founder was Evan Loomis, the three of us.

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Speaker 2: we were kind of it and we kind of had

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Speaker 2: to bootstrap. And so we found a buddy and we said, Hey,

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Speaker 2: we need to 3d print a house in the backyard

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Speaker 2: of a property you own. And if it, if it

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Speaker 2: doesn't work, we'll tear it down. And if it works,

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Speaker 2: you'll have a free house, but we need to, uh,

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Speaker 2: show that this can be done. And so we worked

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Speaker 2: with a friend who is an architect to design it.

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Speaker 2: Cause we wanted to show off, begin showing off the

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Speaker 2: possibilities of 3d printing. Uh, his name is Andrew Logan.

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Speaker 2: So really kind of friends and family bootstrap. And, uh,

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Speaker 2: started figuring it out. And so we built a prototype, uh,

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Speaker 2: gantry style 3d printer. We did not have enough money

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Speaker 2: at the time to develop a material delivery system. So

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Speaker 2: we're using just kind of off the shelf concrete mixing

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Speaker 2: and pumps, uh, and doing our best effort at like

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Speaker 2: engineering a material that will work and started trying, just

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Speaker 2: like showed up and started trying to print and failed

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Speaker 2: and failed and failed and kind of improved day after day.

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Speaker 2: And eventually everything was working well enough. It's like, I

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Speaker 2: think we have enough time to have this house done

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Speaker 2: by South by Southwest when the whole world comes to Austin.

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Speaker 2: Like that will be the moment. So we sort of

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Speaker 2: marked that on the calendar and just started printing. There were,

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Speaker 2: of course, lots of hilarious failures. We were kind of

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Speaker 2: hand mixing the concrete and pouring it into the printer.

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Speaker 2: So we say that that first house was artisan 3D printed.

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Speaker 2: And by the skin of our teeth, got it done

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Speaker 2: literally with like not an hour to spare. And then

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Speaker 2: announced to the world that you're like, hey, there's a

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Speaker 2: permitted 3D printed house in Austin that you can come

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Speaker 2: see while you're here at South Byte. And it kind

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Speaker 2: of went viral and everybody took notice. We ended up

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Speaker 2: winning like the startup contest at South by this year.

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Speaker 2: And then that sort of proof point, like here is

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Speaker 2: a very compelling looking house that was 3D printed in

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Speaker 2: a real city, got real permits, a real certificate of occupancy.

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Speaker 2: And that allowed us to raise our first investment round

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Speaker 2: and build a team and continue the journey.

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Speaker 1: So when you talk about, you know, a gantry style

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Speaker 1: 3D printer and concrete, like Just give me the basics,

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Speaker 1: because this is still the basics of how it works, right?

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you've innovated a lot and changed a lot,

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Speaker 1: but what is happening? When you say print a house,

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Speaker 1: what do you actually mean? How does it work?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you sort of accept the premise that

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Speaker 2: what we want to do is 3D print a house

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Speaker 2: using a concrete material, and I can explain why we

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Speaker 2: think all that's right later, but you basically need to

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Speaker 2: put the concrete where it goes. That's what the printer

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Speaker 2: itself does. It's just like depositing material in three-dimensional space.

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Speaker 2: And then you have to make that concrete behave along

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Speaker 2: the way and once it gets there. It has to

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Speaker 2: flow and pump to the nozzle, the printhead. If it

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Speaker 2: keeps flowing, you get a puddle instead of a house.

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Speaker 2: But if it starts setting up too fast, you end

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Speaker 2: up getting a brick instead of a printer. So you

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Speaker 2: need to put the concrete where it needs to go,

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Speaker 2: and then you have to get the concrete to behave.

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Speaker 2: Those are the two fundamental principles. engineering, scientific problems that

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Speaker 2: you need to solve in order to 3D print a house.

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to say what it looks like. I've

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Speaker 1: watched videos of this, and if I was listening to

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Speaker 1: a podcast, I wouldn't quite understand. So let me just

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Speaker 1: say what I've seen. If you imagine... kind of like

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Speaker 1: a giant tube of toothpaste. And the machine, the printer

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Speaker 1: is sort of squeezing the toothpaste and moving in whatever

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Speaker 1: shape the house is going to be. You can imagine

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Speaker 1: a rectangle just for something simple. And so it does

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Speaker 1: a rectangle in the size of the house. And then

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Speaker 1: it kind of puts another rectangle of toothpaste on top

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Speaker 1: of the first rectangle of toothpaste. And it goes around

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Speaker 1: and around and it stacks up those rows of toothpaste

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Speaker 1: until it's as tall as the walls of the house

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Speaker 1: are going to be.

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Speaker 2: That's correct. It prints layer by layer according to the

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Speaker 2: architectural designs that you have. Although you said rectangle. This

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Speaker 2: is like an important point about 3D printing that was

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Speaker 2: so exciting.

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Speaker 1: Yes, they're round. It's rounded. It can be anything you want.

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Speaker 2: And it doesn't change the color. If I printed you

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Speaker 2: a house in the shape of a Fibonacci spiral, assuming

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Speaker 2: it's the same square footage, it's the same price as

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Speaker 2: the rectangle. And that's not true. So some of the

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Speaker 2: things you can do with 3D printing look very... elevated

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Speaker 2: and beautiful and even high and inexpensive, but they are

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Speaker 2: sort of not. This is this design aesthetic point.

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Speaker 1: Yes.

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Speaker 2: It's possible.

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Speaker 1: And they do, the ones you have been building, and

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Speaker 1: we'll get to this, but they do have a lot

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Speaker 1: of rounded, right? Instead of a corner, there will be

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Speaker 1: a little kind of a rounded edge rather than 90

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Speaker 1: degree angles. It seems like a common kind of design motif.

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Speaker 2: That's right. And that's rather intentional. You can, of course,

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Speaker 2: rather obediently print a rectangle if you want to. But

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Speaker 2: of course, we're often trying to say like, hey, this

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Speaker 2: house is 3D printed. It should like lean into its

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Speaker 2: own possibilities. And so you see that show up a lot.

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Speaker 1: To your point of like, let's design Wakanda. Why do

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Speaker 1: we still have houses that look like houses a.

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Speaker 2: Thousand years ago? The thing I often say is like,

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Speaker 2: once upon a time, we built bridges out of wood

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Speaker 2: and then we invented steel. And steel bridges aren't just

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Speaker 2: carbon copies of wooden bridges. Like, steel enabled entirely new

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Speaker 2: ways to build bridges. And something like that is happening

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Speaker 2: with 3D printing. And there's a whole architectural vernacular and

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Speaker 2: design language that becomes possible because of this technology.

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Speaker 1: So just to get back to the narrative, you're at

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Speaker 1: 2018 and you're, like, hand-pouring the concrete into the machine and, like—

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Speaker 1: blowing on it to make it dry or whatever. You're

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Speaker 1: just barely getting it to work. I know there have

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Speaker 1: been various steps. Like, were there a few key things

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Speaker 1: you had to figure out to get from there to like,

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Speaker 1: you know, building houses for real that people are actually

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Speaker 1: going to live in and that are going to cost

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Speaker 1: a reasonable amount? Yep.

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Speaker 2: That's a few things along the way. The next thing

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Speaker 2: to do after that first South by Southwest was to

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Speaker 2: like automate the material delivery system, right? Instead of hand

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Speaker 2: mixing and hand pouring into the machine. Yeah. And again,

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Speaker 2: you're asking concrete to do something that is typically not

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Speaker 2: asked to do. You either have like normal concrete that

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Speaker 2: will flow and fill up a form, or you have

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Speaker 2: this fast curing concrete. And neither of those will quite work.

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Speaker 2: You need it to be flowable and pumpable. And then

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Speaker 2: you need it to set up with like a high

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Speaker 2: amount of accuracy very quickly. And so what we ended

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Speaker 2: up having to do, and by the way, with the

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Speaker 2: cost thing, we restricted ourselves to a list of globally

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Speaker 2: and ubiquitously available materials, right? We don't want to have

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Speaker 2: any expensive fairy dust or carbon nanotubes or graphene or

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Speaker 2: anything like this. In a sense, that makes the problem

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Speaker 2: harder because we're keeping cost in mind the whole time.

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Speaker 2: And so we developed an approach to material delivery that

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Speaker 2: is actually remaking the formula about every 15 minutes. So

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Speaker 2: it takes temperature... humidity, irradiance, readings, and is reformulating based

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Speaker 2: on the actual conditions about every 15 minutes. There's like

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Speaker 2: a continuous batch mixing is what we call it.

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Speaker 1: And the reformulation is basically changing the ratio of whatever aggregate, water,

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Speaker 1: just the basic inputs. That's right.

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Speaker 2: And that, of course, allows you to operate at a

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Speaker 2: much longer timescale because traditionally in the concrete industry, like

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Speaker 2: if you use ready mix, it is set to the

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Speaker 2: parameters of a small few hour window on the day.

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Speaker 2: It's like, hey, if you don't use all this concrete

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Speaker 2: before it gets too hot, you've wasted it. You'd have

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Speaker 2: to change the formula. And so even if it on

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Speaker 2: paper looked like.

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Speaker 1: And it's basically just weather, like what the hotter it is,

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Speaker 1: the faster it sets.

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Speaker 2: Everything, the colder, the hotter, the more and less humid, right?

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Speaker 2: And so the concrete industry sort of designs mixes for

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Speaker 2: a very narrow set of environmental conditions. And we needed

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Speaker 2: to be able to operate continuously almost in any kind

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Speaker 2: of weather conditions. And so designing that system and all

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Speaker 2: the data and formulation that goes into that was probably

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Speaker 2: the most important breakthrough of the early years.

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Speaker 1: So you mentioned sustainability being a long-time interest of yours

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Speaker 1: and something you studied. I mean, I know that cement...

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Speaker 1: is very carbon intensive, right? Like by its nature, it's

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Speaker 1: actually quite a hard problem to solve. Like, how does

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Speaker 1: that fit? How does building houses out of cement like

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Speaker 1: fit with sustainability? Yeah, cement is an ingredient, but it's

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Speaker 1: not the whole house isn't cement. Cement is just a

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Speaker 1: small percentage of the actual ingredients in concrete. And so

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Speaker 1: when you think about housing sustainability, there's maybe a few

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Speaker 1: things to think about. One is like, the materials that

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Speaker 1: it's getting about, what's the environmental impact of the materials

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Speaker 1: that you're actually building with?

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Speaker 2: How long will that building last? So if something is,

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Speaker 2: you know, 20% more carbon, but you have to like

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Speaker 2: tear it down every 50 years and rebuild it. So

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Speaker 2: like the lifespan, like, and then the environmental impacts of

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Speaker 2: operating a building built with those materials, the energy efficiency,

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Speaker 2: the fire rating, wind rating, these kinds of things. So

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Speaker 2: we have worked very hard on our mix itself to

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Speaker 2: reduce the carbon emissions in our formulation of the concrete

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Speaker 2: that we use. Of course, concrete is much longer lasting

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Speaker 2: than a stick frame house in a drywall. Matter of fact,

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Speaker 2: if I offered your listeners a million dollar prize to

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Speaker 2: invent a building material lower quality than drywall that would

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Speaker 2: still pass building code, no one would win the prize.

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Speaker 2: It is literally the crappiest thing we can imagine to

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Speaker 2: build with. So you're already at a low carbon basis

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Speaker 2: relative to conventional construction methods. It's going to last much

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Speaker 2: longer and it is much more energy efficient. That's partly material.

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Speaker 2: It's partly the wall system that we've engineered that there's

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Speaker 2: no thermal bridging inside the wall system. We have a

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Speaker 2: You have like an exterior bead, an interior bead, and

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Speaker 2: then we're careful to make sure that those who never

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Speaker 2: touch and communicate heat and energy flows back and forth

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Speaker 2: to each other. And so input materials, environmental impact, operational

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Speaker 2: environmental impact spread over what time period. We sort of

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Speaker 2: win on all three fronts. And that took a lot

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Speaker 2: of work and thought and testing to get there.

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Speaker 1: How many houses have you built? Where are you in

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Speaker 1: the world now?

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Speaker 2: We are, let's see, sneaking up on 260 somewhere this week.

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Speaker 2: We're always out in the field. We're over 250. We'll

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Speaker 2: be sneaking up on 300 or so by the end

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Speaker 2: of the year and growing very rapidly.

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Speaker 1: So 300 isn't scale yet, right? I mean, I know

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Speaker 1: it's a lot, and not to belittle the work that

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Speaker 1: you have done. No. But it's 300 more houses than

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Speaker 1: I have built. But it's not like a meaningful number

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Speaker 1: in the context of even Texas, right? Much less the

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Speaker 1: United States.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, correct. The year that we did the largest single

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Speaker 2: project we've done to date, although we have some bigger

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Speaker 2: ones coming up that we'll be announcing soon, was this

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Speaker 2: 100-home 3D-printed community just north of Austin in Georgetown, Texas.

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Speaker 2: And that neighborhood was like a double-digit percentage of the

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Speaker 2: homes built in that community that year or whatever. But

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Speaker 2: you're right.

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Speaker 1: And are those just normal houses now? I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure more efficient, good-looking, whatever. But do people just live

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Speaker 1: there now?

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Speaker 2: It's amazing. If you walk out into that neighborhood, we

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Speaker 2: built it in partnership with Lenar, who's like the second

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Speaker 2: largest publicly traded builder in America. And for me, like,

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Speaker 2: to this day, I take people on tours out there

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Speaker 2: and to go into the middle of the neighborhood and turn, like,

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Speaker 2: everything you can see is 3D printed. And you're like, oh,

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Speaker 2: this does feel better. Like, there's a vibe. Like, of course,

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Speaker 2: the console.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks a little different, right? You can see

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Speaker 1: the sort of the lines of the layers.

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Speaker 2: Yes.

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Speaker 1: And they're more rounded. Those are the two just superficially

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Speaker 1: having looked, you know, on my laptop. Right. Those are

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Speaker 1: the two things you notice. They're more round and the

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Speaker 1: lines are a certain aesthetic.

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Speaker 2: Yep, that's right. It's kind of like brick has a

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Speaker 2: different aesthetic than wood has a different aesthetic. It definitely

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Speaker 2: has its own aesthetic.

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Speaker 1: And it looks like, is it right? Did those houses

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Speaker 1: sell for about what other houses in that area? Correct.

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Speaker 2: Lennar priced them at the same sort of entry-level to

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Speaker 2: mid-market pricing that they use on all of their— that' s sort

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Speaker 2: of all of Lennar's housing product.

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Speaker 1: Okay. Were they cheaper to build? Did Lennar have a

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Speaker 1: bigger margin on those houses.

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Speaker 2: Than on the stick-built houses in the neighborhood? the efficiencies

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Speaker 2: that were gained on that project, we actually used to

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Speaker 2: create a better house. So like they have a total

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Speaker 2: budget they're going for. It's kind of like, hey, what's

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Speaker 2: the best house we can build at this price point

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Speaker 2: with our budget? And so they use a lot of

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Speaker 2: the efficiencies to put a metal roof, All of the

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Speaker 2: houses are solar panels. So they sort of used it

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Speaker 2: that way. So like get more house at that price

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Speaker 2: point that you would typically get.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you could imagine people being a little skittish.

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Speaker 1: Like some people would be like excited to be kind

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Speaker 1: of early adopters, right? But being an early adopter on

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Speaker 1: a house is... is riskier than being an early adopter

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Speaker 1: on a phone, right? Like there's A, what if it

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Speaker 1: leaks or whatever? And then there's B, what if nobody

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Speaker 1: wants to buy it in 10 years when I want

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Speaker 1: to move, right? I could imagine those being reasonable concerns

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Speaker 1: that a homeowner might have.

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Speaker 2: Which is why it was like so important for us

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Speaker 2: to just to do a scaled up project because you

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Speaker 2: can do all the research that you're coming up with

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Speaker 2: is like, let's build a hundred houses and sell them

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Speaker 2: and see what's happening.

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Speaker 1: So what happened? Like, did people have those concerns?

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Speaker 2: They did. But of course, at that point, we had

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Speaker 2: like half a decade of like testing and test results

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Speaker 2: that we could show people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: It ended up being Lenar's number one selling community in

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Speaker 2: Texas that year. And again, and if you go out,

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Speaker 2: there's like all kinds of people. There's young people that

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Speaker 2: work at SpaceX. There's retired people. There's young families. So

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Speaker 2: it wasn't like this sort of early tech bro, whatever

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Speaker 2: you're thinking of early adopter looks like ended up being there.

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Speaker 2: number one selling community in Texas that year. It's had

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Speaker 2: their lowest warranty claims of any community so far. And

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Speaker 2: now the houses, you know, after three to five years,

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Speaker 2: some of them are beginning to, people are taking new jobs, moving, whatever.

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Speaker 2: Some of the houses have been resold since, and they

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Speaker 2: have appreciated like quite meaningfully, like $ 200, 000 plus in many

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Speaker 2: cases in just like a few years.

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Speaker 1: And how does that appreciation, how does that appreciation compare

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Speaker 1: to the appreciation of Traditionally built homes in the neighborhood.

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Speaker 2: Above market rate appreciation.

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Speaker 1: Oh, great.

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Speaker 2: Yes. Congratulations. And there's no way you could know ahead

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Speaker 2: of time, right? You just have to start building. But again.

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Speaker 2: I think the bar is so low in housing. I

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Speaker 2: don't want to throw any of my partners or whatever

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Speaker 2: under the bus. Housing might be one of the only things.

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Speaker 2: If you moved to Austin and you had your choice

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Speaker 2: between a brand spanking new house and a hundred-year-old house,

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Speaker 2: there is a very good chance that you would prefer

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Speaker 2: the 100-year-old house.

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Speaker 1: I have a 100-year-old house. I am actually not interested

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Speaker 1: in a brand new house.

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Speaker 2: What other product on earth is that?

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Speaker 1: I don't want a 100-year-old phone.

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Speaker 2: Or a 100-year-old airplane or car. It's kind of insane

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Speaker 2: that we've just accepted this.

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Speaker 1: It reveals how housing has failed to innovate.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes. A lot more work to do, but we

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Speaker 2: do believe you brought up scale earlier. I mean, there's

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Speaker 2: a lot we've had to prove. You had to make

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Speaker 2: the materials work. You had to make the robots work.

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Speaker 2: You had to make the architecture and the actually engineering

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Speaker 2: of the wall system work.

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Speaker 1: You had to get all these- Well, let me ask

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Speaker 1: you about other things you had to make work. Permits.

432
00:21:02,976 --> 00:21:05,676
Speaker 1: Tell me about permits. When I've talked to other people

433
00:21:05,736 --> 00:21:09,136
Speaker 1: about innovating in home construction, one of the constraints is

434
00:21:09,236 --> 00:21:12,226
Speaker 1: all these permits are just built around stick-built houses. And

435
00:21:12,236 --> 00:21:13,846
Speaker 1: they're like, you have to build a house like this.

436
00:21:14,066 --> 00:21:16,526
Speaker 1: And so everybody keeps building the same house. Is that

437
00:21:16,566 --> 00:21:17,226
Speaker 1: a problem for you?

438
00:21:18,046 --> 00:21:20,326
Speaker 2: Problem is probably too strong a word at this point. Again,

439
00:21:20,406 --> 00:21:22,706
Speaker 2: one of the reasons we used concrete in the beginning,

440
00:21:23,346 --> 00:21:26,326
Speaker 2: rather than an exotic foam or some kind of wood polymer-

441
00:21:27,016 --> 00:21:28,926
Speaker 2: is we have been building with concrete for a couple

442
00:21:28,966 --> 00:21:31,546
Speaker 2: thousand years. We forgot for a little while how to

443
00:21:31,586 --> 00:21:33,426
Speaker 2: do it when the Roman Empire fell and then remembered

444
00:21:33,466 --> 00:21:35,046
Speaker 2: again later. That's a side question.

445
00:21:35,066 --> 00:21:38,186
Speaker 1: The Romans were amazing at concrete. People are still studying

446
00:21:38,226 --> 00:21:40,106
Speaker 1: why Roman concrete is still so good.

447
00:21:40,246 --> 00:21:43,336
Speaker 2: The only material humans forgot how to make during what

448
00:21:43,376 --> 00:21:46,456
Speaker 2: we call the Dark Ages is concrete. We didn't lose woodworking.

449
00:21:46,516 --> 00:21:49,436
Speaker 2: We didn't lose metal. We didn't lose— we forgot how to

450
00:21:49,476 --> 00:21:52,236
Speaker 2: make concrete during the Dark Ages, and then we figured

451
00:21:52,256 --> 00:21:55,786
Speaker 2: it out again later. So it's a remarkable— It's hard

452
00:21:55,806 --> 00:21:59,326
Speaker 2: to imagine the modern world without it. It would actually

453
00:21:59,346 --> 00:22:01,226
Speaker 2: be more carbon intensive if you had to build everything

454
00:22:01,246 --> 00:22:05,466
Speaker 2: out of like wood and plastic and metal. Anyway, I digress.

455
00:22:05,766 --> 00:22:08,576
Speaker 1: There's more concrete than biomass in the world, right?

456
00:22:08,936 --> 00:22:12,936
Speaker 2: Yeah. The testing, but because concrete had been around so long,

457
00:22:13,316 --> 00:22:16,936
Speaker 2: there was this established precedence of building CMU block walls,

458
00:22:17,016 --> 00:22:19,236
Speaker 2: tilt wall concrete. And so in the early days, we

459
00:22:19,256 --> 00:22:22,806
Speaker 2: just kind of went into the slipstream of established precedence of,

460
00:22:23,686 --> 00:22:26,436
Speaker 2: of building with concrete. So we tried not to defy gravity,

461
00:22:26,476 --> 00:22:28,936
Speaker 2: just like show that we could pass all the certifications

462
00:22:28,956 --> 00:22:31,996
Speaker 2: you would otherwise require of a concrete wall while in

463
00:22:32,036 --> 00:22:36,456
Speaker 2: the background and in parallel working to establish specific guidelines

464
00:22:36,996 --> 00:22:39,556
Speaker 2: for 3D printed wall systems. And so we have successfully

465
00:22:39,576 --> 00:22:41,596
Speaker 2: done both. So we went to a new area and

466
00:22:41,636 --> 00:22:43,996
Speaker 2: before there was like building code on the books specifically

467
00:22:44,016 --> 00:22:46,056
Speaker 2: for 3D printing, we would just say, show us your

468
00:22:46,076 --> 00:22:50,336
Speaker 2: building code for CMU block walls or tilt wall concrete,

469
00:22:50,356 --> 00:22:53,166
Speaker 2: things like this, masonry style constructions. And we will show

470
00:22:53,206 --> 00:22:57,966
Speaker 2: you that we are as good or better, almost always better.

471
00:22:57,986 --> 00:23:02,786
Speaker 1: On whatever dimensions the code prescribes.

472
00:23:02,866 --> 00:23:05,986
Speaker 2: Exactly. We have now made a lot of progress, fast

473
00:23:06,006 --> 00:23:09,396
Speaker 2: forward eight years, both in the International Construction Code, the

474
00:23:09,416 --> 00:23:13,696
Speaker 2: International Residential Code, the American Concrete Institute, and others, establishing

475
00:23:13,756 --> 00:23:17,616
Speaker 2: good precedence for what a good safe 3d printed house

476
00:23:17,656 --> 00:23:20,696
Speaker 2: would be. Cause there was also a defensive part of the,

477
00:23:20,716 --> 00:23:22,316
Speaker 2: the offensive, like we want to build, but there was

478
00:23:22,336 --> 00:23:26,676
Speaker 2: also the defensive maneuver of if anybody else ever 3d

479
00:23:26,736 --> 00:23:29,096
Speaker 2: prints a house that falls over or hurts anyone in

480
00:23:29,176 --> 00:23:32,356
Speaker 2: any way that will blow back on us. Like we

481
00:23:32,396 --> 00:23:35,516
Speaker 2: have a real interest in like making sure even our

482
00:23:35,626 --> 00:23:40,186
Speaker 2: competitors are building very safely and very effectively, uh, if

483
00:23:40,226 --> 00:23:43,426
Speaker 2: that makes sense. And so, All of that is now,

484
00:23:43,686 --> 00:23:47,166
Speaker 2: there is established building code for 3D printing. There's established

485
00:23:47,226 --> 00:23:49,906
Speaker 2: guidance for all the mortgage makers in America. There's established

486
00:23:49,946 --> 00:23:54,206
Speaker 2: guidelines for insurance underwriters. And so any of our competitors

487
00:23:54,246 --> 00:23:56,726
Speaker 2: now benefit from all the work that we do on

488
00:23:56,766 --> 00:23:59,006
Speaker 2: that front. But it was a lot of work to do.

489
00:24:00,206 --> 00:24:03,756
Speaker 1: So you've done all that. And I mean, certainly compared

490
00:24:03,776 --> 00:24:07,716
Speaker 1: to that, 300 houses sounds like not that many. Like,

491
00:24:07,816 --> 00:24:13,036
Speaker 1: is there some... scale moment? What is the binding constraint

492
00:24:13,156 --> 00:24:16,176
Speaker 1: at this point? What is the rate limiting step?

493
00:24:16,236 --> 00:24:19,036
Speaker 2: This was the first year we ever turned down business

494
00:24:19,076 --> 00:24:21,856
Speaker 2: in the history of the company. There was more people

495
00:24:21,896 --> 00:24:23,736
Speaker 2: wanting us. First of all, the binding constraint was we

496
00:24:23,776 --> 00:24:26,836
Speaker 2: were not cheap enough. That first 3D printed house I

497
00:24:26,876 --> 00:24:29,536
Speaker 2: told you about in 2018, the printing was like over

498
00:24:29,536 --> 00:24:31,516
Speaker 2: $ 300 a square foot and it needed to be cheaper

499
00:24:31,576 --> 00:24:33,316
Speaker 2: than $ 30.

500
00:24:32,536 --> 00:24:35,726
Speaker 1: You got to have dudes standing there. Yeah, that's right.

501
00:24:35,886 --> 00:24:40,006
Speaker 2: So first binding was like, it actually has to be cheaper. Once,

502
00:24:40,226 --> 00:24:42,526
Speaker 2: and we sort of finally crossed under that, you know,

503
00:24:42,566 --> 00:24:45,446
Speaker 2: about 18 months ago or so. And then it was like,

504
00:24:45,526 --> 00:24:46,666
Speaker 2: and so this was the first year we had to

505
00:24:46,726 --> 00:24:49,746
Speaker 2: turn away business from some pretty great partners because we

506
00:24:49,766 --> 00:24:52,296
Speaker 2: just did not have enough printers to But we didn't

507
00:24:52,316 --> 00:24:55,386
Speaker 2: want to make more of the first generation printer, knowing

508
00:24:55,506 --> 00:24:58,746
Speaker 2: that the new printer is on the way. We'll still

509
00:24:58,786 --> 00:25:02,386
Speaker 2: grow like 300% this year, over 4X from last year.

510
00:25:02,426 --> 00:25:04,806
Speaker 2: And we'll more than double that again next year. So

511
00:25:04,826 --> 00:25:07,326
Speaker 2: it's still like very healthy growth. I think we will

512
00:25:07,446 --> 00:25:09,466
Speaker 2: very soon be graduating from like hundreds of homes a

513
00:25:09,486 --> 00:25:12,126
Speaker 2: year to thousands. But it really now is the binding

514
00:25:12,146 --> 00:25:15,406
Speaker 2: constraint is scaling up our production growth. Of the Titan printer,

515
00:25:15,466 --> 00:25:17,216
Speaker 2: the sort of multi-story robotic arm system.

516
00:25:17,236 --> 00:25:20,376
Speaker 1: Basically building the robot that builds the homes. That's what's

517
00:25:20,736 --> 00:25:21,256
Speaker 1: happening now. Correct.

518
00:25:21,276 --> 00:25:22,136
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it.

519
00:25:25,856 --> 00:25:39,546
Speaker 1: We'll be back in just a minute. What's the business model?

520
00:25:40,436 --> 00:25:43,486
Speaker 2: So the long-term business model since the beginning and remains,

521
00:25:44,146 --> 00:25:46,736
Speaker 2: we are developing technologies and tools, and we want to

522
00:25:46,766 --> 00:25:49,576
Speaker 2: put these tools into the hands of builders and developers

523
00:25:49,716 --> 00:25:52,246
Speaker 2: all over the world. And that kind of is like

524
00:25:52,286 --> 00:25:54,626
Speaker 2: this printers and ink model, right? We like sell you

525
00:25:55,026 --> 00:25:57,206
Speaker 2: the printer and then we sell you the ink. There's

526
00:25:57,306 --> 00:25:58,876
Speaker 2: also the software and the services and everything.

527
00:25:58,896 --> 00:26:01,316
Speaker 1: I don't say the printer, the ink model, though. Everybody

528
00:26:01,376 --> 00:26:02,876
Speaker 1: hates printers and ink, right?

529
00:26:03,636 --> 00:26:04,436
Speaker 2: But in this case.

530
00:26:05,736 --> 00:26:08,856
Speaker 1: So what like like what exactly is that going to mean?

531
00:26:08,876 --> 00:26:10,346
Speaker 1: Like you're going to sell the robots, you're going to

532
00:26:10,426 --> 00:26:12,226
Speaker 1: license like how is it going to work? You can

533
00:26:12,266 --> 00:26:14,246
Speaker 1: either buy it outright, you can finance it or you

534
00:26:14,266 --> 00:26:17,166
Speaker 1: can lease it. That is the program. And in this case,

535
00:26:17,206 --> 00:26:17,826
Speaker 1: the ink.

536
00:26:19,186 --> 00:26:21,186
Speaker 2: Is like having to buy the ink, so to speak,

537
00:26:21,946 --> 00:26:25,106
Speaker 2: is a great peace of mind to the reservation holders

538
00:26:25,136 --> 00:26:27,076
Speaker 2: we have so far because they don't have to do

539
00:26:28,056 --> 00:26:30,916
Speaker 2: eight years of testing. We spent over $ 30 million on

540
00:26:30,976 --> 00:26:34,176
Speaker 2: third party fire testing, wind testing, seismic testing, energy of

541
00:26:34,216 --> 00:26:37,846
Speaker 2: performance testing. You are getting a material that that you

542
00:26:37,896 --> 00:26:40,296
Speaker 2: know is backed by like now rounding up to a

543
00:26:40,416 --> 00:26:43,256
Speaker 2: decade of testing and research. And we're about one third

544
00:26:43,296 --> 00:26:45,456
Speaker 2: the cost of any other sort of 3D printing concrete

545
00:26:45,476 --> 00:26:47,976
Speaker 2: that's currently on the market. So it is cheaper and

546
00:26:47,996 --> 00:26:50,176
Speaker 2: just been through a lot more robust, rigorous testing. So

547
00:26:50,236 --> 00:26:52,396
Speaker 2: you can have the peace of mind that the things

548
00:26:52,436 --> 00:26:54,906
Speaker 2: you are building, in fact, will be safe, will be comfortable,

549
00:26:54,986 --> 00:26:56,946
Speaker 2: will be beautiful. If you look at the print quality

550
00:26:57,326 --> 00:26:59,756
Speaker 2: of some of our competitors, hard to believe you would

551
00:26:59,796 --> 00:27:01,506
Speaker 2: want to take a 30-year mortgage on some of it.

552
00:27:01,576 --> 00:27:03,406
Speaker 2: In fact, they have to cover it up often enough

553
00:27:03,446 --> 00:27:05,126
Speaker 2: because it's just like not looking good enough.

554
00:27:05,346 --> 00:27:08,766
Speaker 1: So just to be clear, the builder can basically buy

555
00:27:08,846 --> 00:27:11,546
Speaker 1: or lease the robot and then you sell them the

556
00:27:11,586 --> 00:27:12,526
Speaker 1: special concrete?

557
00:27:13,166 --> 00:27:15,606
Speaker 2: That's the essential nature. We also have a lot of

558
00:27:15,726 --> 00:27:17,806
Speaker 2: field support. Like we are like not going to let

559
00:27:17,846 --> 00:27:19,886
Speaker 2: our customers fail, right? We have a team of people

560
00:27:19,906 --> 00:27:22,826
Speaker 2: we call field engineers. who are like F1 repairs, like

561
00:27:22,866 --> 00:27:25,026
Speaker 2: get the car back on the track if anything goes wrong.

562
00:27:25,046 --> 00:27:29,596
Speaker 2: A software suite, like project management for robotic construction projects.

563
00:27:30,096 --> 00:27:32,996
Speaker 2: So we have a software system we call BuildOS. It's

564
00:27:33,036 --> 00:27:35,836
Speaker 2: a whole program, right? Because this is a whole new

565
00:27:35,926 --> 00:27:39,066
Speaker 2: way to build. It's not just a painting robot. Everything's

566
00:27:39,146 --> 00:27:42,146
Speaker 2: roughly the same, and this robot just shows up and paints.

567
00:27:42,546 --> 00:27:45,526
Speaker 2: This is a whole new way to build, design, permit,

568
00:27:46,226 --> 00:27:48,496
Speaker 2: and you kind of have to deliver the system fully formed.

569
00:27:49,346 --> 00:27:52,346
Speaker 2: And so that is the most important long-term business model.

570
00:27:52,546 --> 00:27:55,436
Speaker 2: In the background, most of our revenue to date has

571
00:27:55,496 --> 00:27:58,216
Speaker 2: come by us actually acting as the customer. We have

572
00:27:58,256 --> 00:28:02,536
Speaker 2: been designing and building buildings using our own technologies. That

573
00:28:02,576 --> 00:28:05,776
Speaker 2: was important because it was both like a finishing school

574
00:28:05,836 --> 00:28:08,186
Speaker 2: for the technology. Like, does it actually work? Like we

575
00:28:08,226 --> 00:28:10,106
Speaker 2: need to feel the pain of any problems that exist.

576
00:28:10,806 --> 00:28:13,206
Speaker 2: And it was a proof point to customers that you

577
00:28:13,226 --> 00:28:17,766
Speaker 2: can run a very powerful, very profitable construction business using

578
00:28:17,806 --> 00:28:20,786
Speaker 2: these technologies. And so- Now that we have that proof,

579
00:28:20,826 --> 00:28:24,906
Speaker 2: it has helped it again. Because, you know, we talked

580
00:28:24,926 --> 00:28:27,216
Speaker 2: about the homeowners earlier. They're betting their 30-year mortgage or

581
00:28:27,236 --> 00:28:28,816
Speaker 2: whatever that this is going to be a good house.

582
00:28:29,696 --> 00:28:32,816
Speaker 2: A builder or developer who buys into this system That's

583
00:28:32,856 --> 00:28:34,886
Speaker 2: the way they pay their mortgage. That's the way they

584
00:28:34,926 --> 00:28:37,146
Speaker 2: send their kids to college. I mean, that's a big

585
00:28:37,186 --> 00:28:39,386
Speaker 2: amount of belief to change from the way that they

586
00:28:39,406 --> 00:28:41,946
Speaker 2: are building to this entirely new way of building. And

587
00:28:41,966 --> 00:28:43,346
Speaker 2: so it felt like we had to sort of prove

588
00:28:43,386 --> 00:28:45,346
Speaker 2: it before we could ask people to take that bet.

589
00:28:45,386 --> 00:28:47,946
Speaker 2: And so that's the reason both to mature the product

590
00:28:48,226 --> 00:28:51,436
Speaker 2: and to show that, in fact, you can run a

591
00:28:51,476 --> 00:28:53,776
Speaker 2: very high performance construction company using these tools.

592
00:28:54,116 --> 00:28:56,556
Speaker 1: Tell me more about getting from hundreds of houses to

593
00:28:56,596 --> 00:28:59,396
Speaker 1: thousands of houses. Like how many houses do you think

594
00:28:59,416 --> 00:29:01,136
Speaker 1: you'll build next year and where?

595
00:29:01,556 --> 00:29:04,416
Speaker 2: I bet we will. So we will probably build as

596
00:29:04,516 --> 00:29:07,286
Speaker 2: many houses next year as we have built in the

597
00:29:07,306 --> 00:29:09,866
Speaker 2: whole history of the company to put together so far.

598
00:29:10,486 --> 00:29:12,106
Speaker 2: One of the big ways we're going to start scaling

599
00:29:12,146 --> 00:29:14,676
Speaker 2: up from there to thousands of houses is number one,

600
00:29:14,686 --> 00:29:16,966
Speaker 2: we've got to start manufacturing more of the robots. And

601
00:29:16,986 --> 00:29:18,946
Speaker 2: the number two is just start working in more markets.

602
00:29:18,986 --> 00:29:21,696
Speaker 2: We've essentially only been working in Texas so far, a

603
00:29:21,736 --> 00:29:24,696
Speaker 2: little bit in Mexico, some interesting far field projects with

604
00:29:24,716 --> 00:29:27,376
Speaker 2: the Department of Defense, now the Department of War. But

605
00:29:27,396 --> 00:29:31,716
Speaker 2: we're about to begin a rather aggressive expansion into multiple U.S.

606
00:29:31,776 --> 00:29:34,276
Speaker 2: markets and probably trailing that by about 18 months is

607
00:29:34,316 --> 00:29:37,446
Speaker 2: multiple global markets. And so simply increasing the surface area

608
00:29:38,236 --> 00:29:40,836
Speaker 2: of our work, very naturally, we'll scale it up, right?

609
00:29:40,876 --> 00:29:44,176
Speaker 2: If you can do several thousand houses in Texas, if

610
00:29:44,196 --> 00:29:47,186
Speaker 2: you're in 10 markets, you should certainly be moving from

611
00:29:47,206 --> 00:29:49,006
Speaker 2: the hundreds of the thousands, ultimately to the tens of

612
00:29:49,046 --> 00:29:51,436
Speaker 2: thousands of homes per year. And I think that's the

613
00:29:51,476 --> 00:29:53,396
Speaker 2: kind of scale you got to be working at to

614
00:29:53,436 --> 00:29:55,636
Speaker 2: start making a dent in the problems that we care about.

615
00:29:56,456 --> 00:30:00,136
Speaker 1: There are lots of different ways, theoretically, to build houses.

616
00:30:00,316 --> 00:30:02,116
Speaker 1: I know you said, you know, you looked at the

617
00:30:02,156 --> 00:30:06,576
Speaker 1: long list and decided that 3D printing was the best

618
00:30:06,676 --> 00:30:10,976
Speaker 1: based on the constraints or variables you were trying to

619
00:30:11,076 --> 00:30:15,746
Speaker 1: optimize for. But I'm curious, like, if you imagine a

620
00:30:15,886 --> 00:30:18,546
Speaker 1: kind of dream world, like, is everybody living in 3D

621
00:30:18,586 --> 00:30:23,546
Speaker 1: printed houses? Are there other underused construction methods that are

622
00:30:23,586 --> 00:30:26,746
Speaker 1: good in certain settings? Like, what's, you know, dream big.

623
00:30:26,786 --> 00:30:29,106
Speaker 1: What does the world look like? What do houses look like?

624
00:30:29,186 --> 00:30:32,626
Speaker 2: Maybe it's my old conservation biology roots from my university days,

625
00:30:32,646 --> 00:30:37,426
Speaker 2: but I'm, like, rather allergic to, like, monoculture in agriculture,

626
00:30:37,546 --> 00:30:41,486
Speaker 2: in ecology, and even in building. Like, part of what

627
00:30:41,526 --> 00:30:44,156
Speaker 2: gives me an allergic reaction to the way that builders

628
00:30:44,196 --> 00:30:46,256
Speaker 2: are often building today is like the lack of diversity,

629
00:30:46,436 --> 00:30:50,196
Speaker 2: the lack of aesthetic diversity, architectural diversity. And so I

630
00:30:50,216 --> 00:30:53,436
Speaker 2: would say my romantic dream is for 3D printing to

631
00:30:53,496 --> 00:30:57,516
Speaker 2: take its place alongside the other primary ways of building

632
00:30:59,496 --> 00:31:02,646
Speaker 2: that humanity currently has. And then my goal would be

633
00:31:02,966 --> 00:31:05,266
Speaker 2: among those ways of building that 3D printing would be

634
00:31:05,326 --> 00:31:10,366
Speaker 2: the fastest, most beautiful, most affordable, most resilient way of

635
00:31:10,406 --> 00:31:13,116
Speaker 2: building that And that the only reason you would go

636
00:31:13,316 --> 00:31:16,146
Speaker 2: for any other direction is just like a simple aesthetic preference.

637
00:31:16,166 --> 00:31:18,036
Speaker 2: Like I just liked the way a log cabin looks,

638
00:31:18,206 --> 00:31:21,946
Speaker 2: you know, like would be a fine reason. Um, but

639
00:31:22,006 --> 00:31:24,126
Speaker 2: really to be like the best way of building, uh,

640
00:31:24,726 --> 00:31:27,566
Speaker 2: by all of the major criterion, uh, is my goal

641
00:31:27,586 --> 00:31:29,986
Speaker 2: for this company. And I do hope to see a

642
00:31:30,026 --> 00:31:34,906
Speaker 2: world in which, uh, first like a lot, and then

643
00:31:34,946 --> 00:31:38,726
Speaker 2: maybe even eventually the majority of new construction happening, uh,

644
00:31:38,806 --> 00:31:40,646
Speaker 2: is with 3d printers. And I hope that happens in

645
00:31:40,686 --> 00:31:41,266
Speaker 2: my lifetime.

646
00:31:42,066 --> 00:31:44,726
Speaker 1: Let's talk about modular housing for just a sec, like

647
00:31:44,826 --> 00:31:48,046
Speaker 1: building houses in factories, basically, and assembling them on site. Like,

648
00:31:48,496 --> 00:31:51,276
Speaker 1: that goes back, you know, at least to Buckminster Fuller,

649
00:31:51,696 --> 00:31:55,176
Speaker 1: and you had Sears selling kit houses, what, about 100

650
00:31:55,176 --> 00:31:58,796
Speaker 1: years ago now? And... That one, at a certain level,

651
00:31:59,016 --> 00:32:01,836
Speaker 1: makes sense to me. Obviously, it has not taken off,

652
00:32:01,956 --> 00:32:04,976
Speaker 1: and there is a kind of stigma attached to modular

653
00:32:05,016 --> 00:32:08,616
Speaker 1: houses in some context. But factories are good at making

654
00:32:08,696 --> 00:32:12,156
Speaker 1: things at scale and cheaply. Like, is there a place

655
00:32:12,236 --> 00:32:14,396
Speaker 1: in the world for beautiful modular houses, or do you

656
00:32:14,416 --> 00:32:15,886
Speaker 1: think there's, like, a fatal flaw there?

657
00:32:15,926 --> 00:32:18,686
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, first of all, there's enough innovation that

658
00:32:18,706 --> 00:32:21,926
Speaker 2: needs to happen in housing and construction that, like, I'm

659
00:32:21,966 --> 00:32:24,406
Speaker 2: happy to see people try all kinds of experiments like

660
00:32:24,726 --> 00:32:28,746
Speaker 2: may a thousand flowers bloom kind of opportunity. But you're right.

661
00:32:28,786 --> 00:32:30,706
Speaker 2: We have tried this a number of times and I

662
00:32:30,766 --> 00:32:32,726
Speaker 2: examined it when we were starting Icon. Like I thought

663
00:32:32,846 --> 00:32:36,016
Speaker 2: very seriously about like, should this be what we do here?

664
00:32:36,136 --> 00:32:37,916
Speaker 2: If you sort of look at the long arc of

665
00:32:37,956 --> 00:32:41,196
Speaker 2: people trying to factory or build homes inside of a

666
00:32:41,236 --> 00:32:45,416
Speaker 2: factory here ends up being the problem. Number one, uh,

667
00:32:47,196 --> 00:32:50,816
Speaker 2: to really get the efficiencies of factory production. It's about

668
00:32:50,956 --> 00:32:54,616
Speaker 2: repeated tasks of the same part or system. And so

669
00:32:54,656 --> 00:32:57,096
Speaker 2: you actually have this aesthetic problem. Like it looks good

670
00:32:57,116 --> 00:32:59,036
Speaker 2: at like, hey, we could make five houses, 10 houses,

671
00:32:59,036 --> 00:33:01,846
Speaker 2: 20 houses, and these like look really cool, but you

672
00:33:01,926 --> 00:33:05,006
Speaker 2: need like a million people to want the exact same house.

673
00:33:05,886 --> 00:33:07,966
Speaker 2: And so it sort of runs into this, everybody doesn't

674
00:33:08,006 --> 00:33:09,246
Speaker 2: want the exact same house.

675
00:33:09,636 --> 00:33:11,996
Speaker 1: I mean, is there not some kind of Lego version

676
00:33:12,036 --> 00:33:12,376
Speaker 1: of that?

677
00:33:12,456 --> 00:33:14,496
Speaker 2: You still are sort of limited to your modules and

678
00:33:14,516 --> 00:33:17,036
Speaker 2: they all end up rhyming with each other enough aesthetically

679
00:33:17,056 --> 00:33:20,166
Speaker 2: that it just, I don't think I'm like conjecturing here.

680
00:33:20,186 --> 00:33:22,726
Speaker 2: Like it has not, like humans haven't wanted it. And

681
00:33:22,966 --> 00:33:26,086
Speaker 2: aesthetics has been like one of the reasons. The second

682
00:33:26,146 --> 00:33:26,446
Speaker 2: one is.

683
00:33:27,016 --> 00:33:28,496
Speaker 1: Wait, let me just say one more thing there, if

684
00:33:28,556 --> 00:33:32,096
Speaker 1: I might. I mean, I grew up in Southern California, and,

685
00:33:32,596 --> 00:33:34,236
Speaker 1: you know, it was like a small town when I

686
00:33:34,276 --> 00:33:36,776
Speaker 1: was born, and then now it's full of subdivisions. All

687
00:33:36,816 --> 00:33:39,606
Speaker 1: those subdivisions look the same to me. Like, they weren't

688
00:33:39,626 --> 00:33:41,946
Speaker 1: built in factories, but I feel like people do often

689
00:33:41,966 --> 00:33:43,346
Speaker 1: want a million of the same house.

690
00:33:43,826 --> 00:33:46,346
Speaker 2: Well, so that was first. Reason number one is they

691
00:33:46,386 --> 00:33:48,906
Speaker 2: didn't have a differentiated approach to aesthetics.

692
00:33:49,246 --> 00:33:49,506
Speaker 1: Okay.

693
00:33:50,006 --> 00:33:54,126
Speaker 2: Reason number two is this sort of capital expense problem.

694
00:33:54,596 --> 00:33:56,906
Speaker 2: because you're going to be shipping a house. It's expensive

695
00:33:56,946 --> 00:33:59,906
Speaker 2: to ship a refrigerator. It's very expensive to ship a house.

696
00:34:00,246 --> 00:34:02,986
Speaker 2: And so often all the savings you got from the automation,

697
00:34:03,026 --> 00:34:06,266
Speaker 2: you surrendered back in shipping cost, or you needed to

698
00:34:06,286 --> 00:34:08,936
Speaker 2: build a factory every 500 miles. And so there was

699
00:34:08,956 --> 00:34:12,896
Speaker 2: like an economic problem with shipping versus the expense of

700
00:34:12,936 --> 00:34:15,116
Speaker 2: building new factories closer to market, things like that. And

701
00:34:15,136 --> 00:34:18,476
Speaker 2: then the third problem is a product problem is like,

702
00:34:18,976 --> 00:34:21,706
Speaker 2: because you have to ship these houses, you end up

703
00:34:21,736 --> 00:34:24,976
Speaker 2: at some level having to optimize the house for a truck.

704
00:34:25,896 --> 00:34:28,196
Speaker 2: And houses aren't for trucks, they're for people. The product

705
00:34:28,216 --> 00:34:31,176
Speaker 2: should be optimized for people, not a road. And so

706
00:34:31,236 --> 00:34:34,206
Speaker 2: those three things put together, I think, are the three

707
00:34:34,226 --> 00:34:36,906
Speaker 2: things you would have to solve if you really wanted

708
00:34:36,926 --> 00:34:41,866
Speaker 2: a modular construction company to work. But 3D printing, in

709
00:34:41,906 --> 00:34:44,696
Speaker 2: a sense, we just kind of inverted the problem. We said, hey,

710
00:34:45,916 --> 00:34:49,086
Speaker 2: instead of shipping the house, ship the factory. Like a

711
00:34:49,086 --> 00:34:50,766
Speaker 2: 3D printer, another funny way to think about a 3D

712
00:34:50,866 --> 00:34:54,006
Speaker 2: printer is it's a bespoke housing factory. The factory shows

713
00:34:54,066 --> 00:34:55,806
Speaker 2: up on the job site because it's a lot easier

714
00:34:55,846 --> 00:34:58,966
Speaker 2: to ship a robot. And then you leave all this

715
00:34:59,046 --> 00:35:02,066
Speaker 2: design freedom, but it's automated in every way that a

716
00:35:02,086 --> 00:35:04,986
Speaker 2: factory is automated. And so maybe it's easier to ship

717
00:35:05,026 --> 00:35:07,206
Speaker 2: factories and then leave a lot of design freedom than

718
00:35:07,226 --> 00:35:09,626
Speaker 2: it is to like fix the factory and ship a house.

719
00:35:09,646 --> 00:35:11,426
Speaker 2: And so we kind of just inverted the problem because it's,

720
00:35:12,296 --> 00:35:13,976
Speaker 2: but it's sort of coming at the same thing. It's like,

721
00:35:14,046 --> 00:35:17,516
Speaker 2: we need automation here to drive down cross and increase quality.

722
00:35:18,116 --> 00:35:20,616
Speaker 1: So you're at this moment when it seems like you've

723
00:35:20,676 --> 00:35:23,856
Speaker 1: proven that the thing you're building works and that people

724
00:35:23,936 --> 00:35:27,626
Speaker 1: want to buy it, importantly, and that banks will lend

725
00:35:27,666 --> 00:35:32,186
Speaker 1: against it. What do you worry about? Like, if something's

726
00:35:32,206 --> 00:35:35,186
Speaker 1: going to go wrong for you in the next few years,

727
00:35:35,286 --> 00:35:36,226
Speaker 1: what do you think it'll be?

728
00:35:36,846 --> 00:35:40,346
Speaker 2: So far, we've been so close to everything we've done, right? Like,

729
00:35:40,366 --> 00:35:43,026
Speaker 2: we were there— Uh, we were just like close to

730
00:35:43,086 --> 00:35:45,546
Speaker 2: our problems, both literally in terms of our business model,

731
00:35:45,586 --> 00:35:48,026
Speaker 2: and then literally in terms of geographically, the market we

732
00:35:48,066 --> 00:35:48,706
Speaker 2: were working in.

733
00:35:48,986 --> 00:35:51,256
Speaker 1: Like you could just drive out there every day. Yeah.

734
00:35:51,516 --> 00:35:54,296
Speaker 2: The engineers could be there. I could be there. I'm

735
00:35:54,376 --> 00:35:57,096
Speaker 2: often on every single project, uh, that we have going

736
00:35:57,336 --> 00:35:59,676
Speaker 2: at any given time. And so we're going to have

737
00:35:59,696 --> 00:36:01,296
Speaker 2: to learn these new things. Number one of just like

738
00:36:01,586 --> 00:36:04,286
Speaker 2: the manufacturing side of manufacturing robots, but all of that

739
00:36:04,346 --> 00:36:06,446
Speaker 2: in service of like spreading this out, putting these things

740
00:36:06,486 --> 00:36:09,006
Speaker 2: into the hands of other builders, other developers, other markets.

741
00:36:10,246 --> 00:36:12,426
Speaker 2: And I'm sure we're going to have to learn some

742
00:36:12,506 --> 00:36:15,306
Speaker 2: lessons about how to support this new way of building

743
00:36:15,916 --> 00:36:17,456
Speaker 2: as it spreads out, or we can't just be at

744
00:36:17,516 --> 00:36:19,616
Speaker 2: every single project every day, or I certainly can't be

745
00:36:19,636 --> 00:36:20,816
Speaker 2: at every project. And so that's going to be like

746
00:36:20,856 --> 00:36:24,046
Speaker 2: a new thing for us. Like, There hasn't been a

747
00:36:24,066 --> 00:36:25,666
Speaker 2: single thing we've printed in the history of the company

748
00:36:25,686 --> 00:36:28,706
Speaker 2: that I haven't been there. But of course, this business

749
00:36:28,766 --> 00:36:32,206
Speaker 2: is going to have to outscale my capabilities as a human.

750
00:36:32,226 --> 00:36:34,666
Speaker 2: And so that will be a new thing that feels

751
00:36:34,996 --> 00:36:36,226
Speaker 2: like we've got some lessons to learn.

752
00:36:36,356 --> 00:36:40,916
Speaker 1: Speaking of a construction site you can't be on, when

753
00:36:40,936 --> 00:36:42,756
Speaker 1: are you going to build something on the moon?

754
00:36:43,736 --> 00:36:44,256
Speaker 2: Very funny.

755
00:36:44,696 --> 00:36:44,916
Speaker 1: Yeah.

756
00:36:44,936 --> 00:36:49,656
Speaker 2: So we hold currently the contract with NASA to develop

757
00:36:49,696 --> 00:36:54,206
Speaker 2: the lunar construction system. because we made in 2018 a

758
00:36:54,906 --> 00:36:57,526
Speaker 2: very similar pitch to NASA, but re sort of purpose

759
00:36:57,546 --> 00:36:59,246
Speaker 2: for the moon. It's like, Hey, you know, in my

760
00:36:59,286 --> 00:37:02,466
Speaker 2: master's degree, it was in space resources, specifically lunar construction.

761
00:37:03,646 --> 00:37:06,666
Speaker 2: And it was like, Hey, here's our ideas about building

762
00:37:06,706 --> 00:37:08,436
Speaker 2: on the moon. Number one, it has to be robot.

763
00:37:08,456 --> 00:37:10,376
Speaker 2: So all these ideas of like humans up there with

764
00:37:10,416 --> 00:37:13,346
Speaker 2: hammers and special space tools, like I just don't believe it.

765
00:37:13,376 --> 00:37:15,496
Speaker 2: Human space flight is four times more expensive than a

766
00:37:15,516 --> 00:37:17,216
Speaker 2: robotic mission. Like we're never going to, it's too expensive

767
00:37:17,256 --> 00:37:20,056
Speaker 2: and too dangerous. We'll never have a moon base. Number two,

768
00:37:20,786 --> 00:37:23,606
Speaker 2: You have to learn to live off the land. All

769
00:37:23,626 --> 00:37:26,116
Speaker 2: of the ideas that I could see involved bringing everything

770
00:37:26,136 --> 00:37:29,056
Speaker 2: from earth, bringing this habitat, bringing this landing pad, bringing

771
00:37:29,096 --> 00:37:33,686
Speaker 2: this reactor shield from earth. It is like $ 100, 000 a

772
00:37:33,846 --> 00:37:37,026
Speaker 2: pound to land something on the lunar surface. And if

773
00:37:37,046 --> 00:37:39,266
Speaker 2: you have to spend a billion dollars every time you

774
00:37:39,306 --> 00:37:41,186
Speaker 2: want to build a tiny house, again, we're never going

775
00:37:41,206 --> 00:37:42,826
Speaker 2: to have a moon base that way. We have to

776
00:37:42,906 --> 00:37:45,796
Speaker 2: learn to use the local things that are already there,

777
00:37:46,256 --> 00:37:48,836
Speaker 2: just like all of the other explorers from history, right?

778
00:37:48,856 --> 00:37:51,456
Speaker 2: When the Europeans first landed on this continent, the ones

779
00:37:51,496 --> 00:37:53,856
Speaker 2: that tried to bring Europe with them, they died during

780
00:37:53,876 --> 00:37:56,156
Speaker 2: the first winter. It was the ones who learned to

781
00:37:56,236 --> 00:37:58,576
Speaker 2: live off the local resources that truly flourish. And I

782
00:37:58,616 --> 00:38:04,246
Speaker 2: think that will apply to the moon as well, especially... financially.

783
00:38:04,266 --> 00:38:09,126
Speaker 2: And then number three, in the early days, versatility beat specialization.

784
00:38:09,286 --> 00:38:11,126
Speaker 2: So at the time, there were all these like, here's

785
00:38:11,166 --> 00:38:13,826
Speaker 2: a habitat system, here's a road paving system, here's a

786
00:38:13,886 --> 00:38:17,126
Speaker 2: landing pad system. Any space system you're going to develop

787
00:38:17,166 --> 00:38:19,816
Speaker 2: is going to cost between several hundred million and several

788
00:38:19,856 --> 00:38:24,416
Speaker 2: billion dollars. It's like, what we need is one multi-purpose

789
00:38:24,436 --> 00:38:27,786
Speaker 2: system that you can send up multiple units of it

790
00:38:27,846 --> 00:38:32,726
Speaker 2: that can build all major elements of lunar construction, landing pads, roadways, habitats,

791
00:38:32,806 --> 00:38:36,466
Speaker 2: reactor shields, foundations, you name it. And so robots that

792
00:38:36,506 --> 00:38:40,086
Speaker 2: are multipurpose that are designed to use local resources. So

793
00:38:40,106 --> 00:38:42,466
Speaker 2: they funded us. And that's what we've been researching and developing.

794
00:38:42,506 --> 00:38:45,536
Speaker 2: And we've passed all of our testing with flying colors.

795
00:38:45,576 --> 00:38:47,596
Speaker 2: And the next step for us is to send something

796
00:38:47,636 --> 00:38:49,556
Speaker 2: up to the lunar service and prove it on the

797
00:38:49,596 --> 00:38:51,956
Speaker 2: moon because we've done basically everything you can do to

798
00:38:52,016 --> 00:38:52,676
Speaker 2: prove it on Earth.

799
00:38:54,296 --> 00:38:57,796
Speaker 1: So is the basic idea you have some version of

800
00:38:57,836 --> 00:38:59,876
Speaker 1: your robot and then you send it to the moon

801
00:39:00,356 --> 00:39:04,566
Speaker 1: and then it uses the regolith, the right word, the

802
00:39:04,626 --> 00:39:06,826
Speaker 1: dust that's on the surface of the moon as like

803
00:39:06,846 --> 00:39:10,226
Speaker 1: the fundamental input for the building material and you 3D

804
00:39:10,286 --> 00:39:11,946
Speaker 1: print a moon base out of that?

805
00:39:12,166 --> 00:39:15,566
Speaker 2: That's exactly correct. You want to use the, good job

806
00:39:15,586 --> 00:39:19,546
Speaker 2: knowing the word regolith, but moon dust to the layperson. Yeah.

807
00:39:20,376 --> 00:39:21,616
Speaker 2: And that's it. You want to use that as your

808
00:39:21,696 --> 00:39:25,076
Speaker 2: only input. So it's not going to be a concrete.

809
00:39:25,116 --> 00:39:26,696
Speaker 2: So we use a laser-based system.

810
00:39:27,136 --> 00:39:29,456
Speaker 1: Because it's too expensive to bring water.

811
00:39:29,196 --> 00:39:31,626
Speaker 2: To the moon. And if you had a water-based concrete,

812
00:39:31,666 --> 00:39:33,886
Speaker 2: you would tear the wall apart to get the water out.

813
00:39:33,946 --> 00:39:36,306
Speaker 2: Water is so precious in space. It would be like

814
00:39:36,346 --> 00:39:38,326
Speaker 2: building out a platinum on Earth. It's like the most

815
00:39:38,406 --> 00:39:40,636
Speaker 2: precious thing you can imagine. And so you melt it

816
00:39:40,676 --> 00:39:43,236
Speaker 2: with a laser and then you cool it down so

817
00:39:43,256 --> 00:39:47,236
Speaker 2: that the molecules have time to form like a crystal

818
00:39:47,316 --> 00:39:49,496
Speaker 2: structure that is like a ceramic and much stronger.

819
00:39:51,016 --> 00:39:52,956
Speaker 1: Almost like the way you'd work with metal or something.

820
00:39:52,976 --> 00:39:55,906
Speaker 1: You turn it into sort of molten dust or something.

821
00:39:56,026 --> 00:39:57,666
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you melt it and then control the rate

822
00:39:57,686 --> 00:39:58,106
Speaker 2: of cooling.

823
00:39:58,766 --> 00:40:03,486
Speaker 1: Just glass, yeah. Have you tried that, like, in a lab?

824
00:40:03,546 --> 00:40:05,126
Speaker 1: Is that obviously going to work?

825
00:40:05,146 --> 00:40:07,386
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have our own dirty thermal vacuum chamber here

826
00:40:07,426 --> 00:40:09,446
Speaker 2: at the lab. We have done it multiple times in

827
00:40:09,486 --> 00:40:12,456
Speaker 2: vacuum at, like, every temperature range we would expect to

828
00:40:12,496 --> 00:40:14,936
Speaker 2: find on the moon. Then NASA put us through the

829
00:40:14,976 --> 00:40:18,776
Speaker 2: test in their large dirty thermal vacuum chamber called V20.

830
00:40:18,976 --> 00:40:22,566
Speaker 2: And we had a threshold goal and a stretch goal.

831
00:40:22,666 --> 00:40:26,306
Speaker 2: We exceeded our stretch goal for compressive strength and tensile

832
00:40:26,346 --> 00:40:30,646
Speaker 2: strength by 2x. And so, again, we've sort of done

833
00:40:30,746 --> 00:40:33,036
Speaker 2: everything we can do on Earth. The next step for

834
00:40:33,156 --> 00:40:34,376
Speaker 2: us is to go prove it on the moon.

835
00:40:35,726 --> 00:40:38,726
Speaker 1: I love the phrase dirty thermal vacuum chamber. I feel

836
00:40:38,746 --> 00:40:42,116
Speaker 1: like some Austin band should call themselves dirty thermal vacuum chamber.

837
00:40:42,136 --> 00:40:44,216
Speaker 2: Somebody should start a metal band called Dirty Thermal Vacuum

838
00:40:44,236 --> 00:40:45,826
Speaker 2: Chamber for sure. Yeah.

839
00:40:46,616 --> 00:40:49,936
Speaker 1: Is there any time frame for you actually, you know,

840
00:40:50,076 --> 00:40:52,256
Speaker 1: doing some kind of preliminary building on the moon or

841
00:40:52,316 --> 00:40:53,296
Speaker 1: is that still too far out?

842
00:40:53,936 --> 00:40:57,756
Speaker 2: No, we have NASA's stated goal is to begin early

843
00:40:57,796 --> 00:41:02,936
Speaker 2: demonstration construction between 2028 and 2032. So we will be

844
00:41:02,976 --> 00:41:05,356
Speaker 2: ready as early as 2028. There's a lot of other

845
00:41:05,396 --> 00:41:07,646
Speaker 2: things that have to happen for us to go like that.

846
00:41:07,976 --> 00:41:09,776
Speaker 2: Right now, we don't have a lunar lander that works.

847
00:41:09,796 --> 00:41:12,686
Speaker 2: There's no there's no transportation to the lunar surface right now.

848
00:41:12,726 --> 00:41:15,486
Speaker 2: So that has to come true. We need power communication

849
00:41:15,526 --> 00:41:17,636
Speaker 2: on the moon, etc. But we're going to be ready

850
00:41:17,676 --> 00:41:19,436
Speaker 2: as soon as 2028, and hopefully the rest of the

851
00:41:19,476 --> 00:41:20,156
Speaker 2: timelines hold.

852
00:41:21,096 --> 00:41:23,096
Speaker 1: So I just want to go back to Earth for

853
00:41:23,136 --> 00:41:26,896
Speaker 1: a minute. Like, the moon is cool, but Earth is

854
00:41:26,976 --> 00:41:29,376
Speaker 1: cooler to me. Like, if you could build lots of

855
00:41:29,416 --> 00:41:31,626
Speaker 1: houses that are beautiful and cheap on Earth, I would

856
00:41:31,666 --> 00:41:34,606
Speaker 1: take that over a moon base if I had to choose.

857
00:41:36,006 --> 00:41:39,646
Speaker 1: Is there, like, how are you doing on cost?

858
00:41:41,026 --> 00:41:46,146
Speaker 2: Yeah, so with our first-generation system, we are... Uh, 10

859
00:41:46,146 --> 00:41:50,416
Speaker 2: to 15% cheaper than conventional construction with our second generation system.

860
00:41:50,456 --> 00:41:54,876
Speaker 2: We are 40% cheaper and seven times faster than conventional construction.

861
00:41:55,516 --> 00:41:57,816
Speaker 2: And I'm glad you pose a like moon versus earth

862
00:41:57,876 --> 00:42:01,516
Speaker 2: is these things are often posited as like a one

863
00:42:01,636 --> 00:42:05,156
Speaker 2: or the other. But we're in a situation with construction

864
00:42:05,176 --> 00:42:08,466
Speaker 2: where we like have to push the frontier of what's possible.

865
00:42:09,086 --> 00:42:11,426
Speaker 2: And the moon in outer space is the double black

866
00:42:11,486 --> 00:42:15,386
Speaker 2: diamond for material efficiency, energy efficiency, autonomy, all the things

867
00:42:15,446 --> 00:42:18,636
Speaker 2: we need to do. And in fact, if you look

868
00:42:19,056 --> 00:42:22,176
Speaker 2: at our lunar printer and our second generation Titan printer,

869
00:42:22,956 --> 00:42:26,016
Speaker 2: they look a lot closer. They're the same sort of architecture.

870
00:42:26,036 --> 00:42:29,916
Speaker 2: And that's not by accident. It was because of figuring

871
00:42:29,936 --> 00:42:31,366
Speaker 2: out how to build on the moon informed the way

872
00:42:31,406 --> 00:42:35,526
Speaker 2: we build on earth. Our control software was first written

873
00:42:35,546 --> 00:42:38,926
Speaker 2: by for our lunar printer. Our mission control software that

874
00:42:38,966 --> 00:42:41,326
Speaker 2: we now use to operate all of our printer fleet

875
00:42:41,346 --> 00:42:44,986
Speaker 2: was first written for a NASA contract. And so, in fact,

876
00:42:45,506 --> 00:42:49,166
Speaker 2: there are more homeless people in housing in Austin at

877
00:42:49,246 --> 00:42:52,406
Speaker 2: lower cost because we have a space program than there

878
00:42:52,446 --> 00:42:55,666
Speaker 2: would be had we sort of kept our aperture really narrow.

879
00:42:55,866 --> 00:42:57,626
Speaker 2: Because what you really just need to do is mature

880
00:42:57,666 --> 00:43:01,926
Speaker 2: this technology as fast as possible and upgrade human capability.

881
00:43:02,126 --> 00:43:05,316
Speaker 2: And that's what space and a frontier condition have always

882
00:43:05,356 --> 00:43:08,476
Speaker 2: been good for in terms of human progress and human innovation.

883
00:43:08,496 --> 00:43:10,896
Speaker 2: And so I don't think these things are a dilemma.

884
00:43:10,916 --> 00:43:12,216
Speaker 2: I think it's a false dilemma. It's like.

885
00:43:13,096 --> 00:43:15,566
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like the analogy that comes to mind there

886
00:43:15,776 --> 00:43:21,006
Speaker 1: is chips in the 60s, right? Like Silicon Valley was

887
00:43:21,106 --> 00:43:23,966
Speaker 1: funded by NASA at the beginning, and they learned to

888
00:43:24,006 --> 00:43:28,676
Speaker 1: build chips to go on rocket ships at the beginning, right? Like,

889
00:43:28,696 --> 00:43:30,316
Speaker 1: that's the analogy that comes through.

890
00:43:30,476 --> 00:43:32,746
Speaker 2: Or you could just do a thousand of these, like sailing,

891
00:43:32,786 --> 00:43:34,986
Speaker 2: and you're like, we wouldn't, like, the reason we have

892
00:43:35,086 --> 00:43:37,726
Speaker 2: clocks is It was because sailors needed to know where

893
00:43:37,746 --> 00:43:38,306
Speaker 2: they were on.

894
00:43:38,266 --> 00:43:41,376
Speaker 1: Earth, right? Clocks without pendulums, right? Clocks that work on

895
00:43:41,396 --> 00:43:41,836
Speaker 1: a ship. That's right.

896
00:43:41,876 --> 00:43:46,316
Speaker 2: And so, like, how many human benefits have come from

897
00:43:46,556 --> 00:43:50,296
Speaker 2: being able to keep accurate time? Like, for example, and

898
00:43:50,756 --> 00:43:52,256
Speaker 2: there could have been an argument like, well, we should

899
00:43:52,296 --> 00:43:54,796
Speaker 2: just sort of stay here. Like, this is all scary

900
00:43:54,816 --> 00:43:57,186
Speaker 2: and too expensive and too many lives lost or whatever.

901
00:43:57,606 --> 00:43:59,846
Speaker 2: Maybe we should just stay on the shore. But it's

902
00:43:59,906 --> 00:44:03,316
Speaker 2: by always sort of pushing into Frontier's That these like

903
00:44:03,396 --> 00:44:07,786
Speaker 2: innovations and like step function changes have come in human

904
00:44:07,846 --> 00:44:10,906
Speaker 2: capabilities that have raised the waterline for everyone. And I

905
00:44:11,026 --> 00:44:12,826
Speaker 2: think space exploration is the same thing.

906
00:44:13,526 --> 00:44:17,066
Speaker 1: You mentioned a minute ago that there are homeless people

907
00:44:17,166 --> 00:44:20,526
Speaker 1: who have houses because of your work like. What specifically

908
00:44:20,566 --> 00:44:21,866
Speaker 1: were you referring to? Tell me about that.

909
00:44:21,886 --> 00:44:24,286
Speaker 2: So, yeah. So when I talk about homeless people in

910
00:44:24,326 --> 00:44:27,006
Speaker 2: housing in Austin, there's an organization here in town that

911
00:44:27,326 --> 00:44:30,586
Speaker 2: has repeatedly invited us back to build for them called

912
00:44:30,626 --> 00:44:33,106
Speaker 2: Community First Village. And I encourage all your listeners to

913
00:44:33,126 --> 00:44:35,746
Speaker 2: go look up Community First Village in Austin, one of

914
00:44:35,786 --> 00:44:41,256
Speaker 2: the most amazing homelessness reduction programs in all of America

915
00:44:41,276 --> 00:44:44,856
Speaker 2: in terms of rate of recidivism, lifespan after housing, the

916
00:44:45,816 --> 00:44:48,116
Speaker 2: quality and dignity of life that these people have. And

917
00:44:48,136 --> 00:44:51,616
Speaker 2: so we have built over 110 homes for them so far. First,

918
00:44:51,636 --> 00:44:53,356
Speaker 2: it was one, then it was seven, then it was

919
00:44:53,376 --> 00:44:56,626
Speaker 2: a hundred more, then it was 10 more after that. Um,

920
00:44:57,026 --> 00:44:59,206
Speaker 2: and so I expect we will continue building for them,

921
00:44:59,286 --> 00:45:02,986
Speaker 2: but our ability to manage those projects, drive costs down

922
00:45:03,006 --> 00:45:07,186
Speaker 2: on those projects, increase the quality of those projects, uh,

923
00:45:07,706 --> 00:45:10,586
Speaker 2: was accelerated because of our space program. And in fact,

924
00:45:11,086 --> 00:45:14,586
Speaker 2: the first homes that Titan, our second generation printer, will

925
00:45:14,686 --> 00:45:17,986
Speaker 2: ever build are homes for the homeless in Austin. And again,

926
00:45:18,106 --> 00:45:22,336
Speaker 2: Titan's architecture is a lot more like our space architecture

927
00:45:22,456 --> 00:45:25,216
Speaker 2: than our gantry style system. And so these things are

928
00:45:25,236 --> 00:45:28,816
Speaker 2: all connected somehow. And it's really gratifying to see, you know,

929
00:45:28,896 --> 00:45:32,056
Speaker 2: often the very poor are the last people to get

930
00:45:32,156 --> 00:45:35,276
Speaker 2: access to innovations and breakthrough technologies. But we have kept

931
00:45:35,336 --> 00:45:37,476
Speaker 2: it front and center for us that we want the

932
00:45:37,586 --> 00:45:40,156
Speaker 2: people who are suffering most from a lack of good

933
00:45:40,176 --> 00:45:42,476
Speaker 2: construction to be some of the first to receive its benefits.

934
00:45:45,296 --> 00:45:47,276
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the lightning round.

935
00:46:02,326 --> 00:46:03,706
Speaker 1: We're going to finish with a lightning round.

936
00:46:03,746 --> 00:46:03,906
Speaker 2: Yes.

937
00:46:05,086 --> 00:46:07,206
Speaker 1: Is it true that you got into the housing business

938
00:46:07,266 --> 00:46:09,186
Speaker 1: because a bishop told you that you should?

939
00:46:09,546 --> 00:46:12,626
Speaker 2: The short version is I was almost a priest, had

940
00:46:12,646 --> 00:46:16,146
Speaker 2: already sort of been accepted to go to seminary, and

941
00:46:16,446 --> 00:46:18,566
Speaker 2: had this opportunity to go work and to start a

942
00:46:18,586 --> 00:46:23,906
Speaker 2: business definitively doing sustainable construction, sustainable housing, and went to

943
00:46:23,946 --> 00:46:26,086
Speaker 2: the bishop and was like, what should I do? Should

944
00:46:26,106 --> 00:46:28,706
Speaker 2: I go to seminary? Should I pursue this sustainable housing opportunity?

945
00:46:29,286 --> 00:46:31,126
Speaker 2: So we went and prayed in the cathedral. We went

946
00:46:31,196 --> 00:46:33,536
Speaker 2: to lunch, went back to his office, talked more. And

947
00:46:33,576 --> 00:46:35,016
Speaker 2: after he had kind of heard me out, he said,

948
00:46:35,896 --> 00:46:38,916
Speaker 2: I think you should pursue this housing thing. Like, when

949
00:46:38,956 --> 00:46:41,276
Speaker 2: I hear you talk about it, I can just tell

950
00:46:41,296 --> 00:46:44,166
Speaker 2: there's like a fire in your belly. So, like, go

951
00:46:44,206 --> 00:46:46,606
Speaker 2: for it. And if it doesn't work out, the church

952
00:46:46,646 --> 00:46:49,086
Speaker 2: hopefully will still be here. But pursue this. Like, this

953
00:46:49,146 --> 00:46:49,846
Speaker 2: is your vocation.

954
00:46:50,526 --> 00:46:52,186
Speaker 1: And what did you think when he said that?

955
00:46:53,146 --> 00:46:56,756
Speaker 2: It felt correct. It felt correct. Like, I left happy

956
00:46:56,976 --> 00:46:59,356
Speaker 2: and felt a sense of, like, purpose. you know, a

957
00:46:59,396 --> 00:47:02,016
Speaker 2: thing that was like rumbling around in like my heart

958
00:47:02,076 --> 00:47:04,436
Speaker 2: and soul had been validated. And now I sort of

959
00:47:04,456 --> 00:47:06,336
Speaker 2: felt completely free to go pursue it.

960
00:47:07,036 --> 00:47:09,816
Speaker 1: What's your favorite Bible verse?

961
00:47:09,916 --> 00:47:13,496
Speaker 2: Psalm 126 in the Orthodox Bible, the opening verse of

962
00:47:13,516 --> 00:47:16,646
Speaker 2: that is like, unless the Lord builds the house, those

963
00:47:16,686 --> 00:47:22,226
Speaker 2: who labor, labor in vain. And given my vocation to build,

964
00:47:22,266 --> 00:47:25,726
Speaker 2: specifically to build houses, a reminder of that Unless we

965
00:47:25,766 --> 00:47:28,346
Speaker 2: are cooperating with the work of God, that our work

966
00:47:28,406 --> 00:47:32,666
Speaker 2: is likely to be serving ego or dark forces or

967
00:47:32,686 --> 00:47:34,266
Speaker 2: these kind of things. And to remember to do our

968
00:47:34,306 --> 00:47:36,586
Speaker 2: work in service first to God, but then in service

969
00:47:37,126 --> 00:47:39,356
Speaker 2: to the world around us. So that would be the one.

970
00:47:40,126 --> 00:47:41,206
Speaker 1: Say it again.

971
00:47:41,376 --> 00:47:45,236
Speaker 2: Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it

972
00:47:45,396 --> 00:47:46,336
Speaker 2: labor in vain.

973
00:47:47,276 --> 00:47:51,016
Speaker 1: Very good. What other domains would benefit from 3D printing

974
00:47:51,116 --> 00:47:51,716
Speaker 1: besides housing?

975
00:47:52,636 --> 00:47:54,936
Speaker 2: So 3D printing as a technology, I think got off

976
00:47:54,996 --> 00:47:57,876
Speaker 2: on the wrong foot. 3D printing is going to be

977
00:47:57,916 --> 00:48:02,916
Speaker 2: best when things are slow, expensive, and bespoke. When two

978
00:48:03,046 --> 00:48:06,046
Speaker 2: or all three of those things are true, that's where

979
00:48:06,206 --> 00:48:08,346
Speaker 2: 3D printing is going to be very good. In the

980
00:48:08,406 --> 00:48:10,646
Speaker 2: early days, they were using it to do things that

981
00:48:10,686 --> 00:48:13,546
Speaker 2: were already cheap, already mass produced, and all the same.

982
00:48:13,626 --> 00:48:15,586
Speaker 2: So people were like 3D printing coffee cups and 3D

983
00:48:15,606 --> 00:48:17,726
Speaker 2: printing spoons and these kinds of like, that's already cheap

984
00:48:17,766 --> 00:48:22,916
Speaker 2: and fine. But things like aerospace parts, Dental implants, sort

985
00:48:22,956 --> 00:48:26,276
Speaker 2: of like medical grade, kind of very custom medical prosthetics,

986
00:48:26,316 --> 00:48:28,696
Speaker 2: things like that. Housing would be another example. It is

987
00:48:28,756 --> 00:48:31,456
Speaker 2: slow and expensive, and it wants to be bespoke. And

988
00:48:31,476 --> 00:48:34,026
Speaker 2: so anything that is slow, expensive, and bespoke is going

989
00:48:34,046 --> 00:48:36,546
Speaker 2: to be the right kind of use case for 3D printing.

990
00:48:37,206 --> 00:48:40,606
Speaker 1: If you could 3D print any building, what would it be?

991
00:48:42,006 --> 00:48:44,166
Speaker 2: I want to 3D print my own house is the next.

992
00:48:44,226 --> 00:48:45,756
Speaker 2: My kids have been asking me, Dad, when are we

993
00:48:45,776 --> 00:48:47,056
Speaker 2: going to live in a 3D printed house? And I

994
00:48:47,096 --> 00:48:48,956
Speaker 2: think this is the year. So that's what I'm really

995
00:48:48,996 --> 00:48:50,576
Speaker 2: excited about right now is printing my own house.

996
00:48:51,756 --> 00:48:53,776
Speaker 1: Why don't you live in a 3D printed house? Like,

997
00:48:53,816 --> 00:48:55,016
Speaker 1: I feel like you got to live in a 3D

998
00:48:55,016 --> 00:48:55,336
Speaker 1: printed house.

999
00:48:55,356 --> 00:48:56,546
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do have to live in a 3D printed house.

1000
00:48:56,566 --> 00:48:58,246
Speaker 2: So far, it's just been like all the, as soon as,

1001
00:48:58,366 --> 00:48:59,626
Speaker 2: you know, all the printers were just as busy as

1002
00:48:59,666 --> 00:49:01,866
Speaker 2: we could keep them. And it felt selfish to pull

1003
00:49:01,906 --> 00:49:04,146
Speaker 2: a printer off of a project for a customer to

1004
00:49:04,166 --> 00:49:05,916
Speaker 2: build my own house. But it is definitely time and

1005
00:49:05,936 --> 00:49:06,896
Speaker 2: I'm pretty excited about it.

1006
00:49:07,406 --> 00:49:10,026
Speaker 1: You have any particular dreams for your own 3D printed house?

1007
00:49:10,046 --> 00:49:12,106
Speaker 1: You could have like a little round room or something?

1008
00:49:12,126 --> 00:49:13,966
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think what I will be able to do

1009
00:49:14,006 --> 00:49:16,196
Speaker 2: that others would not is like really push the boundaries

1010
00:49:16,236 --> 00:49:19,516
Speaker 2: of what's possible in 3D printing and really show out

1011
00:49:19,616 --> 00:49:23,456
Speaker 2: at the limit in a really, hopefully a rather radical

1012
00:49:23,526 --> 00:49:25,666
Speaker 2: way what a 3D printed building can be.

1013
00:49:26,346 --> 00:49:28,106
Speaker 1: What is an example of a thing you're going to

1014
00:49:28,166 --> 00:49:28,926
Speaker 1: do to that end?

1015
00:49:29,026 --> 00:49:31,706
Speaker 2: Well, maybe what I'll say is like, I do have

1016
00:49:31,746 --> 00:49:33,806
Speaker 2: some sketches and mood boards and things like this for

1017
00:49:33,846 --> 00:49:35,986
Speaker 2: the home design. And like, I don't think anyone will

1018
00:49:36,026 --> 00:49:38,586
Speaker 2: have ever seen a house like this. And so it's

1019
00:49:38,606 --> 00:49:43,916
Speaker 2: like very difficult, but you should be imagining full enclosures, right? Arches, domes, vaults.

1020
00:49:43,936 --> 00:49:45,776
Speaker 2: So now you're not just printing the walls, you're printing

1021
00:49:45,796 --> 00:49:49,286
Speaker 2: the foundation, the wall system, the full roof enclosure. And

1022
00:49:49,326 --> 00:49:52,946
Speaker 2: it's going to be a profoundly new approach to architecture

1023
00:49:53,006 --> 00:49:55,146
Speaker 2: and housing design. And I think people will find it

1024
00:49:55,306 --> 00:49:57,976
Speaker 2: incredibly beautiful, but unlike anything they've ever seen.

1025
00:49:58,896 --> 00:49:59,836
Speaker 1: I hope your kids like it.

1026
00:49:59,936 --> 00:50:02,216
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, my daughter is actually very leaned in on

1027
00:50:02,236 --> 00:50:04,376
Speaker 2: the design. So she's like kind of my co-designer.

1028
00:50:11,296 --> 00:50:16,096
Speaker 1: Jason Ballard is the co-founder and CEO of iConn. Today's

1029
00:50:16,136 --> 00:50:19,506
Speaker 1: show was produced by Gabriel Hunter Chang. It was engineered

1030
00:50:19,546 --> 00:50:23,486
Speaker 1: by Sarah Bruguere. And our showrunner and editor is Jake Harper.

1031
00:50:24,286 --> 00:50:26,526
Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein, and we'll be back next week with

1032
00:50:26,586 --> 00:50:27,936
Speaker 1: another episode of What's Your Problem?