00:02:08 · CJ Gustafson, Kevin Hettrich
[00:02:08] S1: Maybe just to start things off, can you explain what QuantumScape does? [00:02:12] S0: We are developing and commercializing significantly better batteries. All dimensions you care about, smaller, lighter, faster charging, safer, and at scale maturity, also lower cost. And then we take those batteries, and we put them in the world's most important products. Just about everything has a battery these days, and candidly, the things that don't would be better products. We target things like electric vehicles, AI data AI data centers, consumer electronics, aerospace and defense, medical devices, robotics, etcetera. I was digging through your background. [00:02:44] S1: You're a Stanford engineer by trade, and you started as a product manager at QuantumScape. I'm curious what the first business role you took on at the company was.
00:02:44 · CJ Gustafson, Kevin Hettrich
[00:02:44] S1: You're a Stanford engineer by trade, and you started as a product manager at QuantumScape. I'm curious what the first business role you took on at the company was. [00:02:54] S0: I was our first product manager, and one of my first tasks was to put on paper what is the product that we're developing in great detail. It's called the the the product requirements document. I chose that because it's a really neat intersection between engineering and the rest of the business. And together with finance, I think it's one of the the functions where you try to take in all the information from the four global functions of the company, which I think of as development, sales, operations, and finance. You're trying to optimize, like, what is the sweet spot of the product that they can develop, that the development team can develop, the sales team can sell at a certain kind of price point, margin, and volume that the manufacturing team can make, where the finance makes sense for everyone. And as you get new information with different development cycles, conversations with customers, the financing climate changes, you're always tweaking that to try to keep it in the optimum space. So that... That's the view from the product requirements document. I think you can actually make a a very similar lens from the the finance space. Spoiler, end up becoming the CFO. So that's the other space that I think is a a really neat job.
00:02:54 · Kevin Hettrich, CJ Gustafson
[00:02:54] S0: I was our first product manager, and one of my first tasks was to put on paper what is the product that we're developing in great detail. It's called the the the product requirements document. I chose that because it's a really neat intersection between engineering and the rest of the business. And together with finance, I think it's one of the the functions where you try to take in all the information from the four global functions of the company, which I think of as development, sales, operations, and finance. You're trying to optimize, like, what is the sweet spot of the product that they can develop, that the development team can develop, the sales team can sell at a certain kind of price point, margin, and volume that the manufacturing team can make, where the finance makes sense for everyone. And as you get new information with different development cycles, conversations with customers, the financing climate changes, you're always tweaking that to try to keep it in the optimum space. So that... That's the view from the product requirements document. I think you can actually make a a very similar lens from the the finance space. Spoiler, end up becoming the CFO. So that's the other space that I think is a a really neat job. [00:04:03] S1: Two reflections. The first one is I've worked with so many PMs, Kevin, over the years, and they're always saying the PRD, the PRD. It literally just click now what PRD stands for.
00:04:03 · CJ Gustafson, Kevin Hettrich
[00:04:03] S1: Two reflections. The first one is I've worked with so many PMs, Kevin, over the years, and they're always saying the PRD, the PRD. It literally just click now what PRD stands for. [00:04:12] S0: Having been a consultant during one of those chapters, I was trained to try to not use a lot of jargon, so thank thank you, McKinsey, for that training. I'm glad. I'm glad that I've I've given you that. [00:04:23] S1: I was today years old. Well, second thing just to reflect on, I've done over 300 of these interviews. I think you're the first CFO I've had on who's at the company before you could sell it.
00:04:23 · CJ Gustafson, Kevin Hettrich
[00:04:23] S1: I was today years old. Well, second thing just to reflect on, I've done over 300 of these interviews. I think you're the first CFO I've had on who's at the company before you could sell it. [00:04:33] S0: Some people consider better batteries one of the greatest unmet kinda science and engineering challenges on the planet, and we are doing something quite ambitious. Lithium ion is kinda the the workhorse chemistry that we use in the world to power our phones and cars, and that... Those were commercialized in the early eighties. Our company is at the point of the spear trying to bring the nest... The next chemistry to market, is called solid state lithium metal. We weren't even sure if the materials even existed that would allow us to develop these batteries. So truly a deep science, deep tech innovation company where our science and engineering teams are going to, like, the limits of what is kinda known in terms of human knowledge and, like, peering over the side and trying to push push it further. So it's a very, very ambitious company when we started. Individual battery markets can be measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, which is, like, EV and grid, and that's little bit of color and context on that. [00:05:33] S1: That's super helpful because I I mean, everybody listening uses batteries in some way, shape, or form, and we probably hear about it with all these cars going electric, even motorcycles going electric. I think I saw something like you were riding a Ducati across this stage.
00:05:33 · CJ Gustafson, Kevin Hettrich
[00:05:33] S1: That's super helpful because I I mean, everybody listening uses batteries in some way, shape, or form, and we probably hear about it with all these cars going electric, even motorcycles going electric. I think I saw something like you were riding a Ducati across this stage. [00:05:46] S0: About a year ago, together with our partners PowerCo, which is Volkswagen's wholly owned battery division, we made the solid state lithium metal cells, worked with Audi to make kind of a motorcycle pack out of them, and then put it into a modified v 21 l Ducati race bike and drove that across the stage at the Munich Auto Show. So that was our vehicle debut. We started the company fifteen plus years ago, not even sure if the material even existed. To go fast forward all the way to kinda late stage prototypes and powering our first vehicle on one of the preeminent automotive stages was pretty special. [00:06:27] S1: Can you just speak to having the patience for such a long feedback loop? I've never been a part of any company where it takes so long to find your commercial validation.