00:19:59 · Alan Chang, Sebastian Johnson
[00:19:59] S1: I would say so, yeah. [00:20:00] S0: Yeah. Okay. And I saw that Quantum Light came in in the last round as well. What was that like raising from kind of Nick's fund? Was that like a nice full circle moment? Was he... You know, was it a tough negotiation? What kind of investment process was that like? [00:20:12] S1: I've said it publicly many times. I've a lot of respect for Nick. But yeah, I took him a while, but yeah, I'm glad they're on the cuttable. [00:20:25] S0: Amazing. I want talk about Europe more generally and European tech. How well positioned do you think Europe is, the European ecosystem, is currently to build tech giants? [00:20:36] S1: I'm cautiously optimistic. [00:20:37] S0: Yeah? Okay. Interesting. Why cautiously, and then why optimistic?
00:20:37 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:20:37] S0: Yeah? Okay. Interesting. Why cautiously, and then why optimistic? [00:20:41] S1: The biggest talent competitor of Europe is is obviously The US. And if you look at all the top founders from The US, a lot of them are Europeans. So in The US, you have much larger talent markets, much larger and wealthier consumer market. There's less and less strong reasons to build in Europe. At the same time, Europe still has a lot of great talent. I think it's a no brainer to always build an office in Europe and hire high grade engineers. But Europe is making it very hard to build. There's so many bureaucracy policies that don't make sense. And if you just like... If you're an entrepreneur, just weigh out like, okay. What are pros and cons? Like, the cons are growing. And I mean, would say pros are still, like, larger than cons today. Yeah. But, you know, it's it's very, very close to to go the other way. [00:21:52] S0: Mhmm. Interesting. And when you talk about bureaucracy and policy, is there a specific bit of policy that may be specifically for Fuse or the ecosystem more broadly that you'd either implement or rip up tomorrow? [00:22:05] S1: Yeah. Wouldn't implement any more policies. But I would delete a lot of policies. So what I would do is I go line by line on every existing policy and delete anyone that anyone that makes sense. Doesn't make sense. [00:22:19] S0: Outside policy bureaucracy, what do you think we as an ecosystem, founders, investors, operators, what can that level of ecosystem do to try and take tech to the next level?
00:22:19 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:22:19] S0: Outside policy bureaucracy, what do you think we as an ecosystem, founders, investors, operators, what can that level of ecosystem do to try and take tech to the next level? [00:22:28] S1: I think just dream bigger. [00:22:30] S0: Dream bigger. [00:22:30] S1: I mean, a good example is like raising from a European VC. And obviously this is not true for every European VC, right? But I'm generalizing a little bit. But raising from a... The median experience with a European VC is neutral to negative. For example, let me get an example. I've been asked this question like basically, I pitch a company, this is a plan, blah, blah. And then the first assumption this European VC made is like, But how is it possible to build a trillion dollar company in The UK? But I'm like, But we will expand beyond The UK and we're going to go to more markets, blah blah. Right? It was just so... She just... Like, this piece she just cannot understand, like, just cannot imagine. Like, you can go beyond The UK. Right? So I just like, look. And there's a subtle quality of like, look, I'm not going waste some more time. Like, look, you know, we're going to spend our time on investors that actually at least can believe there's a possibility that's going to happen, right? [00:23:40] S0: That's crazy. It feels like they're in the wrong job, right? I can't imagine a trillion dollar outcome.
00:23:40 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:23:40] S0: That's crazy. It feels like they're in the wrong job, right? I can't imagine a trillion dollar outcome. [00:23:44] S1: And I can tell you, this is like a top tier VC, like a brand name VC that's... Wow. But it was like very, very disappointing, right? Whereas the median experience for a USB C, even if they say no eventually, but at least you can have a level conversation like, Okay, this is a possibility, blah blah. And they can at least see a glimpse of that could happen. Even as simple as this, just this difference in attitude, it's just like, Okay, next time I fundraise, why do I even bother European VCs? I just know most likely the experience will be negative. Obviously, there's exception to every rule. There are some great European VCs out there too. But yeah, it's just why are you doing this job? [00:24:41] S0: What else do think they need to do to improve? Is it about being able to dream big and see the vision? There's that classic meme of like always caring about financial results and a financial model. Does that play out in reality? Like what other things are European VCs doing that is like a bit dumb?
00:24:41 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:24:41] S0: What else do think they need to do to improve? Is it about being able to dream big and see the vision? There's that classic meme of like always caring about financial results and a financial model. Does that play out in reality? Like what other things are European VCs doing that is like a bit dumb? [00:24:55] S1: Ultimately, think as a VC you need to be, like any investor, you need to be risk neutral. Right? And especially in the VC class, risk neutral basically means that you need to invest in outlier outcomes, right? And you know, if let's say a company pitches you like, you know, I mean I always use this example, right, but no disrespect to, you know, but B2B SaaS is a... You know, if you get pitched B2B SaaS versus like, building this potentially number one company in this category, large category, I think European VC would like the B2B SaaS company more, right? [00:25:36] S0: The safe bet. Yeah. When you look to future capital, do you think you will be looking to The US, especially given that you're going to be expanding across that market? [00:25:46] S1: In reality, a lot of the European VCs' money actually come from The US anyway. Yeah, it's true. Right? So does it really matter who the GPs are? [00:25:52] S0: Yeah, and it's one of things that really bothers me is that, like, we celebrate European VCs, and it's like all of your LPs are American. So all the value is captured and transferred to there anyway. [00:26:03] S1: Yeah, so, I mean, if the older capitals are basically the same, then I'll prefer working with a GP, you know, that I like with.
00:26:03 · Alan Chang, Sebastian Johnson
[00:26:03] S1: Yeah, so, I mean, if the older capitals are basically the same, then I'll prefer working with a GP, you know, that I like with. [00:26:12] S0: Yeah, interesting. And you've obviously raised a lot of money, you're now, you're profitable anyway. At what point do you think you're going to be, if you will need to raise again, like is it going be for big hardware infrastructure projects? Like, when are you gonna think about recapitalizing? [00:26:26] S1: No plans yet. Right now, we just focus on... [00:26:29] S0: It's a long way away. [00:26:30] S1: Yeah. Building the company. [00:26:31] S0: Interesting. I wanna touch on two things that you've sort of teased It's like you've talked about recycling. You've talked about fusion as like possible things, you know, way down the road map. Why are those two areas areas that you're interested in? [00:26:44] S1: Let's start recycling. It's a very energy intensive industry. And essentially, our core business is low cost power. And if you're able to... If you have access to low cost power, can basically reduce the unit costs of recycling and therefore build a competitive advantage. It's always been our plan to start with power, but then go downstream. Well, downstream of power. Yeah. And also go upstream of power to lower the cost of power, but go downstream to not only sell power for cheaper, but get the benefit ourselves. [00:27:32] S0: So leverage the cheap power to build things that are parented? Could that be like data centers? [00:27:37] S1: Data centers is one area we're looking [00:27:39] S0: at. Interesting.