Latest / The Retail Podcast / The Home Is Retail’s New Storefront | Kaave Pour (SPACE10/IKEA)

Transcript

The Home Is Retail’s New Storefront | Kaave Pour (SPACE10/IKEA) · The Retail Podcast

0:00
Hello and welcome to the Retail Podcast.
0:02
Now for those who were here in the early days and as we were
0:07
just talking to Kobe almost five years ago, I originally
0:11
interviewed Kobe. Actually, to be fair, it goes a
0:14
little bit further than than that.
0:15
I saw him I think twice on stage, once, I can't remember at
0:19
the Next Web in Amsterdam and once before that where he sat
0:25
opposite me, obviously virtually.
0:27
But it was incredible. And I thought this is someone
0:30
that every so often it will be an amazing opportunity and
0:34
pleasure to just pop in and and get what's at the top of your
0:38
mind because for so long. And maybe if you tell us a
0:41
little bit about the work they used to do with IKEA, I know
0:44
that's like bygone day, so we don't need to dwell on that.
0:46
But for so long, you had your finger on the pulse of
0:50
innovation as an agency looking to the future and helping one of
0:54
the largest companies in the world remain fresh and
0:58
interesting, which was no no mean feat.
1:01
So Kobe, what what do you sort of tell us?
1:04
Where were you? And then we'll just bring it up
1:06
today and then we'll just get into it.
1:08
Sounds good. And thanks for having me, Alex.
1:11
Yeah. So basically I spent almost a
1:13
decade obsessing with the home together with one of the largest
1:17
home furnishing companies in the world, IKEA, if people don't
1:21
know it, as a small furniture company from Sweden.
1:24
And yeah, you could say that we definitely started working with
1:28
them at a time where I think many leaders, many CEO's, many
1:32
people in particular in the C-Suite were looking around and
1:36
saying why is the world around our company moving faster than
1:39
the world inside of our company and what do we need to do to
1:43
gear up. And at that point, the word
1:46
innovation obviously had had made its rounds, but it wasn't
1:49
something that had really materialised in a lot of
1:51
organisations, at least not in a more structured way.
1:55
And IKEA was definitely one of those companies.
1:57
So our role throughout those 10 years were on one side to spark
2:01
a strong innovation culture within this large company of
2:04
quarter of a million people. But it, but also to position
2:08
IKEA as a more curious company towards the world and say, hey,
2:12
we are actually open for new ideas, for meeting new people.
2:16
And where I think a lot of companies they, they tend to
2:18
become so successful, they close themselves around themselves
2:22
and, and that can be super dangerous to live in that
2:25
bubble. And then the third, third part
2:27
of of our journey was to obviously do innovation in terms
2:31
of developing new pilots, helping them launch new
2:34
ventures. A lot of it was focused on
2:37
technology and the intersection of technology and, and the
2:40
environment, but they were also focused on new retail models and
2:43
new markets, new types of customers and, and I think it
2:47
was a very exciting, quiet, chaotic journey.
2:51
But our red thread was the home. Where is the home today?
2:54
Where is it going? And, and as you know, I'm
2:57
obsessed with the home, so it was quite a good fit for us for
3:00
10 years. But everything has an end.
3:03
And in our case, we actually decided proactively to to end
3:07
after that decade of work for various reasons.
3:09
I won't bore you with today, but it's been one of the most
3:13
liberating and most exciting decisions I've taken, even
3:16
though it was a really difficult one.
3:18
But when something ends, new things begin, and hopefully
3:22
that's what I'm here to talk about to today.
3:24
There's so many just that on itself in terms of, but anyone
3:28
who's read the innovators dilemma knows that large
3:31
companies can't do innovation. They can't go fast, they can't
3:34
go, they can't keep reinventing themselves.
3:37
And that's why it made so, so much sense to to have an agency
3:41
or an innovation area to do it. But I, but I can remember some
3:45
of the projects that you worked. And I think this is the
3:47
important thing to stress. You did anything from vehicles
3:51
to technology in the house speakers to bees to that by
3:56
biology to the whole. I mean as we people.
4:00
Were the just one layer and I think that's the most important
4:03
thing or the most the important thing that I find interesting
4:07
about talking to you that it was delayer and I remember we even
4:10
spoke about the future of the home.
4:13
Our retailers are always thinking, well, what's the
4:15
future of the home? You know, the home pantry.
4:18
How do we does does every grocer have a a small delivery robot
4:23
now in everyone's and there was just so many different layers
4:26
that you look at and and then the other thing that you did is
4:29
that you kept challenging people's perspectives.
4:32
So you would say, for example, here's an autonomous car, it
4:36
could be a milk flow or it could be a super fast, I don't know,
4:40
self autonomous vehicle, same technology, but different ones,
4:44
community based ones, I guess profit base.
4:47
But you kept challenging people to say, is this it?
4:50
Is this it? So now you're a little bit
4:52
older, you're a dad, you've moved on, you've had many, many
4:56
businesses of your founder in lots of different areas.
5:01
How do you decide? Or when you look at the future,
5:04
what's driving your decisions? What what has made you, what
5:08
steered you spiritually or physically to go in the
5:11
direction that you're going to go in?
5:13
That's a good question. I think obviously after space
5:16
and I had a lot of time to reflect on that, like what?
5:20
What's next? And after so much of your life
5:23
being tied up in one identity, I did come up with like these
5:27
three criterias that I would look through when starting new
5:31
businesses from from a few years ago and now.
5:35
And one of them were, you know, a value driven criteria that I
5:39
think, you know, you have almost a responsibility in this day and
5:42
age to work on something that matter.
5:45
You can do so many things, but there is also so many people in
5:48
my opinion, who spends a lot of that time on things that maybe
5:52
are not that important. And if you have the privilege to
5:56
actually choose, I think you have, you have also
5:59
responsibility to choose something that that really
6:01
matters for, for more than just yourself.
6:03
So whether you're dedicated to local community or to the
6:07
environment, that's to improving the sign or to helping others in
6:12
in a more indirect sense. But I think, you know, we don't
6:14
need more AI wrappers of generative images, you know,
6:19
like, and, and this whole, you know, I think maybe not to, to
6:23
completely point fingers, but there's definitely been a
6:25
culture that has been driven by Silicon Valley, which is like,
6:28
let's just make a bunch of startups and see what fails and
6:31
doesn't really matter. And then we sell them.
6:33
We'll make a lot of money and we do it again.
6:35
But if you go a bit deeper into it is like, but who are you
6:38
actually doing this for? And I think for me, working on
6:41
something important also gives me a lot of energy.
6:44
The energy I tend to do better work.
6:45
So it's like some sort of self fulfilling prophecy to succeed
6:48
if you also choose important domains.
6:51
The second one is that I want to work with people who give me
6:54
energy rather than take energy from me.
6:56
And I think everyone knows that feeling of being in the room and
7:00
someone is so annoying because they drain you.
7:03
And I think not everyone has that opportunity to choose who
7:07
they work with. And, but since I'm an
7:10
entrepreneur, I, I do have a lot of downsides of being an
7:13
entrepreneur, but also have some upsides.
7:15
And one of them is obviously that you can in the beginning
7:17
choose who you work. And I really focused on trying
7:20
to work with people who give me energy because, you know, I
7:23
don't want the energy to come to me only after work.
7:26
I want to also have that energy at work.
7:28
And then third, third is quite a cynical I also want to do work
7:34
where there's money. I want to be paid what I think
7:37
I'm worth. I want to pursue things that
7:39
gives me financial freedom to not take too many other points
7:44
of view into consideration and become more and more independent
7:48
in what I try to pursue over time.
7:51
So, so these are kind of like the three things I I look at
7:54
when I go into a new business. And then on the domain side
7:58
where many people are more practitioners within one craft,
8:02
you know, you can be a graphic designer or business analyst or
8:06
an energy, especially for me, I'm, I'm more of a generalist,
8:09
but I do have a fixation of one domain that I want to work with,
8:13
which is the home, but the new own.
8:15
So whatever business I go in, it has to tie into the whole and
8:19
seller capacity because that is where I sit with a lot of
8:22
expertise that is I think better than what I would be able to
8:26
achieve or accomplish if I work with it, with sports, for
8:29
example. I got you.
8:30
So before we get into the home, I'm just going to stay with you
8:32
as if you like a leader, an entrepreneur, you've got to make
8:36
financial sense and I, you know, can completely understand that
8:40
you don't want to be near vampires constantly sucking your
8:43
energy. And then the first one was
8:45
interesting. You, you know, it has to be keep
8:48
evolving and changing. I'm just curious for the for the
8:51
OR young leaders, because I do have a lot of young CE OS or
8:56
founders who watch this. What's been your experience in
9:00
recruiting the right talent to come?
9:02
Because it feels like every time you sort of land and then you,
9:05
you need an army behind you. What's your thoughts on that in
9:09
terms of how, how do you get people to buy in, especially
9:12
when I've got to be honest, you were very radical in those days,
9:15
right, in terms of your thinking.
9:17
So you needed people with a certain mindset.
9:19
How do you attract? But I think that goes into that
9:22
first criteria around working on something important, the
9:25
machine. Yeah.
9:26
Like you need a mission that people get excited about.
9:30
In particular with younger generations.
9:32
They don't just want to work for work's sake.
9:35
In particular the ones that are really good, you know, so either
9:37
they want to work with their own or they want to work for someone
9:40
who's doing something important. And I mean, that's phase 10.
9:43
We were what, 40 people in house?
9:45
Maybe 150 full time freelance in, in peak periods, but we had
9:49
more than 3000 job applications a year and certain years and we
9:53
didn't, they were unsolicited, right?
9:56
Like they just came, you know, when they were not just from,
9:59
from universities, they were also from a NASA and from Apple
10:02
and from Amazon and, and all of them they, they basically said
10:06
the same, you know, they were tired of working in a bigger
10:09
company where they feel there was too many compromises on
10:12
their values. They may also feel they were a
10:16
bit too much or maybe they were located in a place where they
10:19
didn't feel their family was, was thriving.
10:22
So choosing as a leader where you you set up shop not just for
10:26
your business, but also for your workforce to thrive outside work
10:31
is extremely important. You see, many older companies
10:34
suffer from that because they stick to being in their old
10:38
school city that they were founded in.
10:40
And it's really hard to attract international talent that needs
10:44
to bring in their husband and wife with them or their kids
10:47
that needs to move school. And you know, that whole life
10:50
outside work is underestimated in in 10 recruitment, I think.
10:54
And the second is so obviously that if you have something
10:56
exciting to work on and you're good at communicating that you
10:59
will see that people are far easier to be persuaded.
11:03
And then besides that, I think many leaders and CE OS, they are
11:08
simply not spending enough time on it.
11:10
I mean, for me, I saw that as one of my biggest
11:13
responsibilities were to to find talent and headhunt leaders and
11:17
sway them and invite them to all kinds of things to say, hey,
11:20
because we couldn't match their salaries, but we could match
11:23
some other factors. So I think yeah, making sure you
11:27
work on something that is submission driven, make sure
11:30
you're your system works for not just your Co worker, but for
11:34
their extended family in to some extent.
11:37
And then yeah, obviously be be diligent in trying to really
11:41
bring these people in. Don't expect some hire that you
11:44
have done to be able to hire the best people in the world.
11:48
You should. You should do that yourself for
11:50
a long time. OK, final question on the on the
11:52
past before we go to the queue, I remember reading quite an
11:55
emotional post from you on LinkedIn when you closed Space
11:59
10. Well, now reflecting back,
12:01
what's the one thing that really surprised you during that
12:06
transition period of your life? What was it that got you?
12:09
I get, I guess what surprised you.
12:11
Maybe it's in two parts. What got you through that period
12:13
as well? Was it the motivation for
12:15
something new? Was that the driving element or
12:18
was? I think obviously since this was
12:21
not a key one day coming saying you're out of business, we had a
12:25
lot of time to plan it, which is quite rare in these situations.
12:30
So I think I had time to digest this whole shift and more
12:35
naturally over a longer time and to plan it in, in a process
12:39
where I felt the team was informed and included in it and
12:42
we had a great way of ending it. We even launched a whole new
12:45
website with all our final work and open sourced a lot of
12:48
things, so it felt like it was a complete rap rather than
12:53
something where half of the things we wanted to do, we
12:55
didn't have a chance to really say yes.
12:58
So that journey was definitely helpful.
13:00
And then in all honesty, I think some of the other people in
13:04
space, then they had a harder time figuring out who they were,
13:08
where they wanted to go next, what they should do.
13:10
Not that they were not super smart people with bunch of
13:13
opportunities because they were more used to working within a
13:18
company of existing structure. Me as an entrepreneur, that part
13:22
of Space 10 were the anxious part of Space 10, the part where
13:26
there was too much structure, too much predictability.
13:29
So I get energy from building something new.
13:32
OK, so for me, it was almost like being let loose in a candy
13:36
store as a kid. You know, like suddenly I could
13:39
just do everything again. I had nobody below me, nobody
13:43
above me, which was a rare situation for me after 10 years
13:47
being being in a leader role in Space 10.
13:50
So it was actually quite easy in many ways.
13:53
Obviously you also realise that you need to work hard again to
13:58
open those doors. I didn't have the mail, I didn't
14:00
have it, so, you know, I didn't have a scene that could just do
14:04
anything. I I came up with of ideas.
14:06
So that part of been harder to suddenly start to bootstrap
14:10
everything again and every little detail and.
14:12
So, but your energy comes from from from listening you right?
14:16
That's where you draw your excitement and, and and energy
14:19
from. OK, coming on to, to your
14:22
favourite subject, the home. Obviously the home it's been
14:25
referred to in so many different terms, like the home of the
14:29
future being, I don't know, the the workplace of the future, the
14:33
fulfilment place of the future, that the spiritual like men, the
14:37
mental aspects and the psychology of it.
14:40
It's sort of gone beyond has them sorry, Maslow's hierarchy
14:43
of needs of just giving you shelter in this new world.
14:48
How do you say that? I mean, that's about that.
14:50
What's your what's your take on this new world that we're moving
14:54
into? I.
14:55
Mean there's a lot of layers in the home.
14:58
I think first and foremost, I see the home as the most
15:01
important place in the world. And I think reflecting on that,
15:05
people don't always ascribe that much to the home.
15:08
But if you really reflect on it, the home is such an essential
15:12
space for us as a civilization. And then in relation to, for
15:17
example, the phone, where people say we spend a lot of time on
15:20
our phone and always spend a lot more time at home.
15:23
And then besides that, the home is not just one Lifebone with a
15:27
bezel less screen that everyone has in the same design.
15:31
The home is so diverse, which for me is a fascinating element.
15:35
Like the home is not this monotone thing where everyone
15:38
lives in the same and that creates such a diamondism in the
15:42
way you look at the home. It has some core functions and
15:46
it has some emotional elements to it as well, like the feeling
15:49
of home. Certain places you can be, you
15:50
don't see that as home. Other places are not even
15:53
physical and you would see that as home.
15:55
But I think, you know, at the end, home is is super important
16:00
and super diverse and people spend most of their time in some
16:04
capacity in relation to their home.
16:06
And yet home right now is probably one of the biggest
16:08
barriers when it comes to a lot of the things we as humanity
16:12
needs to to address the climate crisis, the mental and health
16:17
well-being crisis. You know, even, you know, the
16:20
urban challenges of of build, being in cities, how we adopt to
16:24
technology, family. There's a lot of things where
16:28
the home is an enabler, but also a barrier today.
16:32
So as a designer of that is an amazing space to work within.
16:35
What's your approach? To this, are you transforming
16:38
the home or are you? Yeah, tell me.
16:41
Obviously you said the environmental, the mental side.
16:44
Where's your focus in this area? Yeah.
16:46
So as I see the home, there's kind of like 2 lenses, 1 lens is
16:51
the layers within the home and the other one is the system of
16:54
many homes as a totality. So if we start with the first
16:57
one that most people when they, let's say would draw a home,
17:00
they would probably draw a square with a triangle on top.
17:03
And that's like the very old way of looking at it.
17:06
But, but that's the base you could say is the the physical
17:10
build structure of a home. Then you know, the layer below,
17:13
above that is maybe the home furnishing layer.
17:15
You have the appliances layer, you have the utility layers like
17:19
energy, water, waste. Then you have the interface and
17:22
technology and the data layers that are coming more and more
17:25
in. And then you have the service
17:26
layers like the air BNP. So the cleaning or the
17:30
improvement and all those services that sits on top.
17:33
And you could say in the old days there were all kinds of
17:37
companies in the different layers, but they were quite
17:40
confined in those layers. So, you know, a company who made
17:44
furniture would very rarely also build a home and they would very
17:47
rarely also be the energy provider to that home.
17:50
And energy providers would very rarely also build a home or
17:53
design sofas and tables. But I think what has happened
17:57
recently is that some of these layers are breaking because of
18:01
new platforms and new where players in the market is is
18:05
trying to challenge it. You know, you have Airbnb who's
18:07
trying to challenge it from from the service layer down also now
18:11
building certain homes themselves.
18:13
You have IKEA who also is moving up in the energy layer and you
18:17
have construction that companies who also now leasing out their
18:20
own homes and even furnishing them as finished products
18:23
before. So, you know, you could say that
18:26
these shifts super interesting. And for me, the focus here is on
18:30
what can you do within these layers that can enable a more
18:34
healthy and sustainable life at home.
18:36
And that's that's the intersection I find extremely
18:39
exciting. And yeah, on the flip side,
18:42
obviously a home in isolation is not really an adequate way of
18:46
looking at homes because homes they ocean often in systems of
18:49
neighbourhoods. There can be large
18:51
neighbourhoods, can also be very small rural community or
18:54
villages. But obviously the systems of how
18:57
we enable homes to thrive are also really important.
19:00
How do you get your energy? How do you get your food?
19:03
How do you get your kids back into school?
19:06
How do you we live a parcels in a world of e-commerce and who
19:11
takes the trash away from you? And these systems are also very
19:14
different. Like for example, in Mexico, a
19:16
lot of places you know, water is coming to you on trucks, you
19:20
know, that fills up your water tanks.
19:22
Other places it comes to pipes. Some places they have the solar
19:26
on the roof. Other places it's the sipilized
19:28
heating that is the dominant course.
19:30
But but you see a lot of innovation right now and so many
19:34
of these layers and why I think it's fascinating conversation
19:38
for us to have in the retail podcast, so to speak, is that I
19:42
do believe that the home will likely become the biggest and
19:45
most important customer touch point for any industry right
19:49
now. They're selling to customers and
19:51
not to businesses at large. I can't almost think of a
19:54
company who will not be forced to think about the home as more
19:59
than the in destination of some product they are developing at
20:02
some point. Whether it's the bathroom items
20:05
that fits in in your bathroom or the clothing you buy.
20:07
That is in your wardrobe or the way you sleep, or the food you
20:10
make, the films you watch, the work to do on your computer,
20:14
like so many of the things we in business do will end in the
20:19
home, but it will also now start in the home.
20:22
And you've talked a lot about the phone being the starting
20:25
point for a lot of these customer journeys.
20:27
But actually if you assume a little bit out, just like 1/2 a
20:30
metre out, you will actually see that the person on the phone is
20:34
at home. They won't get home while they
20:36
do a lot of these things. And but yet any company I've
20:39
advised and work with, they don't look at the home in that
20:43
sense as part of their customer journey in particular, not when
20:46
we talk retail, they talk small formats and pick up an order
20:49
points and big stores and online and yeah.
20:52
End point, right? It's just an end point rather
20:54
than what? Yeah, I I agree with you.
20:57
I mean, for a long time, especially to grocers, I've said
21:00
the battlefield is the kitchen and how are you going to own a
21:03
portion of that kitchen in the future, right?
21:06
What is that element that is going to be your element that
21:09
restocks automatically? So, you know, it's not just
21:13
Amazon, but it's a grocer or a local grocer that is in a
21:19
sustainable world, delivering produce to the home.
21:23
How do you? I think the challenge obviously
21:25
we need to sort of keep narrowing it down because we're
21:27
talking about such a global in what homes are, as in, you know,
21:33
for example, in Europe we have lots of dense cities as there
21:37
are lots of dense cities around the world, but we don't have
21:40
that much, especially in the UK, there's not that much space for
21:43
new homes, right? So then we can't build new.
21:46
I say you can't. New communities are tougher to
21:49
build and so new spaces become more more challenging.
21:54
Whereas in a country where potentially there's more
21:57
development opportunities, they can build these new future
22:01
community driven homes. Where's your focus on this?
22:05
Like are you looking at a European lens?
22:08
Are you looking at a global lens?
22:09
How are you looking at this? I mean, me personally, I'm
22:13
definitely focused on Europe as a region and as a market right
22:17
now in what I do for various reasons.
22:20
But I think just a comment on the home.
22:23
I think with IKEA you, we, we did a lot of research across
22:27
many markets, you know, from India to Mexico, the US, Europe
22:32
as a whole, but also East Asia. And what what you find out is a
22:36
lot of the functional needs at home supports people with are
22:40
the same and are universal across a lot of the things up
22:44
more on size and on aesthetics and on who provides those things
22:49
to you. But in most people, they need a
22:52
place to cook, to sleep and to do some sort of relation in
22:56
between. Scandinavia for sure is leading
23:00
with the whole thing around the interior and the creation and
23:03
really put a lot of effort into it where maybe certain countries
23:07
in South Europe and even in the UK studies show that people's
23:11
interest in home furnishing and interior is is found over.
23:14
Yeah, I think overall the home as a function is I think pretty
23:18
global and universal and. Interesting.
23:21
So a lot of people criticise me for saying that.
23:23
One about when you look at spaces within the home, so for
23:26
example, if you're lucky because then we can't talk about all of
23:30
this then without thinking about societal, you know, potentially
23:34
people at one end of the scale may have less space, people at
23:38
the other end of the scale will have more.
23:41
I feel that's a generic week. We'll say that as a sort of
23:44
global rule, right? And one end you've got less of
23:46
the other end you've got more. But then how spaces are
23:50
utilised. One of the beautiful things I've
23:53
seen through design is how a living room can transform to
23:58
become a dining room. So even if you have more space,
24:02
it's actually more technology driven or design driven to make
24:05
that small space transform into multiple layers.
24:09
So again, how, how are you looking at that?
24:11
Are you, are you saying are you just looking at the spaces
24:14
individually? Are you looking at them?
24:16
Are the layers within those spaces?
24:18
How? How are you looking at it?
24:19
Yeah, I mean, my my obsession and what I'm working on quite
24:24
actively right now is at the intersection of home and
24:28
technology. So like where will technology
24:30
move into the home and how will technology change your life at
24:34
home? My particular focus is on
24:37
utilities because I think they are so boring and outdated in
24:41
many ways, yet it's so important where you could say many others
24:45
right now are working on VR glasses and smart TV's and all
24:49
kinds of IO orchestration that never really works.
24:53
But like the the way you heat your home, cool your home, the
24:57
way you clean your air, the way you get fresh water from your
25:00
tap, even your toilet and your shower and your, you know, E
25:05
core utilities and appliances. I think those are one of the
25:09
most important and interesting areas when it comes to
25:12
technology and even AI, because this is where it can enable
25:16
people to live healthier, but you can also help them reduce
25:19
the, the, the their monthly bill and actually really provide
25:22
something of value. And the experience today within
25:25
that phase is insane versus what you, for example, see today in
25:30
other domains of technology where we are getting really high
25:33
expectations of how things should work and how things are
25:36
done. So me that that is something I
25:38
find quite fascinating. And I mean, the home obviously
25:41
also moves quite slow because it's such a static structure and
25:45
so different. And some people would argue,
25:47
yeah, but it's anything ever happening with the home.
25:50
Isn't it just the same, like it was 100 years ago?
25:53
And if you zoom out historically, you know, the
25:56
first homes we as humans had were, you know, almost like
26:00
shelters, You know, nature homes, They were not bound to be
26:04
one place. And they didn't really do much
26:06
more than giving you a place to sleep and maybe a little bit of
26:10
adjusted temperature. And then with agriculture, it
26:13
was the first time where the home suddenly had a little bit
26:15
more of a contextual anchor. So we build homes around the
26:19
agricultural initiative or things we did.
26:21
And then, you know, over time, you know, ancient civilization
26:24
suddenly came and suddenly homes also were cultural phenomena.
26:27
You know, the industrial home came and the highway and the
26:29
car. And suddenly that changed a lot.
26:31
Now I would say we ended up in home area where a lot of the
26:34
holes are primarily built around cities.
26:37
Yeah. And I think why it's so
26:38
interesting is that the way homes function and where they
26:42
are placed, they've they basically inform everything else
26:45
in society, including retail and business.
26:48
So the urban home area now obviously has dramatically
26:51
shifted the company's retail models.
26:53
So for example, like here suddenly saw that all their
26:56
customers were living in cities as well and and you know, all
26:59
their stores were outside the city so.
27:01
All in the. What are we doing?
27:03
And I think a lot of businesses indeed, as they often forget the
27:08
home's effect on it and they describe all the change to the
27:11
full and to the Internet. But it's not necessarily those
27:15
parameters alone that has changed businesses.
27:17
Actually a lot of them is also just how and where we live.
27:20
It's just not as cool to talk about than the cyber truck
27:24
driving itself from a. Where?
27:26
So when you look at the future, how are you seeing energy?
27:29
What's what's the looking glass for you then?
27:31
I mean, I think you can have your pragmatic glasses on or
27:35
your idea holistic glasses on with this question.
27:37
I think overall the question on renewable energy now has shifted
27:42
from being like an ideology to being a cost saving measure for
27:47
a lot of people in the household.
27:48
So now it's not a question of whether you're doing the right
27:51
thing anymore for the climate. It's just you are cheaper, like
27:54
you will lower your monthly bills if you add solar and a
27:57
battery and if you replace your gas boiler with a heat pump, you
28:01
know, even more reduction in your money.
28:03
And that is what will sway people, I think at the end to
28:06
take these decisions because as you said earlier, like most
28:09
people don't even have the luxury to think about
28:11
sustainability when it comes to their work supply.
28:14
If they need to look at affordability before anything
28:17
else. And I think that will drive it.
28:20
And then the other part is that the entry barriers so much
28:24
lower. If you're selling batteries and
28:26
solar, you need to build a National Grid delivering energy
28:30
to a completely different system.
28:32
You don't need any oil refinery stations.
28:36
You don't need any infrastructure built with with
28:38
your nations policy approvals. And so you know, suddenly a lot
28:43
of smaller companies, they can actually enter the market and
28:46
say we can also provide your energy and it will be cheaper
28:50
for you. It'll be easier and we can do it
28:52
outside the normal system. And I think that will be a
28:55
little bit the effect that we have seen the Internet they're
28:58
doing to media or Amazon guns who big platforms just like
29:02
they, they unbundled old businesses and then at some
29:06
point new businesses will emerge that will bundle that again in a
29:09
different way. But we are currently right now
29:11
in the unbundling space of boogie and homes.
29:14
And then at some point you would like to see certain players try
29:18
to then funnel those players again into something like
29:21
resource Shopify now bundling a lot of the players that's
29:25
emerged as new, new startups. And that is for me a fascinating
29:28
space That will also happen with a lot of other domains in retail
29:32
industries that are dependent on the home.
29:35
Food is another good example of it, I think, where everybody
29:38
thought groceries would be delivered to your home.
29:41
And that's been the perception. And now we're seeing that it's
29:45
actually more or less being replaced with ready made food is
29:48
being delivered to your home and done in cloud kitchens across
29:52
across the country for better and worse.
29:55
But it's just, it's a completely different system where suddenly
29:58
like all kinds of people can build 345 businesses, sit in one
30:03
vow kitchen, seal that to to the household.
30:05
And, and while that is being done, you have the big grocers
30:08
talk about whether they should deliver groceries to you at home
30:11
or not. And, and while they decide
30:13
whether they should do that or not, ten years too late, you
30:16
know, a whole different consumer trend has emerged, which is that
30:19
we are eating food differently and preparing less and eating
30:23
more fast and and ready ready meals, you know, which is
30:26
obviously having its own consequences.
30:28
And I. Think it's like the war in
30:31
Ukraine has told us all governments around the world or
30:35
specifically in Europe, how energy diversification is such
30:40
an important part. Yeah.
30:41
And, and this whole mentality of living off grid and, and whether
30:45
or not people can actually do it and whether or not the
30:47
government wants you to live off grid, I think that's probably
30:50
will end up in a rabbit hole either way if we, if we go that
30:54
way, because I, I, yeah, I, I don't know if they do.
30:56
I I I partly feels that that doesn't serve how society works.
31:01
We don't want more people to go off grid.
31:03
We don't want more people to grow their own food.
31:05
We don't want more people to be self sustained in their land or
31:09
with their water or their energy.
31:11
We want more interdependency, I think, I think that's where
31:17
we're going. So, OK, so in terms of when you
31:20
when you look at I, I think I've got a vision of, of what the the
31:24
future looks like for you. But can you sort of, and I'm not
31:28
going to hold you to this, but maybe maybe in five years we'll
31:30
come back and say 25 you said this.
31:34
What, what, what, what do you see as the big transformational
31:39
blocks over the next, say five years, right?
31:42
What are those? You've said it's energy, but,
31:45
but what do you mean by that? Do you mean I I don't know.
31:47
Yeah. Tell me what what your thoughts
31:49
are. I think they're like a few key
31:52
pillars in the home that has been untouched for quite a
31:55
while. And then there's been other
31:57
pillars that are rapidly changing as we speak, you know.
32:00
So I think finishing entertainment and activities
32:05
both moving out and inside the home, you know, that will happen
32:08
for sure and continue more or less as it is now will probably
32:11
be different activities that are moving in and out of the home at
32:14
some point and different styles that you want to decorate with,
32:16
but would be more or less the same.
32:18
I also think that the price will be more or less the same
32:21
challenge that like housing is getting more expensive and more
32:25
and more people will unfortunately move towards
32:27
leasing rather than owning homes, which will be a big trend
32:30
that I think will accelerate even further over the next five
32:34
years. And then I think, you know,
32:36
there will be a question that is more on the human side, like how
32:40
many do we live with at home? You know, do we live alone or do
32:43
we live multiple people will be something that I think will be
32:47
quite different from in not just country to country, region to
32:50
region, but even within the country, from community to
32:53
community. So it's like diverging and
32:56
converging in the same time, you know, some people will live more
32:59
and more alone, while other people will start to look for
33:03
community more and more and more and move out of the city
33:05
potentially to find that that desire.
33:08
And then, and then I think for me, the most important part will
33:12
likely be the technology moving into the home where there's been
33:16
a lot of talk about IoT for whatever 30 years now, you know,
33:20
almost as long as we've talked about the Internet.
33:23
But sometimes with these technologies that moves in these
33:26
curves and cycles is a question of timing, technological timing,
33:31
industry timing, societal timing.
33:33
And I do believe that the timing of technology in homes are
33:37
starting to align from a technical point of view.
33:41
The Meta technology, which is like the equivalent of Wi-Fi,
33:44
Bluetooth for IoT has been introduced, which means that
33:48
it's a lot easier to orchestrate things at home now than what it
33:51
used to. You also do a lot of tech
33:52
companies who are maybe at the end of an S curve when it comes
33:56
to iPhones and smartphones and are starting to really look more
34:00
aggressively to their next businesses for the next couple
34:03
of decades. And there will likely not be an
34:06
iPhone 36. You know, like at some point
34:08
there it was a new business to move into.
34:10
And there are not that many businesses that are as important
34:13
and as big and as universal as the whole.
34:16
So you will likely have spatial computing as one domain people
34:19
will move into, and then you have wearable computing as not
34:22
the main. These tech companies will move
34:24
into the world, but computing is already happening with glasses
34:28
and parts and watches and, and whatnot.
34:31
And then on the other side, I think the, the spatial computing
34:34
aspect, not just the AR parts, but also the, the data, the IoT,
34:39
the utilities, that will likely be the part we'll see more and
34:42
more coming in over the next five years.
34:44
And it's all driven obviously by the progression of of machine
34:49
learning and AI, but it's also driven by financial incentives.
34:54
I think for a lot of these companies who today have seen
34:57
the peak of growth with one very defining technology, we're now
35:03
trying to hide the next ones. If you ask a lot of people in
35:06
these conference, you will hear that a lot of the money right
35:08
now is being allocated to to projects within these fields
35:12
and. Well, yeah, I think having a
35:13
robot in everyone's house, right, that's apparently the
35:16
robots can do it at the moment. They, the, the the technology is
35:20
there. But well, I don't know.
35:22
There, there, there seems to be some friction entry points that
35:25
they just need to get over before we end up having servant
35:28
roads in all homes. Yeah.
35:31
And also is that what like we have talked about VR glasses and
35:34
everyone really tries to push those, but people just don't
35:37
want to wear them, you know, like they just though.
35:40
And I think the question is going to be a little bit the
35:42
same with the robots. Like no matter how cheap and how
35:45
efficient it will get, like there will be a long adoption
35:48
rate for people to invite and robot into your house.
35:53
It will likely happen for certain groups, maybe early
35:56
adopters who love sick. I think also an ageing
35:58
population where the amount of care we as society can provide
36:02
will likely be forced to replace with robots and other types of
36:06
technology. Yeah, but do you think the home
36:09
will be a very big platform, a battleground, sorry for
36:12
technology. And new players will also emerge
36:15
in that battle and an existing players will be defeated.
36:19
Like we saw Knocker moving down, ever moved up?
36:21
Like who are the players who will move up and down in this
36:24
game? So what?
36:25
Yeah, exciting times ahead, but definitely also a very different
36:28
game than the game of smartphones because this is not
36:31
just something you have in your pocket.
36:33
It's far more complex. Yeah, I mean, you've got Sam
36:35
Ullman and Johnny I've with their products coming out next
36:39
year, whoever knows what that will be.
36:41
I'm curious. This is my final question.
36:44
I don't know what your thoughts are on this, whether or not this
36:46
is too pessimistic, but in a world where there's a tonne of
36:51
people on UVI Universal Basic Income because lots of jobs are
36:56
going to go to AI, have have you got, has your thinking got to
37:01
that point or do you think that's just people
37:03
scaremongering? That's probably, I don't know,
37:06
10-15 years away before we're in that sort of world where there
37:11
aren't jobs for people and so therefore the home is that
37:13
critical space. But yeah, again, curious on your
37:16
thoughts. I mean, I think there's, there's
37:18
like two sides of, of Ubi, in particular Ubi in relation to,
37:23
to artificial intelligence. I think the, the, the, the
37:27
people who believe in, in that direction often saying, you
37:30
know, we can work less, we can spend more time with our
37:33
families. A lot of studies, including a
37:36
study in Finland shows that people on Ubi actually don't end
37:39
up working less. They end up doing the same.
37:41
And I'm not just being, being checked out as such.
37:45
So, so, you know, some of them may be scepticism or concerns
37:48
are not, not there. And, and that there's some sort
37:50
of like welfare net below everyone.
37:53
Obviously, as a Scandinavian human here who used to have
37:57
strong welfare system, I definitely see a lot of benefits
37:59
in catching everyone even if they can't get a job with some
38:02
sort of minimum financial support and welfare.
38:06
But on the other hand, I also think that, you know, if
38:09
everyone is suddenly in, you know, dependent on the state for
38:13
giving money and it's another big responsibility for the
38:16
states with them, treat that with respects and not use that
38:21
to sway the population into certain behaviours.
38:24
And I think that's probably my biggest fear right now.
38:27
If you would look at at certain countries across the world, they
38:30
are getting a bit more authoritarian in their way of
38:33
looking at, you know, policy and decision making and you know,
38:38
scores for how you well you're doing and insurance score or
38:42
this social school in China. It's like it's quite a lot
38:44
broader. And what happens if you don't do
38:47
what you are, you know, what you should do?
38:49
Do they didn't just cut you up your Ubi and then you're off.
38:52
And can they say that if you do this, if you are believing in
38:56
this religion or if you do these behaviours, you get more Ubi
39:00
than those and suddenly becomes a quieter token system where
39:04
obviously people being dependent on a way more mixed market of
39:09
income has a lot more mode against these things because
39:13
it's, it's other dynamics and it's more market driven.
39:16
So I think certain countries could do it with success and I
39:20
think others would probably end up in a by the Stopian scenario
39:24
if they rolled it out. Sure.
39:25
But to answer if I think it's necessary, I definitely believe
39:29
if we look at a longer time horizon that the amount of jobs
39:33
that we right now have versus the amount of jobs that we
39:37
likely have with these new technologies.
39:39
I'm probably not an optimist like some of these AI founders
39:43
who say that this will generate thousands of new jobs, hundreds
39:47
of thousands, if not millions of new jobs.
39:49
Because if you look at the top 10 most probably public jobs or
39:53
occupied jobs, and we're like a lot of those, you know, they're.
39:56
Gone. They're going.
39:57
Yeah, they go. And so, so in that sense, yeah,
40:00
I'm, I'm a bit worried for sure in, in that in combination with
40:05
the fact that we had less kids and we live longer.
40:07
So there's a lot of more pressure on there.
40:09
We haven't actually spoken about that which is the ageing
40:11
population, but it feels like. Yeah, Yeah.
40:13
So it's a Penguin cocktail. I think right now that we we are
40:17
in certain jobs can't be replaced anytime soon either.
40:22
So I also think, you know, I would love if more people were
40:25
excited about utilities than AI because utilities, you can't
40:29
just be placed with AI anytime soon.
40:30
You know, there's quite a lot of humanly well needed for for that
40:34
tool to work for a long time at least.
40:37
Yeah, and it feels like it's actually for the for the planet
40:39
in the, in the sense of how we get those utilities into the
40:43
home and how it works the, the multiple layers.
40:46
That's what a healthy society needs, right.
40:49
So irrespective of everything, unless we're all going to move
40:53
into tents, which I very much doubt we we meet that there's a
40:56
big problems that we need to solve.
40:59
So Kobe, thank you so much for giving up the time to speak to
41:02
us. I am look forward to obviously
41:05
stalking you on LinkedIn to see where where you where you will
41:09
appear over the next few months. And it's been a really
41:12
fascinating conversation. Thank you so much.
41:15
Thank you. Thanks.