Latest / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes / Building virtual power plants with AI and blockchain
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome back to AI for Founders. I'm Ryan Estes.
- 0:02Today we're going big on energy. My guest is Alex from Soulmag
- 0:06dot AI calling in from Bucharest.
- 0:08And he's building virtual power plants that let neighbors trade
- 0:11solar in real time. Think 12 houses topping off your
- 0:15EV while you sip coffee, all orchestrated by a small gateway
- 0:19device in a cloud brain that routes electrons like ways
- 0:22routes traffic. We get into how peer-to-peer
- 0:25energy swaps can pay prosumers closer to 85% of market price
- 0:30while Solimag takes a transparent 10%, why utilities
- 0:34charge 30 to 40% for distribution, and how micro
- 0:37grids scale from 100 homes to 10,000.
- 0:41We talked pilots in Brooklyn, Sweden and the Netherlands.
- 0:44Europe's 2026 rules in a path from 25,000,000 rooftops today
- 0:48to 100 million in five years. You will learn the hardware
- 0:52needed, the regulatory hoops, and how AI can price energy by
- 0:55distance. This is for climate tech
- 0:57founders, real estate developers, EV networks, solar
- 1:00installers, and angels who like category creation with real
- 1:04hardware. If you like the podcast, you're
- 1:06going to love the newsletter. It's published once a week.
- 1:08You can sign up at AI for founders.co.
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- 3:36All right, we're rolling. Alex, how are you?
- 3:38Welcome to the show. Great, great, great.
- 3:41How are you? I'm doing very well now.
- 3:43Where are you calling from today?
- 3:46I am in the Dracula's home, it's a Romania Bucharest.
- 3:51I don't know if you already visited, but if not you should.
- 3:55I would love to, you know, I'm not particularly gothic, but I
- 3:59could be. If you use this.
- 4:01You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 4:06Amazing. Now you're here to talk about
- 4:08your company, Soulmag, and I'm really excited about this
- 4:11because it's a it's very novel and I don't know if I understand
- 4:14it all the way. So why don't you just start us
- 4:16off with an introduction to Soulmag AI?
- 4:22Yeah. So after I did my first, let's
- 4:29say, exit you, and if it wasn't so big from my first company,
- 4:36for two months I was staring to stars and I was trying to
- 4:40discover a great meaning for my life.
- 4:43And in that point I discovered Kardashian's scale.
- 4:48It was a Russian science fiction guy which wrote it in 1964.
- 4:55And he said that the the type one of the civilization will
- 5:01have the capacity of harness the whole energy from from our star
- 5:08on earth. And I said, OK, the energy will
- 5:14drive me away, far away from from from this point.
- 5:20So I start with Sol Mug, which is, which has a simple vision to
- 5:27transform our civilization from 0.73 where we are to a type 1.
- 5:35And what actually is it's a platform which builds virtual
- 5:41power plants. And that means we are collecting
- 5:46the datas from solar panel owners and the we are simulates
- 5:53us as a big plant. Yeah.
- 6:00And here we are. We are in the beginning of
- 6:04revolutionizing the way of transferring energy between you
- 6:10and your neighbor. And that's that's the name of
- 6:14peer-to-peer energy transfer. Unbelievable.
- 6:17That's so cool. So basically you're harvesting
- 6:20multiple people's solar panels and bring them into one.
- 6:25Is it is like a repository or is it kind of peer-to-peer?
- 6:28So like if I am in excess I can give sell it to my neighbor kind
- 6:32of thing. Live, it's a live thing because
- 6:36if, if you have let's say that you have your EV, your
- 6:42electrical vehicle in, in charging mode and you need more
- 6:46power than you are producing with your solar panels.
- 6:49If even if you have solar panels.
- 6:52And in that point you can harness yeah, from other 12
- 6:55houses in your name in your community or something like
- 6:59that. Or in another way, maybe you
- 7:01have some floating houses on a, on, on a lake and you could use
- 7:10and share the energy between you and your, your neighbors using
- 7:16the platform. Yeah.
- 7:18Incredible. So what's, what's the hardware
- 7:20component? Because I'm thinking about
- 7:22Denver kind of how solar power's done.
- 7:24I've got some solar panels up there and I think it's just a
- 7:28charge back to the utility company.
- 7:30I and I honestly don't know how that works.
- 7:32It seems like magic to me. So if I was to like bring
- 7:35Soulmag if it was available here, what do I need hardware
- 7:38wise to make it happen? Yeah, So we find this problem
- 7:44since the beginning and is the same thing as Graham Bell had
- 7:49with his phone, the same problem when he invented the phone, the
- 7:52first one, it was impossible to call another, another guy.
- 7:59So he also sold another device, another phone to that guy.
- 8:04But in that point you just could call your friend or your mom and
- 8:09you wish to call all of your friends.
- 8:11So he, he goes to a community and he installed those, those
- 8:19phones in the whole community and create a network is the
- 8:23same, the same thing of what we are doing with our gateway
- 8:27device which should be installed at your home nearby your solar
- 8:33panels or our device which should be installed at your home
- 8:37if you don't have solar panels. Based on that, we are collecting
- 8:42those datas in, in a cloud. We have the aggregator license
- 8:48and we can switch the energy between you and your friend
- 8:53telling him or seeing that in in his behavior that he will arrive
- 8:58home at 3 and he will start start charging his car and he
- 9:03needs more energy and he you will be his supplier.
- 9:07That's that's the way. Yeah, it's very it's very new,
- 9:12especially for Europe. We will have that the
- 9:15legislation for that since 2026, the project name it's Picasso.
- 9:22We didn't find the how it works in US for now even if we are
- 9:27incorporated in Delaware, but yeah, it should work.
- 9:34It's a brilliant idea. I'm, I'm surprised no one has
- 9:36done this before. Is, is there a considerable
- 9:39pushback from the utilities? I'm assuming that they want that
- 9:42energy, right? I mean, right now, especially
- 9:44with all the compute that's in use from AI and everything else
- 9:47like energy is of premium resource, you know, so, So what
- 9:53does compliance been like? What were some of the early
- 9:55hoops you had to jump through to get it off the?
- 9:58Yeah, imagine that we actually we're fighting with the energy
- 10:05suppliers on the same energy because you you have your
- 10:09contract with your energy supplier now and the having so
- 10:13mug you'll just enter in a new entity and you'll share your
- 10:16energy in that area creating from small micro grids to large
- 10:24scales on the full country based on that.
- 10:31Thinking also about Indonesia where they installed so much
- 10:36solar panels that the the grid output, the grid power goes to
- 10:411/2 because everybody has now solar panels there.
- 10:45We also have this fight with with energy supplier.
- 10:50But yeah, responding on on your question, we just use about 40%
- 11:01from our total production on Earth.
- 11:04So we don't actually need those this power yet.
- 11:10The servers, the a a servers are not using so much power now.
- 11:15But maybe and what I'm thinking it's the humanoids part could
- 11:22could start using this big number of terawatts and that's
- 11:30why we actually need to create those consumers.
- 11:35So I think this is a great direction.
- 11:39There are only 50 million electrical vehicles and there
- 11:45are 1.5 billion cars all over the world.
- 11:49Those 50 million are consuming 7 times of Romania or as Germany
- 11:56consumed now. So it's nothing those electrical
- 11:59vehicles are are not using so much.
- 12:02So yeah, we need to discover a way of using those, the surplus
- 12:07of energy. I had a talk with somebody about
- 12:12the total servers which are using not so much, not more than
- 12:20the electrical vehicles. The biggest consumer on earth
- 12:25are still the factories, the steel factories and yeah, those
- 12:32in those big guys. You bet, you bet.
- 12:36Now, is there a blockchain component to this?
- 12:41Yeah. We think about that because
- 12:43we've seen that Cibium network creates this dependency between
- 12:51a user which would use the router to be part of a network.
- 13:00They sold about 2 million equipments, but we didn't see
- 13:04this big connection between that yet, maybe even because the
- 13:12market it's not so mature. I'm believing this web tree and
- 13:18crypto technology and block chain technology, but more as a
- 13:23store of value for now. Like it's good to, it's fun to
- 13:26invest in bit brand Ethereum or in other rock chain rock chains.
- 13:32But yeah, because of the volatility, it could create a
- 13:38different perspective of the project now.
- 13:42Yeah. You know, I can see I just so
- 13:44many use cases. This is such a cool product,
- 13:47particularly for me. So I just moved from downtown
- 13:50Denver out to the sticks in this neighborhood called Sterling
- 13:54Ranch. It's out in the country and it's
- 13:56a brand new whole development neighborhood that they're
- 13:59building. And it's unique because it's, I
- 14:02think one of the, it's one of the top, our first five
- 14:05communities that's basically been built top to bottom as kind
- 14:09of like a smart community. And what they're calling smart
- 14:12far as it has like fiber optic Internet, everything is wired
- 14:15for that. Every single utility is on an
- 14:17app. It has shut offs and it's all
- 14:19run through your phone. Everything has solar panels.
- 14:22It's all, you know, very water sparse.
- 14:25It has its own water source. It's very independent for a, a
- 14:28neighborhood. Now the vision is for 8000 homes
- 14:31and there's about 1800 homes here now.
- 14:34And they're building them very, very quickly.
- 14:36So as a result, there's probably about 40 or 50% capacity.
- 14:41About half the houses are brand new and just sitting empty, but
- 14:44they all have functioning solar panels on top of them.
- 14:48You know, if they had, you know, Soulmag, then we could be
- 14:51harvesting the energy that are otherwise the houses are sitting
- 14:54there unoccupied. That's charging my 3 electric
- 14:57vehicles and my electric bikes and, and everything else, you
- 15:01know. So from a from a consumer
- 15:03standpoint, is there am I, am I getting a better price from my
- 15:08neighbor if I'm purchasing my neighbor's power as opposed to
- 15:10going to a utility? Yeah.
- 15:14For, for that example today an energy supplier gives you about
- 15:2130 to 40% from the price which he sells the actual actually the
- 15:27energy, which is not fair because for your energy is
- 15:31creating about 170% profit or more than than if you do.
- 15:43So we just charge 10% for every transaction on our platform.
- 15:50And we are trying to push forward the legislation on the
- 15:54distribution part because yeah, you will use the infrastructure,
- 15:59but it's a big difference between carrying the energy from
- 16:03a nuclear plant 200 kilometers away in the middle of of the
- 16:09city then just transferring it to your neighbor.
- 16:15They should have different, different costs for the
- 16:18distribution part. So yeah, it's actually you will
- 16:23get about 85% for the normal price referring to the exchange
- 16:30market for for the energy exchange market which you are
- 16:34working where we are. You are working, yeah.
- 16:39It's such a big idea. It's just incredible now.
- 16:42Where is this available right now?
- 16:46There are some pilots all over the world.
- 16:49One of them I think in Brooklyn was one of the 1st 5 pilots also
- 16:56they've tried them in Sweden. There are also some labs in in
- 17:03Netherlands. But now since we discovered that
- 17:08more and more people are using solar panels and they are
- 17:12willing to have this autonomy since different wars starts
- 17:19starts on different places on on Earth, I think yeah, they, they,
- 17:29they could start being on a scale or because more and more
- 17:35company appear with this solution.
- 17:38Now one of the biggest have sold already 11,000 devices and
- 17:45they're starting to map the yeah, they're starting to map
- 17:50for those communities and start to create this opportunity for
- 17:54them. There are only 25 million people
- 17:59with solar panels and arts from 8 million.
- 18:02So we are still very, very early.
- 18:05What? Yeah, imagine that we will keep
- 18:08having this growth till the next five years and we will reach 100
- 18:14million as there is predicted and the yeah, we will scale
- 18:21those communities on from I know 100 homes, 1010 thousand.
- 18:28And after that you interconnect the whole the whole city between
- 18:35yeah using this local production of energy.
- 18:40But even then, I I I still have some issues on doing my reason
- 18:48of reaching this type 1 civilization level.
- 18:52Because if we really wish to arrive in that point, sorry for
- 18:59talking too much, please interrupt me right if you.
- 19:01Please go ahead, keep going. So we we have a three to 4%
- 19:07growth of energy year by year on Earth.
- 19:11We are producing now 20 terawatts per hour.
- 19:16For reaching this level of Type 1 civilization, we should gain
- 19:228700 X more. But if we keep this 3 to 4%
- 19:30growth in 300 years we will be able to absorb the whole energy
- 19:34from the sun, from the sun. But using solar panels for that
- 19:40it will be impossible because we need, we will need with this
- 19:43efficiency from the solar panels, which is about 24%, we
- 19:47will need 23 Tera surfaces so it could absorb the whole energy.
- 19:54So that means we we really need to compact them in, in a way.
- 19:58So we need to scale up to the outer space necessary and we
- 20:05need to try to use the nuclear way of creating energy or other
- 20:10ways, I don't know, sending some monoids on Mars and start to put
- 20:16them to start R and DS R&D there with nuclear plants or something
- 20:20like micro nuclear plants because it's very risky here,
- 20:24yes and. But for the beginning, yeah, we,
- 20:29we are here because the the whole network start to be
- 20:34congested because those prosumers or people which have
- 20:38solar panels on the roof are only injecting energy in the
- 20:42middle of the day. And we are trying to give them
- 20:48lessons on how to use those energy, this energy, keep them,
- 20:53keep the surplus in batteries using them and create the whole
- 20:57network. Very smart.
- 21:01For for the next 10 years or now, yeah.
- 21:07So cool, now take me back. So you have an exit from your
- 21:10company, a small exit, but enough to give you a little bit
- 21:13of space. And you said you were looking
- 21:15for meaning and you came across like this Type 1 civilization,
- 21:19which I'm familiar with a little bit.
- 21:21Talk about what you were feeling at that time and and how you
- 21:25kind of started to make sense of your next steps.
- 21:30Yeah, I was starting my first company as a joke.
- 21:35We was students and me and my friend have enough parties in
- 21:41our apartments. So any some points?
- 21:45His mother came in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, and
- 21:49start yelling at us because it was a almost a lot of alcohol on
- 21:58tables and stuff like that. And we said, OK, we we should
- 22:01build an app so somebody could came at your home and clean the
- 22:05stuff and we just make it. And the one of the investors
- 22:10here in Romania, Colleen Fusa, which has other investments, he,
- 22:16he see an opportunity in that we scaled 26 people.
- 22:22Now it moves on a home management, 100 apartments and
- 22:25stuff like that in the management.
- 22:30And in that point, I, I sold my equity and I tried to find a
- 22:36bigger way of helping Polar. And yeah, I discovered that
- 22:45growing our civilization not for maybe I will not be here over 70
- 22:52or 100 years, but there should be someone who boosted the Boost
- 23:01US order because 7000 years ago we discovered fire, the first
- 23:08source of energy and now we've multiplied by seven point 5.7
- 23:16million times the energy that we are creating here.
- 23:20So it's like a small heart which start popping and now we arrive
- 23:26in in a bigger way. And looking further to year
- 23:3112,000 as Asimov was written in Foundation or different science
- 23:38fiction books, we should go out from there as soon as possible
- 23:48to evolve more. And I think it's for for sure in
- 23:53the next 100 years we will be multiplanetary.
- 23:59Well, you say we. I'm not going anywhere.
- 24:01I've seen the surface of those planets.
- 24:03Looks terrible. I'm gonna go.
- 24:04I'm gonna go up to the mountains and go fishing.
- 24:06You know what I mean? Yeah, you you can also do that
- 24:11thing, I don't know, in, in on another planet or Yeah, you, you
- 24:15could just stay here and chill out because you'll you'll you've
- 24:21been bored here. I don't know if I would have the
- 24:25opportunity. Imagine a cost of transferring
- 24:28yourself on Mars or something like that.
- 24:31For the beginning. Yeah, only part of us.
- 24:37Yeah. Now, you and I know startups are
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- 24:52break moments behind their products, What went wrong, what
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- 24:58Hosted by Noah Labhart, Code Story goes past the highlight
- 25:02reel and into the honest stuff, late pivots, brutal bugs, and
- 25:06somehow coming out alive with a product people actually love.
- 25:09If you're in the build stage and the scale stage or the please
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- 25:16Listen to Code Story at codestory.co or wherever you get
- 25:20your podcast. Just search Code Story.
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- 26:45defining together. And I, I love the ambition.
- 26:50So, so you're, you're feeling you, you become inspired by
- 26:55energy and power and delivering humanity to the stars, which is
- 27:00amazing. I, I love astronomy, you know,
- 27:02and always have since I was a kid.
- 27:05How did this idea of power sharing solar cells come about?
- 27:10And what were your next steps? Did you then go on to raise or
- 27:13how did you start to build a team and resources around the
- 27:17idea? Yeah, so we are a team of two.
- 27:23We are looking to we started the pre seed round now where we have
- 27:30an Angel committed with actually there are two angels committed
- 27:36with 60K from a total of 150 K. It's a small round and we are
- 27:44looking to find other angels all over the world with big vision,
- 27:51but also with some background on growing start-ups because yeah,
- 27:57we wish to push it's it's unless to a series B or somewhere like
- 28:06that. And yeah, we actually will
- 28:10install tomorrow the 1st device. So we could start to get the
- 28:14behavior from from the user and start to optimize the energy
- 28:21consumption from them side with a 30% from what we would predict
- 28:28now. And from that point, we could
- 28:33just, we, we already have 3 partnerships with the solar
- 28:36panels installers because they will be our distributors.
- 28:41We have a request of 100 devices already from one of them.
- 28:47And since we were have those first batch of devices, we will
- 28:54go further to scale up models so we could raise the Series A seed
- 29:01round of 1,000,000 and so on. Yeah, we were.
- 29:06It seems like for this is a logical acquisition for, you
- 29:11know, a solar panel manufacturing company.
- 29:15Were you able to secure patents on the technology?
- 29:20Yeah, we've actually our first Angel.
- 29:23It's teaming Euro, which sold some patents to Facebook.
- 29:30He was working in Sweden for Volvo for 10 years and he
- 29:35actually creates the simulator for Volvo Cars, which will enter
- 29:40on the streets now autonomous. And he sold all the spectrum of
- 29:47patents which implied the generation of image on each type
- 29:54of screen from glasses because he also gets some rewards from
- 30:00Apple to every type of projection of the image.
- 30:08And yeah, we have him in our team, he will show us how to do
- 30:15that. But for patents, there will be
- 30:18needed unless 300K. So we could have them all over
- 30:23the place. But the most important thing in
- 30:27this business, it's actually the network because yeah, it's a
- 30:32simple device, you can build it, but if you don't have actually
- 30:37the virtual power plant and the control of the entire structure,
- 30:42you you don't have nothing. And this device, yeah, some of
- 30:50the people that was question questioning us, why are we don't
- 30:56go directly to Victor and our frontiers, which are Inverter's
- 31:02brands and get the datas. And yeah, it's a security
- 31:07bridge. It's like going to Elon Musk to
- 31:09request the data from Tesla. She would have said, yeah, OK,
- 31:12you can get the datas, but you can't control this.
- 31:16So that's why we are going one by one in each home who puts
- 31:22those devices to get the agreement from the user and to
- 31:25create actually the network. Because we will be based not
- 31:29only the not only for the pricing growth, but also for
- 31:35this type of community because there are other kind of people
- 31:40in in this sector which are thinking autonomously.
- 31:47Yeah. Yeah, well, and I love it too
- 31:49because it it like creates incentive to advance solar
- 31:53technology in the solar market in general, largely because now
- 31:56it's decentralized, right. So now if I'm producing enough
- 32:00for my home, that's great. But like if I've got like a real
- 32:02good source, like, why wouldn't I expand to your point, Why
- 32:06wouldn't I put a boat on a lake with all these solar panels that
- 32:09now I can distribute to my peers and basically not have to kiss
- 32:13the ring as much? You know, you can go out there
- 32:16and, and create a little side hustle if you will sell an
- 32:19energy with solar panels. And I think as the, the
- 32:22technology only gets better and better and cheaper and cheaper,
- 32:25like this becomes like an an amazing resource, particularly
- 32:29in America where there's, you know, 3 grids.
- 32:32You know, you got, I think east or you got east West and you got
- 32:35Texas and Texas. Every year now is like almost on
- 32:38the verge of collapse. You know, they're probably
- 32:40coming out of it now. But like, I don't know if you've
- 32:42been to Texas in July and August, but it's like a
- 32:45miserable place to be. It's insanely hot, you know, So
- 32:48everybody runs their AC at the same time and their grid can
- 32:50barely handle it, you know? So this seems like an
- 32:54interesting decentralized solution that you know, not only
- 32:57like solves the problem for power, but also creates
- 32:59opportunity through capital markets.
- 33:05Yeah, True, true, true. Do you know how how many
- 33:09prosumers are in US? No, I don't.
- 33:16Yeah. I I will find out after this
- 33:18call what I know. What I know is that there are
- 33:241,000,000 in Netherlands and there are the bigger biggest
- 33:29number in Europe. For now we have 250 K in
- 33:34Romania, which is great because five years ago there was none.
- 33:41So we were unlocked this space. What else?
- 33:50You know, yeah, I didn't have a. Question.
- 33:54Go ahead, Sorry. Can can I say, yeah, I will let
- 33:58you go after that. About the AI part, we we are
- 34:02starting to look on a geometrical deep learning
- 34:06algorithm which is used by ways you know ways acquired by
- 34:10Google, which is for routing the traffic.
- 34:15That's software works like they they are getting the data from
- 34:20your car identify the best route to the to your destination and
- 34:26we will find the match between how the energy could flow
- 34:29exactly like that in the network because in that way you should
- 34:33pay more or less on your energy. It's it depends from where
- 34:38you're getting this energy because as I told you getting is
- 34:42from 200 kilometers away from a nuclear plant should be more
- 34:47expensive than getting from your neighbor.
- 34:49So yeah, we should, we should allocate that one excellent with
- 34:56the. Yeah, totally agree.
- 34:58Now this is such a big idea and you're such an early stage.
- 35:03It's great to talk to you right now.
- 35:05The audience of this podcast is vast and has lots of resources.
- 35:09What would be helpful to you right now really getting to the
- 35:12next phase? Is it would it be Angel
- 35:15commitments? What what would be the the the
- 35:17best way this audience could help you?
- 35:22Yeah, as I told you, we are looking for an Angel and yeah
- 35:27that there will be a great opportunity to find somebody
- 35:31actually for from US because we are incorporated especially
- 35:37there because we are looking to target the US market after
- 35:41closing this precid round. But also or they could join our
- 35:49wait list on the websites even they are consumers or prosumers
- 35:56or they already have solar panels on the roofs.
- 36:00And they could also reach us if they are real estate development
- 36:07company or if they are an EV charging station company or if
- 36:13they are manufacturing as you said solar panels manufacturer
- 36:19company or solar panels installers.
- 36:22So all of those spectrum which wish to get the platform and
- 36:27create them or community already and to distribute these those
- 36:33gateways, yeah, they could reach us and you know everybody,
- 36:40anyone who wish to get involved in the project in in a way.
- 36:46Well, I will definitely make sure that that gets translated
- 36:50so that folks can reach out to you if, if they're in a position
- 36:54to do so, 'cause I, I, I think this is like, it's a brilliant
- 36:56idea. What I want to do now is go to
- 36:59the lightning round and we're going to start with the founder
- 37:02challenge question. Are you ready?
- 37:06Yeah, that's cool. The The Founder Challenge
- 37:10question is brought to you by kickcaster.com.
- 37:13If you go to media.kickcaster.com/founder
- 37:17Dash Challenge, you can find it. We'll put it in the show notes.
- 37:20So there's four categories. It's either tough, scandalous,
- 37:25explosive or philosophical. What category would you like to
- 37:28choose? Let's go to explosive.
- 37:33Explosive. I love it.
- 37:36OK, what's a time you've taken a shortcut that has backfired
- 37:41spectacularly? OK, let me think our question.
- 37:58And you can skip if you want. I can skip it, yeah.
- 38:07I've got a better. 1. I've got a better one for you.
- 38:11What's something? What's something you believe
- 38:13about the future that most people think is crazy?
- 38:21I, I think that we in some point we will have a global coin in or
- 38:32a global measurement of transactions in watts in energy.
- 38:41I think we would transform everything in energy.
- 38:45And the Bitcoin tried to do this thing, but it's used so much
- 38:51energy, it's not reliable on the transactional part, but it's a
- 38:55good store of value for now. But I think in some point in a
- 38:59globalization way, when there are we already have two planets
- 39:05occupied, let's say, we could find the way of using the a
- 39:10single way of addressing to each other in watts.
- 39:15So watts would be like kind of like a coin on the on the chain
- 39:21that could be exchanged. Interesting.
- 39:23Yeah, it would have any type of name.
- 39:26I don't know it would be something, but it it will be
- 39:30general for all of us. If you were going into school to
- 39:37university right now, your first year of college, knowing what
- 39:41you know now, what would you study?
- 39:45Yeah, you know, entering this in this energy sector, it make you
- 39:51so serious in some points and that I would say that they would
- 39:55love to learn how to sing or I don't know on.
- 40:00Piano, guitar or something like that.
- 40:02Or creating a band, doing something on artistic part,
- 40:06playing in a movie or some art stuff.
- 40:10Yet I because I'm an engineer and even if with my first start
- 40:17up I I didn't use my background I still have this mind already
- 40:23created. Then they need to put stuff in
- 40:25place and create and expand a lot of things, yeah.
- 40:30And yeah. I wish to be an artist.
- 40:33Yeah, do you? Do you?
- 40:35Music. Yeah.
- 40:36Do you think they does it harmonize each other?
- 40:38What what is the the benefit of having an engineering mind but
- 40:42studying music in in arts? Yeah, I think I, I have a
- 40:49creative mind that think it's it would help me or I I could
- 40:56easily match with the creative part even starting now.
- 41:03Yeah, I think that's why you address that type of question.
- 41:07Yeah, Yeah, great. I love it.
- 41:11I love how the the inception of your first business, it was, you
- 41:15know, it it was, was it your mom or was somebody else's mom was
- 41:19yelling at you for having too many beers around in the house.
- 41:23Now this, this song, this audience loves business ideas.
- 41:29Is there anything else that his mom is yelling him at about that
- 41:33maybe you could turn into another business?
- 41:49I don't know, maybe if there's an OCD kind of business, you
- 41:56could, you could create something in that, that
- 41:59direction or yeah, unlock your disconnect, your OCD or I don't
- 42:09know, I was. Thinking of all the things my
- 42:12mom yelled at me about, I'm like, man, there's got to be a
- 42:14bunch of business ideas. Seem like she's never stopped
- 42:16yelling, you know? Let's say you sold Soul Mag for
- 42:22a billion dollars today. What do you do tomorrow?
- 42:27This is it, yeah. I would directly go to find the
- 42:33place, a big place on Earth where I could start to a factory
- 42:38of of humanoids and I would start to try learning them how
- 42:49to build a nuclear power plant or some stuffing in that
- 42:54direction. So I could send them after that
- 42:56with one of the Elon Musk or Bezos rockets to Mars and get
- 43:02some place there to try to keep pushing my vision on throwing us
- 43:09from 0.73 level of the civilization to type 1.
- 43:14Yeah, if you had the opportunity to go to Mars, would you do it?
- 43:26Maybe if there are already 1,000,000 people there.
- 43:32Yeah, yeah, you're. Not going to be the first
- 43:35though. Yeah, yeah.
- 43:38I'll not be the first. Yeah, it seems cool, but I'm
- 43:42also afraid of heights, so I don't know if I'd enjoy that.
- 43:46It seems very scary, you know? Yeah, yeah, now did.
- 43:51Did you jump with a parachute yet?
- 43:58No, definitely not. I'm not feeling that either.
- 44:02Heck no. No way.
- 44:04Yeah. Like I said, I like fishing, you
- 44:06know, and I'll I I like the canyons.
- 44:08And so I'll see people mounting or rock climbing, you know, I'm
- 44:11like, you guys are crazy. Where you going?
- 44:13The fish are down here. Like what?
- 44:15What's to go up there? Why would you even do that?
- 44:17I don't even understand it. If that's the real.
- 44:21Nice, what are some AI tools that are helping you build this
- 44:25company? I think lovable it's one of the
- 44:31best websites builder, but more overdose AI markets, which
- 44:43explodes with different builders, including courser and
- 44:48so on. We already have also we also
- 44:53have in Romania design verse, which creates more than lovable
- 44:58one single page. Here is a hardware part and we
- 45:04can't actually use so much a A for now.
- 45:09Maybe in the future using some also some robots which will
- 45:14build the gateways. It will they will be needed with
- 45:18the we are not we are not using them so much now.
- 45:27It's yeah for for building a company.
- 45:31I think you need the weekend for just launching it with those
- 45:36tools. And I show that to I, I build
- 45:39something with my brother or I just sleep on it on in the
- 45:45middle of the day. And I just created concert upon
- 45:50call with him, which is a connection between the zodiacal
- 45:53sign, but also with some personal character stuff.
- 45:57And we build it in less than 12 hours, including the open air
- 46:04and stuff like that. And I was addressing A
- 46:06programmer and he was said, he said that we was we we could
- 46:12build this in one year with a team before this artificial
- 46:16intelligence and the AI stuff will appear.
- 46:20Yeah. So as as I am thinking about
- 46:24type 1 civilization that it could be possible now in 300
- 46:28years with some disruptive technology which should appear
- 46:33and for for sure they will appear with so much AI, it could
- 46:39be possible maybe in less than 100 years to reach a big level
- 46:46of civilization of evolution. Yeah.
- 46:50Credible Alex, this has been amazing.
- 46:52I really appreciate the time. What's the best place for people
- 46:55to connect with you online? Yeah, they could find me on
- 47:00LinkedIn. I'm Alex Nikwara there or I I'm
- 47:06playing on TikTok, but I'm posting the Romanian stuff there
- 47:12with sports. I I I just tried the kite surf
- 47:18this weekend. It's it's very nice.
- 47:21Yeah, did pretty hard after after it's counter intuitive
- 47:27because in in in life, if you are trying to protect yourself
- 47:33in some points you are you are getting your arms behind your
- 47:38body and here when when the kites it's starting to gets you
- 47:43out. You are thinking that you should
- 47:45grab it, but normally you should push it because when you're push
- 47:50it, it will go slow. If you're grabbing it, he will
- 47:53expand and you'll get more windy.
- 47:56So if if the hearts leave, the life hits you hard just to be as
- 48:04you should be in kite surf and let it be just yeah.
- 48:10It looks so fun. Yeah, yeah, you could do on on
- 48:16your fishing experiences. It's too much work.
- 48:22I'm taking it easy. I have a friend in in Chicago
- 48:27which goes to fish someone. Oh nice.
- 48:31Is that? Well, you should connect us.
- 48:34They want to come out to Colorado.
- 48:36I'll take them a blue lining up in the in the Backcountry.
- 48:39That's what I like to do. Sure, sure.
- 48:43I'll connect you after that, yeah.
- 48:44I love it, Alex, thank you so much.
- 48:46For your time. Thank you.
- 48:49Thank you very much, Ryan. It was a pleasure.
- 48:53Hey founders, let me ask you this.
- 48:55Are you building with AI or getting left behind by it?
- 49:00If you're serious about scaling smarter, faster and bolder, you
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