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Rahul Rana: Lux Capital · The Investor With Joel Palathinkal

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  We go from, you know, things that are external to things that are internal.
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  And so that's this one line that this arrow of progress, right?
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  This this sort of inevitable line that, you know, are you like everything will, you know,
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  technology will just keep it keep coming closer in contact, you know, in contact with humans,
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  but just like, you know, interconnected, right.
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  And so that's basically one of those lines of, you know, those inevitable lines of or trends
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  that they've been investing in, when they're, you know, when they're sort of their staple
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  investments wasn't control labs, right, which is literally like a mind control company,
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  right.
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  So we went from, you know, laptops, right, any big, you know, computers on our desks, but now
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  we can control machines with our mind.
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  Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I, Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
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  minds of the world's most influential institutional investors.
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  In each episode, we sit down with an investor to hear about their journeys and how global
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  markets are driving capital allocation.
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  So join us on this journey as we explore these insights.
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  We'll just just do it do it off the cuff, you know.
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  Yeah.
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  Awesome.
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  So it looks like it's kicking off now.
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  But hey, you know, for those of you on the call, we've got Rahul Rana from Lux Capital.
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  He's still in school, but you're able to balance both, I guess.
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  Right?
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  So it's kind of a unique opportunity where you can still finish school, but have a unique role
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  at a fund.
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  And I think you're an associate as well.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  And fun fact, don't wanna, you know, kill your thunder here, but you wrote a book called
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  Making Moonshots.
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  And I tell these people that they should bring in, like, an investment memo, bring in, a deck
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  of, like, a company they should look for, but I think you are raising the bar.
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  And, you know, hopefully, probably in a year, it's gonna be the norm that people have to
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  publish publish a formal book.
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  Thanks for making it hard for all of us.
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  You're welcome.
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  Well, hey, why don't we kick it off?
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  Maybe you can tell us a little bit about kinda where you're located and LUX Capital, how you
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  broke into the role and, you know, some of the investment thesis that that they have and maybe
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  some tips of what helped you kind of engage with the fund and and really just land the job.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Of course.
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  So I guess, you know, little bit about my background.
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  So currently in Central Jersey, I go to Rutgers, I'm studying astrophysics and finance.
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  And basically, my entire life, my dad, he worked at Bell Labs.
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  So as a kid, I'd go, you know, goes to the labs and everything.
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  And, you know, see all the Nobel Prizes and see other inventions and breakthroughs and whatnot.
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  Just got super, you know, super obsessed with all things, you know, r and d, right.
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  And I really want to be this sort of inventor, growing up, but then I got to high school fell
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  into like the finance crowd and sort of, you know, in college, I want to combine into,
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  right.
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  So have the science and tech influence have the finance influence deep tech VC, which is this
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  perfect sort of, you know, intersection between the two.
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  And so, you know, I realized that, you know, I have all this passion for all this energy.
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  And it's like, really want to do something bold.
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  And you know, the time, I don't know if it was just a, you know, the universe looking out for
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  me, but I just came across this one, this one guy on LinkedIn, who had to have a conversation
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  with, he eventually, you know, became my mentor and sort of brought me along on the book
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  process.
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  And so he's just one, he's just one investor, also a professor and sort of just, know, his
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  free time, he likes to mentor people in writing books, but he said, like, know, he usually
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  mentors experts, right professionals, not not students.
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  And so I was like, hey, like, know, can you take a chance on me?
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  Like, I really am passionate about this.
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  And, yeah, thank God that he did it.
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  And, the rest of history.
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  So he got me set up with a book deal, publisher, the usual stuff.
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  And then, yeah, one of the people I interviewed for my book, right, it's, know, it's called
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  making moonshots all about, know, deep tech companies, and really like the philosophies and
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  mindsets and strategies behind them.
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  And I interviewed Josh Wolfe, he's a co founder and managing partner of Lux Capital, probably
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  one of the biggest, I was a deep tech VC firms in the world.
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  So it's really, really cool.
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  I'm getting his perspective on everything.
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  And, know, I kept in contact with him.
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  And then, know, couple months after I like, hey, Josh, like, I'm doing the research into
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  what you guys invest into, like, I could hustle, like, can I work for you?
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  And he was just like, yeah, like, carried me on spots is pretty cool.
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  That's awesome.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  So, so, so to your question on how did I sort of get this myself for that?
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  And, you know, how do I how do I, know, engage with the fund?
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  So that's why that's basically what I did.
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  I would, you know, I interviewed the founders of the firm.
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  And I was just like, know, down the line, you know, I kept in contact with him.
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  I kept an updated on my progress of the book, I was probably very, very key, I would say, every
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  two months or so I'd email him say like, yeah, this is progress.
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  And I would actually recommend students, or anyone trying to break into VC, just like
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  updating the people, their their contacts at whatever VC firms that they have over time,
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  because you're, you're probably not going to get on the first email, right, getting
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  positioned there.
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  But you know, if you prove that, like, you know, you're working towards whatever goals
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  that you have, and, you know, you actually, you actually can put into work for again, whatever
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  sort of thing that you want to that you're sort of proving like, that that goes a long way in
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  terms of, you know, they could look back through all your emails and see like, oh, like,
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  you know, you've been working on this for for however long, and you have the persistence and
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  the perseverance and whatnot.
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  So that that I strategically did that.
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  And so, you know, by the time I did ask him for position, yeah, I'd probably have emailed him
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  four or five times by then, like, saw the progress of my book.
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  I sent him a chapter of my book.
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  So, you know, actually, you know, it was not, you know, something Not like a, you know, like
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  a like a research paper for like a class like that.
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  It like, you know, a legitimate book and everything that like, you know, sort of gave me
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  credibility and whatnot.
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  And yeah, he hired me on the spot.
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  So yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  And, you know, it would be helpful to know kind of the the process for getting a book
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  published.
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  So do you talk to a publisher and tell them what you're gonna write about?
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  And then they give you I think they give you an advance and then you write the book, I guess.
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  Right?
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  Is that usually how it works?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  So there's a there's a bunch of different ways, you know, different for every author.
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  But I would say either you go the traditional route or the self publishing route.
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  So again, both have their pros and cons.
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  So I obviously had a firm with me.
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  So, yeah, I got a I basically, for a few months or so, I'd say it was like five to six months
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  or so, again, under the mentorship of that one, one mentor, I basically came to like a really,
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  really rough manuscript, right for took like five or six months or so to get to that, right
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  doing all the research, putting out the paper, it was very, very mediocre.
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  It was not by any means the final product.
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  But just I had a working manuscript is what it was basically the goal.
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  Then he put me in contact with the publishing company, obviously pitched to them.
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  They knew, fortunately, they accepted it.
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  And so then then I was, you know, they set me up with one of their editors and, you know,
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  that whole process started.
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  And so yeah, then then once they got their help, then I really, really refined it really
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  improved it.
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  And the rest is history.
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  Yeah, it's first just making that really, really rough manuscript proving that you
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  actually do have some potential for sales or potential with this book, then sort of
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  negotiate a deal and then the publisher helps you with everything else.
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  Yeah.
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  No.
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  That's great.
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  And so I think it'd be helpful to go through just high level thesis on deep tech.
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  So with deep tech, how does Lux look at deep tech and how do they develop different theses?
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  You and I have talked about space and some of our thoughts on that and some companies that we
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  think are really interesting.
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  But you know, how do you cut through all that noise and and, you know, have focus in a
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  certain sector?
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  Because deep tech can still just be super broad.
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  Right?
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  So focus
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  on I guess, are the areas that you're excited about?
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  And then, you know, what have you seen just in the industry with some other deep tech funds
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  and where they should focus on?
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  Yeah, yeah, of course.
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  So one of the things that Lux really likes to look for and that I find to be really, really,
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  again, customer noise and everything is they look for the intersection of what's impossible
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  and inevitable.
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  So you know, what people think is impossible, but really isn't, and what sort of inevitable
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  in terms of, you know, market timing and, know, people's, you know, trends and whatever, maybe
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  where people's preferences, like whatever, whatever trend there is out there, just like,
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  it's inevitable that this will happen.
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  But people think it's impossible, right?
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  So for example, I'll give you, you know, Josh is sort of, you know, one of his favorite
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  examples is that, you know, in terms of computing, and then sort of computers, right?
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  We sort of started, you know, I don't know, fifty six years ago with this, you know, these
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  incredibly big, like, you know, machines and whatnot.
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  Right?
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  And we we came from, you know, ENIAC computers, and then we came to, you know, smaller, you
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  know, desktop computers, right, then we came to phones, and then we came to, you know, from
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  from phones to like, AirPods, or in your ears, and then things in your eyes.
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  And then we have, you know, sort of non invasive robotics and stuff inside you.
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  And so there's you see this line of our technologies becoming even more sort of, know,
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  interconnected with the human body, right?
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  We go from, you know, things that are external to things that are internal.
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  And so that's this one line that's this arrow of progress right this this sort of inevitable
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  line that you know, are you like everything will you know technology will just keep it keep
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  coming closer in contact, you know, in contact with humans, just like, you know,
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  interconnected, right.
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  And so that's basically one of those lines of, you know, those inevitable lines of or trends
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  that they've been investing in, when they're, you know, when they're sort of their staple
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  investments wasn't control labs, right?
• 9:30
  Which is literally like a mind control company, right?
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  So we went from, know, laptops, right?
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  Any big, you know, computers on our desks, but now we can control machines with our mind.
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  And as I
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  Facebook, Facebook required.
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  Yeah, yeah, Facebook required it.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  So again, it just goes to show, right?
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  This the sort of this, the interplay between, between humans and technology, right?
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  Like we're like one being and now it is basically what this, this inevitable line is.
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  And so that's just, know, one example on there's, there's a bunch of other ones, right?
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  I mean, in general, right?
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  Everyone wants things that are faster and more convenient, right?
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  So anything that sort of, know, at that line, right?
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  Whatever processes there is in the world, right?
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  If you can make it faster and more convenient, more cheaper, people will buy that, right?
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  So as again, just finding these inevitable sort of trends and lines and then investing at the
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  products that sort of harness those.
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  Ideally, when people think they're impossible, that's when you get the biggest sort of return.
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  Yeah, that's one of them among many.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  What are some things that we should be keeping a close close ear to the to the floor on, you
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  know, some some trends that we should just keep on our radar?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Of course.
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  So there's a few of them.
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  I would say one thing so, you know, in in regards to things being inevitable, one thing
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  that Lux likes to invest in is sort of like the quote unquote arms dealer for markets.
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  So what that means, alright, like the the creator economy.
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  Right?
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  And that that's booming right now.
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  Right?
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  You know, there's there's so many, you know, different creators.
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  Right?
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  They're doing whatever.
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  One thing that all these creators need is camera equipment.
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  Right?
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  And so one of one of the companies that Lux almost didn't invest into is one company that
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  sort of get made all the camera equipment, you know, made all these different sort of like
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  drone, like drones and whatnot for for, you know, content creators and directors and
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  producers, whatever it be.
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  That's again, it's just this sort of this inevitable thing that people will always need
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  this product no matter where this again, no matter where the creator economy will go.
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  Right?
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  So that's just, you know, one way to think of it.
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  They like to invest into like the quote unquote arms dealers or like the the foundation of said
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  market.
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  So that's Maybe
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  almost like the the lot of people say picks and shovels.
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  Is that pretty similar?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Like, you you know, something that, you know, said market or said entry or whatever, it just
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  needs And and and sort of like the demand for that will never go away.
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  So that's like one thing definitely like in terms of like space.
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  One thing Lux likes is that, you know, they're not investing directly into, you know, things
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  that can go up and down, right, launch companies, for example, but they're rather
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  investing into infrastructure.
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  Yeah.
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  That that'll that'll, you know, everything that that goes to space will need, you know,
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  whatever, whatever robotics or manufacturing, whatever, you know, that that anything will
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  need to go to space.
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  Right?
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  So so they will, they're always invested into things that have that, that that constant that
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  will always have that demand is what they're trying to look for.
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  So yeah, so that's for space.
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  They're looking to a lot of simulation companies, right?
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  So so you know, to improve the weather lines or to improve the world, we need to simulate it,
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  right?
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  We need to run all these tests, we need to optimize things, right?
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  We need to know what what works and what doesn't.
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  And so if we could simulate things, that there's a whole that there's there's someone
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  sorting a market potential for that.
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  One of their companies, right?
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  AVA, if I'm not mistaken, it does a four d LiDAR.
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  So it simulates the, you know, the world around, you know, whatever camera or is
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  controlling, you know, this this this sort of this chip and, you know, they, it's perfect for
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  autonomous vehicles, right?
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  So now they gave autonomous vehicles, literal brains, and it could simulate the world around
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  them, like in real time and with with incredible accuracy.
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  And, yeah, now it's an autonomous cars and, you know, they're doing amazing things.
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  So, again, simulation is that's like one really, really sort of really big trend that
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  that Lux is looking at.
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  Yeah.
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  I can name a bunch, but but that that's sort of the gist of it.
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  So
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  yeah.
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  I mean, with simulation, I think that could be an application for quantum computing.
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  So simulating material sciences, I think that's something that I read.
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  But I think quantum in general is still in the noisy state.
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  So it's not ready to be scalable yet.
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  But when it does get to that scalable state, I feel like if you could simulate multiple
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  scenarios all at the same time, you could probably build models and streamline them much
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  faster.
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  100%.
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  Yeah.
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  And then let's talk about space.
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  I think we can nerd out on that for a little bit.
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  So with Acxiom, the last news that came out with them raising some capital, do you think
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  there'll be multiple space stations?
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  Because there's the massive space station that they're building, but do you think in the
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  future there'll be just different colonies in space?
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  I guess, what are what are some of your long theses for space and then
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  Mhmm.
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  Maybe even just going to Mars?
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  You know, what are some things or predictions that you'd see happening there?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  No.
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  That's super exciting stuff.
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  So so obviously, you know, space is sort of like the last frontier.
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  Right?
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  And and there's so much potential to be yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  So much so much money to be made there.
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  But in terms of, know, what I think will happen say so it's your first thing, colonies 100%,
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  there's definitely going to be one company that I'm super, super excited for is Varda Varda
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  Space, right?
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  Varda Space Industries absolutely love that company.
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  It's so cool.
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  For those of you who don't know, they're doing space manufacturing.
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  So they're putting factories in orbit.
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  Because in sort of like this, this low gravity or zero gravity environment, you get access to
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  so many sort of app, so many different, like sort of capabilities in terms of manufacturing,
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  right at the atomic level and, you know, in a microgravity environment.
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  And so Varda, they're doing incredibly, it's absolutely sci fi sounding things where they're
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  putting factories up there.
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  And I think I, that's just the beginning, right?
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  Because, you know, one factory will lead to another which will lead to, you know, whole
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  other, you know, sort of, you know, groups of, you know, like things that go to commercial
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  space.
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  And, you know, I came across this one company, They're literally putting data centers in
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  space, right connected by photonics, They're like everyone just putting something in space
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  for, you know, whatever capabilities and whatever benefits that comes to from that.
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  So, you know, tons of industries will go to space.
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  And I've even seen lunar manufacturing companies like literally like they want to
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  build factories on the moon.
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  And yeah, that's probably like the boldest company I could think of.
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  And yeah, people are actually working on it.
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  It's not just like, you know, it is definitely like heavily, heavily research faces at the
• 15:39
  moment.
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  But the founder does have relatively clear plan for going about that.
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  So again, really, really cool stuff.
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  And with BARDA, how are they manufactured?
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  Are they doing three d printing?
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  So they're just printing And what are they printing?
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  They're printing satellites and probes or
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  all kinds
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  of things?
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  Not necessarily actually.
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  So far to what they're doing.
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  So they put these basically put these factories in orbit.
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  Yeah.
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  And so it's gonna be fully autonomous.
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  There's there's no humans in these things in these factories.
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  But I'm doing, you know, whatever, whatever, basically, like, whatever it is, like, some
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  product, right, some company on Earth, if they need products to be made in this microgravity
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  environment, right?
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  So there's so many examples of fiber optics.
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  Fiber optics is their first sort of thing that they're going to do.
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  But they also do, you know, semiconductors, they could print organs, do pharmaceuticals,
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  proteins, things with proteins and stuff.
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  So there's biotech applications, yeah, telecommunications, applications, yeah,
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  computing, whatever it be, right.
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  So there's a whole different, know, so many things they could do and sort of this this
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  microgravity environment.
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  And so the first thing that they're doing is telecommunications, right, fiber optics.
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  And so, you know, said company, we'll we'll, you know, ask for like, hey, like, they want to
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  produce these these fiber optics in this microarray environment, because it comes with,
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  you know, exponential sort of, you know, better benefits.
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  And I forgot what exactly, but it was it's worth the sort of the cost of, know, going to
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  space whatnot.
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  And so, you know, they say the VARTA, right, make these in, you know, in sort of this
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  microenvironment.
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  So send a transfer vehicle up, they make it in the factory, they bring it down and that's sort
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  of how they, how they, you know, they sell things and whatnot.
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  So there's still like an up and down process where you do need transfer vehicles and
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  whatnot.
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  Yeah, it is sort of like an autonomous sort of manufacturing process inside this capsule or
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  whatever.
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  So there's multiple multiple applications.
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  And Yeah.
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  I think when there's no gravity, I think there's benefits to to just creating certain
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  things because
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  Yeah.
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  Just gravity in general can just create a lot of complexities on Earth about we manufacture
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  things.
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  Right?
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  So Yeah.
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  And then, I think all we really need to do, if we really wanna think about deep tech, just
• 17:47
  think about each company that Elon Musk is building.
• 17:50
  Right?
• 17:50
  So we just talked about space.
• 17:52
  We just talked about autonomous.
• 17:55
  Right?
• 17:55
  I think the only other thing is really like Neuralink.
• 17:59
  So I think you kind of started talking about that with Control Labs.
• 18:04
  What do you think the next generation of the connected human is?
• 18:09
  Do you think it's devices that you you think it's ever gonna be safe to implant anything in
• 18:15
  your brain?
• 18:16
  Or is it just better to kinda keep that separate?
• 18:19
  I mean, they're already doing that with Neuralink, I believe, right?
• 18:22
  With the pigs.
• 18:23
  I don't know if you saw that demo.
• 18:25
  Did.
• 18:26
  Do you feel that that will be in our lifetime at some point, just plugging into actual
• 18:33
  brains?
• 18:33
  I think, I don't know if you've ever followed Kurzweil, but Kurzweil predicted all of this
• 18:39
  stuff like twenty years ago.
• 18:41
  Yeah, He he was saying that, obviously, if you want to look up something on Wikipedia, instead
• 18:46
  of Googling it, it'll just be kind of an extension of your brain.
• 18:49
  And you could just call it like an API.
• 18:52
  But do you feel that'll happen in our lifetime, considering that now that we're already doing
• 18:58
  that in pigs?
• 18:59
  Yeah, yeah, of course.
• 19:01
  So the way I think about it is a 100%, I think it'll happen within our lifetime, but I'm, I'm
• 19:07
  more hopeful and sort of, you know, I think what I'm is actually non invasive sort of, you
• 19:12
  know, connecting right technology with with our our bodies and, you know, you're like,
• 19:17
  obviously is invasive, right?
• 19:18
  They're they're putting something directly into your brain.
• 19:21
  Things like Control Labs and this other company that I actually know the founder of Adam Limbs,
• 19:24
  if you're familiar with them.
• 19:26
  They're they're they're doing mind controlled bionics.
• 19:29
  Right?
• 19:29
  So like, literally, like, like, you know, if something like an amputee, for example, right,
• 19:34
  they they have all these demo videos,
• 19:35
  like Mhmm.
• 19:36
  They have an amputee.
• 19:37
  He lost his arm.
• 19:38
  Right?
• 19:38
  But he they literally give him, you know, full fully functioned arm, you know, obviously, you
• 19:42
  know, metal sort of, you know, whatever maybe, but he could, you know, he as long as he has
• 19:47
  the intent of whatever action like it actually acts upon.
• 19:49
  And so it was really, really cool.
• 19:51
  Giving this guy like his arm back, It's pretty crazy.
• 19:54
  Yeah, I'm checking it out.
• 19:55
  It's pretty cool.
• 19:56
  So I guess what would that tech be?
• 19:57
  So would it just connect somehow externally to your brain waves?
• 20:02
  Yeah, Okay.
• 20:03
  That's the thing.
• 20:04
  It's non invasive and I just think it I'm more long non invasive sort of things in terms of
• 20:11
  combining humans and tech as opposed to invasive things.
• 20:14
  But nonetheless, I think invasive things like Neuralink, it'll definitely happen, but I can't
• 20:21
  tell you the pros and cons of those.
• 20:24
  I guess we got to wait and see what happens because I guess if we could only speculate at
• 20:28
  this point, but yeah.
• 20:29
  Yeah.
• 20:30
  And how do you guys vet these companies?
• 20:34
  What are some things that differentiate some of the companies when you're evaluating them?
• 20:39
  Obviously, in my mind, when I look at deep tech, I just look at the high-tech barrier and
• 20:44
  the competitors.
• 20:44
  But are there any other best practices or frameworks to look at deep tech and just do it
• 20:52
  in a better process processed way, I guess?
• 20:56
  Yeah.
• 20:56
  Yeah.
• 20:57
  Of course.
• 20:57
  So so, yeah, obviously, every every VC says this, but, like, the team is so important.
• 21:01
  I think it's even more important for deep tech companies.
• 21:04
  And, you know, what I mean by that is, like, in in terms of, you know, software or consumer or
• 21:09
  whatever may be, like, there's, you know, thousands of people, if not, know, millions or
• 21:13
  whatever that can that can do said product, right?
• 21:15
  Everyone has some level of talent, right?
• 21:17
  They could they could probably make it probably copy it.
• 21:19
  In terms of deep tech, not many people can make, you know, whatever sort of innovation
• 21:23
  breakthrough, whatever it is, in sort of that realm, right, there's a very limited amount of
• 21:28
  PhDs, very limited amount of people who actually have the deep, deep, you know, domain
• 21:32
  specific knowledge and again, whatever field it may be.
• 21:35
  And so that's also that's, it's an advantage to some extent.
• 21:39
  But it also means that like, alright, like you have to find and you can and you have to find
• 21:43
  the right team in the entire world to make this product.
• 21:46
  And so that's definitely like one of their their their things that Lux really, really sort
• 21:51
  of considers, right, has to be the right team.
• 21:53
  Yeah.
• 21:54
  And then after that, you know, they like people with chips on their shoulders, right?
• 21:58
  That's one of Josh's favorite lines.
• 22:00
  Like he likes people with, you know, that have some sort of have something sort of broken
• 22:04
  inside them that that that they use as sort of motivation.
• 22:07
  And, and he really likes to look at the find the founder psychology is what I'm trying to
• 22:11
  say.
• 22:11
  So, know, you have the team, right?
• 22:12
  You have the founders themselves and, and, and, know, their psychology and their drive and
• 22:16
  whatnot.
• 22:17
  At the end of the day, like then, you know, then it's the usual stuff, right?
• 22:19
  Does a product work?
• 22:20
  Like, like, does this technology work?
• 22:21
  Or will it work within five to ten years or so?
• 22:24
  Obviously, you know, with deep tech, you have longer timeframes.
• 22:26
  And so, yeah, will the will the product work?
• 22:28
  Right?
• 22:28
  Is the market, you know, big enough, right?
• 22:31
  Can they wedge your way into it and stuff?
• 22:33
  So then you get to some more of the typical stuff, but I would say just for deep tech
• 22:36
  specific things, the the team and sort of, you know, how to commercialize said technology,
• 22:41
  that's probably the biggest it's the biggest sort of considerations.
• 22:45
  Yeah.
• 22:45
  And when you say chip on their shoulder, do you have kinda like a general example that that we
• 22:51
  could reference?
• 22:52
  Yeah.
• 22:52
  Yeah.
• 22:54
  I mean, there's so many founders who come from being poor, you know, poor families, you know,
• 22:59
  people with, you know, maybe their parents were divorced.
• 23:02
  You know, maybe they were bullied as a kid.
• 23:04
  There are, you know, there's so many so many examples I could think of.
• 23:08
  I mean, Josh himself, right?
• 23:10
  Like he comes from a poor family, right?
• 23:11
  And sort of Coney Island, like, that's how the story goes.
• 23:14
  And so, yeah, he made it all the way to work he gives it because he had that chip on his
• 23:18
  shoulder because, know, he he wanted to sort of, you know, not be not before right at the
• 23:22
  end.
• 23:22
  And so that's why he's, you know, he's where he is.
• 23:25
  There's some founders I could think of.
• 23:28
  I don't know if they would be wanting me to, you know, say their names, but I like, you
• 23:31
  know, like, like some of them, you know, they again, they come from maybe their their parents
• 23:35
  were divorced and how they got a rough childhood and stuff.
• 23:37
  And so they want to care for said population or, you know, whatever, because of the
• 23:42
  upbringing or, you know, people who, oh, I want the one thing that's, that's mostly popular,
• 23:46
  like people who die from, you know, whatever disease or maybe maybe a loved one.
• 23:49
  And so, know, these people, go on to make drug discovery companies.
• 23:52
  Right?
• 23:52
  It's just so cool.
• 23:53
  Like like, well, it's not cool that, you know, they have to do that.
• 23:56
  But like, again, like, that's why they're so inspired to, you know, make up this absolute
• 23:59
  moonshot company.
• 24:00
  Right?
• 24:01
  Jobs
• 24:01
  Yeah.
• 24:01
  I think another good example is One Drop.
• 24:04
  So I think that company, I think the guy had diabetes.
• 24:08
  And then One Drop, it's like a hardware device that
• 24:11
  Okay.
• 24:11
  I think it it can detect diabetes and it's connected to an app and he pretty much built
• 24:16
  that for himself pretty much.
• 24:18
  But I think you're right.
• 24:19
  I think a lot of people build things because maybe they had a family member that
• 24:23
  Yeah.
• 24:23
  From some type of disease or even just, you know, was looking at like this sleep therapy
• 24:29
  app and it's for parents that can't get their kids to sleep.
• 24:33
  So if you can build I think some of the best businesses are ones that solve true problems.
• 24:38
  And then ideally, if you use it yourself all the time, then I guess that's a good good
• 24:43
  testament of a product market fit.
• 24:44
  Hopefully everybody else likes it too and just not you.
• 24:47
  Yeah.
• 24:48
  And then as far as traction, right?
• 24:50
  I think with me and tell me what you've experienced, but with deep tech sometimes what
• 24:55
  I struggle with is know, there's tons and tons of pilots.
• 24:59
  Right?
• 24:59
  So really cool tech, you're working with like UPS.
• 25:02
  Right?
• 25:02
  And UPS is like, hey, we'll we'll check out your robotic technology as a six month pilot,
• 25:09
  but we don't know if we're gonna commit to a long term project.
• 25:12
  So I sometimes I see it as a red flag if there's multiple pilots, but they never really
• 25:16
  convert.
• 25:17
  And they have multiple concurrent pilots as well.
• 25:19
  But I guess any other things that you've seen as red flags as far as traction with deep tech
• 25:26
  for outside of just pilots and and not converting to long term contracts?
• 25:33
  Yeah.
• 25:33
  I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is sort of like the commercialization process.
• 25:37
  Like, if it's not able to get out of that.
• 25:39
  Right?
• 25:39
  And again, there it could be it could mean in, you know, in biotech, right, or with the FDA or
• 25:44
  whatever may be, right.
• 25:45
  Any sort of, know, DARPA or any sort of organization, like if it's not, you know, if
• 25:51
  you can't make a business out of it at the end of the day, like, like, it's not, you know,
• 25:54
  it's not worth investing into.
• 25:55
  And so, you know, lot, I feel like lots of people sort of, you know, that are trying to
• 25:59
  invest into deep tech, they sort of, it's like, I forgot the term.
• 26:04
  Oh, like shiny object syndrome.
• 26:06
  That's what some people call it, right?
• 26:07
  Like it's super cool, right?
• 26:08
  All these sci fi sounding things, but people sort of, know, get, get, get sort of dragged
• 26:11
  into, you know, the sort of this, this lofty goal.
• 26:14
  And at the end of the day, like, it, is the technology gonna work?
• 26:17
  Right?
• 26:17
  Is it realistic?
• 26:17
  And it, know, actually make a business out of it?
• 26:19
  Like that's sort of questionable.
• 26:20
  And so one of the most simplest checks that, you know, sort of like that I learned in terms
• 26:27
  of seeing if it's company will will do something good, right?
• 26:31
  Is simply asking like, does it does it work?
• 26:33
  Right?
• 26:33
  And, you'll be surprised, like, how how many times, like, you just ask yourself that and
• 26:37
  what you're like, wait, like, that probably it will not work.
• 26:40
  Or or, like, you know, they're they're not making an abstraction because of, you know,
• 26:43
  whatever reason.
• 26:44
  And so, again, does it does it work?
• 26:46
  Right?
• 26:46
  Does the market actually want it?
• 26:48
  Right?
• 26:48
  Do they need stuff?
• 26:49
  And so just ask that simple question.
• 26:51
  Honestly, I made so many decisions, yeah, clear for for the Lux team.
• 26:54
  It was kinda funny hearing the stories, but yeah.
• 26:56
  And I would say sometimes in the space companies, you know, the launches some of these
• 27:00
  rocket companies, right, the space the actual launch is like just two years away still.
• 27:06
  So Yeah.
• 27:07
  So essentially doesn't work as they wouldn't even build it yet.
• 27:10
  Yeah.
• 27:11
  But I think I like like nerding out on space.
• 27:14
  So
• 27:14
  Mhmm.
• 27:14
  Do you think you could unpack space for us a little bit?
• 27:17
  So there's launch, there's there's satellites that go out.
• 27:22
  There's different, you know, material sciences where people can manufacture different
• 27:27
  equipment.
• 27:27
  So do you think you can help us maybe unpack the space industry and just kind of some of the
• 27:32
  segments that that would be good to kind of think of as as you're looking at space as an
• 27:36
  investor?
• 27:37
  Yeah, yeah, of course.
• 27:39
  So again, by by no means, am I an expert, but things that I've come across in terms of, you
• 27:43
  know, of, you know, broader sort of themes.
• 27:44
  Yeah.
• 27:45
  There's definitely alright.
• 27:46
  So you need something to go up and down, right?
• 27:47
  So need transfer vehicles.
• 27:50
  Lot you need, you know, launch launch sort of capabilities, you need pro pro propulsion
• 27:55
  companies.
• 27:56
  So that's like three right there, right?
• 27:57
  Propulsion launch, and then sort of transfer vehicles.
• 28:00
  Then you have sort of actually infrastructure in space, right?
• 28:03
  So again, satellites, factories, like literal literal factories, data centers, I've seen so
• 28:12
  just like any any sort of things that are in terms of like infrastructure for, you know, for
• 28:15
  on earth applications, but it just, you know, for whatever reason that they're that they're
• 28:19
  in space, like, that's why they're there.
• 28:21
  And then I would say, after that would be sort of the deep space exploration stuff, right?
• 28:27
  I've seen asteroid mining companies, yeah, moon mining companies.
• 28:32
  Again, moon manufacturing, things like that's what I mentioned before.
• 28:35
  So anything that that's sort sorting and navigate deep space.
• 28:38
  So I actually, I just thought of at the moment, but you have, you know, sort of on earth
• 28:43
  applications, deep space applications, and sort of like the the things that sort of bridging
• 28:46
  those two together and allowing for other things to happen.
• 28:49
  Sure.
• 28:49
  Hence the hence the arm arms dealer sort of metaphor before.
• 28:52
  But but yeah, I would say those three sort of themes are probably like the the main ones.
• 28:56
  And, you know, is asteroid mining pretty popular now?
• 29:01
  I guess, is there I I guess, what are the main minerals that people are finding of value?
• 29:06
  And and I guess how do they do that?
• 29:07
  They just go around and find the asteroids and and try to crash crash them and try to pull
• 29:12
  some type of valuable minerals from there or?
• 29:15
  Admittedly, I have no clue.
• 29:17
  I've seen those I've seen those companies.
• 29:18
  I mean, they're they're sci fi center.
• 29:20
  They're super cool.
• 29:21
  But like, honestly, I would not invest into those at this moment, you know, this day and
• 29:24
  age.
• 29:24
  But nonetheless, I've I've just I've seen them around.
• 29:27
  Yeah.
• 29:27
  We'd actually consider them now.
• 29:28
  Yeah.
• 29:29
  And what would be the application of doing anything on the moon?
• 29:32
  I guess, is it just yeah.
• 29:34
  What would be the what would be the benefits of going out there?
• 29:38
  Purely colonization.
• 29:40
  Like like the the the founder I'm thinking of, right, that that's actually working in that
• 29:44
  space.
• 29:45
  Yeah.
• 29:45
  He wants to go to Mars.
• 29:47
  Right?
• 29:47
  And so he's thinking about the moon as sort of like this this like a topic.
• 29:53
  Almost yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:54
  First milestone or whatever may be.
• 29:55
  And so, you know, if you can make it like a set up like a factory that right like a three d
• 30:00
  printing factory, he could make the infrastructure right, commercialize that I
• 30:04
  don't know how he has a plan for it.
• 30:06
  So so, yeah, I'll I'll I'll have luck in the world to him.
• 30:09
  But yeah.
• 30:09
  So but, like, his honestly, goal is so you can go to Mars.
• 30:12
  Like Sure.
• 30:13
  He's even thinking further than that.
• 30:14
  So so yeah.
• 30:14
  And then with, you know, with Starlink, is it yeah.
• 30:18
  Starlink.
• 30:18
  Right?
• 30:19
  So the the the beaming Internet from satellites.
• 30:22
  Do you think have you gone deep on that as far as that technology?
• 30:27
  And do you think that will eventually be just as viable as, you know, fiber optics?
• 30:33
  Or is that just another option?
• 30:36
  I guess I don't know if you guys have been looking at that deeply and specifically what
• 30:41
  Elon is doing.
• 30:43
  Yeah.
• 30:43
  Yeah.
• 30:44
  So I know.
• 30:45
  I mean, in terms of Lux, like we were invested in.
• 30:50
  No, we're in some sort of like satellite companies, but but not, I don't think internet
• 30:55
  stuff.
• 30:55
  If I'm not mistaken, I don't think we have any of those.
• 30:57
  I know sort of like the in recent news, the one Google X project that that sort of failed.
• 31:03
  Right?
• 31:03
  Yeah.
• 31:03
  The one that was trying to do shots to your balloons and and and WiFi and and initial
• 31:07
  Internet connections
• 31:08
  Yeah.
• 31:08
  Sort of in in that regard.
• 31:10
  I know there's another company I think called Astronis, if I'm not mistaken, like, they're
• 31:13
  doing also Mhmm.
• 31:15
  You know, satellites with, know, beaming down internet and whatnot.
• 31:19
  I mean, by all means, that's probably one of the most impactful things that we could do in
• 31:22
  this day and age.
• 31:24
  Obviously there's, it's tough to do that.
• 31:26
  There's so much complexity but to I think, I think it'll definitely happen.
• 31:30
  I mean, you know, if you think about it, right?
• 31:32
  Like all the sort of the populations in the world that just don't have access to the
• 31:37
  internet, right?
• 31:37
  They don't, that means they don't have access to education or, you know, access to, you know,
• 31:41
  said resources and whatever it may I mean, like if we could give them internet, like think of
• 31:44
  just, you know, the sheer impact that that can have.
• 31:47
  But yeah, but nonetheless, I don't have any sort of technical sort of expertise in that
• 31:52
  realm.
• 31:53
  But it's definitely pretty cool to see.
• 31:55
  Yeah, I've been doing a little bit of research, but I haven't really gone deep and just doing a
• 31:59
  quick search as you were chatting, and I think it'll be something that'll probably supplement
• 32:04
  five gs, but, you know, maybe down the line, it could be, you know, a replacement.
• 32:08
  But I mean, that could be really scalable too, right?
• 32:11
  You don't really have to do anything.
• 32:12
  It's just all the satellites automatically be beaming it.
• 32:15
  So, that could democratize just access to the Internet.
• 32:18
  But I think the incumbents would still control that.
• 32:23
  I don't think Comcast is gonna let or Comcast does some type of revenue share or something,
• 32:28
  but they're not I don't think they would allow themselves to be boxed out.
• 32:33
  I mean, I think Mhmm.
• 32:34
  I see that today.
• 32:35
  So, like, if you if you've tried to cut the cable Mhmm.
• 32:39
  Cape like, if you actually buy cable, it's, like, the same price.
• 32:42
  Because what they'll do is they'll increase the Internet only option by, like, 10 to $10.15
• 32:47
  dollars every every year.
• 32:49
  So I when I pay for cable, it's almost like pretty close to what it cost to actually have
• 32:53
  cable.
• 32:55
  They
• 32:55
  they get you somehow, you know?
• 32:57
  Yeah.
• 32:58
  That's true.
• 32:59
  Yeah.
• 33:00
  And then with deep tech, I guess, as you guys develop new investment theses, how do you guys
• 33:09
  go deep on some of these topics?
• 33:11
  Do you spend time with universities, partner with different labs to get some proprietary
• 33:19
  deal flow?
• 33:19
  Any any tips on just finding great deal flow as a as an investor going going into deep tech?
• 33:26
  Yeah.
• 33:27
  Yeah, of course.
• 33:27
  So, you know, one one thing that Lux likes to say is that they look where others don't.
• 33:32
  Right?
• 33:32
  And so one honestly, like, I don't know specifics because they haven't even told me.
• 33:38
  But they like they got a lot of lots of solid deal flow from from universities that people
• 33:43
  just wouldn't consider, right, maybe they're not top universities, but nonetheless, like,
• 33:46
  they're putting out good research.
• 33:48
  And so they've they've looked at university that are sort of overlooked and in terms of
• 33:52
  your traditional VCs and whatnot, and so much deal flow came from that.
• 33:56
  But yeah, would say it's definitely they they they got, like, solid, solid returns from those
• 34:00
  that are, you know, they they they break through the commercialization process.
• 34:03
  Right?
• 34:03
  They they sort of incubate and whatnot.
• 34:05
  But, you know, all the things that they they start in universities.
• 34:08
  And so, you know, looking looking for the right teams there, the right the right technology,
• 34:12
  right right products, you know, partnering with tech tech transfer offices, whatever it may be,
• 34:17
  like, it's usually the ones that start in universities that that really go far.
• 34:20
  So yeah.
• 34:21
  Yeah.
• 34:21
  That's a good point.
• 34:22
  So I guess for the the audience.
• 34:23
  Right?
• 34:24
  So tech transfer, usually the the platforms or technologies that are built, they're not a
• 34:31
  business yet.
• 34:32
  Right?
• 34:32
  They're just kind of some type of patent.
• 34:34
  But then sometimes somebody has to come in and turn it into a real business.
• 34:39
  So they need to probably recruit like a CEO or something like that.
• 34:42
  But, know, to be good at deep tech as a VC, you'd have to probably understand the viability
• 34:48
  of like that patent and like probably not be a visionary to think, hey, you know what, this
• 34:53
  could actually be a business.
• 34:55
  Right now it's a microchip or it's a nanoparticle.
• 34:59
  But this could be some type of business.
• 35:01
  But I guess, is it on the VC to still help bring that team together?
• 35:06
  If they're incubating it, is it incubating with the university?
• 35:09
  Or is the VC also kind of really hands on and helping it to turn into a business?
• 35:16
  Or is that the Yeah.
• 35:17
  On that?
• 35:18
  I've honestly I've seen both.
• 35:19
  I know some of our partners, one of the I'm thinking of Zavindar, one of the partners.
• 35:26
  I I saw I forgot for which company, but he's like the founding investor for a company.
• 35:31
  I I forgot which one it was one of the portfolio companies, but he, you know, he was
• 35:34
  really integral to it early on.
• 35:35
  But then, you know, obviously, when they when they scale, when they grow, then then
• 35:38
  obviously, he takes some more, you know, bird's eye view sort of, you know, I think he's on the
• 35:42
  board of it now.
• 35:42
  But nonetheless, like, was considered the the founding investor in the beginning.
• 35:46
  That's like, you know, one example I've seen.
• 35:48
  Yeah.
• 35:48
  I've I've seen, you know, the the researchers at universities, you know, who make the
• 35:53
  research goes on to be commercialized, like they become, you know, the founder of the
• 35:56
  company and sort of, you know, Lux would help them out, right?
• 35:59
  With the with the business side of things, right?
• 36:00
  Because obviously, you know, maybe that's not where their expertise lies.
• 36:03
  And so so that's like another example.
• 36:06
  I've seen even like Lux, like even like in some some cases, they come up with the idea.
• 36:13
  Like they come with an idea, they make the team, make everything.
• 36:16
  Yeah.
• 36:16
  Yeah.
• 36:17
  I wanted one of the companies that they did that for is Variant Bio.
• 36:21
  So that's a really cool company.
• 36:23
  Basically, they they had the thesis.
• 36:26
  Right?
• 36:26
  Like, sort of like if if you know X Men and Cerebro, right, how Cerebro can find all these
• 36:31
  people with superpowers and all these mutants.
• 36:33
  So, you know, taking that taking that idea, right?
• 36:36
  Like they thought like, oh, like, what if they could find a way to sort of, you know, identify
• 36:40
  all these genetic outliers in the world?
• 36:42
  And, you know, you know, make sort of take their superpowers almost right, obviously,
• 36:47
  ethical way with a respect for diversity, you know, with respect for ethics and whatnot.
• 36:51
  But, so they doubt about it, there's, you know, for example, there's there's populations in
• 36:55
  maybe like high altitude areas, right?
• 36:57
  Their lungs are better, right?
• 36:58
  So you can make maybe like, you know, drugs out of that, or they identified this one, one
• 37:02
  population, you know, they're immune to malaria.
• 37:04
  So maybe you could, you know, make a drug for, you know, anti malaria, you know, some some
• 37:09
  populations, right, genetic outliers, but, you know, stronger bones, maybe you could do
• 37:12
  something there.
• 37:14
  Some some have, you know, their their metabolism spikes when they sleep at night.
• 37:17
  So theoretically, that could be like a fat loss drug when you're sleeping.
• 37:20
  Like the market on that is insane.
• 37:21
  Everyone wants to, you know, lose weight and stuff.
• 37:22
  So there's, yeah, it's crazy.
• 37:24
  So, you know, they, they take all these outliers.
• 37:26
  Right.
• 37:26
  And, you know, they, they, they try to sort of, know, make therapeutics out of them.
• 37:29
  But what I love about variant and, you know, not to go on a tangent, just like, well, what I
• 37:33
  really, really like about them is that they have the utmost respect for, you know, for for
• 37:37
  diversity, right, for for culture and everything.
• 37:39
  They they they learn these people's, you know, their practices or traditions or religions,
• 37:43
  like everything.
• 37:43
  And they highly respect it.
• 37:46
  And they do so in a really ethical way.
• 37:48
  And so, you know, they're not taking advantage of these populations, you know, they get the
• 37:51
  permission to, you know, sort harness their superpowers at the end of it.
• 37:54
  So I just think it's really cool.
• 37:55
  This is an example of like, know, wise companies, right, sort of heroic companies that
• 37:58
  that, you know, hopefully, we can make more of at the end of day.
• 38:01
  Yeah.
• 38:02
  This is this is another tangent to add to the tangents that we've already gone on.
• 38:06
  Yeah.
• 38:07
  But there's like there's a Keanu Reeves movie.
• 38:11
  I think it's like a two like, rated two stars.
• 38:14
  Oh.
• 38:15
  But I thought it was amazing.
• 38:16
  So Keanu, he and this is like recent too.
• 38:19
  It's not too old of a movie, but he kills his he he works at like this genetics company.
• 38:24
  And what they do is they they can take people's conscience and, upload it into a new body.
• 38:32
  So his his whole family dies in, like, a really bad accident.
• 38:37
  And because he was working at that place, he really knew all the secrets of how they were
• 38:41
  able to take people's consciences and upload them into brand new bodies.
• 38:45
  So he pretty much grew like a clone of his whole family.
• 38:51
  So his wife and his kids pretty much in this vessel in his basement.
• 38:57
  And I guess when you're cloning the body just kind of accelerates and grows really fast into
• 39:04
  like a full body.
• 39:06
  So he pretty much cloned his family and then injected his the conscience of his family.
• 39:11
  And like they all just didn't really they didn't know the difference when they all woke
• 39:16
  up.
• 39:16
  But later on, I think there was a really interesting scene because there was an older
• 39:22
  person that died and then that person came back and was like in a younger body.
• 39:27
  So for me, I think that's like really crazy, being able to maintain pretty much immortality,
• 39:33
  right, if you can maintain your conscience somehow.
• 39:36
  But after seeing that video with Neuralink, it just makes me think that could be something
• 39:42
  that you can do.
• 39:42
  I've invested in like lab grown meat.
• 39:46
  So I think now you can use bioreactors to pretty much grow any type of bone mass or or
• 39:54
  flesh.
• 39:55
  So if you had the the right technology, you could pretty and you and they have cloned human
• 40:00
  beings before.
• 40:01
  I'm not sure if they've formally cloned human being, but I know they cloned animals and body
• 40:07
  parts and stuff like that.
• 40:08
  Yeah.
• 40:09
  So I don't know what you think about that as far as just life extension.
• 40:14
  So that's a good one.
• 40:15
  So what I mentioned was one piece of it, but then longevity is a whole other sector.
• 40:21
  Oh yeah.
• 40:22
  There's different drugs that you can take that have been proven to extend your life by five to
• 40:28
  ten years, because I think there's pathways in your body.
• 40:34
  And there are ways now that people are looking into that, but I don't know if you guys have
• 40:38
  looked at that at all.
• 40:39
  And if you have, if there's any interesting things that you're saying that would be helpful
• 40:45
  to share.
• 40:46
  Yeah, yeah, of course.
• 40:47
  So, I actually, one of the, one of the partners of this most of the bio things, Goldberg, yeah,
• 40:55
  he said that they don't really look into longevity too much.
• 40:59
  They're they're just a little bit skeptical about it.
• 41:02
  They they do I think we do have one, like, remotely longevity esque kind of company, but
• 41:07
  that was through because it was through one of our other portfolio companies.
• 41:10
  They they vouch for them and, you know, they they sort of trust their judgment and whatnot.
• 41:13
  But Mhmm.
• 41:14
  Yeah.
• 41:14
  For the most part, we don't we don't have any sort of longevity things besides that one.
• 41:19
  So, I mean, I I don't know.
• 41:20
  Like like, it's it's one of those things like, I I guess they relate to, like, somebody like
• 41:24
  quantum or whatever, like, there's a lot of, you know, a lot of noise, right?
• 41:26
  A lot of people, you know, it's really, really cool.
• 41:28
  By all means, they want it to happen, but I don't know if it'll happen, you know, at the
• 41:31
  moment.
• 41:32
  But again, nonetheless, like, everyone's like, that's one thing, like, like, we we everyone
• 41:36
  wants to see that.
• 41:37
  And so I'm actually speaking to a long journey coming next week actually.
• 41:41
  So it was pretty cool.
• 41:43
  Like they're doing MRN, our mRNA based like, like telomere extension, right?
• 41:49
  So like telomeres are getting cells and stuff basically that they determine like, you know,
• 41:53
  how long your cells live.
• 41:54
  And thus, you know, when those telomeres, if I'm not mistaken, I'm not, I'm the bio guy, but
• 41:58
  I'm actually reading it and and say like, you know, once those telomeres sort of, know, sure,
• 42:02
  and then sort of, yeah, I don't know, disintegrate or whatever, maybe your cells die.
• 42:06
  Basically, that's when like, yeah, that's when people say, I think, like, dying by natural
• 42:09
  death, I think that's what it, you know, kinda means.
• 42:11
  Oh, sorry.
• 42:12
  If I'm if I'm not mistaken, like, I'm I'm a finance major, guys.
• 42:16
  Like, I'm I'm not a bio major.
• 42:17
  Like, don't get me I don't don't quote me on that.
• 42:20
  But, honestly, they're doing something with, like, telomere extension or something like
• 42:23
  that.
• 42:23
  And so it's really, really cool.
• 42:25
  I mean, I'm down to look more into diligence that, but for the most part, yeah, they haven't
• 42:30
  done much longevity.
• 42:32
  Yeah.
• 42:33
  No.
• 42:33
  That's great.
• 42:33
  Well, we got like fifteen minutes, we'd love to keep it interactive.
• 42:37
  So anybody have any questions on deep tech and how to just be a good VC when it comes to
• 42:44
  evaluating technology?
• 42:49
  Yeah, I had a question.
• 42:52
  First of all, thank you for taking the time out to come speak to us because honestly, I've
• 42:56
  learned a lot so far.
• 42:58
  Did not really know much about Deep Space just going into this, so I've learned a lot.
• 43:02
  But as far as just general company evaluation and stepping away too from, I guess we could
• 43:08
  talk quantitatively, but really what are some of the things that you guys are looking at in
• 43:13
  these arms dealers at that intersection of impossible and inevitable?
• 43:17
  I really like that.
• 43:18
  But what do you guys look for in these arms dealer?
• 43:20
  So outside of the inelastic demand in the industry, outside of the opportunity in the
• 43:28
  market being large, are there any other things that you look for?
• 43:31
  For example, you know, maybe, I guess, like, stickiness of the product ecosystem that they
• 43:37
  have or, like, recurring revenues or whatever.
• 43:40
  You know?
• 43:40
  What what are some of the other metrics that you guys look at to judge the quality of these
• 43:43
  companies?
• 43:45
  Yeah.
• 43:45
  Yeah.
• 43:46
  Of course.
• 43:46
  So admittedly, I was only I'm I've only been at Lux for five months.
• 43:51
  So so I haven't had too much experience in in in terms of, yeah, long term, like, you know,
• 43:54
  what to look for.
• 43:55
  But nonetheless, like, I would say, you know, a lot of people think that, you know, deep tech
• 43:59
  and whatnot, it's it's sort of this this different, you know, animal in terms of, know,
• 44:03
  comparing to, you know, regular or normal tech companies, but I would say, you know, most of
• 44:06
  the metrics are relatively similar.
• 44:10
  Obviously, it is different context, you know, different way different products or different,
• 44:14
  know, sort of, know, technology and whatnot.
• 44:16
  But, yeah, I mean, yeah, you know, the usual stuff, right?
• 44:18
  Obviously, you know, recurring revenue, right?
• 44:20
  That's you need that, right?
• 44:21
  Like, you know, that no matter what, know, no matter what sort of technology or whatever may
• 44:25
  be like you need, you know, you need revenue, right?
• 44:27
  You need sort of, you know, again, yeah, sickening as I mentioned, right?
• 44:30
  You need all these things like, you know, the the market, how they're wedging their way into
• 44:34
  it.
• 44:35
  You know, defensibility.
• 44:36
  I mean, that's one thing that they really, really like defensibility sort of, how do they
• 44:39
  build moats?
• 44:39
  How do they sort of have that that long term competitive advantage?
• 44:42
  You know, is it network effects or, or, you know, being embedded or whatever that, you
• 44:46
  know, defense abilities, you know, various ones are, you know, things like that.
• 44:51
  So I I would definitely say, like, it's the while there are different metrics for deep tech
• 44:56
  companies, I would say for for the most part, like, they're they're kind of the same.
• 45:00
  But for luck specifically, like one thing, yeah, I was saying before, right, like a couple
• 45:04
  of things that they look for specifically, I'm not I've seen them, you know, ask for directly.
• 45:08
  It's just like, you know, the team, the technology work and sort of is it is it sort of
• 45:12
  your long term defensible in terms of the emotes and all that So those three things I
• 45:16
  would say are probably key in terms of what Blux looks for.
• 45:20
  Cool, that's helpful.
• 45:20
  Thank you.
• 45:21
  Hey Rahul, congrats on your new role.
• 45:25
  And this is, I really enjoyed your conversation here.
• 45:28
  I had a question.
• 45:30
  So I am in Houston, Texas, a lot of energy.
• 45:33
  So in terms of ESG and ultimate energy and that sort of thing, what kind of deep tech solutions
• 45:41
  are you guys looking at?
• 45:42
  And what's the interest?
• 45:44
  And just in context, Texas just, I'm literally living through crisis mode here.
• 45:50
  We have two days no car, no internet.
• 45:53
  So obviously the answer is not just alternate or not just conventional.
• 45:56
  So what are you guys kind of looking at in that space?
• 45:59
  Yeah, I mean, first of you're staying safe and everything.
• 46:03
  But yeah,
• 46:04
  We just got far back.
• 46:05
  So thank you.
• 46:05
  Oh, that's good.
• 46:06
  Okay.
• 46:07
  But yeah, yeah.
• 46:08
  So to my knowledge, I don't think Lux has invested in too many energy companies.
• 46:13
  I think there's a few.
• 46:15
  One one that I am thinking of is Curion.
• 46:17
  So so this is like another sort of, you know, Lux sort of incubated company.
• 46:21
  They they this was like ten this is like ten years ago too.
• 46:23
  So it's it's not it's nothing new, but they incubate Curian sort of in house, it was really
• 46:28
  cool.
• 46:28
  They basically do nuclear waste management.
• 46:31
  And there's this whole sorting of science behind it was really, really cool.
• 46:34
  But nonetheless, like, what was the major event in Japan, the the big nuclear meltdown or
• 46:42
  whatever in I'm drawing a blank.
• 46:45
  The major event, I think, like, 2011 happened there or so.
• 46:48
  And France, they've had issues with nuclear waste.
• 46:51
  Yeah.
• 46:52
  Yeah.
• 46:52
  So again, this was the company that actually went and cleaned all that waste up.
• 46:55
  Right?
• 46:55
  So so they're doing some, like, really, really cool stuff.
• 46:58
  And regards with that, it was it was acquired, I think, six, seven years ago.
• 47:04
  So so it is an an older example.
• 47:07
  But for the most part, to be honest, I can't think of any at the moment.
• 47:11
  I know there's some really, really cool things around like fusion.
• 47:16
  Obviously, everyone's sort of hoping that that's already happens sometime soon.
• 47:20
  I know there's, there's entire VC firms that are investing in solely into, you know, fusion
• 47:24
  sort of applications and whatnot, which is pretty crazy.
• 47:28
  But yeah, I would say, Lux, I don't think it has been one of the biggest sort of, you know,
• 47:34
  areas we've looked into, but there there's a few of them.
• 47:35
  There's yeah.
• 47:36
  I'll look into that for sure.
• 47:37
  Okay.
• 47:38
  Great.
• 47:39
  Mhmm.
• 47:39
  Nice talking to you.
• 47:41
  Good questions.
• 47:43
  Any any other ones?
• 47:49
  Going once, going twice.
• 47:54
  One thing that I always ask because the speaker kinda towards the end is any type of life
• 47:59
  advice.
• 48:00
  I think you've shared a lot of really helpful nuggets, but just anything from a mentor that
• 48:04
  kind of has stuck with you that you'd like to leave with us?
• 48:09
  Yeah, yeah.
• 48:09
  I mean, if there's one line I live my life by, it's just maximize serendipity.
• 48:14
  And honestly, that one line, it really, really just like changed how, the way I look.
• 48:18
  Yeah.
• 48:18
  Just like, take, you know, go about life and stuff.
• 48:21
  Mean, you know, maximizing serendipity, whether that means being active on Twitter, right?
• 48:26
  Tweeting things, Keeping your DMs open.
• 48:28
  Mean, there's so much serendipity that happened and just, you know, people just messaging me
• 48:32
  and, you know, into deal flow or just, like, you know, people working on some awesome
• 48:35
  things.
• 48:36
  So that's, like, one thing I do.
• 48:37
  Again, you know, no matter what I do, just like, I I I try to, you know, maximize how many
• 48:42
  sort of, you know I I try to make luck come towards me if that makes sense.
• 48:46
  Right?
• 48:46
  And that's sort of how I go about things.
• 48:48
  Many again, I wrote a book out of a serendipitous conversation.
• 48:52
  Right?
• 48:52
  Like, that's what I mean.
• 48:53
  And so and that fundamentally changed my entire life.
• 48:56
  And so I would if I were to say anything, it's just like maximize serendipity and today as
• 49:02
  much as possible.
• 49:03
  That's really helpful.
• 49:04
  And I think that's a perfect you know, this whole story is a perfect example because I mean
• 49:08
  Yeah.
• 49:08
  Mhmm.
• 49:09
  You met that person, you know, and that kinda that person kinda took you on as a mentor, but
• 49:13
  you weren't thinking about joining Lux at the time.
• 49:15
  You just interviewed Lux as an interviewer and then you never would have known that that would
• 49:21
  have been a career.
• 49:23
  I guess that's really, really good advice.
• 49:25
  I appreciate you sharing that.
• 49:26
  Hey, Joe, Raul, can you guys hear me?
• 49:29
  Yeah.
• 49:29
  Hey, Raul.
• 49:30
  I had a question, I was trying to unmute my phone.
• 49:34
  So one of the questions Rahul for you is, when you look at these deep tech companies and most
• 49:41
  of the companies, they have like team of PhDs still working on the ideas and all, do you guys
• 49:49
  pick up investments during the like seed stage, pre seed stage in those categories?
• 49:56
  Or you guys still wait till they have some signs of revenue and commercialization?
• 50:02
  Yeah, so I think like one of those things, so short answer, yeah, we some seed, mostly A, and
• 50:10
  very, very little pre seed.
• 50:12
  Most of the the incubated companies that's that's obviously and those are considered pre
• 50:15
  seed.
• 50:16
  But for the most part, we don't do the pre seed.
• 50:18
  But, yeah, mostly c and a, obviously, our primary.
• 50:21
  And we have a growth fund as well.
• 50:22
  So we just did like a recently just like a d, a series d.
• 50:26
  So nonetheless, yeah, short answer is that.
• 50:30
  But I would say it definitely, it depends across deep tech firms based on how long
• 50:35
  they've been around.
• 50:36
  Right?
• 50:36
  So again, Lux has been here for twenty years.
• 50:38
  And so that's how they're, you know, slowly they've made their way to, you know, from the,
• 50:42
  I mean, they started with, know, pre seed red seed and sort of that side.
• 50:46
  But then, know, as time went on, as they got bigger funds and whatnot, you know, they went
• 50:50
  to sort of the end, you know, they're doing some Bs and stuff.
• 50:53
  And so I've seen, you know, deep tech companies, they do only precede.
• 50:57
  One of my good friends, he's a he's a precede deep tech investor, that that's totally what
• 51:01
  they do.
• 51:02
  I've seen I mean, I've seen even deep tech angels, right?
• 51:05
  So so even even earlier, right?
• 51:06
  That's literally to they only had a good idea phase at that point.
• 51:09
  But yeah, I would say, you know, it varies by the size of the firm and everything.
• 51:14
  But for luck, specifically, it's mostly seed, think.
• 51:18
  Seed to be is what I would say is most of the stuff sales.
• 51:21
  Yeah.
• 51:23
  Cool.
• 51:23
  Good question.
• 51:24
  And, you know, with with series a, you know, with deep tech, it's pretty common to to have
• 51:33
  the company still be pre revenue, I'm assuming.
• 51:35
  Yeah.
• 51:35
  Because I mean, they're just little I mean, a lot of the the big dynamic with deep tech is a
• 51:39
  lot of the money is still going into research and development.
• 51:42
  And I mean, commercialization really depends on if they can hit the milestones that they said
• 51:48
  they can achieve.
• 51:50
  Right?
• 51:50
  Yeah.
• 51:50
  Yeah.
• 51:51
  Cool.
• 51:52
  Great.
• 51:53
  Anything else guys?
• 51:55
  Any more questions?
• 51:55
  I think I have a quick question.
• 51:58
  I actually just bought your book on Amazon right Oh,
• 52:01
  thank you.
• 52:02
  So just to go back and you maybe forgive me if you already talked about it, like what inspired
• 52:08
  you to write the book, but like what was the process of you writing that book, Making
• 52:13
  Moonshot?
• 52:14
  Yeah.
• 52:15
  Yeah.
• 52:15
  Of course.
• 52:16
  So alright.
• 52:17
  So it started back in January 2020.
• 52:20
  So so a little bit over a year ago.
• 52:23
  But yeah.
• 52:24
  Yeah.
• 52:24
  So basically, how I started is I I first laid down, you know, the research process.
• 52:28
  Obviously, that's what's important.
• 52:30
  Again, I was a this non expert.
• 52:31
  Right?
• 52:32
  I was not an expert by any means.
• 52:33
  And so I had to become an expert.
• 52:34
  Right?
• 52:35
  And so, again, that was, you know, that I had to drastically improve my content intake.
• 52:40
  Right?
• 52:40
  Read all, know, whatever I, you know, read or videos I watch or podcasts I listen to, like, I
• 52:45
  made sure it was, you know, high quality ones, was it was it was actually helpful.
• 52:48
  And so that was really, really important, just like improving that content intake.
• 52:53
  Then doing research, right, in terms of, you know, looking at stories, of moonshot
• 52:56
  companies, you know, profiling the founders, profiling, you know, reading into their company
• 53:00
  history and stuff, you know, finding all these, these, these commonalities and sort of the
• 53:04
  similarities amongst all these stories.
• 53:07
  And then I would say the biggest thing was doing interviews.
• 53:09
  Again, I was an expert, right?
• 53:11
  So I had to use other people's stories and whatnot.
• 53:14
  So I think I conducted over over 100 interviews easily.
• 53:17
  Again, all these VC, big time VCs, founders, researchers, some people in government, and so
• 53:24
  forth, and some PhDs as well.
• 53:26
  So that was probably like the most fruitful thing that I got so many stories, so many cool
• 53:30
  insights from that.
• 53:32
  Then, you know, it was just a matter of, you know, putting it all into like a digestible
• 53:37
  sort of entertaining manner.
• 53:38
  Right?
• 53:38
  So, know, I I not only do that, but, you know, sort of related to the past sort of, you know,
• 53:42
  things in history and, you know, all these cool things.
• 53:44
  Right?
• 53:45
  I I tried to what I want to do is like, I did not want it be a boring business book, to be
• 53:48
  honest, I want it to be something dynamic, right?
• 53:51
  Something that's interesting.
• 53:51
  And so that's why I chose right?
• 53:54
  Mindsets, philosophies, strategies, then ecosystems around deep tech, right?
• 53:58
  I didn't strike, you know, strictly just do, oh, you know, how to start a company.
• 54:00
  Right?
• 54:01
  There's so many resources on that.
• 54:02
  I'm not I'm not I'm not wanting to tell you how to start a company.
• 54:05
  But that will how how to get, you know, get get started on the sort of whatever it may be.
• 54:09
  But in terms of, know, how to make moonshots, or how to get started on the on the process,
• 54:12
  right?
• 54:13
  What's the what, you know, what's the sort of like those foundational things?
• 54:15
  How can we inspire more of these, from an ecosystem level, like all these things?
• 54:18
  That's what I really wrote about.
• 54:20
  And so, yeah, yeah.
• 54:22
  So, you know, around summer, I would say is when I sort of got to like, you know, like a
• 54:27
  working, you know, solid manuscript, you know, tons and tons of revisions after that whole
• 54:31
  process, I'm getting feedback from all the people I interviewed, you know, did that for a
• 54:35
  couple of months.
• 54:36
  And so by October, a couple of months ago, by October, that's when I finally had like a final
• 54:41
  draft that I think I, I rewrote my book by three times by by October.
• 54:45
  And so, yeah, that was mostly the process.
• 54:48
  And then after that, we came up the fun stuff.
• 54:49
  I cover design, you know, getting quotes and stuff.
• 54:51
  Was all cool.
• 54:52
  But In terms of the actual work, it sort of ended in October.
• 54:55
  So yeah.
• 54:56
  And what are the legal things that you need to think about?
• 55:00
  So if you if you reference, a podcast, right, are you allowed to do that as long as it's
• 55:07
  publicly available?
• 55:08
  Or do you have to also, like, formally get permission from them?
• 55:12
  So like for me, right, so I have like tons of YouTube videos, like, pretty much of stuff like
• 55:18
  this.
• 55:18
  Right?
• 55:18
  So could I just take the transcript and turn that into a book or is it best practice to ask
• 55:24
  permission and get it like in writing?
• 55:26
  I guess, what are some creative control or copyright things that maybe you learned.
• 55:33
  Right?
• 55:33
  Yeah.
• 55:35
  Actually, I mean, for the most obviously, they give you a credit from a different source.
• 55:38
  You have to cite it.
• 55:38
  So Yeah.
• 55:39
  Yeah.
• 55:39
  I I have a whole appendix and whatnot with all the citations and stuff.
• 55:44
  But Mhmm.
• 55:44
  Actually one thing I learned.
• 55:45
  So I I didn't even know this prior prior to it.
• 55:47
  But if if I'm not mistaken and again, don't quote me on this, but I I'm pretty sure I'm
• 55:53
  right.
• 55:55
  If you're speaking to someone, like like on a Zoom call, for example, or or somewhere like
• 55:59
  that, if they say it to you, you don't have to cite them.
• 56:02
  There there's, like, some, like, limits to that.
• 56:04
  I forgot.
• 56:04
  Yeah.
• 56:05
  Forgot what the exact thing was.
• 56:06
  But for example, like, like, if you're going to, you know, all your YouTube videos, you
• 56:10
  know, make a transfer and write a book out of it.
• 56:11
  Like, I'm pretty sure it's okay for you to do that because they they said this stuff to you
• 56:15
  or something like that.
• 56:17
  Don't quote me on that.
• 56:18
  Like, was it was something similar to that.
• 56:19
  But there there are rules around, like, if someone says it to you, like, it's okay.
• 56:23
  If but if it's on different medium, then you have to cite it, something like that.
• 56:26
  But, it was kinda surprising.
• 56:27
  I mean, for the most part, I I always made it a point to get permission to include people's
• 56:32
  like interviews But in that was mostly just a formality.
• 56:35
  Like I wanna, you know, I want them to trust me, like I'm not gonna, you know, misuse their
• 56:40
  words or whatever.
• 56:40
  I always got permission, but I don't think it was necessary for me to do so.
• 56:45
  Yeah.
• 56:45
  That's great.
• 56:46
  Yeah, I mean, congrats on that endeavor.
• 56:50
  Thank you.
• 56:50
  Are you thinking about writing another book?
• 56:52
  Thinking about maybe covering another topic or you taking a break now?
• 56:56
  Yeah, yeah, taking a break.
• 56:57
  Not again.
• 56:58
  It was a tough process.
• 56:59
  There's still
• 57:00
  Something that so I I did self publishing.
• 57:03
  So I published my health care book and then I and then I was like, next thing I'm gonna do is
• 57:08
  a kids book.
• 57:09
  But I think I'm done for now.
• 57:11
  I can't I don't know what else I would write about.
• 57:13
  So Yeah.
• 57:14
  So I'm
• 57:14
  Maybe in the future.
• 57:15
  Yeah.
• 57:16
  So maybe it'd be something else.
• 57:17
  Maybe it'd be maybe it'd be something about, like, how to break into VC or something like
• 57:20
  that.
• 57:21
  Yeah.
• 57:22
  But but yeah.
• 57:23
  And I I know we're up on time.
• 57:24
  We're, like, a minute minute away.
• 57:26
  So Mhmm.
• 57:26
  If anybody else has a final question, chime in in the next second or so.
• 57:31
  If not, then we'll let you go.
• 57:33
  And I know it's getting a little late over there.
• 57:36
  So if nobody has anything that, hey, Rahul, thanks so much for your time, learned so much.
• 57:42
  Thank you.
• 57:43
  And excited to keep you in our
• 57:46
  Absolutely.
• 57:46
  Awesome.
• 57:56
  You.