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Can a Robot Build Better, Cheaper Houses? · What's Your Problem?

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is What's Your Problem?
0:33
Speaker 1: My guest today is Jason Ballard. Jason is the co-founder
0:37
Speaker 1: and CEO of a company called Icon, and his problem
0:40
Speaker 1: is this. can you use 3D printing to build houses
0:44
Speaker 1: that are cheaper and better and maybe more interesting than
0:48
Speaker 1: the houses that we build now? As you'll hear, ICON
0:52
Speaker 1: has 3D printed a few hundred houses, and they're currently
0:56
Speaker 1: trying to scale up so that thousands of houses can
0:59
Speaker 1: be built using their system. Before he started ICON, Jason
1:03
Speaker 1: was a seminary student at one point. He got a
1:07
Speaker 1: master's in lunar construction, as in building on the moon.
1:12
Speaker 1: And he also started a company that he describes as
1:14
Speaker 1: a combination between Whole Foods and Home Depot. In our conversation,
1:19
Speaker 1: we talked about all of those things. But to start,
1:22
Speaker 1: I asked Jason why he eventually set out to build
1:25
Speaker 1: houses in a new way.
1:27
Speaker 2: The whole purpose of technology is to sort of bend
1:30
Speaker 2: the world toward the things that we want. And so
1:34
Speaker 2: there was this like idea of like imagining a way
1:37
Speaker 2: of building that was faster, that was lower cost, but
1:39
Speaker 2: actually improved quality instead of decreased quality and left tremendous
1:43
Speaker 2: design opportunity still on the table. I don't know if
1:46
Speaker 2: you've ever talked to a builder, but there's this like
1:49
Speaker 2: terrible saying among builders, like you can either have it fast,
1:51
Speaker 2: cheap or high quality. You can only pick two of
1:54
Speaker 2: the three. And that seemed completely unacceptable to me as
1:58
Speaker 2: like a default setting for something so basic. I mean,
2:01
Speaker 2: we're talking about food, water, shelter are the basic things
2:04
Speaker 2: we need.
2:05
Speaker 1: And yeah, we've gotten much more efficient at food and water, right? Like, Clean,
2:10
Speaker 1: cheap water is an underappreciated miracle that we have, at
2:14
Speaker 1: least in this country, in the developed world. Food has
2:17
Speaker 1: gotten profoundly cheaper, but building a house has not gotten
2:21
Speaker 1: much cheaper. There have been strangely few productivity gains. It
2:25
Speaker 1: looks the same as it did to a large extent, whatever,
2:27
Speaker 1: 50 years ago, 70 years ago.
2:29
Speaker 2: I mean, my office is probably slightly hyperbolic, but we
2:32
Speaker 2: have been building with plain lumber and bricks and mortar
2:35
Speaker 2: for something rounding to a thousand years. You know, we
2:39
Speaker 2: invented like nail guns and power saws and things like that,
2:42
Speaker 2: but the sort of fundamental principles in approaches to building
2:46
Speaker 2: haven't changed in an awfully long time. And look, we
2:48
Speaker 2: built a civilization or a few on these paradigms, but
2:52
Speaker 2: it's clear that we're like reaching the limits of what
2:55
Speaker 2: they can do for us. And, you know, then it
2:57
Speaker 2: was 2018, now it's 2026, but sort of the same idea,
3:00
Speaker 2: like where's Wakanda? Like where's Rivendell? Where's this like world
3:04
Speaker 2: of the future we're supposed to have by now. Like
3:08
Speaker 2: houses are getting more expensive and we don't even like
3:10
Speaker 2: really like these things. Like it's like rather soul crushing
3:13
Speaker 2: when you look at most new neighborhoods getting built in
3:15
Speaker 2: the world today. And it just felt like both a
3:17
Speaker 2: cool problem, an important problem to solve. But then also
3:20
Speaker 2: you could imagine all these like very cool things that
3:24
Speaker 2: could happen as well if you figured out how to
3:26
Speaker 2: build with robots. And so all of that was the
3:28
Speaker 2: setup for 2018, which is like we have got to
3:32
Speaker 2: show the world that something new is possible so that
3:35
Speaker 2: these conversations about construction aren't always so like damn depressing.
3:40
Speaker 1: When do you discover 3D printing? When do you think, oh,
3:43
Speaker 1: maybe 3D printing will solve this problem?
3:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, so at the time when I first had the idea,
3:48
Speaker 2: I was working at a sustainable building and remodeling company
3:52
Speaker 2: called Treehouse.
3:53
Speaker 1: The company you had started.
3:55
Speaker 2: Correct. Imagine Whole Foods took over Home Depot and that'll
3:58
Speaker 2: kind of get you in the ballpark of kind of
3:59
Speaker 2: what the company was like.
4:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:02
Speaker 2: Clientele at the time, even though we're trying to drive
4:04
Speaker 2: down costs the best we could, was like a rather
4:06
Speaker 2: high in clientele. And so we're going into some of
4:09
Speaker 2: the nicest homes in Austin and ultimately Dallas as well.
4:14
Speaker 2: And they have like all these problems with air quality,
4:16
Speaker 2: with like basic building material quality, beauty. And it's like,
4:20
Speaker 2: something is wrong with the way we're building. If like
4:22
Speaker 2: the nicest houses in town have all these problems, it wasn't,
4:25
Speaker 2: you would expect sort of the rich people to have
4:27
Speaker 2: all this sorted out. But even with the nicest homes
4:30
Speaker 2: in town, there were these like real problems. And it
4:32
Speaker 2: was like, you know, we don't just need to like
4:34
Speaker 2: improve like what we're doing. We don't need to like
4:37
Speaker 2: automate drywall hanging or whatever, like something's really wrong here.
4:41
Speaker 2: And so again, I kind of made this spreadsheet of like,
4:43
Speaker 2: got to be faster, got to be lower cost, got
4:46
Speaker 2: to leave aesthetics and beauty on the table, needs to
4:48
Speaker 2: be sustainable, needs to be resilient. And I kind of
4:51
Speaker 2: looked at everything. I looked at SIP panels and ZIP
4:53
Speaker 2: panels and prefab and modular and shipping container housing. Probably
4:56
Speaker 2: the weirdest thing I looked into was growing houses out
4:59
Speaker 2: of fungus, but really just like a full, no stone
5:03
Speaker 2: left unturned kind of approach to like, what could we
5:07
Speaker 2: possibly do? And it was only with 3D printing, even
5:10
Speaker 2: though at the time no one had ever done it.
5:12
Speaker 2: Nobody had ever printed an occupiable building. There were some
5:16
Speaker 2: like research efforts at universities But it was like you
5:19
Speaker 2: could believe with 3D printing that like, oh, that could
5:22
Speaker 2: be cool and beautiful. And that material is very simple.
5:26
Speaker 2: And a robot should be faster and lower cost than
5:28
Speaker 2: a bunch of human laborers. And it is stronger and
5:32
Speaker 2: all these kinds of things. So it wasn't clear that
5:35
Speaker 2: it would work at the time. But it just felt
5:38
Speaker 2: so like compelling to try. It was the only thing
5:42
Speaker 2: I could find for which you could even imagine working.
5:47
Speaker 2: all those things being true. It's just like, well, we
5:49
Speaker 2: got to try.
5:50
Speaker 1: All those things being, it could be fast, cheap and
5:52
Speaker 1: beautiful and good.
5:53
Speaker 2: And strong and safe. And like, yeah, you didn't have
5:55
Speaker 2: to make these trade-offs, right? They're sort of, you're forced
5:58
Speaker 2: into with conventional approaches to buildings.
6:03
Speaker 1: So you have this dream. And as I understand it,
6:06
Speaker 1: South by Southwest in 2018 was kind of a key
6:09
Speaker 1: early moment, right? Tell me what happened there.
6:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we kind of had to bootstrap the company.
6:13
Speaker 2: There was two other co-founders, myself, a gentleman named Alex LaRue,
6:18
Speaker 2: who was like the founding CTO and engineer. And then
6:21
Speaker 2: my other co-founder was Evan Loomis, the three of us.
6:24
Speaker 2: we were kind of it and we kind of had
6:25
Speaker 2: to bootstrap. And so we found a buddy and we said, Hey,
6:28
Speaker 2: we need to 3d print a house in the backyard
6:30
Speaker 2: of a property you own. And if it, if it
6:32
Speaker 2: doesn't work, we'll tear it down. And if it works,
6:33
Speaker 2: you'll have a free house, but we need to, uh,
6:36
Speaker 2: show that this can be done. And so we worked
6:38
Speaker 2: with a friend who is an architect to design it.
6:40
Speaker 2: Cause we wanted to show off, begin showing off the
6:42
Speaker 2: possibilities of 3d printing. Uh, his name is Andrew Logan.
6:45
Speaker 2: So really kind of friends and family bootstrap. And, uh,
6:49
Speaker 2: started figuring it out. And so we built a prototype, uh,
6:52
Speaker 2: gantry style 3d printer. We did not have enough money
6:55
Speaker 2: at the time to develop a material delivery system. So
6:57
Speaker 2: we're using just kind of off the shelf concrete mixing
7:00
Speaker 2: and pumps, uh, and doing our best effort at like
7:03
Speaker 2: engineering a material that will work and started trying, just
7:07
Speaker 2: like showed up and started trying to print and failed
7:10
Speaker 2: and failed and failed and kind of improved day after day.
7:11
Speaker 2: And eventually everything was working well enough. It's like, I
7:14
Speaker 2: think we have enough time to have this house done
7:16
Speaker 2: by South by Southwest when the whole world comes to Austin.
7:20
Speaker 2: Like that will be the moment. So we sort of
7:22
Speaker 2: marked that on the calendar and just started printing. There were,
7:25
Speaker 2: of course, lots of hilarious failures. We were kind of
7:28
Speaker 2: hand mixing the concrete and pouring it into the printer.
7:31
Speaker 2: So we say that that first house was artisan 3D printed.
7:35
Speaker 2: And by the skin of our teeth, got it done
7:37
Speaker 2: literally with like not an hour to spare. And then
7:39
Speaker 2: announced to the world that you're like, hey, there's a
7:42
Speaker 2: permitted 3D printed house in Austin that you can come
7:45
Speaker 2: see while you're here at South Byte. And it kind
7:49
Speaker 2: of went viral and everybody took notice. We ended up
7:51
Speaker 2: winning like the startup contest at South by this year.
7:56
Speaker 2: And then that sort of proof point, like here is
7:59
Speaker 2: a very compelling looking house that was 3D printed in
8:03
Speaker 2: a real city, got real permits, a real certificate of occupancy.
8:07
Speaker 2: And that allowed us to raise our first investment round
8:09
Speaker 2: and build a team and continue the journey.
8:12
Speaker 1: So when you talk about, you know, a gantry style
8:15
Speaker 1: 3D printer and concrete, like Just give me the basics,
8:18
Speaker 1: because this is still the basics of how it works, right?
8:20
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've innovated a lot and changed a lot,
8:22
Speaker 1: but what is happening? When you say print a house,
8:25
Speaker 1: what do you actually mean? How does it work?
8:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you sort of accept the premise that
8:30
Speaker 2: what we want to do is 3D print a house
8:32
Speaker 2: using a concrete material, and I can explain why we
8:34
Speaker 2: think all that's right later, but you basically need to
8:36
Speaker 2: put the concrete where it goes. That's what the printer
8:39
Speaker 2: itself does. It's just like depositing material in three-dimensional space.
8:43
Speaker 2: And then you have to make that concrete behave along
8:45
Speaker 2: the way and once it gets there. It has to
8:48
Speaker 2: flow and pump to the nozzle, the printhead. If it
8:55
Speaker 2: keeps flowing, you get a puddle instead of a house.
8:58
Speaker 2: But if it starts setting up too fast, you end
9:00
Speaker 2: up getting a brick instead of a printer. So you
9:01
Speaker 2: need to put the concrete where it needs to go,
9:03
Speaker 2: and then you have to get the concrete to behave.
9:05
Speaker 2: Those are the two fundamental principles. engineering, scientific problems that
9:08
Speaker 2: you need to solve in order to 3D print a house.
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Speaker 1: I'm just going to say what it looks like. I've
9:12
Speaker 1: watched videos of this, and if I was listening to
9:15
Speaker 1: a podcast, I wouldn't quite understand. So let me just
9:16
Speaker 1: say what I've seen. If you imagine... kind of like
9:20
Speaker 1: a giant tube of toothpaste. And the machine, the printer
9:23
Speaker 1: is sort of squeezing the toothpaste and moving in whatever
9:27
Speaker 1: shape the house is going to be. You can imagine
9:29
Speaker 1: a rectangle just for something simple. And so it does
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Speaker 1: a rectangle in the size of the house. And then
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Speaker 1: it kind of puts another rectangle of toothpaste on top
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Speaker 1: of the first rectangle of toothpaste. And it goes around
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Speaker 1: and around and it stacks up those rows of toothpaste
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Speaker 1: until it's as tall as the walls of the house
9:46
Speaker 1: are going to be.
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Speaker 2: That's correct. It prints layer by layer according to the
9:49
Speaker 2: architectural designs that you have. Although you said rectangle. This
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Speaker 2: is like an important point about 3D printing that was
9:54
Speaker 2: so exciting.
9:55
Speaker 1: Yes, they're round. It's rounded. It can be anything you want.
9:57
Speaker 2: And it doesn't change the color. If I printed you
10:00
Speaker 2: a house in the shape of a Fibonacci spiral, assuming
10:03
Speaker 2: it's the same square footage, it's the same price as
10:05
Speaker 2: the rectangle. And that's not true. So some of the
10:08
Speaker 2: things you can do with 3D printing look very... elevated
10:12
Speaker 2: and beautiful and even high and inexpensive, but they are
10:15
Speaker 2: sort of not. This is this design aesthetic point.
10:17
Speaker 1: Yes.
10:18
Speaker 2: It's possible.
10:19
Speaker 1: And they do, the ones you have been building, and
10:21
Speaker 1: we'll get to this, but they do have a lot
10:23
Speaker 1: of rounded, right? Instead of a corner, there will be
10:26
Speaker 1: a little kind of a rounded edge rather than 90
10:29
Speaker 1: degree angles. It seems like a common kind of design motif.
10:33
Speaker 2: That's right. And that's rather intentional. You can, of course,
10:36
Speaker 2: rather obediently print a rectangle if you want to. But
10:38
Speaker 2: of course, we're often trying to say like, hey, this
10:40
Speaker 2: house is 3D printed. It should like lean into its
10:42
Speaker 2: own possibilities. And so you see that show up a lot.
10:45
Speaker 1: To your point of like, let's design Wakanda. Why do
10:48
Speaker 1: we still have houses that look like houses a.
10:50
Speaker 2: Thousand years ago? The thing I often say is like,
10:52
Speaker 2: once upon a time, we built bridges out of wood
10:55
Speaker 2: and then we invented steel. And steel bridges aren't just
10:58
Speaker 2: carbon copies of wooden bridges. Like, steel enabled entirely new
11:02
Speaker 2: ways to build bridges. And something like that is happening
11:05
Speaker 2: with 3D printing. And there's a whole architectural vernacular and
11:10
Speaker 2: design language that becomes possible because of this technology.
11:14
Speaker 1: So just to get back to the narrative, you're at
11:16
Speaker 1: 2018 and you're, like, hand-pouring the concrete into the machine and, like—
11:22
Speaker 1: blowing on it to make it dry or whatever. You're
11:24
Speaker 1: just barely getting it to work. I know there have
11:26
Speaker 1: been various steps. Like, were there a few key things
11:30
Speaker 1: you had to figure out to get from there to like,
11:32
Speaker 1: you know, building houses for real that people are actually
11:35
Speaker 1: going to live in and that are going to cost
11:37
Speaker 1: a reasonable amount? Yep.
11:38
Speaker 2: That's a few things along the way. The next thing
11:40
Speaker 2: to do after that first South by Southwest was to
11:43
Speaker 2: like automate the material delivery system, right? Instead of hand
11:46
Speaker 2: mixing and hand pouring into the machine. Yeah. And again,
11:49
Speaker 2: you're asking concrete to do something that is typically not
11:53
Speaker 2: asked to do. You either have like normal concrete that
11:55
Speaker 2: will flow and fill up a form, or you have
11:57
Speaker 2: this fast curing concrete. And neither of those will quite work.
12:01
Speaker 2: You need it to be flowable and pumpable. And then
12:02
Speaker 2: you need it to set up with like a high
12:04
Speaker 2: amount of accuracy very quickly. And so what we ended
12:08
Speaker 2: up having to do, and by the way, with the
12:10
Speaker 2: cost thing, we restricted ourselves to a list of globally
12:14
Speaker 2: and ubiquitously available materials, right? We don't want to have
12:17
Speaker 2: any expensive fairy dust or carbon nanotubes or graphene or
12:22
Speaker 2: anything like this. In a sense, that makes the problem
12:24
Speaker 2: harder because we're keeping cost in mind the whole time.
12:28
Speaker 2: And so we developed an approach to material delivery that
12:32
Speaker 2: is actually remaking the formula about every 15 minutes. So
12:35
Speaker 2: it takes temperature... humidity, irradiance, readings, and is reformulating based
12:41
Speaker 2: on the actual conditions about every 15 minutes. There's like
12:44
Speaker 2: a continuous batch mixing is what we call it.
12:47
Speaker 1: And the reformulation is basically changing the ratio of whatever aggregate, water,
12:52
Speaker 1: just the basic inputs. That's right.
12:54
Speaker 2: And that, of course, allows you to operate at a
12:56
Speaker 2: much longer timescale because traditionally in the concrete industry, like
12:59
Speaker 2: if you use ready mix, it is set to the
13:01
Speaker 2: parameters of a small few hour window on the day.
13:04
Speaker 2: It's like, hey, if you don't use all this concrete
13:06
Speaker 2: before it gets too hot, you've wasted it. You'd have
13:09
Speaker 2: to change the formula. And so even if it on
13:12
Speaker 2: paper looked like.
13:12
Speaker 1: And it's basically just weather, like what the hotter it is,
13:15
Speaker 1: the faster it sets.
13:17
Speaker 2: Everything, the colder, the hotter, the more and less humid, right?
13:21
Speaker 2: And so the concrete industry sort of designs mixes for
13:25
Speaker 2: a very narrow set of environmental conditions. And we needed
13:28
Speaker 2: to be able to operate continuously almost in any kind
13:31
Speaker 2: of weather conditions. And so designing that system and all
13:34
Speaker 2: the data and formulation that goes into that was probably
13:37
Speaker 2: the most important breakthrough of the early years.
13:41
Speaker 1: So you mentioned sustainability being a long-time interest of yours
13:46
Speaker 1: and something you studied. I mean, I know that cement...
13:52
Speaker 1: is very carbon intensive, right? Like by its nature, it's
13:55
Speaker 1: actually quite a hard problem to solve. Like, how does
13:58
Speaker 1: that fit? How does building houses out of cement like
14:01
Speaker 1: fit with sustainability? Yeah, cement is an ingredient, but it's
14:05
Speaker 1: not the whole house isn't cement. Cement is just a
14:07
Speaker 1: small percentage of the actual ingredients in concrete. And so
14:12
Speaker 1: when you think about housing sustainability, there's maybe a few
14:16
Speaker 1: things to think about. One is like, the materials that
14:19
Speaker 1: it's getting about, what's the environmental impact of the materials
14:22
Speaker 1: that you're actually building with?
14:24
Speaker 2: How long will that building last? So if something is,
14:27
Speaker 2: you know, 20% more carbon, but you have to like
14:30
Speaker 2: tear it down every 50 years and rebuild it. So
14:32
Speaker 2: like the lifespan, like, and then the environmental impacts of
14:36
Speaker 2: operating a building built with those materials, the energy efficiency,
14:40
Speaker 2: the fire rating, wind rating, these kinds of things. So
14:43
Speaker 2: we have worked very hard on our mix itself to
14:47
Speaker 2: reduce the carbon emissions in our formulation of the concrete
14:51
Speaker 2: that we use. Of course, concrete is much longer lasting
14:54
Speaker 2: than a stick frame house in a drywall. Matter of fact,
14:56
Speaker 2: if I offered your listeners a million dollar prize to
14:59
Speaker 2: invent a building material lower quality than drywall that would
15:03
Speaker 2: still pass building code, no one would win the prize.
15:06
Speaker 2: It is literally the crappiest thing we can imagine to
15:08
Speaker 2: build with. So you're already at a low carbon basis
15:12
Speaker 2: relative to conventional construction methods. It's going to last much
15:15
Speaker 2: longer and it is much more energy efficient. That's partly material.
15:19
Speaker 2: It's partly the wall system that we've engineered that there's
15:22
Speaker 2: no thermal bridging inside the wall system. We have a
15:25
Speaker 2: You have like an exterior bead, an interior bead, and
15:27
Speaker 2: then we're careful to make sure that those who never
15:29
Speaker 2: touch and communicate heat and energy flows back and forth
15:32
Speaker 2: to each other. And so input materials, environmental impact, operational
15:39
Speaker 2: environmental impact spread over what time period. We sort of
15:43
Speaker 2: win on all three fronts. And that took a lot
15:46
Speaker 2: of work and thought and testing to get there.
15:49
Speaker 1: How many houses have you built? Where are you in
15:51
Speaker 1: the world now?
15:52
Speaker 2: We are, let's see, sneaking up on 260 somewhere this week.
15:55
Speaker 2: We're always out in the field. We're over 250. We'll
15:59
Speaker 2: be sneaking up on 300 or so by the end
16:02
Speaker 2: of the year and growing very rapidly.
16:06
Speaker 1: So 300 isn't scale yet, right? I mean, I know
16:11
Speaker 1: it's a lot, and not to belittle the work that
16:13
Speaker 1: you have done. No. But it's 300 more houses than
16:16
Speaker 1: I have built. But it's not like a meaningful number
16:18
Speaker 1: in the context of even Texas, right? Much less the
16:21
Speaker 1: United States.
16:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, correct. The year that we did the largest single
16:27
Speaker 2: project we've done to date, although we have some bigger
16:28
Speaker 2: ones coming up that we'll be announcing soon, was this
16:31
Speaker 2: 100-home 3D-printed community just north of Austin in Georgetown, Texas.
16:36
Speaker 2: And that neighborhood was like a double-digit percentage of the
16:39
Speaker 2: homes built in that community that year or whatever. But
16:42
Speaker 2: you're right.
16:44
Speaker 1: And are those just normal houses now? I mean, I'm
16:46
Speaker 1: sure more efficient, good-looking, whatever. But do people just live
16:49
Speaker 1: there now?
16:50
Speaker 2: It's amazing. If you walk out into that neighborhood, we
16:53
Speaker 2: built it in partnership with Lenar, who's like the second
16:55
Speaker 2: largest publicly traded builder in America. And for me, like,
17:01
Speaker 2: to this day, I take people on tours out there
17:02
Speaker 2: and to go into the middle of the neighborhood and turn, like,
17:05
Speaker 2: everything you can see is 3D printed. And you're like, oh,
17:07
Speaker 2: this does feel better. Like, there's a vibe. Like, of course,
17:11
Speaker 2: the console.
17:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks a little different, right? You can see
17:14
Speaker 1: the sort of the lines of the layers.
17:16
Speaker 2: Yes.
17:18
Speaker 1: And they're more rounded. Those are the two just superficially
17:21
Speaker 1: having looked, you know, on my laptop. Right. Those are
17:23
Speaker 1: the two things you notice. They're more round and the
17:25
Speaker 1: lines are a certain aesthetic.
17:27
Speaker 2: Yep, that's right. It's kind of like brick has a
17:29
Speaker 2: different aesthetic than wood has a different aesthetic. It definitely
17:32
Speaker 2: has its own aesthetic.
17:34
Speaker 1: And it looks like, is it right? Did those houses
17:36
Speaker 1: sell for about what other houses in that area? Correct.
17:40
Speaker 2: Lennar priced them at the same sort of entry-level to
17:44
Speaker 2: mid-market pricing that they use on all of their— that' s sort
17:47
Speaker 2: of all of Lennar's housing product.
17:48
Speaker 1: Okay. Were they cheaper to build? Did Lennar have a
17:51
Speaker 1: bigger margin on those houses.
17:52
Speaker 2: Than on the stick-built houses in the neighborhood? the efficiencies
17:57
Speaker 2: that were gained on that project, we actually used to
18:00
Speaker 2: create a better house. So like they have a total
18:02
Speaker 2: budget they're going for. It's kind of like, hey, what's
18:05
Speaker 2: the best house we can build at this price point
18:07
Speaker 2: with our budget? And so they use a lot of
18:09
Speaker 2: the efficiencies to put a metal roof, All of the
18:11
Speaker 2: houses are solar panels. So they sort of used it
18:13
Speaker 2: that way. So like get more house at that price
18:15
Speaker 2: point that you would typically get.
18:16
Speaker 1: I mean, you could imagine people being a little skittish.
18:20
Speaker 1: Like some people would be like excited to be kind
18:22
Speaker 1: of early adopters, right? But being an early adopter on
18:25
Speaker 1: a house is... is riskier than being an early adopter
18:28
Speaker 1: on a phone, right? Like there's A, what if it
18:32
Speaker 1: leaks or whatever? And then there's B, what if nobody
18:36
Speaker 1: wants to buy it in 10 years when I want
18:38
Speaker 1: to move, right? I could imagine those being reasonable concerns
18:41
Speaker 1: that a homeowner might have.
18:43
Speaker 2: Which is why it was like so important for us
18:44
Speaker 2: to just to do a scaled up project because you
18:46
Speaker 2: can do all the research that you're coming up with
18:49
Speaker 2: is like, let's build a hundred houses and sell them
18:51
Speaker 2: and see what's happening.
18:53
Speaker 1: So what happened? Like, did people have those concerns?
18:56
Speaker 2: They did. But of course, at that point, we had
18:58
Speaker 2: like half a decade of like testing and test results
19:00
Speaker 2: that we could show people.
19:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:01
Speaker 2: It ended up being Lenar's number one selling community in
19:04
Speaker 2: Texas that year. And again, and if you go out,
19:07
Speaker 2: there's like all kinds of people. There's young people that
19:10
Speaker 2: work at SpaceX. There's retired people. There's young families. So
19:13
Speaker 2: it wasn't like this sort of early tech bro, whatever
19:16
Speaker 2: you're thinking of early adopter looks like ended up being there.
19:19
Speaker 2: number one selling community in Texas that year. It's had
19:22
Speaker 2: their lowest warranty claims of any community so far. And
19:26
Speaker 2: now the houses, you know, after three to five years,
19:28
Speaker 2: some of them are beginning to, people are taking new jobs, moving, whatever.
19:32
Speaker 2: Some of the houses have been resold since, and they
19:35
Speaker 2: have appreciated like quite meaningfully, like $ 200, 000 plus in many
19:39
Speaker 2: cases in just like a few years.
19:41
Speaker 1: And how does that appreciation, how does that appreciation compare
19:45
Speaker 1: to the appreciation of Traditionally built homes in the neighborhood.
19:48
Speaker 2: Above market rate appreciation.
19:50
Speaker 1: Oh, great.
19:51
Speaker 2: Yes. Congratulations. And there's no way you could know ahead
19:55
Speaker 2: of time, right? You just have to start building. But again.
19:59
Speaker 2: I think the bar is so low in housing. I
20:04
Speaker 2: don't want to throw any of my partners or whatever
20:07
Speaker 2: under the bus. Housing might be one of the only things.
20:10
Speaker 2: If you moved to Austin and you had your choice
20:13
Speaker 2: between a brand spanking new house and a hundred-year-old house,
20:18
Speaker 2: there is a very good chance that you would prefer
20:20
Speaker 2: the 100-year-old house.
20:23
Speaker 1: I have a 100-year-old house. I am actually not interested
20:27
Speaker 1: in a brand new house.
20:28
Speaker 2: What other product on earth is that?
20:31
Speaker 1: I don't want a 100-year-old phone.
20:34
Speaker 2: Or a 100-year-old airplane or car. It's kind of insane
20:38
Speaker 2: that we've just accepted this.
20:40
Speaker 1: It reveals how housing has failed to innovate.
20:44
Speaker 2: Yes, yes. A lot more work to do, but we
20:47
Speaker 2: do believe you brought up scale earlier. I mean, there's
20:49
Speaker 2: a lot we've had to prove. You had to make
20:52
Speaker 2: the materials work. You had to make the robots work.
20:53
Speaker 2: You had to make the architecture and the actually engineering
20:56
Speaker 2: of the wall system work.
20:57
Speaker 1: You had to get all these- Well, let me ask
20:59
Speaker 1: you about other things you had to make work. Permits.
21:02
Speaker 1: Tell me about permits. When I've talked to other people
21:05
Speaker 1: about innovating in home construction, one of the constraints is
21:09
Speaker 1: all these permits are just built around stick-built houses. And
21:12
Speaker 1: they're like, you have to build a house like this.
21:14
Speaker 1: And so everybody keeps building the same house. Is that
21:16
Speaker 1: a problem for you?
21:18
Speaker 2: Problem is probably too strong a word at this point. Again,
21:20
Speaker 2: one of the reasons we used concrete in the beginning,
21:23
Speaker 2: rather than an exotic foam or some kind of wood polymer-
21:27
Speaker 2: is we have been building with concrete for a couple
21:28
Speaker 2: thousand years. We forgot for a little while how to
21:31
Speaker 2: do it when the Roman Empire fell and then remembered
21:33
Speaker 2: again later. That's a side question.
21:35
Speaker 1: The Romans were amazing at concrete. People are still studying
21:38
Speaker 1: why Roman concrete is still so good.
21:40
Speaker 2: The only material humans forgot how to make during what
21:43
Speaker 2: we call the Dark Ages is concrete. We didn't lose woodworking.
21:46
Speaker 2: We didn't lose metal. We didn't lose— we forgot how to
21:49
Speaker 2: make concrete during the Dark Ages, and then we figured
21:52
Speaker 2: it out again later. So it's a remarkable— It's hard
21:55
Speaker 2: to imagine the modern world without it. It would actually
21:59
Speaker 2: be more carbon intensive if you had to build everything
22:01
Speaker 2: out of like wood and plastic and metal. Anyway, I digress.
22:05
Speaker 1: There's more concrete than biomass in the world, right?
22:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. The testing, but because concrete had been around so long,
22:13
Speaker 2: there was this established precedence of building CMU block walls,
22:17
Speaker 2: tilt wall concrete. And so in the early days, we
22:19
Speaker 2: just kind of went into the slipstream of established precedence of,
22:23
Speaker 2: of building with concrete. So we tried not to defy gravity,
22:26
Speaker 2: just like show that we could pass all the certifications
22:28
Speaker 2: you would otherwise require of a concrete wall while in
22:32
Speaker 2: the background and in parallel working to establish specific guidelines
22:36
Speaker 2: for 3D printed wall systems. And so we have successfully
22:39
Speaker 2: done both. So we went to a new area and
22:41
Speaker 2: before there was like building code on the books specifically
22:44
Speaker 2: for 3D printing, we would just say, show us your
22:46
Speaker 2: building code for CMU block walls or tilt wall concrete,
22:50
Speaker 2: things like this, masonry style constructions. And we will show
22:53
Speaker 2: you that we are as good or better, almost always better.
22:57
Speaker 1: On whatever dimensions the code prescribes.
23:02
Speaker 2: Exactly. We have now made a lot of progress, fast
23:06
Speaker 2: forward eight years, both in the International Construction Code, the
23:09
Speaker 2: International Residential Code, the American Concrete Institute, and others, establishing
23:13
Speaker 2: good precedence for what a good safe 3d printed house
23:17
Speaker 2: would be. Cause there was also a defensive part of the,
23:20
Speaker 2: the offensive, like we want to build, but there was
23:22
Speaker 2: also the defensive maneuver of if anybody else ever 3d
23:26
Speaker 2: prints a house that falls over or hurts anyone in
23:29
Speaker 2: any way that will blow back on us. Like we
23:32
Speaker 2: have a real interest in like making sure even our
23:35
Speaker 2: competitors are building very safely and very effectively, uh, if
23:40
Speaker 2: that makes sense. And so, All of that is now,
23:43
Speaker 2: there is established building code for 3D printing. There's established
23:47
Speaker 2: guidance for all the mortgage makers in America. There's established
23:49
Speaker 2: guidelines for insurance underwriters. And so any of our competitors
23:54
Speaker 2: now benefit from all the work that we do on
23:56
Speaker 2: that front. But it was a lot of work to do.
24:00
Speaker 1: So you've done all that. And I mean, certainly compared
24:03
Speaker 1: to that, 300 houses sounds like not that many. Like,
24:07
Speaker 1: is there some... scale moment? What is the binding constraint
24:13
Speaker 1: at this point? What is the rate limiting step?
24:16
Speaker 2: This was the first year we ever turned down business
24:19
Speaker 2: in the history of the company. There was more people
24:21
Speaker 2: wanting us. First of all, the binding constraint was we
24:23
Speaker 2: were not cheap enough. That first 3D printed house I
24:26
Speaker 2: told you about in 2018, the printing was like over
24:29
Speaker 2: $ 300 a square foot and it needed to be cheaper
24:31
Speaker 2: than $ 30.
24:32
Speaker 1: You got to have dudes standing there. Yeah, that's right.
24:35
Speaker 2: So first binding was like, it actually has to be cheaper. Once,
24:40
Speaker 2: and we sort of finally crossed under that, you know,
24:42
Speaker 2: about 18 months ago or so. And then it was like,
24:45
Speaker 2: and so this was the first year we had to
24:46
Speaker 2: turn away business from some pretty great partners because we
24:49
Speaker 2: just did not have enough printers to But we didn't
24:52
Speaker 2: want to make more of the first generation printer, knowing
24:55
Speaker 2: that the new printer is on the way. We'll still
24:58
Speaker 2: grow like 300% this year, over 4X from last year.
25:02
Speaker 2: And we'll more than double that again next year. So
25:04
Speaker 2: it's still like very healthy growth. I think we will
25:07
Speaker 2: very soon be graduating from like hundreds of homes a
25:09
Speaker 2: year to thousands. But it really now is the binding
25:12
Speaker 2: constraint is scaling up our production growth. Of the Titan printer,
25:15
Speaker 2: the sort of multi-story robotic arm system.
25:17
Speaker 1: Basically building the robot that builds the homes. That's what's
25:20
Speaker 1: happening now. Correct.
25:21
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it.
25:25
Speaker 1: We'll be back in just a minute. What's the business model?
25:40
Speaker 2: So the long-term business model since the beginning and remains,
25:44
Speaker 2: we are developing technologies and tools, and we want to
25:46
Speaker 2: put these tools into the hands of builders and developers
25:49
Speaker 2: all over the world. And that kind of is like
25:52
Speaker 2: this printers and ink model, right? We like sell you
25:55
Speaker 2: the printer and then we sell you the ink. There's
25:57
Speaker 2: also the software and the services and everything.
25:58
Speaker 1: I don't say the printer, the ink model, though. Everybody
26:01
Speaker 1: hates printers and ink, right?
26:03
Speaker 2: But in this case.
26:05
Speaker 1: So what like like what exactly is that going to mean?
26:08
Speaker 1: Like you're going to sell the robots, you're going to
26:10
Speaker 1: license like how is it going to work? You can
26:12
Speaker 1: either buy it outright, you can finance it or you
26:14
Speaker 1: can lease it. That is the program. And in this case,
26:17
Speaker 1: the ink.
26:19
Speaker 2: Is like having to buy the ink, so to speak,
26:21
Speaker 2: is a great peace of mind to the reservation holders
26:25
Speaker 2: we have so far because they don't have to do
26:28
Speaker 2: eight years of testing. We spent over $ 30 million on
26:30
Speaker 2: third party fire testing, wind testing, seismic testing, energy of
26:34
Speaker 2: performance testing. You are getting a material that that you
26:37
Speaker 2: know is backed by like now rounding up to a
26:40
Speaker 2: decade of testing and research. And we're about one third
26:43
Speaker 2: the cost of any other sort of 3D printing concrete
26:45
Speaker 2: that's currently on the market. So it is cheaper and
26:47
Speaker 2: just been through a lot more robust, rigorous testing. So
26:50
Speaker 2: you can have the peace of mind that the things
26:52
Speaker 2: you are building, in fact, will be safe, will be comfortable,
26:54
Speaker 2: will be beautiful. If you look at the print quality
26:57
Speaker 2: of some of our competitors, hard to believe you would
26:59
Speaker 2: want to take a 30-year mortgage on some of it.
27:01
Speaker 2: In fact, they have to cover it up often enough
27:03
Speaker 2: because it's just like not looking good enough.
27:05
Speaker 1: So just to be clear, the builder can basically buy
27:08
Speaker 1: or lease the robot and then you sell them the
27:11
Speaker 1: special concrete?
27:13
Speaker 2: That's the essential nature. We also have a lot of
27:15
Speaker 2: field support. Like we are like not going to let
27:17
Speaker 2: our customers fail, right? We have a team of people
27:19
Speaker 2: we call field engineers. who are like F1 repairs, like
27:22
Speaker 2: get the car back on the track if anything goes wrong.
27:25
Speaker 2: A software suite, like project management for robotic construction projects.
27:30
Speaker 2: So we have a software system we call BuildOS. It's
27:33
Speaker 2: a whole program, right? Because this is a whole new
27:35
Speaker 2: way to build. It's not just a painting robot. Everything's
27:39
Speaker 2: roughly the same, and this robot just shows up and paints.
27:42
Speaker 2: This is a whole new way to build, design, permit,
27:46
Speaker 2: and you kind of have to deliver the system fully formed.
27:49
Speaker 2: And so that is the most important long-term business model.
27:52
Speaker 2: In the background, most of our revenue to date has
27:55
Speaker 2: come by us actually acting as the customer. We have
27:58
Speaker 2: been designing and building buildings using our own technologies. That
28:02
Speaker 2: was important because it was both like a finishing school
28:05
Speaker 2: for the technology. Like, does it actually work? Like we
28:08
Speaker 2: need to feel the pain of any problems that exist.
28:10
Speaker 2: And it was a proof point to customers that you
28:13
Speaker 2: can run a very powerful, very profitable construction business using
28:17
Speaker 2: these technologies. And so- Now that we have that proof,
28:20
Speaker 2: it has helped it again. Because, you know, we talked
28:24
Speaker 2: about the homeowners earlier. They're betting their 30-year mortgage or
28:27
Speaker 2: whatever that this is going to be a good house.
28:29
Speaker 2: A builder or developer who buys into this system That's
28:32
Speaker 2: the way they pay their mortgage. That's the way they
28:34
Speaker 2: send their kids to college. I mean, that's a big
28:37
Speaker 2: amount of belief to change from the way that they
28:39
Speaker 2: are building to this entirely new way of building. And
28:41
Speaker 2: so it felt like we had to sort of prove
28:43
Speaker 2: it before we could ask people to take that bet.
28:45
Speaker 2: And so that's the reason both to mature the product
28:48
Speaker 2: and to show that, in fact, you can run a
28:51
Speaker 2: very high performance construction company using these tools.
28:54
Speaker 1: Tell me more about getting from hundreds of houses to
28:56
Speaker 1: thousands of houses. Like how many houses do you think
28:59
Speaker 1: you'll build next year and where?
29:01
Speaker 2: I bet we will. So we will probably build as
29:04
Speaker 2: many houses next year as we have built in the
29:07
Speaker 2: whole history of the company to put together so far.
29:10
Speaker 2: One of the big ways we're going to start scaling
29:12
Speaker 2: up from there to thousands of houses is number one,
29:14
Speaker 2: we've got to start manufacturing more of the robots. And
29:16
Speaker 2: the number two is just start working in more markets.
29:18
Speaker 2: We've essentially only been working in Texas so far, a
29:21
Speaker 2: little bit in Mexico, some interesting far field projects with
29:24
Speaker 2: the Department of Defense, now the Department of War. But
29:27
Speaker 2: we're about to begin a rather aggressive expansion into multiple U.S.
29:31
Speaker 2: markets and probably trailing that by about 18 months is
29:34
Speaker 2: multiple global markets. And so simply increasing the surface area
29:38
Speaker 2: of our work, very naturally, we'll scale it up, right?
29:40
Speaker 2: If you can do several thousand houses in Texas, if
29:44
Speaker 2: you're in 10 markets, you should certainly be moving from
29:47
Speaker 2: the hundreds of the thousands, ultimately to the tens of
29:49
Speaker 2: thousands of homes per year. And I think that's the
29:51
Speaker 2: kind of scale you got to be working at to
29:53
Speaker 2: start making a dent in the problems that we care about.
29:56
Speaker 1: There are lots of different ways, theoretically, to build houses.
30:00
Speaker 1: I know you said, you know, you looked at the
30:02
Speaker 1: long list and decided that 3D printing was the best
30:06
Speaker 1: based on the constraints or variables you were trying to
30:11
Speaker 1: optimize for. But I'm curious, like, if you imagine a
30:15
Speaker 1: kind of dream world, like, is everybody living in 3D
30:18
Speaker 1: printed houses? Are there other underused construction methods that are
30:23
Speaker 1: good in certain settings? Like, what's, you know, dream big.
30:26
Speaker 1: What does the world look like? What do houses look like?
30:29
Speaker 2: Maybe it's my old conservation biology roots from my university days,
30:32
Speaker 2: but I'm, like, rather allergic to, like, monoculture in agriculture,
30:37
Speaker 2: in ecology, and even in building. Like, part of what
30:41
Speaker 2: gives me an allergic reaction to the way that builders
30:44
Speaker 2: are often building today is like the lack of diversity,
30:46
Speaker 2: the lack of aesthetic diversity, architectural diversity. And so I
30:50
Speaker 2: would say my romantic dream is for 3D printing to
30:53
Speaker 2: take its place alongside the other primary ways of building
30:59
Speaker 2: that humanity currently has. And then my goal would be
31:02
Speaker 2: among those ways of building that 3D printing would be
31:05
Speaker 2: the fastest, most beautiful, most affordable, most resilient way of
31:10
Speaker 2: building that And that the only reason you would go
31:13
Speaker 2: for any other direction is just like a simple aesthetic preference.
31:16
Speaker 2: Like I just liked the way a log cabin looks,
31:18
Speaker 2: you know, like would be a fine reason. Um, but
31:22
Speaker 2: really to be like the best way of building, uh,
31:24
Speaker 2: by all of the major criterion, uh, is my goal
31:27
Speaker 2: for this company. And I do hope to see a
31:30
Speaker 2: world in which, uh, first like a lot, and then
31:34
Speaker 2: maybe even eventually the majority of new construction happening, uh,
31:38
Speaker 2: is with 3d printers. And I hope that happens in
31:40
Speaker 2: my lifetime.
31:42
Speaker 1: Let's talk about modular housing for just a sec, like
31:44
Speaker 1: building houses in factories, basically, and assembling them on site. Like,
31:48
Speaker 1: that goes back, you know, at least to Buckminster Fuller,
31:51
Speaker 1: and you had Sears selling kit houses, what, about 100
31:55
Speaker 1: years ago now? And... That one, at a certain level,
31:59
Speaker 1: makes sense to me. Obviously, it has not taken off,
32:01
Speaker 1: and there is a kind of stigma attached to modular
32:05
Speaker 1: houses in some context. But factories are good at making
32:08
Speaker 1: things at scale and cheaply. Like, is there a place
32:12
Speaker 1: in the world for beautiful modular houses, or do you
32:14
Speaker 1: think there's, like, a fatal flaw there?
32:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, first of all, there's enough innovation that
32:18
Speaker 2: needs to happen in housing and construction that, like, I'm
32:21
Speaker 2: happy to see people try all kinds of experiments like
32:24
Speaker 2: may a thousand flowers bloom kind of opportunity. But you're right.
32:28
Speaker 2: We have tried this a number of times and I
32:30
Speaker 2: examined it when we were starting Icon. Like I thought
32:32
Speaker 2: very seriously about like, should this be what we do here?
32:36
Speaker 2: If you sort of look at the long arc of
32:37
Speaker 2: people trying to factory or build homes inside of a
32:41
Speaker 2: factory here ends up being the problem. Number one, uh,
32:47
Speaker 2: to really get the efficiencies of factory production. It's about
32:50
Speaker 2: repeated tasks of the same part or system. And so
32:54
Speaker 2: you actually have this aesthetic problem. Like it looks good
32:57
Speaker 2: at like, hey, we could make five houses, 10 houses,
32:59
Speaker 2: 20 houses, and these like look really cool, but you
33:01
Speaker 2: need like a million people to want the exact same house.
33:05
Speaker 2: And so it sort of runs into this, everybody doesn't
33:08
Speaker 2: want the exact same house.
33:09
Speaker 1: I mean, is there not some kind of Lego version
33:12
Speaker 1: of that?
33:12
Speaker 2: You still are sort of limited to your modules and
33:14
Speaker 2: they all end up rhyming with each other enough aesthetically
33:17
Speaker 2: that it just, I don't think I'm like conjecturing here.
33:20
Speaker 2: Like it has not, like humans haven't wanted it. And
33:22
Speaker 2: aesthetics has been like one of the reasons. The second
33:26
Speaker 2: one is.
33:27
Speaker 1: Wait, let me just say one more thing there, if
33:28
Speaker 1: I might. I mean, I grew up in Southern California, and,
33:32
Speaker 1: you know, it was like a small town when I
33:34
Speaker 1: was born, and then now it's full of subdivisions. All
33:36
Speaker 1: those subdivisions look the same to me. Like, they weren't
33:39
Speaker 1: built in factories, but I feel like people do often
33:41
Speaker 1: want a million of the same house.
33:43
Speaker 2: Well, so that was first. Reason number one is they
33:46
Speaker 2: didn't have a differentiated approach to aesthetics.
33:49
Speaker 1: Okay.
33:50
Speaker 2: Reason number two is this sort of capital expense problem.
33:54
Speaker 2: because you're going to be shipping a house. It's expensive
33:56
Speaker 2: to ship a refrigerator. It's very expensive to ship a house.
34:00
Speaker 2: And so often all the savings you got from the automation,
34:03
Speaker 2: you surrendered back in shipping cost, or you needed to
34:06
Speaker 2: build a factory every 500 miles. And so there was
34:08
Speaker 2: like an economic problem with shipping versus the expense of
34:12
Speaker 2: building new factories closer to market, things like that. And
34:15
Speaker 2: then the third problem is a product problem is like,
34:18
Speaker 2: because you have to ship these houses, you end up
34:21
Speaker 2: at some level having to optimize the house for a truck.
34:25
Speaker 2: And houses aren't for trucks, they're for people. The product
34:28
Speaker 2: should be optimized for people, not a road. And so
34:31
Speaker 2: those three things put together, I think, are the three
34:34
Speaker 2: things you would have to solve if you really wanted
34:36
Speaker 2: a modular construction company to work. But 3D printing, in
34:41
Speaker 2: a sense, we just kind of inverted the problem. We said, hey,
34:45
Speaker 2: instead of shipping the house, ship the factory. Like a
34:49
Speaker 2: 3D printer, another funny way to think about a 3D
34:50
Speaker 2: printer is it's a bespoke housing factory. The factory shows
34:54
Speaker 2: up on the job site because it's a lot easier
34:55
Speaker 2: to ship a robot. And then you leave all this
34:59
Speaker 2: design freedom, but it's automated in every way that a
35:02
Speaker 2: factory is automated. And so maybe it's easier to ship
35:05
Speaker 2: factories and then leave a lot of design freedom than
35:07
Speaker 2: it is to like fix the factory and ship a house.
35:09
Speaker 2: And so we kind of just inverted the problem because it's,
35:12
Speaker 2: but it's sort of coming at the same thing. It's like,
35:14
Speaker 2: we need automation here to drive down cross and increase quality.
35:18
Speaker 1: So you're at this moment when it seems like you've
35:20
Speaker 1: proven that the thing you're building works and that people
35:23
Speaker 1: want to buy it, importantly, and that banks will lend
35:27
Speaker 1: against it. What do you worry about? Like, if something's
35:32
Speaker 1: going to go wrong for you in the next few years,
35:35
Speaker 1: what do you think it'll be?
35:36
Speaker 2: So far, we've been so close to everything we've done, right? Like,
35:40
Speaker 2: we were there— Uh, we were just like close to
35:43
Speaker 2: our problems, both literally in terms of our business model,
35:45
Speaker 2: and then literally in terms of geographically, the market we
35:48
Speaker 2: were working in.
35:48
Speaker 1: Like you could just drive out there every day. Yeah.
35:51
Speaker 2: The engineers could be there. I could be there. I'm
35:54
Speaker 2: often on every single project, uh, that we have going
35:57
Speaker 2: at any given time. And so we're going to have
35:59
Speaker 2: to learn these new things. Number one of just like
36:01
Speaker 2: the manufacturing side of manufacturing robots, but all of that
36:04
Speaker 2: in service of like spreading this out, putting these things
36:06
Speaker 2: into the hands of other builders, other developers, other markets.
36:10
Speaker 2: And I'm sure we're going to have to learn some
36:12
Speaker 2: lessons about how to support this new way of building
36:15
Speaker 2: as it spreads out, or we can't just be at
36:17
Speaker 2: every single project every day, or I certainly can't be
36:19
Speaker 2: at every project. And so that's going to be like
36:20
Speaker 2: a new thing for us. Like, There hasn't been a
36:24
Speaker 2: single thing we've printed in the history of the company
36:25
Speaker 2: that I haven't been there. But of course, this business
36:28
Speaker 2: is going to have to outscale my capabilities as a human.
36:32
Speaker 2: And so that will be a new thing that feels
36:34
Speaker 2: like we've got some lessons to learn.
36:36
Speaker 1: Speaking of a construction site you can't be on, when
36:40
Speaker 1: are you going to build something on the moon?
36:43
Speaker 2: Very funny.
36:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:44
Speaker 2: So we hold currently the contract with NASA to develop
36:49
Speaker 2: the lunar construction system. because we made in 2018 a
36:54
Speaker 2: very similar pitch to NASA, but re sort of purpose
36:57
Speaker 2: for the moon. It's like, Hey, you know, in my
36:59
Speaker 2: master's degree, it was in space resources, specifically lunar construction.
37:03
Speaker 2: And it was like, Hey, here's our ideas about building
37:06
Speaker 2: on the moon. Number one, it has to be robot.
37:08
Speaker 2: So all these ideas of like humans up there with
37:10
Speaker 2: hammers and special space tools, like I just don't believe it.
37:13
Speaker 2: Human space flight is four times more expensive than a
37:15
Speaker 2: robotic mission. Like we're never going to, it's too expensive
37:17
Speaker 2: and too dangerous. We'll never have a moon base. Number two,
37:20
Speaker 2: You have to learn to live off the land. All
37:23
Speaker 2: of the ideas that I could see involved bringing everything
37:26
Speaker 2: from earth, bringing this habitat, bringing this landing pad, bringing
37:29
Speaker 2: this reactor shield from earth. It is like $ 100, 000 a
37:33
Speaker 2: pound to land something on the lunar surface. And if
37:37
Speaker 2: you have to spend a billion dollars every time you
37:39
Speaker 2: want to build a tiny house, again, we're never going
37:41
Speaker 2: to have a moon base that way. We have to
37:42
Speaker 2: learn to use the local things that are already there,
37:46
Speaker 2: just like all of the other explorers from history, right?
37:48
Speaker 2: When the Europeans first landed on this continent, the ones
37:51
Speaker 2: that tried to bring Europe with them, they died during
37:53
Speaker 2: the first winter. It was the ones who learned to
37:56
Speaker 2: live off the local resources that truly flourish. And I
37:58
Speaker 2: think that will apply to the moon as well, especially... financially.
38:04
Speaker 2: And then number three, in the early days, versatility beat specialization.
38:09
Speaker 2: So at the time, there were all these like, here's
38:11
Speaker 2: a habitat system, here's a road paving system, here's a
38:13
Speaker 2: landing pad system. Any space system you're going to develop
38:17
Speaker 2: is going to cost between several hundred million and several
38:19
Speaker 2: billion dollars. It's like, what we need is one multi-purpose
38:24
Speaker 2: system that you can send up multiple units of it
38:27
Speaker 2: that can build all major elements of lunar construction, landing pads, roadways, habitats,
38:32
Speaker 2: reactor shields, foundations, you name it. And so robots that
38:36
Speaker 2: are multipurpose that are designed to use local resources. So
38:40
Speaker 2: they funded us. And that's what we've been researching and developing.
38:42
Speaker 2: And we've passed all of our testing with flying colors.
38:45
Speaker 2: And the next step for us is to send something
38:47
Speaker 2: up to the lunar service and prove it on the
38:49
Speaker 2: moon because we've done basically everything you can do to
38:52
Speaker 2: prove it on Earth.
38:54
Speaker 1: So is the basic idea you have some version of
38:57
Speaker 1: your robot and then you send it to the moon
39:00
Speaker 1: and then it uses the regolith, the right word, the
39:04
Speaker 1: dust that's on the surface of the moon as like
39:06
Speaker 1: the fundamental input for the building material and you 3D
39:10
Speaker 1: print a moon base out of that?
39:12
Speaker 2: That's exactly correct. You want to use the, good job
39:15
Speaker 2: knowing the word regolith, but moon dust to the layperson. Yeah.
39:20
Speaker 2: And that's it. You want to use that as your
39:21
Speaker 2: only input. So it's not going to be a concrete.
39:25
Speaker 2: So we use a laser-based system.
39:27
Speaker 1: Because it's too expensive to bring water.
39:29
Speaker 2: To the moon. And if you had a water-based concrete,
39:31
Speaker 2: you would tear the wall apart to get the water out.
39:33
Speaker 2: Water is so precious in space. It would be like
39:36
Speaker 2: building out a platinum on Earth. It's like the most
39:38
Speaker 2: precious thing you can imagine. And so you melt it
39:40
Speaker 2: with a laser and then you cool it down so
39:43
Speaker 2: that the molecules have time to form like a crystal
39:47
Speaker 2: structure that is like a ceramic and much stronger.
39:51
Speaker 1: Almost like the way you'd work with metal or something.
39:52
Speaker 1: You turn it into sort of molten dust or something.
39:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you melt it and then control the rate
39:57
Speaker 2: of cooling.
39:58
Speaker 1: Just glass, yeah. Have you tried that, like, in a lab?
40:03
Speaker 1: Is that obviously going to work?
40:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have our own dirty thermal vacuum chamber here
40:07
Speaker 2: at the lab. We have done it multiple times in
40:09
Speaker 2: vacuum at, like, every temperature range we would expect to
40:12
Speaker 2: find on the moon. Then NASA put us through the
40:14
Speaker 2: test in their large dirty thermal vacuum chamber called V20.
40:18
Speaker 2: And we had a threshold goal and a stretch goal.
40:22
Speaker 2: We exceeded our stretch goal for compressive strength and tensile
40:26
Speaker 2: strength by 2x. And so, again, we've sort of done
40:30
Speaker 2: everything we can do on Earth. The next step for
40:33
Speaker 2: us is to go prove it on the moon.
40:35
Speaker 1: I love the phrase dirty thermal vacuum chamber. I feel
40:38
Speaker 1: like some Austin band should call themselves dirty thermal vacuum chamber.
40:42
Speaker 2: Somebody should start a metal band called Dirty Thermal Vacuum
40:44
Speaker 2: Chamber for sure. Yeah.
40:46
Speaker 1: Is there any time frame for you actually, you know,
40:50
Speaker 1: doing some kind of preliminary building on the moon or
40:52
Speaker 1: is that still too far out?
40:53
Speaker 2: No, we have NASA's stated goal is to begin early
40:57
Speaker 2: demonstration construction between 2028 and 2032. So we will be
41:02
Speaker 2: ready as early as 2028. There's a lot of other
41:05
Speaker 2: things that have to happen for us to go like that.
41:07
Speaker 2: Right now, we don't have a lunar lander that works.
41:09
Speaker 2: There's no there's no transportation to the lunar surface right now.
41:12
Speaker 2: So that has to come true. We need power communication
41:15
Speaker 2: on the moon, etc. But we're going to be ready
41:17
Speaker 2: as soon as 2028, and hopefully the rest of the
41:19
Speaker 2: timelines hold.
41:21
Speaker 1: So I just want to go back to Earth for
41:23
Speaker 1: a minute. Like, the moon is cool, but Earth is
41:26
Speaker 1: cooler to me. Like, if you could build lots of
41:29
Speaker 1: houses that are beautiful and cheap on Earth, I would
41:31
Speaker 1: take that over a moon base if I had to choose.
41:36
Speaker 1: Is there, like, how are you doing on cost?
41:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, so with our first-generation system, we are... Uh, 10
41:46
Speaker 2: to 15% cheaper than conventional construction with our second generation system.
41:50
Speaker 2: We are 40% cheaper and seven times faster than conventional construction.
41:55
Speaker 2: And I'm glad you pose a like moon versus earth
41:57
Speaker 2: is these things are often posited as like a one
42:01
Speaker 2: or the other. But we're in a situation with construction
42:05
Speaker 2: where we like have to push the frontier of what's possible.
42:09
Speaker 2: And the moon in outer space is the double black
42:11
Speaker 2: diamond for material efficiency, energy efficiency, autonomy, all the things
42:15
Speaker 2: we need to do. And in fact, if you look
42:19
Speaker 2: at our lunar printer and our second generation Titan printer,
42:22
Speaker 2: they look a lot closer. They're the same sort of architecture.
42:26
Speaker 2: And that's not by accident. It was because of figuring
42:29
Speaker 2: out how to build on the moon informed the way
42:31
Speaker 2: we build on earth. Our control software was first written
42:35
Speaker 2: by for our lunar printer. Our mission control software that
42:38
Speaker 2: we now use to operate all of our printer fleet
42:41
Speaker 2: was first written for a NASA contract. And so, in fact,
42:45
Speaker 2: there are more homeless people in housing in Austin at
42:49
Speaker 2: lower cost because we have a space program than there
42:52
Speaker 2: would be had we sort of kept our aperture really narrow.
42:55
Speaker 2: Because what you really just need to do is mature
42:57
Speaker 2: this technology as fast as possible and upgrade human capability.
43:02
Speaker 2: And that's what space and a frontier condition have always
43:05
Speaker 2: been good for in terms of human progress and human innovation.
43:08
Speaker 2: And so I don't think these things are a dilemma.
43:10
Speaker 2: I think it's a false dilemma. It's like.
43:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like the analogy that comes to mind there
43:15
Speaker 1: is chips in the 60s, right? Like Silicon Valley was
43:21
Speaker 1: funded by NASA at the beginning, and they learned to
43:24
Speaker 1: build chips to go on rocket ships at the beginning, right? Like,
43:28
Speaker 1: that's the analogy that comes through.
43:30
Speaker 2: Or you could just do a thousand of these, like sailing,
43:32
Speaker 2: and you're like, we wouldn't, like, the reason we have
43:35
Speaker 2: clocks is It was because sailors needed to know where
43:37
Speaker 2: they were on.
43:38
Speaker 1: Earth, right? Clocks without pendulums, right? Clocks that work on
43:41
Speaker 1: a ship. That's right.
43:41
Speaker 2: And so, like, how many human benefits have come from
43:46
Speaker 2: being able to keep accurate time? Like, for example, and
43:50
Speaker 2: there could have been an argument like, well, we should
43:52
Speaker 2: just sort of stay here. Like, this is all scary
43:54
Speaker 2: and too expensive and too many lives lost or whatever.
43:57
Speaker 2: Maybe we should just stay on the shore. But it's
43:59
Speaker 2: by always sort of pushing into Frontier's That these like
44:03
Speaker 2: innovations and like step function changes have come in human
44:07
Speaker 2: capabilities that have raised the waterline for everyone. And I
44:11
Speaker 2: think space exploration is the same thing.
44:13
Speaker 1: You mentioned a minute ago that there are homeless people
44:17
Speaker 1: who have houses because of your work like. What specifically
44:20
Speaker 1: were you referring to? Tell me about that.
44:21
Speaker 2: So, yeah. So when I talk about homeless people in
44:24
Speaker 2: housing in Austin, there's an organization here in town that
44:27
Speaker 2: has repeatedly invited us back to build for them called
44:30
Speaker 2: Community First Village. And I encourage all your listeners to
44:33
Speaker 2: go look up Community First Village in Austin, one of
44:35
Speaker 2: the most amazing homelessness reduction programs in all of America
44:41
Speaker 2: in terms of rate of recidivism, lifespan after housing, the
44:45
Speaker 2: quality and dignity of life that these people have. And
44:48
Speaker 2: so we have built over 110 homes for them so far. First,
44:51
Speaker 2: it was one, then it was seven, then it was
44:53
Speaker 2: a hundred more, then it was 10 more after that. Um,
44:57
Speaker 2: and so I expect we will continue building for them,
44:59
Speaker 2: but our ability to manage those projects, drive costs down
45:03
Speaker 2: on those projects, increase the quality of those projects, uh,
45:07
Speaker 2: was accelerated because of our space program. And in fact,
45:11
Speaker 2: the first homes that Titan, our second generation printer, will
45:14
Speaker 2: ever build are homes for the homeless in Austin. And again,
45:18
Speaker 2: Titan's architecture is a lot more like our space architecture
45:22
Speaker 2: than our gantry style system. And so these things are
45:25
Speaker 2: all connected somehow. And it's really gratifying to see, you know,
45:28
Speaker 2: often the very poor are the last people to get
45:32
Speaker 2: access to innovations and breakthrough technologies. But we have kept
45:35
Speaker 2: it front and center for us that we want the
45:37
Speaker 2: people who are suffering most from a lack of good
45:40
Speaker 2: construction to be some of the first to receive its benefits.
45:45
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the lightning round.
46:02
Speaker 1: We're going to finish with a lightning round.
46:03
Speaker 2: Yes.
46:05
Speaker 1: Is it true that you got into the housing business
46:07
Speaker 1: because a bishop told you that you should?
46:09
Speaker 2: The short version is I was almost a priest, had
46:12
Speaker 2: already sort of been accepted to go to seminary, and
46:16
Speaker 2: had this opportunity to go work and to start a
46:18
Speaker 2: business definitively doing sustainable construction, sustainable housing, and went to
46:23
Speaker 2: the bishop and was like, what should I do? Should
46:26
Speaker 2: I go to seminary? Should I pursue this sustainable housing opportunity?
46:29
Speaker 2: So we went and prayed in the cathedral. We went
46:31
Speaker 2: to lunch, went back to his office, talked more. And
46:33
Speaker 2: after he had kind of heard me out, he said,
46:35
Speaker 2: I think you should pursue this housing thing. Like, when
46:38
Speaker 2: I hear you talk about it, I can just tell
46:41
Speaker 2: there's like a fire in your belly. So, like, go
46:44
Speaker 2: for it. And if it doesn't work out, the church
46:46
Speaker 2: hopefully will still be here. But pursue this. Like, this
46:49
Speaker 2: is your vocation.
46:50
Speaker 1: And what did you think when he said that?
46:53
Speaker 2: It felt correct. It felt correct. Like, I left happy
46:56
Speaker 2: and felt a sense of, like, purpose. you know, a
46:59
Speaker 2: thing that was like rumbling around in like my heart
47:02
Speaker 2: and soul had been validated. And now I sort of
47:04
Speaker 2: felt completely free to go pursue it.
47:07
Speaker 1: What's your favorite Bible verse?
47:09
Speaker 2: Psalm 126 in the Orthodox Bible, the opening verse of
47:13
Speaker 2: that is like, unless the Lord builds the house, those
47:16
Speaker 2: who labor, labor in vain. And given my vocation to build,
47:22
Speaker 2: specifically to build houses, a reminder of that Unless we
47:25
Speaker 2: are cooperating with the work of God, that our work
47:28
Speaker 2: is likely to be serving ego or dark forces or
47:32
Speaker 2: these kind of things. And to remember to do our
47:34
Speaker 2: work in service first to God, but then in service
47:37
Speaker 2: to the world around us. So that would be the one.
47:40
Speaker 1: Say it again.
47:41
Speaker 2: Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it
47:45
Speaker 2: labor in vain.
47:47
Speaker 1: Very good. What other domains would benefit from 3D printing
47:51
Speaker 1: besides housing?
47:52
Speaker 2: So 3D printing as a technology, I think got off
47:54
Speaker 2: on the wrong foot. 3D printing is going to be
47:57
Speaker 2: best when things are slow, expensive, and bespoke. When two
48:03
Speaker 2: or all three of those things are true, that's where
48:06
Speaker 2: 3D printing is going to be very good. In the
48:08
Speaker 2: early days, they were using it to do things that
48:10
Speaker 2: were already cheap, already mass produced, and all the same.
48:13
Speaker 2: So people were like 3D printing coffee cups and 3D
48:15
Speaker 2: printing spoons and these kinds of like, that's already cheap
48:17
Speaker 2: and fine. But things like aerospace parts, Dental implants, sort
48:22
Speaker 2: of like medical grade, kind of very custom medical prosthetics,
48:26
Speaker 2: things like that. Housing would be another example. It is
48:28
Speaker 2: slow and expensive, and it wants to be bespoke. And
48:31
Speaker 2: so anything that is slow, expensive, and bespoke is going
48:34
Speaker 2: to be the right kind of use case for 3D printing.
48:37
Speaker 1: If you could 3D print any building, what would it be?
48:42
Speaker 2: I want to 3D print my own house is the next.
48:44
Speaker 2: My kids have been asking me, Dad, when are we
48:45
Speaker 2: going to live in a 3D printed house? And I
48:47
Speaker 2: think this is the year. So that's what I'm really
48:48
Speaker 2: excited about right now is printing my own house.
48:51
Speaker 1: Why don't you live in a 3D printed house? Like,
48:53
Speaker 1: I feel like you got to live in a 3D
48:55
Speaker 1: printed house.
48:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do have to live in a 3D printed house.
48:56
Speaker 2: So far, it's just been like all the, as soon as,
48:58
Speaker 2: you know, all the printers were just as busy as
48:59
Speaker 2: we could keep them. And it felt selfish to pull
49:01
Speaker 2: a printer off of a project for a customer to
49:04
Speaker 2: build my own house. But it is definitely time and
49:05
Speaker 2: I'm pretty excited about it.
49:07
Speaker 1: You have any particular dreams for your own 3D printed house?
49:10
Speaker 1: You could have like a little round room or something?
49:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think what I will be able to do
49:14
Speaker 2: that others would not is like really push the boundaries
49:16
Speaker 2: of what's possible in 3D printing and really show out
49:19
Speaker 2: at the limit in a really, hopefully a rather radical
49:23
Speaker 2: way what a 3D printed building can be.
49:26
Speaker 1: What is an example of a thing you're going to
49:28
Speaker 1: do to that end?
49:29
Speaker 2: Well, maybe what I'll say is like, I do have
49:31
Speaker 2: some sketches and mood boards and things like this for
49:33
Speaker 2: the home design. And like, I don't think anyone will
49:36
Speaker 2: have ever seen a house like this. And so it's
49:38
Speaker 2: like very difficult, but you should be imagining full enclosures, right? Arches, domes, vaults.
49:43
Speaker 2: So now you're not just printing the walls, you're printing
49:45
Speaker 2: the foundation, the wall system, the full roof enclosure. And
49:49
Speaker 2: it's going to be a profoundly new approach to architecture
49:53
Speaker 2: and housing design. And I think people will find it
49:55
Speaker 2: incredibly beautiful, but unlike anything they've ever seen.
49:58
Speaker 1: I hope your kids like it.
49:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, my daughter is actually very leaned in on
50:02
Speaker 2: the design. So she's like kind of my co-designer.
50:11
Speaker 1: Jason Ballard is the co-founder and CEO of iConn. Today's
50:16
Speaker 1: show was produced by Gabriel Hunter Chang. It was engineered
50:19
Speaker 1: by Sarah Bruguere. And our showrunner and editor is Jake Harper.
50:24
Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein, and we'll be back next week with
50:26
Speaker 1: another episode of What's Your Problem?