Managing Risk to Build a Moonshot Venture w/ Marc Lore & Austin Russell | EP #103

In this episode, recorded during Abundance360 2024, Peter, Marc, and Austin discuss what it takes to achieve your Moonshot and how their companies are embracing exponential change. 01:00 | Journeys of Resilience and Risk 04:35 | Revolutionizing Autonomous Driving with Luminar 20:20 | The Rise and Fall of Kitchen Delivery Austin Russell is the founder and CEO of Luminar Technologies, a company specializing in developing advanced lidar sensors for autonomous vehicles. He was recognized as the youngest self-made billionaire in 2020 after Luminar went public. Marc Lore is an American entrepreneur known for founding Jet.com and serving as the CEO of Walmart U. S. eCommerce after its acquisition. He is also the founder, chairman, and CEO of Wonder Group. Learn about Luminar: https://www.luminartech.com/ Learn about Wonder: https://www.wonder.com/ Learn more about Abundance360: https://www.abundance360.com/summit ____________ I only endorse products and services I personally use. To see what they are, please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: Get started with Fountain Life and become the CEO of your health: https://fountainlife.com/peter/ AI-powered precision diagnosis you NEED for a healthy gut: https://www.viome.com/peter ____________ I send weekly emails with the latest insights and trends on today’s and tomorrow’s exponential technologies. Stay ahead of the curve, and sign up now: Tech Blog _____________ Connect With Peter: Twitter Instagram Youtube Moonshots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:01Speaker 02

  Getting to 99% is actually relatively easy. It's all about that, that last 1%.

• 1:05Speaker 03

  You're faced with these tough decisions all the time where you're getting new information in every day and you have to remain totally objective.

• 1:12Peter Diamandis?

  Were there times in every venture where it almost failed?

• 1:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21Peter Diamandis?

  When you're going for a moonshot, you've got to be hit with a lot of skepticism.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  You're asking people the question, why? Why doesn't this work? Why doesn't that make sense? And if you're not getting good answers back, if you're like, hmm, I'm not convinced, you didn't convince me why this thesis doesn't work, then you know you've got something.

• 1:38Peter Diamandis?

  The guts it takes to actually stop and say, no, no, no, the data says we have to go here and reverse, reinvest, that's hard to do.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  When you can create economic value, you can do good for the world at the same time. It's about that, that impact that you're having.

• 2:00Peter Diamandis?

  Where did you both fly in from? You just landed from where?

• 2:04Speaker 02

  I just landed, yeah, I was just with the Nvidia leadership over at the GTC up in the Bay Area, actually, and then here, and then they're going out to Florida.

• 2:13Peter Diamandis?

  Awesome. And Mark yourself?

• 2:15Speaker 03

  New York.

• 2:16Peter Diamandis?

  New York. So, I've really gone to know you guys just over the last couple of years, and so grateful to have you here. And your journeys epitomize resilience and risk. And so, what I'd love to do is just begin, so everybody can understand in the essence of your story, then I'll go into some of the key questions. So, Mark, would you recount your entrepreneurial journey, real quick, from to get to Wondr, and where you are now? And congratulations on $700 million raise last week, I think? Amazing? Extraordinary? So, diapers.com, jet.com, Wondr, please?

• 2:59Speaker 03

  Please. Yeah, I spent, both diapers.com and jet.com were e-commerce companies. So, I basically started diapers.com back in 2004-ish, 2005. And it was basically a website for new parents to buy everything for their baby, and then eventually everything for their pet, and then eventually everything, and sold that to Amazon in 2011. Worked inside Amazon for a couple of years, and then started another e-commerce company called jet.com. And then, two years later, Walmart bought that.

• 3:32Peter Diamandis?

  How much?

• 3:33Speaker 03

  3.3 billion.

• 3:34Peter Diamandis?

  Not bad.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:36Peter Diamandis?

  Two years later, you heard that part?

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:39Peter Diamandis?

  The exception, not the rule.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then went in it and became the CEO of Walmart e-commerce for about four-plus years, and then, yeah, then started Wondr.

• 3:48Peter Diamandis?

  And you happen to own a sports team or something like that?

• 3:51Speaker 03

  Minnesota Timberwolves.

• 3:53Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, pretty amazing. And, yeah, I guess, who just came in? Eric Schmidt came in with you on that recently, didn't he?

• 4:01Speaker 03

  I can't confirm or deny.

• 4:03Peter Diamandis?

  Oh, okay.

• 4:06Peter Diamandis?

  And, and Wonder does what? Because we'll come back to that in a little bit.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, I think the best way to explain it is we're creating this super app for mealtime, but it's a, a next generation of food delivery. It's completely vertically integrated. So, you know, just like a normal delivery aggregator that does the delivery and sells the food via an app, we have that, but we also own all the restaurants on the platform. And we've invested hundreds of millions in food science and culinary engineering to be able to cook 30 different cuisines out of a 2,800 square foot kitchen with only three pieces of electric cooking equipment. There's no hoods, there's no gas, no open flames, no waste, very lightly skilled, lightly trained labor. So we're able to pump out an extraordinary amount of volume in a small space. We can locate very close to the customers. We don't deliver more than six minutes in the city

• 4:52Speaker 03

  from the, from the physical location. And we could deliver very fast, hot food, really high quality. You could order multiple restaurants from a single checkout. And, and we, we have everything from fast, fine food, like Steakhouse, Jose Andres, you know, Michael Simon, Mark Murphy, and we have barbecue burgers, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, basically anything you, you could want out of that single location. And it's got a little sit-down, but mostly pickup and delivery.

• 5:20Peter Diamandis?

  So remember we talked about the six D's of exponentials, right? He's basically digitized and dematerialized, demonetizing and democratizing all those restaurants into a convenient venue. And we'll come back to that. Thank you for that quick summary. I don't think, I don't think you've ever done it that quickly. Let's chat about your life experience here, Austin. For, I just heard backstage that you were, you were a competitor or one of our early X Prizes.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's funny. I mean, uh, you know, going back, I think, what, back when I was like 16, 17, I mean, I remember the X Prize was like an inspiration there.

• 5:58Peter Diamandis?

  Which one, which X Prize was it?

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, this is, yeah, this was actually the Tri Quarter there too. That was, yeah, there was like an OG. I think there's still some like, like OG video of me from like 10 years ago. I was like, trying to be like a team lead for the Tri Quarter, yeah. But yeah, no, it's amazing stuff that you guys have and then, you know, obviously.

• 6:19Peter Diamandis?

  So what does Luminar do?

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Luminar, we create these, you know, laser sensing systems, LiDAR and AI software for major automakers to be able to enable next generation safety systems and autonomous driving capabilities on production cars. So, you know, whole idea is basically,

• 6:39Speaker 02

  you know, there's a lot of companies that have been trying to, you know, replace drivers with like fully driverless vehicles, robotaxis, anything. The whole goal we've had is, you know, enhance drivers, you know, increase capabilities and ultimately be able to create sort of the uncrashable car, you know, so to say, by enabling, you know, when the car senses that if you're going to get into a collision scenario, you know, take over the braking system, take over steering wheel, get you out of that. And that's enabled by this breakthrough LiDAR technology that we created and the software that automakers have really started adopting en masse.

• 7:13Peter Diamandis?

  Now, LiDAR, is it, I think I remember it's like laser imaging radar type of, is that what it roughly means?

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Basically, it's, you know, using these custom lasers we build to measure the exact distance to different objects on the field of view.

• 7:26Peter Diamandis?

  I remember when the first Google autonomous car came out, it had a Vellodyne LiDAR on the roof. That was a spinning thing. It cost about $150,000 and weighed like, was like a coffee can size. What is one of your LiDARs cost now or look like now?

• 7:44Speaker 02

  No, no, it's a great, great question because, you know, it's funny. I mean, I'm sure you guys have all seen like the autonomous test cars and other things that are out there. And this is a huge problem from a cost and economics standpoint. You know, they've historically been like the huge roof racks full of sensor and a supercomputer in the trunk that's required to run the thing. So the whole point of what we were doing is, is creating, you know, something from the ground out, from the chip level up that could have significantly improved performance and get the cost down from $1,000 down to under, sorry, from $100,000 down to under $1,000. And that's exactly what we did. So, you know, that basically we've sort of transformed that from those, you know, Kentucky Fried Chicken, you know, bucket looking things to, you know, a seamlessly integrated, you know, sensor on production cars. And now that's getting to go out in amazing brands like, you know, ever ranging

• 8:29Speaker 02

  from Volvo to Mercedes to beyond. So.

• 8:33Peter Diamandis?

  And congrats to both of you for your extraordinary success on these. I want to talk about an underlying theme that I spoke to you both of you about here, which is when you're going for a moonshot, whether it's building Luminar or building your multiple companies, Mark and Talosa, which is your vision of a city of the future, you've got to be hit with a lot of skepticism. Like you're crazy for a 20-year-old or for somebody who's, you know, not had restaurant experience.

• 9:16Peter Diamandis?

  And so can you talk, one second, and name this theme after our conversation, Mark, embracing risk and resilience in moonshot ventures? I think that's probably one of the most important elements we can talk about here. How do you think about that?

• 9:30Speaker 03

  I mean, first, I think it starts with having an éve de. You know, I think I've been in e-commerce a long time. I sort of know too much. It's hard to have that clean blank slate to rethink a completely new vision. You kind of know too much and your brain gets programmed to think a certain way. And so when people bring me e-commerce ideas, I have a really hard time. I can point out why it's not going to work and see it very clearly. It's hard to have that clean slate to rethink without any information. And I think that's one of the things entrepreneurs do really well, is when you don't know, and it's true, didn't know anything about the restaurant industry specifically, but can rethink from a clean slate, like what might a step change look like? And then really think about that vision and then do all the things to work backwards

• 10:15Speaker 03

  from that vision and then start knocking down all the barriers along the way. But you have to have that éve de to sort of rethink. I don't know if...

• 10:24Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Same way, right?

• 10:26Peter Diamandis?

  Same thing. I mean, you weren't in the automotive industry, you weren't in the restaurant business. And I mean, but the reality is most disruptions in industries occur from people who are not in the industry.

• 10:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:37Peter Diamandis?

  In fact, I know very few companies that have gone from one generation of technology to lead the next generation of technology. I don't think like anybody. And so how, what's your advice for entrepreneurs to embrace that kind of, I mean, when people tell them you're crazy, you have no background? How did you, how did you develop sufficient confidence in yourself? By the way, we did see this as well with Elon had no rocket business, no car business before.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm just starting with something simple like diapers, for example. So when started diapers.com, the, the thinking was, you know, I had a baby at the time and you couldn't get diapers delivered to your door at normal prices. If you went online to Amazon, whatever, they were like $10 more a box. And I just thought that was strange, like it makes, like, parents are busy, want to have diapers delivered. Um, and so when I started asking people and said, yeah, I want to start a e-commerce company where we deliver diapers overnight to people at Walmart prices. That was sort of the original like vision and people in the industry said, that's not going to work. That's crazy. It's too heavy, it's too expensive to ship. It's already a loss leader in Walmart. Now it's going to be a bigger loss leader, the math doesn't work.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  And so everyone just kind of ruled, ruled it out. Procter and Gamble and Kimberly Clark, the diaper manufacturers, wouldn't sell us diapers for years because they kept saying, it doesn't, it's never going to work. So we're not, we don't want to be caught up in this and selling you that. But to answer your question, you ask all the people in the industry, um, questions and you keep questioning and see if, if they've got an answer to the sort of original thesis. And the thesis was, yes, it's a loss leader, um, and it's going to be a bigger loss leader, but you also have many more products online to monetize the loss over. And when you start hitting people and say, yeah, I know it's a loss, but there's a reason why it's a loss for Walmart. It drives traffic and they buy everything else.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  So what if we use it as a loss, a bigger loss, albeit, to sell them everything online? There's millions of products we can sell them online.

• 12:41Peter Diamandis?

  For anyone who's there to buy diapers, they're likely needing the other things as well.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, and buy everything. And now, you know, it's pretty commonplace now that online, people will sell diapers at a huge loss because it's a great way to attract and retain new parents, which are big spenders online and all the math works out. Um, but, but you're asking people the question, why? Why doesn't this work? Why doesn't that make sense? What, and if you're not getting good answers back, if you're like, hmm, I'm not convinced. So you didn't convince me why this thesis doesn't work. Then you know you've got something. So, so it's good to have your.

• 13:16Peter Diamandis?

  You have to stand by your conviction and not try.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  Question, question.

• 13:19Peter Diamandis?

  And not fool yourself as well. Austin, I know your first investor.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's amazing, amazing journey. What's funny, and what's even true like in the early stages of what we had to do is that it's that same kind of situation where when

• 13:43Peter Diamandis?

  How old were you when you started Luminar?

• 13:45Speaker 02

  You know, it was what, like 16, you know, turning 17 at the time, so you know.

• 13:50Peter Diamandis?

  And your vision was what? What did you say when you like, did you have a PowerPoint deck?

• 13:56Speaker 02

  Um, more like a lab.

• 13:58Peter Diamandis?

  More of a lab.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, than a PowerPoint.

• 14:01Peter Diamandis?

  Hardware walk, you know, hardware talks bullshit walk.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. It's much easier to create the PowerPoint than it is to do it. So, yeah. But, um, but yeah, no, it was the same exact kind of situation there too, where you know, you have,

• 14:16Speaker 02

  you have all the naysayers, you have the folks who are like, you know, they're saying, there's no way you're going to do this, much less like as a 16, 17 year old, like trying to create some new LIDAR system to like, you know, beat out the Googles and Apples and every major automaker to developing a technology. So you have to, you had to bet on yourself. Obviously, you have to be very well researched and really know what you're talking about and have the conviction to do it. But, you know, it's, um, yeah, it's, it's the same kind of situation. And you encounter those same kind of cycles all throughout the journey. That's not something that's even just necessarily unique.

• 14:43Peter Diamandis?

  Not once and done.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Very different forms, right?

• 14:46Peter Diamandis?

  And so, I get, do you, are you constantly just like rechecking your premises and heading out with greater conviction and finding evidence to support yourself?

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Yep. Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's where, you know, we deal with the same kind of stuff today there. And I think in this case, like for example, for the broader, you know, autonomous vehicle industry, it's sort of gone through, um, this whole transition, you know, in that broader, like in this case now, it's the, you know, the Gartner cycle, you know, you could call it, it's, you know, gone up, you have the peak of inflated expectations, it's probably at the bottom of the trough of disillusionment phase, and now like on to the enlightenment phase. And that, and that's, you know, probably rightfully justified because, you know, most of the stuff in the broader autonomous vehicle industry of these promise of all these self-driving cars, you know, taking over cities, you know, doing everything didn't quite, quite materialize, right?

• 15:41Peter Diamandis?

  Do you remember our conversation with Elon?

• 15:43Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 15:45Peter Diamandis?

  So we're at a friend's birthday party and Elon's there and Austin is there and I pull Elon over, I say, or I pulled Austin over and said, okay, Elon, meet Austin, Austin, meet Elon. Austin makes LIDAR. And Elon's like, nope. No, he's, if a human driver can see with visual eyes only, then autonomous cars only need visual eyes. He's very convinced.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, and I think that absolutely unquestionably was the, what he was right on was in 2015, when he had to make the decision for that around like, hey, what kind of systems we use? Like, what are you gonna do? Use that $100,000 like spinning bucket and put it on every car? Like, that's, that's, that's not gonna happen. So I think, you know, part of the whole point is, is that now for the first time, there actually is a solution that can enable the next generation of safety and autonomy. And the reality is, is that, like, our bet is, is that it was gonna be like way more difficult than what people were anticipating to do this. And that, um, you know, the existing systems were just not gonna be there enough to, to solve the problem. And that's part of the whole point is with the LIDAR, it's not just guessing what's going on. You actually know with ground truth exactly where it is.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Because for, you know, safety systems and self-driving and all that, it's, it's not about the 99%. Getting to 99% is actually relatively easy. It's all about that, that last 1%. You know, it's, you can't run over one out of every 100 people that you see, for example. So, you know, it's like a, it's very, very real.

• 17:11Peter Diamandis?

  Right here, folks.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  So, you know, yeah.

• 17:13Peter Diamandis?

  Breakthrough. So, that's, that's what it takes. Everybody, I want to take a short break from our episode to talk about a company that's very important to me and could actually save your life or the life of someone that you love. Company's called Fountain Life. And it's a company I started years ago with Tony Robbins and a group of very talented physicians. You know, most of us don't actually know what's going on inside our body. We're all optimists. Until that day where you have a pain in your side, you go to the physician in the emergency room and they say, listen, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you have... This stage three or four going on and you know it didn't start that morning.

• 17:53Peter Diamandis?

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• 18:36Peter Diamandis?

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• 19:16Peter Diamandis?

  it's something that is, for me, one of the most important things I offer my entire family, the CEOs of my companies, my friends. It's a chance to really add decades on to our healthy lifespans. Go to fountainlife.com/peter. It's one of the most important things I can offer to you as one of my listeners. All right, let's go back to our episode. Mark, you could have, you know, you sold your companies, you had, you know, what is that? Many, many dust, many commas in the bank worth of capital from your successes. You could have sat back. You didn't. What was the creative process of getting to Wonder?

• 19:59Peter Diamandis?

  Were you just a junkie about creating something new? What was it that lit you on fire to go in? And why that industry?

• 20:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, you know, like most entrepreneurs, you sort of can't, you love to build. I love to build stuff from nothing. But then you see a problem and you think you have maybe a possible solution to it. And then it just starts to build and build and build. And then it has to be.

• 20:24Peter Diamandis?

  So what was the problem that you saw?

• 20:25Speaker 03

  I think, well, I was watching food delivery explode in the U.S. We're 100 billion now in food delivery in the U.S. Expected to go to 500 billion by 2036.

• 20:33Peter Diamandis?

  Was this during COVID? Was it the situation before?

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Before COVID. And was just, you know, watching what was happening in food delivery. People were paying a incredible premium for convenience. And they were tolerating slow delivery, cold food, inaccurate orders, bad customer service. Like, it just didn't feel like that was the future. It reminded me of the early days of e-commerce. We had marketplaces and things. And then Amazon comes along with this vertically integrated first party, elevated customer experience. And I just felt like that was the next generation of food delivery. Somebody was going to come and vertically integrate and take the value proposition to a whole other level and be able to deliver food fast, hot, with great customer service and all the things that weren't happening. And that was through the original thinking. But that's the way the idea started. Then it was...

• 21:20Peter Diamandis?

  But let's talk about what your original, original idea there, because you did a major pivot.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:25Peter Diamandis?

  Which is, I want to talk about that pivot as well. So your original idea was you were going to build these kitchens on wheels, right?

• 21:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, so the vision was to vertically integrate and take the customer value prop to a whole other level. And the thinking was, why do we cook and then deliver? What if we delivered then cooked? And so we basically, in the back of a Stady Sprinter Band, had one piece of technology and we were able to cook really high-quality food, really fast, under like 10 minutes, where the driver who drove there was actually able to cook because it was so simple. And that was the original thinking and it worked. Customers absolutely loved it.

• 22:06Peter Diamandis?

  You rolled this out where, in New Jersey, was it?

• 22:09Speaker 03

  In New Jersey suburbs, yeah. We had 400 trucks on the road. Customer scores, repeat rates were incredible. Customers loved it. We got to unit economic positive. Things were going, were going really well.

• 22:20Peter Diamandis?

  But?

• 22:21Speaker 03

  But, and this is where the but comes in, yeah. I, I wasn't the CEO at the time, so I was the executive chairman. But we had tested a, doing the same thing out of a brick and mortar, you know, with a couple of seats in the front and pickup and delivery. And the thinking was, if we set a really tight delivery radius, can we get the same scores that we got on the trucks? We also would be able to have multi-restaurant ordering, which you couldn't do on the truck because each truck had one or two restaurants. But if you get all 30 restaurants and you can get them all delivered together, that was, on the customer's side, we proved that we can deliver it with the same quality as the truck if we keep the radius, but we had the ability to scale. It worked in urban, suburban, rural area, the brick and mortar. Trucks were really more of a suburban play.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  And the unit economics were better because we were able to distribute the, the labor across many more orders, so we were able to, to do a better job there.

• 23:16Peter Diamandis?

  What's interesting here, what I'm hearing, is the fact that you were testing along the way, you were getting data. It wasn't an opinion, it was actually the numbers. And you weren't trying to take this to scale, you were, you were doing this on unit economics and, and on a square kilometer basis.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, this, this is where risk comes into play though, I think, is, you know, I like to say we were, we were digging for silver when we found gold. And as an entrepreneur, you know, you're, you're faced with these tough decisions all the time where you're getting new information in every day and you have to remain totally objective. And, and you can't get wed or hung up on what you told investors, what you told customers, what you told anyone. If there's a better opportunity.

• 23:56Peter Diamandis?

  Can you guys reflect on that one second, right? Yeah, it's, it's here for that because the guts it takes to actually stop and say, no, no, no, the data says we have to go here and, you know, reverse. Reinvest, that's, that's hard to do.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, the CEO, and he'll say this, he couldn't do it. The trucks were working in his mind. It was profitable, customers loved it, and my recommendation was, yeah, but this is so much better.

• 24:27Peter Diamandis?

  You were the principal owner, right? Was it all your capital at this point?

• 24:29Speaker 03

  No, we still had, we said we had a significant amount of venture at that point.

• 24:34Peter Diamandis?

  But you had enough capital of your own to be able to say, no, we have to go this direction?

• 24:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:39Peter Diamandis?

  And that is so important not to get stuck in a local, a local maxima. When you see the evidence that just over the other hill, there is something much better. And to know that if you don't do it, eventually you're going to get disrupted by this better idea.

• 24:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, everything you've done up to that point is a sunk cost, you can't count it. Most people, though, they just can't get over that it's sunk. I already said this, I already did, that doesn't mean anything. From today forward, what's the best, you know, investment you could possibly make with, with investors' money? And it, it took a lot to basically say, we're going to take revenue to zero. We're going to stop the trucks, we're going to sell the trucks, we're going to take a loss on the trucks.

• 25:16Peter Diamandis?

  Wow.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  And we're going to start over with brick and mortar. And the investors, you know, got comfortable and bought into it, but I think we're still skeptical. This is going back 18 months ago. And now, I mean, people don't even know how to say that.

• 25:31Peter Diamandis?

  Don't, don't look back.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 25:33Peter Diamandis?

  Austin, have you had a similar experience at all?

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Actually, yeah, you know, it's, it's funny, we had some, a few that maybe, maybe not quite as like, you know, dramatic in terms of, you know, pivot, anything for the, for the business. But I would say probably the main one was, you know, going back to the, you know, driverless vehicles, you know, versus enhancing the safety and the safety focus on that was, was a big thing of where, like, is it pretty much, you know, I, I mean, what? Three, four years ago, it was actually, funnily enough, like, considered extremely contrarian to try and do what we were doing to put our technology onto production vehicles. It was almost, you know, unheard of to be able to, to try and do that. And the thought process was that ride-hailing and other things were, you know, the way that it was going to go, you know, the Ubers of the world were going to take over with, you know.

• 26:20Peter Diamandis?

  There was a lot of confidence, it was just a few. Few years away.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it's a few years away. And that was where, you know, really saying, hey, guys, no, we're going to bet the company on this by really just going all in on, you know, the safety focus, work on production vehicles. Don't, you know, invest a ton in the, you know, driverless side. And frankly, even more today, like I've actually, even more recently, as we kind of, you know, focusing on cost and really, really drive that for, okay, what are the things that aren't going to drive those kind of near term returns is that even less so and kind of on the, for the remaining stuff that we had on the autonomous vehicle side, which saves a decent amount, just really focus all in on how you improve safety, how you improve,

• 27:02Speaker 02

  systems with drivers. And yeah, like I said, it was, it was kind of radical at the time, but I think step by step being proven right and, soon be validated with these upcoming major vehicle launches that we have.

• 27:15Peter Diamandis?

  Mark, you able to talk about your financing publicly?

• 27:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, it's public.

• 27:19Peter Diamandis?

  How much did you raise at what valuation?

• 27:21Speaker 03

  We raised, we just completed a $700 million round, Safe Note, not priced.

• 27:27Peter Diamandis?

  Okay.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it basically converts in at IPO.

• 27:31Peter Diamandis?

  Not, not 7 trillion.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  We were just, we were just talking about that backstage, yeah.

• 27:36Peter Diamandis?

  What, the $7 trillion raise?

• 27:38Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 27:41Peter Diamandis?

  Yes, Sam Altman sucked all the, sucked all the bravado out of the room. He said he was going to raise $7 trillion.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  I tried to add in AI at the end of wonder, it didn't work.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, it's funny, we were talking about, it was, it went through for the early phases, you know, we also did a bunch of like, you know, Safe Notes, it was all about doubling down on yourself, betting on yourself. Like, that's the thing, if you, if you really believe, you know, what you're going to do and is going to be successful and more valuable, it's a really smart way to, to build that and to do it so you don't have to get like hugely diluted at times where, you know, there's, there's always cycles in the business and it's funny, even through the, you know, 12 years I've had with, with Luminar, there's always cycles where it's like there's this huge dislocation or misalignment between like perceived value, like actual value. And that's where, you know, bet on yourself, you do that, you know where it realizes and that's how you can end up, you know. Owning huge stake in the company and then, you know, not diluting the folks that ride along the journey with you.

• 28:35Peter Diamandis?

  Austin, last year this time, you were in the back of the room. I had Tony Robbins on stage here.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:41Peter Diamandis?

  And you were on the verge of becoming the owner and chairman of Forbes.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a whole journey and yeah, I'm not even sure it was public at the time. So that was in a thing of where I had a vision for the whole next generation of capitalism and excited to ultimately have to see that through.

• 29:00Peter Diamandis?

  Are you able to share maybe some lessons learned in general out of that? Because I mean, I know it was a wild roller coaster ride and I don't know, you said you'd be open to talk about it some, but I don't know what is comfortable or not.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, no, I mean, it's, and ultimately it passes at this point, but it's relatively straightforward. I mean, I had the vision around the next generation of capitalism, but at the end of the day, I think we, you know, I signed up to sort of a fully funded deal, you know, for that there too with some partners, but you know, ultimately didn't end up, you know, delivering on the obligations that were had. So, you know, that's kind of how things were, you know, you take risks with these things, but at the end of the day, yeah, I think what I'm absolutely still very much excited to see and what the whole, I would say origination of kind of that, that concept was, all comes

• 29:55Speaker 02

  back to the Luminar and the journey that I've had, you know, personally through this of showing how when you can create economic value, you can do good for the world at the same time. And that's sort of what I mean by the whole next generation of capitalism is that being able to make an impact on the world. And that's in the case of like Luminar, for example, we have this broad vision around saving as many as, you know, 100 million lives and 100 trillion hours of people's time out on the road. And that over the next 100 years. And that's where everything that we do at Luminar rolls up to that vision. Because if we're able to solve for the majority of vehicle accidents, you know, in the industry, that's the magnitude and level of impact that you have.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  And of course, yeah, you can create, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars of value in that at the same time as you do that, but it's about that, that impact that you're having. And I think that's personally what's inspiring me and as I'm, Luminar is and always will be, that's my, my passion and drive and what I spend the time on to be able to help realize that vision and make it happen.

• 30:59Peter Diamandis?

  Did you see the movie Oppenheimer? If you did, did you know that besides building the atomic bomb at Los Alamos National Labs, that they spent billions on biodefense weapons? The ability to accurately detect viruses and microbes by reading their RNA? Well, a company called Viome exclusively licensed the technology from Los Alamos Labs to build a platform that can measure your microbiome and the RNA in your blood. Now, Viome has a product that I've personally used for years called Full Body Intelligence, which collects a few drops of your blood, spit and stool, and can tell you so much about your health. They've tested over 700,000 individuals and use their AI models

• 31:41Peter Diamandis?

  to deliver members critical health guidance like what foods you should eat, what foods you shouldn't eat, as well as your supplements and probiotics, your biological age, and other deep health insights. And the results of the recommendations are nothing short of stellar. As reported in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, after just six months of following Viome's recommendations, members reported the following: a 36% reduction in depression, a 40% reduction in anxiety, a 30% reduction in diabetes, and a 48% reduction in IBS. Listen, I've been using Viome for three years. I know that my oral and gut health is one of my highest priorities.

• 32:23Peter Diamandis?

  Best of all, Viome is affordable, which is part of my mission to democratize health. If you want to join me on this journey, go to viome.com/peter. I've asked Naveen Jain, a friend of mine who's the founder and CEO of Viome, to give my listeners a special discount. You'll find it at viome.com/peter. Mark, I want you to reach deep on this one. What are the hardest things you've had to do as an entrepreneur? Because that's where one really, you know, your steel and your soul and your... What have those been over your... Because you've had such an incredible success story on success after success. I'm sure there's a lot of hard stuff along the way.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  A lot of hard stuff. No, I tell people all the time that want to be entrepreneurs. It's hard. It's hard. I mean, you're working, you're giving up a lot. You're working 100 hours a week. I like to say it's like you're eating glass every day and you're hoping you don't get cut on the way down. That's the way it feels in the early stages.

• 33:21Peter Diamandis?

  I believe you, I know.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  And people don't get it. You know, they see all the success and things, but it's really hard. It's hard, it's always hard raising money. And it's hard to execute against a vision that people aren't skeptical of.

• 33:37Peter Diamandis?

  Which is harder? The raising money, the executing the vision, the hiring people who know what the hell they're doing? What are the... Help me distill them for a second. Because people look at you and say, "Oh, my God, you know, success, success, success, success." And then...

• 33:52Speaker 03

  I know. It's hard to pick which one. You know, it's all hard. I think at different stages, different parts are harder than others. I think early on, easier to raise money, harder to recruit great talent. Later, it's easier to get great talent, harder to raise money. And then ultimately, when you get more mature, it's a mix of everything, you know?

• 34:13Peter Diamandis?

  Were there times in every venture where it almost failed?

• 34:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yes. I mean, you're doing something...

• 34:23Peter Diamandis?

  What kept you from failing in those almost failure moments?

• 34:27Speaker 03

  I think, I think just being relentless. I think it is, at the end of the day, it's being relentless. You believe in the vision, you believe in the model, and you have to just put the hard work and time in and find a way. And so it involves, you know... Thinking about it 24/7 and trying to figure out there has to be a way that, you know, this vision is, it makes sense. And it's usually the, the hard part though is always getting that balance between how much capital it's going to take to, to realize the vision and whether that's going to offer investors a, a good return relative to the risk. And so

• 35:10Speaker 03

  either you have to reduce risk or increase the probability of getting there and getting that right balance right and just thinking about all the possible things you can do to either reduce risk or increase probability. And many times ironically, the best way to increase the probability of getting there is actually to take risk.

• 35:27Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  And, and sometimes, not most time, many times, it's taking personal risk as well. And that builds more conviction.

• 35:36Peter Diamandis?

  Because you're, you basically jumped and you got to build your parachute in the way down.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 35:42Peter Diamandis?

  Same for you, Austin?

• 35:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, there's, there's, you know, times where throughout the early days of, of Luminar where, you know, we put everything on the line, you know, for to make sure and ensure the company's success. And I, I think that's just where you, you have to have the conviction, you know, obviously, I mean, reality checked, of course, but as is the case, like I said, you go, you go through the cycles there. And it's so funny because it's, you know, it's like, it's like history repeats itself over and over again, where you, you do the right things, you have to go, you know, build out the systems, you know, do what you say, say what you do, prove it out, get to the next step, do what you say, say what you do, prove it out, get to that next step. And, you know,

• 36:30Speaker 02

  in our case, it's like, it's this, you know, big launch that we have ahead there to, you know, for, you know, for a first major global automaker. And that's what, you know, really excited about there too. And proving that out to show how, for example, at a kind of industry level, how this, their... The kinds of capabilities that can be realized and the benefits of autonomy are real. It can happen. It actually can go into cars that you can buy. It's not just some theoretical concept. The same kinds of principles, obviously it's on a different scale now than it was in the early days. But yeah, and you see like the examples, I've had some great lessons from other entrepreneurs

• 37:14Speaker 02

  throughout the years. Everything you know, mentioned when we said Elon back in the day, Tesla has had their own very crazy moments along the way, for example, in our industry.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  Pretty much everyone, every entrepreneur, has some crazy story, right?

• 37:35Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  Just the way it is.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  It's always...

• 37:38Peter Diamandis?

  You haven't heard the ones who didn't succeed because they gave up along the way. The passionate and persistent human mind. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Mark Lor and Austin Russell.