Archives: Episodes

John Shegerian: This episode of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and impact partners. Closed Loops’ platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast, a very special edition. We’ve got Ash Fontana with us today. He’s the Managing Director of Zetta, but more important for this discussion, he’s also the author of this book “The AI-First Company”. Ash, welcome to the Impact podcast.

Ash Fontana: Thank you for having me.

John: You know, the subtitle to your book is “How to Compete and Win with Artificial Intelligence”. That’s what I’m really excited about. You’ll explain today. But before we even get to your new great book, share a little bit about your backstory, Ash. How do you even get here as an AI expert?

Ash: Yeah, sure. I mean, I think it all started with curiosity, being early curious about what’s going on inside this computer I’m using when I was pretty young like four or five years old and you just stop pulling them apart. You pull apart one bit then another bit, and you learn more and more. So I got really curious about these things. If you spend enough time getting curious about computers and then if you were around a decade or so ago, you started seeing something that was both potentially really useful but also pretty hard to do, and that was AI.

It was a time about 10-15 years ago that people will call in the Big Data era. There was lots and lots of data coming online and through all these devices, we started carrying around with ourselves, etc. There weren’t really a lot of good ways or there wasn’t really a good methodology around managing getting insights from that data. And so we started building analytics tools and whatnot in the industry. But really the only way to manage those huge amounts of data and understand what’s going on is to use another form of intelligence that’s not our own. That’s why I got into AI and also from the investing side, that’s from the technology side.

From the investing side, I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and we’re always obsessed with obsessing over and obsessed with what makes a good business. And so I got really into investing, you know, analyzing businesses and spent enough time analyzing business and come to an opinion on it. You’re like, well, I want to make money out of it and more importantly, I want to see if I’m right. So let’s put some skin in the game. So you buy some shares. I got really into investing as well. And there’s a job that combines investing and technology and it’s called venture capital. So, I found my way into that job very secure less. I think from the investing perspective, once you realize that there’s something out there that’s potentially very useful but also very hard, you try to understand it and try to invest in it. So that’s what we did in seven or eight years ago. I just completely focused my career on that.

John: Investing, that’s an interesting topic. I want to touch on that for just a second. If you were to say to me, “John, my favorite investor over the last seven or eight years has been…”. Tell me your favorite investment and then why.

Ash: Favorite investment?

John: Yes.

Ash: It’s in a company that is very private, so I can’t say much about them. But the investment, I can speak about what they do and it’s a really cool investment because it goes to the power of AI and that it’s using AI to do something we can’t do very well, which is predicted demand and supply of electricity on all the major grids in the US. So, 24 hours ahead, how much energy are we going to use once we going to demand? Therefore, how much should we make so that we don’t just produce too much? It’s really cool because that’s a very complex system like the energy grid, the energy system. There’s also a lot of complexity around understanding what humans are going to do 24 hours ahead, how much energy they’re going to need and use. And you really need to use AI to bring all of those data sources that will form that prediction together.

The other reason, so it’s a really cool machine learning and Artificial Intelligence problem. It’s a very good problem to solve in terms of you do get compensated for it well if you do. But most importantly, it’s saving huge amount of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. You know, just getting a head a little bit and having slightly better predictions means we don’t produce more today. That’s the sort of leverage that AI gives us. It gives us leverage over time. It doesn’t give us leverage over physical space like a hammer does or even an Archimedean lever. It gives us a bit of leverage over our intellect, like it helps us calculate things and whatnot. But really the power of it is giving us leverage over time, seeing around the corner, making a really accurate prediction about tomorrow so that we can make a better decision today.

John: Is that kind of company that you invested in is one of the other benefits besides preventing CO2 emissions and also overproducing needs, also the prevention of brownouts? Is that also?

Ash: Yes, exactly. Yeah. And so, this is a really good question, because this is why this whole system was developed and mandated by the government in the 70s and 80s. This system of making predictions a day ahead and then consolidating everyone’s predictions and putting it back onto the grid to say this is how much you should produce tomorrow. So yeah, on the one side, it’s about making sure we produce enough power. On the other side, it’s about making sure we don’t produce too much power.

John: Ash, you’re here today and you’ve written this great book “The AI-First Company: How to Compete and Win with Artificial Intelligence”. And as I was sharing with you off the air a little bit and for our listeners who want to find Ash also and this great book, besides on Amazon and other great booksellers, you could go to the aifirstcompany.com or ai-first.org.

You know, I was sharing with you my October 19 story where I was sitting in a room in Armenia and there was a great guy that I’ve never seen in my life before talking about the application of AI to Medicine, Biotechnology, Healthcare, and that future. It was fascinating to me, but I just thought it was literally Star Wars. Five or six months later, we get hit with the pandemic and this gentleman turned out to be Noubar Afeyan, the Chairman of Moderna who solves one of the world’s greatest crises ever.

I’m a convert and I don’t have a lot of knowledge, so I love you to share your knowledge at different applications of AI and why leveraging AI to compete in the competitive business world that we are today is the way to go.

Ash: Yeah. Look, the two broad things AI can do is prediction, seeing around the corner, and automation. And if we just take that Moderna as our example, and I won’t go into too much detail about how they used AI to get this vaccine out the door because that’s a whole another conversation. There’s all these amazing ways AI contributed to the development of the vaccines that were lucky enough to have today. But broadly, the prediction side of it was, and lots of drug companies do this, they use AI to basically search across all these possible combinations to get a computer while we sleep because we can’t just sit there doing calculations all day long as quickly as a computer can.

Get a computer to ingest a bit of information from us. We know that the mechanism of action of the drug and the body is this, so we give it sort of a structure, get a lot of data from scientific reports, and whatever else, and research and predict which combination of molecules is going to be the most successful at getting this thing done, addressing this disease or whatever it is. So there’s like a prediction element, a way you can use AI for prediction in drug development.

Then there’s the automation element and that just really comes down to testing and production. So when you are running a bioreactor, using AI to figure out how to optimize the use of that bioreactor is really effective. On a production line, analyzing all the data coming out of the sensors on the production line. You know, the vials were a little bit big or a little bit small. They weren’t in the right shape or whatnot. You can tell all of these things using sensors from cameras to weight sensors and whatnot, then you can analyze it a super large scale to figure out, okay, whenever we have a breakdown on the line it’s because this thing happened five steps ahead. That’s the correlation that it can notice on a very large scale.

Look, just following on from Moderna as an example, it’s pretty clear AI is very useful to the big pharmaceutical companies in so many ways both on the prediction and the automation side. But this is true in so many industries. Look, you can just pick an industry and I can go on and on about all the potential applications of AI in the industry. The reality is and the reason I wrote this book is we’re only just halfway through what I call the AI-First century, and that is we’re at the point where a lot of the research has been done to build these things, to build these AIs. A lot of the infrastructure has been built by these very good companies like Google, and Amazon, and Microsoft to let us run these things at large scale. And a lot of the data is available because we’ve been collecting it for a little while now. A lot of companies just accidentally collect data. No matter what industry you’re in, you’ve got a big trove of data somewhere.

All of these things are sort of come together to let us make these AIs that learn from that data and learn on a computational substrate. So they learn on computers that can run on computers all day long while we sleep. They can learn some pretty interesting things that we don’t see or we don’t want. They can see things we can’t see. And so, we’re halfway through this century and we’re really at the point where applications of AI are very real and very broad. I want everyone to stop putting AI-first in the conversation, whether they’re in retail industry, manufacturing, healthcare, whatever industry they re in travel, hospitality, anything.

I want them to stop putting AI-first in the conversation so they can find these applications because the reality is AI is not going to find it by itself. We need to teach AI how to do things. We need to give it our expertise that we have in a certain industry. We know that if the concrete goes down three days later on a construction site, it blows out the schedule by three week, to just give a really simple example. And so if the camera sees the concrete go down on a certain date then it should feedback the information that the schedule is going to blow out. We need to give it that information so it can learn and help us make better decisions.

John: Ash, two things, going back to your investment thesis, when you invest, I assume that every company that you decide to invest in is also going to be leveraging the use of AI in some way, shape, or form to evolve thesis of that and the original mission of the company.

Ash: Yeah.

John: Got it.

Ash: Yeah, that’s right. You know, I specialize in finding companies that’s building their competitive advantage primarily through data and then compounding and making it stronger with AI. And so, they start with the data set and I analyze that data set. I try to understand, is it unique data? Is it valuable data? Is it the sort of data that was really hard to get, or is it the sort of data that actually someone else can either easily get or get data very similar to it? So, I try to understand, okay, do they have something valuable now and then can it feed an AI and get more and more valuable at the time? Because the thing about AI is they generate their own data over time.

Once you sort of say feed it data, it trains on that data. It says, all right, I’ve seen these thousand images, I know what a cat looks like. And then you feed at the next image and it says, it’s got a cat in it or not and then you correct it. Sometimes it’s wrong, and human can correct it. When you correct it, it gets better. It learns from that. So, it gets better and better over time, and this is the power of AI. Once you get it going, once you put the effort into collecting the right data set, training the model and building a system to monitor it and corrected over time, it will get better and better with every turn of the crank, so to speak.

That’s really cool, and that’s why our focus on these companies because if you get it right at the beginning, if you put AI first when you’re thinking about the design of the product, when you’re thinking about the people you hire, where you allocate capital into acquiring unique data, if you get it right at the start and then let it run, in one year’s time you’re not a little bit better than the competition, you’re ten times better faster cheaper than the competition. It compounds so quickly and you get really far ahead really quickly. That’s why I like to invest in these companies because they have a defensible position in the market and they can win for decades.

John: You know, we have a lot of young entrepreneurs and also just other entrepreneurs like myself that will watch this episode and listen to our show. Again, it’s Ash Fontana, the AI-First Company. I’m embarrassed to tell you Ash that I have used AI here with tremendous results but only one application. We use it as part of our optical sorting and it’s become a massive tool for us to create more “liberated commodities” because it’s a self-learning tool, like you said, with one data set of pulling pollutants and other deterrents out of our commodity process through the optical sorter, and it works tremendously. But we talked about Moderna a little bit, talk about some other examples too of companies that are winning today putting AI first.

Ash: Yeah, that’s a great example, actually. And they’re very many variations of that which is put a camera somewhere, ask it to recognize one thing, but very reliably over and over again. In our sorting for recycling, find all the plastic bottles in this pile. Or in a supermarket, is there passed on the shelf at the moment? Was this self need to be restocked in a warehouse? Is this part of the warehouse full or empty? Is there someone walking behind the forklift right now? Lots of examples like that. So, I can go on and on and give you examples, but the point is so many applications of computer vision like that.

A company I can give a really concrete example on is called Focal Systems. And what they do is they help retailers, supermarkets, figure out if the shelves are full. That’s it. At the moment, the way that’s done is someone walks around with a clipboard at 4 a.m. every night and figures out if the shelves are full or not. The problem with that is: one, it’s really tedious; two, they have to wait till everyone’s out at the store to do it properly and efficiently; and three, it’s too late. The shelf might have been empty at 10 a.m. and they don’t know until much, much later, and all the sales that could have happened in the meantime were missed. And not just all the sales of like one thing that ran out. The pasta that ran out. The rice that ran out. It’s the case that if someone walks into a supermarket, fills up their basket a little bit, gets to the thing they really came to the supermarket for like a bag of rice and it’s not there, they just leave the bus on the floor and walk out. You lose all the whole basket. You don’t just lose. It’s really weird the people behave this way, but they do. You don’t just lose the sale of the rice, you lose the wholesale, so to speak.

And so, what they do is they put cameras all over these stores and they’re just constantly looking at the shelves, and they’re figuring out what’s in stock from what’s not in stock, and then alerting the people at the back of the store when something runs out of stock to restock. And that’s really helpful. It’s a really hard problem to solve though because there are lots of products in a supermarket. There are lots of things that happen in supermarkets. People mix things up and move things around, leave their kids sitting on shelves, whatever. And so, it’s a sort of a hard problem to solve, but once you solve it, it’s really valuable and got really tangible results both in terms of making sure that these grocers can sell what they need to sell, but people get what they want when they walk into the store.

And then there’s all these other applications of this, some of which we’ve got a taste of by looking at these new Amazon stores which is once you know what all the products look like on a shelf, well, actually you can see people pick them up off the shelf and then just automatically charge them for it as they walk out the store. They don’t even have to go to the checkout. Or if you do want them to go through checkout just to double-check, you can make that whole self-checkout process a lot more efficient. We’ve all been through a self-checkout and had to find the code for red apples and it takes forever and you’re pressing all these buttons and the machines talking at you and it’s not a great experience. But with really good vision systems, you don’t have to do that. You can just walk straight out or just one click confirm off you go.

So yeah, there are lots of other ways you can leverage that initial data set around identified products and the models that are built on that data set to do really cool stuff like auto-checkout of the supermarket.

John: Ash, you know, I was lucky. The guy who brought me the optical sorting and AI technology was an investor, a long-time friend of mine, an investor in the company. But take a guy like me. I’m 58 years old, running a very big and growing brand. I want to use AI more and more because I’m convinced vis-à-vis your book and other thought leaders like you and the Moderna application, the one you just said about, the Amazon and the supermarkets. But how do I attract the talent that can then help inform me where we should be using AI in a company like ours and where can other entrepreneurs find that kind of talent as well?

Ash: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think a lot of people have the perception that you need to be able to afford and also just get a whole bunch of PhDs to work on this stuff. And the reality is, that’s not true. It’s not true for a bunch of reasons. One, a lot of the big companies, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, offers some really good tools that work really well out of the box to help you build your own models. They give really nice interfaces to let you build this stuff. So that’s a good thing to leverage to start with. The second thing is that a lot of AI starts as and the reality is a lot of AI starts as a pretty simple statistical model. It doesn’t have to start as some being machine learning model or network of models to start with. A lot of people can do statistics. A lot of people that don’t have PhDs have done a little bit of statistics here and there. So, that’s another thing.

The third thing is, you can find these people that can actually work at a very high level with machine learning in all sorts of disciplines. It turns out that you study a lot of statistics and probability and Mathematics and other fields, in Biology, in Geology, in physics. You study all of this stuff. So, it’s not the case that you have to just get this year’s top Computer Science grad to work for you to build the stuff. You can get 20 years ago fourth place Geology grad from whatever University and say, “Hey, there’s this new technology, you can probably work on it because you’ve got a really strong background in Geostatistics or whatever else.”

I go through this in the book, where to look for talent, what to do to support them, how to put a team together, how to manage on the one hand a bit of research into what could be done, and then the engineering, you’re getting it into the real world. The punch line is, you can probably use a lot of people that are already working for you today to build this stuff with the combination of their solid quantitative background and the tools available to them from a lot of the big companies.

John: Ash, one last question before I let you go. As an entrepreneur we’re taught to build moats around our company. Moats. Differentiators. But you have a different analysis of why loops are more important than moats. Can you explain your definition of loops, not moats for our for our listeners and viewers?

Ash: Yeah, for sure. As you point out, for years we’ve used this concept of a moat, and that’s a very static concept. It’s like I enjoy a 20-year advantage over my competitors because I’ve got a pattern that last 20 years. That’s a good concept and makes sense. It’s a good metaphor for competitive advantage, but it just doesn’t really map well to what AI gives you. The sort of competitive advantage that really helps you generate and build over time. There are two reasons. One, as I was sort of saying before, every time you run the AI system, you get a bit of feedback. You say, okay, this is something that’s in this image. This is something I’ve noticed through the optical sorter that there’s a contaminant in this image or not. As a human or as something else involved in the system, you say yes, no. And so, every time you run that, you get a bit of feedback under the output of the AI. And the next time it runs, the AI incorporates that to make a better prediction or a better identification of an object or something like that. Run the object recognition system better.

So, it gets better every time it loops around. It’s going around, and it’s increasing in its utility every time. So it’s sort of not a static concept, it’s a widening moat over time and it’s widening with every single turn of the crank. That’s why the loops a bit of a better concept than moats. Again, to get to the whole point here, AI-first companies have this amazing competitive advantage that are stronger than all the other ones really I think that we see day-to-day. Stronger than brands. Stronger than just having a patent over a compound or whatnot. And that’s why they’re the only trillion-dollar companies out there today.

If you look at companies like Google that got this loop going really early on that were really intentional about putting AI first in their products and the design of their products and in their strategy, that really deliberately collected a lot of valuable data often by giving stuff away for free. They give away Google Maps for free to most of us and they collect a lot of really valuable data from that. So, they’re really very deliberate about it. And today, you know what, they’re a trillion dollar company because they have the best system and no one can catch up to them in terms of developing the best ad serving system.

John: Good reason. It’s Ash Fontana. You can find him at ai-first.org. You can find his great book “The AI-First Company: How to Compete and Win with Artificial Intelligence” on amazon.com, on his own website, Barnes & Noble, and other great bookstores. Read this book. It could change your business and your life forever. Ash, thank you for joining us on the Impact podcast. Obviously, you’re making a great impact. You’re making the world a better place. You’re always welcome back here. We’re really grateful for your time today.

Ash: Thank you so much, John. Thank you for hosting this and getting these ideas in front of people and inspiring them.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. The Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit the marketingmasters.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. I’m John Shegerian, and this is a wonderful great addition to USTA edition of the Impact podcast. We’re so lucky to have you with us today, Amy Choyne. She’s the Chief Marketing Officer of the United States Tennis Association. Welcome, Amy, to Impact.

Amy Choyne: Hi, thanks for having me.

John: Amy, before we get talking about all the great and fun stuff you and your colleagues are doing at the USTA, can you first share a little bit of your back story. How did you even get to this position over the United States Tennis Association?

Amy: Sure. It is actually quite a tangled path and not one that most people take. I grew up in a small town in Westchester County, and then, went to University of Michigan, which is an awesome university. A bit cold. Liberal arts education, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. My parents were kind enough to allow me to explore. Graduated with an art history degree, which is very useful in life. Took a job, actually, in fashion working for Talbots in their product development office in New York. I worked within fashion and publishing for over twenty years. Everything from luxury from Giorgio Armani to niche like Barney’s to mass like Limited Brands, Victoria’s Secret, Aeropostale, and Kenneth Cole. I really built my career around retail. Retailers, as you probably know, know so much about their customer base. The way we shop and how to personalized messaging for people. When the USTA was looking to transform their digital footprint and connection with customers to expand their connection to people playing the sport, they looked outside of the tennis world to see best-in-class people who really have that great connection with customers, and retail was one of the places that they looked in. I heard about the position. I jumped on it. I have been playing tennis all of my life.

John: I was going to ask that question. I know I was going to ask that question, so I’m so glad you said that.

Amy: I’d say I don’t play with people in the office because a lot of them are ex-professional athletes, at least, collegiate athletes. I took a break in tennis after my highlight on my high school tennis team. Actually, just started getting back into it a couple of years ago. I’ve been going to the US Open since I was four. Every single year with my family. I had a tennis family, so this opportunity looked incredible for me because not only is it supporting the US Open, the fan experience, in marketing I would say the grandest stage in the sport, but it’s also the mission of the organization which is to grow tennis in America. For someone for twenty-plus years that was selling buttons to America, selling sport and health seemed more like a worthwhile career path and more meaningful. So, it was a no-brainer for me.

John: Real essence of all that is people like you with a skill set that you have, knowing the customer, that’s a transferable skill set when you want to go and redo things in a different direction and take your career path in a different direction. Knowing the customer and having that ability to hone in is something that’s very transferable and gives you a lot of flexibility.

Amy: Yes, I actually believe so. I always say when people going into marketing, understanding seer, understanding data segmentation and personalization, how that entire world works and balancing, obviously, that with the creative on how to come up with interesting campaigns tailored to those specific targets is kind of golden in your career growth. You could transfer that. Obviously, there was a little bit of learning I had to do on the politics of tennis and the sport of tennis from a business standpoint, but that’s always a learning arch that you have when you join any company.

John: For our listeners and viewers, we’ve got Amy Choyne with us today. She’s the Chief Marketing Officer of the United States Tennis Association. To find Amy, her colleagues, and all the great work they’re doing at the United States Tennis Association, go to www.usta.com or usopen.org. Amy, where is tennis today? Where was it before the pandemic? And then, how did the pandemic affect the sport of tennis? How are you now coming out of it with regards to science winning this tragic period that we all have to live through around the world? How are you coming out of it and how do you foresee it as you evolve out of this pandemic period?

Amy: Tennis, for many years, had seen a decline. It had its heyday in the eighties, they always like to say. There was a decline, a little bit of flatness, especially in youth. So, a couple of years ago, we put a lot of energy into working on a youth brand that was more of an umbrella for the sport called Net Generation, which really combated some myths about youth tennis which is it has to be competitive, it’s an individual sport, it’s not accessible, it’s not fun. We really are trying to position it as more playful. Not only for kids but also, for adults. Anyone of any size, age, race, gender could play the sport. It’s more accessible now than it has been in many years. The pandemic, and COVID specifically, thank goodness we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for so many reasons. Actually, it was quite good for tennis. Tennis and golf were both quite good because both are outside sports. Naturally, COVID-safe because you could be socially distant. Especially, when it comes to singles. So, we actually saw an increase in participation in tennis. Year over year, it was up about forty-four percent and we saw about three million new players come into the game. And then, racket sales itself for up about twenty-two percent and forty percent within the youth market, which means more people are picking up rackets and learning the sport. Within those racket sales, a lot of them are beginner rackets.

John: Now it’s getting really interesting about knowing the customer. Now I see how you’re following all these different data points in the algorithm and you’re able to track growing flat versus negativity. You’re able to see how you’re growing the sport then.

Amy: Yes, I mean, we track it in the data that we have about participation but there’s also a pack study on all sports that is independent that allows us access to those numbers,

John: Growing up in Queens, so basically in the shadow of Forest Hills, and then of course, close to where Citi Field is and where the Open is always held now after cycle that up Forest Hills. That’s how old I am. Tennis was a big deal. I mean, you can imagine. When you’re in Queens, you’re basically, in your mind, at the heart of tennis. And then also, we had all these legends. Not only Billie Jean King, but we also had Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, and all these wonderful wonderful icons back then. Talk a little bit about growing the game, and who is your real competition? When I was growing up, soccer wasn’t a big deal. Is it soccer and golf now because of the rise of Tiger? A lot of the competition or is it just competition versus yourself in terms of educating your potential customers?

Amy: I think there’s a lot of competition there. I think soccer is one of the more competitive sports for us, just from a youth perspective. Because it naturally evokes teamwork when parents are looking where they want their kids to get involved with, whereas, we have to educate kind of what are the attributes and benefits of tennis to parents. That it promotes teamwork, social skills, sportsmanship, coordination, agility, balance, strategic thinking, and there’s a wide range of benefits. It’s also a lifetime sport. I don’t know about your circle. I don’t know that many soccer players that I’m friends with, whereas, I know a lot of adult tennis players play for the rest of your life. There are extreme benefits as you go through all those stages. So, I think soccer is one. I think sadly Esports and the phone is probably the biggest competition we have right now. Using the word pandemic, it’s a pandemic in America where kids are just less active. So, we actually work with a bunch of different sports and there’s something called the American Development Model. We promote that at a certain age, you really also shouldn’t just do one sport. You should not specialize just in tennis or just in baseball. You should do a bunch of different sports to make sure that youth and kids are more balanced from a skillset standpoint.

John: I didn’t even think of that. So Esports is even a big competitor. You’re fighting against the inertia that those kids are having fun playing Esports, but they’re really just sitting on couches.

Amy: They’re really just sitting on couches. If you’d asked my son, he would rather play something on the computer than get out and play soccer.

John: Okay. That’s interesting because my children are much older than your son. How old is your son?

Amy: I started late. My son is seven and my daughter’s two and a half. Great ages but they’re both addicted to their respective iPads, which is probably my fault as a mother but people do what they have to do when they work from home with COVID.

John: Talk about that. Let’s just talk about marketing in your own household. I understand that. All the people that I work with, their children are the same. They’re on iPads and they love their games. So how did you evolve your own children to still enjoy the technology that exists and all the benefits of technology, but to also get them to do something outside like tennis? How does that work in your own household?

Amy: Well, in my own household, I strongly believe in modeling. I recently started taking a class actually at the Billie Jean King Center For Tennis. At the same time, I bring my son to his tennis class. He sees that I’m doing it so he wants to do it. So, I think that is incredibly important. There also are technologies now that kind of merge the two. I had just bought my nephew some dribbling game with a basketball that is connected to the iPad. That actually evaluates if you’re dribbling consistently. That’s also a bridge that many sports are playing with as well.

John: Interesting. So, the mixture of technology with the actual analog sport itself is a way of bridging youth over.

Amy: Yes.

John: That’s really cool. Talk about icons. Again, I grew up with all of you. Now, I’m thinking back. Not only Billie Jean King, but Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf. Who’s your next Tiger Woods? Who’s your next icon that is emerging? Unfortunately, the Williams sisters are probably at the back half of their careers now. Unbelievable careers and wonderful ambassadors of the sport and icons of athletics overall. But where do you go next? Where do you foresee the next icons evolving?

Amy: It’s an interesting question from an American standpoint, especially coming off such a time where social injustice was pretty right there out in the open in the news and injected in what every sports organization did last year’s inclusive of us. People that are not only rising on the court, but rising as voices within tennis are people like Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, and Frances Tiafoe. Probably less vocal on the social front, but doing great on the court, Dominic Thiem. People like that. I mean, these are names that we’ve been watching pretty hawk-like.

John: I was happy Coco won I think twice last weekend or something.

Amy: Yes.

John: Because my granddaughter’s name is Coco and she’s only one but I’m thinking, “This is my way of bridging her in. You’re going to follow the Coco Trend here.” I’m just trying to think of every which way to get, like you said, kids away from the TV and from gaming stuff. So, the big question which of course everyone wants to know, Amy, is the US Open. Are people going to be going this year?

Amy: Yes, absolutely. Last year, as you know, we did pull off the US Open. When I say pull off, it was Herculean. There were so many different scenario plannings and thankfully, we did it in a safe environment and we did it with three things in mind: Can we do it in a physically responsible way? Is it good for the sport? And, is it safe for our players, our internal team, as well as for fans? If they were going to come. Fans did not come, but we did do it. This year, we are planning to have fans and welcome them back. We started the planning with a twenty-five percent capacity. Now, we’re already up to a fifty-percent capacity. If I had a magic wand, I would make it a hundred percent capacity. I think it’ll probably be somewhere in between fifty percent and a hundred percent, but we’re really partnering with Governor Cuomo’s team on that to see what the limitations are. And then, working with our operations team to figure out how to do that in a safe environment. But as you know, the world, knock on wood, is quickly coming back. You being a New Yorker too. Broadway’s opening up. I just saw Moulin Rouge is selling tickets for September, so I think we’re in a sweet spot of when it will be safe. We are an outdoor event as well, so we have that going for us.

John: It’s funny. I told my wife last night that I was interviewing you today and we were talking about some of the more timely sports things that are now upon us. Let me ask you this question because we were debating last night about this issue. So, do you think the Olympics should happen this year?

Amy: Tough one. That’s a tough one. I mean, I haven’t heard the recent reports from Tokyo, but I know the last I read up on it, they were concerned about the restrictions there. I know from our athletes that we’re sending, there are extreme restrictions that they can only be in the village and their hotels. You can’t really go out in Tokyo. It’s going to be a bubble. I think it is a global risk. So, it is obviously up to them on the calculation if that risk is worth it.

John: Of course, we all love sports. If you don’t love to see the sport, go on. But then, last night, Bloomberg reported. This was just recent from last night that eighty-four percent of the Japanese population doesn’t want it to happen because they’re worried about themselves about super spreader events and things. It’s just so hard culturally, socially, economically to balance those interests. The sports world is big business now, as you know. You’re in the middle of it. It’s just so fascinating to try to figure out how to do things and do things the right way.

Amy: I know. It’s a crazy time right now. Australia had a similar predicament when they did the Australian Open. The Australians in Melbourne did not want them to come because of the super spreader. There were, I think, multiple lawsuits going on. In the end, they did it safely. They had to shut down for a little while. Hopefully, it’ll be much smoother for them this year in January but we all have to tread lightly and figure out how to do this in the safest way possible.

John: For those listeners and viewers that just joined us, we got Amy Choyne with us today. She’s the Chief Marketing Officer of the United States Tennis Association. To find Amy, her colleagues, and all the great work they’re doing, please go to www.usta.com or usopen.org. Amy, your specialty as you said at the top of the show is knowing the customer. You came out of retail with a lot of great experience. There’s a lot of young viewers and listeners of this podcast that love sports and want to become sports executives. Talk a little bit about the skillset that you learned in terms of knowing the customer. For those youth out there that want to get involved in the sports organizations whether NFL, NBA, tennis, whatever, how are your skills so important to have opportunities to become involved in the big business of sports?

Amy: There are multiple ways you can get involved in sports. Obviously, I come from a holistic marketing approach that is very heavy on content and the development of content to these specific targets, ticket sales, and fan engagement. There’s a whole different world of marketing also that you can get involved in called partnership marketing or sponcon. That is working with more the business of sports marketing in which you are negotiating sponsorships with the US Open or with the USTA integrating them into the fabric of the brand for the sponsors. I still work on that from being the brand liaison or brand cop as one might call me, but those negotiations are more “the business of it”. So there are multiple kinds of ways that you could get involved in the industry itself and that path leads more to like a Chief Revenue Officer, ticketing, and hospitality. That whole entire world. My world, as I said, I think knowing your customer at the heart of it is incredibly important and that comes from also understanding traditional as well as new media approaches of how to engage the customers, whether it’s through social media or CRM. Social media, as I said, is probably one of the biggest things to always keep on top of, especially, because it’s ever-evolving.

John: You were an art history major. So, you learned your skill sets on the job in terms of social media and traditional marketing versus new media marketing.

Amy: Yes. I was an art history major. Then, when I started working, I actually went back to school at Parsons through graphic design because I also run all of the creative services. So, I like to say my mind is analytical and creative. I think it is a good balance for my position because I could kind of manage both. Social media didn’t exist when I was in college, nor did email, if you could believe that. I still can’t believe that we didn’t have email back then. I had one of those really big computers like the old Mac classic. So, I learned that on the job. I absolutely did.

John: So interesting. I always talk to people about striking a balance in their position. You have an interesting position where you have a creative brain, but also an analytical brain too, given your art background and your metrics background in terms of knowing the customer. So, on a day-to-day basis, are you doing more managing or making? How do you balance the blessings and the burdens of having to do both probably in where you sit?

Amy: It’s a good question. I think I do a bit of both. I think I know enough about the metrics and the digital infrastructure and technology to be dangerous, but also know what I don’t know and have a wonderful team that is under my Chief Technology Officer that are my partners in creating my vision. And then, from a creative side, I have my in-house creative people and also ad hoc agencies that kind of help us as well. Unfortunately, when you become in a managerial role, sometimes you’re not necessarily the doer but more kind of steering the ship on the vision.

John: Got it. Makes sense. Hey, when I was young, the big tennis academies had a big role in getting the excitement going of tennis and the competitiveness with America’s youth like Next School down in Florida and those kinds of places. Does that still exist? Is that waxing or waning? Is that going to further assist you to get America’s youth playing tennis more again?

Amy: No, that still exists. Those schools still exist. We also have a pretty robust player development team at our Orlando campus. We built a campus about three years ago and has about a hundred courts down in Orlando. It’s where our headquarters is. We also have a headquarters up in White Plains, which I’m based. We are definitely grooming the next Americans to come out. The question is, do you need an American icon to increase participation in America? It’s always an interesting question. I’m not sure you do. I mean, I could, look at someone like Roger and Rafa in awe and want to train like them. So, I think, tennis unlike the other sports in America, it’s a global brand and it is three hundred and sixty-five days a year. There is always something going on from a tournament. That’s why COVID was so tragic for the sport because there was no tennis for a while. The WTA, ATP, and the Slams did some interesting content in between.

John: Amy, it’s wonderful having you today. I want to give you the last word before we have to sign off for the day, but thank you for joining us and thank you for doing the great work that you do because we know it’s a healthier America when more people are moving around. The more people that are playing sports, the more youth and adults play tennis, the healthier they’ll be. I just want to thank you for making the world a better and healthier place, but I want to give you the last word as well.

Amy: Thank you for that. Well, thank you for having me on this. It’s been a pleasure. Tennis is a wonderful sport with so many benefits. I think that people feel that it’s hard to get into, hard to find a player, but please come on usta.com. Check out our site. There are tools to get you into the game. From technology to activities to do at home with your kids. So, we welcome everyone into the sport. It’s a great sport for life.

John: Amy, continue your success and you’re always welcome back on the Impact podcast.

Amy: Thank you.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage as a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com

John Shegerian: This episode of the impact podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States, with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and impact partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.ClosedLoopPartners.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. I’m John Shegerian and we’re so lucky to have you with us today, Ben Pring. He’s the Director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work and he’s the author of this new wonderful book which you could see, I’ve read and marked up. It’s called Monster: A Tough Love Letter on Taming the Machines that Rule our Jobs, Lives, and Future. Welcome, Ben Pring.

Ben Pring: Hi John, grace me with you.

John: Wonderful, that we’re here together even during sort of the hopefully the ending of this covid period technology. Some of the beauty and wonders of technology, and the good parts of technology and get to bring us together to share the journey and share wonderful work that you’re doing, an important work that you’re doing in. And before we talk about your book, which is why the main reason I really was excited now, be on today. Can you share a little bit about your background? How you even got here? doing this, writing this book and, and being the Director of the Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work?

Ben: Yeah. Well, who’s being in tech John, I’ve always loved technology, kind of nerdy science fiction kid when I was growing up, you know, live long and prosper. So, I’ve always liked science fiction. I’ve always liked the future, thinking about what comes next. That’s was kind of interested me. And, so I got into the tech industry, kind of early on. When I graduated, I worked for Coopers & Lybrand, part of PWC now. And then, I worked for Gartner for many years. People probably know Gartner’s. And I was one of the first guys, in the mid-late 90s to start writing about the Cloud. If you can believe, back in the day, when that was kind of weird idea that the internet was going to be this thing BeyondPets.com.

I think about that for a long time in Gartner, then I got to know the company they work for now, Cognizant. Which is a big Tech Consulting and Services Company and then, I joined them about 10 years ago. We set up this group called The Center for the Future of Work. And, we’ve had this charter to continue to look at leading-edge tech, how it intersects with the opportunities, the challenges, our clients face, the market at large faces. And, I’ve always just been writing about, a new technology, thinking about, how we can optimize for it. And we’ve written some books about AI and Big Data, stuff like that.

And this new book, as you say, it’s kind of looking slightly at a different angle of it, particularly in this pandemic period. Whereas you say, we’re all kind of kept working, kept connected through the cloud, through the internet. But we can also, I think if we’re honest, and we’re open and kind of not too myopic about things, begin to see some of the challenges with a lot of this Tech that really is completely central to the way we work, the way we live, and we wanted to kind of, look at that little bit more rather than run away from it, and ignore it and pretend the issues, the challenges aren’t there. We wanted to kind of steer into that a little bit and think about that. And again, offers some advice, guidance, hope, and recommendations, that how we can leverage this book for good and, not become a swamp by the downside.

John: You’re right. And everything else is that like you say, all the great things on this planet also have downsides. So there’s no reason, technology should be excluded from that conversation. So that’s why I’m so glad you wrote this book. It’s called Monster, it’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other great book stores. I’ve read it. As you can see, I always mark up what I’ve read. I’ve written in the book and also put my stinky pads. I’ve read a bunch of questions and I really want to start off with, you know, then is how you call technology is. The monster, the name of your book. A monster that we can’t yet tame. Can you explain what you mean by we can’t yet tame?

Ben: Yeah. Well, we’re not saying that anyone, particularly technology is a monster itself. But I think if we look at a lot of the way that technologies are sort of combining, interacting, and the cumulative effect of them. We can see that, increasingly there is sort of monstrous outcomes, you know, think about what’s happening in social media with kids. And the way lot of kids getting addicted to their phones, to be right mind the whole time. They can’t comment, they can’t call look up anymore. They can’t sit at the dinner table and have a conversation. That’s kind of monstrous.

And then, you think about trolling, body dysmorphia, and FOMO: fear of missing out. [inaudible] online life that a lot of people living now. That’s I think monstrous, really. When you think about it in a political context, you know, the sort of algorithmic, rabbit holes that people have gone down in the last few years which would lead to a sort of just a craziness. Which sort of burst out into the real world, and January the 6th in DC. I mean, that’s monstrous, what’s going on there? Think about disinformation, that’s kind of monstrous Think about what’s going on in the whole cyber warfare space. Where you know, just this week we’re seeing. This thing is uncontrolled and that’s what we were really worried about. But, you know, we’re not calling out social media or AI, but it’s the combination that we can begin to see a sort of going off the rails a little bit. And that’s the idea of the monster that we’ve got to take in that. We’ve got to pull back.

John: That’s so interesting. You know, and what I love about your book, is how you frame up the problem, but you also give solutions which we’re going to get to later. Truly you’re a business inside of you. Spent your life in Tech. You know, like you said, you shared your history at top of the show. Why was it so important for you to talk about it? And almost, you know, be self-reflective on an industry that you’ve enjoyed and been very successful in and others seem to be, I’m pushing away from this tight kind of tough topics.

Ben: Yeah, in a way, we didn’t really want to write this book. It’s not the sort of, you know, Tech evangelist people like us, who are, you know, always extolling the benefits of technology.

John: Right.

Ben: It’s particularly want to deal with. I mean, it would in a way be better if we kind of ignored this. But, we felt a responsibility, to be honest with you, John. I mean, in the first line of the book that Paul who’s my co-author, for Oregon I wrote, the first line is, we love technology. And as people who love technology, and people of goodwill, we want to see used technology, used for good. And that’s what concerned us, certainly, in the last few years as we were out on our travels, talking to our clients, talking of events was that increasingly, the questions we’re getting from our clients or from an audience was, you know, what about AI’s impact on jobs.?

What about data’s impact on a kind of surveillance economy as it’s being called? What about the role of cyber insecurity in the modern world? And all of these negative kinds of questions in a way or questions that came from a place of concern. These were the questions that people were putting to us. And so, as I said, we would have been easier in a way to kind of, run away from that and continue to write the next book about something upbeat and light and easy. But, this was the book we felt compelled to write because again, in that spirit of wanting Tech, to make the world a better place, hashtag tech for good. We felt like, we’ve got to take a timeout. We’ve got to ask, some difficult questions to come up with the answers, with the recommendations, with thoughts on how we keep this going in a good direction. And we don’t continue to seem in the direction we go in the moment. Just kind of, frankly, onto the sidewalk, onto the edge of the road.

John: We are in many ways, as you say, untethered at this point and getting worse. You talk a little bit, a lot about in the book Solutions, and, I want to break down the different various levels of solutions. As we know, the government could be for good and they could be lead on solutions for any problems that exist in society, business, the same. And people could take control of their own hands. So let’s start, from a business perspective. As we can see, everything that’s happened during this pandemic of the social changes that are being called for the other. The justice changes that are being called for. Business is taking a real big lead on, of course, governments involved. But, a business can move quicker than government and transcend government. Talk a little bit about, what you and Paul, well outlined in your book. Great book, Monster the role of Business Leaders, with regards to, technology better serving society instead of being the controllers of society.

Ben: Yeah, business is has a big role to play. You’re absolutely right, John. And in a way, I mean, this is part of the issue, that technology and commercial leverage of technology, is moving much more quickly than government. You know, the makers of the rules if you like, businesses have moved so quickly to leverage this technology and they’ve been incredibly successful with that and, you know, fair play to them. But, business leaders, I think, have a real responsibility to use this technology, intentionally. With real thought about it, rather than kind of doing it in a haphazard, unthinking way.

And data, the use of data, the leverages date of data is probably the greatest sort of competitive asset that many businesses have now. And data is this incredibly kind of mysterious thing, which again, can be used for tremendous positive advantage. But also, we can begin to see, use for ill as well. And so, you think about data. Data is the key to personalized service. If you liked this book, you’ll like this book. If you like this movie, you’ll like this movie. If you like these shoes, you like Bozo. That personalization experience that we all like, that technology that does that, is the same technology that’s creating this surveillance-based economy that we’re moving into, increasingly. Where people are being kind of, frankly, creepy in the way that they’re following you, following me, following us, all. Trying to sell to us, trying to understand this, trying to know us in ways that we perhaps are not comfortable being interacted with.

And so again, a lot of businesses have gone down this road. It’s like this incredible fire hose, fire hydrant, that they’re just trying to hold on and they’re not really thinking about, how do we do this in an intentional way. So, that gives to get the ratio between us, our customer, our client benefits us both and we don’t kind of sleepwalk into this Orwellian world.

John: Right.

Ben: A lot of people are very anxious about, Brad Smith. The president of Microsoft. Last week, I think two weeks ago, said, the only thing that all well got wrong, was the timing. It’s not 1984, it’s 2024. That we’re sort of sleepwalking into this world, and a lot of that is because we’re not intentionally thinking about that. These pistons we built, the data we use, the experiences we offer. And again, that’s what we’re saying in the book but business leaders, need to be intentional and to think about, what they’re doing here. Because we’re kind of at a Crossroads. This is a very important time in human history. You know, not being too subtle melodramatic about it.

John: It is. Yeah.

Ben: Well, when there’s one path we could go down, and it’s going to be very hard to reverse, back out of that. And again, this is the moment for us to be thinking about these so, the tradeoff between personalization, surveillance, jobs, AI, automation. All of these issues are really mission-critical for a lot of business leaders and the decisions that business leaders make. I mean, they’re going to be decisions that they, and their companies, and their shareholders have to live with for a very long time.

John: For those of us who just join us, we’ve got, Ben Pring. He’s the co-author of this great book called, Monster: A Tough Love Letter on Taming the Machines that Rule our Jobs, Lives, and Future. I’ve read it, it’s an important read, given that we’re all surrounded now by technologies that we both love, and have come to lean on, and live with. But that could also become monsters if abused. Ben, you talk in your book about, communities dividing us among new borders called, Splinternet, in close. And that’s a word I’ve never seen before. Explain what you mean, to our listeners and our viewers of what you mean by the word Splinternet, and how communities have become divided?

Ben: Yeah, well I think, you can see this at both the kind of macros geopolitical level, John. And also as you say, the more kind of community-based level, I mean at the macro level, the idea is that the internet, the original internet was kind of, largely, an American invention that where it’s helped a little bit, but it’s largely an American buying. And in the last 25 years of the internet, going from just this “curio” to being this thing that’s taken over the world. I mean, it’s basically being run on the kind of American principles, American rules, very hands-off, very laissez-faire, very light hand on the tiller.

Fast-forward to 2021. And you can see, that the European view of the internet, the European view of data is very different from the American view. And so, you have things like GDPR.

John: Right.

Ben: Right now, the regulation about how to manage cookies and how to manage consent, etc. And then in China, you begin to see a completely different regulatory framework there. And people talk about this phrase of surveillance communism. You know, this very tightly controlled, government control, top bound controlled, use of the internet. And so, the original internet is sort of splintering into three different types of internet. And hence, the phrase, the Splinternet. And so again, in a business context and particularly for big multinational companies that I work in, we work with cognizant works with a lot. This is a real issue because they’re basically going to have to create three different versions of the internet, running three different regulatory sets of rules to be able to operate around the world.

And again, you see, a lot of American organizations in China, having to completely re-engineer how they operate in China. Completely re-engineered their policies around privacy to be in China. And so that, original American internet is sort of morphing. And then at a more macro level, again, this is the notion we touched on of the algorithm and some algorithm echo chambers, that people are increasingly living in. You sort of because, the algorithm says that if you like A, you’re going to like B. And if you like B, you’re going to like C. Begin to wall yourself into in intraset. But, people begin to drift off from any sense of sort of, so shared reality of any platonic reality that we all can believe in. And this is the whole notion of fake news.

And then, bad actors want to spread disinformation into these algorithmic rabbit holes. And at the bottom, you see these people kind of, ending up in this weird world of queuing on. And then, they come into the real world where there are crazy Viking hats and try to storm the capital. And again, that’s the splintering of reality, because technology is completely central to everybody’s lives. And in this rabbit hole that you’re in, the world that you’re in that subjective world that you’re in, that’s your world. And that’s totally different from the world that you’re living in, that I’m living in. but, most sane people are living in. And again, we can ignore that. We can think it’s funny but, it’s having real consequences in the real world. And again, many of them are monstrous.

John: It’s so well said. It’s fascinating the way you frame it up and that, they are living in a mindset. They’re only informed from what they’re following and they get so cordoned off. And these are some people that I love and adore as, a human being. But they seem to be fully brainwashed, and can’t even reach them anymore with regards to-

Ben: No, what we all seeing is that you know, strange uncle or cousin or some friend from back in high school. Posting pictures of everything they eat, and it’s like what the hell’s happening here. This is just bizarre. And again, the algorithms, which are just completely neutral pieces of code. [inaudible] do, is to find things that if you like that, you’re gonna like this and the second, they find it any heat, then they put nitroglycerin on it, and it blows up. And that’s the whole kind of incentive-based model of this system. And again, that’s wonderful if you like American food. If you like the bills, and you want to see lots of information about the bills, that’s right. But, when you begin to see quite how untethered a lot of people are, from the real world.

John: So true.

Ben: And again, I think we’ve got to think about how we deal with that. Because, that’s just going to continue to go on and on and on and on and on, and the consequences of that are going to get more and more meaningful, more material, more real, day by day. I think.

John: You know Ben, one of the great parts of your book is, some people write books and you get through the book, and it explained all the problems that we have and you finished a book, and you close it, and you just feel hopeless, because you don’t feel like there are any credible or opportune solutions for the problems that were just laid out in front of you. Even though the problems could be laid out very eloquently and even frankly brilliantly. You’ve done the opposite, you’ve laid out the issues in the problems, and then, you also laid out solutions. I want to go through a couple of other sections of solutions that you talked about, that really interested me.

Legislatively speaking, you talked about regulations that could come and help rain in some of these issues that you’ve already well-articulated. Can you talk about the repealing of section 230? What does that mean? Age limits, and also abolishing online anonymity. why those three, are some of the solutions you’ve given legislatively that can be done?

Ben: Yeah, well section 230 mean, there’s a lot of debates in the media, in policy circles, political circles about this. And it’s a bit of a kind of hot potato frankly, for people who know what that is. That was regulation legislation that was put in place early in the sort of development of the internet, to allow publishers in essence platforms, to not be liable, legally liable for things that were published on their platforms

John: Right.

Ben: As opposed to a TV station or a newspaper. If somebody goes on the air or somebody prints something in the newspaper and said, something crazy, incendiary, or derogatory, then the publisher can be held responsible for that. Section 230 prevented that, in the internet spear. And I think, those [?]logic for that in 1994-1995. Again, this strange thing, the internet, then we didn’t know really what it was. We didn’t know what it was going to be. It was kind of a tiny little kind of Acorn that we are planting.

John: Right.

Ben: Fast-forward. 25 years, this little Acorn is now the biggest oak in the forest. It’s the ugliest thing in the world. And, to imagine that we can now hold those platforms to the same lack of standards that we had back then, I think is illogical now, because they are publishing platforms, in the same way, that NBC, took a standard of decency for what people can say on the air. The New York Times has held to a standard of decency from-

John: Right.

Ben: -people publish on that. Twitter, all of these platforms are the same. So I think the notion of repealing 230, having these publishers, with then incentive to basically clean up their own platforms and stop the craziness, stop the indecency, stop all the awful things that you can just see it, you know, casual.

John: Right!

Ben: Every second of every day, to stop that happening. This will give them an incentive to do that, we believe. The second one, John, you introduced was the notion of an age limit-

John: Yeah.

Ben: -for social media. And, we’re suggesting that kids under the age, 18 17, we’re not first whether it’s 17,18 shouldn’t be able to go on social media. Because think about it, we don’t allow kids, 13 or 14 years old to drive. We don’t allow them to smoke. We don’t allow them to drink. We don’t allow them to vote. We don’t allow them to get married, to join the army. We put these incredibly powerful technologies, and the most powerful technologies, man has ever created. In the hand of a thirteen-year-old, we stand back. I’ll let them get on with it. And then we see the craziness that’s going on, and we see the bad habits that they are introduced to, that they learn, that they see marriage from adults in the real world. And we think again, that there’s nothing wrong, per se was social media. We’re not trying to ban it. We just trying to say, it’s inappropriate to put into the hands in an unsupervised way of immature people.

And in the same way, that we train a young person to drive a car, lessons in the classroom, you know, out in the road with an instructor. We should train people to use these technologies, these powerful technologies so they don’t end up killing themselves or hurting somebody else. That’s the kind of model, the metaphor, in terms of having a social media user license that you have to pass a test and can be revoked if you speed or you drive drunk, that license can be revoked. So, that’s the second idea. And then the third idea in terms of anonymity, again, anonymity was a kind of good thing back in the early days of the internet.

John: Right.

Ben: It turned people to go onto these platforms. But again, in two thousand twenty-one, we can see that the notion of anonymity, is the fundamental kind of original sin of the internet. The fundamental floor of the internet. It’s the reason why that guy with the Viking hat, can just go down in this world of madness. Because they’re protected by that anonymity. Now, he really knows who they are. It’s the same sensation, that when you’re driving that car, you’re behind the screen of that car, you can go in [inaudible]. Get out the effing way. You know, because you’re anonymous in that space, you would say things, and you can say things that you wouldn’t say to your neighbor face-to-face. You know, when they know who you are.

So again, I think if we abolished, got rid of anonymity, people, you’re not interfering with anyone’s right to say anything. So, First Amendment impingement here, you’re just basically signaling the people that, you have to own what you say online. In the same way that, you would own what you say if you go to your local golf club, or into your local political party, or you go to the supermarket and [inaudible] you own what you say. And I think, making people own what they say online, will go a long way to tamping down, the world’s craziness. The people say it because they can get away with saying it.

John: Good point. You know, we’re having this interview today and the G7 is going on. And in your book, you refer to the shifter global economic powers from the G7 to a new call D7. Can you explain what you mean by D7?

Ben: Yeah, again, I mean the G7, the people know like he’s saying by singing UKL this weekend

John: Right.

Ben: The UK, America, Canada, France, Japan, etc. Those countries kind of represent power in the post-world war II era. They represent the big countries that the powerful countries of the past. If you were recasting the G7 today, based on power and influence around the world, no disrespect to my Canadian friends or my French friends and I don’t think you’d have France and Canada. They’re in the modern G7. We’d have China, we’d have India. We think the D7, the digital seven is kind of a reflection and where power is today, because really the big fault line, the big sort of tension, geopolitical tension which again, is all around technology and control of technology. You know, Vladimir Putin famously said, the country that controls AI, is going to control the world.

The D7 is a sort of reflection of the fact that the world now and 2021, is very different. And we need to create those sort of same institutions, like the UN for the modern world,

John: Right.

Ben: Like, reflect power in the modern world and have a responsibility and create a platform, in which we can mediate things like the Splinternet that we were talking about earlier on.

John: That’s a great point. The UN manages the internet political world. And really, what’s going to fill that void then? to become the UN of the digital world? What you foresee?

Ben: Well, it’s interesting John, talking about the G7 meeting because, in fact, there’s a briefing note that came out ahead of the meeting. Which was catalyzed by the UK government. And they today, in fact, this morning and they call for exactly that, the establishment of a digitalized form of the UN to regulate these sorts of issues. We sort of call for a US version of back in our book, the establishment of what we call Federal Technology Administration. And it’s interesting to see the box of the same ideas coming out of the G7 meeting. Again, it’s completely clear that the institutions of power, both of the national energy of political international level, are sort of way behind the times.

If people know what the charger of the FTC, or the FCC in America, they don’t talk about anything. Like we’re talking about, they don’t talk about data, they don’t talk about privacy issues, security issues. And so again, we need a modern institution, modern umpire, modern referee. And we think that something like a Federal Technology Administration that would sit Supra to the FCC and the FTC. Something like that could be really important in effect, crafting the rules of the road for the information superhighway.

John: You know what? I always love to leave our listeners, and our viewers been with actionable steps and thoughts on how they could participate, making their own lives better. Because you point out in your great book Monster, these technologies that we all come to love, are as addicting as fentanyl or any other opiate or drug. How can our listeners and viewers take into their own hands before this legislation gets done? Before the digital body comes in the place that replicates the UN and manages reimagines the digital world for us and helps us, create guardrails and some of the solutions you’ve created. How can we all become part of the solution and make our lives better before government and business step in and do it for us?

Ben: Yeah, that’s a great point, John. Because, I think a lot of people had a personal individual level, a kind of standing back thinking how the government are going to solve this,

John: Right.

Ben: And, the government is going to take a long time to sort. And we can’t stand around waiting for them. And again, I think we all individually as parents, as leaders in organizations, as individuals. We all have agency. we are all vested in making this world we want to be in, the world we want to live in. And I think, there are two important things that we talk about in the book. But, again, and of kind of simple be the change you want to be kind of level-

John: Right.

Ben: -we can all axon. And one is, given that we’re talking about a very leading-edge modern technology, is ironically to remember one of the oldest rules of humanity, the Golden Rule “do unto others as you would have done unto you” I mean, it’s in every religion, throughout history that’s basically the foundation of the religion of that set of how rules, of how to live ethic light. And I think a lot of people have forgotten that. A lot of people at a personal level, at a business level, have forgotten that. People vents and say stuff online, then again, they wouldn’t say to their cousin, or their mother, or their son face-to-face. But somehow they feel empowered to do that online.

And I think people, should believe, people should remember they are in essence being what they want to see every time that they interact digitally. So, again, be intentional about that. That’s an important thing to do. And then the other thing and this is a phrase that has been around for a while, and some of your listeners probably have heard it, it’s the whole notion of the digital Sabbath,

John: Right.

Ben: I mean, just put the goddamn thing down. It is addictive. And I and Paul and you know, many people now I think, particularly on the weekend, I just try not to look at it so much. So tried, I tried to leave it at home. I try not to be walking around with this thing in my hand, the whole time. I can’t help thinking that, if you just kind of look at your computer on your desktop, there’s almost a time limit to that, just being in the physical chair-

John: Yeah.

Ben: -after an hour to you want to get up and walk away from it. But, because [inaudible] so comfortable in your hand, and then I sit on the couch, or whatever, you just sort of stare at it, the whole time. I think putting the thing down on a Friday or a Saturday also, and just ignore it, forget it, and get back and look at the real world. Look through the real window, not so kind of weird, your screen. Again easier said, than done perhaps a little bit kind of right and simplistic. But in a way, I thought the notion of personal agency, personal decisions, ultimately, we can’t get away from how important they are and how fundamental was.

John: You’re right. And I think, you’re so on to something so big with the digital Sabbath and in the call for more balance, you know, you mentioned for more earlier, I’m lucky, I’m very addicted to my technologies but I really don’t have formal. I have the opposite. My kids laugh at me all the time. I have something I called Jomo, the joy of missing out. I don’t care. I don’t care what’s on Instagram, or any of these other wonderful platforms. I’m just happy. I’m not part of it. And so, you know-

Ben: I think you’re right, John. And I think a lot of people celebrities, you know, a lot of celebrities and I’m saying, I’m going off social media. Where I come from, originally, the English Premier League, the soccer clubs, they have a kind of social media boycott recently, and I think a lot of people are increasing, of that stuff view that you know, I want to get away from this thing rather than be dragged down at [inaudible]. So, maybe the tide is, is turning a little bit.

John: I feel it is in, you know, frankly speaking, I’m so grateful for zoom in on all this wonderful technology. So I can continue bringing our show to our listeners and our viewers. We’ve built this up over 14 years, but frankly speaking, I’m looking forward to the day that I can meet you in person. That’s more fun, you know, that will even be more of a thrill than this one. So I just want you to know, that I think you’re so on. It’s a great thing. I want our listeners and viewers again.

If you have a chance, pick this book up, amazon.com, barns, and noble, other great book stores. It’s called Monster: A Tough Love Letter on Taming the Machines that Rule our Jobs, Lives, and Future. Get some balance. Take a digital Sabbath. There are some great solutions in here that we can all adhere to, just to make our lives somewhat better. And Ben, I’m so grateful for your time today, I’m really grateful for your book. I fully enjoyed it and I just want to say thanks for making the world a better place. And coming up with solutions. They going to make our world a better place now and in the future.

Ben: Thank you so much, John. It’s great so [inaudible].

John: This edition of the impact podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. A marketing Master’s is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online. Please visit the MarketingMasters.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. This is a very special and personal edition of the Impact Podcast. We’re so honored to have, with us today, Corie Barry. She’s the CEO of Best Buy. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Corie.

Corie Barry: Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited for the conversation.

John: You know, Corie before we get talking about all the great work that you and your colleagues are doing at Best Buy, can you share a little bit of your backstory in Minnesota?

Corie: Yeah, so I grew up in a small town in Minnesota, and I think anyone’s story really does fundamentally began with their parents in their upbringing, right?

John: Right.

Corie: My parents were self-employed artists, and they traveled the world, well, the country mostly. They did art fairs, and they started dragging me along with them at a really young age. The work ethic that my parents had really left a mark on me, and you would work 14 hours a day, physical labor, put up the booth, put up the stuff, talk to people all day long, take it all down, and do it again the next day. And I think that really early for me, work became more than just a nine-to-five.

Work was something you did because you cared, which was really the second thing I learned growing up with my parents. Work should be your representation, your legacy here on the planet. My parents believed strongly, art is what makes the world a better place. And therefore, that’s what they wanted to work their whole lives to provide. That example, I started doing that and then also started very young, like many of us working in a grocery store.

My parents didn’t have much money and so if I was going to do anything or have anything, I needed to earn it myself. And I think that combo platter of the work ethic of my parents but also really early learning I was going to pave my own way really had an impact on how I decided to try to journey from there.

John: Are they still alive? May I ask?

Corie: Yeah, you can ask. My dad is still alive. Interestingly, you won’t be able to see on the podcast, I’m pointing over my shoulder. I have a painting in my office.

John: I see it.

Corie: That painting is the last painting that my mom painted before she passed away. It’s the only unsigned painting, and I keep it in my office because, for me, it’s the reminder of what really matters in life. It’s kind of my daily reminder, especially in the Zoom world because I see it all the time.

John: Yeah.

Corie: You have choices about how you want to spend your days and what matters and the impact you want to leave, and that is my kind of constant daily reminder of how I make decisions.

John: How old was she when she painted that and why is it unsigned?

Corie: She was 54, and it’s unsigned because she had cancer, and this was the piece she was working on and did not finish. She’d never sign them until they were perfect. She would be so mad at me if she knew this painting was up in my office because it was just like for her, such a travesty if you had an unsigned piece. That meant it wasn’t done. And to me, that means the world.

John: But what a fantastic memory of your mother.

Corie: Yes.

John: And also, what a metaphor for life because is our work and is our journey ever finished anyway?

Corie: That’s it, exactly. And it’s what I love so much about art. I am awful at any kind of art. I am a huge art aficionado because it is a physical representation of the human spirit to me, and that’s something that’s really important, I guess, for me to feel like I surround myself with every day.

John: Oh, that’s fantastic. So then, you grew up in Minnesota.

Corie: Yeah.

John: So you’re a Minnesota native.

Corie: I am a Minnesota native, and like many Minnesota natives, we don’t tend to leave this state. For reasons I cannot explain to you, we love this cold. I went to an all-women’s college here in Minnesota. And ultimately, we’re paired with a men’s school. It’s where I met my husband, we met very young.

I really enjoyed an all-women’s school which gave me a real point of view about women and empowering women. And I decided I was going to double major in accounting and business management. Now, this is typically where people say, “Your parents were artists, and then you decide to go accounting and business management.”

John: Right.

Corie: After that organic life with no money, never knowing where the next paycheck was going to come from, I think I just really craved this linear, straight, I knew I could provide for myself, and I knew I wouldn’t have this kind of anxiety that we lived with growing up when you just didn’t know where the money was going to come from. And so I started my career at audit like so many people come out of accounting. And like all the parts of our lives, I had two good lessons there.

I realized there’s work that you can do and be very good at but not enjoy. And I knew I could be good at auditing. It just gave me nothing back. And that was a big moment for me. I also don’t realize in the audit that I really do enjoy breaking the mold. There weren’t a ton of female auditors, particularly not on the big clients, and I liked all the places where I stood out. I felt like, that almost made me feel better and so it really solidified that for me.

But because I didn’t love the work, it was my first courageous moment that I’m sure you had too or many of us have had, where I left the company and I started at Best Buy in 1999. And I came here not because I loved, at the time, tapes or records, I came here because I interviewed with a woman that I really thought I could learn a lot from. And I just decided, well, I’ll try this. I’ll be there for a couple of years. I can really learn from her and then I’ll move along.

John: So when you were growing up, though, with your parents and having that fascinating experience traveling and the art world and, like you say, organic, besides your parents, outside of parents, what role models informed you about other opportunities in the corporate world?

Corie: Not a single one. In my life, I knew not one person who worked in corporate America. My parents were divorced when I was young, both remarried. And the other side of the family was all teachers, educators, and principals. I had a part of my family who worked in nursery, meaning raising plants and selling them off. It’s just this really interesting conglomeration of people, nobody with a business background.

And perhaps, that’s what appealed to me. Again, this idea of breaking the mold is something that starts early in me, and I’m sure my parents would say I was not an easy child to raise. But I think I just wanted to do something that no one else had, and I just decided to try it. But it is interesting when I look back and I think, well, what made me even think I could do that? I don’t know.

John: Right.

Corie: I don’t know.

John: So interesting. Now, you’re 1999 to 2021, the math is simple, so it’s almost 22 years now.

Corie: Yeah.

John: Fifteen different roles or so at Best Buy, and on June 11 of 2019, you were installed as the fifth CEO but the first woman CEO at Best Buy. Wow, what a journey and what an inspiration. I mean, you were one of the twenty-nine CEOs out of the Fortune 500. Women CEOs, now, you’re one of thirty-three. And you’re the youngest in the Fortune 100. Incredible, incredible.

Corie: Thank you. It is. When you say things like that, that’s when all my imposter syndrome just starts to flare and I go, “How did all that happen?” I often get asked, “When you started at Best Buy, did you think you would be CFO, or did you think you would be CEO?” And no, this was never the thing I wrote down on my development plan.

It was one of those interesting things that happened as I gained more experiences and really flexed my curiosity and decided to take risks and garnered this broader range of experiences. I just grew in my confidence and grew in my capabilities. And I love to learn, and so the more I just kept trying to learn more about this amazing business, the more I just was able to grow in my career.

And I think this place, it’s an amazing place, and I see it in our GMs all the time. At least 50% of our GMs, and I just had a GM panel yesterday, started their career as either part-time or seasonal workers. People don’t think about retail as the makers of careers, and this place makes careers.

John: That’s so fascinating. Like I shared with you off the air earlier, I have a thirty-four-year-old daughter now. Now, I have a one-year-old granddaughter. It’s just so hopeful and inspirational and aspirational to have someone as wonderful as you leaving such a huge brand, soon, $50 billion a year hopefully by 2025, and to have someone, not only a woman like you but young. And so people can feel so relatable to you because of who you are and how you built your career. Just amazing.

Corie: Well, thank you. Always what means the most to me is when someone like you says there’s someone in their life that’s important to them that I might be a role model for. And you never look at yourself in the mirror, I’m sure you feel this way too, you never look at yourself in the mirror and think, “I am a role model.” That’s not how it works.

John: Right, right.

Corie: But when you get that little note from someone or that little moment and they say you had such an impact or, “I believed I could because you did,” that’s really when it’s all worth it.

John: Right. I pulled a quote that you did when you were talking about advice to other women in business, “Make yourself uncomfortable and take sometimes the jobs that no one else wants. Go.”

Corie: It’s human nature, and it has been documented. We avoid discomfort. In our nature, we are trained to avoid discomfort. And so that means, when that next role comes up, you will internally debate, whether you even physiologically mean to or not, you will by your nature, you will debate, “Am I ready for this thing? Can I do this thing?” And you’re going to want to shy away from the discomfort of it. It is easier to stay in the orbit that you’re in.

But you, I’m sure you feel the same, every time I pushed myself to do the least comfortable thing, it often stretched me the most, I learned the most, and often propelled my career the fastest. But it’s really hard, and you have to work through mechanisms, I think, that helps you figure out, “How do I work myself past this place of discomfort?” And it still doesn’t mean you’re going to be comfortable on the other side, but at least, maybe you have an infrastructure in place to help you feel like you could be successful.

And so for me, of those fifteen roles or so that you talked about, I believe, last time I looked, ten of them didn’t exist before I stepped into them.

John: Unbelievable.

Corie: And so you get the chance to create a whole new role and have an impact that no one before you has had. And I think that’s really important. And then it’s also been well documented. Women, in particular, will not step forward to take that next role. And so how do you surround yourself with the right people who are going to give you the confidence or going to spend time with you to help you get ready for that next new role.

And I have been fortunate to have many mentors along the way. And many of them, men who helped me see what was unique about my skill-set and helped me have the confidence to put myself out there for that next role

John: When you were elected CEO, when the board elected you, what was the first phone call you made? How did it go?

Corie: It was to my dad. My dad’s the person who has always been there, and it always matters to me that he’s proud.

John: Wow.

Corie: And I think it was a real moment of almost disbelief between the two of us, quite frankly. I’m not exactly sure how this happened, but here I am. And it just was such a full-circle thing for me. And you know why? Part of it is I also know I can take care of my dad now. And that’s really important to me as well. He sacrificed a lot to help raise me. And now, I have a chance to pay some of that forward. So it was a pretty special moment.

John: That’s a neat thing in your life.

Corie: It is an amazing day, and it’s incredibly overwhelming, the weight that literally, overnight, you feel on your shoulders in an organization with over a hundred thousand people. It’s also incredibly daunting. And I think if you don’t say that out loud if everyone just thinks it’s like, you wake up one day and you’re just confident and you’re super excited to be CEO, I’m honored but it is a lot of weight.

John: Not only is it a lot of weight with just the fiduciary responsibility that you have, the social and cultural responsibility that you have, but you’re also on a media platform now in terms of that’s much different than ever before.

Corie: Yeah.

John: When I was preparing for this, Corie, I was thinking about sort of your timeline and walking into that what was already a very daunting position. Then I started thinking about how did your first couple of years have really went and I just wrote down some notes. And I want to share with you how impressed I am by what you’ve done with Best Buy during these first couple of years because first, you had to fill this guy’s shoes. I mean, you have to step into Hubert Joly’s, your superstar predecessor, who you were part of his superstar’s turnaround story as well, but still, he’s one in a million, he’s a very unique human being. So just stepping into that shadow and those shoes is daunting beyond belief, I can imagine.

Corie: Yeah.

John: In March 2020, the pandemic hits. May 25, 2020, right in your hometown in Minnesota, we have the George Floyd tragedy that captures the world’s attention. January 26, the democracy is on a seesaw and on a worldview to watch. And this is your first couple of years running Best Buy as a young, unbelievably qualified CEO but during unprecedented times for reasons that are outside of your control. Now that we’re sort of coming through it in the aftermath and science, thank God it seems to be winning, share some of the lessons learned from any and all of those data points that you had to deal with that there was no road map or playbook for.

Corie: Yeah, the lessons learned are innumerable, honestly. And we could spend all day on this, but there are four big themes that, for me, have come out of all of the things that you talked about. The first is this idea of using others around you. The truth is when I was thinking about the CEO role, I was, what I like to call responsibly weary. Meaning, it’s a big job. And I spent a lot of time on the front side with Hubert as a partner, which was also a very helpful part of this, trying to think through what would need to be true for me to be successful.

So back to the question that you asked around taking the risky roles, instead of just saying no or I’m scared, we turned the question to what would need to be true for me to be successful? And a big part of that was, he’s so good at figuring out what makes me nervous. One day, we’re sitting in here and trying to think through it, and he has this huge laugh, I’m sure you heard it on the podcast when he did it. And he throws back his head, does this huge laugh, and he says, “You act like you have to do this job by yourself.”

And I think many of us have this conventional point of view about the CEO, like sitting in their office, slinging out orders. And that’s not how it works. And I had a very strong point of view going into the role and incredibly exacerbated by the pandemic or social unrest that you need to use all the smart people around you. My management team, my board, a lot of external experts in this case. Like, we didn’t have an epidemiologist on staff. A smart group of other CEOs who are coming together, a lot of consultants, who used well really can help you get smart about what’s happening in the world. All of those people, we used.

We used the ex-CFO here, the ex-CEO here, like the whole network of people. Never be so proud that you think you’re the only person who has the answer. And in every one of the instances that you talked about, using all those smart people around me to help inform and then make a call, that has been, by far in a way, one of the biggest learnings. And there isn’t a single decision I just sat here and made by myself.

John: That goes to your own brilliance and that you’ve put your ego, we all have egos, and you put your ego aside and you’re able to go out and ask for help. So many people in your type of role even are unable to ask for help, they feel it’s a sign of weakness, but you’ve, now, found that that’s a sign of strength.

Corie: Yeah. And again, that’s why I’m so happy I put the work in before taking the job because you just end up in such a better place. I always have a strong point of view. I’m sure you do. I always ask [inaudible], don’t get me wrong.

John: Right, right.

Corie: But I also often change it or at least, augment it because I talk to someone who comes from a different life experience than me or someone who just has knowledge I don’t. So that one’s a big one for me. The second one though is if you believe you’re doing that well, then the second thing that we did, collectively, very well in the pandemic is you push decisions down.

I can’t be making a thousand store-level decisions. And in the pandemic, you know different stores were open, closed, half-opened, trying to keep their people safe, sending people home, distribution centers were open, they were closed. And it-

John: You were dealing with all the different governors across America and coming up with different rules, so it was a patchwork quilt. There was no unity at that time.

Corie: It was impossible.

John: Yes.

Corie: And so the more decisions to move with speed, the more decisions that you can push down deep into the organization and empower your people, it adds so much speed, flexibility, and then ingenuity to what you’re doing. My GMs, I would FaceTime our general managers in our stores and I would ask them. We flipped to the curbside only within a 48-hour window, and so close the store as you can only get our gear curbside. I would FaceTime with our general managers, and I’d say, “Well, how are you making it work?”

And I probably did fifty FaceTime calls within that first couple of month period, and every one of them was making it work differently. Not because we wrote an SOP, not because we were telling them how to do it, not because they were getting score-carded on it, they did it because it worked for them, their teams, and their communities. And for us, as an organization, when we think about what we take forward from here, you’ve got to push those decisions down wherever you can because the people closest to the work are going to make a better decision than you will from up here.

The third for us at Best Buy, we talked a lot about our purpose. Definitely, held at Hubert’s book, he started this work for us, but we have remained very focused on our purpose to enrich lives through technology. And in a crisis, your purpose becomes your lighthouse. And every day when we went back to why are we opening our stores or why are we still going into people’s homes, it’s because if you really believe you’re here to enrich people’s lives through technology, you’re going to try to find safe ways to do that because it’s important. And our teams then really knew, “No, we’re here for a reason. We’re doing this for a reason,” which helps. I provide, for them, the confidence and then frankly, just the dedication to drive through this.

And then finally, probably the most important learning is being authentic and honest. About four weeks into the pandemic, we had to furlough fifty thousand of our employees because our stores weren’t open. And what I elected to do was a video straight to each one of them and we shipped it out wherever we could. It actually got text-blown to their phone so they could see it from me personally. And I took full responsibility, and I also used an opportunity to be honest, to explain all the things that we were trying to address and the reason this was impacting them.

It didn’t make them like it any better, but it was our clear, honest, transparent, and in my case, authentic point of view about why we did it. And it wasn’t just a scripted conversation. It was me genuinely, emotionally trying to talk to them about it. And I do think in the pandemic, in particular, this idea of being really honest, telling people what you do know and what you don’t know and doing it in a way that’s authentic to who you are as a human, I think, is the only way you can resonate through the screens like this. I don’t know how else to do it.

John: Well, I think that’s unique. I don’t think everyone has that talent or ability, but you’re very relatable. You’re young. You’re a wife. You’re a mom. You’re also the CEO of a very huge brand that’s not only vital during the pandemic for all these reasons so we can have these Zoom calls and all state connected family-wise, business-wise, technologically wise, but also you thrive. You didn’t survive the pandemic, you figured out how to thrive. And that’s really unique. Hats off to you and your whole leadership and management team.

Corie: Thank you. It’s an exceptional team and a team that embodies diversity. It embodies the diversity of thought and background. And when we had, it meant we saw so many of the issues from different angles and we could have the hard conversation, make the quick decision, move along, and then iterate when we got it wrong. We also told employees really early on, we’re going to do some of this wrong, and so we need you to help us understand when it doesn’t work the way that it should.

John: There’s no way anyone could get it all right because there was no playbook. So that was great to just say that upfront because now, the elephant’s out of the room.

Corie: Yeah.

John: It’s great. Corie, I’ve heard you speak many times before. In one of your events that I was in, I heard you speak about inclusive leadership behaviors. Can you share that with our audience? Because I think there’s huge value to inclusive leadership behaviors.

Corie: I’m so glad you asked. I’m so passionate about this topic. So pre-pandemic, it was actually about six months before the pandemic, we were doing some work on how to create a truly inclusive environment. And one of the first things we did is we sat down with an inclusion and diversity expert, who does a lot of training and a lot of discussions with leadership teams, and she said something that really struck me. She said, “Maslow’s hierarchy.”

So most of us are retrained on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which is your base needs are at the bottom of the pyramid all the way up to those exponential little needs at the top. The base of the pyramid used to be things like food, water, and air, like the real physical things that keep you alive. And she said research has now pointed to the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy is actually belonging, a sense of belonging, of knowing your place in the world, of feeling comfortable that you belong. And so we started to do research on, “Okay, what are the behaviors that, when executed beautifully, actually create a sense of belonging?”

And there are four that we ultimately landed on based on all the research that we did, and our own cultural beliefs, courage, empathy, vulnerability, and grace. And when you can exhibit that suite of behaviors, you tend to get to know others better, you tend to have harder conversations, you tend to have room to make mistakes, and therefore, you’re more willing to have those difficult conversations that will create and support a diverse workforce. And so we started practicing these behaviors. And in fact, they’re actually the behaviors that we talk to our board about when we talk about how our leaders are leading. We actually say, “Are they exhibiting these behaviors?”

So then, the pandemic hits. And could there be four more powerful behaviors than courage, empathy, vulnerability, and grace? When you’re dog is wandering in on the Zoom call and your kids have been learning out in the living room for three months they’ve had it, these are the behaviors we’ve all been exhibiting. And I think this idea of creating a place where you really can bring your whole authentic self to work has been incredibly powerful in the pandemic.

We had such a cool moment yesterday, we had a board meeting, and we had a panel with six of our general managers on it. And you and I both know, you never know how that’s going to go. Like the board’s going to ask in something, I have no idea what they’re going to answer.

John: Let’s roll on the dice there.

Corie: And I don’t care. I trust them implicitly, like, just tell the truth. That’s fine.

John: Right, right.

Corie: One of the general managers, he’s only been at Best Buy for three years, he came from another organization, and he said, “I was at that organization for ten years, and they would not let me talk about my sexual orientation. It was not permitted. And then I came here, and you all lifted up my story.” We had done a story on him and his life, “And you used my example across the organization. So you have no idea the lengths that I will go to to make this company successful because I feel like I belong.” And that, he said to our board. For me, it’s that moment that ties. You don’t just have behaviors like this because they’re nice and soft and squishy. You have them because you create a culture that is incredibly unique and keeps people tethered to your company.

John: And what you’ve done so well with your other leaders and your predecessors is you created that culture. So then, for the employees, it’s much more than work, it’s much more than a paycheck.

Corie: That’s it, and it has to be that. It always has to be more than about one singular leader or about one part of their job. You have to have this. We stay in these jobs because there’s some level of emotional attachment to them, there just has to be. Otherwise, there’s a lot of other things you can do in the world.

John: This is absolutely true. You mentioned the curbside during the pandemic and how fast you got it going and how successful was. I was in the audience at your keynote at CES when you gave the anecdote on your father, getting more comfortable with curbside in general during the pandemic.

Corie: Yeah.

John: How does that inform you? You have that amazing footprint that you’ve spoken about and now, you have this massive success that all of us in my generation, which is pretty much your dad’s generation, getting more comfortable with curbside. How does that inform you about the future of Best Buy, and how you’re going to drive future success at Best Buy?

Corie: Yeah, there are a few things that we believe will be lasting implications of the pandemic. So if I rewind the tape just a little bit, we had an investor day in the fall of 2019. And at that investor day, we laid out some hypotheses. And they were things like, “We think technology will be even more important in people’s lives, and we think people are going to shop more digitally, and supply chain is really going to matter. And oh, by the way, we think we have a leg up because we’re a true omnichannel retailer. And over time, digital penetration is going to grow.” And then we laid out targets for five years from now.

And then what happened? All those things came true at an incredibly exacerbated pace in the span of a year. Our digital penetration doubled in the span of a year. And we could still, on the back of the supply chain we built on our omnichannel capabilities, we could still deliver against that. And so I think the key for us is really acknowledging what has changed in the environment. And there are a few things that we believe.

One, we believe that the customer is in control, period, end of the story. They’re going to shop how they want. And you’re right. Because of the breadth and the depth of changed behaviors, we strongly believe more people will lead digitally. But they also will want that seamless physical experiential experience because that is important to them as well. And they also might want to chat, they might want to call, they might want us to come to their homes, they might want to do a virtual consultation. All of those opportunities have to be available. I’m not going to force you to do any one of those things. The customer needs to be in control.

And so what we are currently working through is, “All right. If the customer’s in control and every one of those experiences needs to be seamless, how do we evolve our store footprint to match that expectation?” Sixty percent of what we sold online was either picked up in a store or shipped from it. So you can’t just separate out and say, “Oh, you’re doing great digital work, we’re going to close stores.” That’s not how this works. Even shipping most of our gear the next day, we ship 90% of our gear the next day for free, still, 40% of people come into the store and pick it up because they want that. They want to come in, they want that sense of understanding where the high price point breakable gear.

And so we are now working on a range of experiences all the way from the really big experiential store. We have a test in Houston, which I just love the store because it’s gorgeous and it gives you goosebumps, all the way to stores that might be much more fulfillment-oriented. Quick for you to go curbside, quick for you to get Geek Squad service, quick for you to get those products you most often want.

And I don’t think it’s about less stores. I think it’s about your stores working differently and harder for you, and therefore, your employees are likely becoming much more flexible and working across multiple different roles and being able to fulfill wherever, again, that customer who’s in control wants to go. And so right now posthaste, those are the things we’re starting to build.

John: Serving your clients where they want to be served, not just where you just serve them, where it used to be old, just in an analog box. It’s much newer[?] now and you’re in the service business and you’re going to serve them.

Corie: Yup.

John: That’s awesome.

Corie: And it’s hard. It is so exciting, and yet, it is such a fundamental change when you’ve been a big-box retailer who’s specialized in selling home theater as an associate or specialized in computing. And now, I might need to learn a bunch of different departments. But here’s the other thing we’re learning, is that as our associates garner more skills, we have specific skill sets and now, they’re able to add multiple skills, the customer experience goes up.

So we can see, if our employees have two or three skill sets, their associated customer experience scores, their MPS is higher than those who only have one skill set. So there’s something really interesting about the confidence that our employees can now earn by educating themselves and then how they can work across multiple pieces of the store flexibly. I think it could be just an incredibly powerful tool for us going forward.

John: And I bet you, it’s more interesting for them personally.

Corie: Totally. They get to write their career story the way that they want, not the way we did it.

John: For our listeners and viewers who just joined us, we’ve got Corie Barry today. She’s the first woman CEO of Best Buy, and we’re talking about all the great things that she’s doing at Best Buy with her colleagues and the future of Best Buy and how they’re going to continue to succeed.

Corie, let’s change topics a little bit. Talk a little bit about your fantastic board that you have put together, and the diversity on that board, and why diversity is so important to great leadership in any organization. Whether it’s publicly traded, privately held, an NGO, government, diversity is critical to the future of great leadership.

Corie: Yeah. Diversity is good for business.

John: Yeah.

Corie: I think sometimes, we start with diversity as a social imperative, which it is, let me be clear. We tend to start from a different place, which is time after time, study after study, it has been proven, diversity is good for business.

And so our board here, thanks partially to Hubert’s help and then I was able to continue to build on to the board, we have eleven members, five of them are women, over a third are people of color, and they come from a myriad of backgrounds and skillsets. Meaning, we have some people who are actually in health care because we’re setting up a healthcare business. We have some who have financial services and advertising backgrounds. A huge diversity of backgrounds.

And what that does for us as an organization is you push decision-making differently in every single case. I laugh sometimes because I will get asked, “Does your board mind when you speak up on social issues or do you run it by your board?” Yes, I absolutely leverage my board’s smart brains and they, typically, are going to push me harder than I will push myself because of their life experience and their backgrounds.

So just think about the doors that open up as a CEO. You have this incredibly supportive group. I don’t go to my board and just present. I use the smart brains in the room to make better decisions over time. And because they reflect our communities, I’m much more likely to make that right balance decision that really will do the best for the organization read large. My board’s a gift.

John: And also, what a richer journey for you, personally, along the way as well.

Corie: It’s so nice. There are people who have lived a life that looks more like yours. And all of us, who do you look for in the room? At least one other person who’s maybe a little bit like you. And so it matters.

John: It matters. I’ve been working with your great organizations since 2005 and it’s been part of your DNA and culture to be green, to be sustainable, and to be part of the circular economy. You were one of the first movers. So can you touch a little bit about what’s going on today in terms of the ESG Revolution? How Best Buy is doing so well in so many areas of green and sustainability and circular economy? Just for our listeners and viewers to just get a little taste and snippet of how culture and DNA-related ESG is at Best Buy.

Corie: Yeah. It’s interesting. I was having a lovely conversation with our founder. His name is Dick Schulze, and I still meet with him probably once every two months. And it’s important for me to understand just his thoughts, and he’s great about just helping to coach. But he knows I’m the decision-maker, so he’s another one of those people that I have a chance to [inaudible].

And he said something that I really thought was foundational. He said, “I love that ESG is just becoming important to our investors. But from day one, that’s how I ran this company. You put your employees first, you do what’s right for your customers, you invest in your communities, and at the end of the day, you will have wonderful financial returns. But you don’t start with the financial returns.” And for me, that was really poignant because it is so embedded in the fabric.

We may not have had the words and the reports around ESG, but the way he started the company, the values of the company were really embedded in this idea that if you treat your constituents well, at the end of the day, you will have outsized financial returns. And so that as our core, then we have just gotten smarter and smarter and pushed harder and harder to be able to have influence. And if I think about where you started, which is some of our environmental advocacy, we just believe it’s our responsibility.

Look, climate change is not good for any of us, it’s not good for business. So again, just from a business perspective, not because it’s socially right, from a business narrative, we need to make sure that we are doing what’s right for the environment. And our customers want to view us as a trusted partner. And more and more, these customers are looking to us to lead the way in terms of environmental advocacy or social advocacy.

And so we hold ourselves to a very high standard across all measures of ESG and we have very robust ESG reporting. And we want to lead. And so we were named this year, Barron’s Number One Most Stainable Company. That’s obviously done across a variety of vectors, but what made us really proud this year is that one of the factors that Barron has put in there was our COVID response, and they felt we had the number one COVID response that balance the safety of our employees and customers with our ability to sustainably grow the business.

I like how you asked, It’s not about any one part of ESG. It’s about kind of holistically creating a system that says we are here to do more than just make money. We are here to genuinely leave this world a better place.

John: And you do. And all of your colleagues, I know, were committed to that. I know that very personally having worked with you guys for sixteen years or so now, which leads into, I know, one of your favorite topics, the Teen Tech Centers at Best Buy. Talking about leaving the world a better place, there’s no greater example of Best Buy’s unbelievable work creating these Teen Tech Centers across America.

Corie: Yes. So first of all, this is where I get to thank you as an incredible, again, not just a business partner, but someone who equally believes that we are here to do bigger things together and therefore, is willing to invest. And that’s what makes this model actually work. The teen tech centers really are just about access in disinvested communities. And so if you think about this idea of having access, inspiration, support, and catching kids young.

So it’s an after-school program. We try to start in middle school. And it’s really done in partnership with community leaders, and we provide all the gear. It’s all the coolest technology, it’s all the mixing equipment, it’s 3D printers, it’s graphic design, it is an ability to edit and take music videos, it is all the coolest technology gear and, in a lot of cases, in communities where this gear is simply not available. Back to your question to me about, “Did you have corporate role models?” This is taking that question and trying to institutionalize, “No, we want you to have role models. We want you to have access. Because if you have access, then you start to have belief and you start to have confidence.”

And I think the thing that really makes this special is that it’s in partnership with existing community centers. This isn’t us stomping in and dropping in a box. This is, “No, we’re going to go to a community center, we’re going to help them with the infrastructure, and they’re going to be the ones who helped lead the program.” The other part of this that’s really important to me is that in these centers, we have mentors and coaches who are going to help guide young people. And it’s everything from, “How do I interview? What does a resume look like?” They may not have families who know how to set them up for collegiate testing or what post-secondary options might be available.

And this idea of not just we’re going to throw a bunch of stuff in a room and you’re going to play with it, but having people there to help them both technically learn but also just support them, and especially in the last sixteen months, support them in a time that might be exponentially difficult. That’s the magic of the Teen Tech Centers. And where we see, we see 50% higher graduation rates in programs like these. These are tangible outcomes that you can drive and deliver really differentiated experience for these kids.

John: How many Teen Tech Centers do you have now in the United States, and where do you want to take it over the next five to ten years?

Corie: Yeah. We have thirty-five Teen Tech Centers now and we announced a goal in December to have one hundred Teen Tech Centers by 2025. And it’s partners like you that are making it happen. The good news is I think especially given what we’ve seen in the last year, plus we’re seeing a lot of interest in programs like this.

John: Sure. Switching topics now to one of your biggest competitors, but also partners in many ways, Amazon. And you have this wonderful footprint that you’ve leveraged over the years to have e-waste drop-off centers at your stores, and you’ve recycled tens of millions of pounds of electronics over the last twelve to fifteen years. Talk a little bit about that relationship with your customer base and how recycling was actually really great for business.

Corie: Since 2009, we have recycled 2 billion pounds of product. And I think this is one of those places where back to this point around environmental advocacy is our responsibility. This felt like the place that especially back in 2009, people just did not understand the damage that was being done. And for us, again, if you believe your purpose is to enrich lives through technology, that doesn’t mean I sell you stuff. That means I’m there for the life cycle of how you want to use technology in your life. And this is a really important part of the life cycle.

And the interesting part about this is, it’s also a really good business decision. I’m solving a customer problem. You know it as well as I do. Customers are sitting on gear, they know they shouldn’t just throw it in the trash. They have no idea what to do with it. And so, instead of seeing recycling as a problem, we saw it as a differentiated customer experience that can help solve an issue for them and that then we can responsibly find partners like you that we know we can trust to take care of this gear in a really responsible way. It’s not just going into pits in the middle of nowhere. This is gear that’s really going to be taken care of responsibly.

And so this wasn’t just you just do it because you have to do. No, you do it because it’s differentiated, it keeps the customer coming back, you solve real problems. And then on top of that, you also know now we have a really nice trade-in infrastructure where if it’s not ready for recycling, you can trade that product in, it can be sold in another market, and you get more value for your next gear. So this, I think there’s real power in thinking, “I’m not just here to sell you askew. I am here to help you use your tech throughout its lifecycle.” And this is just an important part of the life cycle.

John: Yeah, and tying that to, again, your ESG credibility, which is massive, it’s so funny to watch so many huge brands scramble to catch up on ESG. Meanwhile, you’ve been leading on it. Like Dick said, from the beginning of the advent of the company, puts you in a great position. Talk a little bit, though, about the layover trend that we’re all dealing with. Obviously, you’re dealing with both at the C-suite level and at the client level, this macro trend of cybersecurity and data that’s also in our electronics. And how are you dealing with that as a C-suite issue and then also thinking about it with regards to your clients as well?

Corie: I’m actually going to start with the client-side of things because you can imagine we get a lot of products back that might have data and information on it. Again, this is where our infrastructure is a really powerful tool. We have twenty thousand Geek Squad agents who are trained not just to repair but they know how to wipe things clean. Really early on, one of the things we created was real protocols, whatever the devices, because let’s remember, almost all the devices now are connected.

Almost all have some kind of password buried in there somewhere, even our TVs, right? I have about seven streaming services, seven different passwords. All those things need real thoughtful protocols. And so you want to go somewhere you respect and use a partner that you know if you’re going to return, recycle, drop off any product like that. And so for us, a real differentiator. And of course, we don’t about it every single day, but we always remind people, we will safely help you dispose of your products. And I think that’s really important.

At the C-suite level, the amount of work that we have done as a company to protect both the company but importantly, our customer’s information is incredibly immense. It’s been one of the largest investment areas we have as a company. And it’s hard, right? This isn’t something that returns for you every day. And one of the things that we have done is we’ve actually attached dollars to risk levels so that we can say, “I may not make more because I have great cybersecurity processes in place, but I avoid this risk profile over here.”

And I think, for us as leaders, it’s made it very clear just how large an impact it can be to your business when you lose your customer trust because you haven’t put the right protocols and procedures in place. And so we do tabletop exercises. We do like so many other people really intense phishing exercises. And we have an incredibly dedicated and educated team who’s working those front lines for us every single day.

John: Corie, we’re down to the last couple of minutes or so, I’d love you to share, what’s the future? I mean, you’ve now made it the first couple of years, probably the most fascinating, difficult years I’ve ever seen in my fifty-eight years on this planet, and you’ve navigated it brilliantly. There’s no better word than just saying you navigated this last two years brilliantly. As the CEO and leader of Best Buy, where’s the future? Where are you driving the future for yourself personally and also Best Buy?

Corie: I could not be more excited for this company. One of the things that are so cool about what we do at Best Buy and nobody else does it, we have all the tech gear for your life. And there are two things we do better than anyone else on the planet. We inspire and we support. We can paint you the total picture of what that tech could do for you, and we’ll be there to make sure it works and does all the things you wanted to do. And nobody else across ecosystems, across all the different devices, across all the different technologies, nobody else can do that for you.

And we have a workforce now that is being unleashed in new and amazing ways across all of our channels to be the only person who can do that for you over time. And now, with the install-base of consumer electronics that were seeing, given the life that we’ve all lived for the last sixteen months, everyone is living their lives on the back of technology. And those behaviors will be sticky and they won’t change, so it just puts us in such a unique and I think incredible position.

And the truth is this story isn’t about me. This story has to be about this amazing place. And I’ll just end with one thing, I believe my purpose on this earth, we talk a lot about our individual purpose here at Best Buy, is one of stewardship. And that is I just want to leave a place a little bit better than when I found it. And one of the things that makes me most proud is that this team, united, working every day, has somehow found a way, already, to leave this place, I think, a little bit better than when we all found it. And that makes me happy.

John: You know, I was getting ready for today’s interview and my wife said, “You seem a little nervous.” I said, “I’m not nervous per se, but I’m excited because I want this to go really right.” She goes, “That’s great.” And she goes, “Tell me why?” So I said, “Because of the sixteen hundred interviews I’ve done, maybe this is the only one that I’m going to make sure my daughter watches and hopefully, one day, my granddaughter watches.”

I’ve done a lot of interviews with a lot of new people, Corie, but you are super special. You’re inspirational. You’re making an impact. You give a whole another generation of women around the world real hope and guidance that they can, one day, be you if that’s what they want to be. And for that, I’m very grateful. I’m grateful for you taking all the time out of your very busy schedule to share some of your thoughts with us today. I’m also thankful to you for just the image that you’ve left and the impact you’re making because my granddaughter, one day, is going to look up to someone like you and say, “I want to be like her as well.”

Corie: Well, those words mean more than anything else, so thank you.

John: You’re always welcome back here. I hope to see you in person in the not too far distant future. And again, thanks for spending time with us today on Impact Podcast, Corie Barry.

This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit www.letsengage.com

John Shegerian: This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and Impact Partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. This is a super special edition of the Impact Podcast because I’ve got my great friends and business partners. The co-founders of Engage are with us here today. Jake Olson, Daniel Hennes, and Brendan Egan. Welcome guys to the Impact Podcast. It’s great to have you all together.

Brendan Egan: Thanks, John.

Jake Olsen: Thank you.

Daniel Hennes: Thank you for having us, John.

John: Before we get going and hearing the whole Engage story, and the story only seems to get better week over week, month over month, year over year, I want you guys to give a little background on yourselves for our listeners and viewers who haven’t met you yet before. Daniel, I’m going to start with you. Daniel, give a little bit about your background before we get going. We all know you’re the co-founder of Engage. Before we get into the Engage story, talk a little about your background. Where you grew up, where you went to school, and how you even got here?

Daniel: Yes. I grew up in Denver, Colorado. I started my first business when I was a junior in high school. It was a scheduling software for businesses with hourly employees. It’s a total disaster, as you might imagine. Like a bunch of high school kids with no adult guidance trying to run a business, but I learned a lot. I went through the process of building software, starting a company, and all of those things. I learned a lot and that kind of got me interested in entrepreneurship. I had always been interested in sports from a young age, and I’d always followed not just who was good, but what the business angles were and what the deals were.

So I went into college interested in sports business and entrepreneurship. I went to USC, and then, when I was at USC, I met our other co-founder who’s on this interview. I met Jake. We were random freshman year suitemates and Jake will get into it later, but he’s got a pretty unique story and background. The business and everything grew from Jake and I started to work together. I started managing and speaking in engagements. We’ll get to it later. But after he got the chance to play in his first game, his story just went viral to the point where we knew we needed a better solution and that’s what ended up coming together.

John: We’re going to get to that because I want to talk about the paying points that you saw when you started managing Jake. Jake, what’s your background? How did you even get here? Before we get to that, where’d you grow up and where did you go to high school? Talk a little about your background.

Jake: Yeah. I grew up in Huntington Beach, California. I was born and raised in Southern California. I’ve always been here now, so that’s just where I’m home-based. Daniel has since moved to Los Angeles and he was trying to copy me. But it’s okay, I’m [inaudible] only. I went to high school about twenty minutes away from Huntington Beach and Orange. A lot of people get confused, it’s all in Orange County, but there’s a city named Orange, as in Orange, Orange County. I’m not going to go too deep into it. I know a lot of people understood my story. I ended up going blind at the age of 12 due to cancer. I started trying to relearn how to live life after losing my eyesight, which included playing the sports I love; golf and football. I figured I could play those two sports without seeing and I’m finding out a way to do that. I did. I played golf for four years at the high school, and then played football in the last two years at the high school.

I was on varsity in both those sports, which was awesome. It took a lot of hard work to get there, but I played varsity in golf and varsity in football. I always wanted to go to USC. I was a huge Trojan fan growing up, again, I grew up in Southern California. I made sure I got the grades and getting the attention of being a blind football player, but also, getting the attention of the caliber of the team I played for here in Southern California. They were a good lead. We had coaches always looking at us, including Coach Sarkisian, who is the head football coach at USC at the time. He saw me snap and pretty much said, “Jake, I know you’re planning on coming here. If you do, there should be no reason why you can’t snap on the football team.” And once I knew that that opportunity existed, there was no going in any other direction. I knew I needed to go to USC. I knew I wanted to go play football there. And that’s what I did, and that’s how I ended up meeting Daniel, who did not believe that when he first read my room profile. The roommate profile that you put on going into freshman year. He thought I was a big jokester. But here we are, Daniel, this is no joke.

Daniel: You are real. I can confirm that you are real. Although sometimes I wonder if you’re blind or not, so the jury is still out on that.

John: For our listeners and viewers out there, Jake’s stories have been well told on ESPN. There is some great storytelling that’s been done most recently by Dan Murphy and a great team of producers on ESPN. We’re going to put both links to Jake’s ESPN profiles in this episode of Impact, so people could see Jake’s story, and the story of Engage as ESPN told it. Brendan, we’re going to get back to that. And Jake, I also love the fact that you give credit to the Armenians because you now have Armenians in your life with me. You started it, but we gave you real encouragement. It’s Coach Sark so we got to give a shoutout to Coach Sarkisian.

Jake: Sarkisian and Shegerian. It’s all of them.

John: All of the ians. We got you covered, kid. We got you covered. Brendan, you and I are long-time partners. But for our listeners and viewers who haven’t met you yet, talk a little bit about your background, how you got to run one of the biggest search engine optimization and online marketing companies in America, and how you got here. What’s your background?

Brendan: Awesome, John. Thanks for having us all on. Like Daniel, I started my first business when I was young. I was 19 when I started a leaf raking and snow shoveling business. I was employing 10 or 12 kids. I realized pretty quickly that if I had them to do the work, I could just run around and clip the money so it’s kind of cool. I got involved in stock trading in 2008 when the market crashed. I made a little bit of money doing that in 2009. I launched a trading education company that I sold three years later. And while I was doing that, I learned quite a bit about digital marketing. In 2012, I started a digital marketing agency here in Chicago during my senior year of college, which I’m still running and operating today. I worked with about 500 different companies doing SEO pay-per-click, email marketing websites, and everything in between. I’ve been fortunate along the way to meet some cool people, including the three fine gentlemen that are being interviewed here with me today. And I’m also the co-founder, CMO, and CTO of Engage. That’s a little bit of my background.

John: Awesome. Let’s get right into it. Daniel, you and Jake now are roommates at USC. Jake’s career in football is taking off and the media is giving him great attention so people are calling or wanting you or him to start speaking or do some public speaking. How was this idea born? What voids in the marketplace did you see to create this idea with Jake?

Daniel: Yeah. So Jake had been speaking and sharing his story ever since he was 12; when the first ESPN piece came out. So I took over managing that second half of our freshman year and it was a very manageable flow. It was a good amount, but it wasn’t overwhelming. It wasn’t a ton. And then our junior year, September 2, 2017, he got the chance to play his first game. He snapped for USC against Western Michigan and the story went super viral. So, from there, we just started getting flooded with speaking appearance requests. And as you said, people were calling USC. People were messaging his sister on Facebook. People were writing letters to his house. People were messaging me on LinkedIn.

We realized right away that the first paying point was there was no centralized way to find and book Jake. People didn’t even know if he was available for speaking. So, right away, we realized, “Okay, at scale, there’s no centralized and efficient way to do it.” And then, once you get into the actual process, I had to drive to Jake’s mom’s house in Huntington Beach to fax somebody a contract. They didn’t want it digitally scanned. This industry is so analog, but there has to be a better way of doing that. And while all of that was going on, Ryan Harris, who played in the NFL for 10 years and won a Super Bowl at the Broncos, called me because he needed help managing his speaking. He had a decent flow. So all of a sudden, I was a junior in college with two clients and had no idea what to do.

So Jake and I started looking for this platform to make our lives easier and found out that there wasn’t one. We started calling athletes, agents, and people who book speakers. We started calling everyone we knew in the industry to get a feel for their paying points. Were they experiencing the same problems and what were they doing about it? And the feedback we’ve got was like, “Yes, this process sucks, but we don’t have time. We’re not going to put in an effort to change it because it’s going to be a hard thing to disrupt,” so we said, “Okay, but we’re college kids, we’re ambitious. We do have the time. We will put in the effort to change it.” I think that was the genesis for starting Engage.

John: Jake, now with Engage, you guys realized you’re going to do something. How do you start putting together a business when you guys have not done anything on this level before and there’s a lot at stake? It’s not just going to be your money and Ryan Harris’ money. The idea is to get other young people who want to speak and are also seeing the same paying point. So explain the journey of what you were going through and how you got going.

Jake: Yes. So again, I came up with this idea. This was pretty much in the making through a couple of other ideas we may have had starting post-college like doing something that talent space. Again, we had no idea what to do and how to make the platform. We’re both business majors. It was Daniel’s childhood friend who started the first business with them. He was the CFO for Engage. He is also a computer genius. He perhaps could have built some type of code, but we all know that one-person coding would take a very long time for the extensive platform that we dreamed of. So we were just sitting on this idea and wondering what to do with it; who we’re going to talk to and who could have built it. And sure enough, we ran into one of the crazier individuals I’ve ever met, John Shegerian. He was very helpful. He’s not only willing to listen to us and hearing our dream, which had no substance or no real tangible website or anything to it.

It was just an idea. And he said, “Look, I got a partner who does deal with both websites, coding, and all of the above. Why don’t you guys filter out this idea a little more? I’ll bring it up to him and you guys can present this a little more strategically to him.” Because Brendan is kind of a hard-ass, we’d have to get an [inaudible] in order for anything to happen. And sure enough, we did that. We filtered our idea, cleaned it up, and presented it to Brendan. I think Brendan was very skeptical, but I do think he saw the same thing in Daniel and me that you did, which was, “Hey, these kids are passionate. They’re smart. They’re outgoing. They’re going to put 100% into this. And at the very minimum or the very least, something will happen. Who knows how big it will be, but something will happen. This isn’t just going to be some dud idea that dies because these kids have passion and work ethic.” So you guys took the shot to help us build that platform, which was a process, and anyone knows it was a process. I’ll let Brendan talk more about that.

Brendan: I’m not even going to say was a process. It is a process. It’s an ongoing thing.

Jake: It is a process, yes. It was really because of John and Brendan that this idea came to fruition.

John: Jake, thank you. It’s been nothing but a joy working with both of you, young guys, ever since I met you. I’m going to go back to that in a little while. Brendan, take it from there. I call you up after I meet with these young guys in their USC commissary. and I said, “I think I got something here. I want you to talk with these guys.” Talk about your first conversation with them. How you processed it and put it through your algorithm. How you like to build things that are proprietary and special things that nobody else has done before. How did that whole process work? Walk us through your version of how these beginnings worked and what you’ve built as some great intellectual property for Engage.

Brendan: Before I talk about the platform, John, I have to say Jake hit the story. I think it’s given now that maybe he was a little kinder than he usually is. I remember having a 30-minute call with Jake and Daniel and getting off the call. And I remember you called me about 8 times during the call to check in and see how it was going. You caught up afterward, and I go, “Only five.”

John: [inaudible]. It’s exaggerated.

Brendan: It’s exaggerated by three.

John: We call it five.

Brendan: [inaudible], “John, you just introduced me to a kid who is 21 and 15 and a blind football player. Neither one of which knows anything about technology and running a business and I’ll invest a massive amount of time, resources, and money into democratizing the talent booking industry with them?” and you go, “Yes. I’m glad you get it.”

John: Yes. We’re all the way. Here we go.

Brendan: And I go, “Wow, you’re crazier than even I thought.” And after you twisted my arm for a day or two, and after I slept on it, I realized that not only was the idea a great idea, but we’re sitting on a cool opportunity with two unique and young entrepreneurs. You reminded me that there was a day, not that long ago, where I was a young kid and getting the door slammed in my face. So, you and I talked, and we said, “You know what? Let’s give this a go. What’s the worst that can happen?” And here we are, two and a half years later, on a thriving business platform that has over 7,500 man-hours into building it. Some of the biggest partners in the talent booking space, 2200 plus talents, a live stream solution, pop-up events, sweepstakes, and pubs.

All of these different cool tools that we built are proprietary to Engage that if you asked me two and a half years ago, this would already be in the middle of 2021, I would have said you’re crazy. It’s been a fast bond and exciting two and a half years since we’ve built what I think is the best platform in the space. It’s something we’ve all talked about. There’s definitely going to be a Burger King to our McDonald’s one day, but we’re two and a half to three years ahead of them, so I think we have something special here.

Daniel: Here’s a question since Brendan [inaudible] to answer questions. I’ve always wanted to know this. How many man-hours did you think it would take going into it versus how many you’ve put in?

Brendan: I’ve been doing this, Daniel, for 10 plus years so I know everything takes three times longer than you think.

Daniel: Yes. But even, what was that?

Brendan: Everything is over budget, over time, over price, and everything, right?

Daniel: Yeah.

Brendan: The reality is that we could have built this and decide we’re done with it, right? We could have said, “Hey, you can book talents,” and that’s it, right?

Daniel: Yes. Our original specs were much different.

Brendan: So we’ve built [inaudible] that have made Engage what it is. I’m excited every day. Like every day our team has new ideas. You guys do, I do, and John does. We’re happy to keep supporting this awesome platform because not only is it fun and cool exciting, but it’s what sets us apart.

Daniel: Great. I think that’s what’s unique. The original proposal that we sent and what we have now is just so different. It’s so different. It’s not even close. It’s really funny.

Brendan: And honestly, Daniel, Jake, and John, we have a platform that is the Uber and the Airbnb of our space.

John: Yes, absolutely.

Brendan: Logically speaking, we are so far ahead of anyone else in our industry. And that’s part of why we’re as successful as we are and why we get the attention that we get. It’s because we have the solution and the framework to do anything. And when an agency, talent, or when someone comes to us with a crazy idea, the answer isn’t no, the answer is always, “We can build that.”

Jake: Yeah.

Brendan: I think we have something unique. We have a cool and unique team in place that I’m excited about what the future holds for Engage.

John: So now, Daniel, just tee it up. You’re on an elevator on the ground floor and the thing is going to the 23rd floor. If someone on the elevator says, “What do you do, young man?” and you say you’re the co-founder and CEO of Engage, and the guy looks at you and says, “What’s Engage?” Answer that for our audience. And for our audience out there, to find Engage, go to www.letsengage.com. Explain what Engage is and explain where we are now after the launch; as we’re starting to grow, how we’ve grown, and what things are looking like today.

Daniel: That’s about 15 questions in one, so if I miss anything, let me know. So if I’m on the ground floor, going on the first part, in one sentence; Engage is a platform that digitizes the process of talent-making money doing what they enjoy. That means a few things. First and foremost, our core business is to help digitize booking talent for a speaking engagement. So, everything from signing contracts to negotiating to process payments can all be done through our platform. So by putting the process online and building a marketplace that allows talent that wasn’t getting attention or wasn’t getting service from their agent or agency to get booked. It allows companies that would have no way of finding them to book them. That’s the first core part of our business.

The second part of our business is the sweepstakes aspect. For example, we have someone on the Yankees, Kyle Higashioka, who’s passionate about supporting the military. So, on our platform, he’s giving fans the chance to pay and enter for the chance to win his autographed jersey, his autographed catcher’s gear, and he’s donating 100% of the entry fees to the charity. So talents can use our platform to do speaking events. Talents can use our platform to raise money for charity. Another window is our live stream features. Virtual events are not going away. Talents like doing them and companies like doing them. We have our proprietary live stream. You know one of our actor clients, Manny Montana, he loves interacting with his fans.

Our platform is the only thing out there where he can securely list his prices, get booked for the stream, and do the stream all through our platform. He doesn’t have to download an app. He doesn’t have to send out a Zoom. We have this live stream option. And then we also have the ability for talent to put on their events. One of our agency partners came to us, and said, look, “One of our NBA guys is doing a camp. We have no idea how to handle the ticketing, the payments, and the terms and conditions. Can you guys do that?” and the answer is, yes. So whatever the talent wants to do, we can help them make money doing it.

John: So you’re saying it’s a marketplace for talents who want to be public speakers and beyond. And also, for people who want to book and need speakers anywhere in the United States or around the world, they can book them through Engage?

Daniel: Right. Because one of the hardest things is finding them and figuring out how to contact them. We’re the only platform out there where they can find and book them and know that when they submit a request that they’re talking to them or their agent. There’s no sketchy middle man. There’s no rip-off. We’re big on transparency.

Brendan: There’s more about that because that’s something. I remember when you and I first met, I told you I was throwing a big birthday celebration, and we’re trying to hire some major league players to come in.

Daniel: Some [inaudible], right?

Brendan: Yeah. We had a good budget. We wanted to spend 10 or 15 grand on it. We reached out to some speakers bureaus and they took 3 or 4 weeks and got back to us with like, “We’re working with their agent. It’s this, that, the other,” and they had every excuse in the book. They finally came back to us in Chicago, and they’re like, “Hey, why don’t you hire this guy?” and I’m like, “I don’t want to hire a Philadelphia Flyer to come to a Chicago event. Are you out of your mind?” So talk a little bit more about that, Dan. I think it’s important for people to understand why Engage is different from a talent perspective.

Daniel: Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up. Because if you’re not in the industry and you haven’t experienced it, you don’t understand it. Right now, if you wanted to go book, even if you Google, “Book Terrell Owens”, the websites that pop up aren’t necessarily websites representing Terrell or know Terrell, or anything like that. They’re just a website that puts his photo on the site and says, “Contact us for availability.” And what happens is, you contact them for availability, and they will do one of two things. It’s either they will go try to track down Terrell’s actual agent, and in the process, there’s this middleman and their business is getting in the middle, they’re marking you up about 30%. So you’re already paying 30% more. It’s either they will go try to track down Terrell’s agent or they have no idea who Terrell’s agent is so they will tell you, “Thank you so much for reaching out. Terrell is unavailable, but we have this other guy instead,” who they know and they’re marking you upon him. So, Terrell, never even knew the deal was happening and he never knew the true budget, and you are being marked up an obscene amount.

I mean, one of our agent friends, he’s Barry Sanders’ agent, he’ll call an agency that lists Barry Sanders on their website, and say, “Hi, I run XYZ company. I’d like to book Barry Sanders. What are his fees?” and the agent always tells me the same thing. They will go, “Barry’s not a very good speaker, but we have Thurman Thomas. You should book Thurman Thomas instead,” and he’s like, “Okay. What is your agency name? Where are you located?” And then they answer and then he sends them a cease and desist letter. Because agents hate other people listing and misrepresenting their guys and clients. As you say, you have no way of even knowing that until years later, but clients and people wanting to book this talent have no idea how much they’re getting ripped off, how much time they could be saving, or how they never even have any chance of getting the guy to begin with. So by creating a marketplace that focuses on trust and transparency, we list all of our agency partners and advertisers that clients can book with confidence and that agents and talent know that their guys are not misrepresented.

John: Tell them, Jake, who are the types of talents on Engage? What type of companies has been booking the talent for speaking events? Give a little taste of what kind of talent and what kind of corporations or other organizations have been booking the talent over the years since we’ve launched.

Jake: Yeah, I was just going to piggyback off of Daniel because you have never gotten that out in 23 floors, Daniel.

Daniel: Right.

Jake: The first part is we help monetize what talents love doing. And that’s true. “Find, book, experience,” is our slogan. The word experience is important because you say speaking engagement, but what is a speaking engagement? What’s an experience? An experience for the audience to hear what you have to say and feel what you want to have them feel in that speech. So, yes, we do speaking engagements. But to Daniel’s point, we do sweepstakes and pop-up events, and those are also experiences. So to break it all down, although the biggest experience we help book is for speaking engagements, we do allow and help be the curator for the booking process of talent getting monetized for what they do and bringing experiences to customers.

I think that’s the best way to put it. Experience is something I think we should focus on because it is more than just speaking engagement. All speaking engagement is an experience. To answer your question, who have we helped from a talent standpoint and who we have from a company standpoint experience the talent, that all comes back down to what we’re talking about. It’s cool to see some of these talents that we knew would be our wheelhouse when we built this platform. These talents have great stories. They have their fan group. It may not be a huge fan group, but they have great stories. They’re professionals. They’re experts on their topics. They have something to go out and say, but they might not be on TV all of the time. They’re not an A-lister. They don’t have a morning talk show. You’re not going to see them throwing touchdowns on Sunday all of the time.

But these individuals have a marketplace to go out and speak to that company in your town that has 100 employees or 50 employees and we want to motivate those employees. Well, guess what? Both the company and talent need the ability to be booked and to have them be booked without an agent taking up an hour of his day taken away from that person who’s throwing touchdowns every Sunday or the person with the morning talk show. How do we do that? We created Engage. We represent a lot of A-list, but again, our majority is B-list and C-list individuals who have books and who speak a lot but you don’t know them. We do corporations who are big, but also those corporations and companies that want that 5, 10, 15 thousand dollar speaker for their annual sales meeting or for their quarterly sales meeting that you haven’t even heard of. But guess what? Those employees matter just as much as Apple’s employees you are paying $150,000 to get the star in there. It just needs to be at a different scale and that’s what we’ve done.

John: Jake, you not only have athletes and entertainers, but you also have people like Jessica Mendoza, Sarah Spain, and Martin Luther King III.

Jake: Right. We have those big A-list talent because it’s like what Daniel was just talking about. They love the transparency. They love the honesty. The anecdote that he used was Barry Sanders and Thurman Thomas. But guess what? Those are both A-list talents and they don’t like to screw up a deal.

John: Right.

Jake: So we do help the A-list talent, but the majority of our deals are for those individuals who are not going to be focused on by those main agencies and they need us. They really need us.

John: And the clients on the buy-side are big corporations, such as Bank of America, SpaceX, and other dozens and dozens of huge brands that need great quality speakers that are done in an honest and transparent way.

Daniel: Yeah. They need to receive the same attention whether they have 50 grand or 5 grand. And that was where our platform comes in.

John: Brendan, talking about the platform and the technology. I know you’re a humble guy, but you’ve built brilliant technologies. And not only for Engage, but dozens of others clients over the last 10 years. Let’s talk about Engage now. Why is Engage technology so good? How did you create it and set us up for success from a technological perspective? What makes it so unique?

Brendan: I think any coder can build a good piece of technology if they know what they’re doing, but the challenge is finding what you need to build to fill a void in the marketplace. I think we were able to do two things. One, we’re able to take our highly talented team of developers and build a superior technological solution that’s proprietary and flexible that can morph as we needed to make use of it. But I think even more important than that is that we’ve built this with talent and for the talent. So we consulted with Jake, Daniel, and dozens of our talent advisors. And with booking companies, people that are doing the bookings, and consumers.

We understood what they’re looking for in a platform and what their paying points are. We’re the only solution out there that fills that void. We’re the only place where you can go and view 2000 plus people. Negotiate and contact them online. Pay online, arrange travel, and all of the various components of doing a booking. It sounds crazy, but we’re the only place you can do that right now online with [inaudible] account that we have. So I think it’s as much the technology solution as it is listening and understanding what the needs are of the people in this space, including those needs.

Daniel: That’s so well said, yes.

John: So now, guys, let’s change topics but stay on the line of a technological solution. That’s the superior technical solution. We’re all getting through to the other side of the tragic COVID-19 period that the whole world has been affected by. What happened to our business when COVID-19 hit? How did we evolve, and not only survive but thrive through it and come out on the other side as a better company? Jake and Daniel, explain what happened and how you guys got through it from both a talent perspective and a partnership perspective? it’s representing some of the greatest names in the entertainment and the sports industry and became the go-to technological solution for everyone on both sides of the equation.

Jake: Daniel, you can talk about how we contacted the agents and the talent, and they were doing nothing because there was nothing to do.

Daniel: Exactly. That’s exactly the thing. For the first time in human history, every author, athlete, speaker, musician, entertainer, and agent, we’re all unemployed at the same time. So I think we realized very early on with COVID that we had a captive audience. So as Jake said, we said, “Look, we’re well-funded,” even you and all of our other advisers were like, “Don’t worry about things you can’t control. Revenue’s not going to be there for the next few months. Focus on what you can control.” So we went out and we reached out to every agency, every talent, every guy imaginable, and we leveraged all of the contacts we had. And going into COVID, we had 300 people on the platform. Now, we have 2200 because what happened is agencies shrunk. A lot of them had to lay people off. They lost the manpower.

John: Talk to us about who. Give our listeners and viewers who are not in that world what kind of agencies we are talking about.

Daniel: We’re talking about some of the biggest in the world. CAA laid off hundreds of employees. WME and UTA. I mean, there was a spreadsheet going on that I was given access to, of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in our industry who’d been laid off. And we sort of said, “Okay, there’s this unique opportunity,” because COVID accelerated the digitization of a lot of industries. Agents were very open to technology and very open to ideas. So we did two things. One, we seized on the moment with agents and talent. And two, we’ve built new technology. We didn’t have a live stream software going into COVID so we’ve built one. We redesigned the whole website. We restructured the whole homepage. We controlled everything we could control.

So that now, even though we’re still in COVID, these last few months have all record revenue months even before COVID. Because we’ve laid the groundwork and we’re still laying the groundwork. But I think the key was just understanding. Whenever there’s a pandemic, it’s like, “Ignore the things you can’t control and just do everything in your power.” I mean, Jake and I were always figuring out what agents can we be reaching out to. Like who do we know, what can we talk about, what can we be brainstorming on, and how do we build new technology? We did those two things and it put us in a good spot. Jake, do you think I’ve missed anything there?

Jake: No.

Daniel: All right.

Jake: I think just from a philosophy standpoint, as you said, that was tactical; what we did there. But from a philosophy standpoint, to answer your question, John. Yes. We kind of roll with the punches. We didn’t feel sorry for ourselves that we are a talent booking and event booking platform and there were no more events allowed. In those moments, you can freak out and you can panic, but we kept our heads down and said we can still control it. And as we weathered the storm, we know that when this eventually lifts and when the storm is over, we want to be in the best possible position. All of our ducks are lined up in a row so we can capitalize on the boom that we’re seeing now.

John: And it’s not only that. Brendan, you’ve built out some new technologies for the sweepstakes, for the online events, and also using AI. Do you want to talk about some of the technologies you’ve built out during the pandemic that continues to set Engage apart from everybody else?

Brendan: We’ve built some cool stuff, John. The biggest thing about the pandemic was our live stream. We’re doing some meetings right now in Zoom so I think Zoom has become a household name. I think it wasn’t a year ago, but it is now. Zoom is not built for having speeches and having experiences with talent, so we’ve built a cool live stream that’s 100% of our platform. It supports up to 250 attendees where talent can give a speech or whatever it is. They can pop into a birthday party or whatever they get hired for. They do it all through our platform. People can join from their computer or mobile phone or tablet where they have internet access. And what’s cool about is it keeps track of how much time the person purchased. If they want to extend it longer, they can do that on the fly. Our live stream platform, they can record it and get a copy of the recording after the fact. Talent can easily manage people who are in there and answer questions. So it’s just a solution built for talent and consumers. It’s much more specific than Zoom. That was one of our cool things.

In addition, as Daniel mentioned, our platform was about a year old at that point. I think we had a much deeper understanding of the needs of our customers. So, during the pandemic, we rebuilt our platform from the ground up; both visually and technologically. There’s a lot of cool behind-the-scenes upgrades that went into that. There are a lot of new features and a lot of things that streamlined the process of booking talent. And more recently, we rolled out some cool AI solutions, where we have the data now to understand who gets the most booked on our platform and who is most likely to fit the needs of certain consumers. So we have a simple 7-step questionnaire that consumers can come to our website and answer. And based on their results, our AI will pair them with the talent that is most likely to fit the needs they have based on their budget, their location, and other factors that we factored into it.

In addition to that, our team still manually reviews those requests and helps to override that AI if it has to and get some hand-curated selection. We have built some cool things and I think we’re just scratching the tip of the iceberg. I think as time goes on, as we continue to grow, we’re going to have a new fun and exciting solutions that we’ll continue to roll out.

John: We have many macro trends right now that are tailwinds for us and the wind at our back. What’s one macro trend for each of you that you’re excited about? That’s the wind at our back and that’s giving us great momentum going into the second half of 2021 into 2022. Daniel, you take one, Jake, and then Brendan.

Daniel: Yes. I think the first trend and the one that excites me the most, is talent getting more comfortable with direct-to-fan monetization. Meaning, they don’t need any company to come and book them and they don’t need anyone to tell them how to monetize. If you have a hundred thousand followers, our platform can help you make money via sweepstakes or a pop-up event. And there’s been an explosion because of great companies like Cameo and Open Doors. There’s been a great explosion in talent comfort level with going directly to fans. It used to be seen as salesy or there are worse words for it. But now, not only it’s accepted, but it’s expected that talent wants to engage in this way, and it’s expected that the talent will connect with their fans on a more personal level. I’m excited about that trend because we’re seeing it grow every day and we’re so well-positioned to capitalize on that.

John: Jake, what trend gets you excited the most about tailwinds for Engage, for us, in the second half of 2021 going into 2022?

Jake: Yeah. As Daniel said, I think there’s going to be a trend in companies and talent wanting to be in person again. I think there have been some interesting and powerful conversations that we’ve had with business leaders and heads of corporations as well as people who are in the industry of different spaces to be booked. Conference centers or restaurant upper rooms or whatever are saying, “We’re just booked out for two years. We have just been booked out.” We know that everyone is trying to get their employees back in one room. They’re trying to get them motivated. They’re trying to put on these experiences to get morale back up and to get people feeling like they’re part of something bigger. We’re going to capitalize on that demand now. And the big one that, as you mentioned earlier on in this podcast, what we’re recognized for now is capturing this name image likeness with the NCAA, which is going to be big for us in the fact that there’s this whole new billion-dollar market opening up. There’s a ton of new talent opening up and all of those talents want to be able to have a constructive way to make money doing what they love, which again, back to what Daniel said is what we do.

John: Well, Jake, hold on for one second. For our listeners and viewers who just joined us, we’ve got 3 out of 6 co-founders of Engage. We’ve got Jake Olson, Daniel Hennes, and Brendan Egan. If you want to find Engage and if you want to become a speaker on the platform or book one of their speakers on their great platform, go to www.letsengage.com. Go back to NIL, Name Image, and Likeness. What does that even mean, Jake? What is the NCAA changing its stance on Name, Image, and Likeness? How revolutionary is that? How is Engage going to taking advantage of that? Talk a little bit about the fascinating new partnership Engage has with Open Doors.

Jake: Yes, absolutely. So, again, Name, Image, Likeness is something that has been prohibited from NCAA since pretty much its inception. They’re not allowing athletes, college athletes, student-athletes, and they would like you to say, to make money based on their name, image, or likeness. So just because you play a sport and are well recognized, sell jerseys in the university library, and you’re on Sports Center, and you have a million Twitter or Instagram followers, you can’t monetize any of that. You won’t see a dime of any of that.

John: And meanwhile, universities are making a fortune off of these athletes playing top-level sports. Okay.

Jake: Universities are making a ton of money, conferences are making a ton of money, and NCAA is making a ton of money. Head coaches are making a ton of money and everyone’s making money, except the actual employees. It’s what we kind of call them because that’s pretty much what they are if everyone’s making money off of them. They’re not making a dime. So we’re not going to salary. We’re not going to discuss that everyone should get this much amount money because this is a percentage of the revenue. Let’s kind of drop all of that nonsense for now and let’s focus on what is an easy solution to at least allow fairness, in my opinion, with these student-athletes. And that is allowing them to make money off of what they are known for doing, which is playing their sport. And that it won’t prohibit them from playing the sport that’s on a distraction, we don’t want that to happen because they’re well known for playing their sport well. But we also want them to enjoy the reward and reap what they sow, which a lot, in this case, is fame and popularity. They should be able to capitalize on that.

That’s what we’re going to be taking advantage of, helping these student-athletes. Again, one, guiding them so that they don’t become money hungry. They don’t forfeit what they’re there for, which is playing a sport. That comes first. Two, understanding that there’s a crazy world. There are going to be many people telling them things and trying to pitch them on these brilliant, amazing, and new wonderful things that are never going to come to fruition, which will only cost them money at the end of the day. And three, allowing them to have a platform as we do for all of our other talents. That is critical on honesty, critical on transparency, and allows them to see what is going on. And having an ability to feel those requests, just like what Daniel did when I was in college, and execute those requests easily and efficiently.

John: And who’s better than you guys? Because you guys are freshly minted two and a half years out of college to be their trusted advisors. They’re going to relate to you guys the most and are you going to relate to them the most.

Daniel: And Jake lived it so it’s even better. It’s even better because Jake lived it and made money in college so I think you’re right.

John: Daniel, you’re so right about living it. Take us a little bit into it. Give a little bit of a highlight of the great partnership you and Jake did with Open Doors. Who is Open Doors? Why is that so important to the NIL opportunity for everybody here?

Daniel: Yes. Open Doors is a platform. I would say Dabo Swinney, the coach of Clemson, called them the Nike of the Name, Image, and Likeness world. They’re the best company in the world in that space. What they do is they are a platform that helps with a few things. The first is education. They’re partnered with universities to handle their compliance and their education so they have access to hundreds of thousands of student-athletes. They also have a deals platform for social media appearances and social media endorsements. You can go on Open Doors and book an athlete to do a tweet or an Instagram post.

We’re partnered with them. You can go to Open Doors and also book an athlete to do a speaking engagement or get an athlete to do a sweepstake. So we’re coming in to help Open Doors on the speaking side and the sweepstake side. And they’re helping us by giving us access to their hundreds of thousands of student-athletes and helping us emerge as thought leaders. We’ll be teaching a master class on speaking. It’s a win-win for everyone. We get access to hundreds of thousands of kids with the company that’s best in breed in the education and compliance space. And they get a platform that brings more revenue opportunities to their student-athletes.

John: I got it. And just recently, the NCAA lost their case in front of the Supreme Court, 9 to nothing, on keeping the Name, Image, Likeness from actually being democratized. What’s happened in the last couple of days? Explain. Are all 50 states going to get this? Where’s NIL? Where is it going in the days and weeks ahead? Jake?

Jake: Yeah. The Supreme Court just lead into what they say could end up having a Supreme Court rule on this thing with Name, Image, and Likeness. The Supreme Court was ruling on allowing these student-athletes to enjoy benefits such as laptops or other school materials and not putting a cap on that, which I think is just absurd. I don’t know why that was even a thing. But again, it opens the door for just how damning and critical that a lot of the justices were on the NCAA and what they thought of how they’ve been operating over the last 60 years. So that’s going to be interesting to see if it ever does go to the Supreme Court. I know there’s a lot of court cases are coming up again, but again, we’ve got a little taste or a little flavor of what the Supreme Court thinks of NCAA. And if you’re in NCAA, you are not feeling too happy about those upcoming cases. So in terms of what we’ll see, there’s a couple of state legislators that have created some legislation that will go into effect tomorrow.

Daniel: It’s all in the 50 states now.

Jake: Yeah, I know, but there’s actual state legislation in six states that have allowed this. The NCAA smartly was like, “We don’t want this become a, you’re in this state, you can do this. You’re in that state, you can do that,” given that there are universities in every state. They should never let it get to this, but I guess they did so they had to come up with a solution. Now, their solution is to at least override their rules for the time being and they have these impromptu rules of allowing NIL in all 50 states.

John: Brendan, what macro trend are you most excited about that’s a tailwind for us? How do we plan to scale and grow Engage in the months and years ahead? Brendan, how big can this be in your mind?

Brendan: It can get as big as any of us want it to be, John. I think the sky is the limit. We think that the speaking market alone is a multibillion-dollar market and I think it’s venturing into complimentary markets. Things like NCAA, sweepstakes, and live streams, I think it’s a multi-billion dollar potential. I’m most excited, John, about the opportunity of the market itself, but I’m also most excited about the convergence fact; that people are finally adapting technology to do things like book talent. You may not know this, but Uber, which we all think is kind of, you know? Many would think that Uber has reached its peak, but from 2016 to 2019, Uber tripled its revenue. It’s the same thing with Airbnb. They’ve been around for quite a while, from 2016 to 2019, Airbnb tripled their revenue. They’ve gained about 6 billion dollars in 2019 and Uber did about 14 billion dollars. So we’re talking about markets not related to us, but we’re talking about technology disrupting legacy industries. And I think that we are well-situated to be the disrupter in the talent booking space and I think that the opportunity ahead of us is as big as we want it to be.

John: Can this company become a multi-billion dollar venture? Can this become the next technological unicorn, Brendan? Is it going to be that big?

Brendan: I don’t think it’s, “Can,” I think it’s, “When will it,” John. I think it’s a matter of how long it’s going to take us to reach that point and reach that type of scale. I think the growth that we’ve seen over the last two years has surpassed all of our expectations. I think that where we’re going to be in another two years or another four years, to me, it’s almost scary to think about it. I think it’s going to be fast growth. I think we have a wonderful team in place. I think we have a wonderful idea with wonderful technology and wonderful people behind it. We have wonderful talents and wonderful partners. I think it’s the convergence of everything that makes for a good company for rapid growth.

John: I wouldn’t want this episode to go by without mentioning our other great colleagues and partners; Mike Coulson and Noah Schwartz. All have a huge hand in birthing and growing Engage. So again, a huge shout-out to both Noah and Mike. Daniel, there’s a lot of exciting things going on right now regarding Engage, in terms of growth, but growth doesn’t come without a price. I know there’s going to be some fundraising in the weeks and months ahead. Talk a little bit about the weeks and months ahead as we go into July 2021, going on the second half of 2021, and start thinking about 2022 and beyond. What’s going to be happening regarding fundraising to fuel our growth and all of the opportunities coming in our direction right now?

Daniel: Yes, I think we look at it and say, “Okay, fundraising is the best way to accelerate business growth.” We see the return that we’re getting on our limited marketing spend. We see what we’re doing with two full-time employees and we’re like, “Okay. If we want to scale as quickly as possible, we just need to raise more capital.” So starting in the middle of July, we’re going to start our seed round. We’ll raise a 2 million dollar round from a mix of angels, strategics, and agents. And then, from there, we’ll hire a couple more people. We’ll expand our team and we’ll be off and running. Because of all the macro tailwinds we just talked about and all of the forces trending in our direction, we need to go out and raise this money now so that we have the resources to capitalize right away and not miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime convergent of forces. So I think that is our thinking as we go out to raise money and we’ve got a really good list of people who want to be part of the journey.

John: Are people are reaching out to you saying they want to invest? How does that work?

Daniel: We’ve got a great mix of people reaching out to us. We’ve got a great mix of people who we’ve had conversations with and are reaching out too. It’s exciting. It always gets easier and easier to raise capital. The first round is brutal, right? You’re sitting at a USC dining hall, and you have no business. And then you grow a little bit this, and then it’s a little less hard. And then you get to the point where we’ve gotten to now, where we have people coming to us saying, “Hey, we know what you’re doing. We see it. It’s become more mainstream now. How can we be part of it? Is there room for us to get in?” Which is a much more exciting conversation to have than the first time. So yes, are people coming to us and asking to be part of it.

John: You know, Jake, this is a great business story. This is a great sports story. You, in many ways, are the Rocky Balboa of your generation; in beating cancer and beating all of the odds. But there’s another side of the story, one that I wrote about last week. I’m going to attach that letter for the people who follow me, Impact Podcast, and ERI. That goes about, one of the other reasons Brendan and I got behind you and Daniel, was also the chance to make a big difference and make a huge opportunity to create change that hasn’t been done before. We’ve always felt that. Why should all of the leaders of technological disruption companies and technological unicorns be guys that look like Zuckerberg or Bezels when Sara Blakely and other wonderful entrepreneurs should be celebrated? Why aren’t there any entrepreneurs being celebrated that don’t look perfect like you or me or Jeff Bezos or Sara Blakely?

And you happen to be blind and handicapped. There are 61 million people that are handicapped that don’t have the hope that they can break through or be part of the entrepreneurial American dream. And now, with you leading with Daniel this successful venture, that chance is going to be realized. You will be their hope and you will represent light to the 61 million disabled people just in this country. Of course, other people around the world are going to be watching, that is also not perfect. But not perfect doesn’t mean that they don’t have something huge to offer. How do you feel about being a huge icon for a generation of handicapped people? Not only in the United States but around the world, 61 million-plus, then can now become part of the entrepreneurial dream just like Jake Olson.

Jake: Yes, I think it’s a huge opportunity, John. As you said, as we grow and get this more off the ground and solidify ourselves as that huge tech company, people can see our progress. There’s going to be a huge opportunity to have that conversation with a lot of people and saying, “Hey, why did you choose a blind person? As you said, a disabled person, who couldn’t maybe do something that a sighted person could do. You knew that there’s going to be more challenges or a different way of doing it.” And your answer is going to be very important to other leaders, as you said, there are gentlemen and women that we are so used and accustomed to seeing out there. You are saying, “Look, I took a chance on this because I looked past that disability. I looked past what was in front of me and I looked at the individual for who they were. They were smart. They were passionate. They were courageous. They knew what they were wanting and I knew that individual was going to go get it regardless of the path you took to get it.”

That’s a very important thing. A lot of people need to understand that just because someone doesn’t do something the same way you do it or has been done throughout history, it doesn’t mean that we marginalize or completely excommunicate this population or the certain people from ever having a job that we deem only can be held by certain people like you said. So it’s going to be a huge opportunity and responsibility for us to share that because it is very troubling to see the unemployment numbers that are in the disabled community. There shouldn’t be these numbers, given that the vast majority of them have a place to work. We all know the meaning, the purpose, the hard work, and the joy that working gives you. And for someone not to have that for the sole reason that there are other people on this planet saying, “You can’t do that,” or, “We don’t think you can do that,” that’s got to be disappointing and frustrating for those individuals.

I’ve known people who’ve been brought in for interviews and the employer finds out they’re blind and they’re ghosted. They never called again. They’re pushed out because the employer would rather have a sighted person than a blind person. Unfortunately, that’s just the world we live in, but we’re changing that, John, Brendan, and Daniel. So thank you for taking that responsibility on and we’re only going to take on more of that responsibility as we grow.

Daniel: There’s something you said a while ago when we were freshmen about this, that I think just stuck with me and I think is important. It’s like, just because you’re disabled, you can do everything that a normal person can do. Your mind works. You can do everything. Sometimes, you just have to find a different way and people need to be willing to see the value in finding a different way and understanding that. It’s like you took Calculus, you just had to do it all in your head. You can do all of those things. You just have to find a different way to do it. So I hope people understand that there is more than one way of doing things. And when you work with people to find a different way, great things happen. John and Brendan found a different way. It resonated with me so I wanted to make sure that got mentioned.

Brendan: And I think I can add to that. I mean, there are things that Jake does that amaze me every day compared to someone who can see, right?

Daniel: Exactly.

Brendan: Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. One of the coolest things working with you guys that I experienced over the last three years is just the uniqueness and the ways that Jake thinks of things that are different and that brings tremendous value to our company that we wouldn’t have if you could see.

Daniel: Well said. It’s an advantage. It’s a huge advantage and not a disadvantage.

John: Two things, guys. First of all, Jake might have more visions sometimes than people that have eyes. That’s true. Second of all, it gets also pushed under the rug and as sort of a sidebar to the core story. But in one of the ESPN profiles on Jake, it’s very clear. Jake got into two universities, USC, which he went to, but he also got into a very small but sort of known university called Harvard, which he turned away from. He didn’t get into Harvard because he just was Jake Olson. He got into Harvard because of his great grades and because of his work ethic. So the fact that he got into Harvard and USC and chose USC, again, what makes Jake great is that anything he undertakes, he over-delivers on. And that’s why another great part of Engage continues to succeed. It’s because of you, Daniel, because of Jake, and of course, because of Brendan.

I just want to thank you all for today’s interview. We’re going to continue to tell the Engage story as we evolve it over time. I’m going to continue to have you guys back on and share different views of what’s happening and how we’re growing this thing for all our listeners and viewers out there. If you want to learn more about Engage, if you’re a speaker and want to join or if you have an organization that wants to book one of our great speakers, please visit www.letsengage.com. Daniel Hennes, Jake Olson, and Brendan Egan. You’re not the only three great partners of mine. You’re also three of my best friends on the planet. Thank you for being part of this great journey. It’s just an honor to have you guys on the Impact Podcast today.

Daniel: Thank you, John.

Jake: Thank you, John.

Brendan: Thank you, John.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit www.letsengage.com

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Trajectory Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities to develop solar energy projects with strong, local support. For more information on how Trajectory is leading the solar revolution please visit trajectoryenergy.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m so honored to have with us today Cara Libby. She’s the principal technical leader at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Welcome to Impact, Cara.

Cara Libby: Thank you, John. It’s a pleasure to be here.

John: And today, because of the marvels of technology, even though we’re having the conversation, like, we’re in the same room, I happened to be in Fresno, California and you’re in Virginia in the United States. Is that true?

Cara: That is true, just outside of our nation’s capital.

John: I love it. You know, Cara before we get talking about all the important work you and your colleagues are doing at the Electric Power Research Institute, I love you to share a little bit about the Cara Libby story. How you even got here, where you grew up, and how you evolved to this kind of role in making us a better country and doing the important work you’re doing at EPRI?

Cara: Thanks, John. Well, I have a background in mechanical engineering and I became very interested in pursuing renewable energy. So, I started my career at GE Global Research Center looking at hydrogen production technologies building electrolyzers in a lab. And a few years later, there was an opportunity to come to Afri and look at Solar Technologies. So, I studied various issues around different technology options, what they cost, how they perform reliability over their lifetimes. And in the past several years, I got more interested in environmental aspects of solar. So, that’s where a lot of my attention is now and particularly around end-of-life issues for solar. How do we look at decommissioning and recycling reuse opportunities and how to solar fit into circular economy.

John: That’s great. And where did you grow up, Cara?

Cara: I grew up in Northeast Ohio.

John: Wow! So, you’re right smack from the middle of the United States. Pretty much.

Cara: The heart land.

John: The heartland. So, solar panels historically have been given an interesting the Green Halo reputation of being potentially one of the savior’s of saving us lots of carbon emissions and making our economy and our grid green. Do they deserve that reputation? Are they as green as everybody thinks? You know, when we watch television and Bloomberg now everything’s going ESG Investments linear to the circular economy. Are solar panels still with all that green halo and are they the Panacea that we all think they are with regards to turning our economy to a green economy?

Cara: Well, we have it all-of-the-above strategy and so, solar is part of the equation but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a Panacea.

John: Okay.

Cara: You’re right, as a renewable energy source, solar is relatively clean and green but there are of course impact that need to be considered from an environmental standpoint risks that need to be managed properly as we continue to deploy it.

John: And you know, as we both know, when you’re sitting closer to the epicenter of all the new administration but by the administration is really focusing on ESG, the Green Revolution, the linear to Circular economy strategies. And one of the things they’ve talked about is of course, reducing our carbon emissions to by 2030 to levels well, 50% below the 2005 levels. Talk a little bit about how achievable that goal is and what you’re doing in EPRI to be part of that huge huge sea of change that we’re about to go under here in the United States.

Cara: Yeah, that goal set by the Biden Administration equates to a tube gigaton reduction in the US’ annual energy-related emissions by 2030. If we look back from 2005 to 2020, we reduced energy-related emissions by 1 gigaton. So, as we look ahead, we have to accelerate from that pace of one gigaton over 15 years to one gigaton over five years. So, it’s a 3x acceleration that we’re going to need to achieve that target. And that requires economy-wide decarbonization not just the power sector. We know that the power sector is undergoing a massive shift in the way we generate and distribute electricity. We’re seeing coal plants retiring and a lot of investment in renewables were hearing utilities and states and corporations with 100% clean energy goals, renewable energy goals. And that’s all very important. Another important aspect is going to be electrification of transportation buildings and industrial processes. So, switching from gasoline in your vehicles to electric vehicles. And that’s going to require more electricity that’s clean and green.

John: Right. I know, you’re really one of the great solar panel experts on this planet. A lot of people have said that to me. So, I want to talk a little bit about solar panels. They’re on my roof of my house and I don’t know much about them, though. A lot of my friends are in the industry. I’ve invested in that industry but what I hear is this, that there’s lots of solar panels now out there. They’re still being put in. One of my friends who runs a huge solar farm in North Carolina said to me, “John, when they’re put in, they have a 30-year life span”. But the technology is improving so quickly. Moore’s Law is so truncated now that almost after five or six years, it’s actually as a huge return on investment by just pulling out. Even good solar panels that are still performing and switching them all out. And we’re not talking about 10,000 solar panels. We’re talking about millions of them. So, talk a little bit about where we are now in solar panel life in the United States and installation. And where are we going in terms of end-of-life solar panel? Are solar panels recyclable like electronics are, or do they pose different challenges that you’ve been working on in EPRI?

Cara: Sure. So, you’ve done several really good [crosstalk].

John: I know. I talk too much. Let’s break it down. First of all, solar panels, are they going to continue as you say, not be a Panacea, as I said, at the top of the show, but are they going to be part of the greening of America and the switch over to more renewable energy sources?

Cara: Absolutely. Globally, we have 800 gigawatts of solar installed and the pace continues to grow. So, they’re definitely growing to be around as you mentioned they’re designed for 25-30 year lifetime because we have installed about 95% of them in the last 10 years. We don’t know for sure, which specific product designs will or won’t last 25 to 30 years.

John: Right.

Cara: We conduct accelerated testing and have other ways to try to predict that. But of course, we don’t know for sure. There are examples of modules that are coming out of service early. Sometimes, that’s a warranty excursion. Sometimes, extreme weather damages modules, and they’re taken out of service early. We’ve also heard in Europe where a lot of the early deployment happened that there are economic repowering so plant owners are determining that new modules are more efficient and very cheap and that it is economically justified to replace the solar panels in their plans and then get more power per acreage.

John: Wow. And is that going to continue? So, you believe the trend of installation of solar panels is going to continue and the technology is going to continue to improve exponentially as we evolve?

Cara: We do see continued technology improvement. The module architecture is changing over time. We’re finding new ways to make modules thinner, use less material, and make them larger. They are driving down costs. There are also innovations around balance of systems and things like, above-ground wiring more reliable inverter technologies, and other innovations that are happening to continue improving performance in driving down cost.

John: Cara, before we talk about end-of-life issues, which I know are numerous, how about technologies? Is solar technology going to be more and more available not just on commercial properties or in farms or in-home situations and settings. But is also, is it going to start to be seen on the exterior of vehicles and other things that are available to sunlight as well?

Cara: So far, that’s been sort of a niche application. There is greater deployment of building-integrated PV in Europe, for example. We may see that spread to other locations as well as costs continue to fall. Right now, central station large-scale solar deployments are the largest portion of what’s being deployed distributed systems, or about a third of what we see being deployed on an annual basis.

John: Got it.

Cara: But [inaudible] to get the amount of solar to meet these goals, I think the fastest and cheapest way to get that is these large installations.

John: Got it. More like solar farms, the big soul. You know, and for our listeners who just joined us, we’ve got Cara Libby with us. She’s the principal technical leader in EPRI – Electric Power Research Institute. You could find Cara and her colleagues and all the important work they’re doing it. www.EPRI.com. Cara, now, let’s switch to the important topic of end of life. When solar panels, like you said, whether because of damage or other challenges, whether challenges when the solar panels come to their end of life, why are they a challenge to recycle as opposed to potentially other middle-of-the-road electronics, like a television or cell phone?

Cara: It’s really the way they are constructed. That makes them difficult to take apart. Manufacturers design them to last 25 to 30 years outside in the elements. And so, the typical construction is a top layer of glass and then you have a polymer encapsulant that attaches that glass to the semiconductor material. It does the solar light to electricity conversion. And then on the backside, you have another layer of polymer. And the whole thing is surrounded by an aluminum frame and there’s additional polymer glue that holds that together to prevent moisture from coming into the module and lead to corrosion. So, they’re packaged such that they are not going to come apart easily. And when we look at recycling processes, they usually involve crushing and grinding and sometimes thermal and other chemical processes to try to separate out all these materials that have been essentially pulling together.

John: So, the glue makes it really hard to recycle, huh?

Cara: It does.

John: So, are you saying, at this point in the technology that exists, it’s not cost-effective to recycle solar panels because of the tediousness of removing the glue and trying to extract the potentially valuable materials that’s encapsulated in solar panels?

Cara: I think it’s important to compare recycling costs to the alternative. And today, most land, most modules are solar panels are being sent to landfills. There in most jurisdictions at least in the US, are not any restrictions on doing so. And to landfill, a solar panel is less than $2 per panel. Whereas recycling, we hear anecdotally from every members who are having to recycle modules but it costs between 10 and 30 dollars per module to recycle. So, in many cases, it’s an order of magnitude higher cost to show that environmental stewardship and choose recycling over landfilling.

John: Good point. So, what happens? We know landfill is a linear economy model and that if materials are landfill, the solar panel’s landfill or solar farm is landfilled, those materials have no chance of recovery. And potentially, they could be also some hazardous materials that leach into the ecosystem ground and water supply, vegetation animals, and eventually humans as well. So, the net negatives that come with that even though it’s, as you say the cheaper option, Cara. What about though, if you were to recycle these at the cost that you talk about ten to thirty dollars a panel, what can be extracted that what that’s valuables or any offset that you get on those on those then costs, or is that the net cost after you’ve already offset the valuable materials that you can extract from them?

Cara: Right. So, today’s recycling technologies are largely not optimized for PV are for solar panels. We are largely using existing glass recycling lines to process solar panels and about 80% of materials can be recovered. And that’s largely the bulk materials like glass aluminum and some copper. The more valuable materials like silicon and silver are oftentimes not being recovered. And so, we really need improvements in these recycling technologies to recover more of that valuable material, that could help offset recycling costs.

John: Do you work with both manufacturers and recyclers on trying to come up with solutions in bridging the gaps on how to make these more.. for lack of better terms, to make the technology on the manufacturing side greener and make them more recyclable and to work with recyclers on perfecting their technology so they can recycle these panels better?

Cara: There is a lot of activity happening to improve both the design. I mean, you really have to start with the beginning, with the end in mind. So, I think it’s about that [inaudible].

John: You’re right.

Cara: [inaudible] need to be designed so that they can be more easily managed to end of life in a way that’s cost-effective. And some manufacturers are showing leadership and making their products more sustainable. We know that First Solar offers recycling for their products. They consider whether a new product design is recyclable when they prepare to launch that new product. Others, like SunPower, have achieved certain designation certifications that mean that their materials of construction are more sustainable and that the modules will be recycled at end of life and other manufacturers are taking similar actions.

John: So, that means that they come to you for advice or for guidance on how to make their products both greener and more recyclable, which really means the same thing, but they want to manufacture them greener which in essence and maybe construct them in a better more logical way so they’re more recyclable when they come to their end of life.

Cara: They’re largely responding to procurement decisions and requirements. So, increasingly, the companies that are building and owning solar power plants are requiring those new technologies. Say, don’t contain lead or are built with materials that are sustainably sourced with packaging in mind. So, we do see this shift as the requirements for a more circular economy type. Product designs are required is driving changes in how those products are manufactured.

John: And I’m on your website now. It’s full of great information for our listeners and viewers are just joining us. We’ve got Cara Libby with us today. She’s the principal technical leader in EPRI. You could find them in EPRI.com. Is EPRI leading the way on responsible solar recycling?

Cara: We’re one of the organizations that’s trying to drive research in this area. Some of the needs are immediate. So, as solar panels break during shipment, during installation, during maintenance, maybe a weed wacker knocks a stone into a solar module, plant owners are having to handle these end-of-life materials. And we are trying to help them understand what their end-of-life management options are, how to navigate the recycling space, and provide information and tools for them to make decisions.

John: That’s great. So, are you hopeful, Cara with all the great work you’ve been doing already for 15 years at EPRI and your colleagues are doing, that by the time lots of these panels start peeling out and need to be responsibly recycled that the technologies by the recyclers will have been developed to handle them and keep them out of landfills, you hopeful that word nearing that point?

Cara: I am hopeful. When we started this work a few years ago, almost all of the recycling was happening in Europe. And since that time, we’ve seen a dedicated recycling facility be established in France and others are under development. In the U.S., we’ve identified 25 recyclers that are now publicly saying that they accept solar modules and that number continues to rise. So, while there is an immediate concern, there’s also some time, as I mentioned, most of the solar that has been built still has 10-15 years of useful life before we have to worry about recycling. And so, I do think and I am optimistic that over the next decade or two, we’re going to get there and drive down recycling costs.

John: Um, I know on your homepage is a great YouTube video that I watched while examining the pace of US carbon reduction based on 2030 goals. And then, you also have a lot of solar information at www.EPRI.com/EAsolar. And for our listeners and viewers out there, there’s a lot more to learn when you go to the epri.com website. Cara, what else are you working on at EPRI besides solar? I know that sounds like it’s so specific but what else has EPRI covered in terms of energy technologies and things of that such?

Cara: We have three sectors addressing generation which include our renewables work, nuclear power, and also power delivery and utilization. And so, energy efficiency continues to be a big focus across our work. We’re looking at ways to more efficiently produce, deliver, and use electricity. And we are adding a focus on advanced energy carriers. So, things like hydrogen and ammonia, and biofuels that can help with this transition to greater renewable energy.

John: Do you foresee a time when manufacturers are able to make viable and technologically efficient solar panels without glue?

Cara: I do have some ideas. There are some efforts out there to vacuum seal modules. I think we’ll have to wait and see but I have faith that there are good innovators out there and that we will come up with solutions to these challenges.

John: What’s the vote most for our laymen out there that are so interested in really learning today about solar panels more. What’s the most valuable materials that when recycled responsibly, even at a higher cost, recyclers are able to pull out of solar panels?

Cara: Well, today they’re pulling out the aluminum so that has an obvious..

John: Right.

Cara: ..recycling opportunity. Glass, if we could recover glass in higher purity, could have greater opportunity for resale into higher-value markets. I talked to one recycler recently, who has developed a niche product where they create spherical glass that is applied on roadway paint to make it more reflective.

John: Wow.

Cara: So, I thought that was pretty innovative. I think we’ll continue to see new uses for the material that’s being recovered from solar modules. The silicon is really the other opportunity. Today, when we recover silicon, it’s usually low-grade silicon and if we can get it up to solar grade, that would allow it to be reused in manufacturing new modules, new solar panels.

John: Cara, the show’s all about you and all the important work you and your colleagues are doing at EPRI. Do you have any final words for our listeners or viewers today who want.. We have a young audience and they’ll listen to you and they might want to be the next Cara Libby. Do you have any advice for our students or our young entrepreneurs out there that not only want to have a nice and interesting job but also want to have a job that makes the world a better place like you do and your colleagues do as well?

Cara: There’s a lot of opportunity within the renewable energy space. I certainly would encourage young people to get involved in solar power. I think, there’s a lot of great opportunities around this end-of-life space but also things like Land Management. We’re looking at really cool stuff like growing crops under solar arrays and livestock to graze. So, lots of really innovative solutions as we look toward deploying this technology more broadly.

John: Well, she’s Cara Libby. Cara, you’re always welcome back on the Impact Podcast. For our listeners and viewers to find Cara, her colleagues, and all the great people at EPRI that are making the world a better place, please go to www.epri.com. Cara Libby, you’re making a great impact. You are making the world a better place. I thank you for your time today. You’re always welcome back on our show. Share your continued journey in making the world a greener and better place.

Cara: Thank you so much, John. It’s been an honor.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. The Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit themarketingmasters.com

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. This is a great edition of the Impact. We’re so honored and lucky to have with us today Martin Wolf, who’s the director of sustainability and authenticity at Seventh Generation. Welcome to the Impact Podcast Martin.

Martin Wolf: Thank you, John and hello. It’s great to be here.

John: So far I always get a little envious when I have great people like you that are located in Burlington, Vermont on our podcast because he’s all these good things that come out of Burlington, Vermont in the Vermont area: Seventh Generation, and then you have, of course, Ben and Jerry’s, and then, of course, Stratton Mountain isn’t too far away either, by the way.

Martin: That’s very true. And I’m very lucky to be in Vermont. I actually started life in a place called Brooklyn, New York, a little bit south of here. You might have heard of it.

John: Sure. One of the five boroughs. You’re from one of the five boroughs. As am I. [crosstalk]

Martin: That is correct. Which one?

John: Up Queens. You’re Brooklyn. But that’s all good. We all get along. We’re New Yorkers.

Martin: Exactly. I just came here about 20 years ago when I joined Seventh Generation full time. Before that, I was in a company called Cambridge Analytical Associates which did analyses of environmental samples for chemical contamination. It was the company I started with my thesis advisor, oh many years ago that I have to consider. And what it did was, open my eyes to how widespread contamination was in the environment. And we sold the company. And as many CEOs do, when their companies gets sold, I became a consultant and Seventh Generation was one of my clients. I worked with them for many years, quite from the founding. And then they finally decided that I had enough to offer they would hire me as a full-time employee. And that’s why I moved to [crosstalk] Vermont.

John: What was your first title there, Martin? What was your first title when you officially joined as an employee?

Martin: I think I was the director of sustainability but I realize maybe it was RD. I can’t remember. It was so long ago.

John: Yeah, 20 years ago. If that’s the case really 20 years ago, you were then right at the beginnings of Genesis, of director of sustainability, as the chief sustainability officers because truly that wasn’t a thing back then 20 years ago.

Martin: That’s correct. And when I started being a scientist, a chemist by background, I saw sustainability from a very technical lens. We could do things for the environment, but I also carried with me the heritage of my having worked for industry for many years. And that is, all products were safe when used as directed. And Jeffrey would ask me almost every day, “Can’t we say anything about the safety of the products?”. And I would say, “No, all products are safe.” But he wore me down. And eventually, one day I was sitting thinking about the various standards that we had put in place for our products and particularly one around what we called volatile organic compounds. These are things that evaporate. So you breathe them in and I realized we can make products that are safer. That it really does make a difference. And it was a eureka moment for me though. I’m sure Jeffrey was frustrated. Hearing me say no for so many years, right? But it’s also emblematic of the growth that I have had and I’m still having working for Seventh Generation. And with all the really great people who see how we need to change the world in the way we not only make products but the way we do business and the way our whole system of commerce is built and the way it operates.

John: I want to get back to that in the second. I just want to remind our listeners we’ve got Martin Wolf with us today and he’s the director of sustainability and authenticity at Seventh Generation. Find Seventh Generation and their wonderful products, please go to www.seventhgeneration.com. Spell it out. S-E-V-E-N, spell out Seventh Generation dot com. And just to go back to who you’re referring to, Jeffrey Hollander, of course, was the founder CEO of Seventh Generation back when you joined on. And I have to say he held a special place here because he was one of the first big sustainability superstars that came on our show when we just first started the show and we couldn’t even get arrested. And he said, “I’ll come on and, oh, I’ll help them push the movement forward.” And he came on, not once, but twice. Then eventually have his daughter come on and talk about her sustainable condom that she has called sustained. And just one of the greatest people I’ve ever been associated with. We’ve never met him in person but I’ve just loved your brand ever. And after I fell in love with Jeffrey, I fell in love with your brand and have been using it ever since.

Martin: Well, thank you for using our products. That means you’ve been helping support me for many years. Jeffrey is an amazing person. When he helped form or was a co-founder of Seventh Generation, the idea of making products for the purpose of being environmental was just getting started. We were a mail order catalogue. My role was to actually look at the products in the catalogue, because we didn’t manufacture them at the time, and say whether the claims being made by the people who manufacture the products are true or not, whether they greenwash. And then from there, we started making our own detergent products, our own recycled paper products. And in 1995, I believe the decision was made to sell the catalogue and to go wholly into wholesale distribution and retail sales of the products. That was a real big decision in the history of the company, but it also paved the way for the growth we’ve experienced.

John: Martin, in my household, we use all of your products and we have since the days I met Jeffrey, and was turned on to it. Well it wasn’t easy, not all of your products were readily easily accessible at that point. But we found them and use them. I’ll tell you the one that’s the most non-negotiable for me personally. It’s your detergent because I find that all those other detergents out there, and I’m not going to name names, we don’t have this show to throw rocks, we have it to celebrate and hold up the great brands as beacons of hope, but your laundry detergent is just next-level amazing in terms of just getting clothes clean but also just being hypoallergenic and keeping everybody happy in one household. I think your products are just wonderful overall.

Martin: Thank you, John. I appreciate that. We’ve had a product philosophy since I’ve been with the company that is: our products are going to be on shelf at a slightly higher cost because the ingredients we use are at a slightly higher cost. And therefore we need to perform like a premium product. We can’t be a value performance brand at a premium price. We make sure that we are close to performance of premium brands in our category but are true to our mission to create products that reduce the risk of harm and are better for the environment.

John: Your mission actually states, and I’m going to read this out of quotes. And again for our listeners and viewers who joined us, we’ve got Martin Wolf with us today, the director of sustainability and authenticity at Seventh Generation. Find Seventh Generation at www.seventhgeneration.com – an amazing array of products. Here’s your mission statement as it says in quotes. Make the world a healthy sustainable and equitable place for the next seven generations. Now, Martin, help me out here. First of all, what does that really have to do with, as I just pointed out, laundry detergents, which is the most non-negotiable product in my household? Secondarily, I just want to ask you of this. When you started this journey with with the great people, Jeffrey and his colleagues at Seventh Generation, you were so early in this process in terms of the sustainability revolution. I mean, it must be fun to wake up today and see everything that’s going on with ESG, circular economy, Bloomberg, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNBC. That’s all they’re talking about now. It feels as though your time has come. Frankly for our company it feels like our time has come. I tried to have a megaphone in the stadium for years and but all of a sudden everyone’s paying attention today. Talk a little bit about your mission first and then talk a little bit about timing – being early, but now being right on time.

Martin: Sure. First, I love the mission because it says nothing about laundry detergents. It doesn’t even say anything about being a business and it gets to the very heart of what is business. Why should governments charter these companies to do what they do? As you know, every corporation by definition has signed Articles of Incorporation in the state, often it’s Delaware. For Seventh Generation, it’s Vermont, but you need to have Articles of Incorporation that say: you have a board of directors with a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders in your company. That’s it. And as we saw in the past 20 years under the Milton Friedman approach to economics of the only job of a corporation is to serve its shareholders. Corporations didn’t become highly extractive, destructive to the environment, destructive to human rights, destructive to anything that does not add to the bottom line. And you cannot have a stable sustainable society if you do that. What we’re learning is that you need to have more than a desire to make money and so Seventh Generation is a business with a mission to create a healthy, sustainable, and equitable world and to do that by being a successful business. and the importance of wording it this way is that if we have to make a decision between a more expensive ingredient and one that might have harm to the environment or human health, it’s not a debate. Profit is a secondary objective. It’s important to be a profitable company, to be a successful company to fulfill our mission. But our mission is to create a healthy sustainable and equitable world for the next seven generations. You take that safer ingredient and then figure out how to make a profit with it.

John: That’s so fascinating and I love that mission. I mean, I literally – I just embrace everything that your company is about and the people, of course, exude, that you included just like Jeffrey and talk. But it’s so interesting, five minutes ago as you said you shared not only do you choose the best ingredients to put in your product but then when it hits the shelf, it’s a little bit more expensive. Someone like me, and all my friends, and relatives, and my children now who are adults, they want to buy the safest best products for themselves and their families. They’re not price shopping, they’re quality shopping. I would assume for the most part, what you’ve learned with all your massive success at Seventh Generation over these years is there’s a huge marketplace for you – for your products out there that are the highest quality and people aren’t price sensitive to those things.

Martin: Some people may not be, but we have to recognize those people are often people with privilege, who have a higher economic income, or a background that is a privileged economic background. And our mission is to create a world, not just a segment of the world, that is healthy, sustainable and equitable. While we’re on shelf typically at a higher price, we still want to find ways to make products like ours that are more price competitive, they could be a value product and available at a more value price. I.e. there are consumers out there who need a lower price, but they should still be able to get products that are safe and do not harm the environment.

John: I love the mission and it’s so timely. It’s so interesting how when Jeffrey came on years ago, I’m talking about at least 10 years ago now, maybe more, he explained to me, he actually walked me more through back then what you do. You were the one who informed him and he walked me and the listeners through the science of what you do as opposed to, and again, I’m not going to throw bricks at other brand names, but the fact is those brand names that we grew up with, and you and I are the same generation, we grew up with iconic brands that literally have hazardous materials in them that are grandfathered under some weird grandfather laws in America and I’ve never seen in there and back, then it was just strictly a podcast, it wasn’t video. And I’m listening to Jeffrey and I’m like, “how is this even possible that these brands are on the shelves with all these negative elements that are in them?” And thank God, that Seventh Generation is making cleaner and better products that have much less environmental impact, human impact, ecosystem impact from the best ingredients. So he was walking me through literally the scientist stuff that you, I’m sure, had informed him on.

Martin: Maybe. I like to think I have a point of view, that’s helpful. I actually have a series of questions I love to ask people if you don’t mind it, being for a moment. Okay? I like to begin by asking people how old they are, and you don’t have to give me a number. Just think of a number in your head.

John: I’m gonna give you my number.

Martin: Okay.

John: I’m 58 years old.

Martin: Okay, excellent. What is something that you are made from?

John: That my body is made from?

Martin: That your body is made from.

John: Water?

Martin: Water is a great substance. How old is that water?

John: It’s so funny. I’ve had some of the greatest water experts in the world on this show and I don’t know the answer to that question.

Martin: Well it’s a surprising answer. It’s actually older than the Earth itself. Water on the earth was formed somewhere between 7 and 11 billion years ago. You’re made out of materials that are between seven and 11 billion years old. Did you feel tired when you got out of bed this morning?

John: I feel good today actually, I was decided I was energized to come back to this conversation.

Martin: Well then you’re not showing your true age. The point is that you’re made out of recycled materials. Nature recycles materials over and over again. That water at one point was in an empty ocean. It was then the seed for life on this Earth. It might have been in an early bacteria. It might have been in a dinosaur at one point. It might have been Abraham either, who knows. But that water has been used over and over and over again by nature. If we want to create sustainability, we have to start thinking in the same terms as nature. How to cycle things over and over again. And that’s what – I’ve never heard it. And I’d have had so many wonderful friends and other acquaintances that are so important to this whole circular economy discussion, but I love what you just said, no one has ever said that to me before. That our recycling products are for beneficial reuse and also that our circular economy impact you. That’s just a wonderful way to make it personal.

John: Which leads me to my next question, Martin. Is part of what you’re doing as the Director of sustainability and also authenticity is part of good messaging from brands like yours that are truly making the world a better place? Convincing people first that they’re saving themselves and therefore, in saving themselves, they could also save the planet? Is there some personal stake that we’ve got to appeal to in the human nature of people? A little bit of selfishness before they think of the macro or, how does that work when it comes to social and cultural messaging?

Martin: I’m really glad to say that I’m a chemist. I’m not a sociologist or a psychologist because I don’t know the answer to that question. But clearly we have to think differently than we’ve been thinking and what gives me optimism is the generation following behind us. I should say the generations [crosstalk] are much more aware of their interconnectedness and of their relationship to the Earth.

John: Right. Behind me, yes.

Martin: And they want to see change. We have Greta Thornburg talking about climate and millions of followers around the world who see the need to do things differently and more equitably. Look at – it is the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder and I think the awareness around the world of the need for more equitable systems of policing more equitable systems of governance is increasingly clear, and I just hope that we have a combined wisdom rate enough to move in that direction.

John: I love what you’re saying. What psyches me is for years I felt like I was talking into a vacuum when I was messaging our company which recycles electronic waste, which happens to be the fastest growing solid waste in the world. The fun part about our story, which nobody really knows because the media would rather cover if Elon Musk’s hair is to the right or the left instead of covering more spreading out the – which is okay, he’s done brilliant work and I’m not degrading any of his work, but they’re very – they choose who to make their icons and other sectors of the same story line gets a little bit muffled out. When we recycle electronic waste, it’s zero waste zero landfill zero mission. All of it goes from – all the commodities go for beneficial reuse. For years no one would pay attention, but now, I feel, for the first time in my life, what it must feel like to be the most handsome guy in high school or the prettiest woman is at a party or something of that nature. Because now it seems like every time you and I open media, whatever media it is like Speaking, it could be the MIT, WSJ or whatever or Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox, it’s all about green and the ESG that’s being spent, the money on ESG investment and the move from the linear to circular economy seems to have now hit a tipping point and I don’t think there’s going back. But do you feel the same shift that’s happened just in the last 24 months, as opposed to the previous 18 years where you were, “I’ve been doing your same and great work”, anyway?

Martin: It’s funny you ask that question because our new CEO, his name is Joey Bergstein, once said that we are a 30-year overnight success. It’s true. It really is. Here we are. But it took a long time to get here. And something that Jeffrey has always said that is amazingly true. It’s not amazing but it is definitely true. It is that our company cannot change the world by itself. We can set an example, but we need a legion of aligned thinkers and aligned companies. And as you know, we were purchased by Unilever about four years ago. And there are three things I want to call out about that. The first is that Paul Polman, who was the CEO of Unilever at the time, came to Vermont and said to us that Unilever acquired us for a reason. There would be tremendous pressure to change but we shouldn’t. Rather we should set an example and continue to do what we’re doing. That was really important from the standpoint of not yielding to all of the pressures we face then and we face now to change. The second thing is when I had my first meeting with sustainability staff at Unilever. The VP of communication and sustainability at the time asked me, “How much PCR, post-consumer recycled plastic, do you have in your packaging?” And I said we’re about 84, 86 percent and their director of packaging was there and he asked her, “What is Unilever?” And she said, “1.4%”. Four years later, Unilever worldwide is close to 25% and has objectives to be at 50% soon. So by learning from us Unilever has become a strong leader in the sustainability of materials and circular economy, and it’s great to have that partnership.

John: I’m going to tell you something that I just – I know that you were purchased by a large corporation and I hadn’t focused on it because I knew you were continuing to do your great work and had a bigger platform to to make that happen. But now that you brought it up, I have to tell you something that I just realized as you were sharing that great story which makes me really proud, more proud than ever before. Just like, you’re from Brooklyn and I’m from Queens, I just realized we’re related in another way. And let me tell you the way that we’re related. This news has not even come out yet. We haven’t advertised this. It’s going to be, by the time this show airs, even though like you said today we’re taping this show on the tragic historical day of George Floyd’s death. The show is going to air in three to four weeks. And here’s what will come out during that time. Unilever is an investor and my good friend, Ron Goldman’s closed-loop fund, and the closed-loop fund last Wednesday just completed a very substantial investment in our company, which means, again, you’re from Brooklyn, I’m from Queens, but we’re still New Yorkers. I’m now part of the investment family of Unilever. I’m even more honored to have this discussion than I was when I woke up this morning because here we are. But I just want to tell you, I’m a huge believer in what Unilever’s doing. It was like you said, a lot of people do things, different ways, different reasons but they’re truly, their actions are matching their words. And that’s just wonderful to see. And I think that’s going to become more of the norm and here’s why. As you and I know, just in the last two or three weeks, literally something just happened today, which I’m going to go back to in a second, but the SEC came out and they said they’re going to make publicly traded companies report up on their ESG Behavior. First time ever that’s ever come out in terms of public companies having to now report up. And BlackRock has also said the same. They said they’re now going to make their portfolio companies report up to as to their ESG Behavior. As BlackRock goes, in terms of the investment world, the other investment funds are going to follow suit and make their CEOs and their leadership teams do the same. And it was just this morning that the news broke. I saw over Reuters that BlackRock’s now pushing back on ExxonMobil’s board as to appointment of new members that have real diversity, inclusivity and sustainability backgrounds and can now add more in helping transform that great brand that we all love. But also, they need some help and moving in the right direction. There’s a movement that has so much energy behind it now. SEC, BlackRock, the investment world. It seems as though we really truly finally on the right track in the movement of the linear economy to circular economy.

Martin: I agree. First of all, congratulations. That’s wonderful to hear about the investment. I wish you tremendous luck.

John: Thank you.

Martin: I guess I can call you cousin now.

John: We’re cousins now. There’s no denying, right?

Martin: And I agree the investment community is starting to take real notice of the need for sustainability. We’re at a crisis point with our civilization. We can’t continue to do what we’re doing or even approximate what we’re still doing and hope to survive the next several decades. The fact that companies are still trying to build new fossil infrastructure, new coal plants, and things like that is ludicrous. When we have been out of coal last year, not even by 2030. To hear that companies like BlackRock. I heard that the EG7 together have decided no longer to invest in coal. To hear those things happening now is really heartening and and speaks to the change that’s underway.

John: Martin, the show is, of course, all about you and your great brand, Seventh Generation. For our listeners and viewers who just joined us right now. Please check out what Martin’s doing with this colleagues at Seventh Generation by going to www.seventh, spell it out, Seventh Generation.com I’m on your website. Now it’s full of great information. Talk a little bit about where we’re going. We have a lot of young people, like you said generations behind us, that watches show that listen to this podcast. If they want to be the next Martin Wolf, if they want to be the next Jeffrey Hollander, what advice do you have for the youth out there that is dying to not only pay their bills and make a nice living and and have a nice family life but also make a difference every day when they show up to their office?

Martin: First piece of advice is be more like Jeffrey Hollander.

John: You’re hopeless.

Martin: Okay. But science is important. Those people who are interested in science, definitely pursue it so that you can understand the world, the way the world works and can make changes that are meaningful. Because one thing that’s always difficult is actions, creating actions that actually have meaningful change. It’s easy to just do something. It’s much harder to do something that will create true sustainable change because there are so many interconnections and we need to be aware of all of them all the time or we create what are called unintended consequences. People give thought to what you’re doing. Don’t go after slogans, go after meaningful change. Second thing is be kind. We can’t have an equitable society if we’re not kind to ourselves and to others. I think the Dalai Lama that that said, “Be kind whenever you can and you can always be kind”. We need to do that.

John: Go ahead.

Martin: Okay. And I was going to say next is recognize that you may not be to create change alone. But by working with others you can create great change. And like so many things, if you start with just a small nucleus of dedicated people or even a small nucleus of dedicated snow, you can create an avalanche of change. Recognize that there’s power in starting small with people who care and are willing to work with you and that can grow to a meaningful mass and really change the world.

John: I love all those but I’m also going to say this to our listeners. When our producers were doing the pre-show interview and also gathering information not only on Seventh Generation but on you, you shared with them another quote. I’m going to just say this, growing up in New York City and growing up as part of the 60’s, I always thought the leader of the feminist Revolution and one of my great heroes was Gloria Steinem. And I was in a video restaurant one night in Manhattan years ago, five, six years ago, and I got to shake her hand while we’re waiting for the restroom. And I just thought it was the greatest thing to actually meet her finally, such an iconic leader who just broke every barrier on the planet. But a couple of years back, I was invited to a music CARES event where they are honoring a singer that I really wasn’t that exposed to, Dolly Parton. And after watching this evening, that evening of gratitude that was bestowed upon her and understanding her history and what she did for the feminist Revolution and how inclusive she is as a human being and how she broke more barriers than almost anyone I could ever imagine. I just need to say, I thought I was so excited to meet you today because the quote that you share with our producers was so cool. It’s from Dolly Parton. It says, “Be rich in spirit, kindness, love, and all those things you can’t put a dollar sign on”. And Martin Wolf, that’s really cool stuff.

Martin: Well, thank you very much John. Now, you’ve heard my two favorite dollies. And by the way does anyone need any more than those two dollies? That’s pretty good in life. You got that down pat.

John: Great. I just want to thank you again for all the great work you’ve done over your career, number one, but also specially at Seventh Generation. Again, for our viewers and listeners, please support a great brand like Seventh Generation, you can find their products all over at great stores. But online, it’s Seventh Generation, spell it out. seventhgeneration.com. Martin Wolf, you’re always invited back on the Impact Podcast. You are truly making the world a better place and just continue the great work. And God bless you and all your colleagues. Thank you for sharing some of your journey today with all of us.

Martin: Thank you very much John. It was a real pleasure.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for speeches, custom experiences, livestreams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian, and we’re so excited and honored to have you with us today, Jennie Romer. She has written this great book that I’ve read, ‘Can I Recycle This? A Guide to Better Recycling’. This book is long overdue. It’s a wonderful book. And of course, you can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other great book stores. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Jennie Romer.

Jennie Romer: Thanks so much for having me.

John: Jennie, before we get talking about your book and the other great work you do at the Surfrider Foundation, I want you to share a little bit of your back story. How did you even get here? Where did you grow up? What were some of the influences that got you to lead such a life of great impact?

Jennie: So I grew up in Northern California, Bay Area, and the City of Richmond, California. But my mom took me to the local recycling center a lot of the time on the weekends, the El Cerrito recycling center. It’s a beautiful place. Now, they’ve upgraded it. There’s a whole reuse center. But I just kind of like hanging out there sitting in the magazine bin and looking for some new magazines, or new used magazines. In college, I went to UC Santa Barbara. I was an Environmental Studies major. So it’s not surprising that I ended up here, but it was a little bit of a roundabout path. After college, I managed a record store for quite a few years in San Francisco called Rasputin Records where we bought and sold used CDs, records, DVDs, and things.

And then, I went to law school. I was studying environmental law and I was in San Francisco at the time that San Francisco adopted a plastic bag ban. I decided to volunteer for the Board of Supervisors, learn more about it, write an article. And then, I kind of became the go-to person for plastic bag laws in part because no one else was at that time. I made a website and became the expert. Now, I’m an attorney at the Surfrider Foundation where I work on plastics policy full-time.

John: Oh, that’s wonderful. When you talk about your mom influencing you and bring you to the recycling center, you were a little girl seven, eight, nine ten years old at that time?

Jennie: Yeah, probably around then we started going. I just liked kind of sorting all of the things and thinking that they were being recycled.

John: Nice. You’re never too young to start really. That influence is a big influence. When you’re young and your mom does something like that, that’s a little bit of a larger-than-life experience and it leaves an indelible mark. Is that sort of the truth?

Jennie: Yes. I also kind of tried to start my own recycling business at my school collecting the bottles and cans from events, and then, selling them. But the principal caught on and they ended up doing it for the school instead. That was great to start a business then.

John: It’s always good to be industrious no matter what age, so that’s good on you. For our listeners and viewers that want to find Jennie and her great colleagues doing the important work at the Surfrider Foundation, you could go to surfrider.org, or you can find Jennie at jennieromer.com. Jennie, you’re at the Surfrider Foundation. You’re doing the play. You’re the plastics’ go-to expert there. What led you to write this wonderful little gem of a book on recycling all different types of products not just plastic?

Jennie: Well, I’ve spent a lot of time researching plastic bags, in particular in plastics and that led me to watch a lot of recycling webinars. Go on a lot of tours of recycling facilities. Go to conferences. In part because the plastics industry kept saying that recycling is the answer that we shouldn’t try to reduce the amount of plastic that we’re using, reduce plastic bags. And so I had to come up with arguments and, you know, evidence to say, “No, we need to reduce the amount of plastic we’re using.” And so that’s what I was doing at all these conferences. But I learned a whole lot along the way and I have a different perspective on how we look at recycling or I think we should look at it. Where I really see it, it’s a commodities market. That all of these municipal recyclers are gathering our recycling, sorting it, and then selling it on this market. And with low-value plastics, there just isn’t a market for it. So if I wrote a book that just said that, I don’t think I get too many people that would want to buy it.

John: Good point.

Jennie: But instead I wrote an illustrated book for adults with beautiful watercolor illustrations that really looks at sixty different items whether they’re recyclable. In my definition of recyclable, that means they have to have someone on the other end that has to buy, want to buy those items.

John: Right, and it’s so true. I just opened up the book here just randomly, but it’s so beautiful in terms of– And I don’t think, even though you say it’s just for adults, I would show this even to my granddaughter. I think this is illustrated so beautifully and done so elegantly. I think this can inspire the next generation even behind us to start getting with the recycling program right now. But I mean, the artwork is beautiful throughout.

Jennie: Yeah, I think it works on a couple of different levels. I think it’s great for kids for the pictures. It’s great for adults who just want to look at the pictures, but it has more levels to that than that. It really gets into if you want to learn a lot about plastic resins and what all those numbers mean. And if you want to learn about policy because I go through all this stuff and one of the big take-homes is that our recycling system isn’t working right now for plastics, particularly, because there’s so much low-value stuff in the market. I also talked about policies at the end on how to fix it.

John: Which is great because– And while we’re going to get to that in a little bit but I what I love about you is like you said, it’s not only taking action. Not only take action and do things yourself but effectuating policy change. You got to understand it first before you can go to your local elected officials, public servants, and tell them your point of view, and ask them to consider that as well. So I think your book works on so many levels. Let’s go back to what you said. First, give us some surprising facts that you learned along the way in your journey about recycling, number one. And I’m going to ask some specific questions about like you said, low-value plastic, and other things as well.

Jennie: Sure. I mean, one big thing is that only nine percent of plastic ever produced has been recycled. And so, that’s a real shocker to a lot of people because we’ve really been taught to feel good about recycling. If we put something in our bin, we get kind of a warm fuzzy feeling. But that isn’t by accident, the plastics industry spends a ton of money on marketing to make us feel that way so we don’t want to do anything different. There are about eleven million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean each year. So that’s another major [inaudible]. At Surfrider, I work on plastic reduction policy and I do it from a lens of ocean protection. At the the Surfrider Foundation, we’re protecting the ocean and a large part of that is protecting the ocean from plastics because there’s so much of it out there right now.

John: It’s so interesting, Jennie, going back and this is part of plastics but it’s more of a bottle thing. I’m still shocked that in 2021, and you tell me if I’ve got this right or wrong, is only eleven states in this great country that have bottle bills or some form of legislation around bottle recycling.

Jennie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I believe it’s ten states plus Guam at the moment. So that’s something where in the deposit system, we’ve seen really does a great job of getting those bottles and cans back into the system. So you pay a deposit. You get the deposit back when you turn in your bottle or can and that’s really the best way to make sure that we’re getting those back. And those tend to be much higher value materials that are actually recycled into something else. But I’d also like to see some refill systems. So right now, we’re just recycling those, and that saves some greenhouse gases. Save some extraction of new materials but if we can get into a refill or reuse system like they have in Germany or there’s a pilot program in Oregon, then we really see a much more effective system to really refill and avoid all those other emissions.

John: When you mention the terminology ‘low-value plastic’, can you explain to our listeners and our viewers, and for those of you who just turned in, we’re so honored to have with us today, Jennie Romer. She’s written this great new book, ‘Can I recycle this?’ You can buy it, of course, Barnes & Noble, great book stores around the nation, and of course, on amazon.com. And she’s also in charge of plastics and plastics recycling at the Surfrider Foundation. You can find her at the Surfrider Foundation at surfrider.org. Jennie, low-value plastic as opposed to what would you consider high-value plastic, and what’s the differentiating terminology and substance behind those terms?

Jennie: Yeah, so my book gets pretty deep into the details. But just to kind of an overview is there are little numbers inside of the chasing arrow symbol at the bottom of most plastic containers. So most people see that and think, “Oh, that’s recyclable.” Throw it in their bin and don’t really think about it. But those numbers represent a type of plastic that something is made out of. So it’s a resin code. Resin code for number one, and number two. Those are the higher value, generally. But the highest values are bottles and jugs. So something like a milk jug or water bottle. Those have the highest value in the commodities market. Companies want to buy them and turn them into something else.

I did some research. There’s a nice little graph in the book about the commodities market. So milk jugs at HDPE number two resin, those are the hottest and are the most expensive plastics on the market right now. It’s about a thousand dollars a ton, but the stuff like the other numbers, number three through six, particularly, the higher like number six, nobody really wants to buy and to turn into something else. Those, even if you put them in your bin, they’re probably going to get sent to a landfill or incinerated.

Things like the party cup like those ones of those red cups, you might buy it for a party, nobody’s going to want to buy them. We don’t have any domestic processing in the US for them. And those are worth about negative seventeen dollars on the commodities market. Meaning, you have to pay somebody to haul them away. So one of the take-homes is that all plastic isn’t equal. There’s some plastic that there is a market for and that is very likely to get recycled into something else. But there’s a whole lot of it that really no one wants to buy. And so, we’re kind of being fooled into continuing to use this and feeling good about putting in our recycling bin.

John: So contamination also besides the substance that makes up the plastics, isn’t contamination a big deal? Like when I speak to my friends at Alcoa, they explained to me I learned through their the lens of their thinking, how a can of soda or beer once washed is a wonderfully, recyclable, aluminum can. But why aluminum foil, which is typically contaminated with food and other types of products is, typically, not that recyclable. Is this the same hole for Plastics, as well?

Jennie: Yeah. Contamination is a big problem. So make sure that you’re washing out, whatever you’re using it before you put it in your bin. I will say too that when I say that we’re being fooled about putting all this low value stuff in our bins. My number one take-home is to follow your local jurisdiction’s guidelines. They’ve put a lot of thought into what they want to accept and don’t want to accept. So some jurisdictions might say just, “Give me all of your rigid plastics.” So give us everything. A lot of them don’t want or ninety-seven percent of them don’t want the plastic bags because those that will get caught in the machinery, but all the rigid plastic. Some of them will take, they’ll sort out what’s good. And, you know, let them do that. Other jurisdictions will just say, “Give me the high-value stuff.” So they’ll specifically say, “Only give us number one, and number two bottles and jugs,” because they know that there’s a market for it. They don’t want to do all that sorting and figure all that out.

So number one take-home, follow the local jurisdiction guidelines, clean out your containers, and if you’re following those guidelines and they don’t want certain stuff that saves you some energy because a lot of people will spend so much time cleaning out their recyclables and maybe there’s stuff that their jurisdiction doesn’t want anyway. So those are the two big things.

John: Jennie, you’ve lived on both coasts, obviously grew up in California. You live in New York now. What’s coming? I mean, you’re a young woman. You have a long– You’ve done so much already, but you have a lot of runway in front of you to accomplish so much more. It seems as though as opposed to great folks like your mom who were recycling years ago before was ever cool to recycle that the world is sort of caught up with that kind of mentality, that ESG, the move, the shift from linear to circular economy is truly here and here to stay. Not only in Europe anymore. Not only in South Korea and Japan and other wonderful Asian countries that are geographically challenged, just like most of Europe is. But America, the United States, North America, Canada are finally catching on to that. This is an imperative issue. Where we going to go from here in terms of recycling and then plastic such as legislation from how you see it in terms of federal and also state by state?

Jennie: At first, I think we need to be careful about greenwashing. So I think so many people and companies really see recycling is something that is popular and then they want to push for. But there are a lot of companies who want to maintain their status quo or not really change but just kind of put a recycled bin and recyclable claim on something. So I want to see more regulation of what recycling means, recyclable means. The Plastic industry is pushing for things that a lot of different policies including what they call chemical recycling which is essentially just kind of plastic to fuel technology like creating a made [inaudible] of fuel out of plastic and then burning it. That’s not what most people think of when they think of recycling. So, I’ve been working to make sure that state laws aren’t changed to allow for that.

One big push is made is the break free from plastic pollution act at the federal level. I’ve been working on local plastic policies forever for over ten years. Those are bag laws, foam food were banned, straws upon request policies. I just made a map at Surfrider Foundation. We just released a map a couple of months ago of a thousand local laws that have been adopted in the US. There’s a cool interactive map but now we’re moving beyond those individual items and really talking about wider policy. So, all that other stuff that we see on grocery store shelves, having further regulation of that. So, having manufacturers pay for the recycling, the disposal, and the cleanup of the other packaging. Because right now, there’s really no incentive for a manufacturer to use a material that’s really recyclable, that’s made of recycled content that is using less packaging because they really want to leave their hands. They’re not responsible for it at all. So I see that shift coming and we’re talking about it at the state level as well. It’s called extended producer responsibility for packaging. We already have it for things like E-Waste and for carpet, batteries. And so it’s something that we’re talking about for packaging that as well.

John: Let’s talked about– So you focus on governmental legislation in the legalities behind it. Let’s also talk about business coming in and transcending legislation. So for instance, recently in the last two weeks or so, we’ve seen BlackRock come out and say, “Listen, all our portfolio companies are now going to have to every year own up to us, an answer up to us as to their ESG behavior. And we’re going to reward our leadership teams at these companies based upon some sort of scoring value on how they are performing on ESG metrics.” Similarly, the SEC has come out and said, “They’re now going to make publicly traded companies report it up on ESG issues.” Now, once those two types of organizations, huge massively success of iconic brands come out and say that it’s hard for me to believe that other private equities and financial institutions are not going to also mandate that both on privately traded companies and privately-owned companies and publicly traded companies. So how will that interact with the legislation that you’re highly involved with, and that train that’s coming as well?

Jennie: Yeah, and I think that’s a great trend. At Surfrider, I don’t work with on the corporate side, really, but I work with other organizations that really keep tabs on it or much more interactive with those initiatives. But I do see that packaged goods companies are coming to the table more than they were before. I think to talk about policy, to talk about extended producer responsibility because I think they do have more internal pressures happening and some of them already have programs happening internally. And so, when that happens, then they’re more likely to come to the table and talk about policy rather than just having the got reaction of fighting everything. I think that’s really helpful and I think we’ll see a lot more of that going forward or at least fingers crossed that we will. So yeah, there’s been so much has happened in the last year as far as talking with these bigger brands about plastics policy. It’s moving quickly.

John: If you’ve just joined us today, we’ve got Jennie Romer. She’s the author of this great book, ‘Can I recycle this?’ A guide to better recycling. You can find it on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, other great book stores. Also, you can find Jennie at jennieromer.com., or at surfrider.org. Jennie, talk a little bit about machinery and technology. There are so many great brains innovative people. We’re an innovative nation besides these innovations coming out of China, India, all over Europe. This is the innovation period in history. Why can’t there be technology that’s created to responsibly recycle these plastic materials before they tragically end up in our oceans and our waterways and stuff like that? What’s the hitch? What’s their hurdles that we need to still yet cross? Because as you and I both know, recycling is a domestic deal. It should be done with anywhere from a three to the five-hundred-mile radius from where those materials are used so we don’t have to also destroy the carbon footprint of the reverse logistics and getting them to some sort of responsible recycling center. Why can’t we create technology on this planet to keep our oceans and our waterways cleaner and recycle these plastics that are so ubiquitous in our lives?

Jennie: I have faith that we can and make this happen. And I think one big thing like I said, is that manufacturers aren’t responsible for the end of life of this packaging of this material and so there isn’t that motivation to really create that circular system right now. And so, we know that some plastics are a whole lot more recyclable than others. We do have some MRFs there, Municipal Recycling Facilities but the industry calls them MRF’s. But there’s an MRF’s of the future that really sorts out everything. And I have an illustration of the Sims Municipal Recycling facility in New York City that has all the cool gadgets like cameras that can sort plastic depending on the resin type and they use all kinds of electric currents, and magnets and to do this sorting. But the problem is that once you do all of that, where does it go? And so, if we do start using of the higher value stuff and we start making or doing more recycling domestically, I think we can see a lot more jobs and see a lot less of the lower value stuff in circulation. A lot less going to landfill, a lot less going into the ocean because it would be actually worth something.

And then, but I also want to see more innovation for refill and reuse. So being able to go to store and buy refillable beer bottles, be able to return them for a deposit, and then they go to a local beer or– I say beer but it could be other stuff on your local bottler to wash and refill them and put them back to the stores. And so, that takes more innovation. To do it for not just beer, but for stuff like shampoo or having dispensers at stores for things like household cleaning products and dog food. So that every time you buy something, you’re not getting all of the packagings automatically with it.

I also want to see policies that really incentivize companies to create those systems. Right now, it’s just a one-way system but that’s not going to happen unless we have more carrots and sticks with encouraging.

John: So true. You know, I always want to leave our listeners and viewers with action steps. So, Jennie, if you were to talk about your book here, what do you want our viewers or listeners to be the takeaway? If they buy your book and they read it, what’s the takeaway that you really want them to go with and how do we all live– No one has to live a perfect life, you and I know that, but how do we live a more zero-waste lifestyle in our homes and our offices today?

Jennie: Sure. Yeah. My book doesn’t– We don’t expect you to be perfect for sure, but they have you think a little bit more about different products that you’re using. So one big take-home is reducing the single-use plastic. You could do that by a lot of BYO behaviors or bring your own bag, cup, even utensils, and straws if you think you’re going to be offered plastic somewhere or if you’re getting takeout or delivery. And then be a good recycler and pay attention to what your jurisdiction wants. Only give them that. Make sure it’s clean. And then also, those are the personal steps but also, the policy steps. So also reaching out to your legislator and saying, “Hey, I care about this stuff,” because the legislators care what their constituents think and a lot of the time they’re hearing from lobbyists. So hearing from their constituents is great as well.

John: It’s just so wonderful. Jennie, I just want to say, you’re always welcome back on the Impact Podcast. For our listeners or viewers, again, I would buy this book. I’ve read this book. It’s a great book. ‘Can I recycle this? A guide to better recycling’. We can all be better recyclers. We could all be like Jennie and make the world a better place. Jennie Romer, we could find you at jennieromer.com or at surfrider.org.

Thank you for making such a huge impact on this planet and making the world a better place. We thank you for all that you do for all of us on our behalf. Continued success and good luck and sell a lot of these books.

Jennie: I’m trying. Thanks a lot.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by the marketing masters. A marketing masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit themarketingmasters.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy. It is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. This is a very special edition of the Impact podcast because we’ve got with us today Jarkko Havas with us. Jarkko is the lead for the Insights and Analysis Department at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Welcome to the Impact podcast, Jarkko.

Jarkko Havas: Thank you, John. I’m glad to be here.

John: Before we get going and talking about all the important and the great work that you and your colleagues are doing at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, can you share a little bit about your background? How you even got here?

Jarkko: Yeah, absolutely. So, it all kind of goes back to Osaka, Japan a little bit over ten years ago where I started my studies in Environmental Engineer.

John: Okay.

Jarkko: And moving on from there to the work at a management consulting company called McKinsey in Japan first, and sort of internally in McKinsey moved to working on sustainability topics, especially in agriculture and development and then transferred to Brussels where McKinsey had a hub on that topic. And then from there followed some colleagues who had left McKinsey to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and call my way there as well about two years ago now. That common thread from environmental sustainability topics to now circular economy has followed throughout from my undergrad studies all the way up to now.

John: When you were growing up with your parents into the environment, were you exposed to any of that, or did you grow up in a very green part of this planet as well and that you were motivated even if it was subliminally motivated? Is that part of also when you think back why you’re doing the work you do today?

Jarkko: Yeah, I think so. I mean, actually, sort of independently from my family, many members have moved towards that path.

John: Really?

Jarkko: My dad went from investment banking to gardening and sort of the same time as I did my studies. My sister is very much in that field as well, sort of independently from each other. She’s in Norway and did her studies in Australia. So, we’ve been doing this around the planet as family as well. There’s something to it, for sure.

John: That’s really nice though, because you all get to share the journey together, really.

Jarkko: Yeah, I think so. You know, it’s just we tried to make the family conversations not always about these things though.

John: I got you. Well, I’m on your website now and I had the distinct pleasure of meeting your CEO years ago, Andrew Morlet, at Vice President Al Gore’s office. He is just nothing but a brilliant and delightful human being. I was very, very impressed with what he shared with me. Your foundation’s website which I’m on right now is ellenmacarthurfoundation.org. For our website, for our listeners and our viewers, it’s ellenmacarthurfoundation.org. Can you give a little background on the foundation? What is its mission and purposes? And then we’re going to go specifically into a lot of the important work that you and your colleagues are doing there right now as well.

Jarkko: Sure. So the Ellen MacArthur Foundation started about ten years ago now when Dame Ellen MacArthur had a realization. So she was a competitive yachtswoman and held the fastest solo around the world navigation record at one point. But she realized that on her boat there are limited resources, and she needs to make do with that. That’s all she has, and the planet is not really any different. She had the idea of trying to make sense of it and sort of ended her at competitive yachting career at the peak of her performance and started the foundation with the mission of accelerating this transition to circular economy. What we mean by circular economy is almost the opposite of linear economy where we mostly live today where we take materials from the ground, make stuff out of that, and most of the time it ends up in waste at the end of its use. Circular economy is there to try to fix that.

John: So linear economy is take it out of the ground, use it once and then put it in the landfill and it’s gone then.

Jarkko: That’s the simplification. Yeah. Although it’s never gone, really. It’s in the landfill and it loses all its volume and its usability for the economy. And the whole point is to make use of those limited resources we have especially when we talk about metals, Etc. As much as there is on the planet and we need to make sure that we keep reusing that material indefinitely, really. Otherwise eventually, we will run out of it.

John: Jarkko, I’ve always thought about this. Because I’ve had the luck to be able to travel a lot. I’ve traveled through Europe. I’ve traveled through Asia. I have partners on both sides of the Pacific and the Atlantic, business partners. And what I’ve seen is, and you tell me if I’m off on my thinking here, Europe, UK, Ireland, Italy, France, and all the great companies that exist on the other side of the Atlantic, and then you have South Korea and Japan. All are smaller countries. And they have, of course, less resources, including less land to abuse. And so they were generationally, two generations ago, really getting part of the circular economy movement and sustainability movement back then. And now the US and Canada areas where the land has been big and quite wasteful and we could just build big landfills and throw away, we’re starting to catch up, but really we’re way 30, 40 years behind the behavior that was already starting to change on both the other side of the Atlantic and Pacific before. Am I off on that thinking, or is that too simplistic?

Jarkko: There’s some truth to that. I think timeline-wise could be a bit different. I wouldn’t say that Europe is a foster child in any way in this matter. Of course, the European Union and the European Commission have taken these matters now very seriously, especially with the COVID recovery plans accelerated the green deal in Europe. So, taking climate mitigation efforts, the circular economy as means to achieving some of those climate goals and then some to the core of these plans. So I think it’s more recent. But the thing is that it’s ancient. That’s how nature works. There is no waste in nature. In human societies there was very little waste until the Industrial Revolution came about and we kind of got addicted to oil and coal and then the ability to use and abuse materials because of that of expansion in the energy that we had available to us. And I think humanity kind of lost it there. And now, we’re realizing that can’t go on forever. And perhaps Europe, maybe Japan, sort of policy-wise is step ahead of North America, but by no means sort of there yet either.

John: Whenever you turn on the television now here in the United States, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, everyone is saying ESG is having a moment. Circular economy is having a moment. How does that translate to the important work that you guys have started at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and also with your goal to help transform us from a linear economy to a circular economy?

Jarkko: Yeah, it’s a good point. ESG data is used a lot by investors and we see exponential growth now in the money that’s labeled under circular economy and going to finance circular economy activities. One example is the circular economy fund by BlackRock that started one and a half years ago. I can’t remember the exact number but it’s small, 20, 30, 40 million USD. And it’s now I think just about 2 billion. So it’s just the exponential growth and just an anecdote of that and it’s not alone. There are increasing number of those. It’s sort of one element of this. So, ESG investment in general is, of course, taking off. And I think more and more academic evidence to just investors’ sentiment on seeing the long-term value in companies that take these things into consideration, because that gives companies the ability to avoid or mitigate a lot of supply chain risks and policy related risks as policy landscape moves very quickly at least in Europe towards mandating and reporting circular economy related activities and making sure that you have extended producer responsibility, things in place, Etc. At the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, we’re also working on those topics by creating methods for companies to measure their circular economy performance, and to use that data if they wish to, for example, with investors.

John: How do people approach you? Do you approach governments, or do government entities, NGOs, privately held, publicly traded companies, approach you to help them get better at their practices, and you analyze their practices? How do organizations interrelate with you and then you drive change? How does that all work?

Jarkko: It’s quite different depending on the type of organization. So we collaborate a lot with universities. We work with intergovernmental organizations, cities around the world. In North America, New York is the flagship city working with us on circular economy and then with private sector. So, our new tool called Circulytics, Circular Analytics you can say and short of that.

John: I’ve never heard that before. Explain what that means. I’ve never heard that ever. And I live in this world because of our company. Explain what Circulytics mean. I’m fascinated by that word.

Jarkko: Absolutely. We chose the name because before we launched that name and you Google it, zero hits. So they’re all the hits on Circulytics are driving towards our tool which is great.

John: I love it.

Jarkko: Indeed it’s a circular economy performance measurement tool for companies, and we have now over a thousand companies that are using the tool. I think it’s around 170 companies whose headquarters are in North America, majority is still in Europe. But this is a way for companies to assess their performance by sort of third-party tool. So, it’s not biased. But it’s created…

John: Explain how it works. Does my company or any other company can now license this tool from you? It’s a software tool and we plug in the data, and the algorithm gives us the answers?

Jarkko: It’s an assessment that we do. So, the step-wise process for a company would be to sign up, get an account, use an online platform to input information that you’re asked. All of that is available on our website to look at what kind of information that actually is. It’s up to 36 indicators, depending on the type of business that you do. You’ll then submit that information securely. We don’t disclose it to anybody else. We use all the latest data security protocols to handle that. And then at the end we produce a scorecard to send it back to you and give you a license to use that scorecard and disclose that information and talk about your score with your business partners if you choose to do so.

John: So a company is going to be able to sign up with your organization and eventually as they evolve and work through this, they’re going to be able to put your logo, the Circulytics logo, on their website with a score and that will be very transparently informative to their stakeholders as to how they’re performing in a new circular economy world.

Jarkko: That’s right. So, we asked companies to give context to their score. With the score you would, of course, use the Circulytics logo, but it would also say what type of activities have you done to achieve that score and then hopefully also say what you plan to do next to give a little bit of context to not just say that we got an A- or B+ or whatever it might be, but it was actually behind it then. And we see that as really important. It’s the actual sort of substance behind that score and that’s just really a conversation over to this important topic.

John: You know, these obvious factors are obvious outcomes from companies and government entities and organizations coming into the circular economy. Obvious is it is great for carbon, it’s great for the offsets, it’s great for the energy savings. And as you said at the top of the show, the resource savings are quite substantial. There’s no need to dig for and mine for new aluminum if we could recycle our aluminum and our gold and our silver. But talk a bit about some of the other benefits that come out of moving from a linear to circular economy for businesses and other organizations.

Jarkko: Yeah. Well, you touched on many of those. In certain resources, resource scarcity is a real issue. Rare earth metals, for example. And it’s really a forcing mechanism for you to think about circular economy recirculating materials. But it’s also about bottom line. So, through our research and through others’ research on a system levels, on an economy level, in Europe or North America, there are trillions of dollars of value in moving to a circular economy. And how that value gets distributed depends a bit on the industry, but there are certainly first-mover advantages in figuring out what that looks like for your company and your industry. We see that with companies we work with. So, some of the largest brands in the world, Google, Nestle, Unilever, are our strategic partners and they take this very seriously and they see the value of moving faster actually than their competitors to figuring out what, for example, packaging for Unilever. What is circular packaging and how can they benefit both for their bottom line and for the planet from moving into more, for example, reusable solutions?

John: How about in terms of some of the soft but still very substantive benefits such as employee turnover, retention, and getting everybody focus on a mission? Does some of the study starting to show that companies that have missions that are to do well and do good at the same time? To make a profit, but to make the world a better place, to transition to greener and more circular economy behavior, have higher retention rates and less turnover as well?

Jarkko: You said it. Absolutely. And I think increasingly so with this and the next generation of employees coming to working age, it is definitely an increasingly important topic. And for anybody feeling that you’re doing a meaningful contribution to something else than your own bank account, it’s definitely a motivating factor, and that’s absolutely true.

John: How long does the process take? If a company signs up with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation now and they want to sign up for the Circulytics process analysis, how long is that process take typically?

Jarkko: It depends on how easy or difficult it is for the company to find the information, for example, about your material flows. So, if you produce goods, we would ask you or you need to input data and indicators about your material flows in and out of the company. That can take time if you’re a large company. But once you’ve submitted, we process it fast. So everything is run on a Cloud server. So the scorecard generation, we do it in batches in a week. Although, if you’re a large company and we put the threshold at 1 billion USD of annual revenue, we also make a Bespoke analyst commentary. So we look at the results, look at the supporting evidence that you would provide, and then our analysts will look at where we think you’re doing well and where we think you have sort of low-hanging fruits to move to next in your journey to becoming more circular company. And depending on the time of the year, it may take us a little bit longer but we try to make all of those scorecards where we put the commentary within a month. So, anything from a week to a couple of months depending on how long it takes for you to collect and submit that information as well.

John: When did you launch the Circulytics program? Like, approximately when?

Jarkko: Exactly on January 14, 2020. So, it’s relatively new. So it’s not even one and a half years, and really encouraged to see that over a thousand companies already are finding value from it.

John: Because of what the investment community now getting more circular economy, ESG excited and voting with their pocketbooks, are you seeing the velocity of organizations signing up for this program picking up?

Jarkko: Yeah, I think it’s quite a steady flow, but it’s interesting to hear that the companies have completed the assessment. They’ve talked about their Circulytics score in their investor calls, quarterly calls with their financiers. And in that sense, it is finding its way really to the heart of decision-making in some of these companies.

John: In the last two weeks, I read articles that BlackStone and the SEC who governs the publicly traded companies here in the United States both said they’re going to make ESG disclosure mandatory for leadership of both publicly traded companies, and BlackStone they said for portfolio companies. Obviously these trends are going to spread. BlackStone is doing it. All the other big investor groups are going to take that on as well, and the SEC is making publicly traded companies do this. So, is this now a beginning from the top down that’s going to force since they don’t have their own tools, these organizations are going to turn to credible, legitimate, and great opportunities like your organization offers with Circulytics to then say, “hey, we need to report now to the SEC or to leadership at BlackStone, therefore we need this tool to help keep us on the right side of what they’re recommending”?

Jarkko: Yeah, I think it’s a very active space, this sort of non-financial measurements or disclosure standardization. So there’s a lot of movement towards that and increase disclosure of company performance beyond financial performance. And of course, in our opinion, circular economy is absolutely critical part of that. We work with other organizations to make sure that circular economy ends up in those future standards as well, and keep Circulytics as a deep dive to really understand in more depth circular economy performance.

John: For our listeners and our viewers that have just joined us, we’ve got Jarkko Havas. He is the lead of the Insights and Analysis Department at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. You can find Jarkko and his great colleagues at www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org. What’s the future look like? You’re a young man, you’re doing great work at a very great organization with a lot of other good colleagues. What’s the future look like? How long is it going to take for everyone to get on board or at least for the tipping point to happen and we make real strides here?

Jarkko: That’s a very good question. I think there is no blanket answer to that. If you look at, for example, plastics packaging globally, I think we are beyond that tipping point. For plastics packaging manufacturers, it is very hard to operate without thinking about extended producer responsibility, without thinking about where your plastic bottles end up. And in that sense, that is eventually going to that tipping point. It’s coming to different materials streams and different industries. Circular economy generally, I think, is at a tipping point especially in Europe where it’s finding its way into the core of policymaking in EU and to the way that companies are assessed and the way that investments are assessed. Circular economy taxonomy for investors is something that’s becoming a reality in a year or two in EU and then really you need to do it, and it’s going to affect cost of capital and everything after that as well.

John: That is so wonderful. Your generation seems to be voting with your pocketbook more than ever before. That you really want to buy goods and services from companies that are at least trying to do the right thing. We know there’s no such thing as perfect. Perfect is a bad goal, but at least making an effort. And by signing up for Circulytics, it sounds like that’s one great step in the right direction. What could you say to organizations or companies that are thinking about this but are scared of what the results might be, scared of the process, scared of just the whole aura of being greener and having to go and to be examined so closely?

Jarkko: The good things are the tool is free to use. As we’re a charitable organization, we get funding from our funders to run this show. You get to choose whether you disclose your score or not. So we don’t force disclosure. More and more companies choose to do that as it’s beneficial, even if your score is not great. But again, to try it out, you get to understand first what your baseline is, where you’re doing well, where you should do better. Even if circular economy is a new concept to you, the tool helps you with resources to understand it as you go through the process. And in a way, it’s a safe space where you first can figure out where your company is today and see what you should do next to improve your score and more importantly improve your circular economy foremost, really. And then when the time is right, talk about your score with your suppliers and with your customers and indeed the end consumer and show the potential and the performance that your company has when you choose to do so.

John: That makes so much sense. How can you fly an airplane if you don’t have the information necessary to get to the destination?

Jarkko: That’s right. That’s what measurement is about. It’s about understanding where you are today and how quickly you are moving towards the destination that you choose. And hopefully that destination and your company strategy has circular economy in it.

John: Are you finding geographically the response has been similar both in EU, North America, and Asia, or is it concentrated right now in one geography and in the years ahead you’re going to focus your messaging to other regions as well that haven’t come along so far?

Jarkko: Yeah, I think our foundation is based in the UK and historically has stronger connections with Europe. So, 60% of the companies that have used Circulytics are Europe-based organizations although many operate globally and we see slowly other regions taking up that percentage. And with late last year, we released the tool in Chinese, Spanish, and Portuguese to cater to more global audiences. We see a lot of excitement, especially in Latin America and increasingly in North America as well. So, we certainly want to make this into a globally used and reference tool.

John: Jarkko, I’m going to leave you with the last words. I want you to share any last thoughts or comments with our listeners and our viewers and then we’re going to have to say goodbye for today. So I leave it to you.

Jarkko: Sure. So what I would say is that circular economy is not like a green concept that’s outside of business reality. Because we live on a planet that is finite, it’s an eventuality. There is no way around it. It needs to be able to use our materials and reuse and then reuse them again because there’s just as much as there are renewable materials also. We need to be able to take care of the planet that provides us this renewable materials, and that’s what circular economy is about. So, it’s very much a core business decision for companies. And in that sense, it’s not something extra but it should be at the core of how we operate companies and the economy at large.

John: Well, that’s great. And for our listeners and viewers out there, as Jarkko said earlier, it’s a free tool, so why not learn about your own organization and learn about at least where you are. Get a baseline so you can effectuate change and make it better. Jarkko, I’m so honored that you came on today. Thank you, and all your colleagues at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Again, for our listeners and viewers, to find the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, go to www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org. Thank you for making the world a better place. Thank you for making a great impact. You are always welcome back on the show. Continued success, Jarkko Havas.

Jarkko: Thank you, John.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Trajectory Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together landowners, electricity users, and communities, to develop solar energy projects with strong local support. For more information on how to Trajectory is leading the Solar Revolution, please visit trajectoryenergy.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, speeches, customer experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian. I’m so excited to have with us today, Dr. Meng Tao. He’s a distinguished professor of sustainability and innovation at Arizona State University. Welcome to the Impact Podcast.

Dr. Meng Tao: Thank you, John. Thank you for having me.

John: Well, it’s an honor to have you today. You’ve done so much hard work and research in this area of sustainability and innovation. Before we start talking about all your fascinating work with regards to solar technologies and other technologies, I’d love you to share your fascinating background of your journey, where you grew up, where you got educated, and how you came to this important work that you do.

Dr. Tao: Yes, sure. This is a long story. I came to this country in 1992. I spent the first half of my life in China and the second half of my life in the US. I got a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in China. I decided to pursue my Ph.D. here in the US. I still remember that when I boarded the flight from Shanghai to San Francisco, I had $60 in my pocket; that’s all the money I had. I had to borrow money to buy my ticket here. Of course, the first few years were pretty tough, the financial constraints, language, cultural barriers, and then also, [inaudible] on the school because all the classes were taught in a different languages. I was also working up to 40 hours a week, doing research in the lab, because I was financially supported by a research assistantship. That’s what it was like.

I guess, more importantly, there was this anxiety, this uncertainty about my future at that time. I wanted to stay, but could I find a job after my Ph.D.? If not, where would I go? This was an unsettling time of my life, but I’m so grateful that this country did provide me opportunities and I got my Ph.D. in 1998 from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, under Professor Joel[?] Ivy. Actually, I noticed he’s still there today.

I got my first job as an assistant professor at Louisiana Tech University. Two years later, I moved to the University of Texas in Arlington. In 2011, I came to Arizona State University as a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering. I have been here for 10 years now.

John: I always loved the immigrant origination story. My family, I’m a third-generation immigrant. To me, I always relate to every immigrant story; I feel that I’m part of it, it ties us together as a family. When you left Shanghai in 1992, were you the only family member in your family that came here, or did you already have family and friends here?

Dr. Tao: Yes. My sister came to the United States in 1987. When I said I borrowed money, I borrowed the money from my sister.

John: Okay. She was already here, your sister? She’s still alive and she’s still here in the United States?

Dr. Tao: Yes, they live in Minnesota.

John: Wonderful. It’s good you had your sister here.

Dr. Tao: Yes. Otherwise, it would be even more difficult.

John: Wow. Yes, I can imagine. Now, you’re at Arizona State University, I’m on your website.

For our listeners and viewers that want to see the important and great work that Dr. Tao is up to, you can go to sustainability-innovation.asu.edu.

Can you talk a little bit about what specifically you work on at ASU and what your passion and your focuses are?

Dr. Tao: Yes, sure. My research focuses on sustainable solar technologies. Why did I put “sustainable” in front of solar technology? I think people may still have the misconception that “I have solar panels on my roof. Now, I have sustainable energy.” What’s wrong with that? In fact, we need 2 things, simultaneously, in order to have sustainable energy. The first thing, we need a sustainable energy source. Solar is certainly sustainable. The second thing, we also need a sustainable technology to utilize that energy source. This is an issue that has been largely overlooked in the past.

Just to give you one example, the end-of-life solar modules, all solar modules have a finite lifetime, typically 25 years. What do we do when they die? Today, most of them go to the landfill. We have to ask ourselves the question, “Are solar panels really green if they end up in the landfill?” That’s just one example. There are also other roadblocks to sustainable solar technology.

The reason is that the amount of energy we use is enormous. I could give you numbers. Right now, we use an average of 2 times 10 to the power of 13 joules of energy every second. That’s an enormous number. When we could price[?] solar technology, the technology that has to be deployed at an enormous scale is comparable to the scale of our demand to make a tangible impact on carbon emissions.

That translates into enormous amounts of resources to produce and deploy solar technology, things like electricity, water, chemicals, raw materials, transportation, storage, recycling, you name it. We have to ask ourselves the question, “Do we have enough of the resources on our planet to make all the solar panels that we have to make?” It turns out, in many cases, these resources are limited. That’s the focus of my research. My goal is to find a technical solution to these resource constraints and make solar technology sustainable.

John: Really, you’re at the forefront of taking solar technology, which was part of the linear economy, historically, and taking, now, solar technology into the circular economy, as well?

Dr. Tao: Yes, exactly, and the way we want solar technology to be sustainable, so we can use solar energy for many decades, long time to be here.

John: Doc, how far away are we from your goals? You’ve done lots of research, you’ve been cited more than 3,200 times in scientific writings, you’re very well esteemed around the world in all of your research. What does the road ahead look like? Are there lots of roadblocks? Are you more hopeful right now about breaking through than ever before?

Dr. Tao: Yes, there’s always hope. I think we, as humans, are smart enough to come up with a solution to the problem that we face. Now, certainly, that doesn’t mean that there will be no roadblocks, no barriers to achieve our goal. I think the end game is that by 2050, a significant portion of the energy we use must come from solar.

Now, we also have other renewable energy sources like wind, geothermal, biomass. We also have low carbon energy sources like nuclear energy, but solar has to play that leading role in solving our energy crisis. That means to deploy solar technology at a large enough, sufficient scale and roadblocks that we face, like raw materials, electricity, storage, recycling, all these, we need to work out a solution to these problems. I’m optimistic that when we put our concerted effort into the issue, these problems will be solved.

John: If today, the biggest roadblock to solar panel recycling is that the cost of recycling far exceeds the revenue from the recycling, how far away are we from developing these technologies to maximize that revenue and take a solar panel or solar panels, or solar farm to the circular economy?

Dr. Tao: Right now in the United States, I must say that the need to recycle solar panels is well recognized, but it is seldom done today. As you mentioned, the cost for recycling far exceeds the revenue from recycling by today’s technology, so it does not make a business sense, unless somebody walks in first view[?].

How far are we? Right now, I think maybe 10% of the end-of-life solar panels are recycled, and 90% actually end up in the landfill. Even if they are recycled, in my view, they are not properly recycled because there are a couple of issues. One of the issues that there is a toxic material in solar panels, lead. Each panel contains about half an ounce of lead and it’s a liability issue if it does get into water or soil. Today, technology does not allow us to get the lead out.

There are also encapsulated in solar panels, which is ethylene vinyl acetate, which is a polymer. This polymer reacts with water to form acetic acid, that’s vinegar we use at home. Acetic acid is what we use to dissolve lead. Lead, as an [inaudible] are really a bad combination in the module if you sent them to landfills. Then there are also other materials in solar panels like silver, copper, aluminum, silicon, glass, zinc. These materials are worth between $10 to $15 per panel. The technology we have today only allows us to exchange the aluminum and maybe also the copper for about $2 per panel. We are missing out almost 90% of the potential revenue here. That’s what we are focusing on now.

I work with my students to develop technologies for solar panel recycling. We have 2 main objectives. One is to maximize the revenue from solar panel recycling in order to offset the cost. The other is to extract 100% of the lead from modules and then we use that lead in new modules, because lead is used in assorted, new modules.

John: Are we getting closer? Are we getting closer to this dinging of the cost structure of recycling? Do you believe in the next 5, 10 years, we’re going to be able to achieve a program and a system-ology that allows us to responsibly recycle solar panels economically, efficiently?

Dr. Tao: We have to. The projection is that by 2030, I know that’s a five-year part by the International Renewable Energy Agency, at that time, 2016, they projected that by 2030, we will see a larger quantity of end-of-life panels. Last week, I had a meeting with Evelyn Butler for our Solar Energy Industries Association. Now, the nearest projection is that by 2025 to 2027, we will see a large quantity of end-of-life modules. We have to be ready before that. I think on the technical side, we’re certainly making great progress, but we do need to move on to the next stage. That is to build a prototype to actually test this out, and then provide a service to anybody who wants to get their panels recycled.

John: For our listeners and our viewers that have just joined us, we’ve got Dr. Meng Tao, the very esteemed professor of Arizona State University. You can find Dr. Meng and his colleagues at ASU at sustainability-innovation.asu.edu. We’re talking about solar panels, innovation, his important research, and the technological revolution involving solar panels to be able to be responsibly recycled in the future, instead of being landfilled, which then creates all sorts of hazardous waste, opportunities into our ecosystem, ground, water, animals, vegetation, and eventually, of course, back to human beings.

Dr. Tao, recently, you’re co-founding a company and you’re serving as a CTO for TG Technologies. What’s the goal of TG Technologies, and how is that different from the role that you play as a professor, researcher, and teacher?

Dr. Tao: Yes, that’s really a good question. Being an engineering professor, I guess my career goal is to solve maybe one practical problem for the society, that’s why I co-founded TG company. The company’s mission is to commercialize innovative and [inaudible] technologies for sustainable solar technology. Right now, it focuses on solar panel recycling technology. The federal government gave this on what they call an SBIR grant, Small Business Innovation Research Projects. The company received the post[?] phase one and phase two from the National Science Foundation, totaling being almost a million dollars.

We have come up with a circular chemistry to recycle solar panels. What does circular chemistry mean? Typically you process these panels then you generally have tons of chemical waste. We want solar panels to be circular, but can we have the recycling processes circular, as well? That’s how we got started with this. Now, we figured out a way to basically reuse the chemicals that we use for recycling.

The way we do it is that we first dissolve the solar panels in chemicals then we extract the metal from the chemicals. During the metal extraction, the chemicals get regenerated, and then we reuse the dissolved metal again. That’s how we can cut down chemical waste by 80% from the recycling process. We have, I believe, the best, the most environmentally benign recycling process with this company, with the support from our National Science Foundation.

John: It’s sort of a closed-loop recycling system?

Dr. Tao: Yes, exactly.

John: How long are you from commercializing that invention and those technologies? Are you a year away or five years away? What are your thoughts?

Dr. Tao: Now, we are actively talking with potential investors. Our next goal is to build up a small scale, maybe roughly 100 ton a year-type of facility, which is maybe 100,000 panels a year-type of capabilities to grow [inaudible] from bench top research actually is a feasible, reasonable scale than for that point[?]. That’s probably, I would say, maybe 2, 3 years away.

John: That will be an Arizona, that first plan?

Dr. Tao: That’s a good question. That is still being discussed. Arizona certainly takes care of Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, all those solar panels installed in this region. It could have been in some way in Texas, that also takes care of the Southern part of the United States, or even Georgia, which takes care of the Southeast of the United States. The exact location is still being discussed.

John: You are also a teacher of students and ASU is a wonderful learning institution, especially your Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation has a world-known record. It’s world-known for the importance of what you teach in sustainability. You were early, your Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at ASU was early in teaching this. Are almost all the stars aligning now? Is everything coming together? It seems as though we can’t turn on CNBC, Bloomberg, or CNN, and another story is about sustainability, ESG, green innovation, infrastructure, President Biden’s infrastructure program is all about green innovation. Are your students now the next.com rockstars of the future? Are they gonna make fortunes as we turn the linear economy into the circular economy over the next decade?

Dr. Tao: Yes, that’s certainly an important point. I have a couple of things to say to your point. One is that I spent a year in Sweden between 2017, 2018, as the Fullbright Distinguished Chair. I went to Sweden [inaudible] the United States. The ones I noticed is that the Europeans or Swedes are doing a better job in terms of the circular economy, than the United States.

I’ll give you one example, they recycle being there are 6 or 8 different boxes. One for colored glass, non-colored glass, metal, paper, cardboard. Every city does this sorting so the recycler doesn’t have this heavy burden of sorting different [inaudible]. That’s one thing. Let’s also get into your point of we need to educate them, our next generation, in that direction.

The other point I want to add to your comment is that I was educated in the 1980s, 1990s. At that time, we were so shocked by technical advances without considering all the environmental, social, societal consequences of new technologies that we’re developing. Circularity was not into the initial design or development of a new product. That attitude has to change. I’m glad that as you’re taking a leading position in doing that, we’re trying to convey the message of circularity of sustainability into everything we teach. We will have a new generation who are well knowledgeable and capable of pushing for a circular economy.

John: I wanna ask you a question, though. I want us to agree with my theory. I assume that you and I both love two great countries, China and the United States. We love them, but they’re very big land masses. If you go back to what you just said about Sweden, it’s been my theory all along that Sweden, Germany, Italy, France, UK, and then when we look to the other side, Japan, South Korea, these countries have been generationally ahead of us, as you pointed out, with regards to sustainability and circular economy behavior. Because they’ve been forced to, they have small geographies, they can’t go build more landfills.

You said, we were so interested in advancing our societies in China, in the US, we weren’t thinking in those terms, plus we also had the land mass to just say, “Just dig more landfills. Use it once, throw it out. Don’t worry about taking those resources and reusing them again.” Now, finally, both China, the United States, thank gosh, are getting on board with what the EU and what other smaller countries in Asia have been doing for at least two generations, historically. Is that along the lines of that how you see this, as well?

Dr. Tao: Yes. I definitely agree with you that in the United States, we have not really had lived tough times or lived on extremely limited resources. We tend to buy a bigger house if we can, or buy a bigger car if we can. If we just look at the cities that we have, they are so spread out. Phoenix, if you drive from East to West, that’s like 80 miles. In the city I stayed in, Gothenburg in Sweden, it probably has like on the order of maybe one million people, but the city is really concentrated. East to the West is no more than 50 miles.

Now, it’s probably difficult to have a public transportation system in such a sparsely populated region. In Sweden, it makes perfect sense. You don’t need a car to live in Sweden. They just hop on a bus or train, and it will take you almost anywhere. In the US, you can see that if I travel from the East side of Phoenix to the West side of Phoenix, I will go through 80 miles. It’s difficult to run a public transportation system in such a big city like here, so I agree with you.

Now, we probably need to rethink about these things and see how we can better design our cities to be more sustainable. If we continue to take this article[?], it will come back and bite us, for example, the price plus the waste that you know well. That’s the same attitude, “Oh, let’s just throw it out, nature will take care of it.” Eventually, it will come back and now, it’s a problem we have to deal with.

John: How about with solar panels? There’s so much debate that I always hear, Dr. Tao, over who should pay for the responsible recycling. Is it the manufacturer? Is it the State that they’re used in? Is it other stakeholders that use these in their homes or in their businesses? Who really is responsible? What are your thoughts on that? You’re such an expert in this area, I’d love to hear your thoughts on who should be paying for the responsible recycling of solar panels?

Dr. Tao: Okay, a really good question. In EU, the mandate, the manufacturer has to pay for recycling and offline[?] management. In the US, now, it’s largely left to the waste that you generate, and basically, the panel owners are responsible. There’s no mandate here, that’s why most solar panels end up in the landfill. I see the advantage of putting that responsibility on the manufacturer instead of the customers or the users. If you put this on the manufacturers, then they have to take recyclability into their design. If the customers are responsible, especially these manufacturers, largely they’re overseas, then also these panels last for 25, 30 years, 30 years later, that manufacturer may be out of business. You have nobody to go after.

Also, to be able to recycle these solar panels, we also need to have the basic information. What’s the structure? What type of materials are in there? What constitutes each material? Where do these materials stay inside the panel? This information is totally missing on panels. Some 25 years later, you gather these panels, you don’t know what’s inside these panels because each manufacturer may have a different structure, may have slightly different material, then the recyclers’ job becomes extremely difficult in that scenario. I hope that if we put this on the manufacturer’s shoulder, then they have to behave a little bit more responsible than they have been behaving up to this point.

John: Well, Doc, we’re at the end of this interview, but I always like for our guests to share some final thoughts and words. We have a lot of young viewers around the world that want to be the next generation of entrepreneurs, as well. I’ll leave it to you, and then I’ll say goodbye to both of us at the end. I’d like you to share your last thoughts before we have to sign off for today.

Dr. Tao: Yes, sure. For the young people out there, if you’re looking for the next big thing, or if you’re looking for the next Intel, Microsoft, Facebook, or Google, my path[?] is probably in energy and circular economy. Yes, simply because we use so much energy; we need to shift our energy from fossil fuels to something more sustainable.

John: Wonderful. Doc, I wish you continued success. I hope your company, TG Companies, LLC, becomes a huge success, and we get to create a circular economy of recycling solar panels. I hope you win that, that would be wonderful.

For our listeners and viewers who want to find Dr. Tao and his colleagues doing great work, they are at ASU at the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation. Please go to sustainability-innovation.asu.edu.

John: Dr. Tao, you are truly making a great impact on this planet, making this world a better place. I’m so honored and grateful that you spent time with us today on the Impact Podcast.

Dr. Tao: Thank you so much, John. It’s a great opportunity for me, as well.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Trajectory Energy Partners. Trajectory Energy Partners brings together land owners, electricity users, and communities to develop solar energy projects with strong local support. For more information on how Trajectory is leading the solar revolution, please visit trajectoryenergy.com