0:00
Welcome back, Mateo. It's great to be back.
Search this video
0:02
We had a great time chatting last week about Form Energy and the future of storage.
0:05
We're going to take a slightly different tact this week and talk about more Mateo, you as a person.
0:12
So, we ask this question of every guest that comes on Giant Ideas.
0:16
If you had to pick three photographs of your life that define your life, what would they be and what have you learned from them?
0:22
I I'm not going to go with, you know, the kids being I have three kids.
0:25
I'm not going to do the the kids being born one or or me getting married.
0:28
I sort of assumed that those are the >> They they have been done on this show before, so that's good to hear.
0:33
I heard that they have been done. Yeah.
0:36
Um but uh let let me let me start with one that is maybe relevant for the for the conversation.
0:43
Um So, uh when I I first left Tesla, I was thinking about what does come next for energy storage, you know, I'm very continue to be super curious about that.
0:55
And as that thought experiment was really trying to figure out, you know, what kind of battery could compete with fossil fuels um on the grid, and and I did come across this iron air, you know, chemistry that was in the public domain, and and I I was fortunate enough to be able to sort of run that thought experiment in a fairly controlled environment.
1:10
I um I was a entrepreneur residence at something called uh it's called Activate Now, it's called Cyclotron Road then, but it's sort of you know, hard tech uh incubator for for essentially PhDs, and it was run founded by a friend of mine, Ilan Gur.
1:25
Uh they're in Berkeley, and um and it was just a place for me to sort of counsel younger entrepreneurs kind of early in the stage there, but they did have a very rigorous process for sort of evaluating hard tech ideas.
1:36
And uh and and Ilan, you know, brought a lot of structure to my thinking about that, and I have, you know, the fortune of having some amazingly smart friends um who uh who I could bring in and, you know, sort of red team it with, and we did a you know, very formal process around it.
1:53
And I sort of reached the end of it, and I had never it sounds a little naive.
1:56
I never really thought about founding a company, but after I the smartest people that I could bring in ran through very rigorous process.
2:06
I I sort of was looking at the page, and and my friend Elon was right there, and he's like, "I think you need to start the company."
2:13
And I just I remember looking at the battery specification that I had come up with that that was represented by this iron air approach.
2:18
I just I It It just became clear as day.
2:22
Like I We We happened to do that at Stanford.
2:26
There was there was a There was a conference room that we were all in doing this red team blue blue team exercise, and I just like I can picture the windows and the light coming in the windows and sitting at that desk looking at looking at the specification on my computer.
2:37
I was like, "I think I need to start a company."
2:38
And that was like a you know sort of a you know eyes closed take take the snapshot moment there, and I had no idea what was going to come next, but that part was extremely clear. Love it. Accidental entrepreneur. Yeah, exactly.
2:50
So, I've been in batteries even before Tesla.
2:52
I was at a company called Gaia Power Technologies in New York, and and we sold lead acid batteries essentially to to behind the meter applications.
3:00
We're doing demand charge reduction back in you know early 2000s.
3:05
And uh I was I you know I was every I was technically the COO of the company, but I was battery installer, I was battery maintainer, I was like customer you know business development guy.
3:16
I was you know I was doing all of it.
3:19
And uh And and I remember installing batteries in a Starbucks you know at 1:00 a. m.
3:26
because you had to do it off off hours and in Manhattan and like you know taking these heavy batteries down the down the very precarious stairs, you know, in in in midtown and uh I remember sort of having a very crisp moment to myself.
3:44
I was like, "Have I Have I committed to the wrong thing?"
3:48
>> [laughter] >> You know.
3:50
Cuz I coming out of divinity school I It was my first job in storage and I got I I was sure that it was you know sectorially I was sure that it was the right bet like we had to have a better way to store energy inside committed is this company as my first in first storage job and I was a few years in and
4:05
just like doing things I never imagined that I'd be doing and like it really having that moment like I wasn't getting paid cuz the company was having a you know a really tough time getting through and like From from the altar to to the to the staircase carrying carrying battery storage. Exactly. I was like Exactly.
4:19
I was like what you know what choices have led me here to >> [laughter] >> you know to carrying batteries down the down a hatch off of a midtown you know street here in in Manhattan you know middle of the night and like what am I doing here?
4:30
And that was like you know really those moments create the resolve I suppose but but I you know I can still I sometimes still actually go past that Starbucks when I'm in Manhattan and it's like there's the reminder there that like you know the road is not linear for you know by any stretch of the imagination and you can end up you know in some strange scenarios.
4:50
in some strange scenarios. I had a funny slightly similar scenario where immediately after graduating from Princeton also with a not not not not to study into be a a priest but with a degree in philosophy and religion I was gigging around New York with my band and I was signed up to be I say snuck in to be a bartender at
5:09
Webster Hall cuz I didn't really have the the credentials for it and I was there on the night delivering making drinks and it was a hip-hop night and I didn't know I didn't actually know many of the drinks that were being ordered and it was a it was a somewhat disastrous evening where I also sort of had a moment of being like woah was this the right decision? Anyway, here we are now. Yeah, those Anyway, here we are now.
5:28
Yeah, those those are the impactful ones uh and then you know maybe a a little bit more recently um you know we built a factory here in West Virginia for formed it and it's on an old steel mill site in, you know the steel mill produced for 100 years and, you know, 12,000 jobs that went away 25 years ago and uh the state of West Virginia really committed us um they committed to us uh to to bring us here.
5:58
>> [snorts] >> And there was there was a bill that was passed in the legislature in fact to fully fund the the the economic development package that they put in front of us, which is $290 million, a very meaningful amount uh from from the state.
6:12
And uh there was a signing ceremony in West Virginia signing ceremony and in our our local state senator, it's a guy named Ryan Weld. He's he's from here.
6:22
His grand grandparents his grandfathers worked in the mill.
6:27
And uh and he introduced me at the at that signing ceremony.
6:32
I was on stage in Charleston, West Virginia, which is the capital of the state.
6:36
And [snorts] uh and and as he was walking off stage and I was walking on stage, and Ryan's an Air Force guy.
6:41
And um and and as folks may know uh for people in the military, um there's there's the challenge coin.
6:47
So, you know, from the branches they represent or the um generally or their their division, there there's a coin to, you know, the the size of a sort of large silver dollar and um and the tradition is to sort of put, you know, you palm it when you shake somebody's hand.
7:00
You know, you receive that challenge coin.
7:01
It's you know, very much a a sign of respect and honor.
7:05
>> [snorts] >> And uh and and I've had the honor of receiving a a couple challenge coins over over the years.
7:12
Um and [clears throat] um their tradition in the military and and as I shook Ryan's hand coming out as he was coming off stage, there was a coin that he palmed for me.
7:21
Uh and uh and and he came in close for a second.
7:25
He said, and and I looked at it.
7:27
It was not a military challenge coin.
7:28
It was a It was a badge with a number on it.
7:30
And that was the badge that one of his grandfathers used to badge into the factory when he would work at the iron mill.
7:41
And he said, uh there's a number on there.
7:44
He said, "Jim Zircle, that's his grandfather, would be proud."
7:48
And it was a sign of respect.
7:52
And Ryan, you know, cuz he's savvy about these things, absolutely was a challenge.
7:56
In other words, don't let me down. Right?
8:00
State's [snorts] coming to you.
8:02
There's a lot riding on this.
8:04
And uh and that was, you know, sort of the the responsibility and the and the weight of the moment really really was there, but it was also just a extremely genuine, you know, human moment coming from from Ryan.
8:18
Last question to wrap up this episode.
8:21
What is it about Matayo, yourself, that has allowed you to be so successful in life?
8:24
And modesty is not not allowed in this answer.
8:27
We want you to be uh fulsomely boastful.
8:29
So, yeah, what you've done a lot.
8:31
Um what do you think it is about you that's allowed you to do that?
8:34
Uh I I think it's a combination of my personality, which is uh I I'm pretty low-key. I'm pretty even-keeled.
8:43
In fact, it you know, very even-keeled.
8:47
Um that that's one thing I hear from my team frequently is that, you know, the fact that I don't sort of, you know, get too high or too low is is important there.
8:55
And at the same time, and I will not pretend to be humble about this. I'm insanely ambitious. A powerful combination.
9:01
I don't want to work on something that doesn't matter.
9:06
I don't see why we can't go, you know, build literally build a trillion-dollar product. Uh I know we can. I know it's possible.
9:15
Uh and I also know that it's uh sometimes it's to get there, you just kind of have to keep going and the small stuff, you know, it's like the the the vicissitudes of day in day out, like not worth reacting to. Just keep plugging away. Don't ever give up.
9:28
Um and keep your sights, you know, set on the highest possible outcome that you that you can.
9:35
Uh and that's where, you know, you asked a little bit about the culture before at Form.
9:40
I think there's one thing that characterizes maybe why we have collectively been successful is, you know, there is an insane amount of ambition and for the amount of ambition, a relatively low amount of ego.
9:50
And that's also how I've tried to select for people on the team as well as like that right quotients, right?
9:56
It's like just incredibly ambitious for the company and for even for yourself, but your own personal ego has to be, you know, just a notch below that, right?
10:04
That ratio is super super important.
10:07
>> I think that's a key ratio, isn't it? The ambition to ego.
10:09
And you want you want the ambition to be as high as possible, the ego to be as low as possible.
10:14
When those two start to invert, that's when you get in trouble.
10:17
Or if the ego just gets too close to the ambition, that's the other area you have trouble. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
10:22
And so I I think that has enabled me to, you know, very immodestly talk about goals like what we're talking about going and building a trillion-dollar product um, and still attract people who really want to work hard, right? And be a part of it. >> Yeah.
10:35
I guess the third part of that triangle is you need the ambition, the skill needs to match the ambition as well.
10:40
Cuz if you have ambition without skill, then I think it can it can also fall down. Delusion.
10:43
Yeah, it can be delusion. What's the phrase?
10:47
Ambition without execution is delusion.
10:48
And it's like >> [clears throat] >> or vision without execution is delusion.
10:52
And I, you know, to some extent like, you know, making sure that we were never too far apart, right?
10:56
On that vision and and and capability, right?
11:00
>> Uh Thin line Thin line between genius and uh, and folly, I guess, right? So.
11:05
Um Thank you so much for joining us on Giant Ideas again, Mateo, and sharing these wonderful snippets of your life.
11:12
Um, very excited about Form Energy and its future and it's been so great chatting with you.
11:15
Yeah, Cameron, it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much.