From Earth to the Moon: The Future of 3D Printed Cities

If you think about houses all day and space robots all night, you end up starting a company like icon.

You're going to get a tremendous amount out of this conversation with Jason Ballard.

This man's revolutionizing 3D printing construction.

The homes and the buildings that this technology produced had to be the best homes and buildings in the world. Cost come down below 20, so now we're like cutting the cost in half.

Not to mention the stuff that you're doing to literally be built on the moon.

The software we now use was developed on the NASA contract. Sometimes by being more ambitious, it's easier to solve the problem.

We all will experience extraordinary stress. Recently you lost your wife to a 13 year battle of cancer.

She was the first lady of icon. She was my partner and my friend. It's like an amputation. But you are so correct. There is no escaping suffering and it.

Defines us, how we deal with it. What are the traits you think are non negotiable?

These are like pretty clear for me.

Which is some of the best ideas in the entire world have not gotten to where they could be because discouragement.

When employees don't work out, discouragement with technical problems, you just can't face it. If there isn't in your heart this belief that something incredible can be done.

How do you want to be remembered?

I'll try to be honest.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Holy Grail of Investing podcast. My name is Christopher Zook and I'm the founder, chairman, chief investment officer of CAS Investments. And I'm honored today to be joined by my good friend, Tony Robbins. Tony, tell us about our guest today.

Thank you, Christopher. Listen, this is a very special human being. You know, there are lots of people that are entrepreneurs that have done unique things, but this man's had massive vision. But even better, he has that rare ability to execute. And he's formed a company called ICON based in Austin, Texas. It is the leader in global standards for 3D printing construction. He's revolutionizing what we can do for building homes or any type of neighborhood or any type of buildings whatsoever. And I got a chance to meet him originally. Jason, when I didn't meet you, actually, I started using one of your products. There was a place in Mexico where they went through really bad storms. And we were trying to figure out with a nonprofit group I was working with about like, how do we rebuild these places and have them be able to take on, you know, another storm or earthquake. And we started doing our homework and we saw your printers in the early days and I paid for and supported, we built 100 homes in a little over 100 days. It was extraordinary even then. And now, and those homes are standing. This community exists. People have. They love their places and. And that got me interested in 3D printing at a whole different level. But you've exploded beyond that. So, first of all, thank you for being with us, Jason, it's so wonderful to be with you once again.

It's an honor and so happy to join you, gentlemen.

Thank you. Let's start these interviews with people kind of understanding their journey a little bit and understanding their origin story, because it tells you a lot about a human being. And I know you started out, I think, in East Texas and studied conservation. I understand biology for a little bit. And you were working as a river raft guide and then studying to be a priest, and I think you were starting out on that area. So how did you go from that to creating the absolute standard for 3D printing in the world?

Yeah, I think everybody's lives, truthfully, are a bit of a winding path. And you try to tell the story in a straight line. But maybe the easiest way is to connect the dots about how I got here. I grew up in small town, southeast Texas. In southeast Texas, unbeknownst to most people, it was the most biodiverse region of all of America. And so had, like, roseate spoonbills, flying squirrels, four species of carnivorous plants, alligator garden, sort of this remarkably beautiful childhood, sort of very up close with nature. But then also my hometown is like, the largest concentration of petrochemical refineries in America. So even in my small town graduating class, I had friends that had cancer. There's signs up around town that say, don't eat to fish in this water. That kind of stuff. And so, like, it just created this, like, funny cognitive dissonance even at a very young age that, like, it felt like we should be better than this as a civilization. So I became an environmentalist, but sort of, I often like to say, like, not an angry environmentalist, because, like, all of my family worked in those refineries that put food on the table and a roof over my head. It was just like a sense that we could be doing better. And so I studied conservation biology. That led me into sustainable building. When you sort of ask the questions, where are all these environmental problems coming from? It wasn't sort of the usual suspects, actually. It was like, buildings as the number one consumer of energy, the number one consumer of water, the number one producer of landfill waste, the number one user of every resource category. So I started having this idea about buildings along the way, my hometown is destroyed multiple times by hurricanes and has to get sort of rebuilt with the same sort of sticks and drywall they've been built with in the first place. And so same story second verse the next time a hurricane comes. So that's what making me asking questions even further about the way we build. Served a stint working as a program staff at a homeless shelter in Boulder while I was like maybe preparing to be a priest. And so this theme of housing and shelter from a sustainability angle, from a resiliency angle, and just sort of from a human flourishing angle, just felt like we should be doing better than we were. So got to work in the sustainable building industry building homes and ultimately starting and running a sustainable building products and services company. And then while doing that, also got a master's degree in space resources like aerospace engineering. So the ultimate sort of punchline is like if you think about houses all day and space robots all night, you end up starting a company like Icon that uses robots to build better buildings.

Wow. Well, I've seen your work obviously have come out and been a part of actually creating a community, as I said, but I was blown away the last visit because you have this new articulated set of arms that came out last year that reinvent things at a whole new level. Multi story. Tell us about. I'm interested. What are you most excited about right now? I know you're working on what NASA on the moon? You're working with the military. I know, I think in Boston. I read you're now doing some sustainable housing for the homeless out there. I saw some incredible high end homes that you were doing where you could do things that traditional builders could never do that were absolutely magnificent. What excites you most? Tell us about what's.

Yeah, that's actually not an easy question. Is it because what you've gotten is like, it's an incredible. When you reimagine something very fundamental to the human experience like food, water, shelter, we're at basic needs level. And when you sort of reintroduce or reinvent something foundational, there's just a blossoming of opportunities and possibilities. Right. And so it's an amazing job to wake up and come to every day. Probably the most exciting thing sort of at this very moment as we record this is it's derivative of what you just brought up. We introduced the prototype of the second generation printer last year at south by Southwest. This is the one that enables us to cut our costs even in half of what they are today. Start Doing multi story construction, fewer operators, just sort of better and easier to transport. Like better in every way. And so that work is continuing to progress along nicely. But of course, the long vision, or maybe not of course, but for us the long vision of Iconic has been to put these tools, advanced materials, advanced robotics software into the hands of builders and developers all over the world. Right in the early days we sort of was like an R and D company. And then we almost have, you know, for the last several years had to like deliver these technologies to the world ourselves. Almost as a, as a construction company empowered with these tools, but all with the goal of proving that this would work so that we could begin putting these tools into the hands of other people. And it really is the second generation printer that we call Phoenix that enables that. And so we just came out of a long and intense like 120 days of like a lot of customer interviews, meeting with potential customers, people who have raised their hands and said we think we want to build alongside, we want to build with icons, tools, and just sort of seeing that, you know, after the seven year journey, finally it's like sitting down with the people who are going to like join this revolution and help deliver the most fantastic buildings on earth, faster, more affordably than anything we're even remotely capable of today. It just sort of feels like we're kind of getting there. And if, you know, like for an entrepreneur it's just a pretty special pinch me moment among years of pinch me moments.

Just before we go talking about your.

Leadership, who's influenced you? I know we're asking some questions about that. Tell people so they get a reference base, how fast you can build now, what the cost difference is and what's your mission in terms of the world. What's driven you in that area? I just think that at the top people should understand that because it's incredible breakthrough. I don't think most people have any clue.

Yeah, I mean the mission of the company, there's like a problem side of the coin and there's an opportunity side of the coin. The problem side is like we need to solve the global housing crisis. It's very hard to imagine the future being as incredible as I think you two gentlemen believe it can be. And lots of other people believe it can be if we don't get the basics right. And so the first order of business is like, let's equip ourselves as a species, as a civilization to get housing. Correct. And so that's like the problem solved. But then there's like the Opportunity. So it's like solving big problem, but also like creating massive potential opportunities, including reimagining architecture and building things on other worlds. Right. Sort of like you can only get so much motivation from problem solving. There has to be like some like better higher vision that also inspires you. And luckily at Icon, we sort of get both of those things.

What kind of speed and cost basis, just to give them that sense. And then I want to throw it to Christopher.

Oh yeah. So right now, what we Automate with the 3D printer is the wall system. And the reason we started with the wall system is the wall system of a home is the most materials intensive, the most numbers of materials, the most number of trades involved, the most complex. And then also the wall system creates like the form and feeling of a home. Right. So automating that particular moment as we started this construction technology company is just a very powerful automation. And of course 3D printing for us, we believe would be the most effective way to automate the delivery of wall systems. So the average cost of delivering a wall system according to the national association of Home builders is about $35 a square foot. With the current version, our gantry style printer, the first generation of the printer, we are now delivering at about $30 a square foot. So like a little more than 10% cheaper and more than twice as fast. The Phoenix system, which is a sort of effectively like a giant robotic arm that can do multi story printing, our cost come down below 20. So now we're like cutting the cost in half relative to standard. We're able to do multi story construction even faster than the gantry. And now we're able to also imagine not just attacking the wall system, but the foundation, the walls and the roof enclosure. So you're now automating potentially up to half the cost of a home and cutting that half in half. And so that's kind of where we are today.

Well, being. Well the amazing thing about that, Jason, is obviously being able to cut the cost down by half the speed down by half. The ability to deliver is amazing technology, but some of the very best ideas in the entire world have not gotten to where they could be or should be because of the fact that didn't get the people right. So in order to manage a business, the business side of a technology company, you have to have people to model after and to follow. So who in your life has really been a good example for you to follow about managing people, motivating people, keeping them on task, and keeping ultimately everybody focused on the outcomes?

I'm glad you you asked this question because I often tell people like with regard to relationships, I think I'm like one of the richest people anyone has ever met. I have like just a deep bench of people who love me and support me and have like gone on this journey with me. Maybe the ones that like come most to mind are my two co founders, Alex Larue and Evan Loomis. Alex was the original CTO of the company and you know, with a background in sort of homes and home building and some aerospace as well. But he was really sort of the technical heart of getting this technology off the ground. And then my partner Evan Loomis taught me how to be a businessman initially, how to speak to investors, how to think about investing, how to think about capital. For starting a company like this very quickly, what came around us is a remarkable board of directors. I don't think all founders have necessarily always great things to say about their board of directors, but I've been very fortunate. A gentleman named Khan Tasinga who was the head of all engineering at Palantir and who sort of has helped me think about the complexity because although they're a software company, they're not your sort of standard software company. There's a lot of really sort of innovative and difficult things they were trying to do. And so he's just been a very good thought partner on product strategy and engineering and allocation of resources toward engineering and what to do now, what to hold back on. Jeff Crow from Norwegian Venture Partners. He used to teach classes on venture capital at Stanford. He was the president of the North American Venture Capital Association. So he's just sort of like this father figure among venture capitalists and helped me understand sort of how to be a good steward of resources even in a high risk sort of environment like a venture backed company. Constance Friedman of Modern Ventures out of Chicago, she is just like always insists on more in the best sort of way. Even if we hit our goals, it's sort of not good enough. She always wants us to get a better deal, to find better people, to keep pushing, to keep striving, to keep trying and sort of like this sense of no matter how good you're doing, you can always be doing better and pushing and challenging us to do that. Will Hurd most recent ADDITION Former CIA officer Congressman here in Texas Presidential candidate the government business has become very big for us and the government's a funny kind of customer. NASA and the DoD and the intelligence community and so the wisdom of how to navigate those halls and the relationships with that customer. And then last, but actually the first one on board, a guy named Jason Portnoy, who was early days at PayPal with Elon and Peter and the gang, who then went on to become the first interim CFO of Facebook, first CFO of Palantir, then was the first CFO of Founders Fund, and then started his own boutique, Adventure Fund. So had this massive experience as actually an operator and went on sort of the rocket ship a few times. Not one time. It's amazing to get to do this one time with PayPal, with Facebook, with Palantir. And so his guidance on how to navigate. You've built this rocket on purpose, but also you've cleared the towers and everything's shaken. And he has just been an unbelievably steady partner to me in navigating how to be a good CEO. And Ditch had some really great pattern recognition. He has just been like a close friend and mentor and advisor on this whole journey. And if I can mention just like one other person along the way is a gentleman named Bjarke Ingels, who's actually an architect. He's an architect and a businessman right here. He runs his own global architecture firm. And what I learned from Bjarka is like what separates good from great. I believe Bjarka is probably the greatest living architect of my generation. And you often hear people say, like, oh, you get this right? The rest is just details. For Bjarka, the details are everything. The details are the design. The details are not somehow like separate and like the, the. The amount of times I've been on the phone call with Bjarka and he's like pleading, I mean, pleading almost with like tears to like change a little detail on like a windowsill and to push a little harder and to make everything great and perfect. And it was just sort of like you don't accidentally become great. I got a front row seat to greatness. The top 1% of the 1% of the 1 what greatness looks like in practice. And he has just become a dear friend. And I would not be nearly who I am without his friendship.

No, it's so neat that you have the opportunity to be around those folks, that you're able to compile those folks together. At an early point in the business life, because we were seed investors in the company, we were very, very blessed to be part of this rocket ship that you have, have built. But when we think about those early days, everybody for sure was like, we think this is going to work, but nobody knows for sure. That vision becoming a reality when was the moment when you go, okay, we really have got this, and we're going to make this big. What was that trigger? What was that point in time?

There's, like, two parts of that. The idea that robots and advanced technologies could be a part of getting us unstuck from. From the way we do construction today, the sort of affordability crisis, sustainability of homes, the sort of resiliency of homes. I think once that thought occurred to me, I think I believe that immediately what you're not so sure was, like, are you the person? Are you the team? Is this the company? Are these the technological decisions that will allow you to succeed? And maybe there have been two points along that journey that have made me feel like icon in particular, and the technology choices we have made. We're on the right track. The first one actually happened. This home I'm sitting in right here is called House Zero. And it was the first house we ever designed specifically to be 3D printed. Up until that moment, people sort of, like, showed us houses they were already working on, said, hey, can you 3D print it? And of course, as a young entrepreneur, you're, like, pretty happy to have customers, and you sort of say, yes. But we could feel that we were, like, leaving something on the table that we weren't fully taking advantage of the possibilities of the printing. And so this house was designed by one of the very best architects in Texas, Lake Flato. And the challenge was like, I don't want there to be a straight line anywhere in the printer. Like, really turn up organic form and curvature and these things that look very fancy, but to a 3D printer at the same price as a straight line, really show off a little bit with what 3D printing could mean. Because you had to believe that it wouldn't be enough, or for me, it would not be enough of a success if we were just faster and cheaper. What the homes and the buildings that this technology produced had to be the best homes and buildings in the world. Like, you don't just want to be, like, in theory, like, a che. A tent is cheaper than a house, but, like, tents aren't the sort of the solution. Like, we need, like, better houses even as they're getting cheaper and faster. And so we sort of really put ourselves on stage in a sense, and, like, stood for judgment. And as I walked, people come to this house. When we opened it up to the public and saw how bowled over and excited and motivated and happy and optimistic conversations about housing are often, like, so damn depressing. And how much this house inspired People, even as the first one of its kind, made me feel like, all right, I'm not just telling myself stories. You're like, this really could be the most incredible way to build. And then of course, the business proof sort of comes along the way you sort of, at first, nothing is profitable and you're just losing money all over the place and you start to sort of climb this ladder. I remember when our first print was profitable, we didn't figure out all the housing details like how to install windows, so you like lost money on the finish out and then finally have your first profitable house, and then you have your first profitable project. And now our entire design build operation is running profitably. And so now, you know, it works as a business. You know, the thesis was correct. The product works and now the business works. And so maybe the whole thing happens on a spectrum. But as an entrepreneur, you actually, like, never take anything for granted. Like, in a sense, like I almost am still living and behaving like this is not guaranteed. Like, like the work must continue, the grind must continue. Every penny and dime and nickel we can pull out of cost, every hour of speed we can gain is how we sort of move into a better future. And so in a sense, you sort of never get all the way confident that you've like, made it, so to speak.

And that's a good thing because it keeps you hungry.

Yeah, you just took the words of my mouth. That hunger is what makes somebody stay successful. Not just for the day or the week or the month of the year, but decade after decade. And you clearly have that, you know, I want you to mention, if you would, what the size of the problem is, like, how much of humanity doesn't have a home. So people understand how important is to find a way to be able to do this at scale, with speed, cheaper, if you can address that just for a second. But then I'd like you to address what's happening in your industry, because we're proud to be investors obviously in your company and, and done well with you. But Diamond Age, I know, has entered liquidation. You know, in your industry, Mighty Buildings, I think, is trying to find a buyer right now. So some challenges in your industry, and in spite of that, you're going and growing. What. What's the difference in what you're doing? So first, how big is the problems of people understand it. Besides the fact that I, by the way, I've been in that home with you, as you know, it's magnificent. And seeing the kinds of construction you could do that you normally See like in a church or a mosque or something that you could never do it at a cost effective place, but you're doing that now. So. But give us a sense of how big the challenge is because with that challenge we're still seeing so many in your industry that are struggling while you're not. And what's the difference?

Yeah, you know, all these numbers are sort of measured different, rough approximations. Globally speaking, the numbers I hear like on the order of like 1.5 to 2 billion either homeless or under sheltered people. And that is to make that more human. It's like There are between 1 and a half and 2 billion people who have a housing situation that if they were people you loved, you could not stand it. You could not stand it. And that's a huge portion of humanity. This is what it means. Like it's hard to imagine that AI and going to Mars. And so like if, like if this many people aren't even getting their basic needs met correctly. So this is sort of, we've got to shore this up to unlock this incredible future. In the United States alone, the numbers are sort of all over the place because there's like populations have moved around. Right. Like I say, and so the housing shortage exists in discrete places where the action is, where the jobs are and the places that people want to live. But the numbers I hear are between 2 and a half and 5 million housing unit shortage just in America. And that's not even counting for like further remigration movement around America and is not even counting homes that sort of may be like obsolete or like on their way to obsolete that sort of really need to be replaced with regard to how we expect ourselves to live and our neighbors to be able to live.

Tell me though a little about your industry in spite of that large a demand and it's huge demand just in the United States alone, much less the world obviously. You know, tell me a little bit about why do you think other people are struggling? Why are you guys succeeding?

Yeah, I mean from first I went on to say is like to Mighty Buildings and to diamonds and everything like bravo. We need more, not less entrepreneurs working on construction technology. I am so proud that they were brave enough to try. And I want more competitors in a sense to jump because the problem is so big. As we just said, there's a few real challenges into starting a construction technology company right now. Number one is really all of diamond age icon, Mighty Buildings, Katera, you name it. Our real competitor right now isn't each other. As a first order, our Real competitor is the way things are done, which are so obviously not delivering the value and goods that society needs out of its construction and housing stock. The challenge though is this is a very old industry and it has very well established network effects. I already know my framer, I know my paint supplier. Very established building codes and regulations, very established ways of insuring and financing. And so it's like. And they have squeezed all the water out of the rock on like cost and speed. And so you're competing against a very mature and very financially successful industry and very well entrenched and very well established. And then you're trying to challenge a very powerful adversary at the same moment where housing under immense pressure from like macroeconomic forces, right. Inflation, high mortgage rates. And so it's just like a very difficult moment to like to go fight an 800 pound gorilla in a thunderstorm. Right. And so that's kind of the moment. But, but like we have to be brave and we have to try. I hope all of those guys throw their hats in the ring again because they certainly learned something.

Well, you certainly.

And we, we need more innovation and not less.

You've had some large home builders, they've bought into it, they believe in you. They've not only built, they've reordered a mass number. Share us a little bit about that. And how have you gotten them to believe and what do you think is your competitive advantage in this space?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't sort of care how we win. We don't mind winning by conversion, converting the existing sort of people over to our side of the aisle or if we have to sort of home grow very new businesses and builders and train up sort of the gatekeepers of the future. We'll sort of take it any way we can get it from that perspective for a lot of these big production. I mean our largest commercial partner is Lennar, who's just one of the most well run businesses I have ever seen. One of the best home builders in the world. And for them it was like, I mean they took a bet on us, they invested, they gave us some shots on gold. But really they're as any sort of publicly traded sort of incumbent would be like, it was very much like prove it to us. They encouraged us, they helped us, they helped us learn. They really gave us a lot of chance to learn how to operate at scale. Really worked hard with us about resolving the details between a 3D printed wall and a window and plumbing systems and sort of the things that we aren't addressing with Robots, yet. Emphasis on the yet. So they helped us learn, they helped us improve. But ultimately for them, it's like we did. The first 3D printed community in the world was Lenar. And they wanted to see those homes get absorbed and accepted. They wanted to see what the warranty claims against those homes were, et cetera, et cetera. And it was not until they had really sufficient data that they announced their next big project with us, or at least the one that we have announced here in Central Texas. They're doing another 200 homes with us now, but it was like, you know, they helped us on the first one, but it's like very quickly we had to grow up and stand up on our own two legs and can't think of a better finishing school to go through than somebody who wants to believe in you but is also going to hold your feet to the fire. Right. In terms of executing out in the.

Field and what's kind of results. They've heard back from customers. It sold out very quickly. The first group you put together, yes.

It is sold very strongly, even like in a very distressed housing sales market. I believe what Stuart, the chairman of Lennar, said on CNBC was they've had like the lowest warranty claims of any of their homes in Central Texas. And aside from that, like the homeowners themselves, the people living are like anecdotally, like ecstatic, just ecstatic to be living in these homes. We still need like more data, but like the, the first blush of the data of like, their energy bills and power consumption are like that. They're, they're like remarkably low. And so all the things we had hoped and believe in promise. But you sort of, until you have sort of a community scale group of people living in this very new style of home, you don't know for sure. And so it was like a very gratifying day. First of all, to like walk through the neighborhood when we were done, like to not see it as a rendering in a newspaper, but to like walk through an entire 3D printed neighborhood and then to hear like, not just like, oh, these homes are okay, thank you so much, but like, we love this house. Our next house is going to be a 3D printed house. For Lennar to be hearing that and saying, like, we're doubling down 200 more. I mean, again, as an entrepreneur, it's just like you're in the big leagues with the best to do it and you're succeeding. And it feels very. I'm not like, by the way, I'm excited right now. Because I'm telling you this, we still got problems. Like this is still freaking hard a lot of days, but we just happen to be on a happy topic.

I'm good. Well, any business has problems if they're honest or if they're not, they're in trouble and they won't address them right.

Hi, it's Christopher Zook, founder of CAS Investments. For decades we've invested in many disruptive technologies, from artificial intelligence to defense to robotics to space and more. If you'd like to learn more about our unique approach, you can visit whyventure now.com that's why venture now.

Now back to the episode, How's Icon using AI today? And where do you see it transforming construction in real tangible ways in the near future?

Yeah, maybe I'll pick up on my yet that I left off earlier. So the vision of Icon as a construction company, construction technology company. We don't call ourselves a 3D printing company. It's very important that we stick the landing on 3D printing. But ultimately from idea all the way through delivery from the very first design, everything needs to be addressed with technology. All of the construction proper at the limit should be robots and all of the information processing, design, planning, budgeting, scheduling, preconstruction should be software. The software should be AI. And so we released a beta version of our first internally created AI tool last year called Vitruvius, which is meant to be an AI tool to get you through design and ultimately then like bill of material, schedule, budget and sort of all the pre construction stuff. No marketing, no press, very quickly had thousands of users, but realized we needed our data to be much richer and deeper than it has been. And so we concluded the beta and we are really restructuring the way that we all captured data throughout this whole process and then grabbing some external data to sort of continue to refine and mature. And then also the Department of Defense has leaned in on some of this as well. And I can't talk about that work a lot, but we're working with the Department of Defense as they think about needing to build faster, better, safer in a more understandable, logical way that they think some AI, the very same sort of platform, but would also be applicable to some of their efforts. And so there's some funding coming in that way as well. And so stay tuned for the sort of the Vitruvius version 1 when we think we're ready.

Well, that's, that's the interesting thing about what you have, Jason, is you've got everything from Vitruvius You've got what's going on with the dod, You've got what's going on, obviously, with Lennar and the other projects you have. Not to mention the stuff that you're doing for NASA to literally be built on the moon. So as you think about trying to capital allocate between these various endeavors, how are you going about doing that? What are you thinking about in order to make sure that you are looking far enough in the future, but also putting revenue on the books today?

It's a very good question. And it's, you know, I don't know that I've batted a thousand, but I think we've, like, danced pretty elegantly here in sort of doing this. And so maybe in the first sort of instances, like, is it a good thing to have interest from the government in what we're doing, both from the Department of Defense and from NASA? We decided if our technology is as revolutionary as we think it is, you should expect interest from the government. All of the truly disruptive. Disruptive is a word that's overused sometimes. But all of the truly disruptive technologies, the Internet, electricity, airplanes, et cetera, have had strong government interest. It's like a good, strong signal that you're on the right path. So that felt as a positive signal. And then of course, if you look at how long does it take one of these truly disruptive technologies to go from infancy to, like, market ready and mature ready to do it Disruption, it can often take decades, right? But government funding, government support can compress the maturity timeline. And so we said yes, but we always wanted it to be on the core technology stack. And so, in fact, like, the software we now use on our next generation printer is software that was developed on the NASA contract. A lot of the autonomy and precision robotic controls were developed on the NASA contract. Our mission control software that we used to, like, view and manage multiple robots operating at the same time was originally developed on the NASA contract. So there would not be as many homes for the homeless from ICON in Austin had we not worked with NASA, right? We just wouldn't have got there price wise, autonomy wise. And so it's one of those things that sometimes you have to make the problem bigger to actually solve it. And maybe, like, the answers to some of our problems on Earth will, like, they'll be found by, like, looking up at the moon. But of course, you have to do all this carefully, right? And so I hope what you're hearing is it wasn't some, like, I sell T shirts, and now to NASA, I sell Bicycles. Right. It was like it was the same sort of core technology stack that was getting elevated in our defense work, in our space work, in our commercial work. So it was all cooperating and that was like the discriminating factor for us. It's like, is this going to mature the overall technology faster or is it going to be too much of a diversion? So that was one and the number two, like, they had to pay. Right. You can take a lot of risk if you have paying customers. Right. So we did very little of this at risk. And so as long as NASA's paying, as long as the DoD is paying, and it elevates the overall technology stack to advance the mission of the company, then you could get to it. Yes. There were multiple opportunities that we said no. We were offered a chance to do like a, like a robot to go investigate potentially disarm bombs. Like, you guys are good at robots do this. It's like, that's not, you know, it would have been like, not an insignificant amount of money. We declined. There have been certain, like, space programs we were offered to participate on orbit didn't really have anything to do with construction or building, and so we declined. And so the ones that we've said yes to are of course, the ones we've got attention, but we've actually said probably we've got to say yes to more dollars than we said no to. But like, the number of dollars we said no to would be measured in the millions that we said no to opportunities because they, they, they didn't advance the overall state of the technology and they weren't quite on mission enough.

Well, it's interesting because of the fact, you know, it's interesting, Jason, because the fact that for a lot of our investors, you know, they see all the pretty pictures and the real cool renderings about what's going on, on, on the moon and like, well, what does this have to do with it? The answer has been up to this point, well, if they're paying for it, might as well do it. It helps the company. But what I don't think has been fully appreciated, that I'm so glad you've articulated here, is the vertical integration of, okay, that technology and the same stack of technology that you're using here on Earth has a lot of applicability that is really, really important. And it leads to kind of. What I was going to ask about, I'd be curious your thoughts is you have this enormous mission to be able to help people, to be able to solve for this housing crisis that we have and where does the moon and Mars fit into that? And so I know you can't answer the question definitively, but how much is the effort you're doing in that area helping you solve what's here faster and the problems on Earth faster?

Yeah, I mean, you got a sense of it. Maybe the most profound example of course is like, you know, our original Earth based printer was this gantry style Vulcan that we called our space printer is called Olympus, which is a giant mobile robotic arm. And like the second generation printer, which is actually going to deliver multi story construction and even half the cost of the gantry style was experiencing, is modeled after the space printer. Had we not taken that, we wouldn't have been so far down the road to knowing what our second generation printer could look like. But of course the reason the space printer in a sense was further down the road is because space is the deep end of the pool for autonomy, materials efficiency, power efficiency. And so we had already asked the hardest possible version of the question on the moon. And so when you come back to Earth and go like, how can we do better here? Of course in retrospect it more closely resembled the space solution. And so that may be the most powerful way. But there's all these second order effects we have had to attract some of the best talent in the world to help us work on world class engineers, world class material scientists, world class software engineers. In a world where those software engineers could work For Meta or OpenAI, the mechanical engineers here in Austin can go work for Tesla or SpaceX or the boring company or something like that. And something about having this grand charismatic mission in working with like the sort of like the most romantic possible commercial partners in NASA and the Department of Defense and the intelligence communities. And Lennar and Liz Lambert has helped us attract that talent. So occasionally and maybe non intuitively, the risky looking thing is actually less risky than the boring thing. And it's like a, of course you have to like measure that carefully because we can all talk ourselves into anything. Or at least I can, I can. But it's certainly true that sometimes by being more ambitious, it's easier to solve the problem by being like a little too cautious.

Well, I've gotten to see your facility there with the moon dust in there and how you measure everything and adapting to the Department of Defense in desert environments, how to use the materials there to build from and the resourcefulness that that requires. But I never thought about how much it helped you to bring in and attract some of the greatest minds who all want to work On a project like that, you know, you've stretched yourself as a CEO. But you know, I have enormous respect to you as a man. I know recently you've gone through some really tough stretches. I know you lost your wife to a 13 year battle with cancer last December. And you're a dad of four. You got what I think a 13 and a 14 year old, is that right? And two twins of four. And I can only imagine going through all of that. You know, it's not like you're just a businessman or on a mission. Nobody escapes in life. I always show people it doesn't matter who you are, how successful you are, how good you are, how spiritual you are, we all will experience extraordinary stress, extraordinary pain at times. And it defines us, how we deal with it. And I'm curious, what's helped you to pull through all this as a dad, as a human being, as a businessman in the midst of all this? Is it the sense of mission? Is it your trust in God? What is it that's pulled you through? Because you've managed through these experiences incredibly well for someone who's dealt with so much pressure and so much challenge.

Yeah. I mean. I mean, yeah. Just to honor her a bit. Yeah. My wife's name was Jenny and we were together for 20 years and she was the first lady of Icon. She helped us print the first house. She moved the kids down to Mexico with me. When we did that project where you first became aware of us, Tony, we had to come back. She got pregnant with the twins while we were in Mexico. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. And so like, she was like all in for Icon. She was my partner and my friend. And it's. It's a loss. It's like an amputation. And. But you're so correct to say that, like, no one escapes. There is no escaping suffering.

Yes.

It is sort of the nature of our situation, that there is. That there is that there is like loss and grief in life. And I don't know how everyone handles it, but I can say what has helped me is one of them. You said was really like, I am a man of faith. I'm a Christian. And my Christian faith, which is a faith that has suffering in view. Right. Sort of like the suffering savior. Right. It sounds like I had some sort of moral and ethical and spiritual foundation for receiving suffering and transforming, transfiguring it into something positive. I learned that watching my wife suffer and so to sort of redirect the suffering into perhaps like awareness of like, what a gift life is what a gift these opportunities are and to like to use these spiritual resources to transform it from toxic to fertilizer for positive activity. Deep friendships that I've already met. I am surrounded by people who love and support me, including the people here at Icon who like went with me on this journey. And so faith, friendships. And then what I couldn't have asked for or hoped for is like I still open my eyes to things I'm remarkably grateful for. I think a lot of people who grieve and suffering you can drown in. And I open my eyes today and I have the exact two jobs I want. I get to be a father to those four kids. And if I had a billion dollars, I would start icon. Like this is the work I want to be doing. And so even in the midst of my grief, I get to open my eyes to like these very positive, propulsive forces. I took like a six week leave after, after Jenny died. And that last week, like once the kids were back in school and I was still like sitting at home, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing on Monday, but I cannot just sit at home again. And so movement was good. Like get like somehow like crawling back in the saddle even when you don't know how you're going to quite get through the day is the right instinct. And so those are the things that have helped me.

I appreciate you sharing that. I hesitate to ask you because I don't want to create pain for you, but I think the lessons you have in life are as important or more important than lessons in business. And when you deal with life well, you can easily deal with business. By contrast, it's no comparison what you face there. So thank you for sharing that because I hope it'll touch people, remind people that we all go through it and that there is a way through it and it's not just to stay in suffering, as you said. That leads me to. You know, I'm curious what you consider because it's kind of an element of traits. Like what are the traits you think are non negotiable when you're looking for leadership traits and someone you bring to icon because those, you embodied those traits. That's why I brought the question up, quite frankly, because you don't just talk about it. I respect you because you live it.

Yeah, that's right. Because it's almost like a continuation of some things we've already talked about. Like they're actually like, these are like pretty clear for me, which is I'll try to maybe Sum it up in one word at the end. But like one of us is like I demand of my leaders. There are people who are like default positive and default happy. Doesn't mean you're always happy or always positive. It means something has to happen to make you unhappy or unpositive. If you're the kind of person who like needs positive things to happen before you can be positive, like this is just too hard, like I can help add fuel to your fire as the CEO, but I can't create the fire. You have to have that fire within yourself, that sort of positive, propulsive, optimistic fire in your belly before you ever showed up at icon. Because I yet have not found the way to light a fire that isn't there. And the work is too hard to sort of learn it on the job or there's a lot of discouraging days. Discouragement from investors, discouragement when other employees don't work out, discouragement with technical problems, discouragement with customers. And you just can't face it if there isn't just this like in your heart, in your life force, this belief that something incredible can be done and you have to show up with that. At Icon and I work really hard to like surface during interviews of the direction. How do you manage stress? How do you stay healthy? How do you stay positive? Tell me the biggest problem you've ever had to overcome. Tell me problems you've solved in the past. These are the kind of ways I try to surface this in conversation because so many other things you can learn, but you have to be a self motivated, capable person. And maybe the word for this for me is like grit. Just having that, like that grit, but like a joyful grit like you like you gotta somehow. Ultramarathons are one of my hobbies and which sounds like such terrible suffering to most people. When you're out in ultramarathons, there will literally be people puking or peeling like blisters off the bottom of it. And you're like you do admit and they will always turn to you and smile. And there's somehow if you can transform suffering into smiling and positive motion, that is the way. And so that's what I try to look for.

That's absolutely beautiful. I think this is as important set of questions for people to listen to than even the great business success you've done. What do you want your legacy to be? How do you want to be remembered and what do you want to be most?

For what? A dangerously self serving and potentially ego inflating question. I'll Try to be honest, I think I want to be known as a man who faced trials and difficulty bravely and joyfully, but like. But in service. In service of making. Of reducing suffering in the world and of making the world more beautiful and of maybe, like, being just like one among many who, like, held open the door to a more incredible future through that. Something like that would. Would be what I'm trying to do.

You're certainly doing it. And. And I think that fire you talked about only comes when you find something you care about more than yourself, that you want to serve. And you found that in multiple levels, from your family to this business, to the friends that you have. And that's one of the reasons we wanted to bring you on you. There's lots of people we can interview that have been very successful in life, but real success, I think, is how do you. How do you discipline your disappointment? How do you find something that keeps you driven no matter what comes at you? How do you become relentless? But as you said, doing it along the way with joy, not just someday when you get there. I was struck from the very first time I met you, and I'm grateful because Christopher introduced us, because I didn't know we were investors at the time, yet with you, I'd met you indirectly. I'd never met you personally, just used your product. But what I was most struck by was the level of joy you bring to things, and I think that that's a missing ingredient for most people in life. It's one thing to have grit. It's another thing to have grit with joy. That's. That's a unique combination that you embody, and I'm super grateful that we are willing to share your story and a little bit of you today. And I just want to thank you for being who you are, brother.

No, absolutely.

Thank you all so much for.

And, Jason, what I'll say is that enthusiasm is hard to bottle, and it's hard to transition, and to see the enthusiasm you bring to the business, to your faith, to your family, to your friends, it really, really is motivating and encouraging. And so, you know, you're making a really big difference in the world. And I know that obviously, all of us deal with tough times, but ultimately, you've done it with grace. And I just can't wait to see what the future is going to hold, you know, for you going forward. So I want to thank you, Jason. I want to thank you, Tony, for spending some time with us today. I know the audience is going to get a tremendous amount out of this conversation. And obviously, you know, Jason, we just really appreciate you being with us.

Yeah. I think it's really been an honor. And thanks for giving me some time today.

Absolutely. And, everybody, you know, we look forward to hosting you next time at the Holy Grail of Investing podcast with Tony Robbins and Christopher Zook. Jason Ballard. Tony, thank you so much. We'll see everybody next time.

Sam.