Carbonless with Tony Verb #10

Hello, everybody. This is David Goldsmith. And welcome to another edition of Redefining Tomorrow. It's here where we discuss topics that help you to redefine your future, maybe to cover topics that redefine how we live on this planet or any other type of redefining you might consider. One quote that I've lived by most of my life is that you can't fix yesterday. You can only create tomorrow. And today we're going to be redefining tomorrow. We have an incredible guest today with us. His name is Tony Verb. How are you, Tony?

I'm good. Good to talk to you as always.

Thank you. We're going to be exploring a topic. The title is Carbonless. Now, let me share with you a little bit about Tony. Tony and I have lived together in Hong Kong for years. He's an amazing individual. He's a combination of several different categories. He's an entrepreneur. He's in the venture space. He loves to build community. And one of the things I admire about Tony is he's got the ability to bring together people all over the world. And the topic of Carbonless, we're going to hear how he can bring us all together. So, Tony, do you have an outline for us?

Yes, I have six bullet points for you. Let me just give you those six as I've been instructed.

Yes, of course.

Number one is impact. Number two is 2047. Number three is urbanization. Number four is urban tech. Number five is carbon tech. Number six is carbon less. Okay.

I am going to give you credit that these are the shortest titles I've ever had in over about 190 interviews. For. For some of you, first time listening in or if you listen to before, I never know what's going to be spoken about on any of the podcasts. I do not have the outline in advance. We don't talk about the topic. We come up with the title, and we go from there. So this was kind of enjoyable. I could actually keep up. So, Tony, I mean, normally I'm like, whoa, I can't.

My honor.

My honor. Yeah. So you won an award. I don't know what that is, but it's an award. It's a hug next time I see you, when we're allowed to actually hug.

Done. What a win. What a win.

So let's start with number one, Tony. Let's start with Impact. Teach me something.

Well, if you. If you don't mind, David, I also structured these bullet points in a way that tells my story. You know, that I like to tell my story. But this Is.

I want to hear your story.

I do.

I do want to hear your story.

This is a very, very new story, quite frankly, because I never talked to anyone in a public setting, to Cardinal as meaning public, that I would know that someone else is listening or going to listen to the conversation. I'm only talking to you now, so it's very private. But it won't. It will not be private forever. And I know.

You do know that you and I met over story, more or less. We met at the. Your birthday party. Wasn't that one of the first times that we were together?

No, no, no, no, no. The first time was when you were giving a keynote speech at my innovation club called Meta, for the reference of the. Of the. Of others. And it was on a Sunday. And on Sunday, this club used to be closed. And my very dear friend from ypo, Amateur, Matthew, is organizing this get together. And I didn't want to ask any of my staff to go in on a Sunday to open the club. So I did go in and I stayed to close as well. But of course, I was participating at the event, which was great. You gave a great speech and you were signing your book at the end. Paid to think. Okay. And that's how we met.

I remember now. It was with Emma and the whole scenario. So we actually didn't meet over a story. Didn't realize it was my story.

We met over a story. This is a story. And this is a good story.

So tell me. Yes, so tell me a new story.

So this is. You know, David, I think this is interesting because this means we actually have known each other way longer than you think, because the birthday party you think about and you refer to, I think was about one and a half years later.

Okay, so we go deeper.

Exactly, exactly. All right, so impact. That's number one. And that how it relates to my story is that for the longest time, and that it was before I turned 30, my only goal in life was to do as many things as possible, experience as much as possible, and live in as many places as possible. And you know that I'm sitting right now in Hong Kong, and not only because I'm stuck here, but because I live here for more than nine years now. I'm originally from Hungary, and between Budapest, where I was born in Hong Kong, I lived in another eight cities. So I delivered relatively well on my intention that I formulated when I was 12 years old and also did a lot of different things. You refer to me as an entrepreneur. I was indeed an entrepreneur. And I ran more than 10 different businesses between age 18 and 30.

I remember you had, what was it like a music festival type business. You were involved. Yeah.

And you know, one interesting thing that happened to me in this process and on this journey, I was really honored to be invited to become a global shaper of the World Economic Forum. And what this community does, it's a youth group, basically you only can join, you only could join when I was joining by invitation. And you have to demonstrate a certain level of capacity to make the world a better place without giving much bigger explanation to this. But everyone is familiar with the World Economic Forum and basically this is, this is the, The Organizations Under 30 youth group exists all over the world in different cities. And there are never more than 20 young people in this community in any city. Approximately there are a couple of thousand, maybe five to six thousand people worldwide in this organization. So the reason why this is interesting and relevant because I joined when I was 29 and indeed I was in the entertainment industry building.

With a very.

Good group of people are contributing to build the now largest music festival in Hong Kong called Clock and Flap.

I was, and I love Clock and Flap.

Thank you for saying that. I was using these words because I didn't want to take the credit for I didn't build the festival, we build the festival. And I played a small part in that. And I remember the night when I was already 30 years old. And I would like to remind you that when I was 12, I decided that before I turned 30, I would do as many things as possible. And there was one night I was going with a taxi from North Point to Central in Hong Kong. Probably it was 2am and I saw this beautiful view of Hong Kong and I asked myself what the heck am I doing in Hong Kong? What am I doing in the entertainment industry? What now? And basically that led to a very long series of questions. And the question was, what was real value in life? I'm a real value focused individual. And when I diluted and boiled down what I was actually doing in the entertainment industry, I realized I was not doing much more than making tens of thousands of people drunk for a couple of days and through other platforms and through other products and events almost every weekend. So then I realized with the same amount of work and effort I could probably do more that I was putting into this very hard job.

Actually, by the way, I never got drunk at Clock and Flap. And when did, when did you arrive?

You're probably the only one. Yeah.

When did you arrive in Hong Kong then? What year?

2011.

Oh, so you arrived just the next year after me. I thought you were there longer.

Okay. And even in Hong Kong I've done a lot of things, but I wouldn't, I won't dwell on that because I just want to use my storyline to give an arc for our conversation and how not obvious it is that I'm going to talk about how not obvious it is that I actually talk about carbon less today. And I would like to bring hopefully others on this journey as well. So I was an adventurer, an opportunist that got infused with the consciousness that there's something more to life than entertainment, money and fame and fun and big shiny objects. And basically my quest became to identify where I can create the most impact in my life. I basically decided that as opposed to the first 30 years of my life where I was just going for everything, for the coming the second 30 years of my life, I will focus only on one thing. And that was an incredible decision to make, obviously, especially for a person like me, who actually never had to commit to anything by desire. And I gave a very long thought to what that thing should be. And my main criteria was to maximize my impact in the world, positive impact, of course, in the world. I had to do something that delivered on that. By the time I also ran a technology company that brought me to places like the Web Summit back then in Dublin and I was absolutely mind blown by the startup communities of the world. And actually when I stepped into the web Summit main hall, I said, oh my God, this is something I've never seen before. It looked better than any music festival I had been to, although I had not been to Burning man yet. Yet at that point Burning man is definitely better than website. But Web Summit, when you say you.

Walked in, it was so we're talking a web summit, so we're actually talking technology based. And, and it's when you say you never seen anything like it before, was I. I can throw out other names what make, what made this look so different.

I think it was the energy and the scale was nothing comparable to anything I've seen before in terms of technology and innovation.

Conference there were 10,000 people, was, was.

More than 20,000 by the time I first visited Websonnet. And it was a beautiful, I think an old market exhibition. And it didn't feel like an exhibition, it didn't feel like a conference, it felt like a party. But there was no party, there was no music, people were pitching, you know, like all you saw in one conference or people pitching, but it was well lit, it Was well produced. It was something really special because it was somewhere between a concert, well organized, that produced concert or music festival and, and a, a traditional trade show. So to say where people are just buzzing with, with building context. But the energy was 10 times.

My analogy went to Tech Open Air in Berlin or something. You're actually talking this Tech Open Air is not like this. This is, this is a, a technology event. But their energy for building, creating, doing was just over the top.

Correct. And it's dubbed as the largest in the world. You know, I'm not going to say that you know like Mobile World Congress and CES and global sources in Hong Kong, like they are a bit more trade show esque but on at scale Web Summit is comparable and it is a conference first and foremost. It's unique. And I know an awful lot of people that were convinced just like I was on that day because of this energy, because of this event and through this. I really need to give a good amount of credit to Paddy Cosgrave, who's the founder of Web Summit, that this event and this energy convinced a lot of people that they had to be part of this world. And I also realized that now obviously having run a technology company and a non technology company, what made me realize that technology is the way to maximize impact. So I just somehow knew that to maximize my impact I had to be in the technology space. Having understood my own personality through the various things I did, I also realized that I was best positioned and I aspired also to be a venture capital investor. And that's how I triangulated basically where I had to be. I didn't know much more because I didn't know too much of the industry. But I knew I had to be there. And once I'm there, I will figure out what I had to do and where I can build my, my greatest impact. And I will, I will cut this kind of short. I won't tell the story like what happened afterwards, but I met amazing people like Salin Ismail, David Goldsmith, Natalie Chan, my girlfriend.

Yep. That's why when you threw out that you were going to commit to one thing, I was going to ask you if Natalie was number two or is she not on the list. But I figured I wouldn't go there.

She's the cornerstone, she's the foundation of everything. She's not the step, she's a stepping stone if it makes sense. And full disclosure, David knows Natalie very, very well. And actually Natalie is also a big part of this story. And I will bore you for a minute with this. Just because you jumped on the topic, of course. So this was in January. I actually forget the year, but in January I decided this will be my path. And in July I started my work as head of ecosystems at Hong Kong's probably best known early stage venture fund called Nest, which was also something more than a venture fund because it has been providing corporate innovation consulting services and running accelerator programs. And when I joined we were a couple of people, strong team, and then we expanded to other markets from Hong Kong to Bangkok, Singapore, the Middle East, Africa. It was an amazingly exciting and insightful journey. And ultimately what I did was building the aforementioned entrepreneurs into innovation club, which was rather selfish if you want me to confess, because I just wanted to have a platform through which I can learn the most about technology, innovation, the future, tomorrow. I wanted to meet people that were redefining tomorrow so I could contribute to that process. And for a good, extremely valuable two years of my life, I basically spent every waking hour just by just talking to enormously talented and smart people with very, very deep intentions. And I knew that this.

I'm going to stop you for just one moment. There's music in the background. Is that you?

It's the private club where I am. And this is the only place I.

Just want to make sure because I've been looking at my screen saying, do I have something on? So okay, go ahead.

All right, all right. So the side story, and obviously I've been part of the accelerator programs and some of the corporate innovation consultant projects and so on, but the main thing we was building this platform that connected people within the technology innovation space to build better businesses and create more impact. I truly embedded this impact focused DNA into this company called Meta and this platform called Meta. The fun story about Natalie is that on behalf of Nest, the first conference or the first event I sponsored was a female entrepreneurship conference that was organized by a friend of mine and I went to the conference to support but I arrived an hour too early because I put the wrong time in my calendar. And the only other person in the 500 people strong conference hall was Natalie. And obviously she was the moderator of the panel later evening and it was her first moderation ever and she was quite nervous. So that's how we met. And the rest is history, as you David, know. But why? Why my next point is 2047 is because there were two events throughout the years between my age 30 and 33, a three year long process which was my learning curve in technology and innovation and which was also a period where I wanted to create value in the venture technology space. Give back to get later the answer what I had to do here. And there were probably two defining moments. One that I got involved in running and contributing on the ecosystem side of the equation to a smart city accelerator program that we were running for and with Infiniti, the luxury car brand of Nissan. Their headquarter used to be in Hong Kong. The only car company at this headquarter used to be in Hong Kong. And it was dedicated to smart cities. And I never had before heard about that term and I was fascinated by it. That's one data point. The second is, and it is linking back to the World Economic Forum that I participated at the BEF's China Business Roundtable in Shenzhen, I believe, during the same year. And as I was sitting there and listened to a presentation, there was one slide that was presented to me and it said that by 2050 there would be 2.5 billion more people living in cities than today, which equals to 3 million increase every single week on average. And you know, there are those few light bulb moments in your life that you remember probably forever and, and it just burns in your brain. And this was one of those. And somehow there and then I knew that that was my mission, that was my calling. That's what I had to do. That's where my impact was. Because what I was looking for as an investment thesis was something that had longevity, high level of predictability, and a universal application or applicability. And what do I mean by that? If we take E commerce as an example, it's not universal, because in China, E commerce is very different from the us from everywhere. Yes.

Not just from everywhere.

What I mean is urbanization is ecosystem independent. Great. Firewall independent, culture independent. Obviously not all aspects of that. But you build buildings, you build railway lines, you build power plants, you reduce waste the same way. And obviously that led to.

Why did you call it 2047, where it was one slide that got you to 2050?

Correct. I think just 2047 sounds cooler. 2050 would be too obvious. But no, let me just. This is personal. This is personal because it's almost 2050, and if we want to get to a better 2050, we need to get to, you know, the solutions kind of in place, at least by 2047. But, but I thought maybe it was.

I thought maybe it was Hong Kong, maybe the. There was some other correlation there. So just 2040 you wanted.

It's a, It's a coincidence. Let me, let me just tell you. It's. It's it's as I mentioned before, I wanted to do only one thing for the coming. For the second 30 years of my life. And actually I had this epiphany in 2017, 18, the turn of 2017 and 18. So if we count, if we add 30 years to that, that's 2047. So I was looking for that thesis I can commit to for the next 30 years.

But there's a missing link I hear about 2050.

Thank you.

And I stop it. And it.

Okay, we'll see. I think at 20:47 if, you know, if I did not.

These are just raising of impact. I can the extra three years give you the ability to kind of play with it just in case.

Correct. It's a buffer.

It's a buffer built right in.

And it looks so much cooler now. For everyone else's reference that's listening. Originally the title of this conversation was 2047, but. But I realized it would be just a six, seven hour long conversation because it's too, way too rich. But let me just say this, 2047 is truly relating to impact to the future. Then this slide and then I realized it's urbanization. The urbanization must be the context of my work because through that I can create the kind of impact I wanted. Very Simply put, by 2050s, about 67 to 75% depending on what statistics and what predictions you're looking at of the world's population will be living in cities. And if you can positively impact how cities operate are being built, then you can create a much larger impact than otherwise, obviously.

So when you, when you, when you came up with this the next 30 years.

Yeah.

What metrics did you put in place that say a pot, that would be a positive impact. What does that mean?

Now that's a very good question. And now we are almost jumping to the very end. So this is the time.

Let'S answer it. Because that's the question I have is you keep on talking about positive impact. You talk about having impact. What do you mean by impact?

I won't jump to the end yet, but it was as abstract as it sounds right now. Okay. I just knew what negative impact is. I just knew that I wanted to.

To positively negative impact to you was having people going to a party and having beer and, and laughing and enjoying themselves. And I, I went every year one the first I was at an event, I don't remember what event. And one person said look, I can't go to this. Does anybody want a ticket to clock? And I said, I don't Know what this is? And Divi said, was standing there, woman. And she said, oh, it's really good. You should come. I'm going. You come with me. And so I went to it. And every year from that point, I don't know how many there were, I went to. It's a great event. You're out on the outside, falling asleep on the lawn. There's all these different stages that you could visit. And to some people, to some people, that is impact. That is bringing people together, community, having people break away from their lives, living a little differently. You brought. You brought into my mind that Clock and Flop had this. Had this impression on you where I had the complete opposite impression. I don't remember seeing people really getting wasted at this event.

Obviously, I'm exaggerating. You know, so what.

So when you say a positive impact. Yeah, there was a positive impact. I felt it. I made. Made a lot of friends at the event because every time I went, Divi was not in my circles and I met other people. So when you say negative and positive, I'm trying to get a context.

No, no, no, no.

You're.

You're right. And I. I kind of didn't say it was not positive. I just. I just said that it was not positive enough or it was not the kind of positive I wanted to create. All. I said that with the same amount of effort, I probably can create a greater output. And once again, it's more the scale than anything.

Right.

With a music festival, even if you consider the largest music festival or the largest music festivals, which are a couple of hundred thousand people, people over a week. And with Clock and Flap, we only probably engaged about 70, 80,000 people, which is not a little. But considering that there are 7.68 billion people living on the planet, it's tiny. And the impact is indeed positive. But it's rather.

So it wasn't about being negative. And you keep on talking about positive impact. I think that you really. When you're talking impact, you're really talking scale of impact.

Yeah.

More than you are talking. And the type of impact you wanted to create, which is a different type of impact. So it's not impact because you can make. You can be impactful on one child and change the entire world.

Correct.

So when you talk about impact and wanting to redefine your tomorrow, because that's what you were doing. You were redefining your next 30 years.

Yeah.

What defined. Well, I hear smart City, and you know that I had a company, we're actually still working on the tech for smart city devices within buildings to make smart buildings. I don't. I personally, while this could be a massive operation, I don't feel it has the impact of many of the other projects I'm working on. I think more of it as a technology project, a capital possible profitability project, all that.

But.

So what's your definition of that scalability impact? What did you want to achieve?

You see, that's kind of one of the reasons why I decided to shift from being an entrepreneur to being an investor. Because I have not had the idea or an idea, and I have not encountered anyone with an idea that I could have joined or contributed to or rallied around that I singularly thought was generating the kind of impact that I wanted. And quite frankly, you know, I don't have an insanely clear definition. I didn't have an insanely clear definition to that back then. All I knew, it had to be at scale, it had to be predictable, highly predictable, and it had to have longevity, once again, longevity and universal applicability. Because let's not forget, I'm in Hong Kong, which is partly in China and outside of China, and here we have a mindset that you know exactly what's possible in China and what's not possible in China and you know exactly what's possible in other countries. Right. Japan is also an island on its own.

Oh, absolutely.

So. Right. And we can talk about a lot of other countries that are, you know, very, very isolated from the rest of the world.

They run their own worlds inside their own world. And you really have to live there, go there, be there to understand it.

Correct. So my criteria was indeed universal applicability. And if you think about it, there are only very few industries, sectors for which this is actually true.

Now, I'm being a little.

I don't know the word for it, but be yourself.

So Project Moon Hut. Changing how we live on Earth for all species, that wasn't good enough for you?

No. You said 1 billion people.

That's only a small part of it.

I had to go for more. But, you know, Project Moon Hut I think is a good example. Right. And it does definitely have universal implications. It definitely has urbanization implications. And I think the two of us have found a lot of common ground and probably built our friendship on these shared values. Because the reason why you're working on that project is very similar to the reason why I'm working on my thesis.

It's funny because I think that that's part of it and I think the other part of it is while you And I have that same desire to be large scale impact. And we, I don't, I don't sit down and say I want impact. That's not the way I think. But I think we both have this. We both work in that construct. Yet at the same time, the conversations we've had tend to be very, very down to earth and local.

Yeah.

If you really think about our conversations that I remember the one after we went to the Rice place behind Hollywood Road, that little shack, and you and I walked down the street and we talked about our. When you. That we're introverted and meeting people and, and how to connect and networks. So it's interesting. And that's why I'm pushing on the word impact. Because having impact in smart cities could mean that you're responsible for great garbage disposal.

Yeah.

And that's, that's a smart city tech.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So is, is it garbage disposal? Is it traffic light coordination? Is. I mean, I'm being serious here. I don't know.

No, no, no. I am so serious because, because you.

Have subway, the putting in a light rail system that is more functional than the existing transport.

Yeah.

That is also smart city.

Correct.

So what becomes to my friend Tony, I want to know what is impact? I mean, we're going to put something on your. Sorry, let's not talk about it because of COVID but one day something will have to be written about you and we're going to say, I wanted impact.

Yeah.

What, what did we. What do we follow? Was it, this is just like your party. What would your life be like if it was on your tombstone very quickly, Tony, I'm going to say it for other people. Was a jump out of character for a second. Is that one of the questions that came out of his birthday party where Tony was going to give a 10 minute speech. It ended up being about an hour, I think, and he. At the next day, the following day, everybody had to write on their WhatsApp account why or what would they want written on their tombstone and what they would contribute. People, People. People writing. So I'm kind of asking you, and you use the word impact. What?

Carbonless. And I will tell you soon.

Okay, so. So that's the answer. So your impact is carbonless. That is where we'll get to that eventually. But your impact. And to you that means what?

I will, I will. I'm not carbonless. What is. I'm answering. You, I'm answering. I got the question. You know, urbanization is big. But obviously I decided to play at the Intersection of urbanization and technology. You can do a lot within urbanization, but I obviously wanted to play within, at the intersection of urbanization and innovation and obviously through capital. Now I could give an absolute two hour long monologue on why I'm so fixated. But let me just say one probably abstract thing. I believe everything in the world is energy. I consider unit of energy is the core unit. And for me, capital money is a concentration of energy. With money you can buy energy. With more money you can buy more energy. And we can. You know, energy takes a lot of different forms, but if you think about it, everything is an accumulation of energy. And, and the reason why I wanted to be a capitalist is because I knew that if I become a capitalist or venture capitalist, I will have way more energy to play with than in any other way.

So it was just that it was. It's a vehicle. Being a capitalist is a vehicle for you to concentrate energy so that you can apply it and get more leverage across a global ecosystem.

Correct. And when you ask which part of smart city. And quite frankly, even though I'm a representative of the Smart City Consortium of Hong Kong and I really respect the organization and I respect the people who built it, I respect, you know, even the term smart city and a lot of smart city companies, I don't use the term smart cities. I only used it as part of my narrative because we were indeed running a smart city program. But I use urban tech as the next bullet point indeed because for me, points beyond.

So let's make sure. Are we. Did we cover all of urbanization then or do you want to give more on urbanization?

I. I could throw a lot of statistics.

Well, give me, give me some, give me something more. Give me something more. Because. And, and the reason I'm. I'd like to know your construct or your, your definition is through Covid.

Yep.

There's a lot of discussion about how cities will not be the same anymore. They're changing on. And I don't believe most of that. If you or my narrative, it's not going to happen the way people are outlining it. I think it's just a fear jump more than it is an actual understanding of the diamond dynamics of humans working together. But when you think of urbanization, let's. Right above Hong Kong is the greater bay. The greater bay is Macau, Hong Kong and Guangzhou region. When you think of urbanization, give me some context of where, what that means to you, how it adds to your storyline.

Okay. So I do care about urbanization as a megatrend and I do care about cities as once again an accumulation of energy and resources. Places where if you do something scales fast and easy as something negative, as something positive. I also found myself when I stumbled upon this thesis, or doubled down on this thesis in a time when the greater Bay Area concept was first kind of promoted in this region. And it did fascinate me so much that I actually named my company after my newly established company. For this particular thesis I named my company after the Greater Bay Area which is dubbed as the biggest megacity in the building. That's quote unquote how it's how it's referred to because these 11 cities including Hong Kong and Macau are integrating together. Now for those who have been here, it's almost obvious but for those who have not, it's not obvious that there are 77, almost between 70 and 80 million people living in these 11 cities, very big cities and they are almost built into one city. Infrastructure wise they are connected but they are growing intertwining together.

So I'm going to jump because I want to, I want to hear more because I think we were, you and I were heading to Guangzhou when I said to you one of the big challenges of Guangzhou region is its old name used to be the Pearl River Delta and that there are challenges with sea level water rise and the challenges we have. So when we have this expedition expectation of mega cities, two things are happening. One, a lot of the mega cities will decline within 50 years due to a whole host of challenges with the major city, especially in China because of the population challenges with the one child syndrome that a lot of the major cities will be in Africa. But coastal cities, if we run into climate change challenges could be real, devastating, have devastating impact on those individuals because they've moved to these cities and have no, don't have the place to retract to correct. So what's your, when you say mega city, is this a good thing to you?

For me it is more a fascinating thing or it's been a fascinating thing. It's not good or bad. I think as you refer to urbanization as you know how people view it, view it not and, and, and, and kind of predicting the decline of urbanization in the wake of Kobe, not understanding how people operate and connect and work together. I, I believe it's, you know, mega cities are just a manifestation, are, are a manifestation of, of, of the same phenomena that you're referring to there. I think it's just incredible to see humans coming together at this scale. And if you look at the greater Bay Area which is statistically dubbed as the most diverse economic cluster in the world. It is quite fascinating to look at.

All.

Industries, all sectors and basically you find a global leader in any of those sectors. Homegrown global leaders in any of those sectors.

I haven't heard this most diverse economic cluster in the world. What does that mean, the most diverse economic cluster?

Basically what I just referred to that if you look at across industries, across sectors you will find a company or a cluster of companies that, that are leading and globally relevant in that particular industry. And I can give a couple of.

Immediate immediately I immediately went to, I went to the exodus of many of the Westerners because of the, let's call it semi takeover of Hong Kong. A lot of my friends, your friends have left Hong Kong and so you're, you're seeing that drawback. So it's to me it's not as much of a cultural cluster but you're talking, it sounds like you're talking about this cluster in this one urban environment and you're saying that megacities create these high energy capable organizations that can have huge impact.

I think yes, from one perspective, yes but I think that's not that that's what's relevant from my stories perspective when it comes to megacities, it or this particular mega city it is just fascinating how diverse it can be how industries can coexist and synergize with one another, how people can coexist and synergize with one another. I think Shenzhen is an amazing example for that very truth because it is a city that has grown from 300,000 to 15, 18 million depending what statistics you look at in about 30 years. Some of the most powerful companies and biggest companies in the world, most innovative companies in the world are actually headquartered in Shenzhen and those are just some of the examples of the great companies that are in this region. Now I didn't want to spend too much time on the greater Bay Area but one thing I like to say because very few people talk about this and I love history as you referred a little bit to that fact before. I like to look at the macro to have the right context for the micro and history serves for me as that macro context for everything I look at in the world but in the context of the greater Bay Area. I've been on endless number of panels and interviews about it. I even gave my first workshop that I gave about the greater Bay Area was in San Francisco which just looking at the reactions of the audience just showed how special this region is because they couldn't believe the statistics. I just showed them the companies that are here, showed them the numbers. I showed them the GDP. The GDP of this region is US$1.67 trillion, which equals all Australia's or all South Korea's GDP.

And I think Russia, I think Russia is 1.6 trillion.

Correct, correct. Which is crazy. If you think about it. Russia is like more than 100 million people. With the land mass and the natural, natural resources it has. It's quite incredible. These are 11 cities and it's growing very fast. Now just, just to just put this into historical context, when people ask me, okay, what do I think about this new thing, the greater Bay Area? My answer was always that this new thing has been evolving and developing for 250 years. And obviously people have been asking me what will happen to the greater Bay Area in the, you know, just like how you refer to this in, in the wake of the exodus, the Westerners from Hong Kong. And I say the same thing. Business has been going on in the greater bay area for 250 years, which dates back to what used to be called the Canton system, which was set up by the Canton Treaty which turned Guangzhou in its old name. Canton the only place port in China that had the license to trade with the rest of the world. So all of China's trade was conducted through this one port in now Guangzhou. And that led, that was a hundred year old, one hundred year long period. And that led directly to the Opium War through which the British obviously gained control. First Opium War of Hong Kong. And long story short, Macau was already in Portuguese hands, but it was a very small trading outlet comparatively. And fast forward to Deng Xiaoping's era when he decided to to experiment with capitalistic structures within China and gave special economic zone an area licenses and advantages for a couple of cities, one of which was Shenzhen. And Shenzhen started to grow. Why did Shenzhen start to grow is because of Hong Kong's vicinity. Now Shenzhen became one one of the most innovative cities in the entire world in the span of 30 years, which would have not happened without Hong Kong, but Hong Kong would have not existed without Canton being Canton and what Canton represented. And for those 100 years being the only port in China that could trade with the rest of the world. All the industries that were actually producing tradable goods in China moved their manufacturing capacity down to the Pearl River Delta run from mid-1700s to the mid-1800s. And obviously many of the, a lot of that capacity stayed around the Pearl River Delta stayed in Guangdong Province. Now this region, obviously China is usually referred to as the factory of the world. But this particular region also is referred to sometimes as the factory of the world for that particular reason. And that hasn't really changed. So without that there wouldn't be Hong Kong. Without Hong Kong there wouldn't be Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Shenzhen and Guangzhou are basically the backbone of the greater bay area. One being one of the biggest manufacturing hubs in the entire world, one being one of the technology hubs of the world, and one being the financial hubs of the world. And these three cities which are accessible with 45 minutes high speed railway ride that crosses 40 million people's living environment, these also have three of the top eight ports in the world. It's also a trading powerhouse. Only these three cities.

The reason I'm asking the question is I'm trying to get to your definition in this whole thing about urbanization because going back to it is that we're seeing an aging of the world's population. Russia is going to lose 30 million people over the next 15 years due to 15 to 20 years due to aging. Europe is going to lose 50 million people. United States had a positive negative net gain. Now with the Trump administration that might change some, but we were looking at an increase in the Latin American or the Central American growth, but a decline in the other population. So around the world we are seeing, what was it? China's going to have 400, 420 million people who are elderly within the next 15 years or 10 years. I don't know the exact number. I just have to look at my dates, mine. My question is about urbanization and why urbanization is the topic for carbonless. And what you see as urbanization because it's changing and it's, it's not equivalent to for example, this mega city. There will be others. But I don't see London extreme expand. I mean London is expanding, but I don't see the same type of dynamic happening everywhere in the world as it will in Asia.

Correct. I mean we are talking about impact. And once again urbanization for me is important in terms of impact. I care more about the cities that are not yet necessary built. I care about cities and markets and economies that are growing right now.

So you're. So let me get this straight so we can then move on. Is that your, your feeling of impact was to pick a topic of interest to you, which was urbanization then to focus on means by which urbanization can be improved to give a better quality of life for those who live in.

These Structures, we can say better quality of life, but. But greater efficiencies from, you know, the. From a planetary perspective. Okay. For that.

That's. That's a good. That's what I wanted to hear. So you're doing it to balance also in addition to balance that with planet Earth.

Correct, correct. You know, when, when you asked me about impact and I think probably this is the answer you've been looking for is. Is definitely a planetary impact. It's not a psychological well being for the citizens of the world. Obviously you can choose a lot of different topics. And I was actually exploring to do something in the space of mental health. Depression and anxiety are dubbed as the disease of the 21st century. And I believe actually in the wake of COVID 19 it will be even more severe as a problem to deal with. You can also pick food, which is universally applicable and relevant. I picked urbanization.

That's fine. I didn't tie the pieces together and now I'm getting it and maybe I just missed it. But you're talking about that you had you decided that the next 30 years you would be impactful. You needed to find a category which was the smart city or the technology or the capabilities. You pick then a focal point which is urban environments and mega cities that will be growing. And you wanted to be a part of the transformation of these so that they can both humanistically and earthly. Earthly, however you say it.

Correct.

They would. They would mesh better in the future.

Correct. So well said. Thank you for teaching me about my own narrative. You do that.

I'm trying to find that place because it was kind of confusing for me as to where you were going. So. So let's take urbanization, just the moving of people into community, into cities and living in environments. That will be a trend that will continue. And your next one on the last was urban tech.

Correct.

And what did you mean by urban tech?

Usually the way I define this is very simple. Technology and innovation that can positively impact urbanization. Now we kind of know what urbanization is. It's the megatrend, where people are actually moving or being born into urban environments. Increasing urban sprawl and the technology that can make this more efficient and sufficient is what I focus on. And obviously in the technology space in venture capital, we always refer to things as vertical, as sectors. Obviously we can define urban tech as a sector, but it's very, very broad. And that will lead us to carbonless in a second. Because urban. I wanted to be in the beginning of my journey as flexible with my thesis, since I Didn't necessarily know yet what I wanted to do, but as broad, but as true. True to my thesis as possible. So I can be flexible with how I create impact if I stumble upon an opportunity. But under urban tech. And basically, maybe it's useful if I say what, how I can define, or how I would define the difference between smart city as a vertical or as a topic and urban tech as a topic there if you love to.

Because my mind is racing between them actually saying.

It's very simple. It's very simple. It's very simple. Because smart cities and smart cities as a topic, as a vertical is a relatively old term. More than 10, probably 15 years old.

Yes.

And urban tech is a pretty new term if you Google it, as I did when I came up with it. I thought I invented it, but then I Googled it.

I realized that's just because that's you.

Yeah, I always think I invent whatever. I think it sounds great, but I Google it immediately. And all my life I've been humbled by the fact that someone already thought about the same thing. Which is great because you don't need to build all the foundation. Right.

You don't have to go around telling people what it's about. They've built the definition for you.

Look at that study. And it was, it was not a very old term. The first reference I found for it was one and a half years before I actually made that Google search in a Starbucks in Hong Kong, actually. And it defines it in a certain way if you Google it elsewhere in another way. But long story short, it's just a newer term that covers smart cities as well. But smart city doesn't cover things like Uber. Smart cities doesn't cover things like Airbnb. For me, Uber and Airbnb are urban tech companies because Airbnb has huge impact on urbanization. Airbnb actually redefined a lot of cities. Property market, the pricing of the property market. And that changed the urban environment, the urban structure, structures who lived in certain areas of the. Of the city. It changed how districts actually became structured over time. It's fascinating how much impact Airbnb had, for the better and worse. Or Uber. But smart cities doesn't cover.

No, I.

Look, I just looked it up.

The urban tech describes startup technology companies that directly improve cp city life and city sustainability.

Correct. And I think when it comes to smart cities, the sustainability component was also not necessary there. Smart cities is more about let's apply. Let's install sensors in light bulbs and collect data.

Well, yeah, like I was Saying a smart light bulb or smart garbage or smart something. Yeah, correct.

And that's sort of where it ended, you know, like, okay, let's collect data and then what. So that's kind of why smart cities as a term, as an industry doesn't have an extremely good reputation because it is defined by that phenomenon. So under urban tech, I define basically we focus on mainly five sectors which are very broad on their own. Right. One is energy, the other is mobility, transportation, the other is property, Another is infrastructure and construction, and the fifth is now it's 5G but basically digital connectivity.

Is that it? When you say because there's used a word we. Yeah, I think you said we. Is this, this is your business or because I'm asking for me, is urban tech seven or eight sectors and you've defined that you're only going to work in. And what would the others be?

This is our, this is our focus.

So what, what would be others that you decided not to know?

The reason why I'm not, I'm. I would like to avoid the definition per se is because for anyone that wants to, you know, research it, it's a simple Google search, but every single website will give a different definition. So this is my definition of what, what constitutes to urban tech. If we really wanted to add education, we could. If we really wanted to add food or food tech, agritech, we could. If we wanted to add health tech, we could as well. Urban tech can be really so.

So. But when, if I pull up, if I pull up an image of smart cities in smart city, they also include agritech, health tech, they include all of these others. So is a chicken and the egg, is it misdefinition of a smart city? Is urban tech really what smart cities, it should be called urban tech and smart cities should fade away and that there are many other categories under smart smart city.

Yes, all of the above. And quite frankly you can also look at certain aspects of these various sectors. For me, urban tech is not a technology per se. It is a big collection of technologies that can be applied to positively impact, in my definition, the process of urbanization. One could simply focus on blockchain technologies that can be applied in urban tech. And that would be a legitimate thesis as well.

But we are technology. You've chosen these, but to some degree, and I'm pulling it up right now. Smart city, smart industry, smart security, smart retail, smart society, smart health care, smart home, smart energy, mobility. So it's kind of as if urban tech is that they're used interchangeably and Your, your focus is on these five.

You can say that, yes, you will hear as many definitions as it, as it gets. So I, once again, I don't really want to go into the definition of, of urban tech. I think what really matters and as abstract as it is, it is actually a pretty good definition if you think about it. Technology and innovation that can positively impact urbanization. And that's my definition to that. And I'm very, very flexible because all I care, and I think now, you know, I'm not in love with a technology. I'm not in love with an opportunity that like blockchain represents all I care whether the application of a technology in an urban context creates positive impact or doesn't. And now we get to the real deal here because, you know, I've been, I've had the absolute honor, pleasure and adventure to talk about this topic obviously with smarter and smarter people and got to places like Davos. I spoke at big conferences about this, on panels with way, way smarter people than I probably ever be. But the more serious I've become and the more serious conversations I had, the more I got challenged on defining indeed my impact. And there was a significant occasion on this in Davos, actually last year where I was really hard pressed at a sustainability technology lunch on to really define what I cared about when I talked about impact on esg, for example. And I also challenged myself and I had to double, I had to triangulate and I had to boil down my impact definition. And as I was boiling it down, following all my experience and all the conversations and all the logic I could think of, I realized it was CO2 emissions. And I also stumbled upon one particular sector which is referred to as carbon tech. Once again, carbon tech is a sector that you find different, different definitions for. One is a little bit more narrow, the other is a bit broader. But basically they refer to the same thing, technology that can reduce CO2 emission or technology that can actually take carbon out of the air directly. And having been involved in conversations around climate change, having been involved in conversations about the Paris agreement, one has to realize ultimately that it is the greatest challenge. Obviously when it refers to urbanization or when we think about urbanization, the most relevant challenge probably, and I just connected the two and even though I'm sticking to my overall urban tech with impact thesis, and we are just in the process of building a later stage venture fund with the urban tech broad focus, I also realized I, if I was about to specialize on anything ultimately and narrow down, it will be and it.

Is so why.

Exactly? For the same reason why you're asking me or why you've been asking me for more than an hour for a definition, for a definition of impact, the metrics around impact. Because ultimately we can talk about this and it's pretty intuitive. You know, what's good, what's not. You know, even when blackrock came out one and a half years ago saying that they will not invest in anything with a negative impact, they actually didn't go much further saying what it is. You know, it's one of the largest fund managers, asset managers in the world. And they just said, they wrote, they distributed the message to CEOs that watch out for the societal impact of your company and we are actually not going to invest in you if it's negative. And I think that's kind of enough. Everyone knows what it is. And then you delve into ESG and ESG metrics, but then you realize that the ESG metrics are not really working well, it's pretty subjective. So what is not subjective then? Right, and you could probably come up with a bunch of other things, But I think CO2 in the air. Climate change, the impact on climate change of it is undeniable. It's scientifically proven. There are actual targets set by the Paris agreement and into the Paris Agreement a lot of scientific work and a lot of smart peoples years long energy went into, you know, into very simple numbers. So you have a metric that you can work towards and it's a very simple metric.

So I'd like you to give me some examples of what you consider to be solid carbon tech. And let me preface this, that I think it was, don't quote me on the year, but let's say it was 2006, 2007, 2008 time I spoke to 300 energy utility executives about the future of technology when it came to carbon and all sorts of other areas. And one of the areas that I said is clean coal, ccs, carbon capture storage technology is not going to do what it's expected to do and that it's a big hype and a lot of the solutions that are being put out there are not going to work. And there were projections in the audience with these 300 executives who'd be here for 10 years. We'll be able to do X, Y and Z. And yet we're here. We passed the deadline of that event with 300 top people in the industry and not one of those technologies has really delivered on any progress promise. So what do you see when you, you gave the category carbon tech. Give me some examples, please.

There are, you know, I think the question is not really whether there are already great examples. The question is whether there should be more effort put into helping some of the more promising examples to gain scale, to get the kind of energy, to get the kind of capitalization together, get the kind of attention and connection into ecosystems that they need to actually get to the kind of economic scale where they can actually generate the kind of impact that.

So what are these technologies?

And I would like to go back to my previous, you know, thesis that it is not one technology. David.

No, no, I'm saying, can you give me some examples? Can you give me some examples of those?

I can, but. But I think it's better if I give you an example of, of, of. Of a project that represents how much more we are talking about here than one particular startup or another particular startup or one particular technology, because it hasn't really changed. Like what, what you refer to is, you know, is exactly the kind of technology that is still being developed. But it's a bit like asking like, okay, did solar, Solar panels, you know, have solar panels change the world? You know? No. Okay, then it's bad. It's not true. You know, solar panels have been improving in their, in their efficiency for decades, and now they are coming to a price point and they are coming to a scale, they are coming to a maturity where they are making actually more and more and more sense. And it will be true and true and true as we progress, as more capital is pouring into the industry. And it won't be only solar panels changing the world, as we know that, you know, you need efficient battery technology for that. We know that, you know, electric cars were here more than 100 years ago and they were just inefficient. And now they are coming back because there is efficiency around.

There's also, I don't know if you've heard this. In 1900, there were more electric cars on the road than there were gas.

Correct, Correct.

And what happened when the combustion engine came along? The men like the sound, the roar, the power.

Yeah.

And they were more. And they gave the electric cars to the women. Yes, they gave them to the women because they had this now powerful. And also a woman can have had trouble starting because there was no electric starter. It was very dangerous to start the car. So that car went to the man. And because it was. Because it went to women, it therefore was not invested in the same way.

I love that. I think that was not the only reason. But that's One of. That's a large.

That's. No, that's a large reason. I love that because it was a very efficient vehicle at the time. So the reason I asked the question, and I think because you know me well enough, most people I interview, you don't know me that well. Maybe that's a bad thing is that I, I look at it as a race against time.

Yeah.

And so when I hear someone say, and I'm not just picking on you as an example, I'm just in theory, when I hear someone say we're working on. Yeah, okay, when, where? Show me. Yeah, well, we're going to get there. When. I mean flying cars were supposed to be here by the year 200. When I. 2000, when I grew up, when I grew up, I had a poster on my wall. There were flying cars, there were, you know, we had the Jetsons and that you were in little saucers and you had robots in your home. I have not seen a robot in one home besides a Roomba and a grass cutting. I have not seen one flying car in person. I've seen many videos and I have not seen much of the promises that are coming out of sustainability where even I had someone on the, on our program just recently and he said, well know why Microsoft says they, they'll have zero emission by 2050 because no one will be around and who's going to hold their, their hold themselves to the fire.

I like that.

And, and so I'm trying to push a little bit harder. Not just because I know you, I'm pushing because I'm looking for solid, solid examples. Okay.

So but let me, let me just give you another example because I think what you're being and I love you the way you are.

B2T but get off my butt.

Your best provocative self. But you know it very well, David, that it won't be one technology. There is no silver bullet. And when we talk about, you know, just tie it back to cities. Cities are ecosystems and you know, you need to add a bit of urban tech or sustainable urban tech to, you know, every single aspect of a city to get closer to, to the targets. It won't be, you know, just the power plants. It needs to be the entire energy system. It won't be just, you know, the buildings, how materials are used there, what heating system is used, but it will also be transportation. It won't only be food, but all of the above. Now the example I wanted to give you and I think that's where my, my real passion is and one of the reasons why I spent a lot of time over the past couple of years in the Philippines is because I think the solution lies in places like the Philippines, in developing countries, markets where urbanization is happening fast. You refer to Africa. I'm totally with you. In the year 2120, 100, in most of the megacities in the world will be in Africa. At least on the trajectory. I believe lagos will be 100 million people. Yes.

Unbelievable numbers.

Unbelievable numbers.

But expected to be extremely challenged cities.

Exactly correct. And I think this is what really matters here for me. Whatever happens in this process right now in places like Manila, in places like Lagos, the kind of energy systems, the kind of infrastructure, the kind of systems that are being developed right now and implemented will be there for decades and they will lock in bad practices or inefficient practices. And let's just focus on then CO2 emission in this case. And, and when it comes to, you know, my thesis and the way I build my company is I really like to combine investment and capital with advisory capacity. Through the advisory capacity you gain the opportunity to work with people that have influence over these processes. Governments, big corporations. And I stumbled upon probably my dream project last year that to be frank with you, probably without COVID 19, we would be a little bit closer to facts and practicalities around it. Right now it's still just a project out there that we haven't managed to progress on. But basically in, in the Philippines, the first metro line ever in the country has been. Has been decided to be built in Makati, in, in Manila, which is the capital of the Philippines. And, and it needs it badly. Not, not one, it needs 25, 20. Yeah.

Manila. We would sit in the car to go 20 clothes kilometers for three hours.

Correct.

Unbelievable.

Correct. Correct. And I must give a lot of credit to the leaders in Bangkok because Bangkok has been suffering from very similar traffic nightmares. And they did what I believe they had to do. They actually launched six metro lines at the same time on the same day. So it's not one, but six. Now Manila is stepping on this path with building the first metro line, which was awarded to a Chinese consortium to build it. Now I'm not here to have prejudices, but as a matter of fact, in the Philippines there is no one in any government that has probably built a metro line, let alone operating it, because there had not been a metro line in the country. Perhaps that is not true from Filipino expats which live all over the world and are great and talented people. So, so the knowledge might be Imported but systematically and organizational intelligence wise there's no structure with the know how, how to do this, let alone how to do this right. And I'm just not 100% sure that it will be built in a way. And if you build a metro line that, that will stay with you for about 50 years or more expectedly and depending on what technology you're using, what energy systems you're using, what materials you're using, it will be either an efficient natural line or a non efficient natural line. And these are exactly the kind of projects, and these are exactly the kind of moments I would like to be in a position and we are, you know, we are slowly growing up now. You know, I'm on a 30 year journey and I'm three, three years into it. So 10% has, has, has passed. And we are not yet the top of mind advisors to come in and help a city find the best, most sustainable, most efficient solutions. And not only to build a metro line, but also to build potentially positive externalities, create positive externalities around it, maybe build an ecosystem around it, maybe attract new industries, new talent around it, build an ecosystem of travel tech companies which is possible, but it's a matter of capacity, of imagination, of vision, of connections and realizing it is actually possible and beyond possible, it is actually necessary. So these are the kind of projects through which efficiency and sustainability can be brought into urban development. And the moment the first metro line is built at a certain, according to a certain standard probably that will drive the coming 10, 20 metro lines that will have to be built in Manila if it wants to actually grow. So that's, and if you think about the metro line, it means everything as I refer to it. It's not going to be only the energy system. It will be how it's operated, how it's built, it will be about the materials that are used and all sorts of things you can build into this carbon efficiency across the board and a lot of capital savings that you can then invest into other areas. I think one trick here is, and I would like to highlight that, that some of the moment you build and I think that's one of the exciting parts of carbon tech or sustainable urban development. Obviously a lot of developing countries are facing the same problem, which is shortage of capital and finances. So in a lot of these cases, unfortunately, the government is incentivized to save as much money as possible, basically sacrificing potential long term benefits.

They're also incentivized not to invest in these technologies.

Correct, Correct. Now there is actually a solution for that. And, and that is green finance, which is an extremely fast growing scene and industry through which these governments or these entities working on specific projects. The moment they integrate sustainability goals and metrics, they can actually unlock additional capital into their projects. And there is no awareness amongst many of the leaders that make these decisions about this. All they focus on is minimizing the top line expenses of the project.

Can we try something together here?

Yes.

Okay. I'd like to try to do something with you because I, I admire you in so many ways and the things that you've accomplished and the way you, you interact with people and the way you connect. And rail lines, whether it be light rail lines, it be fast. All of these type of structures require community and capital. And the biggest one time, yeah, there's legal ramifications of going through someone's back door. Depending on which country you're in. There are many challenges and it sounds like large scale impact is where you'd like to be. So if we did this in real time, if I said to you, Tony, you need to get 25 cities onto your idea of how a line should be done and you need to get them on board within three, three years.

Yeah.

What would you tell me? How would you tell me you'd get 25 cities? Because you're a networker, your connector, your value is. Honestly, and I'm not this not being a mean thing is the ability to bring people together, to find people to connect. You are, you are powerful in that way. How do you get 25? Not Manila, not Manila, not just Manila, Manila's one. Now you need 24. How, how can the systems and structure that you put in place if I, if I had to. And I'm. Please take this just as a nice way. It's just a bad analogy. If I took a gun to your head and said, Tony, in. You have to have 25 different large scale projects going on within three years that are on the move because it'll be 10 years for development or 15, depending on how long, how big house, what scale. What would you tell me? How would you tell me you would get 25?

So I'm not sure 25 is the right target for the coming 30s, three years. But, but we are on this trajectory. And I do have two answers to you. Probably three. Three answers.

I'd take three.

One is the greater Bay Area. There's a very good reason why I actually called my, you know, name my company after the original urban tech with Impact Co. After the greater Bay Area. It as being the Biggest mega city in the building with all these companies and all these great numbers wherever you go in. Even if you go to Manila where about 20 to 30 million people live, but you say that you come from a region where 70 million people live and moving into these cities and it's actually sustainable and it's actually growing. Well, and look at Shenzhen, a newly built city with a waste to energy power plant with all electric buses, you know, like. And, and China is not, you know. Luxembourg. Right?

Yeah, and, and I actually spoke to Luxembourg. Exactly. On this pro. On, on something related to this. Okay.

Yeah. So, so my, my point is it's, it's, it's still, you know, China is still a country even though it's, it has grown dramatically fast and large and, and in certain areas wealthy. But it's a country that, that developing nations can relate to.

So you're, you're, you're saying that your first initiative is to do the Greater Bay because you can do multiple projects in that region.

Because it's an amazing reference point basically for any, any.

Okay, so that's your one, that's your one off.

It's a case study.

It's a case, it's a one off example. But so regaining China doesn't have China something to do with this. The, the, the government of China have a lot to do with what technology. Whose technology is going to be selected?

Yes, but Siemens has been in, in, in the Pearl River Delta for more than 120 years and they are very, very strong in China. So despite, despite you think that China only applies Chinese technology. It's, it's just not true.

No, no, I didn't mean. They applied their technology, they pick the winner.

Well, yes, but there is competition between Siemens and Siemens's international and local competitors. And the best technology ultimately wins if it's sold the right way. I don't think it really differs whether this is happening in China or in the U.S. quite, quite frankly, I'm not sure really what you're referring to.

Yeah, it's, it's similar all over. I just. So you're picking the greater Bay Area?

The greater Bay Area is a reference. Greater Bay Area for me always stood as a place to build knowledge and references that are credible and relevant anywhere in the world. Okay, I'm still in this, let's make this, you know, I want to work on something universal. Greater Bay Area is actually pretty universal. And let's not talk about the politics of Hong Kong for, for a moment. We could, of course, but until, let's say a Year ago, Hong Kong has been absolutely recognized by everyone in the world as an international city.

I almost cry at night how the MTR and the, the lifestyle and the people, it's a, I don't know of any place in the world that mirrors the type of lifestyle we've had in Hong Kong, period. Yes, I just, I've. People ask me all the time, there's nobody, there's no place in the world that you can get that density to go up to Lang Kwei Fung and see everybody within a seven minute walk.

Correct. And density, density is value and density is efficiency. And I think, you know, one of density is actually very important point in if you ask any sustainable development advisor or the un, density is actually desirable. In the US density has been declining over the past decades and that brings a lot of inefficiencies, a lot of waste and not sustainable urban development because you invest more in infrastructure, you burn more fuel in transportation, and so on and so on and so on.

Well, I think a bigger bet, a way to give, a way to look at this in my end is that the United States has I think 11 or 12 cities with over 1 million people and China has, depending on who's counting, it's anywhere from 150 to 300 cities, over a million people. So the comparison of density, there's no comparison China to the rest of the world.

Correct. Now let's not talk about the greater Bay Area again once, but it's a reference point. Okay, so that's your one that is, you know, this is where I built my urban tech understanding. And then if I go to San Francisco, people say wow. If I go to Manila, people say wow. And that for me from a personal perspective, this was important. Okay, how can I get 25 cities, you know, around me? Just referring to your question. I have to be credible and I have to come from a credible place. Greater Bay Area is incredible place as far as urban tech and urban development.

It's why the MTR has done well and expanded out because it had, it had the mt, so they've been able to spread their wings all over. So, so your one is one is greater Bay. What would the other two.

The other is you need an actual example. Just like the metro line in Manila or working on the new capital of Indonesia. You need a visible good case study as either an investor or an advisor to build applicable and scalable practices. Because once again, when you build, let's say the most efficient metro line in the world, then it is something you can then rally other Cities around. This is how you build a metro line. These are the technologies you are using, this is how you scale it. So right now the work we are in, and we are actually quite beautifully in conversation, contact of various degrees with either governments or other entities, other drivers of projects to bring technology and innovation that can make such projects more efficient and more sufficient, obviously with measurable CO2 emission reduction. And that's what we're working on. I think the moment we have that case study, then we can start counting the three years that you're mentioning to rally maybe not even 25, maybe 100, I don't know how many cities, but then we can. And number three is which kind of overrides everything because with only that it is already possible. It is just capital and scale of capital. And that is carbonless in a nutshell. And we arrived there ultimately that, that carbonless is a specialized advisory and investment platform for carbon emission reduction. And when I say capital, what we are working on right now goes beyond my traditional understanding of the capital and investment scene, which is venture capital, but as I refer to green finance and green bonds, which are very specialized instruments and sectors of the finance space, are a way to actually build leverage to bring people together and to, to advocate for more sustainable technologies. And that's why I am going for this capital capacity under carbon.

When you use this, if you're using 30 years and you go from working backwards and it takes 10 years for example, for a rail light to get approvals to move through, especially in large urban cities, you, you can't get often the right of way because existing infrastructure is in place. Let's use the 10 year metric for especially large scale projects, you're looking at the ability to put in, you could do 100, but the odds are you can't hit those numbers unless you really get the acceleration now and your term carbon lasts. And you say it in a way which you shared with me when I asked what this meant is you said less carbon. When you look at the ESG goals, you look at the 17 directives from the United nations, when you look at the Paris Climate Accord, is your, is your contribution to impact just the reduction of carbon.

Or.

I don't know, I'm asking, isn't that enough? Well, I don't know because reduction, reduction, if the rest of the world around you is increasing. That's why I asked you early on, like what would the impact me, what would that definition be? Is it, is it to reduce an entire industry? Is it to reduce a certain component? So putting in Rails that put in less. That's why I wanted to know what is your scale? How large is this? What do you want to raise?

As high as possible. David, really, I'm not joking here. First I want to start with a couple of 10 million US dollar venture investment fund, but already with the kind of people and this is the reason why you have not heard me talking about carbon less. Because you know, this is a, this is a term I came up with only the beginning of this year. And this thesis has been evolving over the past six months through interactions with some of the smartest and most capable and best people I ever been interacting with my life. Incredible.

Is it a new technology that the, that these rails run on completely different structures than we have today?

No, it's like, it's like, it's like you always, you always install and use the latest and best. Right. This is an evolving.

So what it. What today is the. In Manila. Let's take this project in Manila. Will it look like a light rail system or will it look like a Sci Fi system?

It won't look like a Sci Fi system, that's for sure. And just to give you one example to the question you asked, what is the latest and best. And there's a technology called direct air capture. And I think if the solar panels are not good enough examples, I think this is a good enough example that a couple of years ago, let's say 10 years ago, there was already technology that was sucking CO2 directly out of the air. Yeah, it was just very expensive.

It takes energy. Yeah.

And you know, it's, it costs US$600 per metric ton of CO2. That's what it is. And there's a company now called Global Thermostat that managed to bring that price down to US$100. And according to their own statement, they have the capacity to bring it down to 50. And the target metric, and the target price is US$20 per metric ton. And if you ask why Microsoft, for example, launched a US$1 billion venture fund specialized for such technologies is exactly to provide the kind of scale and capital on scale that enables that price reduction to ultimately happen. The technology seems to be out there. The people have been working on this and such technologies for decades. The commitment of capital and the scale of installation application has not been there. I want to be part of a community, a group of people and this group is growing actually extremely fast that contributes to create that scale on my best capacity. Whether it will result in a 10 million US dollar venture fund or a billion US dollar, you know multi purpose investment vehicle. I have no idea. I will just do my best to get to the biggest possible scale.

They have one of the same graphics we use in blue Project Moon Hunt on their website. The, the challenge with many of these technologies comes down to the cost of energy. And that's one of the things that we have in Project moonhot is we do talk about what's an example would be solar is solar satellites that can direct energy down to Earth. Very inexpensive when you're up in space saddle solar technology does not corrode. It doesn't have the same, same challenges that we have on Earth. And if we can get our energy down we could run these type of devices. The question then becomes time when, when do we think that these things will come about? Because we are up against the time crunch and the unfortunate thing about climate change is if we solve it, everybody would say see there was nothing. Yeah. See it never came. There was no climate change.

Yeah.

You almost have to, you almost have to let it happen and then say, say I don't know, we can't even say hey.

And my, my game.

Well it's part of the challenge isn't the game is how do we do this faster. And that's what if you want to say one thing that rattles in my head and that's what even the word redefining is and the tool isn't paid to think. You ask the question how can you do it in one half the time? How can you do it with 1/4 the resources, 110 the capital to get, get 20 times or 50 or 100 times more productivity out of it. So when I look at an idea I'm asking myself how do we accelerate this? So if Tony Verb has a way by reducing well carbon less. See carbon less kind of in my mind goes to like getting it to zero. But yours is just a reduction. And I don't mean that a negative. I just saying it's, it's not a zero or a negative negative factor on the curve. It's so how do we get 50 tonys out there? So 50 different rail systems reduce the use of carbon in their environment.

Yeah.

And with the positive net game of 80 million people onto the planet every single year, we're, we're fighting a battle that's almost like the, the gorge in China. The water keeps on coming no matter how much we try to control it.

Yeah.

And how do you stop that? So it tell me what we can, what, what is 2050 going to be like for you or 2047 when you what is what, what is what is the end game? What are we going to see in carbon lesset 2047?

I, I really hope that it's, it's, it will be a. And you know, I'm beyond the times when I had kind of self centered aspirations or I wanted to be famous or all those things. All I want is hopefully my children, maybe already my grand grandchildren recognizes me as someone who managed to contribute to the change that we just talked about and ideally also an industry and obviously if we do our work right and our work is mainly and how I define my work is to be able to direct as much capital as possible into carbonless technologies, solutions, projects. I don't have a metric on that. I will just go for as much as possible and it will be recognized and I will be remembered and considered as an individual with integrity and commitment to this space. And that's partly why I'm having this conversation with you because I know it, it actually goes out to the world one day and I want to be held accountable that I have to do this. I want to have to do this because I know this is the thing, that this is the thing I have to do simply and that's it. I want to look back to those 30 years in 2047 and say I've done my best, I've had a good journey in life and if I look at the metrics out there and carbon emissions, I wanted to be at least close to the targets that the Paris Agreement set out and we avoided climate catastrophe ideally. And I will be very happy if that is the case and knowing that I've had a tiny contribution to that.

The, what was, was it the, our chat group for the greater salon or whatever? Yeah, I'd like to, I, I'd like to find your contribution in terms of what you said, what be written on your tombstone and I'm going to try to find, to see what was written that I wrote. And I think you remember mine, mine, mine created a little bit of a stir.

Yeah.

So. Well Tony, I appreciate you taking the time to work on this to come up with some of the, some insights into some of the changes that we need to be addressing on this planet and from all different perspectives as humans to create a different or to redefine tomorrow. So for that I thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Is there one way that individuals could get a hold of you?

I think the easiest thing probably is LinkedIn. I check it every day like, like anyone else with Instagram and Facebook which I don't. So LinkedIn is a good place. I'm very responsive. I'm also happy to share my email address through your platform, so I'm always very open.

So what's your email.

Tony? T O N yreaterbay co.

Thank you, Tony.

Thank you, David.

I appreciate it. So always remember, you can't fix yesterday, you can only create tomorrow. And if you're interested in connecting with me, you connect with me@DavidGoldsmith.com I'm on Instagram @MrDavidGoldsmith. I am on LinkedIn with all the hashes and forward slash. David Allen Goldsmith Twitter at Goldsmith. It is at Goldsmith. So you could find me in many places on many different platforms. And I'm here for you. So to everybody, I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening.