[rock music] Welcome back to Tasteland. I am Francis Zehr. I'm Daisy Alioto.
And today we will be talking with Lauren Minard, who is the CEO and co-founder of Gob, a compostable, plastic-free, mycelium-based earplug company. So like- Mycelium means mushroom... means mushroom, yes. Thank you.
Thank you, Daisy. Um- You're welcome. It's a cool company. It's like, uh, it's like, you know, you go to a, a concert or a live event, they give you those plastic earplugs. They make, like, 40 billion of them a year.
They're terrible for the environment. She's disrupting that. Um, she's also just a cool design-type person. She's been working in design since, like, the beginning of the 2010s.
Uh, furniture, footwear, material innovation, brands like Adobe, Apple, Nike, Coalesse. Uh, and this kind of, you know, regenerative future sustainability undercurrent has, has always been there.
But anyways, she'll be joining us in a little bit. But Daisy, you have something to talk about. Yeah.
I just wanted to remind everyone that we're having our Tasteland live taping to benefit the National Writers Union Service Organization and the new legal aid fund that we're raising for freelancers, and that's this Saturday, November 16th, from 7:00 to 9:00 at 25 Broadway in New York.
And the episode's gonna focus on worker-owned media collectives.
So we'll have Max Rivlin-Nadler from Hellgate, Samantha Cole from 404 Media, and Jasper Wang from Defector, and we'll drop the ticket link in the show notes. But if you're not in New York, you can still donate.
Yes, good cause. If you're in New York, you should come. But if you're not in New York, you should, you know, give five bucks, 10 bucks. Journalists get paid. 15 bucks even. That's the price of the tickets, not bad.
Um, okay, before Lauren gets here, though, there's something I've been thinking about since, since last week's episode.
Uh, and, like, two themes I thought from when we talked to Teddy and Emily about Zyn and about direct-to-consumer birth control. Mm-hmm. And I think this is a word that...
I don't know if it's the right word, so I'm curious if you think there's a better word for this, but friction is the word I would use.
That fee- Like, a lack of friction feels like a concept in the zeitgeist, whether it's, like, Zyns, which, you know, there's no smoke. You just, you can do it anywhere. It's so easy.
Or obviously direct-to-consumer birth control. You don't have to go to a doctor. You don't have to talk to anybody. You can just order it. Um, sports gambling on your phone, no-code software.
I think, like, this lack of friction- Mm... frictionless way of, like, interacting with the world, uh, like when- Stanly water bottles. You don't have to go- Stanly-... like, get water all the time... oh, my God. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, these huge water bottles. It's all about, like, removing friction, removing barriers between you and your desires. I think that's, like...
Which isn't, like, a radical idea, but I've j- Are there real- I've been thinking about it a lot... yeah, some of them- Go ahead... may be not real desires, but consumer psyops. Yeah. Yes.
But I also think it's like, I was thinking about it in the election too, with, like, we don't have to get so into this, but, like, I think part of the messaging is, like, you know, people talking about, like, oh, the Joe Rogan, you know, podcast election, et cetera.
And then I'm thinking about, like, how people are associating, like, Zyns and sports... Like, the Zyn article was about, like, how it's this kind of right-wing, um, young man type of, you know, messaging. Um,
I don't know. I think part of that too is the frictionless culture and, like, people want change, right?
Like, that's one of the takeaways here, and I think, like, the sports gambling, it's like the high risk, high reward. Like, you might fail but, you know, i- i- if you succeed it'll be easier.
There'll be less barriers to it. I don't know. This is, like, a half-baked idea that I've been, like, thinking about as I fall asleep the last week, lack of friction.
I think people wanna believe in something, but it's a very contemporary idea that belief is frictionless. Mm-hmm. Like,
people confuse the accessibility of information about wellness and theories about wellness and health
and spirituality and religion, um, and the ease in which that information can be accessed with, like, ease of, um, practice.
And I think one of the ways the internet collapses frictionless experiences and experiences that have always contained friction is, like- Mm-hmm...
by confusing ease of access or information access with actual, like, practical access or ease- Yeah... of implementation. Um- Mm...
and I think we're going to have to spend a lot of time disentangling that because civics, actual participation in government or- Is high friction... you know.
Yeah, long-term programs that last more than one administration, which is, you know, that's propping up most of the government and you can say- Mm...
"Oh, it's all bureaucracy," but, like, you want the water infrastructure guy- Yeah... who's been doing water infrastructure under multiple presidents. Like, you just cannot replace that guy- You want long-term...
with somebody out of Stanford Business School with a dream. It's not a Lincoln Bios startup. It's infrastructure. Yeah.
And I think there's highly visible people who have sort of moved between those worlds, like Elon Musk.
Like, just because Elon Musk can do government contracts and he can do- He's all about removing friction, you know-... PayPal... removing, like, bureaucracy- Yeah...
and, like, removing teams, removing 80% of Twitter so there's, like, less bureaucratic decision-making, like, that's all about no friction. Well, he is one person, and I think there's, like... I don't know.
It's, like, sort of, like, great man theory, where it's like- Mm... okay, Elon Musk is an aberration. Most people should not be moving between-Public and private- Mm-hmm... life. Yeah.
Um, let- The needs and the incentives are completely different. Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll see how it plays out. Um, lest we spend this entire intro getting political, uh- What else can we talk about?
Well, we don't have to talk about anything else, 'cause Lauren just literally arrived right as you said that. So let's- That's why I said it, to cue her up. Yeah, [laughs] that was perfect timing. Let's chat with Lauren.
Okay, perfect. Hi. Hello. Hello. Welcome. How are you? How's it going? Good. It's going great. Good. Yeah, happy, happy to have you here. Of course. Thanks for having me. Mm-hmm.
Um, so I first heard about what you're doing with Gob just a few weeks ago. Actually, the person who you brought in to do social media, I- I know her from some previous work, and I saw her po- post about it.
Um, and it, it seemed... I don't know, it seemed very cool. I'm like, I'm like- [laughs]... is this like a... So we talked a little bit about it in the intro.
It's a, to sum it up, it's like a mycelium, a mushroom-based earplugs brand. There's 40 billion earplugs produced every year out of plastic. You're trying to disrupt that.
Um, w- where I wanna start though is when I was looking you up and reading about you, I really like this idea, uh, that you worked with at Prowl, your design agency- Mm-hmm...
um, that really is kinda what Gob comes out of, about starting the design process with the end of life plan for a product. Mm-hmm. Um, I think that's really cool, and probably not...
It's, like, the opposite of planned obsolescence, or it's like- [laughs]... com- eco-compassionate planned obsolescence. Eco-compassionate. Wow, I love that. Yeah. You should trademark that.
[laughs] You could, you could have it. I'll give, I'll give you that one for free. Freebie. Mm-hmm. Freebie, thank you. Thank you. But tell us about that.
Tell us about, like, w- how, what that means, how you do that, how, how long you've been thinking like that.
Yeah, well, um, I guess it kinda goes back to a portion of my career that triggered a response, which then led to this way of thinking.
So I've worked in furniture and footwear kind of simultaneously for a lot of my career. And- The two Fs. [laughs] The two Fs. Yeah. Yeah.
They're the two disciplines that really involve hard and soft materials, and, like, heavy studies of the human body. And, um, I was at a factory for a client.
I was at a factory in China, just watching something that I had designed, had a lot of plastics in it, lots of TPU, and just saw them coming down the conveyor belt, and I had a minor panic attack, existential crisis simultaneously in that moment.
And then I started thinking about what would happen at the end of their lives, and I've been passionate, interested in biomaterials kind of forever. Mm-hmm. I don't know. It's just something that
has always piqued my interest, and I've been following it closely. Like starting with fabrics or something? Yeah.
I just, I went to fashion school, and even back then, sustainability wasn't cool, but I made dresses out of, like, coffee filters and stuff. [laughs] It was, like, not wearable.
But it was that experience- It's a runway item. Yeah. Exactly. Couture. Mm-hmm.
Um, but I, in that moment in China, I just had these alarms go off, and then thought to myself, "Okay, I really need to consider the end of a product's life at the beginning of it, or else I will feel this heavy feeling for the rest of my life.
And, um, the planet will be feeling that heavy feeling too." So I don't wanna become, like, an eco warrior or anything like that, right? That might be how I think, but I don't think that- Yeah... that's helpful.
But, um, what I do believe in is taking the industrial design discipline and flipping it on its head, right? So the idea of beginning with the end is that you consider a product's full life cycle,
and you look at the end of its life, although it's hard, right? Mm-hmm. Like, designers have a God pl- complex. You don't want the thing you design with your heart and soul, blood, sweat, tears to...
You don't wanna think about someone being like, "Ah, I'm done with this." Mm. But that's the reality, right? Things don't last forever. So that's where that came from. And
I had a trip to New York City where I went to a spin class. They were blasting Vanessa Carlton, the da, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na. [laughs] Like, the whole class.
I left, and I, I'm a heavli- heavy user of earplugs, but- Mm... especially 'cause my mom is actually legally deaf, um, so I have to think about this a lot.
And, um, I don't know what it was, but that one use of earplugs, I was like, "Oh my God, no one has disrupted this yet." Yeah.
And so I did some research, found out that it didn't exist, um, with meaning, like, a healthier product with a good end of life. So I figured I could do it, so I went for it, and that's the story.
So, so you're talk- It's a long-winded answer- No... to your question. [laughs] Not at all. You're talking about, like, not being, like, an eco warrior, like, or not wanting to come across like that.
I think something I have picked up on about you is that, like, you are also being realistic that, like, you know, w- it's, it's capitalism, and things scale.
And again, like I already said it, but the 40 billion, you know, uh, earplugs that are produced every year.
And then I was looking it up, and, like, you can get a 50-pack of these, of these earplugs for five bucks from Home Depot. Mm-hmm.
Where it's like you're selling a 25-pack or 24-pack, I think, or you're, you're selling 25 pairs for $25, I think.
Um, and so obviously it's just the beginning, but I imagine there's, like, obviously a dream of, like, you know, all 40 billion of these earplugs are produced with this mycelium foam, and we're getting there.
Um, is it easy to scale the production of the material that you're using? Absolutely. But in order to scale the production, all we need to do is have more farms growing it, right?
And our partner, Ecovative, they have these massive facilities that are vertical farms- Mm-hmm... that grow the mycelium in a very specific-Um, environment, right?
So they curate how much humidity is in there, and it took them a l- almost a decade to figure out how to grow this foam- Mm... in an environment to make sure it remains fluffy and be what it ultimately became.
And, um, really the scaling just involves the more farms we have, it's kind of like food, right? Mm-hmm. The more farms we have, the more material we have. In contrast,
you can do that infinitely, and our material grows to its full thickness in seven days. It's very fast. Mm. And when it... W- I, I wanna add, when you're done with our product, it actually feeds the soil.
It's fertilizer. Mm-hmm. So whatever isn't used in the production is actually sold to farms- Mm-hmm... um, as fertilizer. Contrast that to what earplugs are currently made out of.
It's PVC, it's PFAS, and these chemicals that are derived from oil.
So a lot of people, p-people that don't, aren't educated on that, a lot of people don't know that polyester in a lot of clothing is actually made from oil. Mm-hmm.
And, um, so vinyl chloride is this terrible material that derives from the mining of oil, and that, we can't do that forever, right? So you could kind of look at the scale of that as being not infinite- Mm...
with an end in our future, foreseeable future, right? So, um, again, I think where not wanting to be an eco warrior comes in is I come from a very conservative place,
and I live in the liberal bubble of the Bay Area. Mm-hmm. And what ha- that has allowed me to do is see and be exposed to all perspectives.
And I do know that at people's core, people want to make good decisions that are good for themselves, good for everyone around them, and good for the planet. I do actually believe that to be true.
Um, but you can't shove it in their faces. Mm-hmm. And we're trying to build Gob as this, uh, lack of a better way to say this, like a purple brand. Mm.
And we're doing that so that we're not just pigeonholing ourselves to the people who buy, you know,
refillable cleaning supplies, and the people who, like, you know, go and spend a lot of time, uh, refilling those things at the grocery store and stuff, right? Like, it's, that's like this much of the market.
And so if we wanna be realistic and actually play ball, we, and compete with PVC, we have to look at how people purchase them, who they are- Mm...
and what will keep their gears turning, right, and make them wanna reach for our product. So- Do you think that the, the earlier forms of, like, green marketing have become politicized?
'Cause I feel like in the beginning, saying something was green was meant to be kind of neutral, like green was purple. Um- Mm-hmm... and there are companies now, um, like Tesla where, um,
you know, despite the fact, my understanding is Tesla is one of the most successful green companies of all time- Mm-hmm... but certainly not being marketed, um,
by, like, foregrounding sustainability necessarily. Mm-hmm. They foreground the luxury. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, I think if they foreground, like, do you wanna be the type of person that drives a Tesla? And I, from my...
Like, I feel like earlier green marketing was like, do you wanna be the type of person that, like, saves the world? But people are more comfortable marketing that that meant, like, giving something up. Mm. And now, like,
the idea of giving something up is associated with degrowth, which has a very specific, um, ideology attached to it. So I guess I'm just curious, like, how do you, how do you walk that line?
Like, is Tesla doing the right thing by just being aspirational, or is there a way to talk about climate that doesn't, like, immediately cause somebody to tune it out if they're not
aligned with that, what they believe is that ideology? Yeah. I love... Tesla's a hot topic in the moment, right? [laughs] Um, but there are a couple of things that I think they, as a case study, teach us. Mm.
And what they've done is a number of things, but what they've done through and through very, very well is they've made a product that is fun to drive and works well. It goes far.
It didn't always, that wasn't always the case, right? Their original models went, like, less than 100 miles, and now they go more than 400.
And so I think that what they've done is they've made something that can compete with what came before them- Mm... in those ways, and not just about, like, oh, you don't need gasoline anymore. Mm.
So I think that they've done that, and I think that's really important for any company that's entering the market that is, um, looking to compete with not just this niche, right, of sustainable warriors, right?
So they've done that really, really well. Something that's interesting that I'm trying to unpack, actually Scott Galloway said this in a podcast yesterday. Um, I love his Prof G podcast.
I don't know if I'm supposed to mention other podcasts on podcasts. [laughs] That's it. No, no, of course. [laughs] Um- Pro other podcasts as well. Yes. Awesome. I'm a big Scott Galloway fan.
I think he's a realist, and something he mentioned which is interesting to me is that, um,
essentially what, uh, Tesla has also done is made driving an EV, which used to be seen as this feminine, like, girly thing to do- Mm... it's now a masculine thing to do.
And what that has done is cracked open a whole other group of people who now drive Tesla.
And-He also describes a lot of climate tech as being somehow related to estrogen and, like, associated with feminism, which is interesting to me.
And then you look at nuclear, and that seems to be the one weird macho exception. Mm-hmm.
So I've looked at that only in the past 24 hours, but I think that's interesting to bring up because, um, a lot of times this type of...
a type of product that's sold, um, as an alternative simply because it's healthier or simply because it has no plastic or whatever that story is, um, it needs to not... It needs to be more than that.
Your story can't just be in opposition to a thing. Exactly. It needs to stand on its own. Mm-hmm. Exactly, yes.
And myself even, you know, I have designed more, quote-unquote, "sustainable goods" for a large chunk of my career now, and, um, I'm not just purchasing things because of that, right?
It has to actually pull me in, and it has to have that added layer. So I think there's a higher standard now, but we're learning that you can't just start a company and scale with that as your only merit.
Well, so can we talk about then selling Gob? So I think there's a B2B side of the business and a B2C. Mm-hmm.
Um, and B2B, like, obviously the uses are, like, you know, manual labor, job sites, um, venues for concerts, et cetera.
Like, usually when I've used earplugs, it's, like, at a venue, and they have them for f- for free, and I just grab them. Um- Mm-hmm... yeah. Is it more B2B right now versus B2C, and is, is... Or, like, what's the plan?
Yeah, B2B versus B2C. [laughs] We are B2B2C is how we describe ourselves. Mm. So, um, obviously when you look at volumes, B2B is the place to be right now. Um- At scale. At scale, exactly.
Um, however, a lot of those arenas, sometimes literally arenas, want our product to be available for people once they leave their space. So that's really important for a lot of musicians we work with. Mm-hmm. So
in the B2B space, um, if we were to try and compete directly with that, it's given for free behind the bar PVC earplugs in the tiny little plastic sachets, right?
If we were to try and compete with that one to one, we wouldn't have a business, right? Mm-hmm.
Because we'd have to sell our product for nearly nothing, and it's just we're com- we would be competing with garbage, right? Yeah. [laughs] That's really what it is. Literally.
People are just used to these just being, you know, free and trash. But what we're trying to offer, and what we do offer is our product for sale at, whether it be a music venue, whether it be a racetrack.
We're looking at those fan-facing spaces to build up our brand awareness, and also because our product knocks down sound just enough, like- Mm-hmm...
where you can still have a good experience, and it doesn't ruin the sound. Um, but what our B2B customers are loving is that it gives them an added revenue stream, which they didn't have before. Mm-hmm.
So on the B2B front, it's interesting. A lot of our customers, which we were not expecting at all, they're like, especially our arena partners, they're like, "Oh,
yeah, well, earplugs are kind of like a weird thing for us 'cause our bartenders have to, like, step away for moments every, like, 10 people to go grab something that is not being sold," right? Mm-hmm.
And so it takes away from that attention, and it becomes something that their staff has to all worry about now. And we're taking that off of their plate by we're actually going to be rolling out vending machines. Oh.
They're bright Gob green so that their staff can just be like, "Oh yeah, go to the green machine over there." Wait, so- And that's what they are... speaking of the bright green, can we talk about the brand for a second?
So it's like for, for the listeners, this isn't a visual show. Um, it's, it's bright green. It feels like cool, youthful. There's almost like a wellness bit to it. You're using like, like the website is very cool.
It feels very techy. You're, you're using like, you know, you call it something. You're using the word fuck somewhere. It like- [laughs]... it's very like edgy- Gob.earth... and cool and youthful. Yeah, Gob.earth.
Um, it, it reminds me of like NTS Radio or like Bar Part-Time in the Bay, Public Records in, in Brooklyn. Ooh. Like these cool venues- Yes... that are like upscale. Um, that's what I'm getting.
So tell us about the brand [laughs] and like what you're trying to do 'cause that's like that bleeds into the B2B too, but then this is also, also the B2C angle. Yeah.
Shout out to Adam Rogu- Rodriguez, our, um, head of brand. He's the bomb. We- Mm-hmm. He's, you know, worked a career mostly in fashion. Mm-hmm. And when I started this company, I knew that I wanted an element of that.
But, um, in building this brand, we've wanted to be a bit more on the side of, uh, raw honesty. Mm-hmm. And accepting the fact that a lot of spaces that earplugs are used are...
Like, there's a lot going on there that's probably not good for your health, right? Mm-hmm. But it's some of the best experiences you'll have in your life. Just don't harm your hearing is all we're saying, right?
So like go live loud, go hard. We at one point we were saying get blasted. [laughs] Um, but just like make sure to wear your earplugs. And so we're fully embracing that.
And also, um, on the flip side of that, there's, um, the sleep side, which is- Mm-hmm... actually the majority of our D2C customers use earplugs because their partner snores.
[laughs] That's like one of our number one case studies. Or sorry, um, customer use cases. Yeah. But, um- Do you guys have like a Google Ads thing set up for people like Googling, "My partner snores"?
[laughs] We're working on that. [laughs] We're very- Yeah... we're really, really trying to get our SEO up, but yes, absolutely. Yeah, we're all trying to get our SEO up. [laughs] In 2024. Yeah.
Google AI doesn't make that super easy- Mm... but we're doing our best.
Um, but yeah, the brand really wanted to be something that also, again, back to this idea of not being too pretentious or jargony about sustainability- Mm...
we wanted to, the goal was to communicate in a way where I could ex- go to, like, a NASCAR race and explain it to someone, and they'd get it, you know? Yeah.
That was kind of the litmus test of, like, we could go to a Charli XCX show, and we can go to NASCAR, and we can speak in this way, and both will either... Um, well, they'll understand what we're saying- Yeah...
but also they'll emotionally connect with it, so that was really important. We did choose the green before brat summer, but it just is what it is [laughs] now. Well, it was, it was the zeitgeist. I have to ask- Yeah...
um, have you ever eaten one? I have. What? No, I- I knew it... before I went down- No, you have to, you have to taste your own cooking. [laughs] You do. I, uh... Um, what's, uh, what's fun...
Don't do it after, don't try it after you put it- No... in your ear, though. That's disgusting. No. No. But, um- Little flavor on it. Yeah, no thank you. But what's h- what's funny is, uh, well, not funny.
It's actually sad. A lot of people have messaged us, and I, I say a lot, I mean, like, 10- Mm... have messaged us saying, "Thank you for making this. My dog had to go to the hospital because he or she ate my earplugs."
Mm. And these are edible, so that problem goes away. Yeah. And it was like- Pet friendly. Yeah. Pet friendly. Pet friendly. That's huge. Baby friendly. That's bipartisan. Yeah.
Wait, so, so this material, I think I read or heard in one of the other podcasts you've been on that you guys were the first people, the first company, to make use of this material.
Um, are there other companies doing stuff with it? Is it, are there any other uses in the commercial? Oh, yeah. So we're the first, like, commercialized product- Okay... out of the material, out of the foam.
Um, but Ecovative has worked with, I don't know if any of them are public yet, but high-end fashion companies using the material for things like, um, padding on a handbag handle- Mm... or things like that.
So it's being used in, like, bags in fashion. Mm-hmm. The material can also be turned into leather, so companies are already using the leather but maybe not the foam yet. But- I've seen sneakers.
N- Nike, did Nike do something? It may have- With mycelium leather?... been with another mycelium company. Mm. Okay. Yeah. So there are a number of companies doing mycelium leathers- Mm...
but Ecovative is the one with the foam. Like- Yeah... no one else has been able to do this. How- It's proprietary. Yes. Yeah. So Eco- Ecovative as a business, how are they...
C- if they've been developing this for 10 years, like, I know that you're not necessarily, you're not part of Ecovative, but I'm curious, like, what, what... Is this, like, just an innovation lab?
Are they a profitable company? Is it a non-profit? Like, how does this m- material come out of them? Mm. Oh my gosh. Okay, well, fun story.
Um, the founders of Ecovative went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, RPI, um, and studied in the program called Design Innovation and Society- Mm-hmm... three years before I did. Mm. There you go.
And they, our mentor and professor, Bert Swersey, was, he was their first angel investor. And so they started this company a long time ago. Mm-hmm. Um,
and we're like, we're all now in our, like, l- mid to late 30s, and we're all just, like, still working on very similar direction stuff, but they started out in the packaging industry.
You have wood chips, and you have spores, and then the mycelium grows around it into a mold. Mm-hmm. They've now branched into all kinds of things. They make bacon out of mycelium. It's called Mybacon. Mm.
Like my- myco, bacon, Mybacon. Yeah. They make foam, and they make leather, so they've been growing and expanding for a while. And, um, it's been cool to see them do that.
And actually, the first time I saw the foam was at the BioFabricate conference. They were exhibiting a prototype of it. And I was like, "Hey, guys, I need this. I'm working on a new sneaker."
And then I heard crickets, 'cause they were still working on it, you know? Mm. And it was just serendipity that last February, Megan Olsson from Ecovative emailed me back and was like...
We were on this hunt to find the foam, right? And it didn't exist. We were starting to get, like, pretty upset. [laughs] Like, "Oh, maybe we can't make this happen."
And then Megan came to the rescue, emailed me, and said, "Lauren, we're happy to report it's finally available. We tested it, it worked, and now we're where we are now." It's kind of wild. Mm. Nice.
Um, how, how is the push and pull of supply and demand for... You know, obviously this is a particular type of mycelium, but other similar, um, substances that are grown through vertical farming, is it like, what...
I mean, I kind of have an idea of the chicken and egg thing, but, like, what comes first, the farm or the consumer demand? And, like- Mm...
how long of a process is it once that consumer demand kicks in to build up the infrastructure to fulfill it? That's a great question. Um, I don't know if I could answer that
fully without Ecovative chiming in. Also, Francis grew up on a farm. I don't know why he hasn't mentioned that, 'cause we usually- Well, uh, next-... mention it every episode. [laughs] Yeah, we do.
It's just a small- So he has-... organic produce farm. Yeah, but you have a- No, no vertical mushrooms... you have insight into- Yeah. But we grow things you eat, and, you know, put into the laws. You can eat these.
We established that. Okay, yeah. [laughs] You should. It is turned into bacon. It is turned into bacon. [laughs] Um, w- w- Yeah, well, these farms don't actually look like farms. They look like labs- Yeah...
but they are farms.Well, wait, real quick. So the thing with these farms that don't look like farms, they look like labs, uh, I feel like there's been some of these, and they have mostly proven not to be profitable.
Mm-hmm. Like Small Hold just had to declare bankruptcy earlier this year. I think Bowery Farming is doing something similar.
Um, these kind of farms that were marketed as technology companies, but in the end, they're still just growing food, and you can only charge so much for food. Mm. Mm-hmm. So I'm, I've been really...
Growing up on a farm, I've been really interested in these types of places. I'm like, "Oh, it could be cool to like, you know, work in marketing at one of these farms one day." But I'm also like, how would they even...
Like, how would you have a marketing salary when you have to pay... The margins are already gonna be so bad.
Um, so that's kind of what one thing I was trying to get at earlier when I asked about how, like, Ecovative makes money and if they're, like, a sustainable business.
Because to me, it seems like they're not necessarily a farm, they're like a materials lab. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So that's how it works, right? Yeah. They, they grow all of the material they sell. Mm-hmm.
So they have a full factory in upstate New York, and they also are licensing factories throughout North America and Europe, so they're, they're busy, right? Mm. They're building, because the demand is there.
And I think what they've done in such a smart way is they've diversified their use cases for each part of their business. Mm. And so this material, when it's grown, and it's kiln-dried- Mm...
which essentially prevents it from growing, and it's like- Like firewood. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. It's just dried so it's no longer wet. Um, you can do many different things with it.
So they have a supply, and then they can say, "All right. Well, we have this. Does this go to this channel? Does it go to that channel?" And luckily for us, our yield is kind of insane. We get, like...
I think that our yield right now is around 350 plugs a square foot, so we don't... They, they grow this material in 25-meter sheets. Wow. They're huge. They're huge. And so what's nice is we can...
We plan ahead, telling them what our projections are, but if we go above it, which is always the goal, um, which has happened, then they can adjust their grow rates, and then they can also choose, like, "All right.
Well, we can source from the other farms now." So what they're doing is they're increasing their footprint. Mm.
And your question of whether or not they're profitable, I don't have that information, but I can tell you that they're expanding very quickly, so I'm gonna- Nice... assume that they're making lots of money.
[laughs] Can I sleep on a mycelium mattress? I feel like that would maybe fix me. [laughs] I... It's better than foam that off-gasses, right? Yeah. Um- Oh, it's so scary. It's the modern horse hair.
I love how it, like, arrives at your house, and they're like, "Don't worry, it'll smell terrible for seven days, and then it'll be perfectly healthy for you." [laughs] It's like, "Okay, bet." But I guess that's how. Mm.
I sleep with my mouth open, so... Ah. [laughs] Wait, okay. Um, you and I both. You and I both. [laughs] We... I actually do have a question. Oh, go ahead. Yeah.
Well, so, I mean, to go back to the point of, like, uh, there's definitely a moment... I mean, we've talked about... [laughs] We've, we've debunked Zerp on this podcast before- [laughs]...
but the moment of, like, everything's gonna be a tech company. Like farm tech, whatever.
Um, you know, not everyone playing the long game necessarily, and I can see how things could go a very different way depending on what valuation somebody assigns at the beginning of the start of this farm tech company.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But, um, you know, you mentioned on the Bow Kunst podcast that you were always interested in founder culture, but you didn't necessarily want to be a founder, and I feel similarly. Mm-hmm. Mm.
Like, you could be passionate about solving a problem, but, you know, the first time you get, like, an email from Carta, it's like, "I... What? I don't wanna do any of this. I just wanna do [laughs] my dream." Mm-hmm.
Um, and I think it's... Uh, we've talked on the podcast before about, like, well, what's the difference between a founder and a small business owner?
Because in the beginning, it looks exactly the same, and I think a lot of times it's has to do with, like, the scope of- Mm-hmm... your dream or how many people are gonna be involved ultimately. VC funding maybe.
But I would love to know, like,
yeah, how do you, how do you feel about being a founder and that identity, especially living in the Bay Area, where it's like this might mean something very different to me than it means to somebody else? Yeah.
Ooh, I love this question, um, because I think about this a lot. Um, I think that when... I always knew I wanted to own a business, but I wasn't sure what that meant, and here in the Bay Area, startup usually means tech.
Mm. However, I know that's not the case, that that's not, like, where it begins and ends. Um, but a startup means that you're functioning in an environment of extreme uncertainty. That's the definition of a startup.
And knowing that, when you're working with biomaterials, anything you do is new, and it feels novel, and it's this new endeavor, right? But
what's interesting is for my personality, I'm a hyperactive endurance junkie. Like, I have a lot of energy [laughs] during the day. Were you an athlete in college? I... Well, I went to fashion school.
They didn't have sports. Oh, right. Mm. So I just continued to run like hell. Mm. Um, but I was... I've been an athlete my entire life. Mm. I'm currently back on the running game. I'm running long distances. And
I never really realized how much that applied to this kind of li- a living. Mm. Mm. And
I have a lot of friends who are also founders, so it's super helpful, because it can feel really, really lonely, and I think that's the one thing that I was afraid of, of going out on a limb and leaving this design agency that I put my blood, sweat, and tears in, which is still thriving, by the way.
Mm.But, um, my identity crisis was kind of in that shift, but I actually feel like this aligns so much more with my personality. And being a physical product founder that's not consumer hardware in the Bay Area
is a really interesting time to be doing that. Mm. Like, there are so many other companies here.
Actually, tomorrow we're doing a little dinner with some of us, which include Sanjiv, who started this 3D-printed terracotta company called Gaia Star. Mm.
Um, Julia from Sway Materials, um, John from Cruz Foam, and we're all working on regenerative products, right? Mm. And it kind of feels like the Bay Area feels like a new incubator of that. Mm.
So I feel like maybe 10 years ago, I wouldn't feel the same way I do now, but I'm surrounded by community that w- I'm able to, you know, troubleshoot with, which is absolutely invaluable. But also just feels like
now that I've become... I'm a product founder, this is a startup because we are functioning in extreme uncertainty, um, I feel like my life has been unlocked in a way that didn't feel like it was before. Mm.
Like, things are kind of just rolling, and every day is different. When it... You have ADHD, that's like a drug. [laughs] Mm-hmm. So, um, yeah, I do... I...
Just the, the question about, um, like, the difference between a startup and being, you know, like, VC-funded and stuff, it really is about the scale of the company you wanna start. Mm. And
the market for earplugs is absolutely massive. It's in the billions because we produce 40 billion a year, right? It's a huge market even in and of itself. We could just be an earplug company and probably be fine forever.
However, there are so many other single-use product types of, like, wellness products that need disruption.
And so we do plan to go beyond mycelium and beyond earplugs and build out this portfolio of wellness single-use products that people can feel good about using, and then they have a better alternative.
So I really just wanna end single-use plastic in the wellness category. That's my... And that's what VCs like to hear, right? Yeah. Like, what's your big... What's your quest? [laughs] Right.
Because it's single-use, it still allows for venture scale- Mm-hmm... growth. Um, if you were gonna create a reusable
earplug, then you would have to answer the question of like, well, aren't you making your total adjustable market smaller by like- Yeah... people buy less. They'll only buy one.
Um, but- What's interesting about that, though, just real quick on that note about reusable earplugs, is if you look at Loop Earplugs as a case study- Mm-hmm... they're a reusable option.
All virgin plastic, by the way, and their, their new product has, like, 30 components, and it's, like, practically an AirPod. Mm. They are...
Like, they made, like, 50 million in revenue their, like, fourth or fifth year. Hmm. But- Wow... the question is, how do they keep that rolling? Yeah. Right? So the demand is there. Sorry to cut you off. Yeah.
And, like, when you're dealing with a huge market like that, it's not to get every consumer to switch overnight. It's to pick off a
s- significant percentage of those consumers that are going to be willing, like, open-minded enough to make that choice. Um- Mm-hmm... and it's not total replacement because, like you said- Mm...
you could take what you learned, and you can pivot into picking off, you know, 5% of the market share in another category of, like, you know, mascara tubes. That's a bad example, but- Mm-hmm...
um, I think that that's the advantage of building at the material level that I think- Mm-hmm...
is driving that shift in the Bay Area, where for so long the best way to have great margins was to create software 'cause it's free, and now it's, like, too free. [laughs] Right? Yeah.
There's no way to lock any value in. But you actually have a supply chain advantage, so that value is locked in. That advantage is locked in. Um, somebody- Exactly... can't just go out and replicate it. Right. Right.
And that's the thing, is in order to figure out how to manufacture what we manufacture, it takes a lot of time, 10 years, [laughs] in d- Mm... in fact, so we're very... We feel very comfortable and protected in that way.
But also, your note on material companies, there are so many incredible, innovative material companies that are kind of sitting, banking on
huge corporations adopting them, and what's happening is those huge corporations are doing these, what I call, peacock products, where they will do, like, a, a one-off special edition out of this, you know, mycelium leather or whatever it is.
Mm. Right? And then it's over. Mm. It's a marketing play. Mm. They make a couple thousand of them, and then it's over, and then it's back to business as usual.
But what I find really interesting is people are willing to pay for higher quality, healthy products, and there's this huge surge of...
Especially, I don't like labeling people based off of their generation, but for lack of a better way to say this right now, Gen Z wants to live forever. Their... They even want their skin to look,
you know, like, as if they haven't lived a day. [laughs] Yeah. They're still... 'Cause they just came out of the womb. That's m- that must be the goal 'cause, you know, they're buying serums and stuff at age 12.
It's a lot of pressure. And so what's interesting... Exactly. If you look at AG1 as a supplement- Mm...
people are willing to pay $120 a month for this supplement knowing that the benefits will be-Whatever the science proves, right?
And so peop- there's a demand for it, but I find it's really interesting as a startup to be the one to be able to say, "All right, new product or new material company, let's try and make a super functional, practical, not so sexy product out of this, because this is what it's really good at, and let's make millions of them."
So what I'm hearing is- That, that's really the goal... gob needs to be carried in Sephora next to the Drunk Elephant. Yeah.
[laughs] Drunk Elephant is exactly, yes, you obviously know your, know your brands for young people- I know my way around TikTok... um, young folks that are- Are you guys on TikTok?
[laughs] I feel like there's so many ch- interesting stuff that you could show. I mean, I would just watch, like, core, core videos of, like, mycelium being twisted endlessly. Mm. Yeah. [laughs] ASMR videos.
We, yeah, our TikTok, so the person that y'all mentioned, right, when- Kendall. Yeah, Kendall. Mm-hmm.
She is the one building out our TikTok, and so we're in the process of building all of that out and building out our community and our affiliate program, and that's gonna essentially go off in the new year. Mm-hmm.
So we're building right now, but you better believe we're gonna have some ASM- Yeah... uh, ASMR coming your way. So something that, I, keeps coming up for me on a few of the things we've talked about is another thing.
I listened to your What the Hell is Water podcast episode, and you said something in there that- Oh, Tyson... yeah, that was, it was a great, it was a good episode.
You said that people, um, in the 20th century, people always talked about the 21st century, but in the 21st century, nobody talks about the 22nd century. When was the last time you heard somebody even say that term?
Which I could not remember a single... And, you know, we're still, it's, it's the 20s, we're only a, we're, I mean, I guess we're already a quarter of the way through this century. But, um- Yeah...
I thought that was really interesting. I think that ties into the work you're doing, obviously talking about, like, Gen Z wanting to live forever. That means into the 22nd century.
Uh, and then when you were talking about, like, you know, this other, this kind of cohort of regenerative physical product, products that the, like, these people that you're having dinner with tonight or tomorrow, whatever, um, like, that seems to me this kind of, like, 22nd century science fiction.
'Cause when I think of science fiction now too, it's always, like, oh, 3102, you know? Mm-hmm. Not 2200. Um, so yeah, I don't know, tell me more about the 22nd century.
[laughs] Oh, I can't c- I can't take credit for that observation. That was all my... My true idol is William Gibson- Mm-hmm, yeah... and just the way he thinks about the future, but mostly the present, right? Mm-hmm.
He's a near future science fiction writer. Um, and if you read too much of him, you'll feel like you're being followed all the time, so don't read too much of him at once. [laughs] Was he neuro- Neuromancer?
He was, yeah. Yeah, that's the one I've heard, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but
people are fatigued with the now, and I think that's why a lot of folks don't want to acknowledge climate change, because it's tiring and exhausting to think about, and life in and of itself is exhausting. And
so when you think about the future, I'm of, I'm an optimist through and through, even though I do have my pessimistic moments.
I do believe in building, um, not a utopia, but something that looks better than what we have now. Mm-hmm. And life has become pretty goddamn cozy, right?
I don't think our lives need to be- get much more comfortable or convenient. I don't think that's what this next century looks like- Yeah... or the next centuries. I think the next century looks like
systems that are well-oiled machines, that are, you know, we're, we're employing nature,
and we're not destroying it, and there's a feedback loop between ourselves and our planet where we are actually listening to how the world works, and we're working with it rather than against it.
And I know that sounds, like, pretty woo woo, but what I mean by that in practice is, for example, I can, uh, bring this back to gob for a second. Yeah. Not, not that the wor- not the next century's all about ear plugs.
[laughs] Per- permaculture capitalism. Like, you know? [laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, um, really what it is, is it's, like,
just in making this product, mycelium is sound dampening, it's hypoallergenic, it is grown very quickly, and it's fully regenerative. Mm-hmm.
And when you look at, okay, I wanna make a fully sustainable regenerative ear plug, it checks all those boxes. We're listening to the material, therefore we're employing it for this use case. If we do that
for all of our built environment, for all of the things that we use- Mm-hmm... we can actually get to a more stable place, right? So that's what I think the future looks like.
I don't, I can't, like, paint a picture of it. No. But it's pretty, I don't think that it looks like this oo... I always say, like, it's not this ooey gooey future where everything's compostable and- Mm-hmm...
maybe everything is compostable, but it sure doesn't look like our compostable options now, right? And I get really, really into things like, um, I, I get really into, like, biological science fiction as well. Mm-hmm.
And I read this book, The Age of Living Machines, and there are proven ways, it's nonfiction actually. That book is nonfiction. We can make circuit boards using grown microorganisms. Mm, mm.
What does that look like, you know? Yeah. Like, what does it look like to do less extractive practices and more, um, system, biological systems- Yeah... building? Well, wait.
Are there, are there some other materials like this foam that you've worked with or come across in your career that, like-Most people wouldn't know about, that you could talk about? Yeah. So
I also-- I'm a professor of biomaterials at CCA. Mm-hmm. So I, I can actually say that my students, all of them, invent a new material every year, which is insane. That's so awesome. [laughs] It's so insane. Um,
but yeah, I've worked with hempcrete before, which I think is just one of the best materials we could possibly have. Mm-hmm. It's replacing concrete, which is one of our biggest polluters.
So hempcrete, I think, is something that we are just scratching the surface on how we can use that and put that to use. The whole hemp and cannabis plant- Mm... is something that I think should not be overlooked.
I think we- Mm... we've just scratched the surface on the use cases of that because hemp is a food, it's a medicine, it's a fiber. It's like, it's so many different things, right? It's a building block.
Um, I do believe mycelium is one of the things that we don't fully understand yet. There are studies coming out, finding out how we can utilize it for communication and more technological advances- Mm...
which is very interesting to me. Um, but truly, the material world is just endless.
I also just wanna point out that algae is another one of our, um, the families within the biosphere that we really don't fully understand yet. One, because we know nothing about the oceans, but- Yeah...
it's so abundant. It's also one of those things that is food, is a material, and when you check those boxes, it's like, all right,
some people need-- more people, some people are already doing this, more people need to get to work to figure out, what can we do with this that we haven't thought about yet? Mm-hmm.
Um, and that's where things start to get really interesting. Well, can you tell us more about, uh, your students at CCA? Like what you're, what you're learning from them, what kind of stuff they're making?
Yeah, I feel kind of selfish sometimes in my class 'cause they feed me just as I, [laughs] much as I feed them. That's as it should be. Yeah. [laughs] I, yeah, I think so.
Um, so I teach biodesign, and the class starts out working on biomimicry. So my students learn how seeds are dispersed and the different ways that seeds are, you know, evolved to reproduce.
Mm. So it's, you know, wind, water, animals, um, ballistics, like explosions, [laughs] and each of them are
placed into a certain category, and they have to recreate that with paper and, like, found materials. So
the things that come out of that exploration are absolutely insane, um, but it's mostly just getting their brains thinking differently and thinking about biology. Mm-hmm.
But the rest of the class is spent looking for a waste source, whether that be from a factory, from a food system, um, maybe it's something that isn't picked up on a farm.
You know, like look for a source of waste that is organic matter, turn it into a material, and then my favorite part, as you could probably imagine, is, all right, we have this material. What's it good at? You know?
Yeah. You ask yourself, and this is where I turn into Miss Frizzle from The Magic School Bus. I'm like- Icon... look at it. [laughs] Yeah. Honestly. Um, does it stretch? Mm. Is it strong like a block? Like- Mm-hmm...
what are its properties? And then we look at things in the world that require those properties, and then they design a functional thing out of the material. Mm-hmm. So
I think if anything, it keeps my brain thinking in that way of
how can we ident- keep ourselves open to identifying problems that need solving, and then also be simultaneously looking at that puzzle piece that can solve that problem from the natural world. So it's really fun.
I am a big fan of ambient music, and I feel like I would really enjoy some field recordings from- Ooh... the mycelium lab or, you know, other material, sites of material innovation, but maybe...
Somebody's gotta be like the Brian Eno of the generative- Ah... materials scene. Mm-hmm. Oh my God, you're naming one of my favorites. Music for vertical farms. Yeah, music for vertical farms. The new Brian- Yes.
Let's do it. [laughs] The new Brian Eno film is insane, by the way. I haven't, I don't know about it. Oh, I haven't seen it. It, you, it's like an in-person kind of thing- Okay... but it's a generative movie. Oh.
So each time it's shown, it's different. Oh, that's so cool. You gotta see it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh my God, field recordings of mycelium. [laughs] I'll get on it. I'll get on it. Please. Yeah. Yeah. Keep me posted.
Um- I will. [laughs] Whoa, I feel like we covered a lot of ground. Yeah. No pun intended. Um... [laughs] Twenty-five square feet. Yeah, exactly. [laughs] Sick. Uh, yeah, I guess, I guess this is it. Do you wanna...
Where should, people should go to G-G-O-B.earth, buy some, buy some earplugs? Yeah, we have a pre-order going right now- Mm-hmm... and we plan to be shipping in early twenty twenty-five. Mm.
And then you can follow us on social media. All of that is brand new as of last month, um, @gob.earth, both on TikTok and Instagram. Cool. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on. Fantastic.
Thank you both so much. This was so much fun. Awesome. This has been Tasteland. We will see you next week. See you next week. [upbeat music] Honey. It tastes just like it costs.
Ooh, honey.