What The Funk?

0:00 All right, we're back on what the funk mid November recording with my guys over at amplified industries, Eric Zhang, Sebastian Manai, Sebastian, I really hope I said your last name correctly, in

0:14 that, it's not.

0:19 Did I get it? Yeah, you're a spot on a nice job. Thank you Love this one, amplified industries is a recent funk futures client, we're seeing a lot of demand in the market for their software,

0:34 their services, we'll get into all of that. My favorite part about working you guys is now when I fly back to Boston, I can expense those flights, which is great for me, because now I have a

0:45 client out there, but you guys are, you're rocking it, you're crushing it, and I'm excited for you guys to ham and egg together on what the fun podcast So we'll start with Eric, Eric Zhang. Why

0:56 don't you give us a little bit of your background Sebastian will go to you next? Like, you know, I want to know who you guys are? Like, what brought you to where you're at today? Up in Boston

1:08 here, you know, one of my favorite cities and we'll talk about business and all that stuff. But Eric, you're a Texas kid. So let's go with you first. Yeah, so I'm Eric. I'm the CFO and one of

1:20 the co-founders has amplified. I guess I have the most generic background in the middle of the park. I grew up mostly in Houston. So I tried to land once at UC Austin, where I majored in

1:33 accounting at Apple Films. I didn't want to be an accountant. So I ended up working at the Banker at BAML in Houston doing energy, power, some industrial coverage. So I did that for about three

1:47 years before I moved up to Boston, starting at Harvard best. It's one of the first fires in the real asset scheme So covering. infrastructure energy anything kind of we're associated real assets

1:58 and natural resources So structured a lot of structured deals a lot of a lot of some secondaries Not a lot of primaries some phone that so you get a get to go and get a good experience in terms of

2:11 seeing the full landscape So that was really interesting. I'm actually known step for over ten years now. Wow I know him through the MIT board of network I have a cousin who's like the same age we

2:24 wrote together in Texas We went to UT together and after graduating he went to MIT to get his magic to

2:32 PhD I went to a working medicine thing and so I think I met said probably his first year When they were in lab together and I met them actually at ACL So my oh nice like oh, yeah, because we used to

2:46 go to ACL like every every year when we were in

2:51 I just claimed that I remembered the details of how we would explain it. I remember like, I saw you guys after you guys came back in six streams. I had driven after work on Friday night to Austin.

3:03 And you guys were pretty hung over the next morning. And you were like, no, we got to get ready now. And so I'm very told to have like, oh, you can just drop a five out of everybody and like I

3:11 shite her and chug it. And it was like, that's so smart. That's over five hours energy

3:18 That's the next next moment. You forgot the part where I introduced you to became your future wife. That's true. No, really. That's a serious story. Yeah. Yeah.

3:31 Okay. I guess. Yeah. Yeah.

3:34 My background. So I was born and raised in France. I'm a mutt. My dad is from Tunisia. My mom is from the Basque region of France. I was born there with a kind of mixed background Typical science

3:48 kid nerds. background that you'd expect while taking taking apart everything, building everything, destroying, you know, not putting back together everything. One of my big prides when I was a

3:59 teenager or you know, end of high school was ranked first in math, first in physics, first in biology, last in literature, of the

4:07 whole high school. The whole grade of the whole high school in France. So, you know, you get the you know, the picture, so I went into engineering school in France. I ended up focusing on

4:18 quantum physics and applied math, and then I really wanted to go to the US. I got lucky as a kid to travel to the US for vacation, and I really liked it. So,

4:30 my dad is a doctor, and so he would stay working during the summer, and then with my mom and my sisters would fly to the US. And so, I decided to apply to grad school. I ended up being accepted

4:42 here at MIT. I mean, honestly, I picked MIT because beside things, a very good school, obviously, they are very well located. It's in the heart of the city. And there's not that many schools

4:53 that are like this. And I really wanted to have a good time in Boston was an amazing place. So I signed up for Masters. I liked it. I signed up again for PhD. I liked it. And I signed up again

5:04 to you a couple years of postdoc research. So I was doing aerospace stuff. And honestly, quite randomly, I ended up doing an internship with Schlimmerge, which is not a company. I knew, I mean,

5:18 it's originally a French company. It would actually be my French school, but I knew them, but I didn't really know them. And I was extremely impressed by how sophisticated and advanced the

5:29 research done there was. They have a research center like right across from MIT. So I decided to work with them for a couple more years. And that really exposed me to the oil and gas industries,

5:41 gave me some ideas And then I decided to start a company. So after my during my postdoc, basically I started. working on that and here we are. So yeah, I met Eric through some common MIT

5:56 friends and contact and been in

5:58 touch since. Yeah, no, I love it. I want to talk about France. And then I want to talk about MIT a little bit, too. So I went to Europe for the first time this year. Actually, I have a client

6:11 who's based in London and went over there to kick off our engagement. That was super cool, really fun It was there for like five days. And I was supposed to travel home the next morning. And I'm

6:22 like, wait a second. I've never been over here. It's a two hour and 15 minute channel train to Paris. I'm going to Paris. I got to say, I guess there are London people and there are Paris people.

6:36 Put me in the Paris people bucket, man. London, I found to be a little bit like New York, just like fast paced, a lot going on. Watch out a car might like travel over your foot on those like

6:45 small side streets. In Paris, it's like, I don't know, do people actually work there? They just like spoke cigarettes, drink wine and espresso and each croissants. Mostly the latter, yeah.

6:56 And then go flying by the river after work. But yeah, I've done it on this scene. Yeah, I love Paris. So anyways, for spring break this coming year, with the family, you know, married with

7:07 three kids, we'll talk about your kids, you guys are knee deep in it right now, a little bit younger than me. But we're gonna go to do the same trip And from Denver, you can't fly nonstop to

7:18 Paris. It's just impossible. So we're gonna fly to London, spend a couple of days, take the channel. But it's like pretty obvious to me that my kids, my family are way more excited about the

7:27 Paris trip. There's like a more of a romantic view of Paris, I think, with Americans than there is of London. So I'm excited for them to experience both. I think that London is, for Americans,

7:41 it's kind of like foggy and wet. Yeah So I have to say, you know, as any. typical French person, right? You have to like, shit talk on the British. Like you got to take it back home. Last

7:54 thousand years, and for rugby and all that, it's always fun. And I used to do a lot of this, and honestly, I actually really love London. I think London was a very fun place. I think Paris is

8:04 the most beautiful city in the world, bar none, but London is a fun place to work in or travel to. I mean, like

8:10 when, so when I was a band land, when I was at Harvard best, like we both have pretty big London offices, but the offices are full of French people. Yeah. Like it's, I would say, salaries are

8:23 minimal, probably half the office was French when I was at Harvard rest is probably more like, more like 60, 70 percent. Wow, so the French people who work actually just go to London to work and

8:34 then they end up in a place like London. Yes, typically either London or Benalox, I think, but

8:39 two, two places I mean, you're in quant though, you're going to be in parents' problem or move to New York or move to New York. Yeah. Classic career path for alumni from San Francisco. Yeah, I

8:54 wanna talk MIT a little bit too. So, Sam, I think we haven't talked a ton about this, but I think you're the son of a professor, something like that, like one of your parents. No, no, my dad

9:05 is a surgeon, he's a surgeon. My surgeon. No, no, he's a, I mean, the full background with my family is my grandparents were very poor on both sides And then my parents were kind of the first

9:18 generation to be educated and to have an amazing story. And so

9:25 I went to, you know, to do higher level education after. So yeah, they were in medicine, my dad was a doctor and he really pushed me to do science and engineering and talked into being a doctor.

9:41 Well, the hell with you guys, I want Seb's parents to tell their story on this podcast.

9:46 Eric, how about you? Were your folks an oil and gas? I mean, obviously you grew up in Houston, so it was all around you. So my, so my parents moved to the US, and my dad

9:57 was awarded some program to study abroad for grad school. So he did his PhD at

10:03 University of Michigan. I was born in Ann Arbor, and my mom did her master's. I think she had a master's already, and Chinese literature in China from one of the top universities there, which

10:14 obviously would not be very valuable in the US So she went back and told about her master's, and maybe we like computer science. At the time, it would have been more like IT, I guess. So yeah,

10:26 so my dad has been a lesson engineer. So you're a second-generation American? I think I - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I see myself, my dad has never worked on the gas. He's done a little bit of, like,

10:36 contracts up around it in recent years. We work for one of my parents used for GM when we lived in Indiana and Michigan, And then we move to Texas, you work with Texas, that's right. he was there

10:47 for a long time doing some stuff about that kind of stuff, you know, as an ADC stuff, like some exit of that kind of thing, but my mom has been kind of, she's worked mainly in two careers since

10:58 then, so she's done some stuff with like medical research and like managing that kind of data, but a big chunk of recruiters also were working for companies like Enron, so she worked for Enron a

11:10 long time. It ain't even after the downfall, she was one of the employees out of the state around to help with the infrastructure and everything. So, I have a bunch of old Enron merch. I have an

11:21 Enron Polo that's still in the packaging somewhere. Oh my God. The photo of me and my sister was like Ken Lay from one of the, what did I bring your kids to work day parties we used to have, right

11:33 after they actually opened the building where Chevron is now. So, we actually, yeah. So, we were there last time in town. I remember this place Yeah, it brings you back. What a crazy. Story

11:47 and run as what a crazy time. I would guess that that polo's worth something. I mean Still in the packaging I also had a

11:58 one that's not a bag anymore. I have an old Ron snapback, but it's like flat bill

12:05 It's a real throwback. Yeah, it's really like a little 2000

12:10 style Yeah, man. I love it Interesting so some of my story, right? Yeah, and I think you guys know this I went to Brandeis which is in Waltham So like Metro West not far from Cambridge, right?

12:22 We'd actually go into Cambridge and Harvard Square and and all that stuff when we were in school. It was a great area great Great energy and obviously Eric. You're just drawn to College towns. I

12:33 mean Austin and Arbor Boston like you can't get enough. Yeah, yeah

12:39 But my my dad I actually grew up in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His family, they all went to Rutgers. His grandfather worked at, my grandfather, his dad worked at Rutgers. My dad was, he's a

12:51 lot smarter than me. He was like an incredible student finished top of his class at Rutgers. Chemistry wanted to be a chemist, I think. Went to MIT to continue to pursue his post-grad degree.

13:05 Lasted one semester and he's like, I can't do it I just think that he wanted to get into psychology. So he ended up ultimately being a professor of psychology. So his MIT experience was like, oh

13:16 man, I couldn't really find myself there. I was stuck in a lab, like it wasn't for me. And then his path eventually led him to psychology. So there's like a little bit of a tie to MIT there. But

13:30 just really the area is beautiful. You mentioned Boston, is MIT grad school in Boston? Or is that in Cambridge? It's a Cambridge technique actually I make used to be in Back Bay on Boston and in

13:40 the 1910s or 20 they moved across the river. So it's right on along the river I mean MIT used to own pretty much all the real estate back back Bay. Yeah, it's also because back Bay Back then also

13:53 did not exist. Yeah

13:56 So the whole land sale. So yeah, it was different way to tell parts of the city are actually like solid ground It's pretty much where the towers are. So Boston has I got what they call like a high

14:06 spine Towards to kind of the center of the city down between Back Bay and South End And so that's where the solid rock is so that's pretty much where you only build towers and then on both sides.

14:16 It's all filled That's funny. I saw something on Twitter Yesterday where somebody posted like you can drive for a hundred and forty nine hours to go from one side of Russia To the other and still be

14:29 in Russia and somebody commented same with Boston There, yeah, it's all about my commute. Yeah, I mean in summerville and both me and said what's out of the city And it would take me upwards,

14:40 long as day. I

14:42 think it took me two hours to get from our office and start to go back to five miles. It's eight miles. It's five miles as a croplies. It's like 88 miles. And yeah, you're stuck in track for two

14:55 hours, just not moving. And it's even more of a slap in the face because you can see it kick down by like a big pile. Right. Look at a Google Maps with Boston. You can see what the old part is,

15:04 where the streets are just like, someone was drunk or something. It's all like random It's nice grayed outside and then the middle is like, what the hell happened there? Somebody was definitely

15:13 drunk. And the hardest thing about Boston, like I know my way around 'cause it's like my home city, I guess, from growing up there, driving around there as a kid and in college and all that. But

15:24 what people don't realize if they're going to use like Waze or Google Maps in the city is everything has like six names, right? So it's like, all right, take a left on I-28, root 3A, old route

15:35 126 old

15:38 and you're like, what? Just tell me where to go. You're just explaining me what this name is. You know, like a street can have eight different names or whatever. It's like, well, this is 95

15:47 and 128. You're like, what? I don't understand. It reminds me of like old cities in Europe. Like if you look at, you know, old Paris, old Prague or whatever, they were built on purpose to be

15:58 amazed in case of invasions, confusing. Wow. Or me coming into city. So I guess Boston was done like that. Maybe not on purpose Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, move in weekend is probably the most

16:10 dangerous. We got to be driving like the worst. If you're up in Cambridge, it is not uncommon to see box trucks driving the totally wrong way down like a one-lane road, so it's great. And it's

16:21 also like what it's called, it's called getting store of, what? Yes. Crocs, it's how hard it has been. They designed all the bridge to be one foot shorter than the whole truck. I know, I know,

16:33 I know It

16:36 happens at least once every week. Like if you look on like Twitter or like Reddit or whatever, there's a new post about it happening live. Like every, there are accounts just for that. Yeah.

16:45 Yeah. Like trucks getting storro'd, right? Just can't. And then there's only so many like thoroughfares. So then you're just like, well, I'm screwed. Like I'm just going to sit here now. I

16:56 can't get off and no one's going to let you in either. That is one of the things that I like about driving around to Boston is it's like, I am going to cut you off and that's what's going to happen.

17:05 You're like, all right, cool. Like there's at least no bones about it You know what's going to happen. That level of aggression is insane. If you're used to it, it's kind of fun. I'm not going

17:14 to lie. It makes it much easier to get around in cities when we have rental cars. If we're bringing it to a meeting, it gives you the kind of training. But I mean, it's not good for society. But

17:26 it's not going to be as what it is. It's not good for mental health, per se. But if you can drive there, you can drive anywhere. Where do you guys live and where's your office?

17:39 So we just moved to our office. We technically have two office right now. We have an old office in Somerville. So right halfway between MIT and Harvard. And then our new office is on the edge of

17:50 seaport. So much more downtown. I like the crew terminal. It's walking distance. By the old World War II Navy dock. Yeah, the old tri-dog. I mean, the street is tri-dog. But yeah, it's also

18:03 close to - let's write down the street from our apartment. Maybe we picked the office because we're between two breweries I mean, it's a plus for sure. Except we don't really get to use it anymore

18:14 because it gets - Because of kids. Yeah. So talk about your kids. You guys are both like new dads, young dads. Eric, I think you might have to leave this podcast at some point if your wife goes

18:25 into labor and said, you got some babies, right? We got the doctors this morning, so - She went 39 weeks. This is like 37, 37 and 12, 7, OK. Almost 38, yeah. So we couldn't have any moments

18:36 But everything is looking good. So, yes, I'm a three-year-old, just turned three on Monday, and then we have another one, too, probably end of this month, so that's going to be. Or end of

18:47 this week, who knows? Yeah. I mean.

18:51 And Jeremy, you were asking where I live. Well, I had to move last year when we learned that my wife was pregnant with twins, and I was living in the top floor apartment, no elevator, like

19:03 old-school brownstone with, you know, tiny circus So we're like, oh, shoot, we need a house. So I just got a very old house in Milton, which is just 20 minutes south, 25 minutes south of

19:15 Boston.

19:17 So I moved there, and I have two little, they just turned recently one-year-old twin boys. Oh, beautiful. So it's fun. A few little tornadoes. But yeah. Wow, that's exciting. Yeah, you guys

19:31 are right in the heart of it. And I've said this to plenty of young parents My kids are, you know, 14, 12 and almost seven. The craziest time truly is when you have like one year olds and three

19:41 year olds, like you guys are in it, it gets easier, you'll sleep more, I'm sure your wives are amazing, but just no, it's not going to be like this forever, so try to enjoy it despite the lack

19:51 of sleep. Hey, sometimes it's fun, like last weekend it was all called I started a fire in the fireplace, and you know, you have like big flames and red hot embers, and the reflex of the one

20:01 year old boy is to just try to crawl straight in the flame I thought it was a fire response, I guess it's really not, so you gotta learn somehow, you know? Oh man, that's amazing. So let's talk

20:16 a little bit about amplified industries, like where did the idea come from? I know it kind of spun out of MIT, and I think that's where you got some of your initial funding, but I'll open it up to

20:25 both of you. You're like, what was the original thesis? Talk about the company a little bit, and where you guys are going with it

20:32 So there's quite a few concept behind it, but you I put it simply, I traveled during my research work to quite a few oil fields, especially in Southern Oklahoma. And so my background was in

20:49 aerospace. So I visited, you know, a rocket engine factories, jet, you know, airliner jet engine factories. I've seen, like, all kinds of high-end manufacturing. And I went to oil field,

21:01 and it was very rustic, you know, land-based oil field And I was basically surprised a little bit that, you know, equipment that is making that much money, that is that important for society,

21:14 was, at the end of the day, not operated to some of the standards that you can find in other places. So I think some part of the oil industry are extremely high-tech. I mentioned before when I was

21:27 working with Lumberger, you know, offshore, and quite a few things are really, you know, rocket science level but other parts are still different and so There's quite a few explanation for this,

21:40 but we decided to tackle this problem and to help people really modernize all the digital infrastructure on their field. The kind of high-level view is autopilot for your oil field.

21:54 There's another angle behind which is industrial automation. Think about the big machines built by the Siemens, Emerson, Rockwell, Honeywell, Mitsubishi, or an oil and gas, more the aliburton

22:10 of the world. There are very often very complicated use. Like any industrial piece of equipment has to be installed by an expert, maintained by an expert. You have a nice 600-page PDF manual to do

22:21 whatever.

22:23 The reality is not everything

22:31 is that complicated. Some of those processes are pretty simple Some things are complicated, but not everything. And on the other hand, you have the phone in your pocket that no one has ever opened

22:42 a manual to use. It's designed to be very intuitive. You're doing way more things on it. Way more things are happening on your phone again than most industrial facilities. So I think a lot of the

22:56 industrial equipment was never really designed to be easy to use. It was designed kind of by engineers, for engineers, and let's cram as many features as we can The cliche example I give is, you

23:07 know, in my old apartment, I had a Mitsubishi AC. And you have those remotes with 54 buttons. And now everyone has a Nest thermostat, which has zero, right? And it works even better. I think

23:18 it has one button. Yeah, one. So I think a lot of the same mindset can help industrial facilities in general, because what ends up happening is people will use the equipment much better. They'll

23:31 end up using a lot more features And then you can start to do, you know.

23:40 really use all those buzzwords, the AI kind of thing, the industry 40, digital twin, all that. All those things are buzzwords until, if the infrastructure isn't ready, if the people aren't

23:46 using the system correctly, you can do kind of this final here. So we started a company to easily automate all kinds of industrial machine focusing on oil fields you

23:60 begin with, and then build our equipment and our software to help people run their fields and do better than what's out there.

24:11 When did you guys officially launch the company? And was it named Amplified Industries out of the gate, talk a little bit about that? 'Cause I think you started, you mentioned 2020 a few times

24:23 which is just completely insane time to start a business, but give me a little bit of the history. So technically it was incorporated in 2019,

24:34 quite a few of us were foreigners. It took us effectively a year to figure out our visa situation. There's all kind of fun backstory. A lot of our visas, several of our guys' visas, were denied

24:44 at first at the US embassy in Paris. And it's a whole other debate about immigration. But when you have a MIT, PhD, mathematicians starting a company in the US, is it really in US best interest

24:57 to deny that visa?

24:60 But anyway, we eventually managed to go through And so we really started in 2020 when the team was together, when we had the core guys, and when we had raised money from - so not directly from MIT.

25:13 Basically, our first investors were MIT alumni's angel investors and early funds that we had encountered. So like, winning the MIT 100K was definitely a huge kick start. We won the annual MIT

25:27 competition, which gave us a lot of visibility and was very unexpected, to be honest, even for us. There are not that many at the end of the oil and gas plays happening, you know, on the east

25:39 coast and in Boston. And so being able to convince everyone that this was great was a very good, you know, boost. Yeah, I mean, and of course that leads into the natural question of like, what

25:51 is it like running a pretty fast growing oil and gas tech company out of Boston? I know you guys are on the road a lot But like when you go to parties in the super liberal area, I think oil and gas

26:03 is vilified a little bit out there for, for whatever reason, it's like the water's been poisoned. Like, what do you, what do you tell people when you go to parties that you guys do? And how do

26:13 you manage a company from there? You just on airplanes all the time? Like, how do you do it?

26:18 So the first part regarding the image of oil and gas in Boston or in general, you know, and they're out of coastal states I think Boston is a little different, especially compared to California,

26:32 for example, is yes, you have a lot of people who will vilify oil and gas, but I think it's a more conservative city in a way, and you also have a lot of more old-school, pragmatic people that

26:44 can kind of cut through the BS that you read on everyday media and be like, No, no, no, it's here to stay, it's going to grow, there's a need to improve all those things, and no, we're not

26:55 going to all switch to solar tomorrow by that. So, I think a lot of the smarter investors, smarter engineers, they really got it in Boston. Maybe not, if you do a quick pitch or a quick

27:06 presentation in some party, maybe not everyone will agree with this.

27:11 The second angle is one of the key advantage of our solution is we eliminate almost all the spills, so there's a big environmental angle here, so that resonates with people here, maybe a little

27:24 more than and hey, we can increase your production.

27:28 It kind of depends on what part of the city you're in. You're in like JP, Camberville. Yeah. Maybe, there's not nothing you can do really. But yeah, I mean like, I would say our experience at

27:38 MIT, like Harvard campus and stuff, people are very pragmatic about this kind of thing. And generally speaking, like the optimization angle of just saying like, hey, we're making things that are

27:48 gonna be running and they're gonna run better, is kind of an overrear. Like

27:54 there's no real, you know? There's no practical, I think, downside to a lot of what we do, right? I think we can see it about like building a company, building a business, like thing, you

28:04 know, all the way back, the whole goal is to provide value for our customers and even the externalities around that. And I think the end of the day, that is our goal. Like we're gonna provide

28:14 value out of what we do in excess of what we charge for. Right. And then regarding the location, so yeah, we thought about moving to Texas or, you know, to Midland or Trauma City, but. The

28:28 reality is, we're flying all the time. Anyways, effectively, every other week, we're going to Yokoma City, to Midland, to Houston, to Denver, to Tulsa, to Wyoming, to Gillette, to LA. It

28:44 kind of doesn't matter where you are. You're gonna be flying a ton anyway. And Boston had a lot of pros for us, so we need a lot of talent that is more commonly here than it is elsewhere. People

28:55 who do cloud engineering, people who do data science, mathematicians. Like, so if we need, you know, sales and petroleum engineers, we hire those guys remotely. And because we started a

29:05 company basically during COVID, well, kind of naturally, a big portion of our team is spread out across the US anyways. Yep. One of the things I wanna go back to, said that you said is, well,

29:18 we eliminate, we eliminate a lot of this bills. How do you do that? So effectively what we're able is to see at the end of the video. very high resolution resolution in real time everything going

29:31 on in the field and once you see that you're able to build all kinds of mathematical and physical model to detect things so some things can be very basic like oh this tank is overflowing other things

29:43 is you can calculate flow rates in some pipe and realize that it's all going in the wrong pipe and over filling tank where you set sending your oil in your water tank or vice versa we discovered that

29:54 we could detect honestly by luck that hatches were left open on tanks and methane VOC were evaporating we didn't actually build a sensor just we were recording such like high quality data that we're

30:07 like oh now we can build a model that detects this so there was a lot of a kind of the bigger idea of what we're doing is we spend most of our time building unsexy things around how do you do a very

30:21 large amount of data to a cloud that you know the customer doesn't really care about that part but The thing that I have to realize is once you've done that correctly, building all kinds of

30:30 applications for this is much, much easier and much faster. And so now we reach that point and it's just about rolling out new features in your application and that can happen very, very quickly.

30:41 I mean, even just in the data collection side, we spent a lot of time making the system not only like, you know, really iterating and trying to make it as easy as possible to install and set up

30:52 and maintain, but also like maybe for the measurements that we're actually collecting are, you know, a high fidelity, high accuracy, calibrated, like we tested hundreds of different sensors for

31:02 all kinds of devices. It's, you know, I think making something that works 80, 85 of the time is like pretty quick, but that last 15 is really what takes, you know, building a high efficacy

31:13 system is just devil is in the detail. Yeah, and it takes a lot of field testing. A lot of, to that point, we started on the, well, what I would call the worst field, we started in like

31:22 Northern Guizyama in light of ops. Waterflood small wells are in the real world like yeah, but it's a middling. This is much nicer The desert is lovely, but like the swampy Louisiana part that

31:33 would destroy any piece of electronic the mosquito would you know? Vampire or blood off that was like very tough operating condition And so we started there and kind of iterated on all our hardware

31:44 early on there to get something that was reliable But it's a really good way to I mean these are really really old field some of these wells They're probably over a hundred years old. Yeah, I think

31:54 our oldest well was nineteen seventeen something like that. Yeah We've been on some yards where the equipment is still made of oil. Yeah, so our use little thing is from 22 and our oldest one is at

32:09 70 It's a big rain But yeah, I mean you get to see a situation in the field that is like real right you have a lot of unknown unknowns with the equipment quality, you know, it says check belt

32:21 actually working. You can probably hear that it's not. Flow lines are running all over, and you know, it's where they are, and you have all of these stuff that no one's really checking out on,

32:30 and so to get a system that works in that kind of scenario, or you kind of do anything and building all that kind of things, you need to flex, I mean, that's a big learning process that you don't

32:39 know until you go out there and do it, and yeah, I mean, we spend a lot of time doing that kind of stuff And that's a part that's very fun too, it's like

32:49 we get to meet people from, you know, lease operators, pumpers in rural Louisiana to billionaire investors in tall towers in New York, like we get the whole spectrum of every possible

33:06 people out there and that's very fun. Yeah, I bet it is. And my understanding at least with Amplified is there are some solutions that do similar things, but it really caters toward larger

33:21 producing wells. comes with a very high dollar ticket value. And that sort of leaves a void for a lot of the wells. I mean, there's what, for almost four million wells in the United States, you

33:35 guys are able to optimize really sort of any oil well anywhere of any size and do so affordably. So was that like kind

33:60 of part of the ethos is, this doesn't need to be like this crazy expensive application that only caters toward massive producing wells, we can actually help optimize every well. Was that like part

34:03 of the initial thesis or did you guys just sort of realize, oh my God, there's a segment of this market that's completely ignored where companies aren't gonna pay the money to do this and they'll

34:10 just keep sending a lease operator out. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, so like the way I think the first time we started talking about this is when I was a banker on the private every side.

34:20 You do a lot of diligence. You go through all the like. You go through like different deals on both the buy side and sell side and you realize oh man All these companies are really really bad at

34:30 running and Not really it's there's no really good explanation as to why and this becomes even more evident when you go to like Restructure processes because all of a sudden you have a ton of like

34:44 Thousand percent IRR projects you could have done But you just didn't do and like the number you're talking about here like you're talking about like, you know The bdb is basically your lending base,

34:55 and you just kind of let it go to shit and it's not a great situation Why didn't he run this correctly and I would see this over and over and over again And I would bitch to set about it instead would

35:05 be like there's no way it's like this And then I think he went to the field and he was like, oh, no, it is It is like I mean there are like on the flip side There are plenty of operators that I

35:15 think have a great reputation of running PVP who have made an instant automatic like the merits in the whole corpse of the world, like so. There's a lot of money to be made here, and this is a real

35:25 thing you can really do. It's just that people just don't focus on it, and the scale of that kind of market is pretty big. And

35:34 what you just said was

35:37 a business decision. We decided to go after all the typically older wells, the smaller, we should call it less than 50-ish barrels a day, because as a small startup, as a team of a few guys, now

35:51 there's 20-something of us. But it's very hard to sell a product to the Exxon of the world, right? Yeah. In terms of procurement, the legalities, even if they love what you're doing, just

36:03 jumping through those hoops will be a very slow and tedious timeframe. By going after those fields, we're going after private equity back company. A few guys in the rooms, PowerPoint, no bullshit,

36:15 we'll like it, you start next week. Did I make more money? Did I reduce my spills? Yes, we scaled it. It's like bang, bang, bang.

36:23 You can scale your technology really well and then at some point you reach a size that's significant enough where you can go after the big guy. So one part that you said that's not exact is to be

36:35 honest and arrogant and I can because I'm French but it's like we think the best system out there by far but we didn't want to go head on at first on the new wells against the established guys. You

36:47 have to prove that that was the case and on those smaller wells and then slowly you climb up the ladder and you say look at all the amazing stuff we're able to do with our system that other people can

36:57 even you know dream about. So kind of one step at a time and there's a process to it and I think especially in oil and gas are plenty of companies are not successful because they're trying to go

37:08 right after you know the inception the glittery the big you know sadly or contract and so on and then maybe even if you get that big contract then they just control you at this point right you have

37:19 one customer who's 90 of your

37:22 you're a consulting shop, you're not a company. That's a really important point in that, and I see this, right? Because I've worked with companies based out of California, or companies who have

37:32 gone through Y Combinator and they pitch to investors and say, yeah, I mean, if we just get one deal with Shell or Chevron or Exxon or whoever, like that'll make our company great, right? That's

37:44 really hard to do, and it's gonna take you a long time. And I think one of the things I noticed with you guys in our early conversations is you're like, now we actually, we can do business with

37:52 them, we know it's gonna take a long time, we by all means have the technology to do it, but we know that there are these private equity shops with lots of wells that are just not being optimized,

38:02 that just have humans going out there with very little remote monitoring or censoring or technology on these wells, and they're losing production, they're literally leaving money on the table and

38:11 that money really matters to those guys. So I think you make a really good point with that, What does doing business look like with you guys? Like do you go into a companies that we've got this

38:24 incredible solution that can optimize your production, that can increase your production, that can help your emissions footprint. Is it a pilot? Do they give you 20 wells, 30 wells, 50 wells?

38:34 Like you run a month or two month long pilot, and then if they like it, they keep your equipment and roll you out? Yeah, it's exactly that. We give them a PowerPoint presentation, show them a

38:44 few case study, a few scientific slides, convince people to do a pilot, we ask for a couple dozen wells, just get some statistically relevant sample, right? Don't, by all means, go pick some

38:56 really hard, really complicated wells, like plug flowing, deviated wells, whatever, a gassy, whatever issue you have picked some of those, but also pick more normal wells, and our pilot is

39:07 typically two months, and we kind of do it before and after comparison, and then if you like it, you can scale it. We do not just the wells, we do all the tank facilities and kind of everything

39:17 that ties to the world. At the same time, it's pretty simple, straightforward process. And it's very easy to, like our install is super seamless. To give you an idea, one crew, one truck, can

39:29 do 10 to 15 wells a day for the install. Really like copy paste, very quick light, tight footprint. Yeah, I mean, I think a big part of it is that,

39:40 I think a lot of customers, like, we don't even really get to do that much convincing about what's been changed at the end of the pilot, because it's pretty self-evident So, a lot of the, I think

39:49 a lot of the issues with kind of what we found is that running any kind of remote asset is hard, running on low gas, well, it's even more difficult, because not only do you have remote asset, you

39:59 have a remote remote asset that's pulling something from thousands of people on low ground. You just have layers upon layers of unknowns. And so, you know, it just makes it that much more

40:10 important and impactful. And so, like, one of the, I think we found a lot of things, like, Seth has mentioned the private happy back companies I think that has really been a sweet spot. because

40:19 a lot of the teams who run those are quite sophisticated, but also they're younger and willing to try new stuff. And so we've had a lot of success with, the more technical a customer is, the more

40:29 quickly I think they buy in, just because they see the level and fidelity of data. It gives you a lot of confidence and gives you a lot of additional stuff to play around with. Like there's a lot

40:38 of savings that some of our, our more savvy customers have managed to achieve. That's really beyond what our system is doing, but stuff that they can do with the data that they now have, like the

40:51 good example is like, instead of having to pull it well when it stops pumping, they recognize it has this problem. Something happens, that's idiosyncratic of this well.

40:59 But instead of having to pull it, they can see it in the data. And so they can just treat it. And so that saves them like 10, 20 grand every six months.

41:08 And I think those companies as well, they just straight up have less people, right? So the leaning on technology has to be like a. core part of how they do business. And you guys help.

41:22 Maybe it's having less staff, but really, it's making that staff more efficient, right? There's a push on the industry, right? Overall, there are kids doing control engineering as a major,

41:34 right? And overall, there are more regulation, more things to do, right? And those two trends are, you know, most likely not going to reverse. So there's just more need to make more things

41:45 automatic Yeah, another big thing we try to do is like, yes, we provide a lot of like high end data, a lot of free hybrid food and stuff. But at the end of the day, the goal is to make what we

41:55 do and the results that you get out of it accessible across the entire organization. Sure. What you don't have to be a foam engineer to your system, like we do all the plugins that for you.

42:06 So you don't have to get into weeds about everything. So something important, people always say more data is I frankly disagree more. Data is just more expensive, right? And you can, I need to

42:15 hire more engineers and pay for more servers and whatnot. It's only better if you can automatically analyze all that. So yes, it's great to record huge amount of data, but then you have to process

42:26 it and you have to automatically control all the machinery to be optimal. And sure, you let the engineer override obviously whatever he wants, but you have to use it to actually reduce the amount

42:36 of work for people. You can just giving them more information They only need to hire more engineers to use it otherwise. Yeah,

42:45 sorry. No, that just brings me back to like, I'm thinking a dozen years ago when the concept of building a data warehouse was a little bit more fresh. It was kind of a novel concept. And I

42:57 remember talking to some operators who were like, yeah, yeah, no, just bringing all the data. We're like, but why? Like some of this isn't gonna help you. You're never gonna put this on a

43:07 Power BI dashboard or spa fire or whatever, like. You're just going to end up incurring like massive costs or need to buy more servers because that's when people actually had like on premise servers

43:18 To put their data into but like you know think about like what's the important data, right? What what matters? What do you want to model? What do you want to analyze? What's actually going to

43:26 make your business money versus like we put all of our data in the warehouse? It's like but now you're just paying more money for data. You don't care about the thing you bring is sometimes

43:37 Yeah

43:39 Don't know how much you're spending like even if we ask people today, okay, how much you spend on skate-up for well They're like, well, there's the maintenance of the equipment and there's all the

43:47 license fee for all the software are going to be using Then there's all your in-house IT guys a service it like it's a bunch of little it's death by thousand cuts, right? And people actually all

43:57 that out there like oh shoot like this is actually extremely expensive to run Yeah, there's been planning a time to rule last someone like this happened like one time when we first started we're

44:07 asking that CEO come and see if he was talking about it. He was like, Hey, how much have you spent on this? He's like, Yeah, they calculated. And it ends up being like three or four times of

44:16 what we were targeting, like for us. So we're like, Okay. So, now that you do that, does it sound expensive to you? So it's, you know, yeah, but yeah, because it's just sort of a sort of

44:29 administrative like high level cost for a lot of companies or they just something that is kind of rolling into the LE. It's just like one line item It just, yeah, yeah, it becomes quite opaque,

44:40 which is why like, like, subset, like, a lot of times when we start on stuff, we say, okay, give us something that is either too low production to afford putting, you know, a new controller

44:49 full-scale, all that kind of stuff on, or give us stuff that's more difficult, because then you really get an edge to get in the door. And then once you're kind of in, you will kind of see the

44:57 reality that you're getting, the quality of the performance and everything like that. And, you know, the way we have with one customer aware, they have a bunch of alone controllers and data and.

45:07 what they ended up doing

45:15 was as those started to fail, they just started replacing all of them with our stuff. Yeah. They made more performance and also turns out it's particularly huge. The name of the game in oil and

45:20 gas has been and will always be, I'll entertain this solution if you can do one of two things. If you can do both, then you've got the Holy Grail and that's very clearly increased production reduce

45:33 LOE. So if you guys are on that track and doing those things, the sky's truly the limit. I want to pivot a little bit to some other funds, some lighter stuff. I got to ask Eric, how do you

45:47 survive in Boston with the barbecue that you have there coming from Texas? I mean, so when I first moved here, my sister actually overnighted me a frozen brisket from a fruit, which I think I just

46:01 opened. So that was the first winter. I did buy a smoke it last year That's why we find it on the path. Yeah, there is a pretty decent, I mean, it's not like decent by type of fan, but it's not

46:13 bad. Now's the chain of our few spots in Boston called Smoke Shop. No, it is bad compared to

46:24 your own six-time. No, it's very to Houston. But compared to like other places we've been to, it's not so bad. Just eat your lobster roll if you're here. Yeah. Eat a barbecue. Yeah, there is,

46:30 the guy who runs that place is from, I think he's from Austin. And so when I first moved here, there's now two places where you can get like, a Topo Chico and the Shiner. The only other place to

46:40 get a Topo Chico was at that super bougie South End food truck market where they charge like5 a bottle or something like that. So they get seen first-class flights. I mean, yeah. But there's

46:52 supposed to be a really good place down the street from our office here that's in a park. I think the guy who runs that is also from Texas. Yeah, it's of course. It's a place that all the reviews

47:04 are like two to three stars. and all the reviews say that the food is really good, but the guy who runs it is really vegan. Yeah. And so I'm like, it has to be vegan.

47:15 And if the guy's mean by Boston standards, like he's actually got to be really mean. The Chinese restaurant thing, like I want to go to Chinese restaurant, I think that's five stars. Like that

47:25 means it's not authentic. Totally. And he's like, in Houston, it's got to have like three stars. You know, everyone has to play my own serves, it's terrible. Well, they kill the food You know,

47:36 that's all they're visiting. There's one place God, the name is escaping me now. It's near Fenway Park, barbecue place. That is unbelievable. You know what I'm talking about? Sweet treats. Yes.

47:47 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they do North Carolina, like full work kind of stuff. Yeah, sweet treats is pretty good. Outstanding, outstanding stuff. What are your favorite restaurants in Boston

47:58 if you had to give like your top couple? What do you guys think? There's two for me There's A, the best pizza place in the US. is in Boston. It's called Pico. Yeah, because you have to pick a

48:10 PIC with two Cs in self. And because they make fresh dough, right, like it, and it's hard, right, you got to wake up at 3 am. and all that to make fresh bread every day. And their pizza, and

48:20 I'm French, I'm a little biased on the bread side, right? Because they have the crust is perfect. And, you know, buying good pepperoni and whatever is the easy part, but like, that's the best

48:30 pizza. And then the same second thing, I discovered actually like last year after being here over 10 years, but the fishing dock has, they will sell you literally fresh off the boat in Boston,

48:43 stuff there, which is very good. Because the issue with seafood is if it's fished on the bigger boat, it's frozen on the boat. So by the time you reach the dock, it's already frozen fruit versus,

48:52 if you get it from the small boats, you get the fresh food. And that's really tasty The second only one of the reasons is why the freezer is also

49:01 for safety Period. That's why actually when you buy fidgetest you place and you it's always flash-rosin Yeah, make sure that there's no bacteria. I'll take my chances

49:13 The by like literally like a rock rock beep like a ground beef and like you get on the dry poem. Oh my god

49:22 Casper nuts

49:24 Yeah, like yeah other places like safe ways like we're 34 I think it's always good the the restaurant in trillion at the neutral in tap house And z4 is also good. It's a right. That's I love that

49:36 brewery man. That place is outstanding There's a couple spots by me that I like there's a new Big replay is called via Kenuja. It's very similar also. It's run by his Italian guy. Yeah, you have

49:47 all the Italian stuff. Yeah Boston is what a hot fireish have Italian basically Something like that via yeah, it's over that there are really mean, but the baked goods are very good. Charles told

49:59 me It's the best croissant you've had in Boston Well, that and that's saying something croissants, you know, I'm sure Sab you and Charles know croissants and on the pizza thing like

50:11 Silence it's his croissant. You don't say. Oh, sorry There's only thing about the panel circle law versus Rockwell team being also big Because Charles is from the north of France and is that is

50:22 from I guess south west. Mm-hmm They have different vocabulary of this kind of stuff the norm. The whole thing is a universal thing Right, it's not just the US every country has their mason Dickson

50:32 line equivalent. That's awesome. That's awesome Yeah, I what pizza it's it's I think it's just you can make good pizza anywhere I even know some people say it's the water in New York, whatever I

50:43 don't know if I totally believe that I think it's just quality right you need the double zero flower You need really fresh tomatoes, right? And you need like not cheap cheese If you get that

50:53 combination down like you should nail it but for whatever reason like we just don't have it here it's just not as good. It takes a huge amount of time to make. Red properly and most places just by

51:04 your frozen dough and and you get to go. It's cheap. It's cheap You guys Red Sox fans like star and things

51:15 Can't kind of where I enjoy going to Fenway a lot I can't pretend that I follow exactly the team I enjoy going there for beer and for the atmosphere. That's really fun and when the Red Sox When the

51:29 team is winning the whole city is on fire, which is extremely totally There's always some team, like especially a couple years ago, Boston was winning at everything and the pastor had talked, the

51:39 Bruins, the Celtics, they were good and there was always like some prize depending on the season Right now the Bruins and Celtics are kind of always good Red Sox are up and down, the Patriots are

51:50 really building I mean it was the same thing though, I feel like Patriots might still be the biggest they get in Boston Yeah, it's so big in the US. But yeah, first of all man People love football

52:03 that, you know, that area was not a football area. The Patriots were like pretty pathetic. And then, you know, Tom Brady and fellow check, it just changed everything. It became like the

52:11 Patriots were the draw and were the team and a tough ticket. You know, it doesn't have the romanticism per se of going to Fenway Park. That's just a special place. Like there's just this feeling

52:24 of when you walk out of like the dungeon part of Fenway, right? Because like, you know, on the inside, it's like, it's super old It's 112 years old at this point. But that first time that you

52:34 walk out, right, and see the stadium and see the green monster and all that, like, it still kind of makes me feel like I was like eight years old when I first did that. And it's just kind of a

52:43 magical place, but one of my favorite ballparks, maybe not the most comfortable. But for anyone that's really the main advice I would give is you buy the cheapest tickets you can, and then you

52:54 just go to the top floor there's a bar that oversees the whole thing and you just hang out there and watch the game from there And that's like a very fun. it's definitely the most unique is like it's

53:04 the oldest because even like when you go to TV and stuff Like it's very similar than going to any stadium. Yeah, most new stadium all the same, right? I'll just copy paste. Yeah, but even like

53:13 work out is kind of in the heart of the city They built so much stuff around it like there's all the bars Yeah, I mean like like House of Blues and MGM or like right there now like right across the

53:23 street There's no bars Even like where TD is even though it's in the city. It's still like Dead after like if you dumped you boss rent a car. You can just walk from all those places Yeah, you know,

53:34 but yeah, you could spend like all your you like your entire day around like been way wandering around You know, you could go to the museums before and then get wasted and go to Fenway and then go

53:44 to the club's after across the street Yeah, when the weather is good in Boston. It's probably the best city in the country. I've said that over as times before Final question for you guys. Where

53:56 can people find you? Where can people find your company? you know, reach out to you, all that stuff. Yeah, I mean, just put our name on LinkedIn, company website is, you know,

54:08 amplifyindustries. There's no dot com,

54:12 just to analyze that industry. Yeah, how'd you get that? I've never seen a dot industry as before. It's the first one. You can do anything now. You can type whatever and freeze it and it's

54:21 easier to remember.

54:23 You can shoot us an email. My email is Sebastianamplifiedindustries, Eric. Yeah, Eric and Amplified Industries.

54:31 Though, for Seb, it's a S-E-B-A-S-T-I-E-N. And not the French way, not the German Spanish way. No, I also use it. I also made you sad that Amplified Industries. That's the worst.

54:44 I love it. Well guys, thank you so much for coming on. The future is bright for Amplified based on everything I'm seeing. I think that you're hitting the nail right on the head. The market is

54:53 coming to you guys. So, appreciate you coming on and I'll see you next time, I'm up in Bienage.