Rich Habits Podcast - Robots, Rockets, and Air Taxis w/ BLADE CEO (Rob Wiesenthal)

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Starting point is 00:00:50 you and your money. This episode is brought to you by VCX, the public ticker for private tech. My name's Austin Hankwitz. I'm joined by my co-host Robert Croke. And the three things sitting at the top of our rich Habits radar this week include Humanoid Robotics Company Agility announcing their plans to go public, more rumors swirling about a mega merger between SpaceX and Tesla, Apple being forced to raise prices on their devices because of AI, and be sure to stick around until the end because we have a wonderful

Starting point is 00:01:19 conversation planned with the CEO of Blade, the company owned by Joby Aviation, Rob Wiesenthal. So Robert, let's jump in to our first start. Yeah, today's episode is going to be awesome and very action-packed around all things that are going on in the markets right now. And a company called Agility Robotics, some of you may have heard of them. They make human-like walking robots announced this week they're going public. The deal values them at around $2.5 billion, and they'll trade under the ticker AGLT. The robot itself is named Digit. It walks on two legs.

Starting point is 00:01:55 It's got arms. And its whole job is to move and stack heavy containers. in warehouses the kind of repetitive backbreaking work people burn out doing. And this is not some crazy, maybe someday it exists story. These robots are already working on factory floors. Digit is working in Amazon warehouses. It's also at a logistics company called GXO. It's at a car parts maker, Schaefler.

Starting point is 00:02:20 They've got them running at a plant in South Carolina. Even Toyota is using Digit up in Canada. So this is a real product to get real customers. it's not just a slide deck. This is a real company. And this is where it gets interesting. They're doing it through a SPAC. That's a special purpose acquisition company. Instead of a traditional IPO process, they're merging with a shell company that's already public run by a well-known dealmaker named Michael Klein. The deal brings in over 600 million cash to digits balance sheet. And Robert, there's some interesting names that

Starting point is 00:02:52 jump out as to who the investors are. Who's fronting this $600 million? Foxx the company that actually assembles iPhones, they are a lead investor here, putting in over $200 million for this deal to take place. So the company that's building Apple products is literally betting $200 million on humanoid robots. That could tell you where things are headed. We've been talking about humanoid robotics for a couple of years now,

Starting point is 00:03:18 all the cool companies out there. But in this particular situation, Austin, what does this mean for you and your money? Humanoid robots, in my opinion, will be one of the biggest investment themes over the next 5, 10, 15 years. We've been talking about it for years now alongside Chris Camillo, where investors in Figure and Apptronic. And there's a really cool ETF called Robo Strategy, BOT,

Starting point is 00:03:41 that's listed on the New York Stock Exchange that anyone can buy. They own equity in a lot of these humanoid robotics companies. But a $2.5 billion humanoid robot company going public through a SPAC, very speculative, right? All of this is speculative. Let's be very transparent here. But this section is very interesting to me. So SPACs, if you guys remember, they were crazy.

Starting point is 00:04:05 Everyone loved them back in 2020, 2021. But nine times out of 10, when a company went public through a SPAC, it kind of blew up two or three years later. Hymns, Rocket Lab, and Draft Kings, I think, are the only three big SPACs out of 2021. among the hundreds that spacked in 2020 and 2021 that are actually here today. I think so far might have been a SPAC, but that's four that I can even just think of out of the hundreds of the sexy, fun, cool names, right? So just be careful if this is something that you're looking at.

Starting point is 00:04:39 Just take it with a grain of salt. Yeah, I think we need to ask Chamath if he can come on and we do an episode about all of the spacks that went by the wayside over the past four or five years. I don't think he'd take us up on that offer, but it'd be fun. But the key point here is when a brand new industry shows up on the public markets, you don't have to swing at the first pitch. Watch how agility actually performs as a public company for a couple of quarters. Are they signing new customers? Are they making money?

Starting point is 00:05:05 Are they just burning through it? Let the company prove itself with real numbers before you put money in. The best opportunities in a new sector usually give you more than one chance to get in. So just be careful. Keep up with what's going on. But don't jump all in on this particular one. So, Robert, that brings us to our second story, which is Tesla and SpaceX having these rumors of a mega merger between the two companies. So Elon Musk merging Tesla and SpaceX into one company is what everyone's talking about online right now.

Starting point is 00:05:35 SpaceX, of course, just went public at that $1.8-ish trillion dollar valuation. And the second it did these merger speculation caught on fire. You mentioned Chamoth Palahopatia. he actually, I think, was the first person to publicly speculate about that back in January or February of this year. Now, analysts are putting it, you can go look it up on Polymarket, at like an 80% chance of actually happening. Like, this is something that is a very real potential outcome for the two companies merging into one. Yeah, I'm a little shocked at it, and I agree. I checked out Polymarket as well, but I'm a little shocked because how does the federal government let this thing keep going and going and going with a merger?

Starting point is 00:06:17 like this. Because at SpaceX, Elon controls about 85% of the voting power. And he runs it like a king, what he says goes. But Tesla is a publicly traded company that regular people own, and he only owns about a fifth of it, which is around 20%. And so that's a totally different story of how it gets run and what happens in the future. And it's not just, you know, how much voting power and stock he owns, but it's also how he's compensated, right? So Tesla shareholders approved a plan that could be worth up to a trillion dollars if Elon hits a wild set of targets. So if you're Elon Musk, folding SpaceX, where you have this ironclad control over a company into Tesla, tightens your grip on the whole empire that you're building at once. But the warning for regular investors is that

Starting point is 00:07:04 SpaceX has already said in its filings that it might issue, and I quote, significant equity in future transactions. That's corporate jargon for your ownership slice in our company could get watered down. We saw that already with the $60 billion all-stock deal with cursor. They just printed $60 billion of stock, three or four percent dilution for existing investors on IPO day, and that was that. And so legal experts say that if Elon wants to push a merger like this through, shareholders can object all they want, but there's not much that they can actually do because Elon holds so much voting power between the two of them. And here's what makes this empire even more interesting. SpaceX isn't just rockets anymore. It's becoming an AI infrastructure giant. And just this week, they struck a deal

Starting point is 00:07:51 to rent data center capacity to an AI startup called Reflection AI. That deal is worth $6.3 billion or $150 million a month flowing in, starting July 1 and running through 2029. And it's not the first one. They already got similar deals with Google and Anthropic. And on top of that, SpaceX agreed to buy an AI coding company called Cursor for 6.com. billion in stock. So the rocket company is now also a landlord for the entire AI industry and space. Well, speaking of space, can't forget about their satellites. Starlink, of course, directly now connecting regular cell phones through a partnership with T-Mobile. They're calling it T-satellite. No equipment needed. Your normal phone talking to a satellite in space, so you've got signal no matter

Starting point is 00:08:39 where you are in the country, even if those cell towers don't reach you. So that's the musk flywheel in one sentence. You got the rockets launching the satellites, the satellites connecting to your phone, and then all this cash that they're generating from the profits from these satellites and the partnerships with Starlink, then rolling into the AI stuff, and it's just becoming this massive, massive flywheel. So Robert, what does this mean for you and your money? We have investors listening right now who are probably SpaceX shareholders. They're also Tesla shareholders. How should they be thinking about it? Yeah, I think for me there's two real takeaways. First, if you own Tesla, understand what you actually own.

Starting point is 00:09:17 You're a minority passenger with a driver who isn't required to ask your opinion. So don't buy Tesla for the merger rumor. Buy it only if you believe in the long-term business and you're generally fine being along for the ride of whatever he chooses. Second, and this is

Starting point is 00:09:33 the bigger lesson, watch where the AI money actually flows. Everyone's looking at the chatbots. The real durable money is being made by whoever owns the infrastructure underneath them, the data centers, the power the satellites. SpaceX is renting compute to three different AI companies already, and that tells you the Picks and Shovels layer is where the steady cash is. So follow the infrastructure and don't follow

Starting point is 00:09:56 the hype. Couldn't agree more, Robert. All right, Austin, before we jump into our third story, support from this show comes from VCX, the public ticker for private tech. For generations, American companies have moved the world forward through their ingenuity and determination. And for generations, everyday Americans could be a part of that journey through perhaps the greatest innovation of all the U.S. stock market. It did not matter whether you are a factory worker in Detroit or a farmer in Omaha. Anyone can own a piece of the great American companies. But now that's changed. Today, our most innovative companies are staying private rather than going public,

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Starting point is 00:11:06 charters, and expenses. This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at getvcx.com. This is a paid sponsorship. Now, our third story, Thursday morning, Apple raised prices across their Macs and iPads. And some of these increases were pretty steep, like 20 or 25% price increases. The base MacBook Air, right? You think about it. What's going on here? I can't wait to dig into this story, Robert, because we just heard from Micron and their earnings that came out this week. This directly impacts Apple. So that MacBook Air jumped $200 to $13.3.00.000. bucks. Base MacBook Pro went up $300 to $2,000 per machine. The iPad Pro is up $200 to $1,200, and the iPad Air rose by $150. Across the board, Macs went up about 15 to 20 percent, and iPads went up 15 to 25 percent.

Starting point is 00:12:01 Apple stock price dropped by about 5.5 percent on the news, and this story, I think, is a lot more important than people are giving it. And the reason is the whole story here, because it's not tariffs and it's not Apple getting greedy. It's memory chips. It's all the rage. It's all we talk about. And there are two kinds in every device, D-RAM and NAND-D. The chips that store your stuff and let everything run smoothly. According to a research firm called Tech Insights, the price of both of these has quadrupled in the last 12 months. That's quadrupled. And they're projecting its keeps climbing even more into next year. That's just bonkers to me. like quadrupled. Oh my gosh. So these big AI companies building the data centers,

Starting point is 00:12:42 they need a staggering amount of billions and billions of dollars worth of this stuff for these memory chips. And so they're going out and they're buying it all. So what's left for everyone else is, well, what's left. And then the prices, economics 101 supply and demand, make prices move up and down because of that. And it is, it's staggering, Robert. Quadrupled is insane to think about. Yeah, in such a short period of time. And Apple put out a flat statement. saying they've never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly. And this is Apple, one of the most powerful supply chains that has ever existed. And if they can't absorb it, nobody can.

Starting point is 00:13:21 That is why it's not just an Apple story. It's phones, laptops, gaming consoles, and even cars. They all use these chips and they're all getting more expensive. So Austin, this is a lot to swallow for our listeners and even us, us investors. What does this mean for you and your money? You mentioned game consoles. Before I get into that, I saw another headline that Microsoft raised the price of their Xbox three times now, just in the last 13 months because of this memory stuff. So it's like, you're right.

Starting point is 00:13:51 It's impacting everything. And on the spending side, so let's just like zoom out for a second and think like, okay, maybe I'm a customer of Apple, this is an actionable headline for you. Because if you actually need a MacBook or an iPad or something of that nature, I would buy one sooner rather than later. shortages like this run in cycles that are measured in quarters in years, not weeks and months. So experts are saying that prices could climb further into 20207. Again, if you go to college in the fall and you need a MacBook or some sort of Apple device, go get ahead of that, go buy that, because maybe waiting for, you know, a couple months from now, a couple weeks, whatever, like that could mean a higher price in the future. I don't know. But we're obviously seeing

Starting point is 00:14:31 price hikes and speculation of that into 2007. A really quick call out. habit here for you. Don't sleep on those refurbished last-gen models. I've got a 2002 MacBook Pro 2023. Works great. It's awesome. Go find one of those. Way more affordable, I'm sure. You don't have to go buy the brand new thing like you're going to be just fine. The companies with real pricing power now are the boring ones that make the physical guts, memory, the storage, and the picks and shovels. So when even Apple can't escape the bill, that tells you exactly who's holding. the leverage, and that is showing up in Micron's earnings. The stock alone is up 286% year-to-date, and their revenue exploded by 346% this quarter alone. Unbelievable, Robert. Absolutely

Starting point is 00:15:20 unbelievable. Now, as always, let's jump over to our radar points. These are sort of Robert and I's show and tell. I've got three stories that I thought were pretty interesting. Robert's got three as well. And we're just going to bring them some quick points here, top to bottom. I'll go first. my three that I'm talking about, Robert. I've got Oracle cutting 21,000 jobs. I've got PCE inflation coming in hotter than expected. And third, a Chinese supercomputer taking the spot as the number one fastest computer in the world, right? Let's talk about that. That's interesting. So before we get to that, though, Oracle. Let's talk about Oracle. They shed 21,000 jobs over the last year, 13% of their workforce. They dropped from 162,000 employees to 141,000 employees

Starting point is 00:16:05 They took $1.84 billion in severance costs to do this. And the reason you cut the headcount and you pour the savings into AI data centers. And we know that Oracle has got some big remaining performance obligations, like close to a trillion dollars or whatever they say it is, which means that they need to build the data centers to make the revenue. So they're firing people, they're laying them off, they're taking the savings, and they're putting that into data centers. Meta, Amazon, they're both doing the same thing.

Starting point is 00:16:33 Now, the weird takeaway is that these companies are, openly reshaping how workforces are taking place now with the rise of AI. And the idea of we're investing in AI increasingly now just means we're hiring less and less people. I don't believe that story though. I think AI is good. I think more AI is more production for more people and you need more people to run this business now because everyone's so capable. But we'll see. We'll see how it shakes out. Second story, PCE inflation came in hotter than expected. This is the Federal Reserve's favorite inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures index. This was released on Thursday. Headline, PCE was 4.1%. Highest it's been in three stinking years, Robert. Holy smokes.

Starting point is 00:17:20 Unbelievable. Core PCE ticked up from 3.3 to 3.4. Inflation is not cooling the way that everyone had hoped. And a big chunk of that pressure is the exact memory chip and AI buildout story that we're talking about with Apple. So what does this mean for everyone? It means that do not count on the Fed to be cutting interest rates at all in 2006. I think we've got a 60% chance right now that they're going to raise interest rates at least once in 2006. And Bank of America, Robert, just came out this week talking about three interest rate hikes in 2006 for the Federal Reserve. I don't believe it. I think that's bonkers. I hope that does that happen. That will crash the stock market. but something that that bank is projecting.

Starting point is 00:18:03 My last story, a Chinese supercomputer taking the number one spot for the world's fastest supercomputer. So this took place for the first time in years earlier this week, a supercomputer in China named Lineshine clocked in 22% faster than the top U.S. supercomputer that's based over in California. China, now this is the weird part, built this completely on their own. This is their own processors, their own memory, their own cooling. We've got U.S. export restrictions holding China back on the best technology. But despite those restrictions, Robert, China went and they built their own world's fastest supercomputer. So when you see, you know, politicians talking about the U.S. China tech race and chip war and things like that, this is exactly what they're talking about. Yeah, those are some great callouts.

Starting point is 00:18:58 and I love the Bank of America quote because I saw the other day that they also said that they felt that silver was going to be $325 an ounce, I think the headline was by the end of this year. And I thought like, wait a minute,

Starting point is 00:19:11 is Bank of America getting into the clickbait world? But I looked it up and verified it. And they said that their best bull case was $325 an ounce by the end of this year. So that's crazy. That, yeah, Bank of America's throwing out some crazy, uh,

Starting point is 00:19:25 definitely. Crazy headlines here, guys. They definitely are. Take a chill pill. Go take a lab. Go somewhere for the summer and come back later. Speaking of summer, Robert, we are very much in the summer here in 2006. Independence Day, Fourth of July, all of that is right around the corner. And I'll tell you what, with the recent all-time highs we saw in the S&P at the beginning of June, uncertainty, especially here with the June swoon we've experienced in the markets, has never felt so high.

Starting point is 00:19:49 These indices are all over the place, the Federal Reserve. I mean, the rate cuts we just talked about, inflation, everything is feeling kind of wonky. Which is why it's never been more important to have a plan and stick to it. And if you're a long-term investor like us, that plan has never been easier to come up with and implement, just dollar cost average and ride the wave. Don't get caught up in all these headlines. Don't try to time the markets. It just won't work.

Starting point is 00:20:14 Yeah. Don't go look at that Bank of America headline and think it's real, okay? Now, we've been talking about how important it is to dollar cost average for years now. And when the market feels shaky, it could feel hard and weird and you don't see the progress you're actually making, which is why we recommend being a part of a social platform called Blossom social, because on Blossom, you're able to see your entire portfolio in a very clean and simple way, your performance, your holdings, your dividends, all of it is included there right in front of you on Blossom. You're also able to follow other long-term investors on the platform like Austin and myself,

Starting point is 00:20:48 helping you stay motivated during these uncertain times, not to mention the portfolios on Blossom are all verified. So if you're seeing someone buy or sell a name, it's because they actually own it in their own brokerage account. We're both on there. My portfolio's there. Robert's portfolio is there. He has way more followers than I do. Y'all care too much about Robert's portfolio. Nothing about mine. I get it. I get it. But if you want to go check out both of our portfolios, you can search us. You can search Blossom, first off in the app store or just go to Blossomsocial.com. Then you search us on Blossom. You can follow us. You can see what we got. It's having a good time. Link in the show notes below. So Robert, I'm excited to dig into your radar points. Walk us through them. Definitely radar point number one is Walmart spends $1.4 billion to buy an ad tech firm to compete with Amazon.

Starting point is 00:21:36 Walmart made its biggest acquisition in two years buying a French advertising company called vibe.co for $1.4 billion. It might sound random for a retailer until you realize advertising is one of the most profitable businesses on the internet and Walmart wants a bigger piece of it. Vive helps small businesses run ads on streaming TVs, and this is Walmart copying Amazon's playbook. It turns out that the real money isn't just selling the product, it's selling the ad space next to it, and Walmart definitely needed some catching up to do so. I think this is actually a good move for them, because everyone talks about Amazon, but most people don't talk about Walmart.com, the online version that competes with Amazon. My second radar point today is IBM, that's $11 billion that quantum computing is finally real.

Starting point is 00:22:28 IBM says it's done treating quantum computing as a science experience and is ready to build it into a real business. They're launching a new chip foundry called Anderon, a billion dollars from IBM and another billion from the Trump administration, plus nine billion more over five years to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer called Starling targeted for 2029, and now they're There's a public name attached to it. This one's interesting to me. We've been talking about quantum for a while.

Starting point is 00:22:59 I've forewarned all of you to just take it easy. It's going to be a while before it comes to reality. And this story really backs that up. And Austin, my third radar point today is Congress passes its biggest housing bill since the 1980s. Congress passed the most ambitious housing legislation since the Reagan era this week, the 21st century Road to Housing Act. Over 50 provisions aimed at making it easier to build homes. The votes were lopsided and bipartisan,

Starting point is 00:23:27 and the House passed it 358 to 32 a day after the Senate approved it 85 to 5. What it does is it speeds up federal environmental reviews, loosens rules on manufactured homes, and get this, just dropping the requirement that manufacturer at homes include a metal frame chassis could save up to $10,000 a unit and ties cities' federal funding to how much housing they actually produce and it even bans large investors from buying up single family homes. Here's the catch. The home builders themselves are basically shrugging and saying,

Starting point is 00:24:01 hey, this comes with zero dollars and Congress can't touch the thing that actually clogs up home building in America and that is local zoning and building codes. I think this is really going to be helpful, but at the end of the day, we still have to see states and localized administrations get it together so this doesn't take soul. long. We've had building projects already where getting through the processing just to start digging and do a project is over a year long. And that is one of the biggest problems in housing and in building today because you're just eating up all your capital in a waiting game trying to go ahead and build. So I'm really excited about this one. I hope they've really figured out

Starting point is 00:24:42 nationwide, not just through Congress, but localized in state local levels as well, because it'll change the game and actually make things less expensive to build. build so we can actually have affordable housing. Oh, man. I think my favorite one that is the Walmart. I think Amazon has a wonderful advertising business, and that has been driving a lot of their operating and free cash flow over the years. And I think if Walmart can actually turbocharge their acquisition of vibe.co and turn that into a way for them to really make some ad dollars. I mean, let's think about it. Walmart's net profit margins 2%.

Starting point is 00:25:16 One and a half, two, two and a half percent. You get a high margin business like average. advertising bolted onto that. We saw Amazon do it. We saw Uber do it, right? We see these businesses do advertising. I think that could be a catalyst for the stock. I really do. I'm not sure how that's going to shake out. I think we have more to come on that one, but I appreciate you calling it out. Yeah, I really appreciate you bringing that back up because I look at it from my perspective from the street. With silly bands being on Amazon and Walmart.com, we probably do 50 to 60 times more revenue on Amazon.com, then we do Walmart.com. So if that gives you any indication of the difference, even though they're both these behemoth companies, of how far ahead of Walmart Amazon is,

Starting point is 00:26:00 I think this could be a really, really good move for Walmart long term. Now, Robert, before we jump to our interview with Rob Wiesenthal, please, everybody, do us a major favor. Our friends at ETF Central are running their annual global ETF survey for both retail and professional investors. They're looking for feedback. specifically from the rich habits community. The survey takes a couple of minutes, helps capture how investors are using ETFs, what they're looking for next,

Starting point is 00:26:25 and where the ETF market may be headed. So please, please, please, do us a favor. Click the link in the show notes, fill it out. Just a couple minutes. Thank you so much. We don't ask for much from you guys. ETF Central is a great partner of ours, and all it takes is a couple of minutes.

Starting point is 00:26:41 So do us a solid. We give a lot of value here. Go check it out. Fill out the survey and help us out with this. We can give better information and ETF Central can better serve you. Thanks, everyone. And let's now jump to our conversation with Rob Wiesenthal. All right, so a few weeks ago on the Rich Habits Radar,

Starting point is 00:26:58 we covered Joby Aviation's demonstration flight from JFK Airport into Manhattan. It was one of those moments where the future suddenly feels very real. Because for years, air taxis sounded like science fiction. Then all of a sudden, you're now watching someone fly from the airport into Manhattan in a fraction of the time it would take if they were just. sitting in traffic. But the harder question is, how do you build an actual business around that? How do you create customer demand, operating infrastructure, terminals, routes, and trust, most importantly, trust, before the next generation of aircraft is even ready? Well, today's guest

Starting point is 00:27:36 has spent the last decade doing exactly that. We're joined by Rob Wiesenthal, founder and CEO of Blade, which is now a Joby company. And I want to give a lay of the line. here because before launching Blade in 2014, Rob had an incredible career spanning finance, media, and technology. He served as CFO of Sony Corporation of America, led global corporate development and M&A for Sony, served as C.O of Warner Music Group, and before that was a managing director of Credit Suisse,

Starting point is 00:28:08 focused on digital media and entertainment. Benny did something most executives in those positions probably wouldn't do. He left and started an aviation, company. Over the last decade, Blade has grown into one of the world's leading short-distance aviation platforms. In 2024, alone, Blade flew nearly 100,000 passengers through a network of 12 urban terminals spanning New York City and Southern Europe. And perhaps most importantly, Blade figured out how to build the customer base, infrastructure, and operating footprint for urban air mobility before electric air taxis ever arrived. And that's one of the reasons Joe

Starting point is 00:28:47 be acquired Blades Passenger business in 2025. Rob, welcome to the show. We're definitely excited about this. We've been talking about this sector, this emerging trend and where it's going and how it's real now for quite some time. And we're really excited to have you. Thank you for having me. It is an exciting time to say the least.

Starting point is 00:29:07 Well, Rob, I want to start with your founder story because it's not exactly a traditional path. You are successful in finance. You are successful at Sony. you were successful at Warner Music, what made you leave those worlds behind and decide that short distance aviation was the opportunity worth spending

Starting point is 00:29:24 the next decade of your life building? A couple things. I never viewed the vision that I have for Blade to be really completely just about aviation. I viewed it as much more experiential and building a brand and a level of hospitality in a business that previously

Starting point is 00:29:45 had none. Helicopters were always like a B-to-B business. You'd see ads. It'd be the helicopter landing in front of the office building with two, you know, white guys with gray hair shaking hands and like handing like a document to the briefcase. You know, no livery on the aircraft with brands. You know, you go to what we call an FBO, these terminals that are for private jets and they have elementary school lighting and bad coffee and like lazy boys.

Starting point is 00:30:14 Like none of it made any sense to me. And most importantly, what didn't make sense was the fact that no one disaggregated the seats in an aircraft. They were only via a welfare charter. And when I was CFO of Sony, aviation reported into me. And they had two jets in New York, two jets in Europe, a jet in Japan, in addition to a helicopter in New York. The helicopter didn't get a lot of use. So in order to have it made more money, decided to put it in a 135 certificate to allow it to be out there for charge. And watching the charter company, you manage the aircraft, try to sell it, market it.

Starting point is 00:30:52 And it was $6,000 to fly the airport. Back then, you had a fax in your wiring details. And you went somewhere in a pile, come out, reading a slip of paper where you were going. I mean, it made no sense. So the thought was if I could use mobile technology to aggregate people going to the same place at the same time, there might be a business there. And the first thing that came to mind was the friction that you have in the summer with people going to resort areas outlaw now in the East Ends, particularly the Hamptons. And the ability to take a three to five hour drive and turn into a then 35 minute flight.

Starting point is 00:31:30 And that was the birth of blade. It started for $50,000. It was we incubated it while I was at Warner Music. And then after a tremendous first summer where it was profitable, that, first summer, that next year, I really wasn't happy on the trajectory of the company. And I thought it could be much bigger. And I decided to do it full time. And then we took off from there, raised money from people that I've worked with before, like Barry Diller and David Zazel, the CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery, Eric Schmidt from Google and others, all people I've

Starting point is 00:32:11 worked with in business and technology who were super helpful. And we then expanded it to the medical business and became the largest air transport of human organs in the United States. That business actually ended up getting larger than Blade itself for over $200 million of revenue and close to around $35 million, I believe, you know, occurring your estimated by analysts to EBITA. We took the company public. And then last year, as you said, we sold the passenger division to Jobi. and the blade that is just medical remains public and it's called strata critical and is doing really well. But right now I'm CEO of the Blade Division for Jobian, I'm chairman of Old Blade, which is now called Strata Critical, which is that really terrific medical company that

Starting point is 00:33:00 really saves lives and improves outcomes or people all over the country for heart, livers and won't bring explains. That is incredible. Thank you so much for walking us through that. I did not know all that backstory. That's so cool. So let's talk a little bit about the passenger side of it because I think that's where a lot of our listeners get excited and they think that's sexy. You started with this conventional aircraft. You built the routes. You built the demand. You built the customer trust. You built the infrastructure before now Joby is thinking, okay, let's build some of these evitals and before they were even ready. So why was that such an important insight early on. Why not wait until the actual Evital or wait until the actual product

Starting point is 00:33:41 exists and you see the demand coming for it before you build out the infrastructure to support it? Well, the infrastructure, you know, Bladis profil today and the infrastructure we have accommodates helicopters, right? When I started the company, I specifically did not name the company Blade Helicopter. It was called Blade Air Mobility because we knew the battle on the ground was it going to happen in the air? And the biggest impediment to growth is noise. With less noise, you have more places to land. That's why if you come to New York, where we're lucky enough to have Blaylounge East, Blay Lounge West, Blay Lounge, Wall Street, where helicopters land, they're all on the water. And they used to be in areas where there weren't a lot of people. Now, Hudson Yards is

Starting point is 00:34:25 phenomenal, but basically this was a deserted area that eventually gentrification encroached to it. So the heliport is still there. So it really is a little bit like city 2.2 because on the west side, we have 50,000 people who live and work and recreate in Hudson Yards. So we knew early on that there was going to be a point that in order to grow the business, we had to add to the convenience because if you want to go somewhere and you can jump on any type of vertical aircraft across the street, you're more likely to do that than if you have to get into an Uber and go to a Blade lounge 20 minutes away. So they're heat maps all around these different lounges. And one of our biggest routes, as you may know, is going from the west side or the east side to

Starting point is 00:35:12 either JFK and Newark Airport. We do that six days a week, 12 hours a day for the price of an Uber black, sometimes less. It's a $195, even sometimes it's $95 if you purchase an annual airport pass. That is a four and a half a minute to eight minute flight, depending if you're owner JFK or Newark, and we know it probably could take a two-hour drive. So that's a game changer and probably the very first use case for Joby's aircraft here. But we also knew that there was going to be a cohabitation phase. It's not like a light switch where the day that the Joby aircraft is certified and ready for commercial service, all the helicopters are going to go away. You know, obviously the tolerance in terms of, you know, making sure the aircraft is right for

Starting point is 00:36:00 people, safety issues. You don't have obviously the body of statistics in terms of the kind of operating conditions that can go in. You're now operating the wild. So you're going to see people kind of going back and forth between using Joby aircraft and helicopters. At some point, there will be a transition where the very short distance stuff, like the airports, will be Joby aircraft with maybe a longer distance like the Hamptons or certain areas in the south of France, say Monaco to Santa Pei or Geneva to Corchabelle will still be helicopters. And then over time, as you know, battery capacity and longevity is increasing exponentially all the time. There will be a complete swap out. And that's why we were asked of light. We never owned any aircraft ever at Blade.

Starting point is 00:36:47 What we do is we enter to capacity use agreements with our operators. They have to meet our specifications on pilot hours, 1,000 hours for a Blade pilot versus a 150, you know, for most people to be able to fly, use our livery, pass our safety, financial wearwithal tests. You know, we have a very deep safety team at Blade and even more so now with Joby. These are technology and softwares.

Starting point is 00:37:14 They don't have to worry about accounting, marketing. Credit card disputes, we handle it all. But we're deciding where those aircraft are going and how they're used, and they're also exclusive to us. And I'm jumping ahead here, but why did you use and choose that asset light model? And what did it teach you about scaling a transportation business efficiently? You mentioned, you know, profitable first year. Like, why did you choose that?

Starting point is 00:37:39 Why don't you just say, hey, I'm going to go buy a helicopter, put some people on payroll. Like, walk us through that. Yeah, there are a lot of reasons. In terms of getting to market quickly, super helpful. in terms of focus, which is the entire ecosystem of the service, everything from customer acquisition to a consumer-facing app to lounges or creating an experience, flyer relations on the phone, flyer experience, people on the ground, marketing, both everything from digital to even, you know, linear TV, all these core competencies, you know, root optimization,

Starting point is 00:38:18 all the customer service, signing work. you go how to price it to now layer on maintenance, training, hangers, insurance, you know, engine issues, FAA, we're managed by the DOT. That was a lot. But also when you think about the original thesis, which was to make this transition, much easier to make this transition when you don't own the iron. We have, we get to eventually be working with someone like Joey, which we're happy to do. So we did see that. If we were going to be a helicopter company forever, over the long term it might have made sense but given our trajectory you know since we went public in 2021 acid light felt important but also remember this in the beginning it was all seasonal so what happens

Starting point is 00:39:03 to those helicopters when it's the fall in the winter and people aren't going to summer resort destinations you're dealing with hangers insurance all this overhead maybe you know lease expenses on on an aircraft all that stuff. And so we did as many of the companies that we work with, for instance, do news gathering when they're not working with Blade. Some would do very high-end tours. They would have other businesses as to plant them when Blade wasn't giving them business. So really super worked out well until we became year-round because the airport product, as you'd imagine, and just general charter is a year-round product. But at the start, it was critical.

Starting point is 00:39:47 That's fascinating. I appreciate you walking us do that. Yeah, so a lot of people, this really intrigues me because when they hear about helicopter travel, you know, I immediately assume, you know, that they're going to be for celebrities and billionaires and athletes and all of that. But you've flown already over 100,000 passengers annually and have spent years studying this customer behavior. So who is actually a blade customer today? and what have you learned about all of the demand for this short distance travel? Because I live my day fully. Everyone that works with me knows I don't like friction.

Starting point is 00:40:25 So this is right in my wheelhouse. But walk our listeners through. Who is this for and who's the everyday customer? Because as this scales, it's not going to be just billionaires and celebrities. It's going to be businessmen and everybody alike. So walk us through that a little bit. The, you know, it's interesting because the, it isn't all billionaires and celebrities. It's actually quite a few of those.

Starting point is 00:40:52 No company flies more people buy a helicopter in the world than blade outside the military or other than gas. Period. For A to be travel. So it's super big. And we're now at the price where we often break Uber black. So when you look at things like airport routes and such, you could probably take, you know, someone who says, whether it's a splurge or they do it quite often,

Starting point is 00:41:20 I'm taking an Uber black. So it isn't really as hyper-rich as you may think. But what we do find, which is really interesting, which most people don't want to talk about, is this is obviously bladed and kind of invented a model of jump, you know, get on a nap, and in 15 minutes, jump on a helicopter, have a great experience in a lounge and get somewhere.

Starting point is 00:41:47 The early adopters of that, the ones that either have the creativity say, hey, I want to remove this friction or I want to have this experience, they tend to be wealthier. It's not unlike, you know, who were the first people buying some new technology, even though it was affordable.

Starting point is 00:42:04 So from my perspective, it's terrific, you know, you have it out, you have these kind of early adopters and they're very opinionated, and they have a great social presence, and they talk about things they like, and it kind of filters down. So it's a little bit of self-selection. So I've always been very surprised having a product that is so affordable, yet it still does skew pretty wealthy.

Starting point is 00:42:28 We know there are a lot of people who can afford this who aren't using Blade. And I think that's for two reasons. It's that kind of I'm set in my ways, I know how open-minded am I, which sometimes can create a, you know, Britain needs to reduce friction, which can be a little bit of the self-selecting process for people who time is money and want to make more of it. But also, I think as you, you know, more people hear about it and they, it's a lot of its word of mouth, they're going to get more comfortable with it.

Starting point is 00:43:01 But there's also, I think, a stigma we have to realize. Like there is an iconography of that helicopter in the sky and that wealthy person. So when we go, we spent a lot of money on marketing, but when you go to someone on the street, we've done her on service, how much do you think a helicopter, JFK costs? People say $1,000. I can spend millions marking $195. It's very difficult to get in people's heads.

Starting point is 00:43:26 But it's happening. It's happening. I think we've given, we've gotten rid of a lot of the stigma in the, and definitely that was there before. We're not completely done. And I think when the Joby aircraft comes up to. service and it's quiet and it's a mission free and the price starts to go down. I think that, you know, to use the overused term democratization, I think, well, that path will really start,

Starting point is 00:43:51 you know, to be visible. Yeah, I definitely agree because Austin and I, I believe we were together in New York, late for an event, stuck in traffic and we were discussing when all of this was, you know, at scale. What's it going to cost us to do that? instead of being this car stuck in traffic for two hours. So that is just an incredible situation to think about for the price of an Uber Black that we can just be like, boom, and just be there and save an hour and a half stuck in traffic. So that's incredible.

Starting point is 00:44:23 Very few ways in life you can buy time. Yeah, so true. It's fascinating you say that because I remember that conversation, Robert, we're in the car, we're asking ourselves. Because one, I didn't know now that the $195, I'm going to go do this. Like I'm definitely going to do this, Rob. So thanks for call that out. And I hope everyone listening right now also now kind of makes that flip, that switch in their brain to try that as well.

Starting point is 00:44:43 But I remember, like, it was, I think it was JFK, and we were in traffic for two hours. Between our aircraft landing and getting our luggage and getting to the hotel was like two and a half hours. And it was unbelievable. And a lot of that was sitting in a car. And I remember Robert and I have this conversation of like, how much would you pay right now if we were not in this car? And we were on one of these helicopters or one of these Jobies. And we were just at our hotel in five or ten minutes. We're going, I'd pay $400.

Starting point is 00:45:10 Oh, I'd pay $600, right? And it's just $195, baby, $195. So good. And I think what it is, and you're right, Rob, as the education gets out there more and people get used to it and lose that stigma that a helicopter is for rich people only and Joby, these EV-Talls become at scale, I think people will really start to latch on of this. And it's going to be incredible because we will not need.

Starting point is 00:45:36 to lose all that time stuck in traffic anymore. And I can't wait for those days and to have it here in Florida near me and everywhere around the country. I'm so excited for that. You know, it's interesting because one of the things that people don't think about and when you think about what a city 2.0. look like. And, you know, we're really dealing with, you know, streets that have been, you know, largely

Starting point is 00:45:56 the same from anywhere from the 16 to the 1800s. And when we ran out of space for people to live, we started building up. So now that we're running at a space. space in terms of transport on the grounds. We have underground, we have the ground with everything from, you know, Ubers to maybe soon, railroad taxis, you know, city bikes. Then we have that kind of second layer. Then we have the fourth layer, which is that kind of the high altitude aircraft and the commercial aircraft. And you have that middle layer, which I believe is Blade and Joby. And to really make ourselves much more efficient and productive, we need to take advantage

Starting point is 00:46:32 that layer. And what I would say is that, you know, Blade as a joint venture in Mumbai, in India, it's in Mumbai Shiredin Mahalakshmi, actually, sorry, Pune. And the roads are so difficult, the traffic's so crazy. I've had executive say, you know, I used to come to India and do three meetings over five days. I now do that in one day. And in New York City, you're going to see the same thing. People are going to plan their day and they say, well, I got to go to the dentist, uptown and I have to go a meeting over here and their biggest transportation is going to be waiting for the elevator and going through security. And I think, you know, just think about the idea of people having five meetings instead of three in one day because they're using

Starting point is 00:47:18 intra-city urban air mobility. That will be a reality. And what does that economically do to a city? It's pretty massive. It's going to change a lot of things. So and the value of real estate. You know, Jobin and I have spoken a lot of a lot about this in the past. you know, you're going to have areas that are within distance for these aircraft where isn't convenient to Metro North, isn't convenient to Long Island Railroad, not great roads, lots of traffic coming in, where all of a sudden it could change the architecture of how we value property. So it's a very, it's a very big platform and a very, you know, large shift that you're going to see that has impacts that we haven't really completely understood yet.

Starting point is 00:48:01 I want to talk a little bit more about that sort of, you know, how you guys were acquired by Joby and getting kind of pulled into all this, right, from the passenger side of it. Because Joby wasn't just acquiring the brand of Blyde. They were acquiring customers and terminals and operational expertise and decades worth of trust in some of the most valuable urban transportation markets like you just mentioned all around the world. So from your perspective, what made the combination of Joby and Blade so strategically powerful? I think that to really grow, as we said before, you need more landing zones. To get more landing zones, you need quiet aircraft. The quiet aircraft that can do these missions are Evita. When you take a look at the entire panorama of Evitae companies, and as you can imagine, we had a first, you know, first row seat for many, many years

Starting point is 00:48:53 looking at every company out there, both public and non-public. Who should we be partnered with? clearly this is a transition. We need to have a partner to help us transition to this. Without question, we found Joby to be the most advanced aircraft out there. The closest to certification, the best financial wherewithal, the highest level of technology. They've been doing it working at since 2009. Blade has only started in 2014.

Starting point is 00:49:24 And when I look at the other companies, it was a lot of rush to kind of come up with this idea to go, public with a SPAC or it kind of they reverse into it. And what I always tell people is, we've done demos all over the world with Jobi. Take a look at an aircraft, an EV tall, and is it transitioning from flying kind of like a helicopter and then transitioning props to flying on wing like a plane? Are they doing that with a pilot? And are they doing that in a city center? If the answer is yes, they're pretty far advanced. I have not found any companies doing that besides Joby. And as I said, we're doing demos all over the world.

Starting point is 00:50:03 So I just think they're pretty, they're really far advanced. I think that that spread is going to continue. A great team, Jobin is probably one of the best and most creative technologists and not engineers that I've met in my career. And I can't think of a better partner, you know, for Blade. And I think what we're going to do is supercharge and de-risk their commercialization strategy. And I think that many aspects of Blade will become the service platform for Joby. I could not agree more.

Starting point is 00:50:35 And I am fascinated every time I see something cool that Max and the Joby team shares with me that's posted somewhere. It's either in the U.S. or it's somewhere around the world. Like the tech is unbelievable. So, Rob, before you wrap up, I want to zoom out. You spent your career helping build businesses across finance, media, technology, and now aviation. When you look back across all of those experiences, what lessons have remained true regardless of the industry? And specifically for all of the entrepreneurs listening today, what's the biggest lesson you've learned about building an entirely new category from scratch and how others can utilize that experience and that knowledge from you? I wish there was only one.

Starting point is 00:51:21 There isn't. But what I would say is building a company from scratch, what I always try to do is take the best of big companies that I found and eliminate the weak parts. Take the best of small companies that I found and eliminate the weak parts. So for big companies, lots of great financial diligence, really strong organization, really strong progress, really strong process. But lots of bureaucracy. bureaucracy, politics, multilayers.

Starting point is 00:51:55 Small companies, a lot of radical transparency, not so much politics, maybe not as much financial rigor or process,

Starting point is 00:52:06 put those into a blender and take the best of both. I think that what's work for me here

Starting point is 00:52:15 and building Blay from scratch is the first employee. And again, I told you, We started for $50,000, you know, I lent person at the company, $400,000 to get through a winner during COVID.

Starting point is 00:52:28 So we've seen, you know, good, we have great days and not so great days. Fewer people working harder is much better than having an incredibly large team where you may have executives that either are not being trained or may not have really well-defined responsibility. When you have an executive that doesn't have a true writ, they're really smart. They're going to try to create things to do. That creates a process, bureaucracy, politics. If people are working really hard, they're just focused on their work. And if you get to a point where you hit tilt and you need more people, you can always do that. But you can't always look at additional employees as an asset. Sometimes it can be a liability. So definitely lean, mean, work hard. And especially

Starting point is 00:53:16 for young people work out of an office. No remote. No remote. Wait, talk about that. Why do you believe that so much? Especially in our business where apprenticeship is so important. If you're dealing with whether it be selling a charter or dealing with an IRE great customer who's doing a flight, hearing the person next to you is super important. An apprenticeship as well.

Starting point is 00:53:43 So, you know, we've been five days in the office since the start. And there's no question a lot. It didn't work for a lot of people. But there is, without question, I think it has definitely helped created some elements of the DNA and levels of collaboration that just do not happen over Zoom or Slack. Yeah, 100% Rob, I agree with you. We have a struggle because we have so many remote employees around the country where they just kind of call it in. And a lot of times they're overbooking and we know they're not doing as much. work as they're claiming if they're hourly. And it's just really hard. And I think the most important takeaway from me out of what you just said is the collaboration aspect. When you're sitting next to someone and you're hearing them and you're vibing with them and you're going through projects, you get way more done than you're going to get done in two or three Zoom meetings and calls. And so I really love that takeaway coming from someone like you with the experience

Starting point is 00:54:40 you have. I appreciate it. It's, but what's work for me. I'm not saying it's for everyone. Yeah. but that definitely I feel strongly about it. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the rich Habits Radar, Rob. We really appreciate it. I appreciate the opportunity. Take care, guys. What an awesome conversation with Rob Wiesenthal, CEO of Blade.

Starting point is 00:55:00 So excited. He joined us here on this episode. I am so pumped to hopefully have him back in the future. Thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of the Rich Habits Radar. Last thing I'll share with you here, Google Finance has now rolled out some incredible updates to their actual Google Finance platform. Beforehand, Google Finance was kind of clunky, it was in beta, but now there's some really cool portfolio updates, some really cool interesting ways to get market updates for not just the stocks in your portfolio, but also

Starting point is 00:55:32 your watch list. And they're rolling out a new app exclusively to Android all around the world. We've got a link in the show notes below to that blog post. Go check out the new Google Finance platform. We've got some really cool photos here on screen that you guys can see and partake in and get a better understanding what's going on over there. So shout out Google Finance and shout out all of you all for joining us on this week's episode of the Rich Habits Radar. As always, please, if you learn something, consider sharing this episode with a friend and consider joining the Rich Habits Network, our community for our biggest fans. We're still running a seven-day free trial. That's it for me and we'll see you all on Monday.

Rich Habits Podcast - Robots, Rockets, and Air Taxis w/ BLADE CEO (Rob Wiesenthal)

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