The world is undergoing its greatest transformation since the internet, driven by artificial intelligence (AI), climate tech, and electric vehicles (EVs). Andrew Brill welcomes venture capitalist Tommy Stadlen, co-founder of Giant Ventures, to explain how AI is reshaping the economy, transforming our lives, why fixing climate change is the century’s biggest investment opportunity, and how EVs will dominate the car industry by 2035. Discover the trillion-dollar trends shaping our future—and learn how to invest in and benefit from this new era of innovation.
Tommy Stadlen 0:00
AI is the real deal. That is the great new platform shift. I think the impact of it is going to be greater than the internet in terms of the value at stake created for those who have access to the upside. And also think if you’re sitting it out, you are missing out, I think, on something bigger than the internet in terms of the economic returns.
Andrew Brill 0:20
Welcome to wealthion. I’m your host. Andrew brill, if you need help with your financial portfolio, go to wealthion.com. Forward, slash, free for a free, no obligation. Portfolio Review.
Andrew Brill 0:36
I’d like to welcome Tommy stadlin to wealthion. Tommy’s the founder of giant ventures, a global venture capital firm. We’ll talk about what they look to invest in. He’s chairman of tailwind International, and has several has started and sold several companies. Tommy, thanks so much for joining me here on wealthion.
Tommy Stadlen 0:52
It’s great to be with you. Thanks for having me. So let’s
Andrew Brill 0:56
start by asking you, what is giant ventures? What do you guys do? And you know, how did that all come about?
Tommy Stadlen 1:02
Sure. Well, we started giant ventures five years ago now with a really simple mission, which was to back the most ambitious, the brightest, the best, purpose driven technology founders, so backing entrepreneurs who are using technology to build a very big company. So we’re looking for the next multi billion dollar outcome in venture but b companies which are solving a problem that really matters. So think health tech, climate tech, you know, inequality, the big global themes that really matter to society. So it’s less about backing the next food delivery or social media site, and more about backing the next Tesla. And so we do that in various forms. We have an early stage fund which backs entrepreneurs right at the beginning of their journeys, with a seed fund where we’re leading seed rounds with the first institutional money backing these entrepreneurs. And then we have a slightly later stage fund which comes in once these companies scale to about 10 million of revenue and help them on the path to becoming public companies or companies ready to be acquired. So
Andrew Brill 2:04
explain to me how a startup can compete with the big guys. You’re talking about tech. Obviously, we think about Nvidia, we think about Tesla, which you mentioned. But when you’re looking at a startup that’s got a great idea or great technology. How do they compete? Right out of the gate,
Tommy Stadlen 2:24
it’s a great question, and it’s one we often ask. So many entrepreneurs will have an idea, and you’ll say to them, okay, but what if Google does this? Or what if Apple does this? And entrepreneurs hate that question. It actually used to be less relevant than it is now. So previously, you would say, Look incumbents in whatever industry, they are slow moving. They really struggle to innovate. We know that about big companies. It is very, very difficult for large corporations to continue to innovate outside of the core business of what they do. And so traditionally, you would look at it and go, Well, okay, startups, they can move much faster. They can have a small team that is completely dedicated to building something very, very new. And you know, over the years, we’ve seen countless examples of that happening, companies like Google, like Facebook, like Tesla, going from tiny startups with teams of less than 10 at the beginning to trillion dollar companies. Actually, interestingly, I think it is harder now to compete against incumbents, and that’s because the likes of Google, hat and Facebook in particular, have been able to continue to innovate at scale, and that’s something we didn’t see before. So when, when that generation of big tech companies were starting out, they were competing against large corporations who had become very stale and found it difficult to innovate, whereas the current generation of tech giants actually are innovating at scale, and we’re seeing that play out, for example, with open AI and their race against Google, which is absolutely fascinating, but ultimately the answer to your question is a small group of people, sub 10 people, and I think there are very many examples of true global innovation that have started with a team of more than 10 people
Andrew Brill 4:00
have, you have? How hard is it to find these companies? Obviously, you’re into venture capital. They come to you and say, hey, look, we’ve got this great idea, but you have to really find that needle in a haystack and say, You know what? This is one that maybe I can invest it. You know
Tommy Stadlen 4:18
what a needle in a haystack is exactly the right metaphor for this job. It is incredibly hard. So there are 1000s and 1000s of startups being created in the US and Europe, which is where we invest every year. And you get a lot of inbound, as you say. So we get peppered with entrepreneurs who are coming to us and sending us their pitch decks. And we love that. We look at about 5000 companies every year, and you can’t miss amongst that, because, you know, obviously not all of the inbound will be great, but one or two might be fantastic. But actually, a lot of what we do is outbound. It is the team having very clear theses around our investment themes, so climate, health, inclusive capitalism, and then looking for the best startups. And this is a. Very unusual asset class. So many of your listeners obviously are investing in public markets. You know the difficulty is picking the right stocks, but once you pick them, it’s not difficult. You simply place the trade in my world image capital. You’ve got to find the right idea, the right company, but then you’ve also got to persuade them to work with you. So it’s an unusual asset class in that the asset picks you as much as you picking the asset. So as well as doing all of the research, as well as identifying the right companies, you then have got a sales job to do, because the companies you want to invest in, typically, it’s going to be a very competitive situation. You can have a number of different venture capital firms looking to invest, and it’s your job then to persuade the entrepreneur that you’re going to be the right partner, to really help them scale the business
Andrew Brill 5:41
so as a as a public investor like myself that doesn’t really look at private stuff, could I get into the private markets, like, Could I come to you and say, Look, I want to give you some money to put into your venture capital fund and reap the benefit as as well. Well,
Tommy Stadlen 5:56
this is something I feel very passionately about, because it has traditionally been very hard for retail investors or even very sophisticated, you know, Wall Street investors and so on, to get access to private markets. And that might not have mattered as much previously, but it really matters now, because so many of the best technology companies are going public later and later and later. So if you think about something, someone like open AI, you know, that is a multi billion dollar business, right, surpassing $100 billion in enterprise value, and yet it’s still not showing any signs of going public. And we’ve seen the same thing happen over and over again. And so what that means is public market investors, retail investors, but also the institutions, they miss out on those returns, right? Because the high growth phase is happening when these companies are privately held, and it’s a very small number of shareholders on the cap table. And why does that matter? Matters for pension holders who are missing out on hyper growth and instead are getting access to public markets, which might be lower growth. So we try to get around that. You know, somewhat we, as well as 80% of our capital comes from institutional limited partners or investors in venture firms. But we also work with high net worth individuals as well. They want to invest in in giant ventures, to get access to some of those hyper growth companies in the earlier stages, when the real growth happens. And how
Andrew Brill 7:12
does AI play into all that? You know, AI 2024 was all about AI. We’ve turned the calendar, but I would imagine now that it’s, it’s in the look you have the NVIDIA making the hardware, but it’s really the software that’s going to drive all this stuff. And I have a feeling that, you know, there’s going to be companies that develop software, they’re going to come to you and say, Hey, Tommy, this is the next thing about AI. It’s all about the software help us out here. I think
Tommy Stadlen 7:41
that’s right. I think, you know, people in private markets and public markets are always looking for what is the next great paradigm shift in the big platform shift, if you will. And so clearly, you know, desktop computers was one, the Internet was another, mobile was was another. And since mobile, everyone’s been sort of waiting around. And for a minute, people thought, maybe it’s a virtual reality, an augmented reality. The whole VR AR play didn’t really work out. Hasn’t worked out so far at scale. Then people thought it was web three crypto Bitcoin, that’s obviously had huge ups and downs. People have made a lot of money on the coins, but so far, very little actual impact in the real economy, in terms of the transformational impacts of those technologies, Blockchain, things like smart contracts, that hasn’t really played out to the extent that people hope for I think AI is the real deal. That is the great new platform shift. I think the impact of it is going to be greater than the internet in terms of the value at stake created for those who have access to the upside, and also, I think, if you’re sitting it out, you are missing out, I think, on something bigger than the internet in terms of the economic returns. The fascinating question is, at what point are we in the cycle? So you talked about, you know, 2024, being, being sort of a very exciting year for AI, Nvidia running up extraordinary returns. There same thing in private markets, companies getting funded with very little to show other than a pitch deck and a couple of great entrepreneurs with ridiculous valuations at seed stage. The big question is, you know, is this like the the search engineer, where you had the likes of out of Easter and and all those who were the first but ended up failing, and then Google emerged from nowhere and took their lunch. Are we going to see a similar situation where the likes of open AI, they were first movers, but they’re going to get crushed, either by the likes of Google that I talked about earlier, who are able to innovate at scale, or by a new wave of startups that comes along questions that, frankly, no one knows the answers to, but what I think everyone realizes, whether it’s public market investors or private market investors, you simply have to have very significant exposure to the AI cycle, because if you don’t, you will miss out on the equivalent of the internet
Andrew Brill 9:50
boot. So please tell me AI is going to fix the healthcare system here in the United States, I know that you look at the you look at at healthcare innovation. Now, are you talking about health health insurance or health care, whereas robotic surgery and stuff like that,
Tommy Stadlen 10:07
all of the above, you know? So we backed platforms like sesame care in the US, which was started by a former Expedia board member, David Gold Hill, who wrote a best selling article for The Atlantic called catastrophic care. How the US healthcare system killed my father. So a very purpose driven entrepreneur who had, you know, awful experience with US healthcare system himself and then decided to build a company to fix it and to solve some of the perverse incentives that exist in the US healthcare system. So what sesame does is connect underinsured or uninsured Americans directly to doctors, cutting out the insurance companies and therefore driving down the cost of healthcare. So they’ve driven down the cost of healthcare by about 60% I think one of the first institutions ever to actually reduce costs in healthcare rather than having costs in healthcare rise. So that’s one example. But we’ve also backed a company called ataraxis, which is using artificial intelligence to detect breast cancer and treat breast cancer better than a human can. They’re advised by the big Facebook or meta AI guru, Yan la Coon, so an extraordinary team coming out of NYU university there. So that’s kind of picture of some of the companies we back. But to answer your question around AI, I think the most exciting thing around AI and healthcare is that you are now going to have healthcare agents, AI agents. And what can they do? They can work 24 hours a day. They never complain. They’re going to be smarter than a human being. And they just what does work continuously? And that is just a completely transformational fact for healthcare. Because the single biggest reason I believe the US healthcare system and the UK healthcare system, where I’m originally from, are so broken is that you have rising demand and you have insufficient supply of trained doctors, nurses and other healthcare practitioners. And so what AI can do is to alleviate that by producing, in some aspects of healthcare, you know, unlimited supply of highly trained healthcare practitioners who don’t make mistakes and who don’t get tired. That’s a game changer.
Andrew Brill 12:05
Another thing with that you advocate for is climate change. You don’t advocate for climate change, but the war against climate change, which we seem to be losing, but explain to us, you know, we get a lot of people whenever we talk about a company that deals with climate change, or a technology, solar power, whatever it is, people’s Oh, climate change is a hoax. Our incoming president says that, you know, climate change is not a problem and is going to change a lot of the parameters that were put in place by the present administration. Is climate change real? Tommy, and explain to us why.
Tommy Stadlen 12:47
I can, I can assure you that climate change is real. I’m afraid it is. I hate to be the bearer of bad news at the turn of a year, but climate change, very much is real, and it shouldn’t be a partisan issue. I find it really surprising that you know, left versus right have different views on climate change. It’s just the natural environment. And you know, if you look at the US, the Republican Party has an extraordinary history of conservation and looking after the natural environment in the US, you think about US presidents who launch national parks, and that’s always been a go to issue that conservative voters like because they want to protect the environment. And I think it’s just such a shame that it’s become such a divisive issue along partisan lines, because the reality is, climate change is real. You know, anyone listening to this podcast, I’m sure are very data driven, facts driven investors, and just look at the data. The thing I would say is, if it’s a hoax, who has any interest in a hoax, certainly Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Keir Starmer in the UK. None of these leaders want climate change to be real. It would be far, far easier to burn our extensive supplies of coal and just get on with it and not have to worry about the cost of the transition to a net zero economy. The oil companies, the other big incumbent industrial players who have such power in this world, it’s not in their interest for climate change to be real. So I find it hard to believe that some kind of cabal of Greta Thunberg plus some wind power producers have teamed up and have somehow managed to con every clever scientist in the entire world and all of our political leaders to create some fake issue around climate so look at the data, it is real, and then what are we going to do about it? I just urge people, investors in particular, to take action, because if we don’t deal with it, we’ll see catastrophic weather events. And my team at giant have already seen that. We’ve had folks in our Californian geo have flooding and wildfires in their homes. We’ve had flooding here in London that’s hit us right at the heart of Central London, and that’s just the beginning. If we don’t deal with climate we’re gonna have a billion climate refugees. And can you imagine the social, social economic impact of having a billion new refugees? You’ve already seen massive issues in the US and Europe from from migration. So Matt. Disruption to the global economy. So it’s real. It’s got really bad side effects if it happens. And the good news is we can fix it, and we can fix it by creating the biggest investment opportunity of the century. And I truly believe that now, you know, we don’t want to be backing stuff at giant which is uneconomic. It’s in no one’s interest to pump money into Climate Technologies, which require huge subsidy, huge waste. And I think what you’ll see with the Trump administration is they will reduce subsidy to technologies that require this big green premium, which are much more expensive than a hydrocarbon alternative. But I think you’ll see them actually continue to invest behind smart Climate Technology, which powers the AI data centers that the world’s going to need, which powers American homes, which increasingly are going to need more and more energy. So things like nuclear, we’ll see a big renaissance in nuclear. We’ll see a big renaissance in energy efficient microchips. And as I said, renewable energy powering data centers, I think it might get rebranded in the US to kind of American dynamism, rather than climate tech. But ultimately, you know, look at the people around the president. Look at look at Musk himself, who has such an outsized influence right now on Trump, and he created one of the most successful investments of all time in venture Tesla, and it’s a climate company, so it’s here to stay. I don’t think we’ll see everything repealed by Trump, I think on the international stage, for sure, he’ll pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, the UN Paris agreement on climate change. So international action will pause. But the reality, and we could talk about this, the reality, is that the UN has done almost nothing on climate change of any note. Anyway, the real action is done through technology entrepreneurs and at the domestic level, with things like the inflation Reduction Act. So many
Andrew Brill 16:43
questions on your comments, right there. But I want to start by asking you, if we don’t do anything, if we don’t tackle this and it gets worse, what’s the economic impact? Look, you talked about flooding, fires, things like that, weather, it’s what’s the economic impact of us not tackling climate change. I think
Tommy Stadlen 17:05
it depends on the region. But if you think about the US, think about the economic cost of orders of magnitude worse wildfires in California. Think about the economic cost of large chunks of Florida, including Miami, having really awful flooding on an annual basis, even some parts going underwater. Think about all of the farmers in the Midwest who will have a terrible time with incredible droughts, terrible flooding in the winter and the summer. So just a few examples, but none of that stuff is good. It makes it very difficult and costly to ensure your businesses and your homes, and then, if you look around the world, just terrible impacts in terms of the food supply chain will be messed up, and the price of food then skyrockets. So so many impacts. But I think listeners can just picture a world in which you have an order of magnitude increase in the number of catastrophic weather events and those obviously have costs. People think about, you know, typhoons and hurricanes and the awful damage that causes homes and businesses.
Andrew Brill 18:08
So you’re telling me eggs are going to go up in price. Again. I
Tommy Stadlen 18:12
think that’s on the cards. I think it’s on the cards. So
Andrew Brill 18:15
pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, what are the effects? You know, how are we? Is the US going to be looked at as okay? Here he goes again. I would imagine it took the Biden administration some time to get some peace back with our allies after we entered back into it when Trump pulled out the first time, here we are again. What? What, I guess, harm is that going to do once again?
Tommy Stadlen 18:45
But obviously, it would be great if the world could come together and agree a clear plan to attack climate change in a way that’s fair, both for the Western countries who’ve driven their wealth through emissions, and then fair also on the likes of China and India, who are trying to pull their citizens out of poverty and need to admit somewhat to be able to get there. Obviously, that would be great. The reality is, Trump or No, Trump, as I said, the UN climate talks have achieved so little over the 30 years that they’ve been going on. So they call these talks the Conference of Parties. Cop, we’ve just done. Cop 29 I’ve been going to cop since cop 15, back in 2009 and nothing happens. It’s just a bunch of talk. The the agreements have very little teeth, and so it I don’t actually think it is going to be catastrophic to the efforts on climate change that Trump will pull the US out of the Paris Agreement. It’s not great for the reputation of the US around the world, clearly. But I think you know, there are, there are worse impacts, probably, that the Trump administration will have in terms of the reputation of the US around the world and climate. So, yeah, it’s clearly, for the next four years, very little will happen in terms of political global cooperation on climate. The much more important question, in my view, because. That’s already priced in is, to what extent does the Trump administration repeal the climate dollars that flow out of the inflation Reduction Act? Because that really does matter, because that’s catalyzed climate innovation in a huge way in the US. That’s the thing we’re all looking at. You had
Andrew Brill 20:15
an interesting comment about the reduction of those dollars, because a lot of those dollars go to red states. So now you have a republican party that’s getting a lot of those dollars from Ira, the inflation Reduction Act and climate change initiatives. But now Trump is saying, well, we might pull those dollars back. And of course, you know, with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy saying we have to cut money somewhere. There’s gonna be a lot of infighting because there’s no money not going to those states that are Republican.
Tommy Stadlen 20:48
It’s a great point. And I really believe this. I think that the creation of the inflation Reduction Act and the way it was structured was very clever. I was amazed that the Biden administration was able to get it through Congress with some support from Republicans. And I think the reason they were able to do that was they were they were promising that the majority of these climate dollars were going to flow, as you said, to red states, creating red jobs and red investment. And that has been borne out by fact, right? So the vast majority of these investments have been made in red states. And if you’re a congressman or Congresswoman in a Republican zone, you’re going to be thinking, I don’t want these jobs and investments to be taken away. This stuff’s great. I just got elected off the back of it. And so I think what you’ll see is common sense prevail. I think that the most economic projects will be continued to get funding. I do think that some of the longer term innovation will be cut. And that’s a shame, because you do kind of need government to step in to fund some of the climate technology that people like me can’t invest in, right? Because we have to return and invest return capital to our investors in our 10 year venture capital fund lifetime. So we can’t look at things which take 1520, years, these science projects. And typically that is where you want government to step in. That will go, I think, but I think what will stay is, you know, think think about solar, think about a lot. A lot of wind is dramatically lower cost than hydrocarbon. So I think whereas in the old days in the clean tech 1.0 boom and bust, the problem there was that you had capital going into fundamentally uneconomic projects in Climate Technology, this time around, these are great investment opportunities. They’re generating returns very, very quickly. And so I think those common sense will prevail, and you’ll see a lot of that remain, and then some of the more advanced sort of green premium requiring technologies will get cut. So think about things like hydrogen. I’m very bearish on hydrogen in the US, because there is a green premium attached. I think a lot of that will get cut. I think offshore wind is going to have a tough time in the US. But then things like battery storage will will boom. Renewable energy for data centers. And then the big one, I think, is nuclear. I think we’re going to see a nuclear renaissance in the US. I think it fits in very nicely with the muscular nationalism that Trump embodies, it’s American dynamism. I think that will be a clean technology that will really boom over the next four years.
Andrew Brill 23:07
I have a question about that. I was going to ask you about nuclear, because we have to power all of this. AI and Microsoft, obviously, with Three Mile Island. I grew up not too far from Three Mile Island. I really heard about all the all the problems, the leaking of the radioactive waste. Have we solved those problems? Is nuclear? Look, I know nuclear is being used all over the world, and very successfully, but we here in the United States haven’t really adopted it that much. How safe is it now?
Tommy Stadlen 23:40
Well, so the US and where I’m speaking now, the UK, have a similar issue, and it’s a branding issue. It’s a PR issue with with nuclear. And the reality is that nuclear is an incredibly safe technology, and I’m just talking about, you know, the most advanced current nuclear fission technology. Very few people in history have died from nuclear. In fact, far more people have died in other hydrocarbon industries, like coal, oil and gas, if you think about all the accidents. But when, when nuclear accidents have happened? Historically, I think because of the scaremongering and the sort of science fiction nature of it, people have become incredibly wary of it. But if you look in countries like like Germany, they’ve actually changed now, but previously they generated a lot of power from nuclear. France has had, you know, enormous success of generating so much of their power demands from nuclear. And then if you look at countries like Japan, you know, probably one of the most recent large scale nuclear accidents with Fukushima. Actually, the reality was those deaths were mostly caused by a tsunami, right? Tragic events from a tsunami. It wasn’t actually the nuclear waste that killed anyone. So, yeah, I think it’s a branding problem. I think a lot of that was the oil and gas industry successfully lobbying, lobbying government and public. Understandably, you know, it’s against their interest, right? And they were, they were very clever about that. It’s a real shame for the world. They managed to do that. But I think that will, that will go away. So look, I think. It’s such a big flagship moment, isn’t it a big statement that three mile, a three mile is going to be reopened, and I think you’ll see more of that existing sites getting reopened, and then innovation around things like modular nuclear reactors, small scale, modular nuclear reactors that will be launched as well, because we somehow have to power these AI data centers. And look, just stepping back a bit, that is a great example for me of what climate tech is all about. It is about how do we use technology that is going to power and drive profit and the economy while also reducing carbon for the environment? It’s both, right? You’ve got to have an economic rationale for these technologies. This is not about backing stuff for the sake of feeling good about yourself and climate.
Andrew Brill 25:40
And let’s face it, the infrastructure, at least here in United States, is very old. It’s antiquated, and it’s not going to be able to power the amount of look, everybody now has a laptop, it has to be charged. Everybody has a cell phone, it needs but we’re demanding more and more energy, and now with this AI, everything has to be powered. So we need to find safe ways, more ways of of creating energy. And I would assume that you have some people that are trying to figure that out. We
Tommy Stadlen 26:16
do. We do. We’re actually looking at a startup right now, which I won’t name because it’s a live situation, but we’re looking at a startup right now which is exploring, how do you use offshore oil and gas rigs in the US and repurpose them to put data centers offshore using gas that you can then capture so that it’s net zero, but it’s just very efficient use of existing sites to power data centers. So I think we’ll see innovation like that, that we’re looking at nuclear for sure. I think you’ll see a lot of co located renewable power next to these data centers to efficiently power them. And I think what’s going to be necessary, certainly for the nuclear element, but also for the for the other renewables to power these data centers, is we desperately need regulation to get streamlined. So it’s the infrastructure in places like the US and the UK which is struggling, but it’s also at the enormous amounts of red tape, and that’s one area where the Trump administration may well come in and cut a lot of that. So I know that David Sachs, who’s advising the Trump administration, who’s a very experienced venture capitalist, is looking at that to try and cut some of the red tape to allow these things to be advanced a little bit quicker.
Andrew Brill 27:24
What say look at energy is a big sector, and is going to be obviously, we need energy. So that’s something that people continually look at. I know that the energy sector did pretty well in 2024 what are we looking at going forward. I
Tommy Stadlen 27:42
think it’s a kind of All hands to the pump, right? So I think you’ll see solar and wind continue to perform extraordinarily well. So the price of solar just continues to fall and fall and fall. It’s always been a difficult market to play as an investor, because, you know, as prices plummet, sometimes those who’ve invested in solar panel companies, for examples, are struggled but the reality for business, users and consumers has been that the price of solar continues to drop. That will continue to happen. The same with wind. I think you will see this renaissance of nuclear energy, as long as the regulatory approvals are there and there’s a lot of work to be done there. I think with Trump in office, expect oil and gas, onshore oil and gas, offshore oil and gas in the US to boom, and he will turn that back on. It’s not great for climate, but I think it will happen. And then I think the big question is the kind of the protectionism, right? So to what extent does Trump enact very protectionist policies around oil and gas. How does that play into the Gulf region? How does it play into Canada, for example? So so many open geopolitical questions on energy that we need to see answered over the next four years.
Andrew Brill 28:56
So much. So many places here to drill here in the United States, and we haven’t really done it during the Biden administration. Obviously during Trump, they say, drill, baby, drill. Is there a safe way for the environment to do this and to use that energy safely without carbon emissions or or, you know, greenhouse gasses that are going to exacerbate the problem?
Tommy Stadlen 29:21
No, is the quick answer, no. I’m afraid I think the big, the big white hope for for the oil and gas industry, in terms of the kind of the right to exist, all the way to say 2050 so if you think about a world where most advanced nations have said, by 2050 they want to have a completely Net Zero economy, no no net emissions. The only way oil and gas exist in their current business model at that stage is if they can capture the carbon they emit and store it. And that has been something which has never quite worked. It’s never been economic. The technology exists, but it’s never been economic. We. Have an advisory board at giant ventures. It’s Chet. It’s one of its senior members. Is Lord Brown, the former CEO of BP, British Petroleum, the oil and gas company. And John’s a fascinating guy. And you know, led the era of the super major when he started buying up American oil companies like Amoco, when he was CEO of BP, created the third biggest company in the world from a two pipeline, sort of semi nationalized, not very good British company. Now, John has been trying to do carbon capture and storage since 1992 and there was just never the economics to make it work. We’ve actually invested recently in AI technology that can develop new materials, metal, organic frameworks, which can basically suck carbon out the atmosphere more efficiently. And so advances in direct air capture and other forms of carbon capture and storage are coming, but it needs a kind of 3x cost reduction for it to work. And until that happens, it’s not economic. And it means that many of these oil and gas companies may end up with stranded assets, where, you know, you own huge oil reserves or huge gas reserves. And there may come a point, maybe it’s 2030 maybe it’s 2040 where governments around the world simply don’t allow you to exploit those assets anymore, unless you can safely capture the carbon What about
Andrew Brill 31:15
tariffs? Tommy, we have, you know, the President saying, Oh, we want to, you know, Institute all these tariffs on different countries, but a lot of our solar panels come from China. I would imagine the wind turbines and that stuff that’s not made here in the United States either. And the first time President Trump tried to do this, it didn’t increase manufacturing here in that the United States. So we still are going to import those things which are going to cost more money. So how do we combat this? And what are your thoughts on the tariffs as it relates to the climate change issue? Because those those initiatives are going to get more
Tommy Stadlen 31:54
expensive. That’s right. And look even just beyond climate changes for the whole US economy and for the economies of Europe and large economies in Asia. Let’s be honest, tariffs are not going to be good for anyone, because people are going to have tit for tat responses, and it’s just going to drive up cost for everyone. So I don’t think you’ll find a rational economist who can give you or me a very compelling answer as to why tariffs will be a good idea. My hope, and I think a lot of us are expecting this is that Trump is using these tariff threats as just that, as threats to get what he wants, whether it is forcing China to behave in a way that he prefers, whether it is getting Europe to contribute more to defense spending, which he has a real issue about that, right? You know, everyone here in Europe is free riding off the US when it comes to defense, and unless you spend a little bit more, you’re going to, you’re going to pay tariffs. And we’re, you know, we the US, may leave you alone with NATO. So my hope is that these are all threats, and it won’t actually come to fruition, but if we do get these huge tariffs, you know, that is just bad news for every aspect of the economy, not just here in Europe or in Asia, but also in the US. And it’s the talk of the town. You know, it’s a big issue here in the UK. Elon Musk seems intent on toppling the new labor government here in the UK, and everyone in the UK is extremely worried about that fractious relationship with the incoming Trump administration, led particularly by musk, partly because we’re facing 10% tariffs here in the UK on anything going into the US. And very worrying, very, very worrying.
Andrew Brill 33:29
So you brought up Elon Musk again. What are we thinking about EVs? Obviously, Tesla sold fewer cars in 2024 than they had before. Are EVs starting to slow down? Or is that still a technology that is, we know it’s very beneficial, but can that pick up again? Or is it saturated at this point?
Tommy Stadlen 33:52
Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s a great question. There’s been a lot of concern all around the world, really, about the point you just made Have we reached saturation point where the early adopters, those who want an electric vehicle, now have one, and then the rest of the actors in the economy who just don’t want one are not going to buy one? I don’t think that’s right. I think the sort of the minutiae of the rate of adoption that will go up and down slightly over the next year or so, but the direction of travel, in my mind, is so clear, we are going to have a fully electric, uh, automotive sector by 2035 probably before, but at least by 2535 whatever happens, and all of the car manufacturers around the world completely redirected their processes, their talent strategies, their manufacturing strategies to assume that we’re going to go completely electric by 2035 and Musk has driven a lot of that change. He’s kind of dragged an entire industry kicking and screaming into the electric era, whether it’s the German car manufacturers or the Japanese and he’s going to force them to do that in order to keep up with Tesla. Now those moves have been made. I think it’s too late to put the toothpaste back into the tube, and I think anyone who tries to invest against that is going to lose money, because there is only one direction of travel. The really interesting point for me around electric vehicles is China has taken such a decisive lead now. They bet big on electric vehicles 10 years ago, but they also bet big on very specific technologies. So specific battery technologies where the battery can be charged twice as much and last twice as long. Obviously they have massive control over the minerals, the rare earth minerals, lithium, etc, that you need nickel to go into manufacture these batteries. But the big thing is, they’ve created car companies who are from the ground up, built to be ready for electric whereas if you look at someone like Volkswagen or BMW, whatever in Germany and the similar in the US, that whole industry is built around very skilled manufacturing of engines and of assembling a lot of different parts together, electric vehicles have orders of magnitude fewer parts. It’s just a different, totally different way of building a car. And so I think what you may have is the huge industrial giants of automotive, automotive manufacturing in Europe and Europe and the US who are just not set up for that new year of electric which, as I say, is coming. And it’ll be fascinating to see with the tariffs argument, whether some of these very low cost Chinese producers of electric vehicle vehicles will be able now to come and steal the lunch of Ford and Volkswagen, etc. And you know, the CEO Ford speaks very openly about this. He says, we are very far behind, as are our competitors, to face up against these Chinese competitors. I
Andrew Brill 36:35
think one of the barriers to entry into an and I just purchased a new vehicle, which was not an electric vehicle, but I live in New York City, where it’s difficult to charge your vehicle. So if I want to charge my vehicle, it’s not like I can just park by the curb outside my my building and charge my vehicle. So what they once they solve that problem, I think they open themselves up to a much, much bigger market. You take these city centers with for big cities and figure out how to charge up these vehicles quickly. Like China, you can charge it quicker and store more energy for these batteries. I think that’s a that’s a huge hill to climb, but once they get to the top of that hill, there’s a big, big market to be tackled. I completely
Tommy Stadlen 37:19
agree. Someone is going to make a lot of money figuring out the rollout of EV charging and something we’ve looked at with giant ventures. It’s probably not for us, because it’s more of an infrastructure of play than a sort of highly scalable venture capital play, but someone is going to make a ton of money figuring out in the US and Europe, how do you scalably roll out these EV charging points and that, that is an example of, you know, the kind of thesis we have at giant which is, that’s the direction of travel, travel, this big, mega trend of decarbonization. And whoever figures that out, it’s going to be, you know, multi billion dollar business, and it’s going to create a lot of good because it’s going to enable the decarbonization of the automotive
Andrew Brill 37:59
industry. And what is your outlook for 2025
Tommy Stadlen 38:03
stay alive until 25 we’ve all been saying, all of our portfolio companies, it has not been actually super easy for technology startups to raise capital in 2024 still the out the sort of the big reset from 2023 2024 in private markets has continued to bite for anything which is not ai, ai, obviously, has boomed, but the big message to everyone, stay alive till 25 I think we’ll see an enormous wave of innovation. I think private markets capital will flow. The big thing is, will we get some of those big tech IPOs? The community have been starved of big IPOs on the NASDAQ, and once those start to trickle in, I think we’re away and we’ll have a great year. So
Andrew Brill 38:44
Tommy, tell me where we can find you, which is a great conversation. I really enjoyed it, but I know our viewers will want to hear more from you, either on social media or more about giant ventures, so or a podcast if you have one. So tell us where we can find you. Well,
Tommy Stadlen 38:59
thanks so much for having me. Really enjoyed the conversation. If you want to know more about giant but actually more about giant ideas, we have a podcast called giant ideas, and we interview folks like Ray Dalio, Ariana Huffington, the founder of Google DeepMind, one of the two giants of artificial intelligence. And we asked folks, what are the giant ideas that are shaping the world, creating the next trillion dollar company instead of reshaping culture, it’s a very manageable 30 minute interview show. So giant ideas, check out the podcast, and we’d love to hear some of your listeners over with us there as well. And I’m on LinkedIn, Tommy Stadler,
Andrew Brill 39:33
and we can find the podcast anywhere you get your podcast, right? That’s
Tommy Stadlen 39:36
right, Apple podcast, YouTube, uh, Spotify. So wherever you get your podcast, just search giant ideas, and it’s a show I think a lot of your listeners will enjoy, and
Andrew Brill 39:45
now I know where to come when I have my next brilliant idea to get some funding.
Tommy Stadlen 39:49
So that’s right, we’ve got to get you on. Thanks
Andrew Brill 39:53
so much, Tommy. Really appreciate it. We’ll speak to you again soon.
Tommy Stadlen 39:55
Thank you for having me. Thanks
Andrew Brill 39:58
so much for watching our discussion here on. Wealthion with Tommy stadlin, it will be interesting to see how markets react to the climate change issues. If you would like helping financially resilient, please head over to wealthion.com/free. For a free no obligation, financial review. And of course, if you could like and subscribe to the channel, we would greatly appreciate it. Don’t forget to hit the notification bell so you know when we post new videos to the channel, and please don’t just do the social media thing with us. All the links are below in the description. And if you like this content and are looking for more ways to achieve long term wealth, watch this video next until next time. Stay informed. Be empowered, and may your investments flourish.
