Rocket Lab’s Rise, AI’s Impact on Music and Genetic Engineering in NZ

Episode Transcript (computer-generated)

Paul Spain:
Greetings and welcome along to the New Zealand Tech Podcast. I’m your host, Paul Spain, and today, great to have Josh Webb joining us. How are you, Josh?

Josh Webb:
Excellent, Paul, lovely to be here. Good to see you.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, good to have you back on the show. Maybe you can update listeners on where you fit into this big, wide world of tech.

Josh Webb:
I visited you on the show a few years ago and at that point I was the chief product and technology officer of Flick Energy and living in Wellington now. It was a few years later and I recently moved back to Auckland, which feels like home in New Zealand for me. I’m a lifelong sort of product and technologist. I spent most of my career overseas in the US, actually, and I’ve worked on a bunch of different startups. I’ve been a professional product and technology leader in companies ranging from one person to 100,000 plus people and everything in between. So, yeah, I have thoughts and feelings on technology. And, Paul, sometimes when we get together, I enjoy talking to you about them.

Paul Spain:
Yep. Well, that’s what I thought. It’d be a good idea for us to catch up and do a podcast since we do enjoy sort of discussing some of these topics today, I’m keen to delve into a little bit around the last decade of Uber. It’s been ten years since Uber’s been in New Zealand. I want to touch on the government ending their ban on genetic modification and genetic engineering outside of the lab environments. Also delving into some figures that have been shared in terms of an impact that artificial intelligence could have on the music sector in Australasia. And there’s some pretty insane numbers there being bandied around over half a billion dollar impact across the Australasian music industry by 2028. Also, rocket lab, whose.

Paul Spain:
Well, their shares appear to be going to the moon, just like Rocket Lab have, or that’s certainly the dream of some people. They’re certainly headed up. And then a couple of things to touch in on to do with one NZ, a couple of their recent announcements. So let’s jump straight in. Yeah. First up, ten years since Uber first came to New Zealand, and, boy, they’ve had a really, really big impact, I think, in New Zealand and around the world. They haven’t necessarily stayed in every market. They’ve had issues in some markets and they’ve decided not to compete, for instance, in China and some other parts of Asia.

Paul Spain:
But, boy, that just seems like. Like the norm, I think, in terms of how we often get it, get around and New Zealand cities. What are your thoughts, Josh?

Josh Webb:
I actually didn’t I wasn’t living in New Zealand ten years ago. I was in the States. But I do remember, I have a vague memory of a friend of mine in San Francisco saying to me, I’ve invested in this company and explaining to me how it works. Right? So he had to explain to me what it was. So that’s how early it was. And at the time, it was just, you get a Lincoln town car, which is a massive black suv that you usually see, you know, sort of bad guys in movies, and it said, oh, it comes to pick you up and it takes you where you want to go, and there’s an app and it’s really cool. You’ll love it. I’m going to try.

Josh Webb:
I’m going to give you a free one. Go and do it. So now he’s now very wealthy, and I haven’t asked him about it, but I assume that was part of it. But there’s something magical about summoning a human to perform a service for you, isn’t there? Like, there’s always just been this little magical touch to it that I feel like was. Was always going to happen, no matter what the legal barriers or the regulatory barriers in the industry people were going to do. Like, if you can summon a human to do things for you, that’s the true power of Uber, isn’t it?

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Look, I think when I look back, it was interesting to see Uber and Lyft launch into the us markets. Of course, there’s been a bunch of other players around the world coming out of Asia, a couple of big firms out, or I guess, what do we got? Singapore. I think that’s grab, if I remember correctly. Then we’ve got. What’s the one out of India that I think have maybe exited the new Zealand market and then didi out of China. So there’s. Yeah, the fair bit that’s been going on.

Paul Spain:
And then you’ve had some smaller, smaller players that have. That have had a go as well. This is, to me what, you know, one of those cases where the tech sector had, you know, a tech company has. Has come in and is really disrupted and through sort of following some common tech, sort of playbook things in terms of really, really fast growth, they certainly caused some dramas along the way. But, yeah, it would be very interesting to know how their story would maybe have played out differently if they hadn’t moved at the pace that they have moved at. I think just having a quick look, they’re up to 70, 70 countries currently and ten and a half thousand cities that they cover worldwide. So their New Zealand coverage is very much a drop in the bucket.

Josh Webb:
Well, I thought it was interesting, like they’re doing a little thing to celebrate their ten years where they’re going to let people summon sort of a snow cat to take them for a ride at Cadrona. And obviously, that’s just a little gimmicky fun thing, but it makes you think, well, what’s the potential future for this industry beyond just bringing a Prius round to get me round to my friend’s house? Right. And the part that I have been quite excited about is their attempts to get into the drone space and deliveries, drone deliveries and that sort of stuff. Perhaps there’s other kinds of vehicles that you get in the future, too, right? Snow cats. Okay, pretty niche, but they’ve been very limited to the, basically, you get a Prius or a Prius, and, you know, maybe that’s just the market saying what it really wants and needs, but, yeah, what’s next?

Paul Spain:
Yeah, look, it’s interesting you mentioned that because, yeah, there was a lot of activity around, you know, electric vertical takeoff and landing craft, and there was Uber, I think it was called Uber elevate, which was kind of going to be their next thing, which they actually divested of. So, yeah, that’s, it’s kind of, you know, kind of fascinating. But when you look at their website today, I do. Or when you google today, I do still find a page on their website, you know, to do with them being involved in an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft at, at some point. So, yeah, somehow they kind of, they’ve sold some assets, but. But in some ways that they’re, they’re back into it. So, yeah, a little, little bit hard to, to follow all of their, all of their maneuvers because that was, that was news to me until I, I googled it again today. And, yeah, we’ve certainly seen that, that progress on these, these EV tolls, but, yeah, in terms of them sort of becoming the norm for transport, we kind of haven’t, haven’t quite got there yet.

Paul Spain:
But. But let’s see. There’s been a chunk of testing in New Zealand, but I’m not sure that our, our population and so on will mean that we would actually end up being one of the early places for this tech. But, you know, let’s, let’s wait and see. Now on another, on another topic, the government announcing that they’re kind of lifting the, the ban that New Zealand has had over, you know, over a 30 year period, this has been in place on genetic engineering. Genetic modification outside of the lab. You know, as a country that is so reliant on agriculture from an export revenues perspective, I imagine this is actually a pretty polarizing decision and a pretty polarizing topic because there’ll be some people that will be incredibly uncomfortable with it and there’ll be other people on the flip side, you know, that feel that this really, really holds us back as a country. Do you think that New Zealand’s approach to GE and Gmdez has become something that’s so embedded that there’s going to be pushback on this?

Josh Webb:
Look, my understanding is we’ve been one of the countries with a harder line on it and you can understand that obviously, just like we have been with lots of things. As a Kiwi, it sort of makes me think is being a holdout the right thing? Right. There’s other countries that are already doing this. Are we making a difference in the world just by simply doing something out of principle? And it’s one of those things that there isn’t data to prove conclusively one way or another. Is this safe or good until it’s actually done right? It’s one of those catch 22 situations. So I think it’s a very philosophical argument that the actual data doesn’t exist around yet. But what about modifying people with Crispr? Where does it stop? We’re modifying everything now and nothing’s going to be real anymore. Is it a.

Josh Webb:
Before too long?

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Look, I don’t have enough sort of depth of knowledge on this one. I guess the pushback will come. Look, this was something that was announced ahead of the elections in 2023 and that the New Zealand population largely went with it. I don’t remember it being a big sort of electioneering sort of item. Um, but yeah, I do remember it was something that was uh, that was, that was raised. So, uh. Yeah, I guess we’re going with it.

Paul Spain:
Uh, I would, I would certainly imagine that it’s going to be sort of slow and cautious. It’s. This is not a sort of foot to the floor and see how, how crazy we could get as a country. And of course it has been allowed in the lab previously, but it was, it was, you know, under the conditions that it was kept in the lab locally.

Josh Webb:
Now how much of an opportunity is this for New Zealand to think about it from the flip side?

Paul Spain:
Right?

Josh Webb:
I mean we’re well known as a sort of an agritech leader and there is an opportunity there to grab some market share. Can we launch some leading genetic modification startups from this country? Would New Zealand accept that or would people be up in arms about that? I imagine some of them probably would be.

Paul Spain:
Well, I. Look, I think as a country we have, you know, tended to be pretty innovative when it. When it comes to, you know, on, on the agriculture side. And so, yeah, you could. You can imagine that there’s, there’s, you know, there’s probably a fair bit of. Yeah, a fair bit of possibility ahead when we can engineer these things in the lab and then, and then, you know, test them locally if approved. But yeah, I think it’s probably. It’s probably reasonably hard to know how that.

Paul Spain:
How that plays out over time and whether it really makes a big difference or not. But let’s hope it’s. It’s all on the upside and we don’t see any major negatives from, from, from this one. Now, when it comes to AI and music, and this is a world that, you know, both you and I have sort of had some involvement in the music industry in the past. We’ve got this report that’s come through from ApRA AMCos predicting that generative AI is going to cost the australasian music industry NZd570 million by 2028. This came out of a survey of 4200 members and they found that 23% of music creators revenues are apparently at risk due to AI. So with 82% concerned about AI’s impact on their livelihoods. These sorts of things are very hard to, you know, to put.

Paul Spain:
Put numbers on. And in fact one of the comments was that 38% of their respondents were actually already using AI in their work, which is I guess the same as probably, you know, on par with. With many other sectors. So yeah, this. Is this just a new reality you think that music industries got it got to cope with? Or do you think it’s actually going to be somewhat more complex in terms of the role of AI when it comes to music because this is a, you know, a very, you know, a very creative sector. And yeah, we’re not. We’re not used to getting in behind computer generated content that hasn’t had a heavy human element to it. That said, computers have been part of music making for a very long time, but what we’re now sort of seeing out of AI is on a very different scale to what we were seeing in years gone by.

Josh Webb:
Yeah, well this reminds me, Paul, one thing before we get onto that too deeply, my first customer for my first tech startup was actually Apra AmcOs, who’s released this message here. And you, Paul Spain, or your company at least helped me build the product that helped drive that startup. This was going back to more than two decades now, I think, around thereabouts.

Paul Spain:
Yep, you’d be right. Yeah, probably pretty ideas.

Josh Webb:
And back then, Apra was sort of trying to figure out how to gather and allocate royalties to people, and that’s why they exist. And I think what they’re looking at now is they’re saying, what’s the impact of this on working musicians? And the reality is, I’m a musician myself, a very amateur musician, but I’ve used computers to make music for most of my adulthood life. And the reality is that music making has been getting easier and easier and easier over time. Like, once upon a time, you needed to be able to make your own instrument and string it and tune it and play it and sing. Then computers came along, and we got sequences. In the last ten years or so, we’ve got kit sets. Everything’s become very snapped together. You can buy a kit set, you can get the legos, you can stick them together.

Josh Webb:
You can make your own track and just rap over it, or you can make your own beats, buy some melodies and stick them all together. Right. And then this is just the next logical step. You can just describe your track using words, and this computer sort of magically creates it. But the actual result right now is fairly meh. And it’s probably going to be fairly meh, at least for a little. You know, the next few years. It’s going to get better, clearly.

Josh Webb:
But what I’ve done is I’ve had a bit of a play around with it myself and sort of found, well, the results are certainly not going to be taking out the pop stars in the top 40, right. But what they are doing is they are able to make these sort of simple jingles and tunes and melodies, and they are going to start first eating into things like royalty free music that you can download and put in the background of a YouTube video or sort of simple electronica that you can release and play as a djdeh. The thing that I think is interesting about that is, well, some of those things like making music for ads and royalty free music, this is actually how a lot of professional musicians make their actual income. They don’t get it through gigging. They make it through working in the industry. That’s going to start taking revenue away from them. And just as streaming has reduced the overall income from people, they’re going to have to find other ways to make money. Ultimately, at the end of the day, people still want to go out and watch gigs.

Josh Webb:
That’s where the creative music economy has shifted to. So until we have robots taking over on stage, that’s still going to exist. And I think it’s just, again, it’s going to shift where the economy goes and how people are trying to make their money. But it’s also going to result in a lot of really bad, generic, boring music over the next five or ten years. And that’s the bit that I’m actually sad about, because it’s going to happen inevitably and it’s going to be a while before it’s actually any good.

Paul Spain:
You could argue that we’ve had pretty bad, boring, cookie cutter music sort of for the last 20 odd years or more, couldn’t you?

Josh Webb:
Oh, are you talking about techno?

Paul Spain:
And, you know, some pop music is very formulaic, but anyway, that’s probably a whole nother discussion. But I did enjoy hearing your thoughts around, you know, before musicians are replaced by robots on stage. And I was just picturing that in my mind. And I’m very, very hopeful that we don’t get to that stage where we prefer robots to humans performing live shows. But let’s see how the future plays out. I’ve certainly been quite amazed by the quality of some of the AI music. I’m not a musician, I’m just picking a few samples and things that have come through. I think when you kind of compare the music on a professional level, that’s probably where there’s bigger issues.

Paul Spain:
I guess it’s a little bit like we look at a bit of output from chat GPT and we think it’s awesome. And then you look a little bit closer and you realize, actually, this needs a lot of work to be useful in a lot of cases. So, yeah, look, I’m curious to see how it plays out, but I certainly hope that we don’t end up getting, getting too formulaic in our future music and that there’s, there’s plenty of human creativity ahead. And yeah, when things get, get too, too reliant on computers, I think there’s a downside to that. Now let’s jump into Rocket, Rocket Lab. Their shares are really been on a, on a tier. They’re getting up close to their, their initial public offering or their launch price. I think when they, they launched, they were off the top of my head.

Paul Spain:
Straight off the top of my head was, I think, about eight $8 that they launched at a little bit over five years ago. They went up a sort of chunk higher than that in their early days. But, you know, the last few years they’ve kind of been in the probably, well, a chunk below the $8 level. And, yeah, they seem to be, they seem to be heading, heading north. And in fact, having a look at Reddit, they were apparently the number one stock on Reddit yesterday, and people are hoping that they go to the moon. And, of course, those may be people that haven’t read the full story about rocket lab and they’ve actually already sent something to the moon. Maybe the stock will as well. Pretty exciting seeing a New Zealand founded Technology, an aerospace company, attract this sort of attention and really be preparing for themselves a really exciting future ahead.

Paul Spain:
Their most recent numbers, I think, that that caught people’s attention was $100 million revenue. 100 million, I think it was us revenue in one quarter, which is a really big uplift for them. So, yeah, I’m very, very curious what the future holds for them. They’re sitting now at evaluation north of 3.5 billion us. What are your thoughts around Rocket Lab? Do you think they can make it work there right now? Still a loss making firm, losing some pretty big numbers. But I don’t know, when I look at it, I look at Peter Beck as just an incredible innovator and leader. And of course, we’ve had him on the New Zealand tech podcast, I think probably two or three times over the years and on the New Zealand Business podcast. So I’m kind of, I’m sold that there’s a pretty great future ahead for Rocket Lab.

Josh Webb:
Well, it’s just an incredible story, isn’t it? And it’s become such a behemoth now looking at those numbers. As a non rocket lab shareholder, I’m sort of slightly less enthused about it.

Paul Spain:
And I will disclose I do hold some rocket lab. So let’s get that out of this.

Josh Webb:
Is not shared advice, but, yeah, no, they’ve done so well, the question now is actually, are they still a New Zealand company? Right. So they’ve now sort of become very closely tied to the US. But obviously it’s one of those stories that we’ll hold onto forever no matter what happens, isn’t it?

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Look, I think the very large majority of their launches have happened from New Zealand. They’ve passed 50 50 launches, I think, and they got to that 50 faster than, than anyone else before them. You know, they did that. Yeah, for varying reasons. They were able to do that quicker than that SpaceX, if you, if you take it in sort of a number of number of years, they’re spending big on their, their R and D so that they can they can launch their next rocket and they can move on from the electron being their, you know, their singular option in terms of launch vehicle. So I think, you know, that that’s probably the bit that, you know, a lot of people are very curious, you know, how, how will they get on with the neutron rocket? How long will that take? Will it truly be a crew capable rocket? And, and, you know, is this a sort of thing where NASA will actually, you know, shoulder tap them to be sending, sending people, you know, off to space station or further, further afield? I mean, there’s so much unknown. And interestingly, for rocket lab, it’s not their launch business, actually, where, where they’re making, you know, where they’re bringing in the most revenue.

Paul Spain:
You know, they’re getting more off their, off their sort of space systems sort of side, whether they’ve got, you know, all manner of, you know, offerings there for those who are wanting to put satellites up. So it’s not just getting the satellites up, but it’s building the satellites and the communication systems and the solar and all those pieces that come together. And in fact, their more recent comms have, have really been leaning in on this idea that they would emulate SpaceX and launch their own constellation of satellites. And that being kind of the way to, I guess, really build some profitability, which certainly makes some sense if they can find the right niche.

Josh Webb:
I think they’re not the only one looking at that, too. And perhaps if they can get to the stage of having crew, you know, having crewed missions, they can be one of the next in line to do the space rescues because this space rescue saga has brought a bit of drama into our lives lately, hasn’t it?

Paul Spain:
Yeah. Maybe you can share a little bit with listeners about what you’ve noticed there and, you know, whether you think Boeing can come back from sending a couple of astronauts up to the space station and being in a position where they’re unable to retreat.

Josh Webb:
Yeah, well, you know, it makes you think the short story, if you haven’t heard about it, is there’s some astronauts stranded in space and they need to be rescued and it feels like a Hollywood story, you know, so they’ve gone to SpaceX and said, hey, you know, could you help us out here? Because, you know, we’re not able to complete this mission. Makes you, makes you think about that movie armageddon where, you know, they have to sort of catapult Bruce Willis into space and explode an asteroid, you know, what’s, what’s next? And in fact, this whole privatisation of space has, has sort of brought us to this point where, you know, a bunch of different people are working on technology that can be doing interesting things like that. I’ve been reading a little bit about, you know, sort of these, these are asteroids and comets that have very sort of ludicrously valuable minerals and things on them that people are looking at going up and mining now sort of 9000 trillion dollars worth of diamonds in one asteroid if you can capture it. There’s some really interesting opportunities to potentially solve some of our problems. We’re running out of minerals that we need to do a lot of things on this planet, you know, making batteries, manufacturing computers, etcetera. And a lot of them are readily available somewhere in space. So that’s, that’s actually the bit I’m excited about, is how do we, how do we go and grab these things which, you know, perhaps are going to prevent us from doing, you know, some really important things that we need to do in the future, you know, and within the next few decades even.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, look, I mean it’s, it’s. It is a fascinating time ahead when, when you look at space. That’s uh, that, that’s for sure. Um, yeah, I’m just looking forward to sort of following, following that journey and uh, yeah, we’ll see where to from here with, with rocket lab. Yeah, that figure was that their, their revenue for the, this last quarter, the June quarter, it was 70% up versus where where it was a year ago. You know, there were some, some reasons behind that. But yeah, they certainly look like they’re on a positive trajectory and look, I think it’s, it’s going to be really, really exciting. I would I would like to think that they would launch the neutron from New Zealand.

Paul Spain:
I’m not sure that that’s actually on the cards now or whether it ever will be, but certainly I would, I would like to, I would like to see that launch and, yeah, we will follow with, with interest. I see they put some video online to do with their automated fiber placement machine that they’re using to, to, I guess, you know, build the new rocket with carbon fiber. This is from their production line in Maryland. So yeah, some very, very cool stuff going on and apparently they’ve got about a billion dollars worth of a little bit over a US billion dollars worth of orders in the pipeline. So, you know, most, mostly encouraging unless you’re concerned about the carbon footprint of, of, of rockets. But yeah, we’ll, we’ll save that discussion for, for another day or another podcast. But yeah, I think in most regards, you know, really, really exciting. Now, I wanted to tap in on an announcement that just came through last couple of days.

Paul Spain:
We’ve heard from one NZdin and we know they’ve got this, you know, they’ve got a huge asset when it comes to, you know, fiber network within, within New Zealand, 11,000 kilometer fiber network. And so what they’re doing with that is that they’re launching a new business, eon fiber, to sell the sort of those wholesale services particularly looks like they’re focusing on the hyperscalers. So they want to make sure that they’re picking up the Microsoft’s, the AWS is the Googles and, you know, and the other sort of more regional players to become, you know, the, the fiber or a, you know, key fiber provider going forward. And I guess their thought is by splitting that out a little bit from the core one NZ business, that puts them in a better position. And I imagine that would be the case if they’re taking that focus. And then the other bit that they’ve also just been sharing, which I guess isn’t just to do with them, is used that SpaceX has now launched over 100 Starlink direct to cell satellites. So, you know, we were talking earlier on in the year and at that stage, Starlink had launched exactly zero direct to cell satellites and, you know, their competition already had satellites, you know, up in low Earth orbit. But I guess this is, this is that unique advantage that SpaceX has that they can launch things as thick and fast as, as they like and that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Paul Spain:
So, yeah, 100 direct to cell satellites and, you know, that’s going to be, that’s going to be a real game changer, I guess, as we, as we look forward knowing that there’s, there’s going to be, yeah, coverage from, from anywhere. And of course, we also know that spark and two degrees are going down a particular route as well to get some coverage. But that’s going to be with a, you know, an absolute fraction of the number of satellites anytime soon. And there’s also another player and I’m trying to remember what their name is. It’ll, it’ll come back to me. But a company who are, who are focused purely on direct to sell satellites and, you know, their goal is just to focus purely on that. Whereas, of course, Starlink have been, you know, first and foremost, very much, you know, focused on Internet coverage. And then this is a, this is kind of an extra add on, although something that could, could well work out very well for them.

Paul Spain:
So I’m kind of curious to see how that will play out. And in fact, yeah, the other, the other company whose name will come back to me seem to be kind of getting more attention. And they’re called Ast Space Mobile, or if you’re in America, space mobile. And so, you know, their, their whole goal is really building mobile networks that, that are attached to satellites and that’ll float around the world and I guess be available to any carrier. And looks like that they’ve got quite a lot of partnerships already established. So, yeah, it’s going to become a very busy area over the next few years. I think that their valuation is. Well, last time I looked was about three times rocket lab, so they were north of 10 billion us.

Paul Spain:
So there’s very, very much an interest in this sort of direct to cell satellite technologies. Do you think we need this stuff? Is this going to sort of change the whole playing field? Do you think all our mobile carriers are going to be out of business? I guess that can’t happen because at the moment, anyone that provides this needs the carriers to provide a. The more local coverage and also other the owners or the leaseholders of the spectrum that’s required for them to operate.

Josh Webb:
Well, they’re going to be resellers at any rate. So evidently one NZ is aiming to connect us all and disconnect us all at the same time. It’s a very big hedge, isn’t it? No. I mean, I’ve been a fan of Starlink. I managed to get my hands on it very early because I was living in a semi rural property in Wellington and I was incredibly surprised by just how good and stable it was. Even when it first launched here, I did not expect it to work as well as it did. And I haven’t tried the direct to sell yet, but it would not surprise me anymore if that was brilliant. And I, you know, competitive with, you know, the.

Josh Webb:
Those sort of awkward looking things you see all around town described sort of disguised as trees. I looked at a house a little while back and it had one of those right next to us. And I looked, my head looked out the window and I went, it’s about 20 meters away from the master bedroom. Gee, I wonder if this is a safe place to live, you know, and those things are getting dotted all over the landscape. Yeah, but, yeah, no, it’s. I reserve judgment until I can try this technology out myself. But have you, have you tried any direct to sell handsets yet?

Paul Spain:
I’ve done a little bit of testing because apple are in this area as well, through a partnership. And so what you could do, if you’re, if you’re out in the, in an area without cell coverage, even on an airplane, I think you have to configure something on your phone first. From what I remember, in terms of somebody that’s in your family group, but on the latest iPhones, you can do a kind of share your location. And of course this would be illegal to do. So. Of course I’ve never done it. We’ll just leave it at that. But if you were to turn this technology on while you were sitting in an airplane window seat, you might find it would tell you which direction to point your phone and, you know, would allow you to send a message.

Paul Spain:
So, yeah, the best place to test this is when you’re, when you’re out of mobile coverage. I did this when we were up, I was up Fox Glacier with my son. It was quite soon after this technology had launched and I was looking for somewhere I could test it. And sure enough, you know, up on the snow and ice on the glacier, we were. Yeah, we were able to, able to use that to do a location sharing. So that’s kind of the, you know, I guess an early iteration. But you know, what, what you have to do with those sort of satellites is you’ve got to wait for one to be coming past. You got to point it in the right direction.

Paul Spain:
And that’s similar to what we’ve heard around LinkedIn mobile or link, which is the service that two degrees and spark are going with. And no doubt, you know, they will, they will keep launching more satellites as well. So, you know, my pick is that SpaceX, you know, being the owners of, of Starlink and, and having a rather capable fleet of rockets, you know, are going to, you know, dominate in terms of the number of satellites that get out there quite quickly in the short term, but how it plays out in the long term, you know, that’s, that’s anyone’s game. And, yeah, it’s. I mean, it’s great to see all, all of our carriers locally are committing to this type of technology and, you know, I guess everyone will, will benefit. From a perspective, if you’re, you know, stuck out in a remote location without traditional coverage from sometime later this year, you will be able to fall back on that. And in fact, one NZ have said that they will allow customers across all networks to be able to use that service for emergency communications. I’m not quite sure how those dots will join up.

Paul Spain:
We haven’t got the full dates and so on from them. I think initially it’s text, and then at some point next year it becomes data and calling as well.

Josh Webb:
So, yeah, I remember sometime in high school doing a course where it was sort of an outdoor education thing, and we went out into the wilderness and actually made one of those old school sort of aerials by unfurling an enormous sort of piece of wire and connecting it to a radio. And this was, this, you know, this was the nineties equivalent. It took about ten people, and you haul a battery and a bunch of gear and it’s just, it’s just making things infinitely easier. But, but, hey, it was a solved problem. It’s just solved it better.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, that’s right. And look, you know, the, the new technologies allow us to, to do things easier and for lower cost. And, you know, I can see this will largely, you know, be a positive impact also for that sort of ocean, ocean coverage. So, you know, folks that are out on, on boats, it’s going to make that, that safer as well. Now, other, other things, the Fitbit brand is going away. You’ve been, you mentioned this to me earlier.

Josh Webb:
Yeah. So this is just a new piece of news. So, yeah, I think Google bought Fitbit some time ago, but they’ve just announced that they’re finally sort of sunsetting the brand and everything’s going to become a pixel. And, you know, as a Fitbit owner, I’ve been a Fitbit for well over ten years, probably closer to 15, I think, when I think about, about it. And, you know, it’s like some other people, it’s been a real part of my life. And so it’s a little bit of a, well, rest in peace, but thanks for all the good times moment for me. Now, of course, you know, it’ll be resold as a pixel and it’ll be a Google product in the future, and it’s not completely going away, but, you know, it’s sort of part of this trend of sort of acquisitions and the Google ification of everything that happens sooner or later, isn’t it? And it’s not going to be the same. I had to use their data download app recently to try and get all my data off it.

Josh Webb:
You needed a Google account and it was a horrible process, and you had to wait a day for it to get compiled and sent to you. And it was so like, oh, gosh, I’m in Google now, so you just don’t know what’s going to happen. And is something else going to come in and fill that market? Pixels have been a bit more expensive. And historically, they’ve also been not quite as streamlined, I guess you could say. I think that the new form factors are going to sort of start merging together and perhaps they’ll be very recognizable for now. But you kind of have to keep your fingers crossed because most of the products that Google launches, including many of their hardware products, aren’t around anymore. Right. They tend to launch things and kill them pretty quickly.

Paul Spain:
Yeah. And a different sort of business model. Right. So, you know, with Google, we do expect them to be maybe making use of the data, maybe in a slightly different manner than we would have expected from Fitbit. So that may worry some in terms of Google’s approach to mining and monetizing our data, but we’ll see how it plays.

Josh Webb:
A big, aggressive, global company.

Paul Spain:
Right.

Josh Webb:
And you can sort of, I mean, in my imagination, what will probably happen is sooner or later, the prices will go up and they’ll try and make them smarter, and then they’ll be a bit more chunky. And, you know, for me, that my Fitbit, the reason I loved it was because they’re just, you know, simple, lightweight, low profile. They don’t get in the way. They last forever. The battery lasts a couple of weeks. You don’t have to charge it every night like you do with some competitors. And, you know, if they try and make it super smart and build it into the, the pixel ecosystem, my fear is that it won’t be the same thing sooner or later. And for a company that brought us the 10,000 steps meme, it’s a little sad to see it go, but fingers crossed I’m not a Google hater.

Josh Webb:
I hope that this isn’t the end of an era.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, look, I wouldn’t imagine that they’re going anywhere anytime soon. Yeah, we’ll see how that, how that plays out as they transition the products across from being, you know, Fitbit devices to pixel, whether. Yeah, exactly what that actually means and whether they end up sort of colored the product range. All right, now, I was going to come back on that brant company name that I mentioned earlier, and they’re called Ast Space Mobile, or if you’re in America, Space mobile. And so, you know, their, their whole goal is really, you know, building, building mobile networks that are attached to satellites and that’ll float around the world. And I, and I guess, be available to, you know, to any carrier and looks like that they’ve, they’ve done or that they’ve got quite a lot of partnerships already established. So, yeah, it’s going to become a very, very busy area over the next few years. Now, before we finish up, Josh, I’m kind of keen to hear a little bit from you around, you know, the startup space and what your thoughts are.

Paul Spain:
You’ve kind of worked at startups and, and bigger companies internationally. You’ve done so in New Zealand. How are you kind of feeling? Our startup sort of scene looks kind of post Covid, where money’s been pretty tight. We’ve been through a period where there wasn’t sort of much in person contact. How you picking we’re doing on that front, you know, as a country, from, from your viewpoint?

Josh Webb:
Yes. It’s no secret that my heart lies in the early stage venture building process. And I’ve been thinking about what’s next because I just moved back to Auckland, like I mentioned, and thinking about, you know, trying to start up something new, got a few ideas and one of the things I’ve noticed after returning to New Zealand, after many years abroad, and obviously I’ve been big cities like New York and San Francisco, etcetera, is that it doesn’t feel like it’s buzzing here. Right. And obviously that’s true in general, but, you know, in the startup space, possibly even even more so. And I’ve been sort of scratching around having a look for a community, you know, where the people that are sort of working on developing ideas and working together. And it’s been interesting, like there’s a few sort of annual seminars that are run by VC firms and there’s, you know, there’s, there’s a, there’s a podcast here and there, but, you know, for people that apart from, you know, existing companies that, you know, there’s a few that we could name, but, you know, I haven’t found a very big, strong community here, so I was interested and maybe this is actually a question for your listeners or your viewers. Where are they? Where are all the startup people? Where are the pre product thinkers and testers and hackers and people with ambition to do things? I’ve experienced some really great meetups in bigger cities, but I haven’t found something here.

Josh Webb:
So maybe it’s something we need in Auckland, maybe there’s some stuff happening in other cities around New Zealand, which I’m also not aware of because obviously I’m here now. I’d like to know more.

Paul Spain:
Yeah, good question. Well, there are certainly things going on and I went to an interesting meetup, ice house put on in the last couple of months or so and there are things going on, but yeah, in terms of a lot of good, regular things. It’d be great if any listeners have got some details they would like to share on events that. Yeah, maybe others aren’t across. So, yeah, feel free to get in touch if you’re involved in an event or, you know, you’re attending some regular meetups that you think might be of interest to listeners. That’s great. Well, that. That wraps us up for.

Paul Spain:
For this episode, so, yeah, great to catch up, Josh, and thanks for all your comments and insights. Anything else you want to add before we. Before we end?

Josh Webb:
No, thanks. Appreciate it, Paul. Always good to chat. I guess one thing I should mention is what I’m doing now and maybe get a little bit of a plug for hyper. So I’m currently working with a company called HYPR in Auckland, and HYPR is a consultancy that focuses on really big, gnarly, strategic technology problems. And it’s been actually really great getting to know the crew there and get involved in some digital transformation projects, working with a bunch of companies that are doing big re architectures and trying to get their teams more efficient. So, yeah, we are interested in talking to people that are looking to make their teams flow more efficiently. And it’s been.

Josh Webb:
It’s been a really good journey with them, too. So shout out to the hyper crew and flow is the word of the day and the week in the month for us.

Paul Spain:
Nice. Nice. All right, thanks for that, Josh. And, of course, big thank you to our show partners. Gorilla Technology, HP, Spark, 2degrees and One NZ. Yeah, that’s us. And we’ll look forward to catching up with everyone again on our next episode next week. And if you haven’t been listening in, worth taking a look at the feed for the NZ Business Podcast as well.

Paul Spain:
There’s a few new episodes that are. That have. That are flowing through there. So if you haven’t tapped in for a while, there’s. Yeah, there’s definitely some. Some good, good episodes coming through on the New Zealand Business Podcast. And, of course, you know, one of the things about the New Zealand Business Podcast, because I host it, of course, I have a fair interest in the world of tech. So there’s usually a kind of a tech element coming through every few episodes.

Paul Spain:
So there’s quite a recent episode there this month where I sat down for a chat with Serge Van Dam, who’s pretty well known in the startup and tech side of New Zealand. So, yeah, folks probably really enjoy that one as well. Good stuff. All right, thanks again, Josh. Thanks, everyone, for listening in. We’ll catch you next week. See ya.

Josh Webb:
Thanks, Paul.