January 30, 2023

Episode 168: Dallas Griffin, Co-Founder of React

Dallas Griffin has a long track record of successfully advising upstream and natural resources clients on a wide array of assignments, including acquisitions & divestitures, mergers & acquisitions, public and private capital raise, and strategic alternatives reviews. Prior to co-founding Anode Labs (the team behind the React network) Griffin worked for Piper Sandler since 2009, where he held the position of managing director.

He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with bachelor’s degrees in business honors and finance, as well as an MBA degree. Griffin was ESPN The Magazine's First Team Academic All-American and a four-time First Team Academic All-Big 12 pick while he was a 4-year Academic All-American on the university's Division I football team. He is also a member of the Texas Friar Society.

About React:

The React Network is building the world’s biggest decentralized crypto network to unlock a new energy source, allowing participants to contribute their energy resources in exchange for value accrual in the network. The U.S. is struggling to modernize the electric grid, and needs the grid to become more flexible to prevent power outages from the effects of climate change. Anode is creating opportunities for everyday homeowners to earn compensation while supporting the energy grid and combating climate change at the same time.

Julian: Hey everyone. Thankyou so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Dallas Griffin, co-founder of Anode Labs, which is building the React Network data andconnectivity layer to allow people to engage with their electricity consumptionand flexibility. Dallas, I can't even get, kinda wrap my head around what thatmeans, but I'm so excited about the potential of not only the, the blockchainte.

Kind of, in, in our day-to-day, we thinkabout DeFi and all these other protocols, but honestly the different layer thatI think will make a big difference, which is, the kind of the, the foundationallayer of a lot of the things I think we, we take for granted, maybe don't thinkabout them as much, but that we can actually kind of recycle it and renew in,in, in regards to our energy consumption and, things along that nature.

But before we get into all that, whatwere you doing before you started Anode Labs?

Dallas: Oh, I was doingsomething much more boring. So I was I was investment banker for about 15years. And so yeah, come outta the energy and power sector. And fortunately hada colleague who kind of, fully dragged me down the rabbit hole of what'spossible to build in, in, in this way.

And, and, yeah. Yeah, working on areactive, we're, we're doing something a lot more exciting now.  

Julian: Yeah. And, and inregards to the energy kind of the, i the thought behind energy and blockchaintechnology, obviously you were working within the en energy industry, but whatwas kind of the introduction to blockchain technology that essentially and thenwhat was the inspiration behind using the technology that was there andconnecting it with the React network?

Dallas: Yeah, so, I'm, I'm, Imight be a boomer to most people in the industry, but really I, I, I think the,the cool intersection here as it relates to, to, to blockchain, which is justa, it's a, it's a piece of, this is the incentivization power of, really what'spossible.

Yeah. In terms of the business we'rebuilding, that's, that's just, that's a part of it. Really what we saw was thenecessity to connect, distribute energy infrastructure at the grid. And, andallow it to play a role in our energy, energy transition because it's, it's ithas to be a critical part of the solution.

If we don't use it we're gonna have a, agrid that doesn't work. And we're, we're just not gonna be able to achieve ourclimate goal. So it's, it's, it's kind of mission critical and yeah. Justsomething we have to do.  

Julian: Yeah. . Yeah. And, anddescribe to the audience about energy and kinda the energy grid system that wemight not be aware of.

Like what are the, if, if there are,what are the inefficiencies? Honestly, when was, when was it built? And, andhas there been any kind of drastic milestone in terms of its, its likerevamping or any kind of in, in introduction of new technology? What's, what'sthat system like now? And, and what can be improved?

Dallas: For, for notdescribing yourself as an energy expert. Julian, those are great questions. Itreally relevant to, to why this has to exist, what we're building has to exist.And so, if you think about the electricity infrastructure, the powerinfrastructure in this country, on average, most of it's four 40 years old.

And, and so it's, it's aginginfrastructure. It's incredibly expensive to build power transmission lines andsubstations. And, and we're at a really, really important critical juncture.Over the last 20 years, we've had no load growth, so no, no increase inelectricity demand. And while the economy's been growing, we've been able tooffset, the, increased needs with with greater efficiency from things that thegrid edge, things that are, that are using electricity.

We're now at a, at a place where we'reexpecting 40% low growth by 2035. And so, wow. We're already having a massiveproblem with blackouts and aging infrastructure. And now for the first time in,more than 30 years, we have to we have to, to deliver more power and, and amassive amount of new power.

And this is, of course, it's, it's theelectrification of everything. The next car I buy is gonna be, I'm in Texas, soI have to get the Ford F-150 Lightning. Yeah. . So we're, and in, in, in adecade we're, most of us will be driving EVs. Yeah. And so those are, those arebig challenges we're gonna have to confront and by the, on the same side as wetry to, to to reach, our, our climate.

We're, we're building more and moresolar and and wind on the grid. The grid is getting greener and greener andthat's fantastic. Yeah. But there are some challenges with that as well. Thesun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow. And so these areintermittent producing assets, intermittent generating assets, and, and you coyou coupled those two facts, right?

An increasing amount of intermittentassets with a massive increase in, in demand. And the answer is we have to geta lot more flexible on the grid and. In terms of, just tech at the, at the gridedge, I'm talking about homes and small businesses, where the lines go andpeople are actually using electricity.

Our, our intelligence and ability toreally understand what's happening at the grid edge in terms of, of tech think1970s wow. Your utility knows how much you're using at the end of the month in15 minute increments in arrears they don't, there's, there's no real time dataat the grid edge.

And this is a massive hole in, in, in inour ability to really understand the grid edge and understand how flexible wecan be at the grid edge and prepare for where we're headed and the like, thenow and, and the, and the near future. Yeah. .

Julian: Yeah. Two questionsthat pop into my head is what, what does the supply chain look like from, theenergy kind of generation then to the some centralized hub, I'm sure, and thendistribution what does that look like?

Who kind of plays a role in those kindof parts of the supply chain? And if there's any parts missing, please let usknow. And then secondly, What is the incumbent plan for addressing the increasein, in energy? You, you, you said a word was energy not capacity, but you, yousaid generation or something like that.

I can't remember exactly what you said.Yeah. But what's the incumbent plan for, for tackling that outside of the Reactnetwork?  

Dallas: Sure. Yeah, so as, aswe think about just the, the system in general to, to kind of keep it simpleand break it into the c. You have the, the generation of electricity, right?

So you're either burning fossil fuels.Yeah. So historically in the past, that's, that's been a lot of coal, verydirty. It's been natural gas cleaner than coal, but, but still, burning fossilfuels. And, these, these, fuels are burned. A rotor is turned. It's kind of amagical process of how electricity is generated from all that, that you have togo back to, to high school, to really, learn again, , but you know, then it,then it moves in transmission.

So the big, big metal, metal poles,metal lines on the, on the side of the road to substations and then woodenpoles, metal lines to homes. And so utilities are really, they're, they're inthe distribution business of trying to plan for how much the city of Houston'sgoing to, to need.

And so you have a local utility that's,that's, that's that's in the business of, of of delivering power. Yeah. Andthen other, other businesses in a lot of areas that are in the business ofgenerating. and, and so it's, it's pretty archaic. But it, it really comes downto, somebody out there today is forecasting what the weather's gonna betomorrow.

And based on that weather, we think,this is gonna be the electricity demand and there's somebody, at the beginningof that supply chain that's gonna put, more or less coal on a conveyor belt togo into the coal plant based on, based on that. Yeah. And, and, for most ofhistory, the, the power system has been about pushing as much, power.

To the consumer as, as as we thinkthey're gonna require. Now, power plants go down the weather's different thanwe think. Or we have increasing intermittent assets. It's not as windy as wethink. So now, wind turbines aren't generating as much, much electricity, orit's not as sunny as we thought.

And so we, we have to, to, to have anintelligent system, we have to not only push electricity, but also mm-hmm. beflexible on the other side as well. So when we have energy storage at the gridedge, You know that, energy storage at the grid edge is the same as, pushingproduction from this end.

Yeah. When we have the ability to, tomaybe, wait 30 minutes before we kick the AC on if, if the grid is, if demandis peaking know, those are, those are all things we can do, but we have to, wehave to engage that person at the grid edge in, in their electricityconsumption and their flexibility.

And more importantly, I mean, veryimportant to all of this, that'd be compensated for that. There has to be somereward, some reason that they're engaged. So there's a lot of reasons, right?If, if, if you're, if you're interested in, in, building a greener future thisis as important as transportation.

Those are the two big things you have tosolve for if you want to have a greener future and, and and so yeah, I think,the, the electron mm-hmm. is going to be the most important commodity of, of,of the next century. Yeah. We have to start thinking about how we're using itin our homes, how we're putting it into our car when we're, when we're doingthose things, and, and how it fits into the larger equation.

And, and, and, this is a market where,flexibility at the, at the grid edge, the ability to reduce demand mm-hmm. or.Stored electricity in a battery and put it into, into this complex market whenit's most needed. That's the same thing as, as having a little coal plant,well, let's say a green plant ha having, having a wind turbine that you canturn on like that, right?

So, the ability to be flexible and, andkind of bring bring, responsiveness from the demand side, it's valuable andyeah, and you can be compensated just as if you owned a little virtual powerplant at your home.  

Julian: Yeah. And when you saythe grid edge, describe that. Is that like where the power power plant sits andkind of, kind of stores the energy that is, say, not being used and, and couldbe used and distributed for, fu future consumption?

Dallas: The, yeah, the gridedge is simply where we're, we're consuming electricity. So, the end of thepower lines where it has been pushed out, that is the grid edge. So in ourhomes and, and so really, having flexibility that, that we can leverage and.Having realtime information about how much we're using there.

Yeah. That's exceedingly valuable toother participants in the power market and helping balance the entire equationas part of this. People don't think about this in every day. There, there arepeople that think about this every day, but probably not everybody on this,that listens to this podcast, but, s supply and demand of electricity, they'vegotta be exactly in balance.

And if they're not, yeah. We have,things break, power, power lines have issue. Devices in your home, will, will,will, will trip up. And so balancing that equation, we, we have to design aframework and where, where it's not always balanced by responsive generation,generation where we're smart with the other end as well.

And that really, requires engagingpeople in their electricity consumption and flexibility.  

Julian: Yeah. And so, describethe React network and kind of what are the different components that's gonnaallow us from the grid edge to then kind of monitor and also even store andtake advantage of the, maybe the consumption that we're not using, but maybefor future?

Cuz right now it seems so linear, itseems like, it's coal energy, power, power plant, and then delivered to ourhomes. I, I can see the challenge if, if one part of that linear formula justdoesn't just brace.  

Dallas: Yeah, yeah. So, this,you, you're, you're, you're right in kinda how you, you kind of illustratethat.

But, but it, it is flexibility at thegrid edge that is gonna allow us to much better and more effectively balancethis equation, make for a more resilient grid. And, and and one where we, wekeep the. And yeah, and we make it a better working system. So in terms of whatindividuals will, will do to participate in the React network yeah.

There's a simple device thatparticipants can, can clip under their breaker panel and, and that that devicewill start streaming realtime data to the network. Yeah. And, and, and so,with, with some critical. We should quickly have the, the, the largest networkof real time electricity consumption data Yeah.

In the United States. Which, which is,is massively valuable. Yeah. There, there's a lot of really interesting things.We're, we're, we're gonna build in as well. That, that, I think everybody willbe interested. I'm certainly, I'll, I nerd out on this stuff, but,understanding how much your HVAC is using yeah.

You flip a switch and you, you see the responseof, how much that light bulb, turned on. And, and really, yeah, understandinghow flexible you are and the volatility of, at nighttime I use this, but, at at2:00 PM I, I, I'm 10 x, 10 x that. Yeah, there's some pretty interestingthings.

And then also so that's kind of the,the, the, in initial ask is that people install these devices and turn realtimedata. We also, are encouraging participants to connect other smart energydevices. So smart thermostats and home batteries EV chargers.

Yeah. And, and, and home batteries if Ididn't already say. But really these are all the devices that really areimmense sources of flexibility. And we coupled these two devices, the abilityto, to see realtime data and realtime response with flexible energy assets.Coupled together you have the ability to, to have massive responses ofverifiable action.

Yeah, And you can think of everybody inyour neighborhood, agreed to, you know what, we can let the AC kick on like in20 minutes for that 20 minute window. If the grid is under immense strain. It'sthe same thing as inserting that much electricity. So, that that reductiondemands the same thing as in, in inserting like creating a, a virtual powerplan out of nothing and coming to the call of the grid and receivingcompensation for that action.

So, so, . The, the great thing aboutthis is everybody's eligible. That's the market. It's anybody that, that hasthe ability to touch the thermostat without getting yelled at. Anybody thatpays an electricity bill, not me. We're all okay. Yeah, I know, I know mesometimes, but, it's this, we we're, we're all massive users of, of electricityand, and, and, and we're gonna be using more in the future as well.

So we have to, we have to think about itmore. And, and it's, I, I think we, we, we can do this in an engaging way.It's, that, that, that time is not only, it's not only furthering us and, andkind of climate objectives and, and, esg objectives, but it's also profitable.And, and I think it's fun too.

So, yeah. That's, that's my  

Julian: question. Yeah. No, I,I, I, I, And now I'm curious, where does kind of the, the network, the cryptonetwork, where does that technology come into play? Is it, is it the datacollection? Is it on the individual who has that system in, in their home andthey kind of have that, that data kind of linked into this blockchain?

Or, or chain chain of blocks or and thensecond question is, how does it get redistributed throughout the network?  

Dallas: Sure. Yeah. So really,we're not in terms of how, how this network sits into the existing powersystem. While, while the power system is aging and it's old, there's also somuch capital that's been spent, we're not building a new power system.

We're working within the current systemto make it much more effective. And, and, and so what the React I Work isreally doing, we're, we're incentivizing participants to, to deploy thesedevices, stream realtime data, uh mm-hmm , and, and the more you know of thesemeters that they connect and devices that they connect at, at a site.

So if you think, kind of a, a meter thatgoes on the breaker panel a smart thermostat, a battery, an EV charger, themore devices they connect, the more they'll receive in. There's a ton ofutility in just Yeah. Having, having kind of access to your own data in thefirst place.

Mm-hmm. . But the more, the more devicesthat you connect that, that, that are verifiably flexible devices and that wecan see their, their ability to so basically not draw power or in the case of abattery insert power dispatch power. Yeah. When the grid is, is.

That's, that is valuable. And, and so,participants will they'll be rewarded for Yeah. The more devices that theyconnect. And values returned to participants as data is monetized. and if they,if they want to use these assets to participate in in, in, in the, in the saleof flexibility through these virtual power plants, agreeing to, yeah.

Maybe let somebody, modify their, theirthermostat by a degree or two for 30 minutes, they could be compensated forthat as well. So, lot, lots of opportunities for people to understand theirelectricity consumption. And and, and receive value from both streaming dataand and participating in any, any kind of flexibility response.

Julian: Yeah, I love, I lovethis big push. You, you're one of many companies that are, are, I'm excitedabout the, their focus on kind of offering their users rewards for the activitythat they do versus, a lot of different companies for the past. 10 years we're,we're very much focused on, user activity and then monetizing on say, ads orwhatever, kind of, or, or their data or anything like that.

But I love the reward-based activitybecause I think it really creates a stickiness within the system. And, we allwanna, we all wanna make better energy decisions. But I feel as thoughsometimes it's challenging to kind of, incorporate them in your. And, and thenalso return to that behavior.

I guess also from a, if a business pointof view, what are the challenges of having people adopt, hardware in theirhome? Obviously software is so easy to distribute, you can download or you cango to a platform that's hosted online and the cloud. But what are somechallenges that we may not know about?

Not only building hardware, but alsodistributing and getting people to implement it in their.

Dallas: Yeah. So the devicesthat, you know we're talking about are pretty simple. Not everybody will becomfortable kind of doing anything with their breaker panel . Anytime I need toflip a switch, I'm, I'm sent there.

Not everybody in my office gonna dothat. But, but it's, it's a, it's a device at a, at a price point, sub ahundred dollars that, that most people can afford. And so, I think. , my, myview and, and there's so much utility around just understanding this in the, inthe first place.

Yeah. That I think to me it just, it's,it's kind of a no-brainer to, to get engaged mm-hmm. , and, and start to, tounderstand how, how green your consumption is. How flexible you are, whatmodifications you can. Do, do you have, three mini fi mini fridges that you'renot using that, are, are costing you, hundred bucks a year?

I mean, just, there's all sorts ofthings, right. So, so, yeah, no, I think in terms of, just participation our,our hope is that people see this as a, an, an important initiative. And,something that they can benefit, in terms of transitioning to a greener.

And then also earning earning for doingit. And then also just enjoying the, the really interacting with their dataand, and understanding their footprint.

Julian: Yeah. And then whatare the has this always been the product? Did, did it always, were you alwaysenvisioning something that connected homes together, collected data and thenhad this whole kind of network?

Or how has it changed during the thedevelopment of the product?  

Dallas: Yeah. I. That's agreat question. Certainly we've, we've, we weren't always headed in exactlyexactly this direction, but as we've spent more time with the problem our viewis that in the power space, what's really needed is a, a horizontal layer.

That, that, is kind of ubiquitous acrossall consumers in the next and connects, people and devices and their, and theirinterview flexibility and allows other power market participants to, tointeract with them. I, I think in terms of , the, the actual devices.

We've, we've kind of developed more of abig tent approach as the more we've thought about it. Yeah. Really, the, thebest approach is to connect as many people across across the United States andas many assets and devices that have yeah. The ability to, to enhanceflexibility and, and, and, and allow the grid to call on it and, and compensateit when.

Julian: Yeah. And from acompany standpoint, or I guess a technology standpoint as well how muchadoption do you feel is needed to then actually make, an impact that thatstarts to, whether it's, it's, it's uh, reduce the load on, on the grid or theenergy the plants as well or kind of influence the decision making?

I'm sure from the other side of thesupply chain, which is the generation of the. How much adoption do you need? Isit like a hundred homes? It's a hundred thousand homes? What, what doesthat  

Dallas: look like?  

Yeah, it's a great question. I think,our, our our our hope is that, we have well into the thousands, maybe tens ofthousands of, of, of meters connected in, in kind of the first year.

I think that would be a, a great kindof, success case. But, but ultimately, residential demand is, 35, 40% ofelectricity demand small CNIs is yeah, is an added on top of that. So if youthink about the total power market really, that's, that's the size of the pieand, and, and it's massive.

But really, we're I, I think initiallyhere realize it's new. think there's a tons of reasons why, people should beengaged with this. And so, early adopters and people who really want to make areal difference and, and get engaged with the electron.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. From, Iguess as you're kind of building this product and, and getting it, into homesand, and starting to collect this this information and, and distribute it, whois kind of the main beneficiary of, obviously it's the user who has it pluggedinto the home can kinda get rewards based, but outside of them, who benefitsfrom the system as well?

And, and who are you, I guess, sellingthis information to, to them better make business decisions Obvious. Thisinformation so valuable. And there's gotta be someone else that benefits on, onthe other end. And who has that person and have they been the same kind ofstakeholder that you, that you've had the whole time?

Dallas: Yeah, no, I thinkbroad range of potential purchasers on the data side. In, in Texas where I am,you have the utility, but then you'll, you have a, power contract with a retailelectricity provider. Their entire business is a financial business. They arekind of, forward buying how much electricity you think you're gonna, you'regonna require.

And when it comes time, for your demandit works out better for them if they get, if they get that forecast right.We'll have the best data to enable better forecasting with, real-time data inthe home. That will be highly valuable to anybody that's trying to, to betterserve customers.

Utilities. I, I think we'll, we'll have,we'll find this data valuable as well. There's even insurance companies thatyeah, you have, have an interest in data like this given, if there's voltagefrequent, if there, if there's voltage issues within a home, it's a firehazard. So, I mean, if, if you buy an $85 device and it, and it, and it alertsyou to something, an issue that might burn your house down, I would say thatwould be worth it.

Yeah, so I mean, there's all sorts ofutility here and, and the data is, is I think enormously useful. And that's,aside from the ability to kind of, participate in these virtual power plantflexibility programs as well  

Julian: yeah. What, what doyou feel like the advantages for you as a smaller company?

Kind of making the push from, from the,the the, the, the end user that larger companies may, cuz if I'm thinking aboutit, I'm, I'm thinking my largest competitor is, is maybe the energy generatorsor the energy distributors. I'm in California, so we have, Pacific Gas andElectric and obviously implementing a bunch of devices in the homes that theyserve, I think is a tall.

But I guess from a smaller companystandpoint, what do you think gives you the leg up on on something that itsounds like is extremely necessary, which is just understanding yourconsumption in real time and, and the actual making the actual behavior changesthat can, that can influence and impact the load that's, that's being, bearedon, on these grids.

Dallas: Yeah. I, I'd saypeople generally hate energy companies, . And, and, and there's probably a lotof reasons. It's probably a different podcast, but, a lot of low NPS scores inthis space. I, I think it, it's we haven't seen a whole lot of folks in thisspace that have really engaged the consumer and been viewed as on the consumerside.

Mm-hmm. , and, and so, our, our view isthat for, for this to. We have to, engage the customer, better, better than thecurrent incumbents. We have to return as much valuable value as possible to theindividual. Because networks like these accrue value when, when they becomemassive.

And and, and so our, our goal is to,have, have an app and an interaction that you know is a tremendous userexperie. And so, enriching in lots of ways. Yeah. And, and and, and thatreturns as much valuable value as possible to, to people who are engaged andjoin.  

Julian: Yeah. Tell us a littlebit about the traction that you have. How many, how many devices are, and howmany homes, how much data are you now collecting? And what's gonna be excitingabout this next year is kind of leap in in, in, in your company.

Dallas: Yeah, Julian, greatquestion. People that are listening to this, they get in on the ground floor.

We're, launching the app here in abouttwo weeks. Amazing. And so, you and maybe two and a half weeks, but we'll haveknow, information on the initial device that you can, you can you can purchaseand, and put in your home that, that meter. And so yeah. Get a meter anddownload the app and start to getting engaged with with your, your electricity.

Julian: Yeah. And is this onlyfor homeowners, or, or is it also, can, can you say, I, if I rent out anapartment, can I use it also in, in my energy system?  

Dallas: Yeah. So it, it worksfor, if you have a breaker panel it, it, you you can participate here. So, soyeah, it works for most people in departments.

and and yeah. Yeah, small, smallcommercial and industrial as well.  

Julian: Yeah. And what aresome of the biggest challenges that you face today?  

Dallas: Yeah, I think, I thinkit's really just going, going to be building community building. Explaining,why people should be engaged.

Yeah. But, but really, yeah, I mean, Ithink this is, it's gonna be, an important part of an increasing, increasinglyimportant part of, your home budget. As we go through time, electricity billsare up 20%. They're, they're gonna go up more. This grid requires moreinvestment and with a 40 coming, 40% increase in electricity you should, youshouldn't start paying attention, in, in five years.

You need to start paying attention now.Yeah. But, but yeah, I think it's, it's all about adoption and getting peopleto engage. That that, that I think is the challenge here. Yeah. A lot ofreasons why they should. But, but, gotta gotta go to the app store and, andkind of take the next step.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Ifeverything goes well, what's the long term?

Dallas: Well, yeah, I thinkthat the target that we have is that 40% of US power consumption. That's, that,that is the, the resi wedge, residential wedge. We, we, we want every home to,to stream realtime data and allow every individual to, when they leave thehouse and, co my, my, my my ACS running.

Nobody's there. Lemme turn it down.Yeah. See. , you know that right now the, the grid is, is 70% coal in my, in,in my region. Let me, I, I don't need to use this much electricity. Let me, letme modify. Yeah. Let me, let me take my, stored electricity and my battery andparticipate in this program and generate a return for an asset that provides meadditional resiliency.

There's an, or, let me kind of change myev charging. I'm not gonna drive anywhere far tomorrow. I can, I can make asimple modification there and make some money. It's, it's, I, I, I thinkthere's, there's so many ways to interact with the grid. And, and mostindividuals just have no access no, no ally on their side to, to help them havethat interaction.

So our, our goal is to take 40% of, USpower con. And, and provide them that access.

Julian: Yeah. Incredible. As afounder, what, what, what's the hardest part about your job?  

Dallas: Whew, that's a, that'sa great question. I, I think what we're building is so necessary and excitingthat I, I don't really kind of view any, any, anything that goes on the tasklist as mm-hmm.

as an imposition or too hard. Is it,it's, yeah. Like you said, this is something that needs to exist. and yeah, I,I think it's really just hoping that all of my efforts and my team's effortsare kind of enough for the Cause. It's a big, big problem to fix. Yeah. Wethink we've got, the, the right, right mouse trap here that returns value topeople and gets them engaged. Yeah. And I hope they agree.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I alwayslike to ask this question outside of time as a founder, what would you want tobe a or outside of, of, of time? How, as a founder, what would you want to havemore of is outside of time, of course, is it, is it spent on, know, certaintype of task?

Is, is it resources? What in particularas a founder, do you kind of, maybe maintains on your tasks that you would liketo address more often?

Dallas: Yeah. If, if I couldhave more of anything right now, it would just be more kind of networkdisciples just people who are super engaged and understand the vision,understand the opportunity and, and so it's, I think it's, it's, it'svisibility and, and and, and really engagement what, what I want is, people to,to plug in and start to get to, to, to get engaged and, and start participatingin this market.

Yeah, and to tell their friends and forthem, their friends, to tell their friends . So yeah, I'm using all the time Igot right now with a lot more time as well. Yeah. But yeah, I think just, justmore allies here. More, more allies. So feel free to join anybody that'slistening.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I alwayslike to ask this one as a little bit of a curve ball, but if you weren'tworking on this, what would you be working on?

Whew.

Dallas: I've spent my wholecareer in energy, so it'd be something in energy. Yeah. And, and I think it's,we're, we're gonna face massive challenges. And while this might be somethingthat people kind of think about in the back burner I'm from Texas. This is atthe, this is on the, kind of the front of the brain for a lot of people here.

But there's no interaction. There's nonothing you do in a day that doesn't require energy. Yeah. And, and so I'd be,I'd be spending my efforts there somewhere, but I, I think as we think aboutpower generation in general this is the, the big, a big problem we're gonnaface over the next decade.

And so I think this is where, where myattention is required and I'd be doing something. I love that.  

Julian: I love that. I wasthis next question is, is one for my audience, but two for selfish researchpurposes. Whether it's early in your career or now what books or people haveinfluenced you the most?

Dallas: Yeah, there's a, agreat question. There's a book i, I really love called the Trillion DollarCoach.  

Julian: Oh yeah. Yeah. I'veheard of that.  

Dallas: Yeah. And, and so it'sabout Bill Campbell and he's a college football coach that moved to SiliconValley and became an advisor to, he'd take Steve Jobs, would take a weekly ortwice weekly, walk around the neighborhood with him.

He was just this mentor and advisor to,to, to, it's a, to Steve Jobs, but also to, to the whole Google executive. And,was a, I think CEO of Intuit as well. But yeah, it's a, it's a great read. AndI, it's, I think it, it, it's very informative around, how, how to, how to helpteams work better and how to bring a different perspective to, to to, to a teamand, and, and get folks to really lean in and, and do their best work.

Julian: Yeah, I love that. Isthere anything that I didn't ask you that I should have?  

Dallas: No. No. I think, Ithink think we covered a lot. But yeah it would, people feel free to reachout.  

Julian: Where can we findyou?  

Dallas: So we're atreactnetwork.io or we, we've also, Twitter, we're great on Twitter and have adiscord. So yeah, jump in Twitter, join the Discord. Would love to interactwith anybody that has any question, wants questions, wants to get engaged. Alot of work to do. So, We need a lot of allies.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Well,Dallas, thank you so much for being on the show. I know we're a little bit overtime, but I think, the topic of energy and sustainability and what companiescan do and what they're doing with, with the new technology that we have at ourdisposable, at our disposal is always, I think, a great conversation to continue.

And we've done a lot of sustainabilitypodcasts, so we'll have to have you come back on the show to, to go deeper intothe progress that you've made from then until now. But Dallas, I hope youenjoyed yourself and thank you so much for being on the show.  

Dallas: Yeah. Julian, thanksso much for having me love the podcast and yeah love to connect in the future.Thanks.  

Julian: Awesome.

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