May 16, 2023 • 35 mins
At 19, Jessica O. Matthews invented the SOCCKET, a soccer ball that stores kinetic energy, and then converts that power into light. Jessica’s invention took her from the Harvard classroom to audiences with U.S. Presidents, and it jump-started her journey into the power and infrastructure industry. In this episode, the founder and CEO of Uncharted Power talks about what kind of thinking it takes to invent something, and how witnessing the energy crisis of her native Nigeria inspired her to invent a power-storing soccer ball.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hey, y'all, welcome back to the show. I've been
interviewing so many different people who've clawed their way into
industries that can seem impossible for someone like them to
break into. When I met Jisca Matthews, it was clear
taking up space was something she thrived on. You can
(00:37):
hear it in the way she talks about being a
young black woman in a field filled with fifty five
year old white men. What does Jessica do well? She's
actually an inventor, and her sophomore year at Harvard, when
she was just nineteen years old, Jessica invented an energy
generating soccer ball called the Socket. Her invention got her
on the radar of folks like Bill Clinton and Barack
(00:59):
Obama and helped her launch a company called Uncharted Power,
which is trying to reimagine and reinvent the way a
city's infrastructure can store power. I mean, super ambitious stuff.
I'm eager for you all to hear how Jessica thinks
about her life and her career, which she says is
the difference between happiness and success. This is started from
(01:23):
the bottom, hard earned success stories from people like us.
If you can simply explain what the socket is.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, it's a soccer ball that generates energy when it rolls.
When you pass it, it generates energy, stores the power
inside the ball. You don't have to be an engineer
to use it. All you have to do is know
how to play soccer.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So it doesn't just like glow or something though, right, there's.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Like a no, you would actually plug things into it?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
And again it was small.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
It was it could never power our house or even
a room. You know, we're talking about small lights. The
goal was never to create something that generated a whole
bunch of energy. The idea was less about the product
that was created and more about the idea that was
created and the magic behind it, and the ability to
(02:13):
get people to feel like you were using science to
make magic real and to have them attribute that to me.
All of that happened, you know, from nineteen to twenty four.
It got me on stages with Bill Clinton where he
said things like, if ever there was an innovator, she's it.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It got me in rooms with just brilliant people, rooms
that normally people like me, people who look like me,
would never be in.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
How do you invent something This is like literally the
dumbest question about how do you invent something?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
How do you invent something?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
To me, the first step of innovation is the articulation
of the problem. So what do I mean by that?
Do not start saying you want to invent something and
then start thinking about the thing you want to invent.
Start thinking about the problem you want to solve, and
detail it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Right, So, what's the problem?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Okay, Now let's do some root cause analysis, Like, let's
really try for what's the problem?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Why?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Why is that a problem? Why is this an issue?
Where did this come from? Once you have your problem, articularly,
once you're like, okay, this is the problem I want
to solve, then you start saying, Okay, what are some
ways to solve it? You can, you can do a
brainstorm and just start thinking about things. But what I
actually recommend is, once you have the problem articulated, step
away and go and live your life.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Why.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
The definition of science is the study of life. So
if you're living, and the more that you live, the
more that I believe you're a scientist. And so if
you're trying to come up with something, most likely you're
going to pull the answer from your life if you
were if you live a sheltered life, you're gonna come
up with a sheltered fucking answer. Your invention is gonna
be some sheltered as shit. But if you want to
(03:53):
come up with something that's broad, if you want to
be able to say, you know what, there's this problem
here with like inspiration and energy, and the answer is
going to be a soccer ball that can generate energy
that's going to come from going out and seeing your
cousins play soccer.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
And it's going to hit you.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
That's gonna come from walking down the street and seeing
a woman push their kid and be like, oh wait
a minute, what about this? Like, you have to observe
and experience as much as possible in your life because
that's gonna be the bank that you pull your idea from.
So you articulate your problem so it's there, and then
you go and live your life and you have a
notebook and you just jop down ideas as they come
to you, versus a forced brainstorm. I suggest go and
(04:31):
put yourselves in put yourself in situations that will inspire you,
that will engage you, and that will get you thinking
about different things. Now you got your ideas, you have
to prototype it, and now you're gonna sit here and
be like, I can't make this dumb, this thing down
to the most embarrassing, ridiculous shit that you can make.
(04:55):
So I'll give you an example. The first prototype of
the socket. I went to target and I got a
clear plastic hamster ball. I went to home depot and
I got a shape the charge flash light. I put
the shape the charge flashlight inside of the hamster ball.
I rolled it back and forth. For the concept of
a ball that could generate energy with motion. That was
the first prototype. The goal of your prototype is to
(05:17):
find the simplest thing that you can create that you
can then get feedback on to make sure your shit
makes sense. The answer becomes, yes, you make a prototype
that's just a little bit better, a little bit better,
a little bit better. Before you know it, I'm in Shenzen, China,
like you know, telling everyone I'm Serena Williams that they
make my fucking soccer balls on time like that that
(05:37):
was a true story.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We don't have enough time to go for that, So
there's that, Like what's going on there now?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
To go from the initial prototype looks like feels like
acts like perhaps, okay, you might need a little bit
of money. You go from the initial prototype to them.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, the art of the side hustle should not be underestimated,
you know in the beginning. Again, there's grants you can
do a friends and family, but you know, if you're oftentimes,
if you're a minority, friends and family is like here's
a sandwich.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I mean, here's a true in kind investment.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
There are some grants, but they do so oftentimes take
time to get and you're probably gonna be impatient, and
you should be. So I would say, like when when
a charity play got started, I was still working at
another company. You can't like you you know, you have
to make sure you separate things.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Did that risk? Did that risk them owning your IP?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
As long as you do not use any of the
company's equipment to do it, or any of their ideas
or anything from there, And then you can prove that
they actually knew because before I went to go and
work for that company, they knew that I had invented
this thing in college. So then you're you're fine, but
you definitely don't want to sit there and use the
company's resources. No, don't do that. That's just that's just
bad karma. But I know a lot of people who
(06:54):
you know, they're lawyers, their accountants, and then they spend
two hours on the weekend working on a makeup company
like it's normally something totally different.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
It's amazing. I'm inspired. I'm going to go invent something today.
I'm gonna be working on a prototype in the kitchen tonight. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah, listen, it should look wild. You should be like this,
sh'll look crazy.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
That's the most freeing thing I've ever heard, that your
prototype you make a hamster wheel and a shake flash?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Are there any other steps in the invention process we
left out just to cover our bases here.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Once you have.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
A prototype that's starting to look a little bit more presentable,
an invention doesn't matter if you're the only one who
knows about it. So a really, really key part is
open up. I know people are afraid. People are gonna say, well,
what if someone steals my idea. I'm gonna say this
straight up. It is so hard to do most things.
(07:56):
It is so hard to do most things. In order
for someone to steal your idea, the number of things
they'd have to have on you, right, and so I
think that oftentimes when you will invent something, they have
an idea, they keep it to themselves. But by doing that,
you're not kind of activating that feedback loop that's going
(08:16):
to do two things. Give you a better understanding of
how to improve that invention, but also give you the
confidence to know that this is something that makes sense
to more people than just you. The more you start
to tell it to people and tell people, you're also
going to get two things that are going to happen.
People are going to either want to give you some money,
or give you some time, or give you an opportunity.
And one of those three things are going to be
(08:37):
a catalyst to getting you from making something in the
kitchen to you know, being in a room where someone says, Yo,
we know about you.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
You need to become a business that we can do
business with you.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
It's amazing. How do you get to a point at
age nineteen where you invent this thing that opens up
all these doors for you? How does that happen?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I remember.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Very early on telling myself it's not about strategies for success,
it's about strategies for happiness, and that as soon as
I understand the role that success plays in my happiness,
but it's not the only thing that impacts my happiness.
You know, I'll have a true north that that I
can count on, and that makes sense, And so that
(09:23):
means I had to really spend some time, you know,
in my teenage years even thinking about, well, what actually
makes me happy?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
And it wasn't until college.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Though, where where I realized that my life was just
it was everything I was going to make it and
everything I wasn't going to make it that I think
I spent the real time doing that reflection and that, yeah,
that ended up being a little of my compass. So
I would actually sit down as I would push in
anything that I'm doing, any job I have any kind
(09:51):
of bigger goal, right, So any work that I have
rather not necessarily a job, but any work that I have.
Every couple of weeks, I'll ask myself, am I happy?
And there's really only two answers that are allowed. Yes,
which is great or no. But this is temporary, right,
So I might be like, no, I'm not happy because
(10:13):
I'm I'm stressed about how many hours I'm working. It's like, okay, well,
is the result of those hours will that make you happy? Yes, okay, okay,
then listen, push through. You can fight through for that. Yeah,
And so I think having that as my true north,
(10:34):
and then also recognizing like that I'm somewhat of.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Like a.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I'm a big believer that luck is an acronym that
it stands for laboring under correct knowledge.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
And so I think coupled with.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
That, at a relatively early early age, at the age
of nineteen, I had something lucky happened to me.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Let's go back to your initial epiphany about happiness versus success.
What were the circumstances that made that thought occur to you?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
You know, again be Nigerian and having so much family
in Nigeria, knowing where were comfortable where they weren't, but
also knowing down the street how many people were living
with so little. You know, I always tell my my
husband he was born in Mississippi. I'm like, you want
to know how Nigerians think about poverty in the United States?
(11:25):
Only in America can you be overweight? And for do
you understand? Like no, do you understand like that, like
the fact that government cheese exists, cheesecat great food?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
We met it? Like no?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Like what so so like.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I'm sitting here thinking about like yo, like I'm one
hundred Nigerian.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
I know I'm saying some while nored percent. I'm not
trying to like all I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I'm just saying like I'm over here like sitting down
thinking like God, it could have been the easiest thing
for me to be born in that fucking hut over there, like.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
That would have been the easiest. Like it's not like
it would have been like I can't have imagined. I
can imagine it.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
This is where I'm from, this is my village, this
is where my dad grew up. My dad grew up
so poor that he only started eating corn five years
ago because that's all they could afford growing up.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
And he was like, I cannot eat anymore corn, Like
it could have easily been that. Why why not?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
And so I think when you have that realization of
gratitude and that realization of privilege, even despite the systemic
issues working against you, again, like I have no problem
saying I have privilege just because of the luck luck
can be privileged. That's something sometimes I think that white
people struggle with luck can be privileged. Hard work can
(13:00):
be privileged. Yes, my dad had to work like hell
to get out. My mom had to work like hell,
her dad was a teacher to get out. But still
I'm the next door neighbor did it, and like I
could have been born to them. And so I think
that with that, I remember immediately saying, Okay, whenever I pray,
I'm never going to ask for anything. I'm just gonna
(13:21):
say thank you, because like I had this weird thought
in my mind that all of this stuff that God
gave me could be taken away unless I give him
a really strong ROI.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
There's a lot of things at the age of eight
and nine.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
So that's when I started to realize that this thing
called life was more than just a push. You had
to really think about your frame of mind whenever your
last breath would be.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
And I remembered sitting.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
In so you're eight, your eight, you're young, and you're
thinking about your last breath on earth. This is These
are not the thoughts of normal eight year olds.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
No, the fact that I'm having ROI like return on
investment prayer sessions with God that I reckon that was
probably the first weird thing. But then I'm actually eighteen
years old when I start to realize, yo, like this
is not just about an ROI thing, Like people are
out here dying. People my own family are dying, and
(14:22):
they're dying not with this like gratitude, hope feeling of
you know that I have, like from the age of eight,
they're dying kind of feeling like their world is the
status quo. They can't do anything to change it, They
have no influence. The only way to solve their problems
is to pretend like they don't have them and let
them kill them. Yeah, and so from there, that's when
(14:45):
my kind of ethos in life got a little bit
more dynamic. That's when I started to say, all right, well,
I don't know when my last breath is going to be,
so strategies for happiness, Vircius, strategies for success. But then
at the same time, you know, I think I never
lost this this kind of realization that part of what
(15:08):
makes me really happen be is trying to solve really
big fucking problems.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
We'll be back with more from Jessica O Matthews.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
The problem that I found was that my cousins, who
were trained engineers, chemists and you know, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers,
they had told themselves that there was no changing the
status quo in terms of their world, and I wanted
to create something that inspired them to realize that it
(15:49):
was a much more accessible.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Thing to change things. And so that was that was it.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And I have a degree in psychology and economics. Like
I this invention came from a whole lot of Google,
like a lot of googling.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
You'd be surprised what you could google.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I currently sit on the Department of Energy's Electricity Advisory Committee,
federally appointed from the Secretary of Energy.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Of the United States because of.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
A fucking soccer ball, like like like, let me be clear,
because I googled my way to figuring out the soccer ball,
and then I never stopped googling, And so now I
mean what I do now in some ways couldn't be
farther from a soccer ball. But it's the same, the
same goal, the same point of how do we make
(16:35):
sure that people realize that things could be better in
their infrastructure of their world, and how do we create
technologies that empower people to be part of that that solution.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
It's the same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
So what was the status quo for your cousins who
were engineers in Nigeria.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
In Nigeria, the craziest thing is just it doesn't matter
if you're in the village or if you're in the
bustling city of Legos. Energy, reliable energy, just you know,
it was a massive issue, especially back then. Now, yes,
you're everyone has generators regardless, but you're just losing power
every day, several times a day, period, point blank. And
(17:12):
like I even now, I would say you should expect
to lose power most days. So that was kind of
the setup, you know, that that impact, that shift was
the day to day even a wedding right which I
was actually really proud. I got married in Nigeria early
this year and we didn't lose power once. And like,
to be honest, sometimes I feel like half of this
(17:34):
work that I've done was just.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
To pull off, to pull off.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
The dynamics of stable energy during all these ceremonies, because
again were I remember my aunt, you know, losing power
during her wedding. I remember us bringing in the diesel generator.
I remember the fuse making me feel like I was
gonna faint. I remember my cousin saying, don't worry, You'll
get used to it.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, I was gonna say when you when when you're
bringing you're talking about, you know, people having to work
with kerosene lamps, and then you just mention it now
bringing in like diesel generators. I mean, these are all like,
these aren't benign things. I mean, like the fumes from
a kerosene lamp, the fumes from a diesel generator have
you know, can have lasting health consequences.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
You know who said that living with a kerosene lamp
is like smoking two packs of cigarettes to day. So
it's horrible for you, it's something that's horrible for the environment.
It's killing every single person in that situation. But I
think what I also knew at that young age, and
this is what's kind of funny about what I do
(18:39):
now compared to how I started. I remember when the
socket was being formulated and where I was in this
kind of class with other people also who had kind
of spent some time in the developing world, and we're
all kind of throwing in our thoughts, and I remember
very specifically stating the thing is all of these problems
are infrastructural. They masquerade a socio economic People think, oh,
(19:01):
these countries are poor, like actually people are paying more
for killawat hour in the form of kerosene oil. Then
we're paying in the United States still even with the
rise and costs and everything that's going on. But they
don't have stable infrastructure to pay into. They don't have
like an overarching system that they can trust to pay into.
So everybody's like every man for himself or herself or whatever.
(19:23):
And so that's you have to go and get the
kerosine lamp and you do what you have to do.
So there isn't there isn't a grid that you can
count on. There isn't all of that. But it's not
a socio economic issue. And so for me, though even
though I knew it was an infrastructural issue, infrastructure is
not me. I don't know shit about it. No one
there looks like me. The average age of someone working
(19:45):
in energy infrastructure in the United States fifty five. I
think the average person is a fifty five year old,
straight white man.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
That's what they said. Clearly.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I am not a fifty five year old straight white man.
And so I literally told myself, I got to create
something that can inspire the right people to solve this problem.
My cousin's being one you know they're engineers, at least
they're trained in this space. But this is scary, this
is big. I don't get it. I don't let me
(20:15):
just this is what I know I can do. The
problem is that too many people feel like they can't
change their surroundings. Let me invent something that will inspire
them to realize that the world isn't just as it is,
it can also be what they create. And that's that's
the socket, you know, That's that's what got me in there.
It's funny because it's I had this moment, this opportunity
(20:37):
around maybe twenty maybe twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, where.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I could I was kind of at a fork in
the road and I.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Could have went down the path of trying to see
if we could just produce a million soccer balls, regardless
of whether or not that would actually solve any problem,
right because my current, my first kind of articulation of
the problem was we're not inspiring enough people to join
this fight and changing our environment and changing infrastructure, So
let's inspire them. But if I just put out a
(21:10):
one million soccer balls, you now have to think about
plastic and fumes and all these different things are go
into making them, and I'm like, Okay, is this really
the way to get to the utopia that we want
into a world where there's more equitable infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
It was part of the.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Way, and so we still do Uplift programming where we
actually just we have fewer balls, but we use them
as an educational tool, and we partner with nonprofits and
school school districts with the products. So I could have
gone down that route, or I could pivot and say,
with what I know right now about infrastructure, what is
(21:47):
the best way to solve this problem? And so what
ended up happening over several years really was just kind
of me one getting closer and closer to getting the
guts to actually make an infrastructure product and not just
a product that inspired people to do things in infrastructure,
and then in some ways inventing quite a few things,
(22:09):
putting them out in small and small markets to see
how people were to respond, taking that feedback, and then
coming back with something else, and coming back with something.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Else, what else? So what else did you? What else
did you invent?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
We developed like pavers that you can put fiber optic
and wire and energy cables in that don't require ripping
up the ground every single time, developed tools again for
the different technologies to be able to speak to each other.
Because a big thing that goes on in infrastructure is
that of all the technology doesn't speak the same language,
then you have a lot of redundancies and things don't work.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So we got deep.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Where's your understanding of all this coming from? Because again Google,
Literally you if you Google, you got a degree from
Harvard in psychology and economics and also an MBA only
to Google and figure.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Out how to do Yeah, I mean listen if you
if you google first of all, if you're like intense, right, So,
like I do throw myself in to the work because
it's it's when it's your thing, man, it's like you.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
It becomes something where it's like, hey, why not?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And I think the more, why not spend the time?
Why not put why not.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Spend the time? Why not push it? And I know
who I'm fighting for?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
And every time we did something, I learned more. So
you got to think about this world that I'm in
right now. Like infrastructure is very heady, it's very small.
A lot of people don't work in infrastructure. There might
I swear to God, there might be more people who
are getting like laid off from Twitter than work in
like the highest parts of infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I gotta say, Pete Buddhajet is maybe the only person
I know who works in infrastructure, like the only person
I've ever thought of whose name I might know who
works in infrastructure. And he just started.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
And here's the thing. He the policy guy. He's not
working with the engineers. He's not thinking through, you know,
the technologies that go into everything. And so the more
time that I spent in this room, right, this proverbial room,
I refuse to leave. Once the soccer kind of brought
me in here, the more I just started to listen
and learn and pick up on things that very few
(24:18):
black girls my.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Age had the opportunity to.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
And so as I'm sitting there and listening and we're
trying looking at all these different technologies and all these
different things, I'm like, okay, okay, okay, okay, and yeah,
And each time someone says something but I don't know
what it is, I Google it. So it's kind of
like this real time Google listen think. And when I'm thinking,
I'm thinking from the perspective of a black woman. So
(24:42):
that's what's kind of exciting too, because if the majority
of the people in this space don't look like me,
you should also assume that they're pretty much using the
same solutions to solve these problems and wondering why it's
not working. Like the definition of insanity is doing the
same thing over and over and expecting different results. But
that essentially is what's happening when everybody's the same in
(25:03):
this room. So I'm coming in there and I'm coming
from the perspective of like living in Harlem. I'm looking
up problems and I'm deciding if that's similar to what
it takes to get a we've done, and if you know,
can we solve the.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Problem this way.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
After our last break, you'll hear more from Jessica about
how going to business school helped her navigate the energy
industry that's filled with older white men. What's it like
being in these rooms with fifty five where the average
person is fifty five white, straight, not you.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I think that was a big reason why I felt
the need to go to business school because prior to that,
when I was in these rooms, I was constantly thinking,
if they say something I've never heard of, what am
I going to do? What am I going to say,
how am I going to keep up with them?
Speaker 3 (25:56):
The main point.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I know a lot of people go to business school
to build their networks, but I, whether I should have
or not, I didn't go for that. I went because
I wanted to know the parlance like you were talking about,
like I wanted to know I don't know. Sometimes I
feel this way about Starbucks, like tall, VINTI, grande, whatever
the hell, Like I used to have anxiety going to
Starbucks because I'd be like, yo, I just want to
say large.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I don't think I should have to like practice.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
And somebody your confidence up when you're going to Starbucks?
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah, like thinking about yeah, the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
And so I kind of went to business school being like,
all right, what's the parlance tall, VNTI, grande, da da dada.
So that now if I walk into one of these rooms,
someone might say something like, oh, do you want to
like you know, I don't know, chit your own like coffee,
and I'd be like, yo, first of all, you made
that shiit up.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Don't act like I'm supposed to know that ship.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
So that I came in knowing all the frameworks so
that I can move with the confidence and being like
I know that I know the basics here.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
So if you say something that doesn't make.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Sense, I had the balls to say, excuse me, can
you please explain that, because that don't make no damn
sense to me.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Right, So you could remove timid from the equation, like, oh,
maybe maybe it doesn't make sense just because I don't
understand it. No, no, no, that don't make sense because it
doesn't make sense, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Because you made that shit up. They didn't teach us
that at Harvard Business School. And like again, I had
to go to Harvard Business School so I could drop
my you know what in the room and be like,
first of all, like, don't just start making shit up.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Don't just start acting like I should know something. And
so I don't.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
I don't have imposter syndrome anymore, because you get in
enough rooms you.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Start to realize.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
One you get into some rooms and you start to realize, like,
wait a minute, you know, like in the movie Don't
Look Up, where everyone just assumed there was some a
group of smart people that are gonna save the world
and like they're I started to get into those rooms
and being like hoh, the this, this, Oh my god,
Jesus helped me. So one is like I started to
just see kind of time and time again, the proof
(27:57):
and the pudding that people with more money, more degrees,
all these different things that like they can't come up
with the stuff that we can come up with that
uncharted to help save the world. And when it's it's
time to make the impossible possible, like I'm not talking
about when there are things that are stable and settled
and on growth side of things, you want to have
certain people there. From an experience perspective, But if you
(28:19):
are the head of your if you are the CEO
of your life and the CEO of your career of
whatever it is that you're trying to do your your job,
your your business, passion and vision, and an unwillingness to
quit will trump experience every single time, like every single time.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
In other words, the willingness to go to page page
seventy six on Google Google.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yes, yes, the willingness to be like, you know what,
I'm going to keep learning and keep How else could
I sit here if you asked me to explain the
knowledge graph architecture and data taxonomies and the role that
it's playing and driving efficiency for how governments make infrastructure decisions.
(29:11):
How in the hell else would I be able to
do that if it wasn't that I didn't go to
school for that. But I definitely can explain it, and
in fact, I can architect it.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Right now, how much is your company worth?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Our on paper valuations, so the closest thing that we
would have to evaluation would put us at one hundred
million dollars. That's but it's primarily due to kind of
the IP and technology and the things that we've done
to kind of build up from there. That is like
our current our current fundraising.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Vehicle, what we have on there.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah, but that's not like you know, like a market
IPO or anything. And with this market, who the fuck knows,
Like things are kind of everyone's stuff is kind of
going crazy. But that's the last, the last. The documentation
that we have has like an evaluation cap at about
one hundred million.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
That is staggering to me.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
It's not I don't I don't have that money, and
like it's it's all it's all for the birds, right
If it's not, it's not in bank accounts or anything.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
But you are managing, you have built and are managing
organization that's important enough to be I mean that is, yes,
how do you how do you handle the pressure of
that or do you just not think about that part
of it?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I used to think about it a lot, like I
used to tell people, because in twenty sixteen, we raised
what was at the time, according to a least what
was reported the largest Series A that a black woman
had ever raised in history. We raised and it was
only seven million dollars. And what was crazy is that
that was the year that it was Actually I think
the average amount that any founder had raised for a
(30:51):
Series A was seven million, but the largest at the
time that a blackman ever raised was seven million. And
now that I know people who have done so much
better than their series as, thank god. And so I
remembered being like, whoa like having the moment that you're
kind of talking about right now, just like.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Oh shit, this is this is much more ya okay.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And so I remember looking out the window of my
apartment right when we did it, knowing how hard it was,
and I remember telling myself, my goal here is not
just to succeed with this company, because that's not going
to make me happy.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
My goal would be twofold.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
I have to succeed without losing who I am, because
I need my daughters to not have to have worked
so hard to get to the same point. I don't
have daughters yet, but I thought about them. I was like,
this has to be something where I do this in
the way where people can say I can do this
because I see her. She is someone who reminds me
of me. And then on the other side, I said,
(31:54):
all of these people who took a chance on this
black girl, I need to make sure that they do
so well, that they make so much money from this,
because the next time a black girl says, can you
give me some money, I have an idea.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
I need them to not even think.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
But that's even more pressure. In a way, what you did,
you just added more pressure to it.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
It is more pressure. But I think that you have
different moments of the pressure, right, like you have different moments.
I feel like I'm gonna am I gonna fail these people,
I'm gonna fail my investors and what's going on. But again,
it's hard not to feel despite all the way, it's
hard not to feel a little lucky, like I get
to stand here, the daughter of immigrants, blacketing black, like
(32:36):
I took a DNA test and straight up, I'm ninety
nine point nine percent black, like I am, just like
does he like list don't get blacker?
Speaker 3 (32:45):
I walk into these rooms where no one, no one
looks like me.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
And yes, it's so it's the work is so hard,
but it also feels like it's almost like the flip side,
like if you're a person of color, if you're just
anyone who's underestimated, the flip side, it's almost like every
day that you survive, you're building your superpowers, and it's almost.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Like they're creating a monster they don't even know.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I think that the number of years I've had to
grow in this industry, the amount of time I spent
in this room, the fact that I'm still in it,
still standing, still pushing. Now, I think the next decade
will be about building in a different way, but building
on top of this incredibly lucky experience.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Like how many people get to do something that.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
They love, do something that engages them, do something that
they're passionate about, that pushes them, that makes them grow
in a space that few people look like them. But
by virtue of the fact that I look different and
I'm existing in this space, I can innovate in my sleep.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
That feels lucky.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
It's amazing, Jessica.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
This was fun.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Jessica's energy is so infectious. I literally left this interview
thinking I was gonna come up with the next great invention,
which clearly hasn't happened, or I wouldn't be your talking
to you. But I'm still working on it and we're
gonna keep this show going. Started from the Bottom is
produced by David Jah, edited by keyshow Williams, engineered by
(34:29):
Ben Holliday, booked by Laura Morgan with production help from
Lea Rose. The show is executive produced by Jacob Goldstein,
who's not all of in the videos for Pushkin Industries.
Our theme music's by Bent Holliday and David Jaw featuring
Anthony Yaggs and Savanta Joe Lack. Listen to Started from
the Bottom. Wherever you get your podcasts and if you
(34:50):
want add free episodes available one week early sign up
for Pushkin Plus. Check out Pushkin dot fm or the
Apple show page for more information. If you like our show,
please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin. Hey, y'all, welcome back to the show. I've been
interviewing so many different people who've clawed their way into
industries that can seem impossible for someone like them to
break into. When I met Jisca Matthews, it was clear
taking up space was something she thrived on. You can
(00:37):
hear it in the way she talks about being a
young black woman in a field filled with fifty five
year old white men. What does Jessica do well? She's
actually an inventor, and her sophomore year at Harvard, when
she was just nineteen years old, Jessica invented an energy
generating soccer ball called the Socket. Her invention got her
on the radar of folks like Bill Clinton and Barack
(00:59):
Obama and helped her launch a company called Uncharted Power,
which is trying to reimagine and reinvent the way a
city's infrastructure can store power. I mean, super ambitious stuff.
I'm eager for you all to hear how Jessica thinks
about her life and her career, which she says is
the difference between happiness and success. This is started from
(01:23):
the bottom, hard earned success stories from people like us.
If you can simply explain what the socket is.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, it's a soccer ball that generates energy when it rolls.
When you pass it, it generates energy, stores the power
inside the ball. You don't have to be an engineer
to use it. All you have to do is know
how to play soccer.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So it doesn't just like glow or something though, right, there's.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Like a no, you would actually plug things into it?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
And again it was small.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
It was it could never power our house or even
a room. You know, we're talking about small lights. The
goal was never to create something that generated a whole
bunch of energy. The idea was less about the product
that was created and more about the idea that was
created and the magic behind it, and the ability to
(02:13):
get people to feel like you were using science to
make magic real and to have them attribute that to me.
All of that happened, you know, from nineteen to twenty four.
It got me on stages with Bill Clinton where he
said things like, if ever there was an innovator, she's it.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It got me in rooms with just brilliant people, rooms
that normally people like me, people who look like me,
would never be in.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
How do you invent something This is like literally the
dumbest question about how do you invent something?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
How do you invent something?
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
To me, the first step of innovation is the articulation
of the problem. So what do I mean by that?
Do not start saying you want to invent something and
then start thinking about the thing you want to invent.
Start thinking about the problem you want to solve, and
detail it.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Right, So, what's the problem?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Okay, Now let's do some root cause analysis, Like, let's
really try for what's the problem?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Why?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Why is that a problem? Why is this an issue?
Where did this come from? Once you have your problem, articularly,
once you're like, okay, this is the problem I want
to solve, then you start saying, Okay, what are some
ways to solve it? You can, you can do a
brainstorm and just start thinking about things. But what I
actually recommend is, once you have the problem articulated, step
away and go and live your life.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Why.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
The definition of science is the study of life. So
if you're living, and the more that you live, the
more that I believe you're a scientist. And so if
you're trying to come up with something, most likely you're
going to pull the answer from your life if you
were if you live a sheltered life, you're gonna come
up with a sheltered fucking answer. Your invention is gonna
be some sheltered as shit. But if you want to
(03:53):
come up with something that's broad, if you want to
be able to say, you know what, there's this problem
here with like inspiration and energy, and the answer is
going to be a soccer ball that can generate energy
that's going to come from going out and seeing your
cousins play soccer.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
And it's going to hit you.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
That's gonna come from walking down the street and seeing
a woman push their kid and be like, oh wait
a minute, what about this? Like, you have to observe
and experience as much as possible in your life because
that's gonna be the bank that you pull your idea from.
So you articulate your problem so it's there, and then
you go and live your life and you have a
notebook and you just jop down ideas as they come
to you, versus a forced brainstorm. I suggest go and
(04:31):
put yourselves in put yourself in situations that will inspire you,
that will engage you, and that will get you thinking
about different things. Now you got your ideas, you have
to prototype it, and now you're gonna sit here and
be like, I can't make this dumb, this thing down
to the most embarrassing, ridiculous shit that you can make.
(04:55):
So I'll give you an example. The first prototype of
the socket. I went to target and I got a
clear plastic hamster ball. I went to home depot and
I got a shape the charge flash light. I put
the shape the charge flashlight inside of the hamster ball.
I rolled it back and forth. For the concept of
a ball that could generate energy with motion. That was
the first prototype. The goal of your prototype is to
(05:17):
find the simplest thing that you can create that you
can then get feedback on to make sure your shit
makes sense. The answer becomes, yes, you make a prototype
that's just a little bit better, a little bit better,
a little bit better. Before you know it, I'm in Shenzen, China,
like you know, telling everyone I'm Serena Williams that they
make my fucking soccer balls on time like that that
(05:37):
was a true story.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We don't have enough time to go for that, So
there's that, Like what's going on there now?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
To go from the initial prototype looks like feels like
acts like perhaps, okay, you might need a little bit
of money. You go from the initial prototype to them.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, the art of the side hustle should not be underestimated,
you know in the beginning. Again, there's grants you can
do a friends and family, but you know, if you're oftentimes,
if you're a minority, friends and family is like here's
a sandwich.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I mean, here's a true in kind investment.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
There are some grants, but they do so oftentimes take
time to get and you're probably gonna be impatient, and
you should be. So I would say, like when when
a charity play got started, I was still working at
another company. You can't like you you know, you have
to make sure you separate things.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Did that risk? Did that risk them owning your IP?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
As long as you do not use any of the
company's equipment to do it, or any of their ideas
or anything from there, And then you can prove that
they actually knew because before I went to go and
work for that company, they knew that I had invented
this thing in college. So then you're you're fine, but
you definitely don't want to sit there and use the
company's resources. No, don't do that. That's just that's just
bad karma. But I know a lot of people who
(06:54):
you know, they're lawyers, their accountants, and then they spend
two hours on the weekend working on a makeup company
like it's normally something totally different.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
It's amazing. I'm inspired. I'm going to go invent something today.
I'm gonna be working on a prototype in the kitchen tonight. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yeah, listen, it should look wild. You should be like this,
sh'll look crazy.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
That's the most freeing thing I've ever heard, that your
prototype you make a hamster wheel and a shake flash?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Are there any other steps in the invention process we
left out just to cover our bases here.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Once you have.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
A prototype that's starting to look a little bit more presentable,
an invention doesn't matter if you're the only one who
knows about it. So a really, really key part is
open up. I know people are afraid. People are gonna say, well,
what if someone steals my idea. I'm gonna say this
straight up. It is so hard to do most things.
(07:56):
It is so hard to do most things. In order
for someone to steal your idea, the number of things
they'd have to have on you, right, and so I
think that oftentimes when you will invent something, they have
an idea, they keep it to themselves. But by doing that,
you're not kind of activating that feedback loop that's going
(08:16):
to do two things. Give you a better understanding of
how to improve that invention, but also give you the
confidence to know that this is something that makes sense
to more people than just you. The more you start
to tell it to people and tell people, you're also
going to get two things that are going to happen.
People are going to either want to give you some money,
or give you some time, or give you an opportunity.
And one of those three things are going to be
(08:37):
a catalyst to getting you from making something in the
kitchen to you know, being in a room where someone says, Yo,
we know about you.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
You need to become a business that we can do
business with you.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
It's amazing. How do you get to a point at
age nineteen where you invent this thing that opens up
all these doors for you? How does that happen?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I remember.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Very early on telling myself it's not about strategies for success,
it's about strategies for happiness, and that as soon as
I understand the role that success plays in my happiness,
but it's not the only thing that impacts my happiness.
You know, I'll have a true north that that I
can count on, and that makes sense, And so that
(09:23):
means I had to really spend some time, you know,
in my teenage years even thinking about, well, what actually
makes me happy?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
And it wasn't until college.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Though, where where I realized that my life was just
it was everything I was going to make it and
everything I wasn't going to make it that I think
I spent the real time doing that reflection and that, yeah,
that ended up being a little of my compass. So
I would actually sit down as I would push in
anything that I'm doing, any job I have any kind
(09:51):
of bigger goal, right, So any work that I have
rather not necessarily a job, but any work that I have.
Every couple of weeks, I'll ask myself, am I happy?
And there's really only two answers that are allowed. Yes,
which is great or no. But this is temporary, right,
So I might be like, no, I'm not happy because
(10:13):
I'm I'm stressed about how many hours I'm working. It's like, okay, well,
is the result of those hours will that make you happy? Yes, okay, okay,
then listen, push through. You can fight through for that. Yeah,
And so I think having that as my true north,
(10:34):
and then also recognizing like that I'm somewhat of.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Like a.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I'm a big believer that luck is an acronym that
it stands for laboring under correct knowledge.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
And so I think coupled with.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
That, at a relatively early early age, at the age
of nineteen, I had something lucky happened to me.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Let's go back to your initial epiphany about happiness versus success.
What were the circumstances that made that thought occur to you?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
You know, again be Nigerian and having so much family
in Nigeria, knowing where were comfortable where they weren't, but
also knowing down the street how many people were living
with so little. You know, I always tell my my
husband he was born in Mississippi. I'm like, you want
to know how Nigerians think about poverty in the United States?
(11:25):
Only in America can you be overweight? And for do
you understand? Like no, do you understand like that, like
the fact that government cheese exists, cheesecat great food?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
We met it? Like no?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Like what so so like.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I'm sitting here thinking about like yo, like I'm one
hundred Nigerian.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
I know I'm saying some while nored percent. I'm not
trying to like all I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
I'm just saying like I'm over here like sitting down
thinking like God, it could have been the easiest thing
for me to be born in that fucking hut over there, like.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
That would have been the easiest. Like it's not like
it would have been like I can't have imagined. I
can imagine it.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
This is where I'm from, this is my village, this
is where my dad grew up. My dad grew up
so poor that he only started eating corn five years
ago because that's all they could afford growing up.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
And he was like, I cannot eat anymore corn, Like
it could have easily been that. Why why not?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
And so I think when you have that realization of
gratitude and that realization of privilege, even despite the systemic
issues working against you, again, like I have no problem
saying I have privilege just because of the luck luck
can be privileged. That's something sometimes I think that white
people struggle with luck can be privileged. Hard work can
(13:00):
be privileged. Yes, my dad had to work like hell
to get out. My mom had to work like hell,
her dad was a teacher to get out. But still
I'm the next door neighbor did it, and like I
could have been born to them. And so I think
that with that, I remember immediately saying, Okay, whenever I pray,
I'm never going to ask for anything. I'm just gonna
(13:21):
say thank you, because like I had this weird thought
in my mind that all of this stuff that God
gave me could be taken away unless I give him
a really strong ROI.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
There's a lot of things at the age of eight
and nine.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
So that's when I started to realize that this thing
called life was more than just a push. You had
to really think about your frame of mind whenever your
last breath would be.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
And I remembered sitting.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
In so you're eight, your eight, you're young, and you're
thinking about your last breath on earth. This is These
are not the thoughts of normal eight year olds.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
No, the fact that I'm having ROI like return on
investment prayer sessions with God that I reckon that was
probably the first weird thing. But then I'm actually eighteen
years old when I start to realize, yo, like this
is not just about an ROI thing, Like people are
out here dying. People my own family are dying, and
(14:22):
they're dying not with this like gratitude, hope feeling of
you know that I have, like from the age of eight,
they're dying kind of feeling like their world is the
status quo. They can't do anything to change it, They
have no influence. The only way to solve their problems
is to pretend like they don't have them and let
them kill them. Yeah, and so from there, that's when
(14:45):
my kind of ethos in life got a little bit
more dynamic. That's when I started to say, all right, well,
I don't know when my last breath is going to be,
so strategies for happiness, Vircius, strategies for success. But then
at the same time, you know, I think I never
lost this this kind of realization that part of what
(15:08):
makes me really happen be is trying to solve really
big fucking problems.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
We'll be back with more from Jessica O Matthews.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
The problem that I found was that my cousins, who
were trained engineers, chemists and you know, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers,
they had told themselves that there was no changing the
status quo in terms of their world, and I wanted
to create something that inspired them to realize that it
(15:49):
was a much more accessible.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Thing to change things. And so that was that was it.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And I have a degree in psychology and economics. Like
I this invention came from a whole lot of Google,
like a lot of googling.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
You'd be surprised what you could google.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I currently sit on the Department of Energy's Electricity Advisory Committee,
federally appointed from the Secretary of Energy.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Of the United States because of.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
A fucking soccer ball, like like like, let me be clear,
because I googled my way to figuring out the soccer ball,
and then I never stopped googling, And so now I
mean what I do now in some ways couldn't be
farther from a soccer ball. But it's the same, the
same goal, the same point of how do we make
(16:35):
sure that people realize that things could be better in
their infrastructure of their world, and how do we create
technologies that empower people to be part of that that solution.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
It's the same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
So what was the status quo for your cousins who
were engineers in Nigeria.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
In Nigeria, the craziest thing is just it doesn't matter
if you're in the village or if you're in the
bustling city of Legos. Energy, reliable energy, just you know,
it was a massive issue, especially back then. Now, yes,
you're everyone has generators regardless, but you're just losing power
every day, several times a day, period, point blank. And
(17:12):
like I even now, I would say you should expect
to lose power most days. So that was kind of
the setup, you know, that that impact, that shift was
the day to day even a wedding right which I
was actually really proud. I got married in Nigeria early
this year and we didn't lose power once. And like,
to be honest, sometimes I feel like half of this
(17:34):
work that I've done was just.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
To pull off, to pull off.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
The dynamics of stable energy during all these ceremonies, because
again were I remember my aunt, you know, losing power
during her wedding. I remember us bringing in the diesel generator.
I remember the fuse making me feel like I was
gonna faint. I remember my cousin saying, don't worry, You'll
get used to it.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, I was gonna say when you when when you're
bringing you're talking about, you know, people having to work
with kerosene lamps, and then you just mention it now
bringing in like diesel generators. I mean, these are all like,
these aren't benign things. I mean, like the fumes from
a kerosene lamp, the fumes from a diesel generator have
you know, can have lasting health consequences.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
You know who said that living with a kerosene lamp
is like smoking two packs of cigarettes to day. So
it's horrible for you, it's something that's horrible for the environment.
It's killing every single person in that situation. But I
think what I also knew at that young age, and
this is what's kind of funny about what I do
(18:39):
now compared to how I started. I remember when the
socket was being formulated and where I was in this
kind of class with other people also who had kind
of spent some time in the developing world, and we're
all kind of throwing in our thoughts, and I remember
very specifically stating the thing is all of these problems
are infrastructural. They masquerade a socio economic People think, oh,
(19:01):
these countries are poor, like actually people are paying more
for killawat hour in the form of kerosene oil. Then
we're paying in the United States still even with the
rise and costs and everything that's going on. But they
don't have stable infrastructure to pay into. They don't have
like an overarching system that they can trust to pay into.
So everybody's like every man for himself or herself or whatever.
(19:23):
And so that's you have to go and get the
kerosine lamp and you do what you have to do.
So there isn't there isn't a grid that you can
count on. There isn't all of that. But it's not
a socio economic issue. And so for me, though even
though I knew it was an infrastructural issue, infrastructure is
not me. I don't know shit about it. No one
there looks like me. The average age of someone working
(19:45):
in energy infrastructure in the United States fifty five. I
think the average person is a fifty five year old,
straight white man.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
That's what they said. Clearly.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I am not a fifty five year old straight white man.
And so I literally told myself, I got to create
something that can inspire the right people to solve this problem.
My cousin's being one you know they're engineers, at least
they're trained in this space. But this is scary, this
is big. I don't get it. I don't let me
(20:15):
just this is what I know I can do. The
problem is that too many people feel like they can't
change their surroundings. Let me invent something that will inspire
them to realize that the world isn't just as it is,
it can also be what they create. And that's that's
the socket, you know, That's that's what got me in there.
It's funny because it's I had this moment, this opportunity
(20:37):
around maybe twenty maybe twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, where.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I could I was kind of at a fork in
the road and I.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Could have went down the path of trying to see
if we could just produce a million soccer balls, regardless
of whether or not that would actually solve any problem,
right because my current, my first kind of articulation of
the problem was we're not inspiring enough people to join
this fight and changing our environment and changing infrastructure, So
let's inspire them. But if I just put out a
(21:10):
one million soccer balls, you now have to think about
plastic and fumes and all these different things are go
into making them, and I'm like, Okay, is this really
the way to get to the utopia that we want
into a world where there's more equitable infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
It was part of the.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Way, and so we still do Uplift programming where we
actually just we have fewer balls, but we use them
as an educational tool, and we partner with nonprofits and
school school districts with the products. So I could have
gone down that route, or I could pivot and say,
with what I know right now about infrastructure, what is
(21:47):
the best way to solve this problem? And so what
ended up happening over several years really was just kind
of me one getting closer and closer to getting the
guts to actually make an infrastructure product and not just
a product that inspired people to do things in infrastructure,
and then in some ways inventing quite a few things,
(22:09):
putting them out in small and small markets to see
how people were to respond, taking that feedback, and then
coming back with something else, and coming back with something.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Else, what else? So what else did you? What else
did you invent?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
We developed like pavers that you can put fiber optic
and wire and energy cables in that don't require ripping
up the ground every single time, developed tools again for
the different technologies to be able to speak to each other.
Because a big thing that goes on in infrastructure is
that of all the technology doesn't speak the same language,
then you have a lot of redundancies and things don't work.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So we got deep.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Where's your understanding of all this coming from? Because again Google,
Literally you if you Google, you got a degree from
Harvard in psychology and economics and also an MBA only
to Google and figure.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Out how to do Yeah, I mean listen if you
if you google first of all, if you're like intense, right, So,
like I do throw myself in to the work because
it's it's when it's your thing, man, it's like you.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
It becomes something where it's like, hey, why not?
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And I think the more, why not spend the time?
Why not put why not.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Spend the time? Why not push it? And I know
who I'm fighting for?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
And every time we did something, I learned more. So
you got to think about this world that I'm in
right now. Like infrastructure is very heady, it's very small.
A lot of people don't work in infrastructure. There might
I swear to God, there might be more people who
are getting like laid off from Twitter than work in
like the highest parts of infrastructure.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I gotta say, Pete Buddhajet is maybe the only person
I know who works in infrastructure, like the only person
I've ever thought of whose name I might know who
works in infrastructure. And he just started.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
And here's the thing. He the policy guy. He's not
working with the engineers. He's not thinking through, you know,
the technologies that go into everything. And so the more
time that I spent in this room, right, this proverbial room,
I refuse to leave. Once the soccer kind of brought
me in here, the more I just started to listen
and learn and pick up on things that very few
(24:18):
black girls my.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Age had the opportunity to.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
And so as I'm sitting there and listening and we're
trying looking at all these different technologies and all these
different things, I'm like, okay, okay, okay, okay, and yeah,
And each time someone says something but I don't know
what it is, I Google it. So it's kind of
like this real time Google listen think. And when I'm thinking,
I'm thinking from the perspective of a black woman. So
(24:42):
that's what's kind of exciting too, because if the majority
of the people in this space don't look like me,
you should also assume that they're pretty much using the
same solutions to solve these problems and wondering why it's
not working. Like the definition of insanity is doing the
same thing over and over and expecting different results. But
that essentially is what's happening when everybody's the same in
(25:03):
this room. So I'm coming in there and I'm coming
from the perspective of like living in Harlem. I'm looking
up problems and I'm deciding if that's similar to what
it takes to get a we've done, and if you know,
can we solve the.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Problem this way.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
After our last break, you'll hear more from Jessica about
how going to business school helped her navigate the energy
industry that's filled with older white men. What's it like
being in these rooms with fifty five where the average
person is fifty five white, straight, not you.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I think that was a big reason why I felt
the need to go to business school because prior to that,
when I was in these rooms, I was constantly thinking,
if they say something I've never heard of, what am
I going to do? What am I going to say,
how am I going to keep up with them?
Speaker 3 (25:56):
The main point.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I know a lot of people go to business school
to build their networks, but I, whether I should have
or not, I didn't go for that. I went because
I wanted to know the parlance like you were talking about,
like I wanted to know I don't know. Sometimes I
feel this way about Starbucks, like tall, VINTI, grande, whatever
the hell, Like I used to have anxiety going to
Starbucks because I'd be like, yo, I just want to
say large.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I don't think I should have to like practice.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
And somebody your confidence up when you're going to Starbucks?
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah, like thinking about yeah, the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
And so I kind of went to business school being like,
all right, what's the parlance tall, VNTI, grande, da da dada.
So that now if I walk into one of these rooms,
someone might say something like, oh, do you want to
like you know, I don't know, chit your own like coffee,
and I'd be like, yo, first of all, you made
that shiit up.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Don't act like I'm supposed to know that ship.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
So that I came in knowing all the frameworks so
that I can move with the confidence and being like
I know that I know the basics here.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
So if you say something that doesn't make.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Sense, I had the balls to say, excuse me, can
you please explain that, because that don't make no damn
sense to me.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Right, So you could remove timid from the equation, like, oh,
maybe maybe it doesn't make sense just because I don't
understand it. No, no, no, that don't make sense because it
doesn't make sense, makes sense.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Because you made that shit up. They didn't teach us
that at Harvard Business School. And like again, I had
to go to Harvard Business School so I could drop
my you know what in the room and be like,
first of all, like, don't just start making shit up.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Don't just start acting like I should know something. And
so I don't.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
I don't have imposter syndrome anymore, because you get in
enough rooms you.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Start to realize.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
One you get into some rooms and you start to realize, like,
wait a minute, you know, like in the movie Don't
Look Up, where everyone just assumed there was some a
group of smart people that are gonna save the world
and like they're I started to get into those rooms
and being like hoh, the this, this, Oh my god,
Jesus helped me. So one is like I started to
just see kind of time and time again, the proof
(27:57):
and the pudding that people with more money, more degrees,
all these different things that like they can't come up
with the stuff that we can come up with that
uncharted to help save the world. And when it's it's
time to make the impossible possible, like I'm not talking
about when there are things that are stable and settled
and on growth side of things, you want to have
certain people there. From an experience perspective, But if you
(28:19):
are the head of your if you are the CEO
of your life and the CEO of your career of
whatever it is that you're trying to do your your job,
your your business, passion and vision, and an unwillingness to
quit will trump experience every single time, like every single time.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
In other words, the willingness to go to page page
seventy six on Google Google.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yes, yes, the willingness to be like, you know what,
I'm going to keep learning and keep How else could
I sit here if you asked me to explain the
knowledge graph architecture and data taxonomies and the role that
it's playing and driving efficiency for how governments make infrastructure decisions.
(29:11):
How in the hell else would I be able to
do that if it wasn't that I didn't go to
school for that. But I definitely can explain it, and
in fact, I can architect it.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Right now, how much is your company worth?
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Our on paper valuations, so the closest thing that we
would have to evaluation would put us at one hundred
million dollars. That's but it's primarily due to kind of
the IP and technology and the things that we've done
to kind of build up from there. That is like
our current our current fundraising.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Vehicle, what we have on there.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah, but that's not like you know, like a market
IPO or anything. And with this market, who the fuck knows,
Like things are kind of everyone's stuff is kind of
going crazy. But that's the last, the last. The documentation
that we have has like an evaluation cap at about
one hundred million.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
That is staggering to me.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
It's not I don't I don't have that money, and
like it's it's all it's all for the birds, right
If it's not, it's not in bank accounts or anything.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
But you are managing, you have built and are managing
organization that's important enough to be I mean that is, yes,
how do you how do you handle the pressure of
that or do you just not think about that part
of it?
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I used to think about it a lot, like I
used to tell people, because in twenty sixteen, we raised
what was at the time, according to a least what
was reported the largest Series A that a black woman
had ever raised in history. We raised and it was
only seven million dollars. And what was crazy is that
that was the year that it was Actually I think
the average amount that any founder had raised for a
(30:51):
Series A was seven million, but the largest at the
time that a blackman ever raised was seven million. And
now that I know people who have done so much
better than their series as, thank god. And so I
remembered being like, whoa like having the moment that you're
kind of talking about right now, just like.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Oh shit, this is this is much more ya okay.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And so I remember looking out the window of my
apartment right when we did it, knowing how hard it was,
and I remember telling myself, my goal here is not
just to succeed with this company, because that's not going
to make me happy.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
My goal would be twofold.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
I have to succeed without losing who I am, because
I need my daughters to not have to have worked
so hard to get to the same point. I don't
have daughters yet, but I thought about them. I was like,
this has to be something where I do this in
the way where people can say I can do this
because I see her. She is someone who reminds me
of me. And then on the other side, I said,
(31:54):
all of these people who took a chance on this
black girl, I need to make sure that they do
so well, that they make so much money from this,
because the next time a black girl says, can you
give me some money, I have an idea.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
I need them to not even think.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
But that's even more pressure. In a way, what you did,
you just added more pressure to it.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
It is more pressure. But I think that you have
different moments of the pressure, right, like you have different moments.
I feel like I'm gonna am I gonna fail these people,
I'm gonna fail my investors and what's going on. But again,
it's hard not to feel despite all the way, it's
hard not to feel a little lucky, like I get
to stand here, the daughter of immigrants, blacketing black, like
(32:36):
I took a DNA test and straight up, I'm ninety
nine point nine percent black, like I am, just like
does he like list don't get blacker?
Speaker 3 (32:45):
I walk into these rooms where no one, no one
looks like me.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
And yes, it's so it's the work is so hard,
but it also feels like it's almost like the flip side,
like if you're a person of color, if you're just
anyone who's underestimated, the flip side, it's almost like every
day that you survive, you're building your superpowers, and it's almost.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Like they're creating a monster they don't even know.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I think that the number of years I've had to
grow in this industry, the amount of time I spent
in this room, the fact that I'm still in it,
still standing, still pushing. Now, I think the next decade
will be about building in a different way, but building
on top of this incredibly lucky experience.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Like how many people get to do something that.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
They love, do something that engages them, do something that
they're passionate about, that pushes them, that makes them grow
in a space that few people look like them. But
by virtue of the fact that I look different and
I'm existing in this space, I can innovate in my sleep.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
That feels lucky.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
It's amazing, Jessica.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
This was fun.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Jessica's energy is so infectious. I literally left this interview
thinking I was gonna come up with the next great invention,
which clearly hasn't happened, or I wouldn't be your talking
to you. But I'm still working on it and we're
gonna keep this show going. Started from the Bottom is
produced by David Jah, edited by keyshow Williams, engineered by
(34:29):
Ben Holliday, booked by Laura Morgan with production help from
Lea Rose. The show is executive produced by Jacob Goldstein,
who's not all of in the videos for Pushkin Industries.
Our theme music's by Bent Holliday and David Jaw featuring
Anthony Yaggs and Savanta Joe Lack. Listen to Started from
the Bottom. Wherever you get your podcasts and if you
(34:50):
want add free episodes available one week early sign up
for Pushkin Plus. Check out Pushkin dot fm or the
Apple show page for more information. If you like our show,
please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.
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