Episode 13 - A Journey Through Water Innovation with Adam Tank - EIR Live

Episode Transcript
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Adam Tank (00:00):
The way that they describe this and I think it I

(00:02):
saw the I saw the I remember thegraphic vividly. It was on David
Perel. He's a big writing guy onX now. Just incredible guy. He
said you have to collect thedots before you can connect the
dots.
So we had this graphic of allthese dots on a screen. You're
like, what the hell is that? Andthen he can he connects them and
ends up being like the outlineof a dog or something. You're
like, okay. I get it.

(00:22):
This makes a ton of sense. Youhave to have all of these
experiences and only inhindsight can you actually
connect them and make sense. Butit's interesting to sort of
reflect on those things. I thinkfor everyone, really, and anyone
listening to this, think aboutthe yeah. Think about those
things.
Think about where people haverecognized you for your
strengths or think about thethings that you've really
enjoyed that maybe you've done acouple times over, and you're
like, wow. I should probablylean more into that. I think
that's gonna set you up forsuccess for sure.

Ilya Tabakh (00:43):
Welcome to EIR Live, where we dive into the
lives and lessons ofentrepreneurs and residents. I'm
Ilya Tabakh, together with mycohost, Terence Orr, ready to
bring you closer to theheartbeat of the innovation and
entrepreneurial spirit. Everyepisode, we explore the real
stories behind the ideas,successes, setbacks, and
everything in between. Foreveryone from aspiring EIRs to

(01:05):
seasoned pros, EIR Live is yourgateway to the depth of the
entrepreneurial journey andbringing innovative insights
into the broader world. Checkout the full details in the
episode description.
Subscribe to stay updated andjoin us as we uncover what it
takes to transform visions intoventures. Welcome aboard. Let's
grow together. Alright. What'scool about this episode is, Adam

(01:29):
and I, sort of kept running intoeach other's orbits before we
actually, met each other.
But the sort of current chapteror at least the reconnection
started, as my one might expectat CES, where I was sitting on a
random bus, and chatting with apretty nice gentleman who I just

(01:51):
met, and telling him about my,you know, role that I was just
rolling into as entrepreneur inresidence. And and we got to
talking, and he was like, oh,that that sounds exactly like a
guy named Adam who happens tolive in Kansas City. And I'm
like, what are the chances ofthat? That's like, That's gotta
be a one in a thousand, one in10,000 of level occurrence. And

(02:17):
so Dave Merrill was his name,and Adam had worked with him in
the past, he really encouragedme to reach out.
And it was really cool becauseit sort of started me on this
journey of, connecting withother EIRs because Adam, I
think, was maybe the first, butdefinitely the first five of
kind of other innovation EIRfolks that I spoke with. So

(02:38):
Adam, super excited to have youon the podcast. And, you know,
ever ever since that point,we've had a lot of other touch
points as well that we can diginto. But, yeah. Welcome.
Maybe we'll start with, youknow, kinda going back to the
beginning, You know, kinda yourprofessional journey background
is in kinda biology andprocesses and kinda bi

(03:01):
biological engineering. So canyou talk a little bit about that
and then maybe some of thethings that that drove you to,
you know, be excited and curiousabout that, and then we can
kinda jump in from there.

Adam Tank (03:12):
Ever since I can remember, I've been interested
in the stuff that we can't see.And I I if I had to guess,
there's two two things Iremember happening very early in
my life that sort of set me onthis trajectory of microbiology
and bacteria and the science ofstuff that impacts us, but we,
again, physically can't see. SoI remember getting a microscope
as a kid, very young, like maybesix or seven. One of those

(03:35):
little plastic cheapos with themirror reflector on it, and you
could do cuts of leaves andwhatever else you wanna put
under there to check that out. Iremember being fascinated by
that.
And then the other one was ahandwashing experiment in
elementary school. So we had ateacher that put together they
she made these Petri dishes, andI'm pretty sure she used instant
potatoes, like the dry mix, andthen mix it with water. And then

(03:56):
she sent kids into the bathroomand said, okay. Right. Some of
you aren't gonna wash yourhands.
Some of you are gonna wash withjust water, some with soap and
water, whatever, and came back.And, you know, of course, three,
four days later, these petridishes are just growing all
sorts of disgusting stuff. So Iremember just being fascinated
by that. And I'm when I decidedto go to college, that's what I
ended up studying because Ithought I was gonna go to
medical school afterwards.Obviously, that didn't happen,
and I'm sure we'll probably getinto that a bit.

(04:18):
But, again, as far as I canremember, like, and sort of that
tech, call it geeky route,whatever, that's always been a
part of my journey.

No. That's amazing. And and and we found, like, as
we talk to folks, the a lot ofthe formative things that
they're excited about, thingsthat they were drawn into, maybe
like a mentor that they've hadthat, you know, kinda have a
long timeline impact on on whatthey get into. So, I guess not a
huge surprise there. Yeah.
May maybe jumping from there,you know, actually, let's let's

(04:46):
before we jump, you shared insort of the the prep with us
that, you kinda had an earlyentrepreneurial experience in
college, and and were involvedin some of the stuff at K State.
So I'm curious if you could tellus a little bit about that
because it sounds like, it wassort of an early insight into a
different world.

Adam Tank (05:04):
It was mind opening. I had been spending whatever. I
think I worked in a lab probablytwo hours a day on average. I'd
spent most of my time,obviously, in hardcore science
classes where we're cuttingsplicing DNA and playing with
bacteria and studying pathogensand all this stuff. And so my
whole world was science, and allthe people that I knew that were

(05:27):
in my classes were also science.
So all of them, either going tomedical school or they're going
to grad school to get anotherdegree in something science and
maybe going to work in a lab.And so I never really thought
about what private enterprisewould look like and definitely
hadn't thought about whatentrepreneurship meant. I don't
even think I could have spelledentrepreneurship if you would
have asked me to in college. Soone of my fraternity brothers

(05:47):
was in the College of Business,and he had entered what was at
the time the very firstentrepreneurship challenge.
Like, I think they call it likethe big pitch or like the rocket
ship chat, whatever.
Right? Something like that,whatever plan words you want to
use for those types of things.And he was going to enter it
with his business plan that hehad developed working at a Papa

(06:08):
John's. And I'll explain thathere in a second. And he's he
knew that he wasn't the mostcharismatic person, not the best
speaker, he knew that I had someof those skills, interestingly,
from years and years of debatein high school, that I think led
me to sort of enjoying, youknow, public speaking in sales,
if you will.
And he's like, look, I'll writeeverything about this business
plan, I'll come up with aproduct. I'll even manufacture

(06:30):
these things. If you will justcome and present to the judges
and wow them. And I literallyalmost laughed him out of the
room. I was like, dude, Iliterally know nothing about
business.
My dad was a military guy. Mymom was stay at home for the
most part. She worked ineducation a little bit. No one I
knew in my immediate networkthat I was close with ever
talked to me about business. Andso I was like, why me?

(06:52):
And he's like, dude, literally,all you need to do is just go
pitch and present. So he came upwith this idea that when you're
in a Papa John's, it kinda lookslike a Subway or a Chipotle in
the back where all theingredients are are in bins next
to one another. And when you'remaking pizza, there is a big
quality challenge when you'remaking them really quickly, when
you're putting cheese on andthen pepperoni on and olives and

(07:14):
whatever else. All theseingredients starts to get mixed
into the other bins. Huge crosscontamination problem.
And, obviously, for people thatordered one thing and maybe got
something else, like a vegangets a piece of sausage on the
pizza. Right? They're up inarms. And this happened all the
time. So he made these dividersthat sat in between the bins to
keep the ingredients from mixingwith one another.

(07:35):
It was super simple. Don't knowwhy it hadn't existed before. We
presented at this pitchcompetition. We ended up
winning. And so here I amsitting on a stage with this,
whatever it was, 5 or $10,000check thinking, holy shit.
Like, this is more money thanI've seen my entire college
career working in this lab.Like, what is this
entrepreneurship thing? Like,what is this business thing? And

(07:56):
that just sort of, like, setsort of set the course for
opening the aperture to what myfuture career would look like.
And so I owe a lot to him and tothat entrepreneurship
competition for, quite franklyputting me on the light, the
light path.

Terrance Orr (08:10):
This is very interesting, Adam, because this
is not the first time that,that, that you did this. This
was the first time you did this,but then you did it again.
Right? And you did it again ingrad school at a on a on a
bigger stage. Right?
More people that would expectmore of you as a grad student
than Right. Somebody inundergrad.

Adam Tank (08:28):
Right.

Tell us about that competition and what happened
there.

Adam Tank (08:31):
Yeah. It's it's hilarious because that that
happened. Then, of course, we'llget into the robotics thing at
GE. Right? So Oh, yeah.
So in grad school, they had I Igot my MBA, with a focus on
entrepreneurship, and they helda pitch competition that was,
like, again, like, the rocketpitch or whatever. And I entered
with two of my other businessschool colleagues, and we came
up with this idea because we hadall been in the professional

(08:53):
world for, like, I don't know,four or five years, maybe even
longer before we went to gradschool. And business travel is
always a pain. So anyone thattravels for business, if you're
not if you don't do it, youthink it's glamorous. You're
like, oh, you get to go toParis.
That's that's amazing. Right? Ifly to Brazil regularly with a
bunch of customers in Brazil.Oh, you get to go to Brazil.
Like, that must be amazing.
I'm like, literally, I sit in aplane for ten hours. I'm tired

(09:17):
as hell. I get off. I get intoan Uber. I go straight to a
hotel.
I might have to freshen up ormaybe I crash if I'm lucky. I
deal with jet lag. I go straightto meetings. Might have a good
meal every now and again, andthen I'm back in an Uber, back
in an airport, heading backhome. Right?
It's not like I'm get to kick itby the beach and go hang out
with friends. That's just notbusiness travel. And so one of

(09:38):
the, you know, one of the thingsI was thinking about was, well,
all this travel, it's a lot ofAirbnb had sorta just come
around at that time. And so Iwas like, there's gotta be a way
for businesses to save moneywhen their employees are
traveling on business and to beable to use people's homes to do
it. Like, why isn't there an anAirbnb for business travelers?

(09:58):
So the concept we came up withwas to have networks of intra
company employees host oneanother when they're traveling.
So as an example, if I live inKansas City, I'm traveling to
Atlanta for the week orwhatever, and Terrance is
willing to host me in his house.Right, the company will spend,
call it, 50% less than theywould for me to for a hotel.
You'll get compensated based onthat delta. I'll make some money

(10:21):
based on that delta.
It saves the company money. Weget to establish a relationship
as coworkers, like, win all theway around. And so we entered
that competition. We won thatcompetition. And, again, it was
like, if that's not a sign forthe universe that I need to do
something entrepreneurial, thenI don't know what is.
And then the rest is is history,as they say.

That's amazing. Mean, I think that what's
interesting to me and just kindof listening to you talk through
it is, at least from myexperience and lots of folks I
talk to, like the path from thestarting point out doesn't make
any sense. But sort of lookingback, especially in a
conversation like this where wecan dip into undergrad,
graduate, sort of first role inthe working world and then sort

(11:04):
of where that's led you, it'ssort of easier to pick up on the
signal through kind of what'sthe through line. So it's just
even like the debate thing,right? Being able to sort of
decompose what the real kind ofdrivers for an issue are and
then thinking about what are wetrying to do here, whether it's
convince or defend against orIt's actually like a really

(11:26):
powerful tool that you don'tthink about.
You know, I did, for example, alot of improv training because I
was doing an NSF fellowship whenI was in grad school. And like,
I don't really I do now, but Ididn't really appreciate you
know, what what that opened up.And and even to your point
about, you know, being in deepscience and not knowing anybody
outside of deep science, like,that haven't been in deep

(11:49):
science don't understand, like,what's that what's that like?
What are the motivations? Why dopeople do what they do?
And so, you know, I thinkthere's a lot of value in sort
of thinking about, you know, andbeing able to even appreciate
kind of that input. So I justwanted to kind of highlight
that, before we move on.

I want to double down on this skill because it
sort of speaks to sort ofthere's a direct correlation
between sort of being a goodstoryteller, right? And
commanding sort of a room if youwill, you know, with his public
speaking skills, understandinghow to answer a question or, you
know, objections from people,you know, if you will, from his
skill and debate. These thingscarry over well in the role of

(12:27):
entrepreneurship, but you justdon't know that, right, when
when you start. Right? It justseems like a thing that you're
good at.
Right? Somebody else had tonotice his superpower before he
noticed it. Right? And once hegot a hook like, oh, I'm
actually pretty good at this. Hedid another competition.
He won that one too. And then itwas sort of validation. Right?

(12:48):
And then Adam was like, okay.Like, this is my sign, my
calling from the universe.
I'm good at storytelling. I'vewon these things twice at the
undergrad level and at thegraduate school level. And now
his life is about to happen.Real life is about to happen.
And he's gonna move into gettinginto one of the most competitive
programs that you can get intofor an experienced person
leaving an MBA program.

(13:09):
Adam, can you can you talk usthrough where did you go next?

Adam Tank (13:12):
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. You know, on that
point, I heard a reallyinteresting phrase about this
idea of connecting the dots. Andthe way that they describe this,
and I think I saw the I saw theI remember the graphic vividly.
It was on David David Perel,who's a big writing guy on X
now. Just incredible guy. Hesaid you have to collect the

(13:34):
dots before you can connect thedots. So we had this graphic of
all these dots on a screen.You're like, what the hell is
that?
And then he can he connects themand ends up being like that line
of a dog or something. You'relike, okay, I get it. This makes
a ton of sense. You have to haveall of these experiences, and
only in hindsight can youactually connect them and make
sense. But it's interesting tosort of reflect on those things.
Think for everyone really andanyone listening to this, think

(13:55):
about the yeah. Think aboutthose things. Think about where
people have recognized you foryour strengths or think about
the things that you've reallyenjoyed that maybe you've done a
couple times over, and you'relike, wow. I should probably
lean more into that. I thinkthat's gonna set you up for
success for sure.
So on that same sort of thread,when I so in between my first
and second year of graduateschool, there was a there was a
case competition, and GeneralElectric was a massive company

(14:18):
at the time that had divisionsfrom, right, like
transportation, aviation, healthcare, you name it, power and
water, etcetera. And we enteredthis case competition and
competed against, like, five orsix other business schools on
the West Coast. And if you wonthis case competition, then you
got to interview for GE's summerinternship program, which was,

(14:39):
in my case, the experiencedcommercial leadership program or
also known as ECLP. So on theprep call we talked about, GE
has has a number of these sortof developmental rotational
programs. Terrance alluded toone called CAS, which is
corporate audit staff, which wasa feeder from a, which was a
feeder from, I think it was somesort of other financial
leadership program like FMP orFLP or something like that.

(15:02):
So it's basically a way for ifyou looked at if you looked at
the history of all the GEexecutives, like the folks that
went from sort of director levelall the way to CEO, nine times
out of 10, if they were frominside the company, they had
gone through one of theseprograms. And almost everyone
that's graduated from thoseprograms has gone on to become a
CEO or CFO or whatever somewhereelse. So we ended up winning
this case competition. I got tointerview with GE and the

(15:25):
division that they were like,well, what do you know, what's
your background? What do youthink would most align with GE's
priorities?
And I was like, I mean, I did alot of microbiology, like, maybe
health care? And they were like,we don't have any opportunities
in health care. They're like,how about water? I was like,
sure. Why not?
So I interviewed for the waterdivision with a guy named Ralph

(15:46):
Exton, who, I adore. He's aincredible mentor of mine was
just tremendous boss, super wellnetworked in the water industry,
and quite frankly, ended uptaking a swing on me. I didn't
have any background in water. Hewas willing to to to hire me on.
So I worked for GE the summerbetween my first and second year
of grad school.
And then after grad school, wentto join them full time as part

(16:08):
of that rotational program.

Man, there's something to be said about
people taking a shot on people,taking a shot on potential and
not not just your resume today,but who they think you will
become, based off of someinteraction that they've had
with with you or something thatsomebody has said about you.
And, and I think everybody owessomebody in their career
something for taking a shot onthem when technically we wasn't

(16:30):
ready for it. Right. And theytook a shot and somehow we rose
to the occasion. Somebody took ashot on me.
That's how I got into tech.Right? Building data center
products. Right? But beforethat, was working in
hospitality.
Right? But I would I would saythe skills that I got from
hospitality was being a servicedriven leader. Right? Learning
how to lead with service in mindabout the customer around

(16:52):
everything else. That sort ofcarried me and followed me
throughout the rest of mycareer.
So it's really nice to hear thatsomebody took a shot on you, got
you into the water sector.Right? But look at you now,
Adam. You're doing, you're doinginteresting things. And, and and
I always think the the thepeople who take the shots on us,
they wanna be able to look backand think that was a good shot.

(17:13):
That was a good bet. Right? Andand and now you just wanna pay
that forward. I'm gonna back upand rewind a little bit before
we continue in in the storybecause you were paying it
forward well before you startedbuilding things. Right?
Talk to us about the time thatyou spent in Mexico, right, as
as as a volunteer at anorphanage and how that impacted

(17:35):
you and follows you out forthrough the rest of your career
about a life of service?

Adam Tank (17:38):
Man, for whatever reason, I probably owe it to my
parents. They've you know, theyalways said leave the world a
better place than what you cameinto it. You have an obligation
to give, if you can, either yourtime, talent, or your treasure.
Everyone has something to give.Don't care who you are, what
status of life you're at, whatyour background is, everyone has

(18:01):
something that they can give tosomebody else.
And I I just I always wanted toexperience different cultures. I
enjoyed learning new languages.So in college, I lived in Mexico
for a summer and volunteered inan orphanage down there as part
of it was a, like, kind of likean sort of an exchange program
of sorts, but we lived downthere full time and spent our
mornings in the orphanage andthen our afternoons at a

(18:22):
bilingual community centerteaching English classes. And
it's interesting, there'sanother thread there when I
later on in life when I moved toBrazil too, where I recognize
that, you know, happiness andfulfillment have very little to
do with your job and how muchyour title, or how much money
you make. Really, the thingsthat are most important are your

(18:46):
health, the health of yourfriends and family, that you
have people that love you,people that you love, and the
ability to provide something ofvalue to your community or to
your customers or whoever it isthat you're interacting with.
And so I saw it in Mexico, kidsthat were living on dirt floors
that didn't even have a pencilto do their homework with some

(19:08):
of the happiest kids I've everseen in my life. Right? Kicking
a duct tape ball down thestreet. I saw the same thing in
Brazil. I've seen the same thingwhen I've traveled to other
countries that are quote,unquote, developing.
And it really makes me wonder,like, are they the ones that
have their priorities straight?Cause a lot of folks, they talk
about, like, one day when Iretire, one day when I make all
this money, or one day when Iget x, y, or z. And you're like,

(19:29):
okay. What are you gonna do?They're like, oh, well, I'll
kick back and spend time with myfriends and family.
It's like, you don't need tomake a billion dollars to do
that. You can do that anytimeyou want. So that that has
carried through with me, youknow, just, yeah, almost
everything. And I always thinkabout, like, anytime there's a
challenge at work or, you know,a challenging situation. It's

(19:49):
like, man, this isn't life ordeath.
We're gonna be alright. Somepeople do have careers where
it's life or death. That's adifferent story. But for me,
it's like I sit in an airconditioned room all day staring
at the screen. Like, life is notbad.
Fact is really good. So I I justcount my buttons every day and
remind myself that this is allwe have is the present moment
and to enjoy it.

I just gotta jump in there for a second. I think
the the I really like thecollect the dots, connect the
dots. But the thing I would addthere or not but, but and. You
know, the thing I would addthere is I think there's some
algorithms and some sort ofbehaviors that allow you to get
a much wider cross section ofdots. Right?
And I think one of them is kindof taking the leap, looking at

(20:32):
the opportunity. Another one iskind of thinking about, What
don't I know that I don't know?Right? And thinking about maybe
who's ahead in the journey.There's a couple I don't you
know, I I didn't consider themthis way, but but sort of
they're they're almostalgorithms in how I make you
know, and actually, Terrance andI have dug into this one.
Anything that's making youanxious, sort of run toward

(20:54):
that. Don't run away from it.You know, because there's
normally some tension, andthere's a reason why you're
feeling that way. But it's sortof collecting the dots isn't
just like, you know, looking atwhat are the things I can do,
but also sort of manifestingsome of these things. Right?
And then as you were kind oftalking through it, I think it's

(21:14):
an important addition, somebodytaking a leap on you or kind of
a bet on you where maybe theyshouldn't have. But the thing
is, you still have to lean intothat, Right? And you have to
take the opportunity and youhave to have sort of the clarity
of mind to really absorb that,hey, not, you know, being locked
in your head about what are yougonna do on the next step of

(21:35):
your career when you get backfrom Mexico, but actually being
in the moment and seeing that,you know, hey, your new friend
or the kids that you're workingwith are having a completely
different experience. And so Ijust wanted to kind of point
that out because I think it'sThe process of collection is
actually really interesting. Youknow?
And I may we'll probably expandon this. I have a feeling this

(21:56):
collect and connect thing willwill become, you know, something
that we revisit. But I justwanted to point out that I think
part of it is you know what youknow, but there's a lot of
things that you don't haveexposure because, you know,
nobody can give you thatperspective. And there's some
things you can do to sort ofexpose yourself to more. And I
think that's a kind of importantpart of the process.

Yeah. I think this this idea of sort of, taking the
leap or adaptability, which, youknow, you had in school when the
guy asked you to pitch, you didit again, right, for another
competition. You did it early onbefore you even got to that
stage in your life when you wentout to Mexico, that was already
a leap, you know. And thensomehow you ended up in a career
where you need to be on a planegoing back forth to Brazil,

(22:39):
right? And thinking about yourformative experiences, what you
remembered in your early daysand letting that sort of carry
you throughout.
I think, I think thoseexperiences give people sort of
exposure leads to you knowingthings and giving you
perspective about things to helpyou lead better as as a CEO, as
a founder, as somebody who willhave people reporting to them.
Right? And understanding that itcould be a lot worse. I've been

(23:02):
in way worse sort of scenariosand situations and to sort of
how do you lead from the frontthat way? And, and I think
that's a very important part of,you know, starting anything,
leading people, inspiring peoplealong the journey and the
mission that you have, and andbuilding anything new.
But you you managed to do this,Adam, inside of a company like

(23:23):
GE for for your first, like,massive swing. You know? Talk to
us about you being a ventureleader, you know, inside of GE.
Do nothing about water. By theway, people.
Let me remind you guys before wemove into this. Do nothing about
water before this. Okay? Gotinto this, drinking from the

(23:44):
fire hose, and now he needs tolead a new venture. Talk to us
about that part.

Adam Tank (23:49):
I again, looking backwards, connecting the dots,
I had had so many run ins withwater over the years, especially
in my microbiology training. Soit's interesting. My first job
out of college was a qualityengineer for General Mills. I So
was responsible for making surethat the food that we produce
was safe for people to consume.And safety is a function of a
couple different things, but oneof them is how the absence or

(24:11):
presence of water and themanufacturing process can lead
to the growth of all sorts ofnasty, disgusting things.
So counterintuitively, GE orGeneral Mills, sorry, actually
went to many differentmanufacturing schedules where
they would run continuously forlike three, four, five, six days
without cleaning. Becausebringing water into the process

(24:34):
would actually create more harmthan it would do good. And it's
it's you don't really thinkabout it that way. But that
happened to me. I had somereally interesting experience
with the water living in Brazil.
Of course, travelinginternationally, you're you
think about it all the time.Right? Do I have this raw fruit?
I eat this raw vegetable? Isthis clean in water?
Do I right? Does it have thewater have ice or not? Blah blah
blah blah blah. Of course, weall use water every day too. So

(24:55):
the first thing we do in themorning, usually go to the
restroom, brush our teeth, makecoffee, whatever.
Right? All has to do with water.But no one's thinking about it.
No one's thinking about it. It'sout of sight, out of mind.
Fortunately, our water utilitieshere do a pretty good job of
keeping things on. So you turnon your tap, you get water, you
flush your toilet, it goes away.When you don't have to think
about it, you just don't, right,when the service is good. So I

(25:17):
became really interested in thiswhole concept of water and what
it takes to to make water workat a societal level. And so that
was my that was my interest thatsort of carried me into my
venture role at GE, which waslooking at early stage water
companies that were bringingdigital technology into the
ecosystem because water was andstill is many ways probably
twenty years behind any othermajor industry in terms of

(25:38):
technology adoption and seeingwho we wanted to cut checks
into.
So I was working with GEVentures, looking at I probably
looked at 01/1950, 200different, you know, call them
they call it time as digitalwater startups, thinking about
where do we want to invest? Howdo we want to expand the
portfolio of GE solutions in thewater space? And through that, I
engage with a bunch of differentutilities in The US because for

(26:02):
every entrepreneur that came tothe table, I'm like, okay,
great, you're gonna sell mewhatever bill of goods you want
to sell me and tell me that it'sgonna be a billion dollar
company if I could only get 1%of the market and blah, right,
all this other crap. What doyour customers have to say?
That's ultimately who matters.
Who's cutting the check? And arethey gonna pay you or not?
That's it. And so I engage witha ton of the end customers. In a

(26:22):
lot of cases, those were The USwater utilities.
And so I came across a bunch ofreally interesting problems, one
of which I could bore you withstats all day, but one of my
favorite stats is at that time,this is more than ten years ago
at this point, but roughly 30%of all of The United States
water that was treated and beingsent to an end customer that

(26:45):
could be a home or a business30% of that water was lost in
between the treatment plant andthe end customer gone. So that
could be from leaks, it could befrom theft, it could be from
inaccurate metering, there's awhole bunch of reasons why that
might be the case. But thinkabout that when we talk about,
you know, all the you know, tapsare running dry, people are our

(27:06):
wells are running dry. Right?You see these, sort of
clickbaity headlines with thelake levels dropping in these,
you know, sunken boats from theeighteen hundreds reappearing
all this stuff.
Thinking You're like, well, howin the hell could we be losing
30% of our clean water? Where'sthat stuff going? So I just I
sort of stuck that on the backof my head and thought, you
know, that's a reallyinteresting set of problems that
maybe one day I can work on. Andthen that, of course, led me

(27:28):
into my my next adventure.

Oh, man. So many threads. There's one. I'm
drawing this sort of a at atfirst, on on the surface, I
thought, okay. Adam is ourfirst, like, water guy expert,
like, you know, can go deep.
But then when I started to drillout, you're sort of thinking
about the relationships and thepeople who have I'm thinking

(27:52):
right now as you're talking,woah. We had another EIR on the
show who's a chief productofficer for a water company,
water treatment sort of company,MK, for for a short while. And
and and then we have Jen who'sstarting a water company right
right now, more on the theretail side around clean water

(28:14):
and fresh water from around theworld, another EIR who's at
Shutter Hill Ventures. Right?And and then we have Janine who
lives in Brazil half of her hertime.
Right? And moonlights betweenback and forth in in The US. So
I'm sitting here thinking, like,I can't wait to get these guys
in a room together. You know,just so they can talk water and

(28:35):
travel and adaptability and thejourney of sort of being an EIR,
but just thinking about all thethings that you just went
through just now. One, I'mnoticing the trend that you tend
to like to help companies growwith names that start with
general at the beginning,whether it's General Mills or
Electric, let's just startthere.

(28:55):
Right? And have created a ton ofvalue inside of those companies
in many of ways. But you tookthat value and translated that
value to going outside of of GE.Right? At at some point, great
things happen.
You built the company. Greatoutcomes happen as a result of

(29:16):
that. And now you're at thisstage where what are you
thinking? Right? You go on to doa few other things before you
start Transcend, but but why?
What were you thinking at thetime when you when you left GE?

Adam Tank (29:28):
Couple things. So I had just just sold the startup
that we spun out of GE. And Ilove that journey. It was a ton
of fun. I found out the thingsI'm really good at the things
I'm not very good at.
I learned a lot about theventure ecosystem that I didn't
even understand having come frommy time at GE Ventures. And I

(29:50):
met a lot of super coolentrepreneurs, Dave Merrill
included, who is the one Ilyareferred to that introduced us.
And so I knew I wanted to dosomething entrepreneurial, but I
wasn't sure what and how. And Igot a call from a former
colleague at GE Water, who theyhad then been purchased by a
company called Suez. And theywere like, hey, we're setting up

(30:13):
the smart cities division in TheUS.
We you know, Suez is based inFrance. They're literally the
ones that built the Suez Canal.That's how they got their name.
For a lot of folks who knowthem, they're a massive company,
huge French company. And theyhad a they have actually have a
really cool smart cities programin Europe that they wanted to
try to copy and paste here inThe US.
And they're like, we want you tolead that. And it really it, you

(30:37):
know, I really had to thinkabout that, because I enjoyed
the entrepreneurial journey. Iwas thinking back to my days at
GE, in some cases, definitelyGeneral Mills, where I was like,
literally in a cube, sitting inmeetings that I had, I was just
wasting my time and everyoneelse was too. And thinking about
all the corporate crap that Ijust hated. I was like, man, do

(30:58):
I really want to go to a bigcompany again?
I don't know if I can if I cancut it. But the role is going be
super entrepreneurial. So it wasjust me ragtag running around
thinking about how we how can wemake this happen, right? The
technology was there. Thefunding was there.
They were sort of willing togive me carte blanche to say,
hey, go build this thing how youwant it. And so I was like, you
know what? It like, even if thisis a stop gap, it'll be a really

(31:20):
cool stop gap where I can learna lot. So that's why I went to
work for Suez. I made it twelvemonths.
Almost twelve months to the dayand couldn't do it. I just
couldn't do it. I had to go backto to the true entrepreneurial
route. So and I'm glad I did.I'm very glad I did.

(31:41):
Also very fortunate for mycolleagues at SUEZ because
they're an amazing bunch. Theyreally are, and they're doing
really cool work. It's just thatwhen you when you're in a big
company, it's something I'vealso learned building Transcend
now to you know, through seriesb and a lot of financing is that
you have to start to layer inprocesses and systems that slow
things down. There's just no wayaround it. Like, you can't keep

(32:02):
that sort of ragtag maverick,you know, crazy founder mode hat
on through the lifecycle of thecompany.
It just doesn't work that way.You've got to hire teams, right?
People have to be managed, yougot to have different layers of
approval. You certainly hope tokeep it flatter and faster than
a big organization, but youstill have to have it. And so at

(32:25):
the time, you know, I justabhorred all of those corporate
the corporate just bullshit thatI had to deal with all the time
and the layers of approval andhow slow everything was.
It just pissed me off. But it'salso sort of a necessity when
you're that big of anorganization. And I've never
seen a big company that doesn'thave that stuff. So it makes me
think it's sort of it's not aflaw. It's just how the system
is designed, and that's just theway it works.

So something happened in between there.
Something happened in betweenthis way where you got more
ingrained in water again, youknow, after after Suez and, you
know, you go on and you cofound,right, Transcendent. You you're
doing what you're doing now. AndI think what you just said now,
I think is is a very, very, veryimportant point for for
individuals who do not get theprivilege to make it to series

(33:11):
b, right, like yourself, right,and and beyond, I'm sure, right,
they don't really understand thefact that at some point you grow
up to be an adult as a company.You you don't stay an infant or
a toddler forever where you canrun around and do what you want

(33:31):
and fly under the radar andpeople don't mess with you.
At some point, you're you're abig kid on the block and people
start to notice you and and nowyou had to tighten up your
operations and everything elsein between, your systems. Can
you talk a little bit more aboutthat, Adam? What it takes to to
to make that leap from a seriesa company, which you're in the

(33:52):
early stages to now you're intogrowth stage around b and c and
how that's very different foryou as a founder and how you
operate.

Adam Tank (33:59):
It's completely different. At least it has been
in my experience. And to behonest, it's something I still
struggle with. Every single day,it's a struggle for me because
my mindset is just get shitdone. You might piss some people
off, along the way.
You know, the things may not bea 100% perfected and whatever
else, but, like, you just needto get it done. You respond
quickly. Like, that's just theway things work. And that's not

(34:23):
our company anymore. Right?
Our company is is processes andsystems because that is how you
grow scalably. And I think thekeyword there is scale. So the
things that I do don't scalewell. They don't. So I have to
work with people who areoperators, who are system
builders, who are process peoplethat that enjoy that stuff.

(34:43):
That's the other thing that'sinteresting is that there's a
lot of stuff that I hate doing,and then I'm sure we could all
talk about things we hate doingthat other people would love to
do. I'll never forget. I had aconversation with a woman once
who you know, we were talkingabout what we do. She works for
a water utility in UK, and I waslike, yeah. You know what?
What's your plan? She's kindaearlier on in her career. I'm
like, oh, what are you planningto do? You know, was thinking
maybe we could hire her in TheUK. We're expanding there,

(35:05):
whatever.
And she's like, my dream job isto manage a schedule for a CEO.
And I was like, damn. Youcouldn't pay me a million
dollars a year to do that. Thereis no way. But you like, the way
she talked about it, she was sopassionate about it.
I'm like, this is insane. Ican't even fathom. So cup keep

(35:25):
this in mind. Couple this withanother book that I read, which
actually a recommendation frommy COO. And it's called who not
how.
And there's this you guysactually alluded to it earlier.
Like, if you're feeling anxiety,right, run towards it, go
towards the pain. And generally,I agree with that sentiment.
Like, you definitely gotta gotowards the pain. Have that
conversation that might bescarier that you're not willing

(35:46):
to have.
Right? That's because that'swhere progress happens. That's
where growth happens. It mayalso, though, be a time to
reflect and think about, is thisjust something that you just
don't wanna do? Like, you justeither don't enjoy it or you're
not good at it?
Who can you find that does enjoyit or that is good at it?
Because those people do exist.And so if you're procrastinating
on something or you're feelinganxious about something, think

(36:07):
about who you can bring into thefray that will help you get
things done. And I'd say that'sbeen the biggest transition from
that sort of early stage, youknow, seed series series a
company to a b in in later stagegrowth is you got to bring in
more people that do the thingsyou either don't like to do or
that you know can get you toscalability because that's the
real key is the scalabilitypiece. And it all comes down to

(36:29):
people and processes, but peoplefor sure.

One thing I'd sort of point out that kind of caught
my ear when you were talkingabout it, I think that sort of
deep dive around what water isand how it gets to people is
like and being able to be in anenvironment where you have both
deep expertise and a broadplatform to sort of really
appreciate what that means kindof end to end is actually like a

(36:52):
really powerful narrativefoundation to build from. And
one of the things I love aboutbeing a startup founder in the
times that I've done it is thatyou're much closer to the
ground, much closer to the kindof customer, right? There's just
less distance between you andthe market and the technology
and all these things. And havingthe ability to layer in sort of

(37:15):
that view, what are we doinghere? Where could it go?
Is actually like an amazingbecause as I think about, you
know, kind of theentrepreneurial operating
systems or the frameworks thatyou have to install in order to
get from one to 60 to 200 to athousand, right, Somebody still
has to own the story. There'sstill, you know, can you be very

(37:40):
sort of reactive and and be ableto support the marketplace as it
evolves. And can you sort ofdeliver on the things that
you're saying you can deliveron? But I think that narrative,
that foundation for kind of thevision of what are we trying to
do here, right, and where doesthe world go for successful It
is super interesting andimportant. And so you sort of

(38:03):
You didn't exactly mention it inpassing, but think folks that I
know that have had a period oftime to spend in an organization
and on a topic that they reallysort of fall in love with the
area and the problem oftenbecome, you know, sort of
probably some of the best ableto motivate, you know, teams and
build companies to really attackthese problems.

(38:24):
I just wanted to kinda highlightthat.

Adam Tank (38:26):
Yeah. There's no question about it.

Ran through it quickly.

Adam Tank (38:29):
I mean, it's you go through a lot of hard stuff as a
founder. I mean, a lot. It'slike it's like the world's
craziest roller coaster ridewhere the highs are really,
really high, And the lows,you're like, we're crashing and
burning, and we're all done.Like, there's just right.
There's no pulling back fromthis one.
And so to be able to level thatout, I found that like the, you
know, that gap between the peaksand the troughs is really

(38:50):
flattened when you have a strongmission and a strong purpose.
And that's across the org. Andso for us, in our case,
everyone, sometimes we haven'ttalked about what we do. But
every time some someone runsinto a design or project using
our software, we know that thereis a percentage likelihood that
someone in the world is going toget access to clean water
renewable power because of it.That's it.

(39:14):
And we've measured that sincealmost day one of the company.
And so if you go to the frontpage of our website, you scroll
maybe a third of the way down,you're gonna see we've impacted
over 400 and, I don't know,probably ten, fifteen million
people at this point around theworld with our software. That's
what keeps me going. Every day Iyou know, in my inbox, I get it
I get a notification every timesomeone runs a design. And it's

(39:34):
almost like you're in a height,like a you know, almost like
like Wolf of Wall Street or somesort of high, like, high stakes
sales environment where, like,they're ringing the bell every
time an order comes in.
That's how I feel when I seesomeone run a designer software
because I'm like, that's whatit's all about. That's why we do
the work that we do.

Man, that's because you're tying that impact
back to not just profits. It'sjust here's the impact that
happens when you use oursoftware. If you use it, I know,
right, somebody has gotten someimpact and some value out of
using it. Back up a little bit,Adam. Tell people exactly, like,
what is the company that you runtoday that you started, you

(40:11):
know, and and get make it realfor them.
Give them a use case or ascenario in which in a way that
somebody would be using, youknow, your your software.

Adam Tank (40:19):
So the we'll keep it to water for now. Right? The
platform is is much broader thanwater, but I think it's it'll be
instructive for folks listeningto this. So generally speaking,
if you live in any sort of majormetro, your water is treated at
a central treatment plant. Andwhen you flush your toilets or

(40:42):
turn on your tap or the watergoes down your shower drain, it
also goes to a central treatmentplant.
Those are two distinct entities.You have a drinking water
treatment plant and you have awastewater treatment plant.
Those are very different,certainly in terms of how they
smell, but also in terms of howthey operate and the type of
technology. And quite frankly,whether or not someone wants to

(41:03):
live close to one. You don'tmind living near a drinking
water plant, you don't want tolive anywhere near a wastewater
treatment plant.
So our company was built on thisfoundation of we want to build
better infrastructure. In mostcases, our water wastewater
infrastructure is in horribleshape. The American Society of

(41:24):
Civil Engineers rates it, Ithink it got a D this year. It's
been like c plus at best forlike the last decade. So we're
spending billions, if nottrillions of dollars a year
pumping it into our waterinfrastructure, and we're still
getting horrible, horribleratings and reviews.
And so there's clearly somethingwrong there. And we believe that

(41:45):
the reason is, is that we're notspending enough time when we
plan this infrastructure in thefirst place to build the right
stuff from the beginning. So ifyou know, like I said, if you're
in a town where your waterwastewater is being treated
centrally, some point that hadto be built and constructed. And
chances are, if you're somewherewhere there's a growing
population, another one of thoseis going to have to be built.

(42:07):
But how big should it be?
How many people are going tomove into the area? What if a
big battery manufacturer, whichis happening in Kansas City
decides to move in in five yearsafter it's constructed? What
does that do to the wastewater?Right? Can it handle that amount
of wastewater?
What if the population doesn'tgrow as expected? What if the
climate changes in twenty years,and we get a bunch of rainfall

(42:27):
that we didn't expect, and thatimpacts all the water going into
the treatment plants, right?People aren't taking the time to
assess all the variables,because we just don't have the
time and money to do it. So thepeople using our software are
the ones who are responsible forplanning and designing and
constructing these systems. Andwe're basically giving them a
crystal ball.

(42:48):
What we're telling them is, hey,here are the things that you're
thinking about now when you wantto plan to design this
infrastructure, and here are thethings that you're going to be
thinking about in twenty ortwenty five years. Let's figure
out the sweet spot in what youshould be building and make sure
you're making the most capitalefficient decisions, operational
efficient decisions, use ofland, right? All these different
variables you got to consider.Let's make sure you have the

(43:10):
data upfront to be able to dothat. So effectively, what our
software does is give all of thestuff that engineers do today
manually, it does itautomatically at a conceptual
level and pumps out a completedata package so that the folks
that are looking at making thesedecisions have all the data they
need with all the variables theywant to account for and all the
different technologies andinnovations that are in the

(43:31):
sector to be able to say, Hey,this is the one we want to
choose.
And it's this because, right,it's the lowest cost or it's
going to last the longest orit's going to be the one least
likely to break down in twentyyears or whatever that might be.
That's what we're doing forpeople.

And maybe just to add because, you know, that
seems pretty kind of a coolthing. But normally, people are
looking at one design or maybetwo designs. I would say three,
but that's just not reality,right? And so instead of looking
at one or two based on sort of alot of filtering and
professional experience, youknow, maybe you can look at 30

(44:08):
or 300 or 3,000. Right?
And then that starts to say,hey, the biggest sort of degrees
of freedom and risk are, morevolume flowing into this thing
or more whatever, like as Adamwas talking about. And so that
sort of allows you topotentially even iterate and
explore, hey, this is kind ofthe biggest risk or the biggest

(44:28):
opportunity. Maybe if we candesign this with extra overflow,
we can accommodate additionalindustry. Right? And these
decisions just traditionallyhave been more of a professional
judgment.
And so just to kind ofintroduce, know, so what, which
is a good question that getsasked in infrastructure a lot.

And I want to underscore this because I think
a lot of the things that I getto talk to my family and friends
and people about on a day to daybasis is basically things that
people can't see. Basically whatAdam said, right? I've built a
whole career and in aroundthings that people can't see and
touch basically, right? You cango touch a data center, sure.
You know, but on a day to daybasis, can't walk into a store

(45:06):
and see it, right?
For example, you know, and samething is true with Adam. Same
thing is true with you Ilya andcritical infrastructure. We've
sort of built a career aroundinfrastructure, things that
people can't see, but runs theworld in many, many ways. And I
think that's an important point.There's things that there's
riches and niches is what I liketo tell people.

(45:28):
Right? One. Two, there's a lotof things that people have not
touched in a very long time thatare waiting for somebody with
the with the grit and the knowhow to come in and, like, really
do something there where you canmake tons of money doing it, but
also also have direct impact.Right? Like like Adam has

(45:49):
happened.
I I don't think you have to makea trade off and do one or the
other. I think you can makemoney and do well at the same
time. And anybody who tells youthat's not possible, I I don't
know if I believe them. Okay. Soso and because we are talking to
a guy who's done it and hasraised a series b off the back
of it and I'd argue he's gonnaraise a series c as well going
forward.
Right? So I I think that's animportant point for our audience

(46:11):
because we usually see the sexythings, the things that people
talk about in the articles andthe but we don't get to see
infrastructure that much. And Ithink it's an important point
for people to know that ourlives depend on it, you know,
every single day. So it's animportant point that I just
wanna underscore.

Yeah. Just jumping in real quickly. You know, over
the past hundred, hundred twentyyears, when you look at power
availability, wateravailability, I mean, generally,
just what we understood aroundthe world, you know, around how
the world works. We like,society generally has developed
and delivered a lot of bothstable and reliable

(46:48):
infrastructure. There's alsobeen a lot of things that maybe
we didn't realize we were doing,you know, whether it's creating
chemicals that are almostimpossible to destroy, although
we're kind of figuring it out,or, you know, kind of burning
things or introducing emissionsinto the world.
You know, we we started thebeginning of the twentieth and

(47:11):
late nineteenth century in aworld of abundance. Right?
Whereas kind of human ingenuitycan overcome any anything.
Right? And and in many cases,you know, losing 30% of water
was not that big of an issue ifyou assumed water was a, you
know, sort of a resource thatcan never be exhausted.
Right? And power, similarly,like the distribution system in

(47:35):
electricity, you know, is leaky.It's just the way that it's
described. And in many cases,these utility poles are sixty,
eighty, 100 plus. You know, insome of the California fires,
the metal members that failedwere 80 or 100 years old.
Right? The actual metal had beenstressed so much that it just
failed. Right? If you take apaper clip and bend it enough,

(47:56):
it snaps. Well, that happens tobigger metal too.
So timing in entrepreneurship iseverything. What's interesting
about sort of and I'll get offmy infrastructure tirade here in
a second. But a lot of thesevery bedrock of the things that
when you flip the switch, youexpect it to be on have worked
for eighty, one hundred years.Right? And and we need them to

(48:19):
evolve and and sort of go to acompletely different level of
capability that in for The US,at least, we haven't had to do
since World War two.
Right? And for the water systemthat we haven't had to do since,
you know, the roaringessentially the New Deal, right,
because of property tax andother ways that these things are

(48:40):
financed. And so, you know, itit's a lot of opportunity, but
it's also a lot of sort ofreimagining with with a
different view of what'spossible. And so I just wanted
to especially when you talkabout power, water,
telecommunications is a littlenewer, but we're asking
telecommunications to docompletely new things. But a lot
of these things have been on99.999% of the time for a

(49:03):
century.
And we need them to be that andsustainable and adaptive in two
way, and we gotta figure it outin, you know, ten years. Right?
And, like, we just have to do alot of things differently to
achieve that. I just you know?Alright.
I'm done with my tirade, but Ijust I think that's, like, an
important frame when we'vetalked to about kind of utility
level things.

We've talked about a a lot of the good stuff, Adam.
And before we let you go and aswe move into the next part of
this, wanna know if there's anywar wounds, right, or stories
that you can share with ouraudience. So on this path to
doing all the great things thatyou're doing now. Is there one

(49:45):
or two stories that that youcould share with our audience
that that really like driveshome sort of like you need to
have resiliency, you need tohave grit, you need to keep
going, right, Despite thesethings in front of you, despite
these other things. Any thingsthat you anything that you would
share that you'd be open tosharing with our audience.

Adam Tank (50:07):
That's Yeah. I mean, man, there it I could go on
forever about this. I just had,like, literally three, four
things hit me at once, and I'mtrying to figure out which one I
want to talk about. But the oneI do want to mention, and this
is instructive, sort of both,like, from a mental model point
of view, and how you deal withchallenge in entrepreneurship,

(50:27):
and also tactically. So when wesold our robotics company in '20
would have been 2018.
Yeah, twenty eighteen twentynineteen. Right, everything got
sold off all kosher, no issues,right, like clean packaged up,
all good, whatever. I get a callfrom the state of California,

(50:53):
two years after the fact, maybethree years after the fact,
claiming that I owe employmenttaxes for one of my early
employees from a company that nolonger exists, because I
misclassified that person as acontractor instead of an FTE.

(51:13):
This is for a business that hadbeen closed for three years at
this point. There's literally nobank account.
There's no money to payanything. There's no nothing.
And the state of California ischasing me for something that,
by the way, was completenonsense. I did not misclassify
this person. That ended up beingproven.
So it was like it ended up okay.But just think you you closed

(51:34):
literally, like, closed thischapter, closed this part, like,
this book, of your life. Right?Expecting it all to be gone.
You're focused on your next bigthing.
And all of a sudden, the stateis coming after you because of
some crap that is just absurd.That's the kind of stuff you get
hit with all the time. All thetime. The things that you think

(51:56):
you need to worry aboutinevitably never come to
fruition, and the stuff thatyou're not worried about does.
And you're like, what?
Like, what is going on? So youjust gotta be ready to to to
fight, quite frankly, and beready to just sort of take the
lumps as they come because youknow they're coming. Right?
Nothing can ever just you know,you don't just ride off onto a
pony into the rainbow and getyour pot of gold at the end.

(52:17):
That's just not the way itworks.
So I would just I would just sayfor people, like, you're gonna
deal with tough shit. A lot ofit is gonna be stuff that you
couldn't have anticipatedhappening. Keep your mission
front of mind. Keep your purposefront of mind. Keep your why
front of mind.
Know that it's this is again,this is not a bug. These are
features of the journey. This ishow it works. You want to do
anything good, you got to takerisks, you got to deal with the

(52:38):
crap. That's just how it is.
And enjoy for what it is, right?Even though it's a pain to deal
with, I still learned a ton fromthe process. And I advise a lot
of people now that are thinkingabout setting up shop,
especially if it's inCalifornia, to think maybe,
right, 10 times over why youwant to do that in that state as
opposed to somewhere else.Because it can be very

(53:00):
challenging in many ways. That'sjust one example.

Yeah. You know, one thing I'd like to ask, you spent
quite a bit of time at largecompanies. You've obviously done
startups. You know, what's kindof a misconception that one has
against the other and viceversa? Because it's always I've
done a little bit of the same,and I've You know, they think
they know, but they have no ideaas per some of the reasons we
talked to them.
I'm curious on your perspectivehere.

Adam Tank (53:24):
Yeah. I would think from the entrepreneur
perspective, right? The bigcompany, no one there is
innovative. They're allbureaucrats. Right?
They don't want to change theway things are done. They're
just comfortable sitting intheir, you know, their ivory
tower, right? You know, workingan hour a day and, you know,
taking these elaborate vacationsand all this other stuff. Part

(53:44):
of me is like, you know what?That's kinda true.
But the other part of me knowsthat there are a lot of good
people inside those companies,and they are innovative, and
they are willing to changethings up. It just might take a
little bit longer than whatyou're used to as an
entrepreneur. So as long asyou're willing to sort of put up
with that stuff, you find theright champions, you find the
people that do believe in yourmission and what you're doing,

(54:04):
and you can really deliver valueto them, you'll get your deal
over the line or your pilot orwhatever it is you're trying to
do. You'll get it over the line.Just may not happen as fast as
you would like.
Because, again, when you're thatsize of company, there's layers
of approval, there's a lot ofred tape. They're sort of in
more of a like cover your assthan they are a take risk
situation. So a lot of theirdecision making is based off of
how much risk does this exposeus to. So that's why you gotta

(54:27):
deal with lawyers and you gottadeal with procurement and you
gotta deal right? That's justthat's just the way that that's
just the way the beast works.
So for the entrepreneurs outthere, don't think that every
person that works for bigcompanies, you know, sucks
because they don't. There are alot of really good people. On
the flip side, I think a lot ofbig companies are thinking like,
these are just like, you know,like a guy and a girl in a

(54:47):
garage, you know, flipping stufftogether. They're just they're
just talking out of their ass.They don't know what they're
doing.
Right? They're like, selling uson this big vision. They can't
really execute. All these thingsinevitably go wrong, and I'm
going to get fired if I procurefrom this little rinky dink
startup and all of that. Thereare startups out there that are
like They are flying by the seatof their pants.

(55:09):
They don't really have aproduct. They don't have a team.
Right? You will expose yourselfto risk. But there are a lot of
people out there that are repeatfounders or that really have
their act together.
They may have come from acompany like yours, have spent
time in your shoes that get it.And they've solved the problem,
and they have a real technologythat's solving that pain point.
And you got to take some time tolisten to them. Right? Just take

(55:32):
the time to listen to them.

Such a good summary of these two worlds. You
know, as somebody sort of workedfor a firm, you know, as a
partner at a firm who used tohelp large companies innovate
literally, you know, we used todo this all the time. There's
always somebody innovativeinside these larger
organizations, right? And at,and at one point the large
organization was a startup thatthat grew up to be a massive

(55:56):
company. It's just that overtime, they they lose their
entrepreneurial DNA.
Right? Because large companiesoptimize for efficiency. Right?
Not not just speed. And this iswhere the systems, the
processes, the red takes becausewhen you don't have those
things, bad things happen andthen they end up in the news.
And a lot of people who aremaking a lot of money are very
upset, which is why all startupshave to grow up eventually like

(56:19):
Adam talked about and putsystems and processes in place
because it is the gates that youneed to have in place to make
sure bad things don't happen,you know, and that things stay
efficient as possible. And Ijust think it was well said to
to say that there are innovativepeople on the side of large
companies. I see it all thetime, you know, all the time.

(56:42):
And we're going to have futurepeople on this show and others
that are in the pipeline whohave spun companies out of very
large companies who have gone onto raise a lot of capital,
right? And to do very importantthings.
People forget that Expedia spunout of Microsoft technically in
the early days, right? And abunch of other companies
actually. So there's I can gothrough a laundry list of

(57:04):
companies who spun out of biggercompanies. So talented people
are are there. And startupfolks, they need big companies
and big companies need startups.
You know? And and that's why weboth exist in different worlds,
but at some point, you know,they just don't speak the same
language. So and, and you needto be bilingual. You need to
speak startups and corporate.And Adam, you've spent time in

(57:26):
corporations and you spent timein the startup world.
And I think, I think that's askill that a lot of people
underestimate. Because if you'veonly done startups, you don't
really have a clue howcorporations function and how
they work. And once you've beeninside one, you know, oh, it's a
lot of red tape to do thisthing. It's a lot of red tape to

(57:46):
become a vendor. You have to gothrough procurement hell.
Right? I mean, it's just, it's alot of pain and you have to get
that to, I think, build agenerational and lifetime
company, to scale yourself. Butthere's very few people in the
world who've been founders toscale themselves to be CEOs.
Very, very few. Because at somepoint people realize it's beyond

(58:07):
them to to scale the company andthey had to go hire somebody
else to do it and you know who,not how.
Right? And how do we scale it tobe the thing that I've always
envisioned it being? And thatmight mean that I'm not at the
top, but I've carried it as faras I can to help it grow up to
what it is today. And I thinkthat's a mature conversation
that every great founder or CEOhave to have with themselves and

(58:29):
their board and everybody else.And, yeah, man, I think you've
underscored a lot of that todayfor sure.
You've played two x EIR, youknow, all already. Right? And
you've done it well. Anythingelse that that's not on the
LinkedIn that you would sharewith people that you just won't

(58:53):
get it get it from looking atyour LinkedIn? Things that you
like to to do in your sparetime.
Long winded way to get to thisquestion, but yeah.

Adam Tank (59:00):
Yeah. Yeah. There's there, the thing I would say is
that I don't think this isbecoming as much of a myth
anymore or like a talking point,but people always talked about
work life balance. And I thinkit's bullshit. You have one
life, you have the same twentyfour hours a day as everyone
else.

(59:20):
There you are fooling yourselfif you don't think that work and
life aren't inextricablyintertwined. Because time is
time. Right? It's not like,well, this time is reserved for
work, and this is for life, andthis is for eating, and this is
for whatever. It's like, No,this all it's all part of the
same pot.
And so for me, it's I constantlyreminding myself how I choose to

(59:41):
spend my time is how I choose tospend my life. And so if I'm not
sitting in front of my computerworking, right, very intentional
about spending it with my wifeand with my daughter. We're also
foster parents. So we spend timefostering children. We are also
philanthropists, so spend a lotof time volunteering with
various organizations, like tospend time outdoors if I can,

(01:00:02):
big outdoors guy.
And just again, the reminderthat like, tomorrow's never
guaranteed. All we have is rightnow. And so enjoy the moment
while you can. And whetherthat's at work or whether that's
with my daughter, if she'sfreaking out and stuff is going
wrong in the house, right? Justit's just this is part of the
journey, and you just got toenjoy it.
So that's what I would say.

Terrance Orr (01:00:22):
Man, I have to ask this follow-up question because
I told you I did some digging.You know? Do you think your love
for the outdoors come from sortof you being an Eagle Scout?

Adam Tank (01:00:32):
It's funny. In some ways, yes. It's I love I love
you did that digging. Thank youfor that. In some ways, yes.
I definitely gained anappreciation for, yeah, for,
like, living off the land in asense. Right? And appreciation
for mother nature and everythingshe can provide. On the other
hand, there was a there was aprobably the worst experience

(01:00:52):
I've ever had in my life waswhen I was 14, 15 years old, on
a scout trip, and just hellishexperience. I won't get into it
now.
And so I've also learned I hatehiking. That is one thing I will
not do or would prefer not to doif I don't have to. So in that
sense, I like I also sort of,like, just can't stand doing

(01:01:15):
some stuff like that. So it'sfunny. It's a double edged
sword.

Ilya Tabakh (01:01:18):
Amazing. So so maybe to kinda bring us home
here, you're sort of at thisintersection of, you know, AI
infrastructure and and maybe,you know, following on my
tirade, a once in a lifetimeinfrastructure transition. Can
you talk us a little bit throughkind of where your work in
Transcend leads us? And thenalso maybe ways that kind of the

(01:01:40):
EIR Live community can help andkind of connect with that work.
And I think that would be sortof a good way As always, we can
always keep digging, but I thinkthat's a really good way to kind
of bring us in and kind ofconnect the network to support
your efforts here.

Adam Tank (01:01:54):
My vision is that our software could be used to design
an entire city from scratch. Soif we end up colonizing Mars or
name your next planet,exoplanet, the water systems,
the power systems, the housing,the telco, the hospitals, the
everything a society needs tofunction, our software would be
able to design at a conceptuallevel. You literally could just

(01:02:15):
put in, here's how many people Ithink are gonna live here.
Here's the land that we haveavailable to us. Here's some of
the levers we wanna pull fromhow we want the society to look
or function or feel.
Press a button and bang. Like,everything would be spit out.
Your costs, your three drenderings, your all of your
engineering data anddocumentation. Everything is
right there. So that's what Isee a future.

(01:02:35):
I see a future where oursoftware is being used to design
more resilient infrastructure,more sustainable infrastructure,
more cost effectiveinfrastructure. You're going to
pay less in taxes because we'redoing more work upfront to
prevent all the catastrophicfailures that are happening
later on down the road. I thinkyou're going to see a lot of
people in utilities andengineering firms that are
enjoying their lives a lot morebecause they're not worried
about you know, dragging apicture around on a Word

(01:02:57):
document for the seventeenthtime, which is we all know is
like the seventh layer of hell,never works well. Let computers
do that stuff so you can focuson the fun stuff. So that's
that's the future I see.
As far as this community goes,if you or someone you know works
in a water power utility or isan engineer for these systems or
sells equipment into theseprojects that could be breakers,

(01:03:18):
transformers, pumps, pipes, Iwanna talk to them Because
chances are we can significantlyhelp you either grow your
business, cut costs, buildbetter infrastructure. There's a
whole lot there, but we sitright at the intersection of
every major player in aninfrastructure project. And I
know that we can drive value. SoI'd love to talk to you.

Amazing. And then just final, how can people
connect and kind of follow yourwork?

Adam Tank (01:03:43):
LinkedIn is probably the best way. So Adam Tank on
LinkedIn. You can go to AdamTankdot com for sort of the more
personal side of things if youwant. Either way, I I try to
respond to everyone, usuallywithin twenty four hours if I'm
if I'm good about it. So pleasesend a note.
You'll you'll be surprised howmany times people offer this,
and it's crickets. And it'scrazy because most of the folks

(01:04:03):
I know that, you you think, oh,that person would never want to
talk to me or, you know, oh,they'll never respond. They'll
respond in an instant. They lovegiving back. They love helping
out.
They love building thatcommunity. So please reach out.

We've come full circle. I think we we leave it
at that. I really appreciate thetime and so happy to to have you
on the show and get to dig into,you know, some of my favorite
topics here.

Adam, I wish I could keep you for another hour,
but I'm gonna let you go. It'sbeen an absolute privilege, my
friend. Thank you for forjoining the podcast. I can't
wait for this one to drop.

Adam Tank (01:04:33):
Likewise, guys. Thank you.

Man, I gotta tell you another incredible episode
with Adam. So many, so manygems. My head is gonna be 10
times bigger after I record allthese episodes with all the
people. But two things thatreally stuck out to me about
Adam's episode. One thing that Iwanna call out first because I
think is very, the sort of nobleof of Adam.

(01:04:56):
One, you can do well and do goodat the same time. You don't need
to sacrifice one for the other.Right? And he's shown that
throughout his entire careerthus far from the time he was in
college, from the time to wherehe's at right now being the CEO
of a series b and growing,company. So, you know, you don't
have to sacrifice one for theother.

(01:05:18):
And and I think that's animportant lesson for our
founders and people listening tothe episode to understand. Even
now he's building a companythat's basically helping, you
know, help with water, right,you know, around the world and
that's infrastructure for ourlives, you know, and still
putting that in the fabric ofeverything that he's working on.
The second thing, is reallyaround storytelling and

(01:05:39):
strategic narrative. Right? He'sclearly very, very good at
strategic narrative and gettingthat to resonate with different
audiences.
And there's a lot of evidence ofthat throughout the episode that
he shared with us. And I'll saveit for our audience to actually
hear it. But I mean, the guy isclearly a boring storyteller.

(01:06:00):
And I won't say a boringstoryteller. I'm sure that's a
gift that he learned throughdebate and other things that he
engaged with.
But, you know, what are thethings that stuck out to you?

Yeah. No, absolutely. I think picking up
on the natural part isinteresting. What was
interesting to me specificallyabout it is the people around
Adam noticed that, you know,he's the guy that can help him
out. Before he was able torecognize it himself, people
around him identified and sortof went out of their way to get

(01:06:31):
his input, get hisparticipation.
And so he's like, Oh yeah, wasjust something I can do. Right?
It was something I was naturalat, but obviously people around
him knew it and connected withhim. And so I think that's
Saying that he's a natural iskind of a clear and easy thing
to do. And I don't think it'sprobably a surprise to anybody
that knew Adam when he was,younger.

(01:06:54):
I think the other thing is,like, when when we asked Adam at
the end of the day, you know,where do you see all this going?
He was pretty ambitious. He'slike, let's design the whole
city, the entire thing, youknow, you know, kind of bottom
up, all the systems. You know,it could be that much better.
And definitely no no lack of,ambition.

(01:07:15):
Right? Because the tools thathe's building, you can very
clearly tell he's excited aboutthem. And we geeked out more
than a little on infrastructureto the point where Adam even got
me to, you know, get on theinfrastructure soapbox for a
bit. But it was reallyinteresting to sort of see that

(01:07:36):
level of ambition and him getreally excited about where that
takes us. And I think finally,in all these episodes taken
together, I love the sort offrameworks and concepts that
we're kind of bringing up andputting forth.
I think this idea of collectingthe dots and then connecting the

(01:07:56):
dots, which in the originalquote is, know, you read to
collect, you write to connect,applied to sort of a career
trajectory and really thinkingabout how do you even know what
dots to collect. That was areally interesting sort of way
to frame it and think about it.And so I think folks will enjoy
the conversation. But there's alot of gems in this episode. We

(01:08:20):
had to kind of wrap it up alittle faster than probably
would have naturally been thecase if we were in person having
the conversation.
But you know, it's amazing howmuch experience, depth, muscle
memory is packed in such a shorthour. So I'm really excited for
folks to have a chance to take alisten for themselves.

Thanks for joining us on EIR Live. We hope today's
episode offer you valuableinsights into the
entrepreneurial journey.Remember to subscribe so you
don't miss out on futureepisodes and check out the
description for more details. Doyou have questions or
suggestions? Please reach out tous.
Connect with us on social media.We really value your input.
Catch us next time for moreinspiring stories and

(01:09:01):
strategies. Keep pushingboundaries and making your mark
on the world. I'm Terrance Orrwith my goals, Ilya Tabakh,
signing off.
Let's keep building.

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Episode 13 - A Journey Through Water Innovation with Adam Tank

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 13 - A Journey Through Water Innovation with Adam Tank