June 25, 2024 • 34 mins
In this episode of the Bom: Engineering A Path Forward, we sit down with the CEO of a company that has basically created magic. NuCurrent is at the forefront of wireless charging and futuristic wireless power technology from pop sockets that charge your phone to smart basketballs and medical devices that can’t easily access external charging. Jacob Babcock the shares how he went from a law student to designing wireless power for Spalding, what strategies early engineers could take to keep their start-up running, and the power of working in-person.
NuCurrent
NuCurrent Technical Proofs
The views and opinions expressed within this content are solely the speaker's and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Supplyframe or its affiliates.
NuCurrent
NuCurrent Technical Proofs
The views and opinions expressed within this content are solely the speaker's and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Supplyframe or its affiliates.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Spalding once to do basketball with a sensor inside
of it. It's actually for coaching. So the idea is
they've baselined some professionals like Steph Curry doing certain drills
and they can say this is the force that it
hits the floor with, or this is how many dribbles
he would do between cones, or the spin right on
his shots, and so they can sense that with the
(00:21):
sensor buried right into the center of the ball, because
as you know, for a ball, it has to rotate
very evenly, and importantly, it has to bounce evenly and effectively.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Welcome to another episode of The Bomb Engineering a Path Forward.
I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart, and I'm going to ask
you to look around your desk, bedside table, whatever you
charge all your devices with. How many of those charge wirelessly?
As a listener of this show, it might be all
of them. In today's episode, we're going to explore the
amazing possibilities and wireless power and charging with a pioneer
in the field, Jacob Bacock. Jacob is the CEO of
(00:56):
New Current, the world's leading wireless power technology company for
high efficiency and compact sizes. Today Jacob will tell us
how he transitioned from law student to electrical engineer, the
challenges of designing new currents, innovative new Spalding, smart basketball,
and why mentorship and a strong network are crucial at
every stage of your business. This is my conversation with
Jacob Babcock and this is the Bomb. We live in
(01:24):
a time where design and technology touch every aspect of
our lives. But where did it all come from? Who
designed it, how is it built and brought to market?
What will look like in a year, two years, one
hundred years. From the phones and smart watches that help
us in our day to day to the cutting edge
spaceships and three D printers that are leading us into
the future. Modern design is constantly shaping the way we work, communicate,
(01:45):
problem solve and play. And every new design, bigger, small,
starts with an idea and a bill of materials. I'm
agenta strongheart and this is the Bomb where we talk
to leading innovators in the tech world and celebrate the
transformational power of design.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Jacob, Welcome to the Bomb. Thank you for joining us today.
Super excited to be here at m Hub, a space.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That I've heard so much about over the years. And
we're going to be learning about more later today. How
was your morning getting here?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
It's great. My office is about five blocks away and
I love coming here. I'm a board member here as well,
so it's great to go back and forth.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Nice welcome.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, we're excited to get into everything about New Current.
I'm excited to learn more and also about your position
as a board member here.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
And I think it'd be great to just kind of start.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
With a little bit about your origin story, like how
you got into engineering and this space and hardware and
running New Current and founding it about fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Ago, right, Yeah, So fifteen years ago, I was in
law school at Northwestern. Not a typical engineering hardware starting point,
but I was in law school at Northwestern, and I
took a class in design thinking around medical innovation. And
because we were focused on implanted medical devices and wirelessly
charging those for our class project, we got into the
position where everything we did had to like work perfectly
(03:06):
because you can't mess around with pacemakers and spinal cord stimulators.
And when the class was over, that really led to
us realizing that we had developed something that was really
magnitudely different than anyone else had done up to that
point in wireless charging, and so we saw opportunities in
areas initially like mobile phones, computers, and automotive charging phones
(03:29):
inside of cars, and we branched out from there and
then you know, this is the really fast version of
the story. But today we have really pioneered wireless charging
into multiple fields, like industrial devices. So if a UPS
driver drops off a package for you, they're going to
scan it using a computer from Honeywell that uses our
wireless charge. Right now we're filming this, there's a PGA
(03:52):
championship right now. Probably half those players are wearing WOOP devices.
We wirelessly charge those. So it's really cool that we've
expanded from that medical play. And it was a very
circuitous path. And I'm not an engineer, but and my
younger brother is a mechanical and electrical robotics engineer from
carbegiet Allen, and I always ask him, like, how you know,
(04:14):
could I cut it? And he's like, if the questions
about wireless power you're really deep. Everything else you don't
know anything about. So if we keep it there, I
can answer the electrical engineer nice.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, then it sounds like you've learned a ton over
the years. I'm sure as far as that goes on
the early team when you were working on those prototypes
for the medical device in school did you have were
you working with engineers or what was the kind of
split with the team in that class.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, in the class it was actually it was the
second type of class like this in the country. So
the first one started at Stanford and kind of very
similar at Northwestern where there's really strong schools grad schools
in medicine, engineering, business, and law, and so we had
an even distribution of students from those four different schools.
(05:00):
I was one of two students from the law school,
and then we had two MBA students. We had two
Masters of Engineering students, and then one medical student. So
the seven of us were responsible for the class project.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And so at that time that you guys were developing
this and you kind of learned, like you said, you
recognize there's this bigger opportunity maybe beyond just this one
medical application. What was existing on the market at that
time as far as wireless charging, Like obviously now people
are familiar with, you know, their phone is probably the
most common example throwing your phone on the pad to
(05:32):
charge it and that sort of thing. But at the time,
what was kind of out there that people would have
been familiar with.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, no one really thought in terms of wireless charging,
but the technology did exist, and so probably the most
common thing was toothbrushes. Okay, so toothbrushes have been wirelessly
charged since like the early two thousands.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
That's so interesting. I wouldn't have thought about it, but
it makes sense, say, I'm like, yes, And.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
It's such a perfect application because they're used in you know,
water rich environments. Obviously they need to be clean. You
can't have like bacteria build up on them. And a
lot of physical connectors have a lot of they're dirty,
a lot of gunk kits.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, you just deal with all that.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, yeah, they're the normal connectors are also very failure prone,
and so for toothbrushes, it was perfect not only because
the application benefited from having like a fully sealed plastic
in case device, but also because toothbrush is charged super
slowly because it's very basic technology. But it doesn't matter
because you know, if you're really good on your oral hygiene,
(06:29):
you brush your teeth about six minutes a day, you know,
and so those are the super Yeah, right, and so
you're talking about like basically twenty four hours a day
they can sit on their charger, so it doesn't matter
if it's only doing like one hundred milliwats at a time. Now,
for newer devices, phones that want to charge at fifteen
watts or and.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
You wanted to charge fast or maybe overnight, you have
that opportunity, but a lot of the times you're like,
I need this really quick and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, there's fast charging applications, and people are used to
wanting to or like charge their wearable quickly when they
shower so that they don't have to miss a workout
without having their Apple Watch on or whatever the case
may be.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Can you tell us a little bit more about like
that conversation, the turning point of deciding we're gonna start
a company, you know, as far as the from the
class project too, there's this great opportunity or is it
the same people that you were working with that went
into New Current at the beginning. Was there some shifting
of all of that? What was the kind of the moment?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Definitely not straightforward. There wasn't a moment, just.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
A lot of moments.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Had a lot of moments and there wasn't even a
light bulb moment for the innovation. I mean today we
have close to four hundred patents, and there wasn't like
a one aha moment. There were some very depressing depths
of like scariness, like oh, we can't make it work.
And then we found ourselves back into a corner and
we had to innovate our way out of it. But
as far as going into the company, we just kind
(07:51):
of rolled it forward. I think one defining moment for
the team, the Class Project team was we won the
Northwestern University Venture Challenge that year fifteen years ago. That
was kind of a newish thing, like now, I feel
like every university.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Has these yeah has some metro program yet that was.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Like in this third year or something. But we won that,
so we want a little bit of money. But we
also won some confidence. Yeah, that's fifty four Northwestern teams.
We're the best. So that gave us some confidence. At
that point, a few people said, hey, it's just a
class project. I'm done, and a few people wanted to
keep moving forward. And then over time, you know, it's
been a long bill, it's been a lot of twists
(08:30):
and turns, so over time I'm really the only person
that still is around from that original group. Three other
people stayed involved for multiple years, and then three people
kind of stopped right away.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Okay, maybe we can get a little bit more into
a deep dive of the technology as much as.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
You're willing to share. We can maybe start with like
wireless charting for.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Beginners, and then as kind of detailed as you're willing
to share about kind of some of the innovations you
guys have worked on, so some of our more you know,
knowledgeable audience members can also get a kick out of that.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Sure, So I know you have a pretty sophisticated audience
of you know, engineers and product managers. So I won't
start at the zero level. It'll start at the one
hundred level. So we're in Chicago today. You know, we're
about two miles away from the location of the eighteen
ninety three World's Fair where Nicola Tesla did the first
ever demonstration of wireless power. So this has been going
(09:23):
on for over one hundred and thirty years. What he
essentially showed was a transformer that can transfer or they
when you have a magnetic field induced on the primary
side and then you put a receiver that's tuned a
particular way in that same magnetic field, it can harness
(09:44):
that AC and then you know, through rectification you can
convert that into a d DC and you can turn
a light bulb. So he showed that with a two
meter coil on one side, a two meter coil on
the other side, and a two meter gap in between,
and he showed that you can send power from here
to here to light a light bulb. And really the
(10:04):
physics hasn't changed. That's the same.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
It's been able to make a little smaller than two
meters just slightly.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Much smaller, much cheaper, much more efficient, safer, do data
over the same link. So these are some of the
innovations that had to come into being. And earlier you
asked what existed when we started down this path toothbrushes did,
but they really just did basically what Tesla did in
(10:31):
smaller packages, but it all scaled so like it was
also really low power. What the innovations require now for
these more advanced electronics applications and miniature devices and irregular
shape devices is what had to be brought into the market.
And interestingly, like one hundred and twenty years after that,
first demo, there hadn't been much progress, but in the
(10:54):
last ten fifteen years, there's been a huge wave of
progress in this entire industry. I mean, we're pioneering that
and we're a big part of that, but we're not
the only ones. There's been a lot of progress here.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, we hear about it all over in all these
different applications nowadays, and I think both from like the
consumer side to kind of behind the scenes things we're
aware that are happening in larger kind of industrial cases.
There's some really interesting projects I saw when I was
checking out New Current's website and your portfolio, so i'd
love to hear about some of your favorites. The one
that caught my eye was the Spaulding a basketball project,
(11:25):
But we don't have to only focus on that. If
there's something you're something else you're excited to share about.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Going back to our roots, that it was a class
focus on design thinking. So with design thinking principles, you
always want to start with the problem and you want
to focus most of your effort on really defining the problem.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
And which is huge that you guys were doing that
as young entrepreneurs, because that's something I hear all the time.
Sorry to intrust, but you know with kind of like
vc in investors talking about pro tips and these kinds
of things are like we see founders all the time
that are really married to the solution that they have,
not now they're trying to find a.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Problem for it.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So that's amazing that you guys were focused on that
from the jump, and also again like shout out to
that class because it really helps set the right tone.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I think it sounds like it's been a huge differentiator
between Austin basically all these come and go wireless power startups.
So there's been so many companies that spin out a
cal Tech or am I to your Stanford or wherever,
and they have a cool neat idea for wireless power
and oftentimes they're like academically interesting, but then they have
one solution that's relatively narrow and they have to go
(12:26):
find the problem that they solve. Yeah, and they raise
around a venture funding and then they go away. And
we've seen that story a dozen times in the past decade.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
So tell us more about the Spalding project. What shoud
they kind of come with to you guys with and
what did you end up with?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Delivering.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, so Spalding once to do basketball with the censor
inside of it so that you can it's actually for coaching.
So the idea is they've baselined some professionals like Steph
Curry and doing certain drills and they can say this
is the force that it hits the floor with, this
(13:00):
is how many dribbles he would do between cones, or
the spin rate on his shots, and so they can
sense that with the sensor buried right into the center
of the ball. Because as you know, for a ball,
it has to rotate very evenly, and importantly, it has
to bounce evenly and effectively.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, you don't want anything that's messing up the balance
of the ball. That would be totally detrimental to the
rest of what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
And the early prototypes, sure enough, like weren't even workable
because in order the other thing you can't do is
you can't put a plug in a basketball. Yeah, that's
just like a non starter. So they did try to
do basic wireless power. They put an antenna right underneath
the leather cover and because that's where it had to
be in order to effectively pass wireless power. Because they
(13:44):
didn't know how to do it with smaller antennas or
greater distances. And so what the problem with that is
is like it bounced okay on I don't know, call
it nine of the ten panels, but when you bounced
it on that one panel that had an antenna about
the size of a howkpuck underneath it, it was like
at that bounce, yeah, sure, And so it didn't work.
And so they came to us and they said, hey,
(14:06):
you know, the sensor works, but we can't recharge these
things reliably and get a good quality product. Can you
help us move the wireless charging into the middle of
the ball so increase the distance, and can you do
it with a much smaller and lighter receiver technology. So
we were able to do that. We did do it.
One really interesting thing came up for us at that point,
(14:29):
which was we had never really thought about measuring angular misalignment.
So we had always thought in terms of three dimensions,
so x, y and then Z and with a basketball.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Did it's always going to be sitting on one flat side.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Basically you can expect which side it's going to be
landing on the pad with, Yeah, it's going.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
To be flat it's flat things charging flat things is
what it was at that time, and so it could
be planar misaligned, or it could be distance misaligned. But
we never thought about data and how orientation a coil could,
instead of being perfectly perpendicular, could then start changing. And
so like even just things like how do you develop
(15:09):
test fixtures for this? How do you model this? Because
the simulation tools really couldn't handle that.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
That really challenges your whole prototyping process, because I was
reading a lot about how the simulation tools are, what
kind of help you guys be super quick and be
able to you know, yeah, test these things even before
you're building the prototype, and so yeah, yeah, you can
imagine that's a big challenge. You're like, okay, we got
to fix these tools even too.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, And it's just a good example of like how
we went into that saying we can probably do this,
but we don't know what all the problems are going
to be. It introduced a new problem, and sure enough,
today we do a lot with irregular shaped objects. So
stylists are not flat, earbuds are not flat. Headsets like
the band and the top is kind of flat but
not really flat. And so thankfully we had developed that
(15:53):
angular misalignment simulation capability, fixturing capability, and knowledge, and now
we can roll it in and it's to the benefit
of all of our customers that we can do these
things much faster.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Hmm. Absolutely, that's I can imagine. That's a game changer.
And so where's the product at today, how's it going? Where?
What are they using it for?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And I don't know if I ever dreamt about how
broadly it would be deployed in terms of different areas.
It's it's really incredible to see all the different industry uses.
So we're supplying the top companies in PC peripherals, in audio.
So when I say PC peripheral, I'm talking about like
mice and keyboards, video cameras. When I say audio, I'm
(16:36):
talking about headsets and earbuds. Smart glasses is about to
become a huge thing.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I mean, yeah, we saw a lot of that as
CBS this year.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, we're in the visiting the Facebook will Meta the
Meta Ravens room. Yeah, the ray Ban's release. Yeah, I
feel like every other was talking about the top.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Of the Iceberg. Sure, I believe, and I think this
would be interesting to your audience. But I believe based
on what I've seen in consumer electronics just as a user,
but also running this company for fifteen years, I'm pretty confident.
I would take a bet that if we did this
conversation ten years from now, we might not even be
carrying phones anymore. I think phones will be completely disrupted
(17:16):
by smart glasses and other on body wearables, because if
you think from a first principles perspective, what advantage does
a phone have compared to something that is like sitting
on your nerve center, Like all five senses are right
here on your face, So why would a phone that
sits in your pocket be any better? Now that computing
power is being offloaded to the cloud via.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Five G, you don't need the memory in your body anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
The more chip embedding necessary for the ideas of those
like you know, kind of crazy fi. Yeah fi that
might give technologies, but yeah, no, definitely. I mean the cloud,
like you said, is also a huge part of that,
that potential for those innovations.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, well, maybe we'll go follow up in ten years
and see where we're at.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
We're going to hear from Jacob on having over four
hundred patents for the developed technology and how it's not
necessarily the key to a successful future. Welcome back to
(18:24):
the Bomb. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. When we left off,
Jacob was only scratching the surface of what the future
might look like when we think about the possible applications
for wireless technology. I want to shift a little bit
to speaking of kind of just this, like the innovations
that you guys really own and have really kind of
(18:46):
carved this place out where you're able to pride this
to your customers, your expertise and kind of specialty you
mentioned earlier.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
You guys have four hundred over four.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Hundred patents, your law background, I'm sure it came in
handy with some advantaging this side of things. I'm always
in interested because we talk a lot with startups, of
course at different levels, and kind of sometimes in technology
are competing with these kind of tech giants, and there's
conversations around like when is it worth it to patent
(19:14):
or deal with that versus not? And obviously there can
be a lot of hassle if you end up in
you know, a battle with somebody else who's trying to also,
you know, protect that innovation or something they're working on. Obviously,
these cases are very nuanced, so I know there's not
one size fits all, but i'd love to hear more
about your experience managing patents and how that's always been
a core part of the company to develop these kind
(19:36):
of you know, these private innovations that is your core technology.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So yeah, I had this conversation at least once a week.
I love mentoring other entrepreneurs, and this is certainly an
area where I have a lot of experience in entrepreneurship.
So this is a common problem for every technology entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I know.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Now they're there's a little bit of a difference between
being a software company and being a hardware company. Software
is a lot harder to patent. It's not impossible. You
have to be strategic about it, but I would look
to different intellectual property protections in that case. But for
let's just let's assume hardware. You know, this is the bomb, right,
so we're talking about bill materials like actual cost of
good sould physical product. My recommendation is that every company
(20:24):
building physical product should have a baseline of IP. The
baseline can be one or two core patents. It doesn't
need to be very robust and super expensive. But I
think everyone should lay down a foundation mostly for future optionality,
so that a few years later, if a big company
wants to buy them, or if they have hit it
(20:46):
big on something, they can go back to those prior
art dates and they can write continuation applications.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
They're not going to regret that they didn't do it
in the first place.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Lay a line in the sand on your date, write
a really robust specification, you know, be really good at
disclosing a lot into that patent so that in the
future you can go back and take advantage of that
really good disclosure. So most of the time, I'd say
eighty percent of the time, it's getting a baseline laid
for future optionality. And that's how I think companies should
(21:15):
think about IP in the early stages. Now, the next thing,
I don't think people should go very or most companies
shouldn't go very far beyond that very early. I probably
the no man's land is to be like ten to
twenty patents in, ten to thirty patents in without a
business strategy around how you're going to monetize those patents.
(21:37):
So if you're going to monetize your patents through licensing
or through building stuff and stopping competition from getting in
your space. Then you need a lot of patents, and
then you should be going for it, and you should
be raising money or you should be generating income that
can invest into developing fifty one hundred patents. You should
go for it. But if you're just you know, coming
(21:59):
up with some new bells whistles, I don't think you
really need to spend your money, you know, which is
not very freely available today. I don't think you should
be spending your money on patents. I think you should
develop product market fit. I think that you should develop
an understanding of how big your opportunity is, and then
once you realize the financial value of the patent, then
(22:21):
you should go back and file them. So most companies
fit into that bucket where they should wait and see
with options open. Once you decide you actually know how
to use patents to really make money, then you might
need to go really big and you might need to
invest in house lawyers, you might need to invest in
house patent agents, and think in terms of like hundreds
not tens.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, no, that's really helpful.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I appreciate how you laid that out from kind of
the early stages, what exactly you want to have in
mind when you're first starting out, and to kind of
be proactive and protecting assets you might be developing that
you don't even know the potential of them in the
future as they evolve all the way up to like
maybe this is part of your business model and then
your you know, might be in the patent game the
whole time, right, so you need to bring it in
(23:03):
house and have those lawyers on.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
The team and all of that sort of things. So
thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
That's really helpful, and I think that it's a nice
kind of guide when people are trying to start to
tackle and think about even the right questions to ask.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Is super helpful.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Can I throw one more thing? I think this is
super important. Most advice around patents come from lawyers, especially
when you're in the incubator world. So like in incubators
or accelerators like an m hub, they'll have lawyers come
in and talk to the cohort companies about patents. Lawyers
are really fantastic at understanding how to perfect the legal rights,
(23:35):
how to write the claims, what the stages of the
process are. All of that but the thing is is
that lawyers are like the way to get it done,
they're not the way to build the strategy. And so
one of the best pieces of advice I've received really
early in the company, and that I love to pass
on to entrepreneurs is you should try early as possible
to align with a business person, not a lawyer, that
(23:59):
can tell you, like, what IP looks like in your space,
how do people use it to make money? That will
inform your strategy, and then absolutely you'll need those lawyers
to execute the strategy. Yeah, but the lawyers should be
a small part of the strategy. The business people should
be the bigger part of forming the vision in the strategy,
and they're not as easy to find unfortunately, but if
you can, if you set out to look for those
(24:20):
people that really understand financial return and ROI on intellectual
property in your field, it can be one of the
best mentors or advisors or board members you could ever find.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
We've mentioned m hub a few times.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
You're a board member and also talked about some of
your experience mentoring and having mentors throughout your kind of journey.
So I'd love to hear how you think you know
a space like this can why you like to be
a part of a space like this, and how you
think this was a value to your team over the years.
You talked a little bit about when you first met Bill,
you know, you guys were in different spaces, but still
(24:55):
kind of is useful to have that I think kind
of collaboration and those folks to in different situations. So yeah,
just kind of elaborate on the value of those spaces,
and even early on kind of we talked about the
value of interdisciplinary perspectives, which I think is a huge
part of that as well.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, I've yet to come across a business that is easy,
even the ones that are wildly successful in retrospect. I mean,
they're still hard once they've reached that like success level,
but they were really hard to get there. Businesses are tough,
and they're especially tough when you have scarce resources. You
don't have a lot of options. You know, It's kind
(25:34):
of like the difference between selling this product or not
making payroll and shutting down the company. Those type of
challenges are just really hard to parse through on your own.
And so network is essential at every level of running
a business that I've been a part of and I
don't expect it to stop. You know, the further we
get in our journey and the more success we've been
(25:59):
able to create, I would say, the more important the
networks gets. Now it gets to be a different type
of network. And you can go to the top of
the top of Bill Gates a Warren Buffett. Their networks
are probably one of their most valuable assets that they
have and their goodwill in their own personal brand and
why people trust them and think about them when they
have a certain problem. Why does someone think about Bill Gates?
(26:22):
Why do they answer the phone when he calls? I
think it just keeps getting more and more and more important.
But it already starts at like a ninety nine out
of an important. So if your way to start building
a network, one great way that's been created in the
last ten years or so or twenty years since, like
y Combinator and stuff, is this idea of accelerators or
coworking spaces. Community matters so much so whatever the method is,
(26:46):
whether it's joining a place like an m hub or
applying to a program like a y combinator, you have
to build a network. Like I've never met an entrepreneur
that's done it. On their own all the way through.
Now you have to find your network somehow.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Something I want to also emphasize on top of that
is the value of in person I think interaction, because
obviously we're doing more and more.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Remote and I think it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
On the one hand, of course, how it's made certain
opportunities more accessible and connecting with folks online isn't you.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Know, not worth something of course, But i'd love to hear.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
How often, like your team meets in person and how
often you said you come here sometimes a few times
a week and whatnot. Why do you think in person
still matters?
Speaker 1 (27:28):
It matters a ton, And like, I love that you're
asking this question because I sense that you're quite a
bit younger than me, and I feel like people in
the newer generation of the workforce they're kind of like, oh,
I can get my job done by being remote, and
in fact, I can get my whole job done and
walk the dog and work out and be it happy
hour by five o'clock. And none of that's not true.
(27:49):
I don't disagree with that. The problem is that when
people my age are older, the way we learned i'll
above our position was by being on site with people
that were doing the bigger job above us and above them.
Good to see what's happening those magic opportunities. Like for me,
(28:09):
I was at a law firm for a while and
some of the most magical opportunities they suck in the moment.
But it's when you're in the office in New York
at three am trying to figure out how to get
a regulatory variance around a rare breed of owls so
that you can put a wind farm up. And it's like,
how the partner who's right there with you, who's thirty
years in the seat, is thinking about how to get
(28:30):
the job done. You'll never get that over zoom because
they're not going to call you at three in the
morning and get you on a zoom call. You're just
not in the deal. And so I think from people
who are ambitious, So people listening to this, whether it's
within a company, whether it's at an entrepreneur I mean,
one of the clearest ways of differentiators differentiate yourself today
is just to show up, which is crazy, crazy to
(28:54):
say that, but there is just recognize the difference between
showing up in person and showing up digitally and right
there you're automatically starting to separate yourself from you know,
thirty forty percent of other people, and that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
We have a few kind of fun, more rapid fire
questions I guess at the end that I'll run through. Now, So,
what's one thing outside of technology that's been inspiring you lately?
Speaker 1 (29:24):
So something that's been inspiring me lately, but not just new,
but I would say it's just nature. So specific example,
I just went to Joshua Tree with my children and
doing things like that. I love, Like it's not technical
for sure, but it's inspiring because you see like systems
and how they work and like kind of the miracle
(29:47):
of how every little like every little thing in that
environment fits together. And to me, that has direct This
isn't why I do it, but like it has direct
correlation to companies, to hardware systems, to products, to process.
(30:08):
It's like nature is such an inspirational force for like
you know, over billions of years, how it all came together.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
To be the way it's been like optimized to the
most efficient system absolutely, and it somehow manages to be
like gorgeous at the same time, which is totally inspiring
to be totally efficient and beautiful, is I would say, yeah,
pretty inspirational, absolutely, and the goal that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Joshua Tree is so much fun and so that's awesome.
Was at your first time there with your kids.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
To that specific park?
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
How it's really been, I feel like, becoming more and
more popular.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
I didn't even know much about it, I mean, and
I grew up in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah, and grew up in California and didn't go there
literally until maybe three years ago or so for a
friend's birthday. We went out there, and there's so much
cool stuff going on there, and I think it's kind
of growing cool new restaurants like that too.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
You did the Reds and stuff they're growing up.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yes, definitely, and like Yosemite and everything up north. Absolutely,
but Joshua Tree didn't really come on my radar until
I was in La of course. But yeah, beautiful place,
so that's super fun. And then what would you say
is on your personal bill of materials?
Speaker 1 (31:17):
My personal bill materials, So basically what gets me going.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Like totally and your interpretation.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
My personal bill materials? Coffee every morning, you know, like
hand function with that. That's my PCB, Right, you can't
even build the circuit without that, you know, my my family.
I'll think about more material stuff. So like my Vespa scooter,
(31:43):
So that's like a rare one. That's like I love.
So that's how I got here super quick. You get
around quickly. It's fun, it feels great. I love that.
That's like probably the most materialistic thing. I actually like
most things I can. I'm more of an experience versus
like a thing's ye. So yeah, coffee, the scooter, good food.
I love. I live here in the city about six
blocks that way. I work about five blocks that way,
(32:05):
So I love being in this urban environment and love
the restaurants, love going to cool new places with my
kids and my wife.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, energy, No, that's great. I think that's an awesome list.
And I love the picture you were starting to paint
with the PCB. This is my paslayer or the coffee,
and then we have the Yeah, the different components that
make it make it all work. Thank you so much
for sharing with us all of your expertise and experience
and kind of your career journey and how you know
New Current has evolved over the years. Really excited to
(32:36):
kind of keep up with what you all are working on,
and I'd love to give you the opportunity if there's
anything you want to shout out how people can also
keep up with what you all are up to or
any new projects you're working on.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Now is the time.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, well, there's one thing, so if anyone's interested in
hearing more like technical depth or like more about specific industries,
we do produce something called proof Points. We put it
up on LinkedIn and YouTube, so there's stuff on there.
Medical device is smart glasses, consumer electronics, audio physics, like
some of deep nerdy stuff on there too, so that
(33:08):
would be the place to follow up with us. And
other than that, I hope everyone listening over the next
few years is somewhere another customer of New Current by
virtue of their wearables, by virtue of their packages they
have delivered or whatever.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
They might not even realize, but now they'll know to
look into it. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Jacob will definitely drop the link to the proof Points
into our show notes as well, so people can find
it there and nowhere to keep up with more from
New Current and from you.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
So thank you so much again for your time today.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Absolutely thanks.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
That was Jacob Babcock, the CEO of New Current, sharing
his experience with the rapidly evolving technology behind wireless charging
and offering advice for young designers and engineers.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
This has been The.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Bomb, Engineering a path forward. If you like the Bomb,
don't forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever
you get your podcasts. You can follow supply Frame and
Hackaday on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn YouTube, and design Lab at
supply Frame Design Lab on Instagram and Twitter. The Bomb
(34:16):
is a supply Frame podcast produced by Me, Magenta Strongheart
and Ryan Tillotson, written by Maggie Bowles and edited by
Daniel Ferrara. Theme music is by Anna Hogman. Show art
by Thomas Schneider. Special thanks to Giovanni Selinas, Bruce Dimingez,
Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar, Jordan Clark, the entire supply Frame
team and you are wonderful listeners. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
See you next week.
So Spalding once to do basketball with a sensor inside
of it. It's actually for coaching. So the idea is
they've baselined some professionals like Steph Curry doing certain drills
and they can say this is the force that it
hits the floor with, or this is how many dribbles
he would do between cones, or the spin right on
his shots, and so they can sense that with the
(00:21):
sensor buried right into the center of the ball, because
as you know, for a ball, it has to rotate
very evenly, and importantly, it has to bounce evenly and effectively.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Welcome to another episode of The Bomb Engineering a Path Forward.
I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart, and I'm going to ask
you to look around your desk, bedside table, whatever you
charge all your devices with. How many of those charge wirelessly?
As a listener of this show, it might be all
of them. In today's episode, we're going to explore the
amazing possibilities and wireless power and charging with a pioneer
in the field, Jacob Bacock. Jacob is the CEO of
(00:56):
New Current, the world's leading wireless power technology company for
high efficiency and compact sizes. Today Jacob will tell us
how he transitioned from law student to electrical engineer, the
challenges of designing new currents, innovative new Spalding, smart basketball,
and why mentorship and a strong network are crucial at
every stage of your business. This is my conversation with
Jacob Babcock and this is the Bomb. We live in
(01:24):
a time where design and technology touch every aspect of
our lives. But where did it all come from? Who
designed it, how is it built and brought to market?
What will look like in a year, two years, one
hundred years. From the phones and smart watches that help
us in our day to day to the cutting edge
spaceships and three D printers that are leading us into
the future. Modern design is constantly shaping the way we work, communicate,
(01:45):
problem solve and play. And every new design, bigger, small,
starts with an idea and a bill of materials. I'm
agenta strongheart and this is the Bomb where we talk
to leading innovators in the tech world and celebrate the
transformational power of design.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Jacob, Welcome to the Bomb. Thank you for joining us today.
Super excited to be here at m Hub, a space.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That I've heard so much about over the years. And
we're going to be learning about more later today. How
was your morning getting here?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
It's great. My office is about five blocks away and
I love coming here. I'm a board member here as well,
so it's great to go back and forth.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Nice welcome.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, we're excited to get into everything about New Current.
I'm excited to learn more and also about your position
as a board member here.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
And I think it'd be great to just kind of start.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
With a little bit about your origin story, like how
you got into engineering and this space and hardware and
running New Current and founding it about fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Ago, right, Yeah, So fifteen years ago, I was in
law school at Northwestern. Not a typical engineering hardware starting point,
but I was in law school at Northwestern, and I
took a class in design thinking around medical innovation. And
because we were focused on implanted medical devices and wirelessly
charging those for our class project, we got into the
position where everything we did had to like work perfectly
(03:06):
because you can't mess around with pacemakers and spinal cord stimulators.
And when the class was over, that really led to
us realizing that we had developed something that was really
magnitudely different than anyone else had done up to that
point in wireless charging, and so we saw opportunities in
areas initially like mobile phones, computers, and automotive charging phones
(03:29):
inside of cars, and we branched out from there and
then you know, this is the really fast version of
the story. But today we have really pioneered wireless charging
into multiple fields, like industrial devices. So if a UPS
driver drops off a package for you, they're going to
scan it using a computer from Honeywell that uses our
wireless charge. Right now we're filming this, there's a PGA
(03:52):
championship right now. Probably half those players are wearing WOOP devices.
We wirelessly charge those. So it's really cool that we've
expanded from that medical play. And it was a very
circuitous path. And I'm not an engineer, but and my
younger brother is a mechanical and electrical robotics engineer from
carbegiet Allen, and I always ask him, like, how you know,
(04:14):
could I cut it? And he's like, if the questions
about wireless power you're really deep. Everything else you don't
know anything about. So if we keep it there, I
can answer the electrical engineer nice.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, then it sounds like you've learned a ton over
the years. I'm sure as far as that goes on
the early team when you were working on those prototypes
for the medical device in school did you have were
you working with engineers or what was the kind of
split with the team in that class.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, in the class it was actually it was the
second type of class like this in the country. So
the first one started at Stanford and kind of very
similar at Northwestern where there's really strong schools grad schools
in medicine, engineering, business, and law, and so we had
an even distribution of students from those four different schools.
(05:00):
I was one of two students from the law school,
and then we had two MBA students. We had two
Masters of Engineering students, and then one medical student. So
the seven of us were responsible for the class project.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
And so at that time that you guys were developing
this and you kind of learned, like you said, you
recognize there's this bigger opportunity maybe beyond just this one
medical application. What was existing on the market at that
time as far as wireless charging, Like obviously now people
are familiar with, you know, their phone is probably the
most common example throwing your phone on the pad to
(05:32):
charge it and that sort of thing. But at the time,
what was kind of out there that people would have
been familiar with.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, no one really thought in terms of wireless charging,
but the technology did exist, and so probably the most
common thing was toothbrushes. Okay, so toothbrushes have been wirelessly
charged since like the early two thousands.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
That's so interesting. I wouldn't have thought about it, but
it makes sense, say, I'm like, yes, And.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
It's such a perfect application because they're used in you know,
water rich environments. Obviously they need to be clean. You
can't have like bacteria build up on them. And a
lot of physical connectors have a lot of they're dirty,
a lot of gunk kits.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, you just deal with all that.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, yeah, they're the normal connectors are also very failure prone,
and so for toothbrushes, it was perfect not only because
the application benefited from having like a fully sealed plastic
in case device, but also because toothbrush is charged super
slowly because it's very basic technology. But it doesn't matter
because you know, if you're really good on your oral hygiene,
(06:29):
you brush your teeth about six minutes a day, you know,
and so those are the super Yeah, right, and so
you're talking about like basically twenty four hours a day
they can sit on their charger, so it doesn't matter
if it's only doing like one hundred milliwats at a time. Now,
for newer devices, phones that want to charge at fifteen
watts or and.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
You wanted to charge fast or maybe overnight, you have
that opportunity, but a lot of the times you're like,
I need this really quick and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, there's fast charging applications, and people are used to
wanting to or like charge their wearable quickly when they
shower so that they don't have to miss a workout
without having their Apple Watch on or whatever the case
may be.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Can you tell us a little bit more about like
that conversation, the turning point of deciding we're gonna start
a company, you know, as far as the from the
class project too, there's this great opportunity or is it
the same people that you were working with that went
into New Current at the beginning. Was there some shifting
of all of that? What was the kind of the moment?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Definitely not straightforward. There wasn't a moment, just.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
A lot of moments.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Had a lot of moments and there wasn't even a
light bulb moment for the innovation. I mean today we
have close to four hundred patents, and there wasn't like
a one aha moment. There were some very depressing depths
of like scariness, like oh, we can't make it work.
And then we found ourselves back into a corner and
we had to innovate our way out of it. But
as far as going into the company, we just kind
(07:51):
of rolled it forward. I think one defining moment for
the team, the Class Project team was we won the
Northwestern University Venture Challenge that year fifteen years ago. That
was kind of a newish thing, like now, I feel
like every university.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Has these yeah has some metro program yet that was.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Like in this third year or something. But we won that,
so we want a little bit of money. But we
also won some confidence. Yeah, that's fifty four Northwestern teams.
We're the best. So that gave us some confidence. At
that point, a few people said, hey, it's just a
class project. I'm done, and a few people wanted to
keep moving forward. And then over time, you know, it's
been a long bill, it's been a lot of twists
(08:30):
and turns, so over time I'm really the only person
that still is around from that original group. Three other
people stayed involved for multiple years, and then three people
kind of stopped right away.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Okay, maybe we can get a little bit more into
a deep dive of the technology as much as.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
You're willing to share. We can maybe start with like
wireless charting for.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Beginners, and then as kind of detailed as you're willing
to share about kind of some of the innovations you
guys have worked on, so some of our more you know,
knowledgeable audience members can also get a kick out of that.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Sure, So I know you have a pretty sophisticated audience
of you know, engineers and product managers. So I won't
start at the zero level. It'll start at the one
hundred level. So we're in Chicago today. You know, we're
about two miles away from the location of the eighteen
ninety three World's Fair where Nicola Tesla did the first
ever demonstration of wireless power. So this has been going
(09:23):
on for over one hundred and thirty years. What he
essentially showed was a transformer that can transfer or they
when you have a magnetic field induced on the primary
side and then you put a receiver that's tuned a
particular way in that same magnetic field, it can harness
(09:44):
that AC and then you know, through rectification you can
convert that into a d DC and you can turn
a light bulb. So he showed that with a two
meter coil on one side, a two meter coil on
the other side, and a two meter gap in between,
and he showed that you can send power from here
to here to light a light bulb. And really the
(10:04):
physics hasn't changed. That's the same.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
It's been able to make a little smaller than two
meters just slightly.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Much smaller, much cheaper, much more efficient, safer, do data
over the same link. So these are some of the
innovations that had to come into being. And earlier you
asked what existed when we started down this path toothbrushes did,
but they really just did basically what Tesla did in
(10:31):
smaller packages, but it all scaled so like it was
also really low power. What the innovations require now for
these more advanced electronics applications and miniature devices and irregular
shape devices is what had to be brought into the market.
And interestingly, like one hundred and twenty years after that,
first demo, there hadn't been much progress, but in the
(10:54):
last ten fifteen years, there's been a huge wave of
progress in this entire industry. I mean, we're pioneering that
and we're a big part of that, but we're not
the only ones. There's been a lot of progress here.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, we hear about it all over in all these
different applications nowadays, and I think both from like the
consumer side to kind of behind the scenes things we're
aware that are happening in larger kind of industrial cases.
There's some really interesting projects I saw when I was
checking out New Current's website and your portfolio, so i'd
love to hear about some of your favorites. The one
that caught my eye was the Spaulding a basketball project,
(11:25):
But we don't have to only focus on that. If
there's something you're something else you're excited to share about.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Going back to our roots, that it was a class
focus on design thinking. So with design thinking principles, you
always want to start with the problem and you want
to focus most of your effort on really defining the problem.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
And which is huge that you guys were doing that
as young entrepreneurs, because that's something I hear all the time.
Sorry to intrust, but you know with kind of like
vc in investors talking about pro tips and these kinds
of things are like we see founders all the time
that are really married to the solution that they have,
not now they're trying to find a.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Problem for it.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So that's amazing that you guys were focused on that
from the jump, and also again like shout out to
that class because it really helps set the right tone.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I think it sounds like it's been a huge differentiator
between Austin basically all these come and go wireless power startups.
So there's been so many companies that spin out a
cal Tech or am I to your Stanford or wherever,
and they have a cool neat idea for wireless power
and oftentimes they're like academically interesting, but then they have
one solution that's relatively narrow and they have to go
(12:26):
find the problem that they solve. Yeah, and they raise
around a venture funding and then they go away. And
we've seen that story a dozen times in the past decade.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
So tell us more about the Spalding project. What shoud
they kind of come with to you guys with and
what did you end up with?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Delivering.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, so Spalding once to do basketball with the censor
inside of it so that you can it's actually for coaching.
So the idea is they've baselined some professionals like Steph
Curry and doing certain drills and they can say this
is the force that it hits the floor with, this
(13:00):
is how many dribbles he would do between cones, or
the spin rate on his shots, and so they can
sense that with the sensor buried right into the center
of the ball. Because as you know, for a ball,
it has to rotate very evenly, and importantly, it has
to bounce evenly and effectively.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, you don't want anything that's messing up the balance
of the ball. That would be totally detrimental to the
rest of what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
And the early prototypes, sure enough, like weren't even workable
because in order the other thing you can't do is
you can't put a plug in a basketball. Yeah, that's
just like a non starter. So they did try to
do basic wireless power. They put an antenna right underneath
the leather cover and because that's where it had to
be in order to effectively pass wireless power. Because they
(13:44):
didn't know how to do it with smaller antennas or
greater distances. And so what the problem with that is
is like it bounced okay on I don't know, call
it nine of the ten panels, but when you bounced
it on that one panel that had an antenna about
the size of a howkpuck underneath it, it was like
at that bounce, yeah, sure, And so it didn't work.
And so they came to us and they said, hey,
(14:06):
you know, the sensor works, but we can't recharge these
things reliably and get a good quality product. Can you
help us move the wireless charging into the middle of
the ball so increase the distance, and can you do
it with a much smaller and lighter receiver technology. So
we were able to do that. We did do it.
One really interesting thing came up for us at that point,
(14:29):
which was we had never really thought about measuring angular misalignment.
So we had always thought in terms of three dimensions,
so x, y and then Z and with a basketball.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Did it's always going to be sitting on one flat side.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Basically you can expect which side it's going to be
landing on the pad with, Yeah, it's going.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
To be flat it's flat things charging flat things is
what it was at that time, and so it could
be planar misaligned, or it could be distance misaligned. But
we never thought about data and how orientation a coil could,
instead of being perfectly perpendicular, could then start changing. And
so like even just things like how do you develop
(15:09):
test fixtures for this? How do you model this? Because
the simulation tools really couldn't handle that.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
That really challenges your whole prototyping process, because I was
reading a lot about how the simulation tools are, what
kind of help you guys be super quick and be
able to you know, yeah, test these things even before
you're building the prototype, and so yeah, yeah, you can
imagine that's a big challenge. You're like, okay, we got
to fix these tools even too.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah, And it's just a good example of like how
we went into that saying we can probably do this,
but we don't know what all the problems are going
to be. It introduced a new problem, and sure enough,
today we do a lot with irregular shaped objects. So
stylists are not flat, earbuds are not flat. Headsets like
the band and the top is kind of flat but
not really flat. And so thankfully we had developed that
(15:53):
angular misalignment simulation capability, fixturing capability, and knowledge, and now
we can roll it in and it's to the benefit
of all of our customers that we can do these
things much faster.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Hmm. Absolutely, that's I can imagine. That's a game changer.
And so where's the product at today, how's it going? Where?
What are they using it for?
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And I don't know if I ever dreamt about how
broadly it would be deployed in terms of different areas.
It's it's really incredible to see all the different industry uses.
So we're supplying the top companies in PC peripherals, in audio.
So when I say PC peripheral, I'm talking about like
mice and keyboards, video cameras. When I say audio, I'm
(16:36):
talking about headsets and earbuds. Smart glasses is about to
become a huge thing.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I mean, yeah, we saw a lot of that as
CBS this year.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, we're in the visiting the Facebook will Meta the
Meta Ravens room. Yeah, the ray Ban's release. Yeah, I
feel like every other was talking about the top.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Of the Iceberg. Sure, I believe, and I think this
would be interesting to your audience. But I believe based
on what I've seen in consumer electronics just as a user,
but also running this company for fifteen years, I'm pretty confident.
I would take a bet that if we did this
conversation ten years from now, we might not even be
carrying phones anymore. I think phones will be completely disrupted
(17:16):
by smart glasses and other on body wearables, because if
you think from a first principles perspective, what advantage does
a phone have compared to something that is like sitting
on your nerve center, Like all five senses are right
here on your face, So why would a phone that
sits in your pocket be any better? Now that computing
power is being offloaded to the cloud via.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Five G, you don't need the memory in your body anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
The more chip embedding necessary for the ideas of those
like you know, kind of crazy fi. Yeah fi that
might give technologies, but yeah, no, definitely. I mean the cloud,
like you said, is also a huge part of that,
that potential for those innovations.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, well, maybe we'll go follow up in ten years
and see where we're at.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
We're going to hear from Jacob on having over four
hundred patents for the developed technology and how it's not
necessarily the key to a successful future. Welcome back to
(18:24):
the Bomb. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart. When we left off,
Jacob was only scratching the surface of what the future
might look like when we think about the possible applications
for wireless technology. I want to shift a little bit
to speaking of kind of just this, like the innovations
that you guys really own and have really kind of
(18:46):
carved this place out where you're able to pride this
to your customers, your expertise and kind of specialty you
mentioned earlier.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
You guys have four hundred over four.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Hundred patents, your law background, I'm sure it came in
handy with some advantaging this side of things. I'm always
in interested because we talk a lot with startups, of
course at different levels, and kind of sometimes in technology
are competing with these kind of tech giants, and there's
conversations around like when is it worth it to patent
(19:14):
or deal with that versus not? And obviously there can
be a lot of hassle if you end up in
you know, a battle with somebody else who's trying to also,
you know, protect that innovation or something they're working on. Obviously,
these cases are very nuanced, so I know there's not
one size fits all, but i'd love to hear more
about your experience managing patents and how that's always been
a core part of the company to develop these kind
(19:36):
of you know, these private innovations that is your core technology.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So yeah, I had this conversation at least once a week.
I love mentoring other entrepreneurs, and this is certainly an
area where I have a lot of experience in entrepreneurship.
So this is a common problem for every technology entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I know.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Now they're there's a little bit of a difference between
being a software company and being a hardware company. Software
is a lot harder to patent. It's not impossible. You
have to be strategic about it, but I would look
to different intellectual property protections in that case. But for
let's just let's assume hardware. You know, this is the bomb, right,
so we're talking about bill materials like actual cost of
good sould physical product. My recommendation is that every company
(20:24):
building physical product should have a baseline of IP. The
baseline can be one or two core patents. It doesn't
need to be very robust and super expensive. But I
think everyone should lay down a foundation mostly for future optionality,
so that a few years later, if a big company
wants to buy them, or if they have hit it
(20:46):
big on something, they can go back to those prior
art dates and they can write continuation applications.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
They're not going to regret that they didn't do it
in the first place.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Lay a line in the sand on your date, write
a really robust specification, you know, be really good at
disclosing a lot into that patent so that in the
future you can go back and take advantage of that
really good disclosure. So most of the time, I'd say
eighty percent of the time, it's getting a baseline laid
for future optionality. And that's how I think companies should
(21:15):
think about IP in the early stages. Now, the next thing,
I don't think people should go very or most companies
shouldn't go very far beyond that very early. I probably
the no man's land is to be like ten to
twenty patents in, ten to thirty patents in without a
business strategy around how you're going to monetize those patents.
(21:37):
So if you're going to monetize your patents through licensing
or through building stuff and stopping competition from getting in
your space. Then you need a lot of patents, and
then you should be going for it, and you should
be raising money or you should be generating income that
can invest into developing fifty one hundred patents. You should
go for it. But if you're just you know, coming
(21:59):
up with some new bells whistles, I don't think you
really need to spend your money, you know, which is
not very freely available today. I don't think you should
be spending your money on patents. I think you should
develop product market fit. I think that you should develop
an understanding of how big your opportunity is, and then
once you realize the financial value of the patent, then
(22:21):
you should go back and file them. So most companies
fit into that bucket where they should wait and see
with options open. Once you decide you actually know how
to use patents to really make money, then you might
need to go really big and you might need to
invest in house lawyers, you might need to invest in
house patent agents, and think in terms of like hundreds
not tens.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, no, that's really helpful.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I appreciate how you laid that out from kind of
the early stages, what exactly you want to have in
mind when you're first starting out, and to kind of
be proactive and protecting assets you might be developing that
you don't even know the potential of them in the
future as they evolve all the way up to like
maybe this is part of your business model and then
your you know, might be in the patent game the
whole time, right, so you need to bring it in
(23:03):
house and have those lawyers on.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
The team and all of that sort of things. So
thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
That's really helpful, and I think that it's a nice
kind of guide when people are trying to start to
tackle and think about even the right questions to ask.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Is super helpful.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Can I throw one more thing? I think this is
super important. Most advice around patents come from lawyers, especially
when you're in the incubator world. So like in incubators
or accelerators like an m hub, they'll have lawyers come
in and talk to the cohort companies about patents. Lawyers
are really fantastic at understanding how to perfect the legal rights,
(23:35):
how to write the claims, what the stages of the
process are. All of that but the thing is is
that lawyers are like the way to get it done,
they're not the way to build the strategy. And so
one of the best pieces of advice I've received really
early in the company, and that I love to pass
on to entrepreneurs is you should try early as possible
to align with a business person, not a lawyer, that
(23:59):
can tell you, like, what IP looks like in your space,
how do people use it to make money? That will
inform your strategy, and then absolutely you'll need those lawyers
to execute the strategy. Yeah, but the lawyers should be
a small part of the strategy. The business people should
be the bigger part of forming the vision in the strategy,
and they're not as easy to find unfortunately, but if
you can, if you set out to look for those
(24:20):
people that really understand financial return and ROI on intellectual
property in your field, it can be one of the
best mentors or advisors or board members you could ever find.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
We've mentioned m hub a few times.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
You're a board member and also talked about some of
your experience mentoring and having mentors throughout your kind of journey.
So I'd love to hear how you think you know
a space like this can why you like to be
a part of a space like this, and how you
think this was a value to your team over the years.
You talked a little bit about when you first met Bill,
you know, you guys were in different spaces, but still
(24:55):
kind of is useful to have that I think kind
of collaboration and those folks to in different situations. So yeah,
just kind of elaborate on the value of those spaces,
and even early on kind of we talked about the
value of interdisciplinary perspectives, which I think is a huge
part of that as well.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, I've yet to come across a business that is easy,
even the ones that are wildly successful in retrospect. I mean,
they're still hard once they've reached that like success level,
but they were really hard to get there. Businesses are tough,
and they're especially tough when you have scarce resources. You
don't have a lot of options. You know, It's kind
(25:34):
of like the difference between selling this product or not
making payroll and shutting down the company. Those type of
challenges are just really hard to parse through on your own.
And so network is essential at every level of running
a business that I've been a part of and I
don't expect it to stop. You know, the further we
get in our journey and the more success we've been
(25:59):
able to create, I would say, the more important the
networks gets. Now it gets to be a different type
of network. And you can go to the top of
the top of Bill Gates a Warren Buffett. Their networks
are probably one of their most valuable assets that they
have and their goodwill in their own personal brand and
why people trust them and think about them when they
have a certain problem. Why does someone think about Bill Gates?
(26:22):
Why do they answer the phone when he calls? I
think it just keeps getting more and more and more important.
But it already starts at like a ninety nine out
of an important. So if your way to start building
a network, one great way that's been created in the
last ten years or so or twenty years since, like
y Combinator and stuff, is this idea of accelerators or
coworking spaces. Community matters so much so whatever the method is,
(26:46):
whether it's joining a place like an m hub or
applying to a program like a y combinator, you have
to build a network. Like I've never met an entrepreneur
that's done it. On their own all the way through.
Now you have to find your network somehow.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Something I want to also emphasize on top of that
is the value of in person I think interaction, because
obviously we're doing more and more.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Remote and I think it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
On the one hand, of course, how it's made certain
opportunities more accessible and connecting with folks online isn't you.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Know, not worth something of course, But i'd love to hear.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
How often, like your team meets in person and how
often you said you come here sometimes a few times
a week and whatnot. Why do you think in person
still matters?
Speaker 1 (27:28):
It matters a ton, And like, I love that you're
asking this question because I sense that you're quite a
bit younger than me, and I feel like people in
the newer generation of the workforce they're kind of like, oh,
I can get my job done by being remote, and
in fact, I can get my whole job done and
walk the dog and work out and be it happy
hour by five o'clock. And none of that's not true.
(27:49):
I don't disagree with that. The problem is that when
people my age are older, the way we learned i'll
above our position was by being on site with people
that were doing the bigger job above us and above them.
Good to see what's happening those magic opportunities. Like for me,
(28:09):
I was at a law firm for a while and
some of the most magical opportunities they suck in the moment.
But it's when you're in the office in New York
at three am trying to figure out how to get
a regulatory variance around a rare breed of owls so
that you can put a wind farm up. And it's like,
how the partner who's right there with you, who's thirty
years in the seat, is thinking about how to get
(28:30):
the job done. You'll never get that over zoom because
they're not going to call you at three in the
morning and get you on a zoom call. You're just
not in the deal. And so I think from people
who are ambitious, So people listening to this, whether it's
within a company, whether it's at an entrepreneur I mean,
one of the clearest ways of differentiators differentiate yourself today
is just to show up, which is crazy, crazy to
(28:54):
say that, but there is just recognize the difference between
showing up in person and showing up digitally and right
there you're automatically starting to separate yourself from you know,
thirty forty percent of other people, and that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
We have a few kind of fun, more rapid fire
questions I guess at the end that I'll run through. Now, So,
what's one thing outside of technology that's been inspiring you lately?
Speaker 1 (29:24):
So something that's been inspiring me lately, but not just new,
but I would say it's just nature. So specific example,
I just went to Joshua Tree with my children and
doing things like that. I love, Like it's not technical
for sure, but it's inspiring because you see like systems
and how they work and like kind of the miracle
(29:47):
of how every little like every little thing in that
environment fits together. And to me, that has direct This
isn't why I do it, but like it has direct
correlation to companies, to hardware systems, to products, to process.
(30:08):
It's like nature is such an inspirational force for like
you know, over billions of years, how it all came together.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
To be the way it's been like optimized to the
most efficient system absolutely, and it somehow manages to be
like gorgeous at the same time, which is totally inspiring
to be totally efficient and beautiful, is I would say, yeah,
pretty inspirational, absolutely, and the goal that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Joshua Tree is so much fun and so that's awesome.
Was at your first time there with your kids.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
To that specific park?
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
How it's really been, I feel like, becoming more and
more popular.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
I didn't even know much about it, I mean, and
I grew up in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah, and grew up in California and didn't go there
literally until maybe three years ago or so for a
friend's birthday. We went out there, and there's so much
cool stuff going on there, and I think it's kind
of growing cool new restaurants like that too.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
You did the Reds and stuff they're growing up.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yes, definitely, and like Yosemite and everything up north. Absolutely,
but Joshua Tree didn't really come on my radar until
I was in La of course. But yeah, beautiful place,
so that's super fun. And then what would you say
is on your personal bill of materials?
Speaker 1 (31:17):
My personal bill materials, So basically what gets me going.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Like totally and your interpretation.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
My personal bill materials? Coffee every morning, you know, like
hand function with that. That's my PCB, Right, you can't
even build the circuit without that, you know, my my family.
I'll think about more material stuff. So like my Vespa scooter,
(31:43):
So that's like a rare one. That's like I love.
So that's how I got here super quick. You get
around quickly. It's fun, it feels great. I love that.
That's like probably the most materialistic thing. I actually like
most things I can. I'm more of an experience versus
like a thing's ye. So yeah, coffee, the scooter, good food.
I love. I live here in the city about six
blocks that way. I work about five blocks that way,
(32:05):
So I love being in this urban environment and love
the restaurants, love going to cool new places with my
kids and my wife.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, energy, No, that's great. I think that's an awesome list.
And I love the picture you were starting to paint
with the PCB. This is my paslayer or the coffee,
and then we have the Yeah, the different components that
make it make it all work. Thank you so much
for sharing with us all of your expertise and experience
and kind of your career journey and how you know
New Current has evolved over the years. Really excited to
(32:36):
kind of keep up with what you all are working on,
and I'd love to give you the opportunity if there's
anything you want to shout out how people can also
keep up with what you all are up to or
any new projects you're working on.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Now is the time.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, well, there's one thing, so if anyone's interested in
hearing more like technical depth or like more about specific industries,
we do produce something called proof Points. We put it
up on LinkedIn and YouTube, so there's stuff on there.
Medical device is smart glasses, consumer electronics, audio physics, like
some of deep nerdy stuff on there too, so that
(33:08):
would be the place to follow up with us. And
other than that, I hope everyone listening over the next
few years is somewhere another customer of New Current by
virtue of their wearables, by virtue of their packages they
have delivered or whatever.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
They might not even realize, but now they'll know to
look into it. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Jacob will definitely drop the link to the proof Points
into our show notes as well, so people can find
it there and nowhere to keep up with more from
New Current and from you.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
So thank you so much again for your time today.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Absolutely thanks.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
That was Jacob Babcock, the CEO of New Current, sharing
his experience with the rapidly evolving technology behind wireless charging
and offering advice for young designers and engineers.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
This has been The.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Bomb, Engineering a path forward. If you like the Bomb,
don't forget to subscribe, rate and share the show wherever
you get your podcasts. You can follow supply Frame and
Hackaday on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn YouTube, and design Lab at
supply Frame Design Lab on Instagram and Twitter. The Bomb
(34:16):
is a supply Frame podcast produced by Me, Magenta Strongheart
and Ryan Tillotson, written by Maggie Bowles and edited by
Daniel Ferrara. Theme music is by Anna Hogman. Show art
by Thomas Schneider. Special thanks to Giovanni Selinas, Bruce Dimingez,
Thomas Woodward, Jin Kumar, Jordan Clark, the entire supply Frame
team and you are wonderful listeners. I'm your host, Magenta Strongheart.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
See you next week.
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