Jan 2, 2019 · 19m · a16z
a16z Podcast | Reinventing Food
James Rogers · 4m spoken David Lee · 4m spoken Ushma Garg · 3m spoken Brian Crowley · 2m spoken Kim Milosevich · 1m spoken Sonal Chokshi · 34s spoken
0:00 / 0:00
▶ Watch on YouTube →
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Recorded live at the 2017 a16z Summit, this panel discussion explores how pioneering food technology companies are leveraging biochemistry, material science, and personalized data to revolutionize agriculture, food preservation, and global nutrition while navigating consumer perception and complex regulatory frameworks.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The host holds 3.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 1.8 Guest teaching 3.8 Guest disagreement 1.7 The host pushing back 0.2
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 11:30 James Rogers Reframing GMO Limitations
James directly challenges the pro-GMO consensus among panelists, pointing out that GMOs are an intermediate fix with negative environmental side effects rather than an ultimate solution.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 9:14 Kim Milosevich Identifying the Science vs Organic DivideKim refuses to accept basic promotional pitches and directly confronts the panel with the fundamental ideological tension between lab-based food tech and organic consumer preferences.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 10:35 David Lee on Food Psychology and Consumer ConfusionDavid reframes food as an emotional experience rather than enterprise software, explaining how big food corporations created consumer confusion around GMOs.
The host holds their own ▶ 4:00 Kim Milosevich Highlighting Material Science BackgroundsKim demonstrates sharp domain awareness by noting that James Rogers entered food technology from material science rather than agriculture, smartly guiding the conversation into ingredient chemistry.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drivers Behind the Food Revolution | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Host Kim Milosevich opens with a broad question on the historical transition toward a new food revolution. The guests collaboratively share detailed insights on information access, food media, millennial buyer trends, and agricultural waste. | |
| Material Science and New Plant Ingredients | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Kim highlights James Rogers' background in material sciences and connects it to Soylent's innovations. James and Brian explain the chemistry behind edible protective coatings and fungi-based sustainable protein sources. | |
| Recreating Meat and Personalizing Dining | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Kim guides the panel to discuss replicating meat and individualizing dining experiences. David Lee details the environmental savings of heme-based plant burgers while Ushma Garg outlines Gobble's personalized taste mapping strategy. | |
| Navigating Organic, GMO, and Scientific Transparency | 3 | 5 | 4 | 1 | Kim frames the key cultural conflict between scientific biotech approaches and organic consumer trends. A debate ensues among guests as James Rogers pushes back against pro-GMO generalizations, calling GMOs an intermediate, imperfect solution. | |
| Navigating the Regulatory Landscape | 2 | 5 | 2 | 0 | Kim prompts the panel regarding government regulation in physical tech. Guests educate the room on navigating regulatory overhead, with David Lee explaining why food startups must match the lobbying power of traditional agriculture. | |
| Predictions and Hopes for the Future of Food | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Kim conducts a rapid-fire closing round asking each panelist for 10-year outlooks. The guests offer harmonious concluding predictions balancing supply chain innovation with caution against a dystopian supplement-only future. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Garg: Whole Foods marketing succeeded only by focusing on individual health
“Whole Foods talks about how when they tried to market in favor of the farmer, it didn't work, or sustainability, or local, and only when they said, organic is healthy for you. Food is about you, is when people started caring.”
Lee: Millennials are top ground beef consumers and driving food trends
“The millennial is the largest consumer in my business of ground beef, but they're also the ones that are setting trends, and the way they're setting them is not the way many of us mass marketers serve them.”
Rogers: Earth will add 2 billion people without gaining fresh land or water
“We're gonna add a couple billion more people to this planet in the next 30 years, and along with that, we're not gonna get, ah, another rocket load of more arable land and more fresh water.”
Rogers: Apeel's invisible plant-based peel extends produce shelf life without refrigeration
“We've developed a way to use food to preserve other food. And so we use natural plant materials to create an invisible peel that we apply to the outside of fresh produce. And by constructing this peel in the appropriate way from these food materials, we're abl…”
Crowley: Soylent is investing in fungi as the next sustainable protein source
“The next big thing is fungi is actually mushroom. We're putting a lot of research and investment dollars into, and partnerships in terms of how do we actually find that next sustainable protein source so that we can actually, again, have less impact on the env…”
David Lee: Animal farming emits as much greenhouse gas as all transportation
“Animal farming produces more greenhouse gases than almost any sector, the same as all forms of transportation combined, period.”
Lee: 75% of Impossible Foods consumers are actually meat eaters
“Three quarters of the people eat our product are meat eaters.”
David Lee: Impossible Burger uses 95% less land and 74% less water than beef
“Every time a meat eater picks our burger versus a burger from a cow, they save 95% of the land, they save 74% of the water, They produce an eighth of the greenhouse gases for the alternative.”
Lee: Blind taste tests show Impossible Burger matches beef for meat eaters
“We know empirically, tested blind versus a cow were as delicious to a meat eater.”
Garg: Gobble aims to create a Spotify-like personalized taste map for meals
“Long term, we think about what is best for you to eat based on your genetics, your age, your background, your taste preferences, and we try to personalize food in the same way that Spotify has developed a fingerprint for music. We want to own that fingerprint …”
Brian Crowley: Organic and non-GMO agriculture is globally unsustainable
“Organic and non-GMO is just not sustainable. It's not sustainable globally. It's not even sustainable in the richest country in the world.”
David Lee: 40% of ice-free land is used for animal farming
“40% of the ice-free land today is used in the production of animal farming.”
Lee: Animal farming lobby is much bigger than the NRA
“Animal farming, in my case, is arguably the most well-funded lobbying organization in the United States, much bigger than the NRA, by far.”
Lee: Early food startups must hire top lobbying firms to compete
“You have to have the best lobbying group on your payroll as a young pre-revenue startup if you want to compete.”
Crowley: Most food and beverage private equity investment serves the top 1%
“Most of the investment in private equity and the food and beverage space is going to initiatives that only benefit the one percenters”
Lee: Future generations will be horrified that people ate animal meat
“One day, little kids will look at their parents, shocked and horrified, and say, I cannot believe you all used to eat meat, meat of dead animals.”
Rogers: A new food supply chain will unlock trillions in value
“I think we're going to see the evolution and development and deployment of an entirely new food supply chain, which unlocks trillions of dollars in value. Improves the quality of the produce that we're growing, reduces or eliminates this whole idea of seasonal…”