The Exchanges

Q And Justin, you were doing an MBA. Tell me what you were thinking about doing. I mean, you, you had been at the State Department and, and been a Foreign Service officer. Clearly, you were thinking, maybe I'm gonna make a change. What were you thinking about, about maybe doing?

A I had just finished an assignment in Paktika province, Afghanistan, which is on the, on the Pakistani border. I was on something called a provincial reconstruction team, which is essentially what it sounds like in terms of the goal. And I had always had it as a life goal to get a graduate degree. Um, kind of the first person in my family to go on to college and then being able to, to get a graduate degree seemed Like something that I was very passionate about, and so I decided to take some time off from the State Department and, and do an MBA at Yale, because it was this mission-driven school, and that really appealed to me, um, that it wasn't just about, you know, going on and working in an investment bank, but maybe having a big impact in, in, on the world, which is what drove me into the foreign service to begin with, and so to be honest with you, I showed up at school, and I met these people that were, that had started companies that were making, it was basically like a A netting that went over a bassinet, and it would help reduce the incidence of, um, child malaria. And so, somebody who started a company, employed all these peoples, having this huge impact on the planet, just had a, you know, a really big effect on me, and that was sort of the mindset I was in when I sat down next to Aria.

AI assessment note: “maybe having a big impact in, in, on the world”

Q Um, so, so what happened? Why, why didn't you pursue that?

A So we, we were able to make some foie gras, like a, you know, a fairly small amount and people, people tried it. Um, I remember the, the first person that we invited to try it was, uh, Was a friend of ours in San Francisco. And, you know, it was tiny amount, like so small that it was almost difficult to really taste, but we, but we did it and we did it on relatively short order, probably from start to finish in just a handful of months, really. But, but even then, I think we started having these conversations about, okay, well, this is really interesting, but are we going to really have a An impact on the planet by working on something like foie gras, which most Americans have probably never had.

AI assessment note: “are we going to really have a An impact on the planet”

Q the, the, the reality. When you're doing something so massive, so radical, it's going to take time. Do you feel any of that pressure? I mean, you know, right now you've got a bunch of cash that you raised, but still it's like, you know, you want to bring a return to those investors. Do you feel that pressure or do you feel Kind of, you know, removed from it.

A Oh yeah. Every, every day. I, I don't think there's a day that goes by when we're not thinking about moving from a, an R and D company into a food production one. And it, and it's been a longer journey than many other companies have to take, you know, and part of it is filling, you know, a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation to our investors and wanting to return that money to them with a nice return. But part of it is driven by The perils that our oceans are facing, right? If you are a sucker for every David Attenborough documentary as I am, um, you know that, you know, if we don't seriously turn things around by the middle part of the century, we can just say goodbye to the biodiversity that exists in our oceans today. And we don't even understand what impact that's going to have. And so on one hand, you know, the, the pressure of returning money in a, in a venture funded business is, Um, might lead to some unintended consequences, but on the other hand, for a mission as profoundly urgent as ours, It might actually be a fairly positive one.

AI assessment note: “Oh yeah. Every, every day. I, I don't think there's a day”