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Title: Travel Like a Billionaire: The 90% Off Secret to a First-Class Lifestyle with Eli Facenda In this conversation, Eli Facenda shares insights on maximizing travel experiences through strategic use of points and credit cards. He discusses his nomadic lifestyle, the entrepreneurial journey that led him to travel hacking, and the importance of understanding the value of different points systems. Eli emphasizes the need for a structured approach to travel, focusing on maximizing points, optimizing travel upgrades, and effectively using credit cards to enhance travel experiences. The discussion also touches on the significance of having a clear strategy for business owners and how to navigate the complexities of travel rewards. In this conversation, Eli Facenda shares his expertise on maximizing travel experiences through strategic use of points and credit cards. He discusses the importance of community in travel planning, innovative solutions for entrepreneurs, and his personal journey in the travel industry. Eli emphasizes the significance of experiential wealth and actionable steps listeners can take to enhance their travel experiences. Links to Watch and Subscribe: https://youtu.be/c7QqSscsajc Bullet Point Highlights: Seth and Eli kick off with casual banter about van life, audio gear, and the nomad lifestyle. Eli shares his background going from broke entrepreneur to travel-hacking expert. He explains how he got obsessed with using points after a free trip to Thailand changed his mindset. Eli now helps entrepreneurs take $20K–$50K luxury trips for 90% off using credit card points. His 3-part system includes maximizing points, optimizing travel perks, and redeeming for bucket-list trips. He gives a real-world example of booking a $20K ANA business class flight to Japan for just $12. Seth dives into a real-life org structure and Eli explains how points flow to the guarantor, not the LLC. Best practice: 2–3 business cards and 2–3 personal cards tailored to your biggest spend categories. Eli introduces his new “DreamTrip Alert System” that delivers full trip itineraries at massive discounts. In the Million Dollar Monday segment, Eli shares how he made, lost, and remade his first million. His next million will come from scalable digital products and a wider reach through content and community. What makes Eli top 1%: He walks the walk, traveling the world and running a business around it. His #1 tip: Pick your dream trip, put it on the calendar, and commit, then let the how figure itself out. Transcript: Eli Facenda (00:00.059) What's up, Seth?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:01.43) Yo, what's going on, brother?   Eli Facenda (00:03.237) How we doing, man? How we doing?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:05.141) Excellent man, what's happening?   Eli Facenda (00:06.893) Not much. you, how's the audio coming through here?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:11.032) Sounds good, sounds good.   Eli Facenda (00:12.547) it clean? Okay, because I'm, it's basically we're in the middle of a Nomad trip here, so I normally have like a, like a shirt mic like you have, but on the road I haven't had, so I haven't had to test this yet, but I figured the DJI's are pretty solid, so I wanna make sure it's actually coming through decent.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:16.962) Okay.   Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:26.732) Nice. Yeah, no, it sounds good. Sounds good, man.   Eli Facenda (00:29.425) Okay, cool, awesome. Awesome Dave, we'll get to connect with you.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:33.802) Yeah, brother definitely, so I don't butcher it. How do you pronounce your last name? Facenda, okay, cool. Cool Awesome, man. Yeah, we've we've crossed paths on social media. I think or maybe our va's have crossed paths who knows   Eli Facenda (00:39.077) for sender. Yep, yep.   Eli Facenda (00:47.663) Yeah, think that was where, yeah, think we were initially connecting, yeah, totally. Instagram, I think, was the place. Yeah. Because you're out in California, right? Nice, I'm in West Palm right now. And I mean, normally based in Austin, but we're in the middle of a like, six to eight month nomad adventure. And so we are, we're on the road here, and we go to Europe in a few weeks for like the next several months.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:53.42) Yeah, nice, nice, where you at right now? Yep, San Diego.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:10.446) Sweet dude.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:17.166) That's awesome dude, awesome, awesome. Love it man, that's a long time. So we did last May we did, man it's been like a year, geez. We did like 30, 33 days in a van trip. So we took our van up through Wyoming into Montana and into Canada. That was a long time for us, but 68 months. Right, yeah.   Eli Facenda (01:18.117) Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, man.   Eli Facenda (01:33.455) Nice.   Eli Facenda (01:37.465) sick. Yeah, well vans are intense too. You know, I haven't done van life but my fiance, she did that before and it was like a lot for her. But yeah, so totally depends on the way you're traveling as well. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:47.266) Yeah.   Nice, nice. Cool, man. Just give you a quick rundown. our audience, my audience is typically, so it used to be passive investors, right? So it used to be the passive income attorney podcast. I think when we might've tried to schedule before and that was for investors. So accredited investors trying to get them to invest in my commercial real estate deals, that sort of thing. But now I've rebranded to raising the bar, which is more geared towards active investors and entrepreneurs and folks like that. So still,   Eli Facenda (02:10.619) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:19.982) Still, I'm sure your clients, wealthy folks that are starting businesses, that have businesses, that are raising capital for real estate or private equity or other types of businesses, that sort of thing. And then we'll do about, we'll do it a little on the shorter side. So we'll do about 30 minute interview, probably at the longest. And then we'll kind of just close that out. And then I do two little smaller sections that I break down into like little five minute episodes. One is a million dollar.   Eli Facenda (02:25.403) Totally.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:49.622) Monday I put that in the notes and it's basically just like real quick, like how you made your first million dollars, how you made your last million, how you plan on making your next million. then, yeah, and then the last one is the top 1%. Basically just kind of what separates you and makes you the top 1 % in what you do.   Eli Facenda (02:59.675) Cool. Yeah, I love it. It's great.   Eli Facenda (03:08.699) Okay, beautiful. And then as far as, is there any place you want me to point people that is connected to you or do you care if you're asking about that? I don't have any hard call to action kind of pitch thing, but it's more just like.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:19.916) No, man, whatever, it's up to you, man, whatever you want to do, whatever you, whatever call it action you want to use, if want to send it to your website or social media, whatever you want to do,   Eli Facenda (03:26.577) Cause you know what we do have, I can do this. We have a pretty cool playbook that's normally 150 bucks and I'm happy to give it to your listeners for free. So I could give them a code, just say what would be the best code for that?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:37.175) Okay, awesome.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:43.429) Um, just raise would probably be good. use that a lot for like call to action, like DME raise. So you could use a raise.   Eli Facenda (03:46.161) Cool. All right, so yeah, so I'll just say go to the website and just DM or just put in the code RAYS and you'll get it for free. But it's like a whole playbook on how to maximize points for trips. I've act like legitimately I've had someone buy it and within 48 hours he texted me a screenshot. was like, dude, I just saved 20 grand on a trip from your ebook. And I was like, wow, okay, it works. So it's good. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:57.07) Sweet.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:09.366) Nice, Cool. All right, man, well, we're already recording, so I'll just jump right in, and then if I need to add anything to the beginning, I'll do that later. And cool, man, yeah, we'll just jump right in.   Eli Facenda (04:14.129) Sweet. You're welcome.   Eli Facenda (04:20.27) Awesome.   Eli Facenda (04:24.913) Let's do it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:27.444) Eli, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show.   Eli Facenda (04:30.181) Thank you man, excited to be here and I we're going coast to coast today so this will be good.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:34.382) Absolutely, man. So we chatted beforehand, but I think you're tuning in on a road trip right now. So you're living proof of what you do, right?   Eli Facenda (04:44.065) Yeah, totally. are, well this part's kind of like a road trip. We're in West Palm Beach right now, but this is basically leg number two out of, we'll end up being probably an eight month nomadic adventure with me and my fiance and our little puppy. And so we're in West Palm Beach right now in Florida. We head to Europe in less than a month and we'll be bouncing around different parts of Europe for about four months roughly before we decide where we're gonna go next, which we're not exactly sure.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:58.904) Nice.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (05:12.28) That's awesome, man. Are you using all your hacks and secrets and travel tips that you put out there?   Eli Facenda (05:18.449) Absolutely, yeah, 100%. I mean, we just got back from a crazy trip to Japan. This was really cool. I run an entrepreneur mastermind. So we integrated our own trip around Japan around this mastermind event. So I had 53 people come out for like eight days. We went snowboarding in the mountains in Niseko in the Northern Park. And then we went down to Tokyo for the cherry blossoms. But for myself personally, to get there and back and do a lot of the hotels, we used points. We saved over 50 grand just on that portion of the trip. We then...   know, flew down to West Palm on points and then going over to Europe and a lot of the stays over there will also be leveraging the point strategies that I help clients use and then I talk about on social media and the stuff that we'll dive into today. But yeah, I like to be living proof of it because it's pretty awesome. It's something that's really impacted my life. I love doing it. And when I do it, I get to share it too. So has like a multiple benefit for everybody.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (06:06.648) That's awesome, man. I'm excited, dude. I'm excited to dig in here, because it's just for my own personal benefit and education, because I'm super stoked about this stuff, and I travel a lot with my fiance, or my fiance, my wife, and it's something I'm personally interested in as well. We've had past conversations too, so it's great to have you on, man. So just to start off, man, if somebody, you meet somebody in the street, they ask you what you do, how do you explain that?   in a sentence, right? Like without going into some crazy like tangent about all the awesome things that you do. Like what, how do you answer that question?   Eli Facenda (06:36.453) Yeah.   Eli Facenda (06:41.329) Sure, sure, Yeah, it really does depend on the situation, but I oftentimes will ask a couple questions because it makes it easier for people to understand. So usually it's like, do you have any big dream bucket list trip you've ever wanted to take? And they'll be like, oh yeah, Greece. I'm like, well, what we do is we help you get to Greece in business or first class, stay in five star hotels, have the trip of your dreams at about 90 % off. So that's kind of the tagline is take the trip of your dreams for about 90 % off.   I'll get into the whole point side of things, but some people don't know what points are, or some are really well studied in that world. So I just leave with the trip because that's usually what people want. They want to have the experience where it's you and your wife flying first class, sipping champagne on the way to Paris to go see the Eiffel Tower and the points and the credit cards. That's really the mechanism. That's how we make the experience happen. But at end of the day, what we want is the amazing memories, the beautiful experience, all that stuff. So I leave with the trip when I talk about it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:37.848) That's awesome, man. Yeah, I mean, you're literally selling the dream, right? Like in marketing, you sell the dream or hit on a pain point. Like you are like the quintessential selling the dream. Like that's what everybody thinks about. So.   Eli Facenda (07:42.969) Yeah, exactly.   Yeah, Right. Well, it's funny because, you know, in marketing, they'll say like, sell the destination, not the vehicle, right? They'll be like, sell the outcome, not how you get there. And so we do that in our marketing. But then when you think about it, when people are taking a trip, what we are helping them do is make the vehicle to get to the destination part of the destination. Because really, when you travel well, and you do it in style, the flight becomes a part of the trip that you're excited for.   I can't wait to see the the drinks and the champagne and the food they're gonna have and how awesome the seat is and the movie selection, how big's the screen. At least for people that love to travel, it becomes a fascination of the trip, not just getting there. So that's a big difference maker when people start to go on these flights, and this is what a lot of our clients will say, and for me, it goes from flying economy to like, I'm counting down the hours to get off this freaking plane.   to like, we do another lap around the city? Cause like, I'd love to just hang out here longer, right? And like the flight attendants treat you really well. So yeah, it's a whole experience.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:49.314) That's awesome, man. Yeah, that's great. Was there a trip that you went on personally where you just kind of thought, man, I can turn this into a business, right? Like you're just enjoying it so much that you just were like, like the light bulb went off or how did this business spawn?   Eli Facenda (09:04.515) Yeah, there wasn't one trip that I made the connection between like, trip is awesome, let me start a business. But there was one trip that gave me the light bulb of, my God, I am obsessed with this, I need to learn everything I can. There was zero intention or thought about business that when it first started. And that'll take you back about 10 years. So was around 22 years old and I'm just coming out of college. And basically I'm in my mom's basement and I remember this really...   like heavy feeling because I went to a good university near New York City and all my friends went to Wall Street and they were making like six figures plus right out of school. And I had this like entrepreneurial bug. I was like, that's not for me. I don't want to sit in an office. I don't care if I can make a lot of money. I want to like play life on my terms, even if it means I'm making less. So at this point I have friends that are making tons of money, know, lots of disposable income and I'm making like 20 grand a year. I'm working four side jobs. I was trying to build a company. I remember getting this text.   And my stomach just dropped, because I was like, shit, I'm going to miss out on this incredible experience. was friends inviting me to go to Thailand. And I was like, if I don't figure out a better strategy of either how to make more money or figure something out, I'm not going be able to go on this trip. And I was like, damn, this is going to be just a life of missing out on experiences. Is that what it means to follow my dreams with entrepreneurship? It's like, I have to forego everything that my other friends are doing. And so was like, let me think about this differently. And I had a mentor that told me, you don't need more money, you need a better strategy. And he was talking about growing a business.   But for me, I was like, oh wait, there's this credit card point thing. What if I could figure that out? So I ended up piecing it together. I got a trip to Thailand for free. I had this amazing experience with some of my best friends. It's like still, you know, 13 friends in Thailand at age like 22, 23. Memories you don't get back. So was really grateful to have that. And then I came back from that trip and I got another flight a few, probably a year later to Europe in business class where it was a $6,000 ticket that I paid $6 for. Now after that one,   I came off that flight and I was like, I will read every blog, I will watch every YouTube video, I will learn everything about this because it meant I could travel the world and have this incredible lifestyle without having to go take a corporate job. So was like, I get to have my entrepreneurial dream and the travel I want without any trade-offs and I was like, this is amazing. So that was my first time I got hooked. It took me years of researching and reading blogs and websites and doing stuff for myself before I even had the thought of helping anyone else. I just became obsessed with it on my own.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:27.086) I love that you recognize you had the entrepreneurial bug early on, right? Before you got drugged down into the corporate ladder and then you got the golden handcuffs, we like to call it, and that sort of thing where it gets much, much harder to escape that gravity. I know for myself, it took a really long time. ended up going to, I went to med school, then I got my MBA, and then I went to law school, and then I worked in a big law firm, and it just took me all this time to figure out like, I don't want this.   Eli Facenda (11:38.405) Yeah.   Eli Facenda (11:49.201) Mm.   Eli Facenda (11:56.763) Right, well the social pressure alone of like everyone year round is going one way, it takes a lot of guts for you to zig when everyone else is zagging, like it's not easy to do. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:57.015) And I think it's.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:06.648) For sure, for sure. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough, right? And especially when you see your friends making six figures right out of college, you're like, man, I could do that right now if I wanted to do it, but I don't want that. So it takes guts to be able to go out there and do your own thing.   Eli Facenda (12:21.873) Totally. And I think everyone has their own version of that still. There's even vert flavors of that today that are still existing for me where it's like, everyone's kinda going this way, but when I really get quiet and listen to myself, I'm like, yeah, you could do that, but you actually, what your soul or your heart really wants is to go over here. And so I've always just tried to listen to that more because I think about one of my North stars is, at the end of my life, I'm 80, 90 years old, I do the rocking chair test and look back, it's like,   What regret would I rather not have when I'm 90? I'd always rather be like I bet on myself than like I took the sure, you know, the well-paid path, which is the old cliche, but I think it's really true.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (13:01.004) Totally, I love that North Star, man. Have you ever asked ChatGBT to give you advice as your 80 or 90 year old self on your deathbed? It's great. Yeah. I love it, man. I love it. Yeah, it's great. It you great insight. You start reading, you're like, this is good.   Eli Facenda (13:07.409) Yeah, yeah, I actually created a custom GPT and it's my future me that coaches current me. yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.   Right. Exactly. Yeah, totally.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (13:21.326) Awesome man, well let's get back kind of on the business of travel, right? So somebody comes to you, they do that introduction that we talked about, you get in a deeper conversation, they're super interested in it, they wanna learn more about these travel hacks and strategies, like where do they start? Where do you point them?   Eli Facenda (13:42.447) Yeah, so in terms of the process, I like to chunk it into three main buckets.   And it's important to have context around this game because if you don't, it just starts to feel like there's so many moving pieces and who has time for that and it's too confusing and then it becomes overwhelming and overwhelm just basically leads to an action. And then that is the person who's like, well, I just don't wanna do that, I'll just take a cash back card or I'll just stick to my Delta card, right? And so when you have the right context, you can start to understand the highest leverage moves to make and then you know really how to get the result you want with the least amount of effort. So that's what we focus on and specifically like I've worked with   probably over a thousand business owners now. And with business owners, investors and entrepreneurs, it's a different, the points game takes on a different context, right? Because usually the constraint we have to solve for is time and complexity. And if you work a nine to five, you know, after five o'clock, you've got hours for your night. But entrepreneurs, it's like every hour is kind of an asset that you can use. So it's a little bit different. So the three buckets are, the first one is to maximize the points that you earn. So this happens from getting the right cards and the right expenses.   because all of these different points are like currency, so you wanna earn the right type of points and then you wanna maximize the amount of them by getting the right cards and the right expenses. So that's the first piece and that's really, really key, because nothing else happens if you don't get that right. The second bucket is gonna be to upgrade and optimize your travel. So you've got domestic trips for a conference, are you getting TSA pre-check and clear, are you getting the best lounges, are you getting first class upgrades and free bags and hotel suite upgrades and free breakfast at the hotels and free wifi. Really it's just like,   There's all these opportunities available for people that are traveling domestically for work, for family events, you know, your kind of ordinary traveling might have. And what we want to do is we just want to enhance the quality of all of that and reduce all the headaches and annoyances by maximizing benefits on cards and status perks and all the kind of like little tactics that you can play. So that's the second thing that just makes your travel more comfortable. And then the third bucket, which is really the most important in terms of impact in your life and the most meaningful piece is to take your dream bucket list trips for 70 to 90 % off.   Eli Facenda (15:45.775) And so that's where you're gonna take the points you've accumulated. You're gonna use some strategies that I can break down here around transferring these points from the banks to the airlines and hotels, and you're gonna get these dream trips for literally a fraction of what they should cost if you're paying cash, or compared to if you were using your points through a site like Amex Travel or Capital & Travel or Chase Travel. Okay, so that's a mouthful, but those are the three. So maximize your points, get the best possible upgrades, and then take your dream trips for 90 % off.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:13.934) Yeah, dive into one of those little those connecting strategies there that you mentioned.   Eli Facenda (16:19.183) Yeah. Yeah. So I'll talk first about the cards. That's the order. This is the first mistake that most business owners and individuals are making is they're just getting random cards. They're like, well, I live in Dallas. Let me get the American card or live in Atlanta. So I'll get the Delta card or, whatever it may be. Or live in San Diego and I fly domestic. So I'll just get the Southwest card. Well, they don't realize is that again, these points, these points like currencies. And so if I told you, Hey, do you want 150 Mexican pesos or 150 us dollars for your couch that you're selling on Facebook marketplace?   you're obviously gonna take the US dollars, right? Because the currency is much higher. But with points, people don't realize that. So they might be racking up Hilton points or Delta miles or other points and miles that just aren't as valuable as other ones out there. And then they burn through them quick or they don't go as far. And they end up just basically sitting there being like, I feel like I should be getting more. This is the common thing I hear. I feel like this should be taking me further, but like it's not doing much. And so what we wanna focus on is bank points that are transferable. So certain banks,   have this ability to convert the points to the airline hotel loyalty programs. And what happens is the banks have a different way of pricing than the airlines do. And certain airlines and certain hotels have really good what we call sweet spots or opportunities for you to get the best possible deals. Okay, so when you earn these effective points, which the top ones I recommend are generally Amex, Chase, and Capital One, and there's a new program built actually is out where you can put your rent on a card with no fees and earn points, it's really cool. But when you get those right,   And then you look through your expenses and you say, what do I spend the most on? Is it groceries and dining and the personal side? Cool. There's a card like the Amex Gold that is specifically really good for those types of expenses. Then you look at your business. What do I spend a lot on? Is it ads and software and taking clients out for dinners? Great. The Amex Business Gold earns four points per dollar on those categories, but maybe it's you're spending a lot on flights for company travel, or maybe you have inventory you're buying, or you're paying a lot of contractors, or you have a lot of payroll. You want to assess where you're spending the most money.   and make sure you have the optimal card lined up for that type of expense. So I'll pause there, but that's kind of the first bucket. The other one is on using the points effectively, which I can talk about too, is pretty powerful. But that first one is really the linchpin. Because if you have a bunch of Delta miles and you want to go to Europe, I'll give an example actually one more before I kind of pause. There was an example recently I saw of a client and they wanted to go to Europe and we're looking at different options. This was from JFK to Amsterdam. If you have Delta miles,   Eli Facenda (18:43.547) The ticket for Delta One, this big awesome Delta Suite, was 320,000 miles. That's what Delta was charging to go from JFK to Amsterdam. It's really expensive amount of miles. But the same exact flight, like same flight number, same aircraft, everything, if you booked it through Virgin Atlantic, it was 50,000 miles. One seventh of the amount almost. It's really, really big difference. And so here's the kicker, right? If you have a Delta card, you only earn Delta miles, so you have to pay the 320,000.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (18:46.765) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:02.124) Hmm.   Eli Facenda (19:12.497) but if you had an Amex card that earned Amex points, so like the Amex gold or business gold, you could actually convert those points into Virgin to book the Delta flight because Virgin and Delta are partners, and you'd pay 50,000 points instead of 320,000. So this is the part where like, for people that kind of get this, they're like, whoa, and the other people are like, what did you just say? So I get it can be, it can be tricky for some people that are just getting to grasp it, but I want to make sure to lay out the whole game so people can understand really what's possible for them.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:34.764) Yeah   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:42.329) Totally, totally. Yeah, it's just, mean, I'm sure people out there listening, it's both, right? Some people know these things exist, but they don't know the extent of it. And you're opening up their minds regardless, right? Like all the possibilities. I think most people are just like, sure, I need to find a great car that has a welcome offer of some sort. That's usually what people look at. And then they just try to pick, perhaps they take it a step further and they're looking to see like what they spend money on the most and they'll...   Eli Facenda (19:54.139) Tour then.   Eli Facenda (20:04.443) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (20:11.128) calibrate that card to that. But you're taking it step further because you know, it's kind of just opening yourself up to knowing all the possibilities, right? All these different connections, where to spend the points, where you can earn the points, those sorts of things. How thick is your wallet, man? Do you have, is your wallet like this and it's got 25 cards in it or what?   Eli Facenda (20:19.419) Totally.   Right. Yeah.   Eli Facenda (20:28.123) Haha   Yeah. Yeah.   Well, caveat this first by saying when we work with clients and we might do recommendations for people, I always recommend if you have a business, two to three personal cards and two to three business cards. That is a simple way to set this up. That's only four to six cards across both things. That's enough where you're really gonna get some serious ROI, but it's not so much that's really complicated. Some people are kind of curmudgeoned about it, like I only want one card. And I'm like, that's fine. There's no right or wrong in this. It's really preferential, but you should just know if you do that, you're gonna be leaving for most business owners that spend at least a few thousand a month.   that's gonna cost you tens of thousands of dollars of free trips a year. So I'm like, is your simplicity of having one card worth that much? If it is, great, but maybe having a second or third card doesn't add that much complexity. But if you get an extra $30,000 a year trip out of it, probably worth it, right? So that's the first thing. But to answer your actual question, so I have an entire thing called the Credit Man purse. It's like this portfolio binder, and it's just stacked with cards. I mean, I have over 40 credit cards, but I've been doing this for a long time, right? And there's like, here's the thing also with credit.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:28.28) Hahaha   Eli Facenda (21:34.041) A big question, a lot of investors, specifically people that are doing real estate or business owners, really want to their credit clean and we're huge advocates of actually not just keeping your credit score the same but improving it over time. And when you get business cards, they don't show up on your personal credit report. Okay, the vast majority. The inquiry will, but the actual card won't. And some banks, you can actually get multiple cards with no additional inquiries. So like when we do a custom card plan for someone or when we're just recommending it, we're always saying like, make sure to look at which banks you already have relationships with.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:48.142) Mm-hmm.   Eli Facenda (22:02.373) which ones you can get a soft pull from, the order matters of these card applications. But at end of the day, you just want a couple of specific cards that are really gonna be custom built for you, and you don't have to go crazy with it. If you get excited and you're like passionate about it, you can get 10, 15, 20 cards over the course of several years, and if you do it right underneath your businesses, it's not gonna drop your personal credit score. Your personal credit score will actually go up over time.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:26.314) Mm-hmm. That's a good hack, man. I'll get I'm put you on a spot a little bit. I'm gonna explain like what what I see a lot of the people that are probably listen to this show have in place structured wise like organizational structure and it's kind of similar to mine. Mine's probably a lot more complicated, but just to keep it simple, you know, there might be a parent company, right? Like this overhead parent company that owns everything. So let's let's call it parent company, right? And then below the parent company, the parent company owns, let's say a management company.   This management company probably manages funds, manages properties, manages equity for investors, that sort of thing. And then they also might have these other businesses, right? Like it just depends on the person. Like for instance, I own gyms and some other, my law firm, things like that. So they might have these own individual operating companies that owns a gym or owns another business or does these other things. you know.   Eli Facenda (22:55.889) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (23:20.066) Based on that structure, so you've got a parent company, you've got a, let's call it an equity management or fund management or property management company, and then you've got kind of this other operating business. How would you structure, what credit cards I guess would you kind of recommend? Not necessarily specific ones, but like, do they need one for all three or, yeah, how would you think about that?   Eli Facenda (23:27.301) Mm-hmm.   Eli Facenda (23:36.593) Yeah, yeah, but how would you think about that? Yeah, totally. I mean, it's a super common question. Like this is exactly the kind of clientele that we work with all the time where they're like, are you sure this is gonna work for me? I have four rental properties, two companies, one holding company. I have an investment thing. I have this thing over here. It's like, yeah, it all works. So simple is the key. So it's always a spectrum too. Like some people are, again, really minimalist with like what they want. we always, like when we're doing this for a client, we custom build it. But.   The real recommendation there is we wanna, again, assess which of these companies are actually generating the highest amount of spend. And those are the ones we wanna start with first in terms of cards and really optimizing. Now, if you have a bunch of different companies and they all have a bunch of spend, the first key thing to know is that the points will go to the business owner, the person who personally guaranteed the card, not to the business. So there's no business points account. It's underneath your name, even if it's underneath the LLC.   So the points go to you. So if you have like six different companies and you have like three Chase cards and three Amex cards, all of those three Chase cards and all of those three Amex cards are gonna basically funnel up to your account, okay? So that keeps it simple in terms of how you can think about accruing these points. They're not gonna be scattered everywhere where you can't use them. So that's good to know. Same with the airlines, right? doesn't matter if it's an airline or a bank card. So that's the first thing. For these management companies, usually lot of them don't have much spend.   So what we'll tend to do is just get one card that is like a catch-all card. And so this would be a card that we want to have earn around 1.5 to two points per dollar spent. Because what we've done is we've taken the floor of what you're gonna earn on your everyday spend and we just increase it by 50 to 100%. Okay, so like let's say a parent company is used for some client meetings and some basic legal and admin stuff and it's like 1,500 bucks a month just to do upkeep and normal stuff like that.   and it's not a crazy amount of different categories to spend. You're not running ads, you don't have that much software, there's not really a lot travel happening with it. But if that's the case, then what we wanna do is get a card, maybe like the Chase Inc. Unlimited, which earns 1.5x on everything, and we'll say, look, we're gonna keep this simple. That holding company doesn't have a lot of points earning power, so let's make sure we get a card on it just to earn, but we don't wanna like go crazy and get a bunch of cards and try to maximize every dollar. But this company that owns four different gyms and spends...   Eli Facenda (25:52.369) 50K a month on equipment and advertising and payroll and all this stuff, that's the company where we wanna look to get maybe two or three cards that are specifically aligned with that business to spend because that is where you as an entrepreneur, as an owner, are gonna be generating the most return. It's gonna be from that one entity. So I hope that breaks it down in a way that makes sense, but this is also where, again, having your cards across two to three main banks will keep it relatively simple because even if you have four different entities, if it's under one Amex login, that makes it nice and easy too.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (26:22.53) Totally, totally. Awesome, man. I knew you could handle that. Easy, easy peasy. Cool, man. Let's go to number two, right? Using the points effectively. You kind of touched on a little bit of that strategy, but let's jump into that.   Eli Facenda (26:26.682) Easy basic.   Eli Facenda (26:32.709) Yeah, yeah, so the second thing was optimizing the upgrades and all that. I'll cover that one really quick. If you're going through the airport and you don't have TSA PreCheck and clear and lounge access, you're missing out on some really easy perks that will just make your life way more enjoyable. So that's the first thing. There's a lot you can do with hotel upgrades and status. So like when I travel and go to Miami tonight for a conference, I have status at Hyatt. I'm staying at Hyatt for two of the nights down here.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (26:39.628) Okay.   Eli Facenda (27:02.225) I probably would get upgraded to a suite that's worth like thousand to 1500 bucks a night because I know how to use the suite and I certificate, it's my globalist status, I know how to message the hotel the right way. So there's some strategies there where if you do that, whenever you're traveling, you just get a much better experience. You get early check-in, late check-out, the free suite upgrade, much more spacious room. A lot of times they have lounges at the property like when we were in Tokyo, a bunch of us stayed at the Grand Hyatt there. They had a beautiful lounge overlooking the city. They had breakfast every morning.   They had drinks all day. They had a great lounge area. We actually had a mastermind session in there and they like a 15 person breakout room for us to go to. It cost us $0 to use it. They had afternoon drinks and stuff like that. So these are just the things that make your travel much better. So small tweaks that over time just again, make it a much more enjoyable experience. But that bucket on how you use your points, this is one of the most critical pieces. And I've already kind of alluded to it with that Delta One example, but   I'll share another one. So on the way to Japan, right, we flew ANA business class. This is all Nippon. It's one of the premier airlines in the world for international business class travel. They actually have a seat called The Room because it's so spacious and big, your own big sliding door. They have like an omakase menu. You've got ramen, champagne. It's like really, really good. Amazing sake and green tea and all this good stuff.   It was like an incredible way to fly and you know, it's an 11 hour flight and I didn't sleep a wink because I was just eating the whole time. But here's the deal, right? So that flight for my fiance and I, it would have been $20,000 for the two of us. It's 10,000 a piece. Okay, San Francisco to Tokyo. We're going in peak season, mind you. So I have three options to book that flight. I pay cash for it, which you know, I do decent in business, but I'm not dropping 20 grand on flights.   just to get to Japan, like that's out, that's way out of my bucket of what I would ever want to do. The second option, I go to the bank site. Okay, so again, if you have AMEX points, a lot of people have AMEX cards, like the platinum or the gold card, and this is a good start, but when you go to the bank site, each point is worth one penny. Okay, this is the baseline value of a point. So what happens is if you go to AMEX travel, they'll say, okay, this flight would cost, let's call it 20 grand. So 20 grand times one cent for each point equals 2 million points.   Eli Facenda (29:20.977) So my second option would have been to go to Amex's site and pay two million points, which I don't even have. Okay, so I'm like, that wouldn't have even worked, but that's what most people are doing at use points. They're going directly to the bank site and they're booking using Amex travel and they're getting absolutely screwed. Okay. There's kind of, and then there's a third option, which is to go through the airline site. So there's like three A and three B. Three A would be like, again, you only have Delta miles and you're kind of screwed going just to Delta. I don't recommend that. But the last option is what we did.   which is where we had Amex points and Chase points, and I looked at my different options and I said, okay, what are the best partner airlines I can book through to get to Japan? Well, it turns out, ANA is a part of the Star Alliance, okay? United is also part of that alliance. Chase and United have a partnership where I could convert my Chase points into United miles. When I looked that up, I ended up finding the deal and there's ways you have to kind of search this and track it, but that same flight that would have cost me two million points,   through Amex or Chase travel directly cost me 220,000 points to transfer from Chase to United. And I paid $12 out of Okay, so $20,000 flight, I paid 12 bucks. But how did I do it? I had the right points first. I had enough of them because I had the right cards and the right expenses. I knew how to search for this flight. And then I was able to transfer these points from Chase into the airline. So the hardest part of this entire process   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:30.402) Hmm.   Eli Facenda (30:49.413) is figuring out the points transfers and which partners are the right ones for certain airlines. That gets very nuanced and complicated. It's kind of like, you know, if you were talking to a CPA and someone's trying to explain how like the Augusta rule works, whatever, and like the CPA pulls up like the tax code and is like unveiling this long list of tax jargon. The average person is just like, what, just like tell me how to do it, right? That's kind of the same thing here. There's a lot of different like angles and transfer partners and bonuses and.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:12.43) Right.   Eli Facenda (31:17.689) alliances and partnerships and it gets kind of complicated but that's how it works.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:22.434) Totally, totally. So let's talk about that. how do you help people keep track of that or learn that or execute, I guess, on these strategies?   Eli Facenda (31:32.241) Sure, yeah, so for us, our company really has two main levels to it. So we have a community-based level where it's like you're just getting the fast track, you're getting help from experts. So I'm really good at this, but I'm more of an entrepreneur than a points nerd. So as I built this, initially I was the one on the phone with all the clients, walking everyone through it, and then I built a team. So I found basically some of the other points nerds in the world that I was mind blown by. I knew them from social media and just seeing their stuff, and I was like, that person has their stuff. So I brought them onto the team.   And so our clients will interact with both me and them inside of our community, but it's not just points. We're also providing really cool travel experiences. So for example, I posted this, but I'm going kiteboarding in Egypt in June on this epic like entrepreneur kiteboard trip where it's 40 entrepreneurs going to learn how to kiteboard together and masterminding on one. And so I'm attending, I sent it out to our clients and I said, Hey, if you want to come on this, our team will help you plan the flights out there on your point so you can get business class on the way out.   So I like to, because ultimately I wanna help people, my mission is to help people create more experiential wealth in their life. There's financial wealth, and a lot of people accumulate dollars, but they're not turning it into experiences. So I'm like, let's create more experiential wealth, and the points are the way to justify it. So we have that community level where you get access to our team, there's calls you can jump on, ways we help you plan trips, and then we have the done for you services, where we basically just handle it for you. That's more like, think of like a travel agency on points for entrepreneurs.   That's more of what that is. And in there we'll do the custom card planning and map out what cards you need based off of what your specific spends are and stuff like that. So we do some pretty deep intake. And we kind of are almost like a travel agent. It's a little bit different in some ways, but that's basically the two levels in how we help people.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:12.29) Great, man. I love how you build in the experience, right? Like that's part of it. Like that's what you're teaching anyway. So it's like, it's not like, hey, join this, join this group and then we'll talk about all these things. You're actually doing it. You're actually inviting them to execute on what you're teaching so that they can see it in motion and then they can continue to do it and experience life at a different level.   Eli Facenda (33:32.497) Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, like, I really love it too. like, I'm like, everyone that works with us is really, usually a pretty cool person. Like, if you're an entrepreneur and you have the guts to build your own business, and then you wanna travel the world, like by nature of that, you're already probably a pretty cool person. Like the majority of people that are doing that, I think well-traveled people are some of the most interesting people. If you want the best stories in life, like, someone who's traveled the world is gonna have some stories for you. And so when you combine those two, it's like, these are people I wanna hang out with anyways. So like, I'm going on a trip to Egypt. I'm like, come with, like.   Whoever in the community wants to come, let's have a party, let's go do it. So it's great thing.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:04.994) That's great. Awesome, man. How are you raising the bar in your life and your business right now? Like what are you doing to build your business further, building off of some of the things that you're offering right now? Where are you taking it to the next level?   Eli Facenda (34:18.833) Yeah, so we have a new project we're rolling out inside of our community, which I'm really excited about, which is even just in our lower tier membership, and it's called our DreamTrip Alert System. So what this is, is when people come in, this has never been done before in the world of points and miles or travel at all. So we're the first to do this, which I'm really excited about. So let's say you were to sign up. You're gonna come in and give us your DreamTrip destinations, the seasons or windows that you could go, the points you have, your home airport, all this stuff.   and our team is going through and we're not just finding you like a flight, because there are different alerts out there that'll be like, hey, we found a flight. And it's like, cool, one way from LA to London, but like, what am I gonna do when I'm there? Where am gonna stay? How am getting back? Right, it's like part of the puzzle, but it leaves a lot on you to figure out. And for our clients, most business owners and entrepreneurs, investors, they're too busy to piece all that together. So they're like, well, cool, that doesn't really help me. So we decided to do, we said, what if we...   just basically sent people like a mystery subscription box of their dream trips. And so when you come in and you fill that out, we gather it. And then a couple times a month, we're gonna send out alerts where it's like a 30, 40 or $50,000 type trip, somewhere incredible in the world. We're talking Greek islands, Amalfi Coast, Japan, New Zealand, African safaris, Maldives, Bora Bora, places like that, business and first class flights, five star hotels, four pennies on the dollar. So these are like, we get $40,000 trips where people will end up paying a thousand bucks, 1500 bucks, two grand out of pocket.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:25.389) Mm-hmm.   Eli Facenda (35:44.337) And so we're gonna send the entire trip to you. So it's like the flights, the hotels, the entire step-by-step booking, the recommendations on the ground, the entire experience. And so we're sending those out so people come in, they tell us when, where, like the things they wanna do, and then they're just gonna get these alerts where it's like every month they're gonna be like, you you're sitting there with your wife, hey babe, you wanna go to Bora Bora in like June? It's gonna cost us like 800 bucks and it would be a $30,000 trip. It's like that's what I want. That's what I wanna create. So that's us raising the bar in the industry and in our business.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:06.35) you   Eli Facenda (36:13.615) I'm very excited, it's brand new for us, so I'm just pumped to see that continue to roll out, because it's, for me the mission is to help people live with experiential wealth in the form of travel. And so, usually there's some barriers that get in the way. There's time, there's planning, and then there's cost. And what we're trying to do is eliminate as many of those barriers as we can to make it just easier to say yes to the trip.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:34.252) Yeah, man, sign me up, dude. Sign me up. I feel like you've got to get both significant others on your list, right? So they both see it and whoever's like the person is like, we've got to do this, you hit both of them and then they convince the other one to do it.   Eli Facenda (36:36.625) All right.   Eli Facenda (36:49.477) Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. There's usually one. There's usually like sometimes it's the husband's on the call and he's like, dude, I don't know where we ever travel. Like I'm gonna pay for this, my wife's gonna do everything or it's the opposite where the guy's like, you know, she just shows up and I tell her where we're going. And so like that's my relationship. I'll be like, you know, it's my industry, my passion. I'm like, we're going here and then here. And she's like, tell me where to be. And she just has no idea where we are and she just loves it. And I'm like, I like planning. So, you know, but it's different for everybody.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:11.736) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:17.144) For sure, for sure, man. All right, brother, this has been incredible. Tell our audience where they can find out more about you, where they can get involved with all the things, all the incredible things that they've heard on this show. Throw it out there,   Eli Facenda (37:28.859) Totally. Yeah, a couple of main places. So the first thing I'll share is that we have what I call the CEO Points Playbook. This is something I custom built. Took me a long time, and this was not a Chad TBT prompt. Like, I really built this on my own. And it is like a 30 to 40 page playbook that any business owner or entrepreneur can use to really maximize their travel experiences, get better bucket list trips, figure out the right cards for them. And it's normally 150 bucks, but if you go to freedomtravelsystems.com   forward slash playbook and you put in the code RAYS, you're gonna get it for free. Okay, so anyone listening, it is free for you. And so that's gonna be freedomtravelsystems.com forward slash playbook and then use the code RAYS, maybe we can put it in the show notes. And so that'll be the first thing. Second place is if you're like just want done for you services, just take off that forward slash and go to freedomtravelsystems.com. can talk to myself and one of the team members. And the last place, I hang out on Instagram and post a lot there, that's where we connected.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:14.049) Absolutely.   Eli Facenda (38:27.595) And that's where I'm sharing the most like behind the scenes and as I'm booking this stuff, as I'm planning it, as I'm showing like what our clients are doing, you get to see more of the visuals and the fun and come along for the ride. And so I love engaging on Instagram as well.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:40.27) Great. Thanks Eli. I really appreciate you coming on the show,   Eli Facenda (38:43.973) Thanks Seth, appreciate you having me on.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:45.806) All right, brother, talk soon.   All right, sweet dude. Nice. Yeah, right around 30 minutes. Let's see. Yeah, we'll just jump into these last few questions here.   Eli Facenda (38:51.748) Awesome.   Eli Facenda (38:55.205) Perfect.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:03.862) Welcome to Million Dollar Monday with Eli Fisenda. Let's just jump right in. Hey brother. Yeah, how did you make your first million?   Eli Facenda (39:09.243) Let's do it.   Eli Facenda (39:13.499) So I actually made my first million in a tour company. Now I made the first million, I didn't get to keep the first million, but what we were doing, we were running sports trips all over the world. This is actually part of how I fell in love with the travel industry and the work that I now do with points. And ultimately what we were doing, we were creating these international tour packages for youth sports teams and families to go on these international tours. think of like a 14 year old baseball team in your, you're in San Diego. We'd like do a selection of kids.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:19.694) Sure.   Eli Facenda (39:41.329) from that area and the families would come and they would go to Japan or Italy or wherever and travel for 10 days, experience the culture, have an educational tour and also play the local teams. So we did that in a variety of sports, ice hockey and baseball and lacrosse and all these different sports. And we were growing a lot and then that was ramping right until COVID and that just decimated the entire business. we took us about two years to get to a million and then we started to double almost every year for a few years and that was like.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:02.432) Mm.   Eli Facenda (40:09.399) Really, really tough break at COVID, but that was the first million.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:11.63) COVID man. Nobody saw that coming. mean.   Eli Facenda (40:13.881) No, definitely, you know, group, large, large group sports international travel was like the worst potential. Like you can't go overseas and you definitely can't do it with 60 people. So was, was a brutal industry to be in.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:25.506) Right? Yeah, there were certain sectors that just, I mean, there was nothing you could do. We opened up our first gym actually two weeks before COVID hit in 2020. we had our, us like two years to open and then our grand opening. And then we had a bunch of free clients in those first two weeks. And then they ended up being free clients for about a year because we couldn't charge them. Cause we couldn't get them back in the gym. We're doing online workouts and all that kind of stuff is insane.   Eli Facenda (40:36.817) Ugh.   Eli Facenda (40:47.696) Wow.   Eli Facenda (40:53.337) And that's like where the true entrepreneurial muscles are definitely strengthened in times like that though. mean, like the people that bounce back and figure it out, like you just have a new sense of confidence of like, you know, I can handle anything.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:54.22) But hey, we adapt,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:06.764) Yeah, man. I mean, you pivot, right? Like I actually ended up launching my first podcast during during COVID because I was stuck inside and it was like, all right, let's let's do this. Let's get on Zoom and interview people and all that kind of stuff, man. So that leads us right to the next question. And how do you make your last million? How do you make that transition?   Eli Facenda (41:12.859) Cool.   Nice. Cool. I'll it.   Eli Facenda (41:24.143) Yeah, so the last million that I made was in the current business that I have. so essentially what we've been doing there for about four years now is helping entrepreneurs maximize their travel on credit card points. So helping them get their dream bucket list trips, these 30, 40, $50,000 trips all over the world for about 90 % off by leveraging credit card points. And we've traditionally had some pretty high ticket services. I mean, not crazy expensive, but like, you five, 10, 15 K and that range has been the main main service. And so,   We cracked our first million about two years in, so that was 2020, 2024 actually was the first year we made a million there.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:00.526) Awesome man, awesome. How about your next million? Where are you scaling to?   Eli Facenda (42:04.305) Yeah, so the next million I wanna make is the same business. love what I do, I really enjoy it. And what I wanna do is do it in a more community oriented and lower ticket way. So I wanna have bigger reach, more digital products, more of the community, more affiliate services and stuff like that. And I'm really excited about kind of cracking the code on that, because we've done it decently with the higher ticket stuff, more agency level, service level stuff, which is great. And we're still cranking on that, we're gonna keep growing it. But I really wanna see what we can do with...   So the lower ticket stuff, creating awesome stuff on YouTube that leads to different channels and distributions there. So that's the next million and same business, just different type of money.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:41.57) I love it man, yeah, that's kind of opposite of how some people approach it, right? You usually start with a lower ticket and then you have to build up that base before anybody will give you, you know, higher, pay for that higher ticket product, but you're kind of working backwards because you want to help more people.   Eli Facenda (42:56.677) Totally, exactly, yeah, and there's a limit. mean, what we do in the high ticket is incredible, but it really is a specialized skill. Like you think about like a bookkeeper or an accounting firm or something, like there's like a million bookkeepers. There's like 50 people that know points and travel to the level that I need them to know it to really serve clients with the highest level. So there's a real limit on the ability to scale that. And so it's also just like, we wanna be able to do really quality work for less people, but then serve more people with the other stuff too.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (43:25.368) Totally, totally.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (43:29.518) Cool, let's jump into the next one dude and we'll wrap up. Eli, you're clearly in the top 1 % of what you do. I don't even know if there's that many people out there that do what you do at all, period. So clearly in the top 0.0001%, what is it about you that separates you from the rest of the field?   Eli Facenda (43:49.701) I think it's our ability to actually live what we preach. This is something where, you know, there are other fantastic people that talk about credit card points, but very few of them are actually business owners, like that's who we serve, and very few of them are actually traveling in the way that they're trying to help people travel. So we've done both. I've built multiple businesses, so I understand the psychology and the relatability of how you wanna think about travel and points and the various stresses in your life, the limitations on time and complexity. And I also,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:06.062) Hmm.   Eli Facenda (44:20.636) What just happened?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:22.998) I'm not sure. We can splice it together, but let's see. Lost the video.   Eli Facenda (44:26.748) Let me see here. Did my camera die or something?   Bizarre. second.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:36.076) Yeah, weird. Never had that happen.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:42.038) Not a big deal, we can splice it together, but let's see if we can get your camera working again.   Eli Facenda (44:46.992) Don't see my camera get help. Is the audio coming through okay? Did it switch over there to my MacBook from the other one? Or it sounds the same.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:51.564) Yeah, I can hear the audio.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:57.806) I don't know. All I see is like a car. It's like I don't know. It's a card with a symbol on it I wonder what that is that riverside or is that your symbol? I can't be your symbol   Eli Facenda (45:06.556) weird. Get help.   Eli Facenda (45:12.006) Let me see.   trying to check this out.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (45:19.458) We can also just finish it with audio.   Eli Facenda (45:23.556) Is it, Dude, I don't know what's going on. Sorry about that. I've never seen...   Seth Bradley, Esq. (45:28.654) no worries, dude. We can just finish it with audio anyways.   Eli Facenda (45:31.63) New recording track created the participants have been recorded.   Issue device struggling to record. High load on your device. Try closing all other apps. Give me one second. I don't have any apps open. That's really weird.   Eli Facenda (45:53.126) Yeah, I don't know man. I apologize. I Okay, well yeah   Seth Bradley, Esq. (45:57.219) you're good, We'll just finish an audio and then I'll pull up for the video. I'll just black screen to a logo or something. So all good. I don't exactly know where you're at. If you want to start that sentence over.   Eli Facenda (46:04.048) Okay, cool.   Eli Facenda (46:07.866) Yeah, I'll just, I'll say, I'll just start. So yeah, so not only have we really walked the walk with actually living what we preach, but we also understand that psychology of what it's like to be a business owner, your limitations on time and complexity and all that stuff. And because we're talking about travel, people also want to know like what's actually in store for me in this destination. I've been to 50 countries now and my business partner has been to almost 100.   We have other team members who are all over 30, 40, 50 countries. So we've been to a lot of the destinations around the world that we're advising people to go to. So we know the ins and outs, best places to stay, hidden gems, top restaurants, stuff like that, that really add another layer of personalization and true experience into the service. So I think those are the things that really make us most credible in this space.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (46:57.506) Dude, it's so important, right? Like there's so many, you know, there's so much content out there now. There's gurus and coaches and mentors, whatever you want to call them. Like the ones that are truly valuable and that people should pay attention to are the ones that are actually practicing what they preach, right? The ones that aren't just selling you education or aren't just selling you a product. Like they're actually, they've done what they're selling and they continue to   enjoy or do what they're selling.   Eli Facenda (47:28.635) 100%, yeah, if you're a living embodiment of what you do, it makes it that much easier to communicate it and sell it because you just are the thing you're selling.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (47:38.764) Yeah, absolutely. What's one thing someone listening could do today to get 1 % closer to their dream life?   Eli Facenda (47:45.089) One thing that would be the easiest is to spend 30 minutes, go on Instagram, go on your favorite social media site, go on some travel blog site, look for your dream destination, then pull up your calendar and put a time on the calendar where you're committing to go. One of my favorite quotes is from Tim Ferriss, I forget the exact quote, but basically the idea is that if you don't schedule your fun first, it won't happen.   because your business and your life will take up as much space as you allow it to. So most people find that I'll take the trip when it's convenient. I'll take the trip when I have more time. That time is never coming until you make it a priority. So the one thing they can do to get closer to their dream life is to just make a more bold commitment to putting the time on the calendar and be like, I am going and make some sort of investment, whether you're telling someone, whether you're putting some money down, whether you're learn the point stuff, that's gonna be the biggest leverage you can make.   to make sure that you actually follow through on taking these trips and then you'll find how to get there on points if you need to from there.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (48:50.766) 100 % man, gotta put it, people, entrepreneurs, people like us, we work in all the time, you've gotta put it, put it in your schedule. You've gotta block it out, commit to it.   Eli Facenda (48:59.821) Absolutely, 100%.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (49:04.554) Alright dude, I think we got it wrapped up, man.   Eli Facenda (49:05.743) Beautiful. Awesome, Dan. Well, this was super fun and I apologize agai

Title: Travel Like a Billionaire: The 90% Off Secret to a First-Class Lifestyle with Eli Facenda In this conversation, Eli Facenda shares insights on maximizing travel experiences through strategic use of points and credit cards. He discusses his nomadic lifestyle, the entrepreneurial journey that led him to travel hacking, and the importance of understanding the value of different points systems. Eli emphasizes the need for a structured approach to travel, focusing on maximizing points, optimizing travel upgrades, and effectively using credit cards to enhance travel experiences. The discussion also touches on the significance of having a clear strategy for business owners and how to navigate the complexities of travel rewards. In this conversation, Eli Facenda shares his expertise on maximizing travel experiences through strategic use of points and credit cards. He discusses the importance of community in travel planning, innovative solutions for entrepreneurs, and his personal journey in the travel industry. Eli emphasizes the significance of experiential wealth and actionable steps listeners can take to enhance their travel experiences. Links to Watch and Subscribe: https://youtu.be/c7QqSscsajc Bullet Point Highlights: Seth and Eli kick off with casual banter about van life, audio gear, and the nomad lifestyle. Eli shares his background going from broke entrepreneur to travel-hacking expert. He explains how he got obsessed with using points after a free trip to Thailand changed his mindset. Eli now helps entrepreneurs take $20K–$50K luxury trips for 90% off using credit card points. His 3-part system includes maximizing points, optimizing travel perks, and redeeming for bucket-list trips. He gives a real-world example of booking a $20K ANA business class flight to Japan for just $12. Seth dives into a real-life org structure and Eli explains how points flow to the guarantor, not the LLC. Best practice: 2–3 business cards and 2–3 personal cards tailored to your biggest spend categories. Eli introduces his new “DreamTrip Alert System” that delivers full trip itineraries at massive discounts. In the Million Dollar Monday segment, Eli shares how he made, lost, and remade his first million. His next million will come from scalable digital products and a wider reach through content and community. What makes Eli top 1%: He walks the walk, traveling the world and running a business around it. His #1 tip: Pick your dream trip, put it on the calendar, and commit, then let the how figure itself out. Transcript: Eli Facenda (00:00.059) What's up, Seth?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:01.43) Yo, what's going on, brother?   Eli Facenda (00:03.237) How we doing, man? How we doing?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:05.141) Excellent man, what's happening?   Eli Facenda (00:06.893) Not much. you, how's the audio coming through here?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:11.032) Sounds good, sounds good.   Eli Facenda (00:12.547) it clean? Okay, because I'm, it's basically we're in the middle of a Nomad trip here, so I normally have like a, like a shirt mic like you have, but on the road I haven't had, so I haven't had to test this yet, but I figured the DJI's are pretty solid, so I wanna make sure it's actually coming through decent.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:16.962) Okay.   Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:26.732) Nice. Yeah, no, it sounds good. Sounds good, man.   Eli Facenda (00:29.425) Okay, cool, awesome. Awesome Dave, we'll get to connect with you.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:33.802) Yeah, brother definitely, so I don't butcher it. How do you pronounce your last name? Facenda, okay, cool. Cool Awesome, man. Yeah, we've we've crossed paths on social media. I think or maybe our va's have crossed paths who knows   Eli Facenda (00:39.077) for sender. Yep, yep.   Eli Facenda (00:47.663) Yeah, think that was where, yeah, think we were initially connecting, yeah, totally. Instagram, I think, was the place. Yeah. Because you're out in California, right? Nice, I'm in West Palm right now. And I mean, normally based in Austin, but we're in the middle of a like, six to eight month nomad adventure. And so we are, we're on the road here, and we go to Europe in a few weeks for like the next several months.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:53.42) Yeah, nice, nice, where you at right now? Yep, San Diego.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:10.446) Sweet dude.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:17.166) That's awesome dude, awesome, awesome. Love it man, that's a long time. So we did last May we did, man it's been like a year, geez. We did like 30, 33 days in a van trip. So we took our van up through Wyoming into Montana and into Canada. That was a long time for us, but 68 months. Right, yeah.   Eli Facenda (01:18.117) Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, man.   Eli Facenda (01:33.455) Nice.   Eli Facenda (01:37.465) sick. Yeah, well vans are intense too. You know, I haven't done van life but my fiance, she did that before and it was like a lot for her. But yeah, so totally depends on the way you're traveling as well. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:47.266) Yeah.   Nice, nice. Cool, man. Just give you a quick rundown. our audience, my audience is typically, so it used to be passive investors, right? So it used to be the passive income attorney podcast. I think when we might've tried to schedule before and that was for investors. So accredited investors trying to get them to invest in my commercial real estate deals, that sort of thing. But now I've rebranded to raising the bar, which is more geared towards active investors and entrepreneurs and folks like that. So still,   Eli Facenda (02:10.619) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:19.982) Still, I'm sure your clients, wealthy folks that are starting businesses, that have businesses, that are raising capital for real estate or private equity or other types of businesses, that sort of thing. And then we'll do about, we'll do it a little on the shorter side. So we'll do about 30 minute interview, probably at the longest. And then we'll kind of just close that out. And then I do two little smaller sections that I break down into like little five minute episodes. One is a million dollar.   Eli Facenda (02:25.403) Totally.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:49.622) Monday I put that in the notes and it's basically just like real quick, like how you made your first million dollars, how you made your last million, how you plan on making your next million. then, yeah, and then the last one is the top 1%. Basically just kind of what separates you and makes you the top 1 % in what you do.   Eli Facenda (02:59.675) Cool. Yeah, I love it. It's great.   Eli Facenda (03:08.699) Okay, beautiful. And then as far as, is there any place you want me to point people that is connected to you or do you care if you're asking about that? I don't have any hard call to action kind of pitch thing, but it's more just like.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:19.916) No, man, whatever, it's up to you, man, whatever you want to do, whatever you, whatever call it action you want to use, if want to send it to your website or social media, whatever you want to do,   Eli Facenda (03:26.577) Cause you know what we do have, I can do this. We have a pretty cool playbook that's normally 150 bucks and I'm happy to give it to your listeners for free. So I could give them a code, just say what would be the best code for that?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:37.175) Okay, awesome.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:43.429) Um, just raise would probably be good. use that a lot for like call to action, like DME raise. So you could use a raise.   Eli Facenda (03:46.161) Cool. All right, so yeah, so I'll just say go to the website and just DM or just put in the code RAYS and you'll get it for free. But it's like a whole playbook on how to maximize points for trips. I've act like legitimately I've had someone buy it and within 48 hours he texted me a screenshot. was like, dude, I just saved 20 grand on a trip from your ebook. And I was like, wow, okay, it works. So it's good. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:57.07) Sweet.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:09.366) Nice, Cool. All right, man, well, we're already recording, so I'll just jump right in, and then if I need to add anything to the beginning, I'll do that later. And cool, man, yeah, we'll just jump right in.   Eli Facenda (04:14.129) Sweet. You're welcome.   Eli Facenda (04:20.27) Awesome.   Eli Facenda (04:24.913) Let's do it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:27.444) Eli, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show.   Eli Facenda (04:30.181) Thank you man, excited to be here and I we're going coast to coast today so this will be good.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:34.382) Absolutely, man. So we chatted beforehand, but I think you're tuning in on a road trip right now. So you're living proof of what you do, right?   Eli Facenda (04:44.065) Yeah, totally. are, well this part's kind of like a road trip. We're in West Palm Beach right now, but this is basically leg number two out of, we'll end up being probably an eight month nomadic adventure with me and my fiance and our little puppy. And so we're in West Palm Beach right now in Florida. We head to Europe in less than a month and we'll be bouncing around different parts of Europe for about four months roughly before we decide where we're gonna go next, which we're not exactly sure.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:58.904) Nice.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (05:12.28) That's awesome, man. Are you using all your hacks and secrets and travel tips that you put out there?   Eli Facenda (05:18.449) Absolutely, yeah, 100%. I mean, we just got back from a crazy trip to Japan. This was really cool. I run an entrepreneur mastermind. So we integrated our own trip around Japan around this mastermind event. So I had 53 people come out for like eight days. We went snowboarding in the mountains in Niseko in the Northern Park. And then we went down to Tokyo for the cherry blossoms. But for myself personally, to get there and back and do a lot of the hotels, we used points. We saved over 50 grand just on that portion of the trip. We then...   know, flew down to West Palm on points and then going over to Europe and a lot of the stays over there will also be leveraging the point strategies that I help clients use and then I talk about on social media and the stuff that we'll dive into today. But yeah, I like to be living proof of it because it's pretty awesome. It's something that's really impacted my life. I love doing it. And when I do it, I get to share it too. So has like a multiple benefit for everybody.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (06:06.648) That's awesome, man. I'm excited, dude. I'm excited to dig in here, because it's just for my own personal benefit and education, because I'm super stoked about this stuff, and I travel a lot with my fiance, or my fiance, my wife, and it's something I'm personally interested in as well. We've had past conversations too, so it's great to have you on, man. So just to start off, man, if somebody, you meet somebody in the street, they ask you what you do, how do you explain that?   in a sentence, right? Like without going into some crazy like tangent about all the awesome things that you do. Like what, how do you answer that question?   Eli Facenda (06:36.453) Yeah.   Eli Facenda (06:41.329) Sure, sure, Yeah, it really does depend on the situation, but I oftentimes will ask a couple questions because it makes it easier for people to understand. So usually it's like, do you have any big dream bucket list trip you've ever wanted to take? And they'll be like, oh yeah, Greece. I'm like, well, what we do is we help you get to Greece in business or first class, stay in five star hotels, have the trip of your dreams at about 90 % off. So that's kind of the tagline is take the trip of your dreams for about 90 % off.   I'll get into the whole point side of things, but some people don't know what points are, or some are really well studied in that world. So I just leave with the trip because that's usually what people want. They want to have the experience where it's you and your wife flying first class, sipping champagne on the way to Paris to go see the Eiffel Tower and the points and the credit cards. That's really the mechanism. That's how we make the experience happen. But at end of the day, what we want is the amazing memories, the beautiful experience, all that stuff. So I leave with the trip when I talk about it.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:37.848) That's awesome, man. Yeah, I mean, you're literally selling the dream, right? Like in marketing, you sell the dream or hit on a pain point. Like you are like the quintessential selling the dream. Like that's what everybody thinks about. So.   Eli Facenda (07:42.969) Yeah, exactly.   Yeah, Right. Well, it's funny because, you know, in marketing, they'll say like, sell the destination, not the vehicle, right? They'll be like, sell the outcome, not how you get there. And so we do that in our marketing. But then when you think about it, when people are taking a trip, what we are helping them do is make the vehicle to get to the destination part of the destination. Because really, when you travel well, and you do it in style, the flight becomes a part of the trip that you're excited for.   I can't wait to see the the drinks and the champagne and the food they're gonna have and how awesome the seat is and the movie selection, how big's the screen. At least for people that love to travel, it becomes a fascination of the trip, not just getting there. So that's a big difference maker when people start to go on these flights, and this is what a lot of our clients will say, and for me, it goes from flying economy to like, I'm counting down the hours to get off this freaking plane.   to like, we do another lap around the city? Cause like, I'd love to just hang out here longer, right? And like the flight attendants treat you really well. So yeah, it's a whole experience.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (08:49.314) That's awesome, man. Yeah, that's great. Was there a trip that you went on personally where you just kind of thought, man, I can turn this into a business, right? Like you're just enjoying it so much that you just were like, like the light bulb went off or how did this business spawn?   Eli Facenda (09:04.515) Yeah, there wasn't one trip that I made the connection between like, trip is awesome, let me start a business. But there was one trip that gave me the light bulb of, my God, I am obsessed with this, I need to learn everything I can. There was zero intention or thought about business that when it first started. And that'll take you back about 10 years. So was around 22 years old and I'm just coming out of college. And basically I'm in my mom's basement and I remember this really...   like heavy feeling because I went to a good university near New York City and all my friends went to Wall Street and they were making like six figures plus right out of school. And I had this like entrepreneurial bug. I was like, that's not for me. I don't want to sit in an office. I don't care if I can make a lot of money. I want to like play life on my terms, even if it means I'm making less. So at this point I have friends that are making tons of money, know, lots of disposable income and I'm making like 20 grand a year. I'm working four side jobs. I was trying to build a company. I remember getting this text.   And my stomach just dropped, because I was like, shit, I'm going to miss out on this incredible experience. was friends inviting me to go to Thailand. And I was like, if I don't figure out a better strategy of either how to make more money or figure something out, I'm not going be able to go on this trip. And I was like, damn, this is going to be just a life of missing out on experiences. Is that what it means to follow my dreams with entrepreneurship? It's like, I have to forego everything that my other friends are doing. And so was like, let me think about this differently. And I had a mentor that told me, you don't need more money, you need a better strategy. And he was talking about growing a business.   But for me, I was like, oh wait, there's this credit card point thing. What if I could figure that out? So I ended up piecing it together. I got a trip to Thailand for free. I had this amazing experience with some of my best friends. It's like still, you know, 13 friends in Thailand at age like 22, 23. Memories you don't get back. So was really grateful to have that. And then I came back from that trip and I got another flight a few, probably a year later to Europe in business class where it was a $6,000 ticket that I paid $6 for. Now after that one,   I came off that flight and I was like, I will read every blog, I will watch every YouTube video, I will learn everything about this because it meant I could travel the world and have this incredible lifestyle without having to go take a corporate job. So was like, I get to have my entrepreneurial dream and the travel I want without any trade-offs and I was like, this is amazing. So that was my first time I got hooked. It took me years of researching and reading blogs and websites and doing stuff for myself before I even had the thought of helping anyone else. I just became obsessed with it on my own.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:27.086) I love that you recognize you had the entrepreneurial bug early on, right? Before you got drugged down into the corporate ladder and then you got the golden handcuffs, we like to call it, and that sort of thing where it gets much, much harder to escape that gravity. I know for myself, it took a really long time. ended up going to, I went to med school, then I got my MBA, and then I went to law school, and then I worked in a big law firm, and it just took me all this time to figure out like, I don't want this.   Eli Facenda (11:38.405) Yeah.   Eli Facenda (11:49.201) Mm.   Eli Facenda (11:56.763) Right, well the social pressure alone of like everyone year round is going one way, it takes a lot of guts for you to zig when everyone else is zagging, like it's not easy to do. Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:57.015) And I think it's.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:06.648) For sure, for sure. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough, right? And especially when you see your friends making six figures right out of college, you're like, man, I could do that right now if I wanted to do it, but I don't want that. So it takes guts to be able to go out there and do your own thing.   Eli Facenda (12:21.873) Totally. And I think everyone has their own version of that still. There's even vert flavors of that today that are still existing for me where it's like, everyone's kinda going this way, but when I really get quiet and listen to myself, I'm like, yeah, you could do that, but you actually, what your soul or your heart really wants is to go over here. And so I've always just tried to listen to that more because I think about one of my North stars is, at the end of my life, I'm 80, 90 years old, I do the rocking chair test and look back, it's like,   What regret would I rather not have when I'm 90? I'd always rather be like I bet on myself than like I took the sure, you know, the well-paid path, which is the old cliche, but I think it's really true.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (13:01.004) Totally, I love that North Star, man. Have you ever asked ChatGBT to give you advice as your 80 or 90 year old self on your deathbed? It's great. Yeah. I love it, man. I love it. Yeah, it's great. It you great insight. You start reading, you're like, this is good.   Eli Facenda (13:07.409) Yeah, yeah, I actually created a custom GPT and it's my future me that coaches current me. yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.   Right. Exactly. Yeah, totally.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (13:21.326) Awesome man, well let's get back kind of on the business of travel, right? So somebody comes to you, they do that introduction that we talked about, you get in a deeper conversation, they're super interested in it, they wanna learn more about these travel hacks and strategies, like where do they start? Where do you point them?   Eli Facenda (13:42.447) Yeah, so in terms of the process, I like to chunk it into three main buckets.   And it's important to have context around this game because if you don't, it just starts to feel like there's so many moving pieces and who has time for that and it's too confusing and then it becomes overwhelming and overwhelm just basically leads to an action. And then that is the person who's like, well, I just don't wanna do that, I'll just take a cash back card or I'll just stick to my Delta card, right? And so when you have the right context, you can start to understand the highest leverage moves to make and then you know really how to get the result you want with the least amount of effort. So that's what we focus on and specifically like I've worked with   probably over a thousand business owners now. And with business owners, investors and entrepreneurs, it's a different, the points game takes on a different context, right? Because usually the constraint we have to solve for is time and complexity. And if you work a nine to five, you know, after five o'clock, you've got hours for your night. But entrepreneurs, it's like every hour is kind of an asset that you can use. So it's a little bit different. So the three buckets are, the first one is to maximize the points that you earn. So this happens from getting the right cards and the right expenses.   because all of these different points are like currency, so you wanna earn the right type of points and then you wanna maximize the amount of them by getting the right cards and the right expenses. So that's the first piece and that's really, really key, because nothing else happens if you don't get that right. The second bucket is gonna be to upgrade and optimize your travel. So you've got domestic trips for a conference, are you getting TSA pre-check and clear, are you getting the best lounges, are you getting first class upgrades and free bags and hotel suite upgrades and free breakfast at the hotels and free wifi. Really it's just like,   There's all these opportunities available for people that are traveling domestically for work, for family events, you know, your kind of ordinary traveling might have. And what we want to do is we just want to enhance the quality of all of that and reduce all the headaches and annoyances by maximizing benefits on cards and status perks and all the kind of like little tactics that you can play. So that's the second thing that just makes your travel more comfortable. And then the third bucket, which is really the most important in terms of impact in your life and the most meaningful piece is to take your dream bucket list trips for 70 to 90 % off.   Eli Facenda (15:45.775) And so that's where you're gonna take the points you've accumulated. You're gonna use some strategies that I can break down here around transferring these points from the banks to the airlines and hotels, and you're gonna get these dream trips for literally a fraction of what they should cost if you're paying cash, or compared to if you were using your points through a site like Amex Travel or Capital & Travel or Chase Travel. Okay, so that's a mouthful, but those are the three. So maximize your points, get the best possible upgrades, and then take your dream trips for 90 % off.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:13.934) Yeah, dive into one of those little those connecting strategies there that you mentioned.   Eli Facenda (16:19.183) Yeah. Yeah. So I'll talk first about the cards. That's the order. This is the first mistake that most business owners and individuals are making is they're just getting random cards. They're like, well, I live in Dallas. Let me get the American card or live in Atlanta. So I'll get the Delta card or, whatever it may be. Or live in San Diego and I fly domestic. So I'll just get the Southwest card. Well, they don't realize is that again, these points, these points like currencies. And so if I told you, Hey, do you want 150 Mexican pesos or 150 us dollars for your couch that you're selling on Facebook marketplace?   you're obviously gonna take the US dollars, right? Because the currency is much higher. But with points, people don't realize that. So they might be racking up Hilton points or Delta miles or other points and miles that just aren't as valuable as other ones out there. And then they burn through them quick or they don't go as far. And they end up just basically sitting there being like, I feel like I should be getting more. This is the common thing I hear. I feel like this should be taking me further, but like it's not doing much. And so what we wanna focus on is bank points that are transferable. So certain banks,   have this ability to convert the points to the airline hotel loyalty programs. And what happens is the banks have a different way of pricing than the airlines do. And certain airlines and certain hotels have really good what we call sweet spots or opportunities for you to get the best possible deals. Okay, so when you earn these effective points, which the top ones I recommend are generally Amex, Chase, and Capital One, and there's a new program built actually is out where you can put your rent on a card with no fees and earn points, it's really cool. But when you get those right,   And then you look through your expenses and you say, what do I spend the most on? Is it groceries and dining and the personal side? Cool. There's a card like the Amex Gold that is specifically really good for those types of expenses. Then you look at your business. What do I spend a lot on? Is it ads and software and taking clients out for dinners? Great. The Amex Business Gold earns four points per dollar on those categories, but maybe it's you're spending a lot on flights for company travel, or maybe you have inventory you're buying, or you're paying a lot of contractors, or you have a lot of payroll. You want to assess where you're spending the most money.   and make sure you have the optimal card lined up for that type of expense. So I'll pause there, but that's kind of the first bucket. The other one is on using the points effectively, which I can talk about too, is pretty powerful. But that first one is really the linchpin. Because if you have a bunch of Delta miles and you want to go to Europe, I'll give an example actually one more before I kind of pause. There was an example recently I saw of a client and they wanted to go to Europe and we're looking at different options. This was from JFK to Amsterdam. If you have Delta miles,   Eli Facenda (18:43.547) The ticket for Delta One, this big awesome Delta Suite, was 320,000 miles. That's what Delta was charging to go from JFK to Amsterdam. It's really expensive amount of miles. But the same exact flight, like same flight number, same aircraft, everything, if you booked it through Virgin Atlantic, it was 50,000 miles. One seventh of the amount almost. It's really, really big difference. And so here's the kicker, right? If you have a Delta card, you only earn Delta miles, so you have to pay the 320,000.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (18:46.765) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:02.124) Hmm.   Eli Facenda (19:12.497) but if you had an Amex card that earned Amex points, so like the Amex gold or business gold, you could actually convert those points into Virgin to book the Delta flight because Virgin and Delta are partners, and you'd pay 50,000 points instead of 320,000. So this is the part where like, for people that kind of get this, they're like, whoa, and the other people are like, what did you just say? So I get it can be, it can be tricky for some people that are just getting to grasp it, but I want to make sure to lay out the whole game so people can understand really what's possible for them.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:34.764) Yeah   Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:42.329) Totally, totally. Yeah, it's just, mean, I'm sure people out there listening, it's both, right? Some people know these things exist, but they don't know the extent of it. And you're opening up their minds regardless, right? Like all the possibilities. I think most people are just like, sure, I need to find a great car that has a welcome offer of some sort. That's usually what people look at. And then they just try to pick, perhaps they take it a step further and they're looking to see like what they spend money on the most and they'll...   Eli Facenda (19:54.139) Tour then.   Eli Facenda (20:04.443) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (20:11.128) calibrate that card to that. But you're taking it step further because you know, it's kind of just opening yourself up to knowing all the possibilities, right? All these different connections, where to spend the points, where you can earn the points, those sorts of things. How thick is your wallet, man? Do you have, is your wallet like this and it's got 25 cards in it or what?   Eli Facenda (20:19.419) Totally.   Right. Yeah.   Eli Facenda (20:28.123) Haha   Yeah. Yeah.   Well, caveat this first by saying when we work with clients and we might do recommendations for people, I always recommend if you have a business, two to three personal cards and two to three business cards. That is a simple way to set this up. That's only four to six cards across both things. That's enough where you're really gonna get some serious ROI, but it's not so much that's really complicated. Some people are kind of curmudgeoned about it, like I only want one card. And I'm like, that's fine. There's no right or wrong in this. It's really preferential, but you should just know if you do that, you're gonna be leaving for most business owners that spend at least a few thousand a month.   that's gonna cost you tens of thousands of dollars of free trips a year. So I'm like, is your simplicity of having one card worth that much? If it is, great, but maybe having a second or third card doesn't add that much complexity. But if you get an extra $30,000 a year trip out of it, probably worth it, right? So that's the first thing. But to answer your actual question, so I have an entire thing called the Credit Man purse. It's like this portfolio binder, and it's just stacked with cards. I mean, I have over 40 credit cards, but I've been doing this for a long time, right? And there's like, here's the thing also with credit.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:28.28) Hahaha   Eli Facenda (21:34.041) A big question, a lot of investors, specifically people that are doing real estate or business owners, really want to their credit clean and we're huge advocates of actually not just keeping your credit score the same but improving it over time. And when you get business cards, they don't show up on your personal credit report. Okay, the vast majority. The inquiry will, but the actual card won't. And some banks, you can actually get multiple cards with no additional inquiries. So like when we do a custom card plan for someone or when we're just recommending it, we're always saying like, make sure to look at which banks you already have relationships with.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (21:48.142) Mm-hmm.   Eli Facenda (22:02.373) which ones you can get a soft pull from, the order matters of these card applications. But at end of the day, you just want a couple of specific cards that are really gonna be custom built for you, and you don't have to go crazy with it. If you get excited and you're like passionate about it, you can get 10, 15, 20 cards over the course of several years, and if you do it right underneath your businesses, it's not gonna drop your personal credit score. Your personal credit score will actually go up over time.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (22:26.314) Mm-hmm. That's a good hack, man. I'll get I'm put you on a spot a little bit. I'm gonna explain like what what I see a lot of the people that are probably listen to this show have in place structured wise like organizational structure and it's kind of similar to mine. Mine's probably a lot more complicated, but just to keep it simple, you know, there might be a parent company, right? Like this overhead parent company that owns everything. So let's let's call it parent company, right? And then below the parent company, the parent company owns, let's say a management company.   This management company probably manages funds, manages properties, manages equity for investors, that sort of thing. And then they also might have these other businesses, right? Like it just depends on the person. Like for instance, I own gyms and some other, my law firm, things like that. So they might have these own individual operating companies that owns a gym or owns another business or does these other things. you know.   Eli Facenda (22:55.889) Mm-hmm.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (23:20.066) Based on that structure, so you've got a parent company, you've got a, let's call it an equity management or fund management or property management company, and then you've got kind of this other operating business. How would you structure, what credit cards I guess would you kind of recommend? Not necessarily specific ones, but like, do they need one for all three or, yeah, how would you think about that?   Eli Facenda (23:27.301) Mm-hmm.   Eli Facenda (23:36.593) Yeah, yeah, but how would you think about that? Yeah, totally. I mean, it's a super common question. Like this is exactly the kind of clientele that we work with all the time where they're like, are you sure this is gonna work for me? I have four rental properties, two companies, one holding company. I have an investment thing. I have this thing over here. It's like, yeah, it all works. So simple is the key. So it's always a spectrum too. Like some people are, again, really minimalist with like what they want. we always, like when we're doing this for a client, we custom build it. But.   The real recommendation there is we wanna, again, assess which of these companies are actually generating the highest amount of spend. And those are the ones we wanna start with first in terms of cards and really optimizing. Now, if you have a bunch of different companies and they all have a bunch of spend, the first key thing to know is that the points will go to the business owner, the person who personally guaranteed the card, not to the business. So there's no business points account. It's underneath your name, even if it's underneath the LLC.   So the points go to you. So if you have like six different companies and you have like three Chase cards and three Amex cards, all of those three Chase cards and all of those three Amex cards are gonna basically funnel up to your account, okay? So that keeps it simple in terms of how you can think about accruing these points. They're not gonna be scattered everywhere where you can't use them. So that's good to know. Same with the airlines, right? doesn't matter if it's an airline or a bank card. So that's the first thing. For these management companies, usually lot of them don't have much spend.   So what we'll tend to do is just get one card that is like a catch-all card. And so this would be a card that we want to have earn around 1.5 to two points per dollar spent. Because what we've done is we've taken the floor of what you're gonna earn on your everyday spend and we just increase it by 50 to 100%. Okay, so like let's say a parent company is used for some client meetings and some basic legal and admin stuff and it's like 1,500 bucks a month just to do upkeep and normal stuff like that.   and it's not a crazy amount of different categories to spend. You're not running ads, you don't have that much software, there's not really a lot travel happening with it. But if that's the case, then what we wanna do is get a card, maybe like the Chase Inc. Unlimited, which earns 1.5x on everything, and we'll say, look, we're gonna keep this simple. That holding company doesn't have a lot of points earning power, so let's make sure we get a card on it just to earn, but we don't wanna like go crazy and get a bunch of cards and try to maximize every dollar. But this company that owns four different gyms and spends...   Eli Facenda (25:52.369) 50K a month on equipment and advertising and payroll and all this stuff, that's the company where we wanna look to get maybe two or three cards that are specifically aligned with that business to spend because that is where you as an entrepreneur, as an owner, are gonna be generating the most return. It's gonna be from that one entity. So I hope that breaks it down in a way that makes sense, but this is also where, again, having your cards across two to three main banks will keep it relatively simple because even if you have four different entities, if it's under one Amex login, that makes it nice and easy too.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (26:22.53) Totally, totally. Awesome, man. I knew you could handle that. Easy, easy peasy. Cool, man. Let's go to number two, right? Using the points effectively. You kind of touched on a little bit of that strategy, but let's jump into that.   Eli Facenda (26:26.682) Easy basic.   Eli Facenda (26:32.709) Yeah, yeah, so the second thing was optimizing the upgrades and all that. I'll cover that one really quick. If you're going through the airport and you don't have TSA PreCheck and clear and lounge access, you're missing out on some really easy perks that will just make your life way more enjoyable. So that's the first thing. There's a lot you can do with hotel upgrades and status. So like when I travel and go to Miami tonight for a conference, I have status at Hyatt. I'm staying at Hyatt for two of the nights down here.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (26:39.628) Okay.   Eli Facenda (27:02.225) I probably would get upgraded to a suite that's worth like thousand to 1500 bucks a night because I know how to use the suite and I certificate, it's my globalist status, I know how to message the hotel the right way. So there's some strategies there where if you do that, whenever you're traveling, you just get a much better experience. You get early check-in, late check-out, the free suite upgrade, much more spacious room. A lot of times they have lounges at the property like when we were in Tokyo, a bunch of us stayed at the Grand Hyatt there. They had a beautiful lounge overlooking the city. They had breakfast every morning.   They had drinks all day. They had a great lounge area. We actually had a mastermind session in there and they like a 15 person breakout room for us to go to. It cost us $0 to use it. They had afternoon drinks and stuff like that. So these are just the things that make your travel much better. So small tweaks that over time just again, make it a much more enjoyable experience. But that bucket on how you use your points, this is one of the most critical pieces. And I've already kind of alluded to it with that Delta One example, but   I'll share another one. So on the way to Japan, right, we flew ANA business class. This is all Nippon. It's one of the premier airlines in the world for international business class travel. They actually have a seat called The Room because it's so spacious and big, your own big sliding door. They have like an omakase menu. You've got ramen, champagne. It's like really, really good. Amazing sake and green tea and all this good stuff.   It was like an incredible way to fly and you know, it's an 11 hour flight and I didn't sleep a wink because I was just eating the whole time. But here's the deal, right? So that flight for my fiance and I, it would have been $20,000 for the two of us. It's 10,000 a piece. Okay, San Francisco to Tokyo. We're going in peak season, mind you. So I have three options to book that flight. I pay cash for it, which you know, I do decent in business, but I'm not dropping 20 grand on flights.   just to get to Japan, like that's out, that's way out of my bucket of what I would ever want to do. The second option, I go to the bank site. Okay, so again, if you have AMEX points, a lot of people have AMEX cards, like the platinum or the gold card, and this is a good start, but when you go to the bank site, each point is worth one penny. Okay, this is the baseline value of a point. So what happens is if you go to AMEX travel, they'll say, okay, this flight would cost, let's call it 20 grand. So 20 grand times one cent for each point equals 2 million points.   Eli Facenda (29:20.977) So my second option would have been to go to Amex's site and pay two million points, which I don't even have. Okay, so I'm like, that wouldn't have even worked, but that's what most people are doing at use points. They're going directly to the bank site and they're booking using Amex travel and they're getting absolutely screwed. Okay. There's kind of, and then there's a third option, which is to go through the airline site. So there's like three A and three B. Three A would be like, again, you only have Delta miles and you're kind of screwed going just to Delta. I don't recommend that. But the last option is what we did.   which is where we had Amex points and Chase points, and I looked at my different options and I said, okay, what are the best partner airlines I can book through to get to Japan? Well, it turns out, ANA is a part of the Star Alliance, okay? United is also part of that alliance. Chase and United have a partnership where I could convert my Chase points into United miles. When I looked that up, I ended up finding the deal and there's ways you have to kind of search this and track it, but that same flight that would have cost me two million points,   through Amex or Chase travel directly cost me 220,000 points to transfer from Chase to United. And I paid $12 out of Okay, so $20,000 flight, I paid 12 bucks. But how did I do it? I had the right points first. I had enough of them because I had the right cards and the right expenses. I knew how to search for this flight. And then I was able to transfer these points from Chase into the airline. So the hardest part of this entire process   Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:30.402) Hmm.   Eli Facenda (30:49.413) is figuring out the points transfers and which partners are the right ones for certain airlines. That gets very nuanced and complicated. It's kind of like, you know, if you were talking to a CPA and someone's trying to explain how like the Augusta rule works, whatever, and like the CPA pulls up like the tax code and is like unveiling this long list of tax jargon. The average person is just like, what, just like tell me how to do it, right? That's kind of the same thing here. There's a lot of different like angles and transfer partners and bonuses and.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:12.43) Right.   Eli Facenda (31:17.689) alliances and partnerships and it gets kind of complicated but that's how it works.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (31:22.434) Totally, totally. So let's talk about that. how do you help people keep track of that or learn that or execute, I guess, on these strategies?   Eli Facenda (31:32.241) Sure, yeah, so for us, our company really has two main levels to it. So we have a community-based level where it's like you're just getting the fast track, you're getting help from experts. So I'm really good at this, but I'm more of an entrepreneur than a points nerd. So as I built this, initially I was the one on the phone with all the clients, walking everyone through it, and then I built a team. So I found basically some of the other points nerds in the world that I was mind blown by. I knew them from social media and just seeing their stuff, and I was like, that person has their stuff. So I brought them onto the team.   And so our clients will interact with both me and them inside of our community, but it's not just points. We're also providing really cool travel experiences. So for example, I posted this, but I'm going kiteboarding in Egypt in June on this epic like entrepreneur kiteboard trip where it's 40 entrepreneurs going to learn how to kiteboard together and masterminding on one. And so I'm attending, I sent it out to our clients and I said, Hey, if you want to come on this, our team will help you plan the flights out there on your point so you can get business class on the way out.   So I like to, because ultimately I wanna help people, my mission is to help people create more experiential wealth in their life. There's financial wealth, and a lot of people accumulate dollars, but they're not turning it into experiences. So I'm like, let's create more experiential wealth, and the points are the way to justify it. So we have that community level where you get access to our team, there's calls you can jump on, ways we help you plan trips, and then we have the done for you services, where we basically just handle it for you. That's more like, think of like a travel agency on points for entrepreneurs.   That's more of what that is. And in there we'll do the custom card planning and map out what cards you need based off of what your specific spends are and stuff like that. So we do some pretty deep intake. And we kind of are almost like a travel agent. It's a little bit different in some ways, but that's basically the two levels in how we help people.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:12.29) Great, man. I love how you build in the experience, right? Like that's part of it. Like that's what you're teaching anyway. So it's like, it's not like, hey, join this, join this group and then we'll talk about all these things. You're actually doing it. You're actually inviting them to execute on what you're teaching so that they can see it in motion and then they can continue to do it and experience life at a different level.   Eli Facenda (33:32.497) Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, like, I really love it too. like, I'm like, everyone that works with us is really, usually a pretty cool person. Like, if you're an entrepreneur and you have the guts to build your own business, and then you wanna travel the world, like by nature of that, you're already probably a pretty cool person. Like the majority of people that are doing that, I think well-traveled people are some of the most interesting people. If you want the best stories in life, like, someone who's traveled the world is gonna have some stories for you. And so when you combine those two, it's like, these are people I wanna hang out with anyways. So like, I'm going on a trip to Egypt. I'm like, come with, like.   Whoever in the community wants to come, let's have a party, let's go do it. So it's great thing.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:04.994) That's great. Awesome, man. How are you raising the bar in your life and your business right now? Like what are you doing to build your business further, building off of some of the things that you're offering right now? Where are you taking it to the next level?   Eli Facenda (34:18.833) Yeah, so we have a new project we're rolling out inside of our community, which I'm really excited about, which is even just in our lower tier membership, and it's called our DreamTrip Alert System. So what this is, is when people come in, this has never been done before in the world of points and miles or travel at all. So we're the first to do this, which I'm really excited about. So let's say you were to sign up. You're gonna come in and give us your DreamTrip destinations, the seasons or windows that you could go, the points you have, your home airport, all this stuff.   and our team is going through and we're not just finding you like a flight, because there are different alerts out there that'll be like, hey, we found a flight. And it's like, cool, one way from LA to London, but like, what am I gonna do when I'm there? Where am gonna stay? How am getting back? Right, it's like part of the puzzle, but it leaves a lot on you to figure out. And for our clients, most business owners and entrepreneurs, investors, they're too busy to piece all that together. So they're like, well, cool, that doesn't really help me. So we decided to do, we said, what if we...   just basically sent people like a mystery subscription box of their dream trips. And so when you come in and you fill that out, we gather it. And then a couple times a month, we're gonna send out alerts where it's like a 30, 40 or $50,000 type trip, somewhere incredible in the world. We're talking Greek islands, Amalfi Coast, Japan, New Zealand, African safaris, Maldives, Bora Bora, places like that, business and first class flights, five star hotels, four pennies on the dollar. So these are like, we get $40,000 trips where people will end up paying a thousand bucks, 1500 bucks, two grand out of pocket.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:25.389) Mm-hmm.   Eli Facenda (35:44.337) And so we're gonna send the entire trip to you. So it's like the flights, the hotels, the entire step-by-step booking, the recommendations on the ground, the entire experience. And so we're sending those out so people come in, they tell us when, where, like the things they wanna do, and then they're just gonna get these alerts where it's like every month they're gonna be like, you you're sitting there with your wife, hey babe, you wanna go to Bora Bora in like June? It's gonna cost us like 800 bucks and it would be a $30,000 trip. It's like that's what I want. That's what I wanna create. So that's us raising the bar in the industry and in our business.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:06.35) you   Eli Facenda (36:13.615) I'm very excited, it's brand new for us, so I'm just pumped to see that continue to roll out, because it's, for me the mission is to help people live with experiential wealth in the form of travel. And so, usually there's some barriers that get in the way. There's time, there's planning, and then there's cost. And what we're trying to do is eliminate as many of those barriers as we can to make it just easier to say yes to the trip.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:34.252) Yeah, man, sign me up, dude. Sign me up. I feel like you've got to get both significant others on your list, right? So they both see it and whoever's like the person is like, we've got to do this, you hit both of them and then they convince the other one to do it.   Eli Facenda (36:36.625) All right.   Eli Facenda (36:49.477) Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. There's usually one. There's usually like sometimes it's the husband's on the call and he's like, dude, I don't know where we ever travel. Like I'm gonna pay for this, my wife's gonna do everything or it's the opposite where the guy's like, you know, she just shows up and I tell her where we're going. And so like that's my relationship. I'll be like, you know, it's my industry, my passion. I'm like, we're going here and then here. And she's like, tell me where to be. And she just has no idea where we are and she just loves it. And I'm like, I like planning. So, you know, but it's different for everybody.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:11.736) Yeah.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (37:17.144) For sure, for sure, man. All right, brother, this has been incredible. Tell our audience where they can find out more about you, where they can get involved with all the things, all the incredible things that they've heard on this show. Throw it out there,   Eli Facenda (37:28.859) Totally. Yeah, a couple of main places. So the first thing I'll share is that we have what I call the CEO Points Playbook. This is something I custom built. Took me a long time, and this was not a Chad TBT prompt. Like, I really built this on my own. And it is like a 30 to 40 page playbook that any business owner or entrepreneur can use to really maximize their travel experiences, get better bucket list trips, figure out the right cards for them. And it's normally 150 bucks, but if you go to freedomtravelsystems.com   forward slash playbook and you put in the code RAYS, you're gonna get it for free. Okay, so anyone listening, it is free for you. And so that's gonna be freedomtravelsystems.com forward slash playbook and then use the code RAYS, maybe we can put it in the show notes. And so that'll be the first thing. Second place is if you're like just want done for you services, just take off that forward slash and go to freedomtravelsystems.com. can talk to myself and one of the team members. And the last place, I hang out on Instagram and post a lot there, that's where we connected.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:14.049) Absolutely.   Eli Facenda (38:27.595) And that's where I'm sharing the most like behind the scenes and as I'm booking this stuff, as I'm planning it, as I'm showing like what our clients are doing, you get to see more of the visuals and the fun and come along for the ride. And so I love engaging on Instagram as well.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:40.27) Great. Thanks Eli. I really appreciate you coming on the show,   Eli Facenda (38:43.973) Thanks Seth, appreciate you having me on.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (38:45.806) All right, brother, talk soon.   All right, sweet dude. Nice. Yeah, right around 30 minutes. Let's see. Yeah, we'll just jump into these last few questions here.   Eli Facenda (38:51.748) Awesome.   Eli Facenda (38:55.205) Perfect.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:03.862) Welcome to Million Dollar Monday with Eli Fisenda. Let's just jump right in. Hey brother. Yeah, how did you make your first million?   Eli Facenda (39:09.243) Let's do it.   Eli Facenda (39:13.499) So I actually made my first million in a tour company. Now I made the first million, I didn't get to keep the first million, but what we were doing, we were running sports trips all over the world. This is actually part of how I fell in love with the travel industry and the work that I now do with points. And ultimately what we were doing, we were creating these international tour packages for youth sports teams and families to go on these international tours. think of like a 14 year old baseball team in your, you're in San Diego. We'd like do a selection of kids.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (39:19.694) Sure.   Eli Facenda (39:41.329) from that area and the families would come and they would go to Japan or Italy or wherever and travel for 10 days, experience the culture, have an educational tour and also play the local teams. So we did that in a variety of sports, ice hockey and baseball and lacrosse and all these different sports. And we were growing a lot and then that was ramping right until COVID and that just decimated the entire business. we took us about two years to get to a million and then we started to double almost every year for a few years and that was like.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:02.432) Mm.   Eli Facenda (40:09.399) Really, really tough break at COVID, but that was the first million.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:11.63) COVID man. Nobody saw that coming. mean.   Eli Facenda (40:13.881) No, definitely, you know, group, large, large group sports international travel was like the worst potential. Like you can't go overseas and you definitely can't do it with 60 people. So was, was a brutal industry to be in.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:25.506) Right? Yeah, there were certain sectors that just, I mean, there was nothing you could do. We opened up our first gym actually two weeks before COVID hit in 2020. we had our, us like two years to open and then our grand opening. And then we had a bunch of free clients in those first two weeks. And then they ended up being free clients for about a year because we couldn't charge them. Cause we couldn't get them back in the gym. We're doing online workouts and all that kind of stuff is insane.   Eli Facenda (40:36.817) Ugh.   Eli Facenda (40:47.696) Wow.   Eli Facenda (40:53.337) And that's like where the true entrepreneurial muscles are definitely strengthened in times like that though. mean, like the people that bounce back and figure it out, like you just have a new sense of confidence of like, you know, I can handle anything.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (40:54.22) But hey, we adapt,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (41:06.764) Yeah, man. I mean, you pivot, right? Like I actually ended up launching my first podcast during during COVID because I was stuck inside and it was like, all right, let's let's do this. Let's get on Zoom and interview people and all that kind of stuff, man. So that leads us right to the next question. And how do you make your last million? How do you make that transition?   Eli Facenda (41:12.859) Cool.   Nice. Cool. I'll it.   Eli Facenda (41:24.143) Yeah, so the last million that I made was in the current business that I have. so essentially what we've been doing there for about four years now is helping entrepreneurs maximize their travel on credit card points. So helping them get their dream bucket list trips, these 30, 40, $50,000 trips all over the world for about 90 % off by leveraging credit card points. And we've traditionally had some pretty high ticket services. I mean, not crazy expensive, but like, you five, 10, 15 K and that range has been the main main service. And so,   We cracked our first million about two years in, so that was 2020, 2024 actually was the first year we made a million there.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:00.526) Awesome man, awesome. How about your next million? Where are you scaling to?   Eli Facenda (42:04.305) Yeah, so the next million I wanna make is the same business. love what I do, I really enjoy it. And what I wanna do is do it in a more community oriented and lower ticket way. So I wanna have bigger reach, more digital products, more of the community, more affiliate services and stuff like that. And I'm really excited about kind of cracking the code on that, because we've done it decently with the higher ticket stuff, more agency level, service level stuff, which is great. And we're still cranking on that, we're gonna keep growing it. But I really wanna see what we can do with...   So the lower ticket stuff, creating awesome stuff on YouTube that leads to different channels and distributions there. So that's the next million and same business, just different type of money.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (42:41.57) I love it man, yeah, that's kind of opposite of how some people approach it, right? You usually start with a lower ticket and then you have to build up that base before anybody will give you, you know, higher, pay for that higher ticket product, but you're kind of working backwards because you want to help more people.   Eli Facenda (42:56.677) Totally, exactly, yeah, and there's a limit. mean, what we do in the high ticket is incredible, but it really is a specialized skill. Like you think about like a bookkeeper or an accounting firm or something, like there's like a million bookkeepers. There's like 50 people that know points and travel to the level that I need them to know it to really serve clients with the highest level. So there's a real limit on the ability to scale that. And so it's also just like, we wanna be able to do really quality work for less people, but then serve more people with the other stuff too.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (43:25.368) Totally, totally.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (43:29.518) Cool, let's jump into the next one dude and we'll wrap up. Eli, you're clearly in the top 1 % of what you do. I don't even know if there's that many people out there that do what you do at all, period. So clearly in the top 0.0001%, what is it about you that separates you from the rest of the field?   Eli Facenda (43:49.701) I think it's our ability to actually live what we preach. This is something where, you know, there are other fantastic people that talk about credit card points, but very few of them are actually business owners, like that's who we serve, and very few of them are actually traveling in the way that they're trying to help people travel. So we've done both. I've built multiple businesses, so I understand the psychology and the relatability of how you wanna think about travel and points and the various stresses in your life, the limitations on time and complexity. And I also,   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:06.062) Hmm.   Eli Facenda (44:20.636) What just happened?   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:22.998) I'm not sure. We can splice it together, but let's see. Lost the video.   Eli Facenda (44:26.748) Let me see here. Did my camera die or something?   Bizarre. second.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:36.076) Yeah, weird. Never had that happen.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:42.038) Not a big deal, we can splice it together, but let's see if we can get your camera working again.   Eli Facenda (44:46.992) Don't see my camera get help. Is the audio coming through okay? Did it switch over there to my MacBook from the other one? Or it sounds the same.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:51.564) Yeah, I can hear the audio.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (44:57.806) I don't know. All I see is like a car. It's like I don't know. It's a card with a symbol on it I wonder what that is that riverside or is that your symbol? I can't be your symbol   Eli Facenda (45:06.556) weird. Get help.   Eli Facenda (45:12.006) Let me see.   trying to check this out.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (45:19.458) We can also just finish it with audio.   Eli Facenda (45:23.556) Is it, Dude, I don't know what's going on. Sorry about that. I've never seen...   Seth Bradley, Esq. (45:28.654) no worries, dude. We can just finish it with audio anyways.   Eli Facenda (45:31.63) New recording track created the participants have been recorded.   Issue device struggling to record. High load on your device. Try closing all other apps. Give me one second. I don't have any apps open. That's really weird.   Eli Facenda (45:53.126) Yeah, I don't know man. I apologize. I Okay, well yeah   Seth Bradley, Esq. (45:57.219) you're good, We'll just finish an audio and then I'll pull up for the video. I'll just black screen to a logo or something. So all good. I don't exactly know where you're at. If you want to start that sentence over.   Eli Facenda (46:04.048) Okay, cool.   Eli Facenda (46:07.866) Yeah, I'll just, I'll say, I'll just start. So yeah, so not only have we really walked the walk with actually living what we preach, but we also understand that psychology of what it's like to be a business owner, your limitations on time and complexity and all that stuff. And because we're talking about travel, people also want to know like what's actually in store for me in this destination. I've been to 50 countries now and my business partner has been to almost 100.   We have other team members who are all over 30, 40, 50 countries. So we've been to a lot of the destinations around the world that we're advising people to go to. So we know the ins and outs, best places to stay, hidden gems, top restaurants, stuff like that, that really add another layer of personalization and true experience into the service. So I think those are the things that really make us most credible in this space.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (46:57.506) Dude, it's so important, right? Like there's so many, you know, there's so much content out there now. There's gurus and coaches and mentors, whatever you want to call them. Like the ones that are truly valuable and that people should pay attention to are the ones that are actually practicing what they preach, right? The ones that aren't just selling you education or aren't just selling you a product. Like they're actually, they've done what they're selling and they continue to   enjoy or do what they're selling.   Eli Facenda (47:28.635) 100%, yeah, if you're a living embodiment of what you do, it makes it that much easier to communicate it and sell it because you just are the thing you're selling.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (47:38.764) Yeah, absolutely. What's one thing someone listening could do today to get 1 % closer to their dream life?   Eli Facenda (47:45.089) One thing that would be the easiest is to spend 30 minutes, go on Instagram, go on your favorite social media site, go on some travel blog site, look for your dream destination, then pull up your calendar and put a time on the calendar where you're committing to go. One of my favorite quotes is from Tim Ferriss, I forget the exact quote, but basically the idea is that if you don't schedule your fun first, it won't happen.   because your business and your life will take up as much space as you allow it to. So most people find that I'll take the trip when it's convenient. I'll take the trip when I have more time. That time is never coming until you make it a priority. So the one thing they can do to get closer to their dream life is to just make a more bold commitment to putting the time on the calendar and be like, I am going and make some sort of investment, whether you're telling someone, whether you're putting some money down, whether you're learn the point stuff, that's gonna be the biggest leverage you can make.   to make sure that you actually follow through on taking these trips and then you'll find how to get there on points if you need to from there.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (48:50.766) 100 % man, gotta put it, people, entrepreneurs, people like us, we work in all the time, you've gotta put it, put it in your schedule. You've gotta block it out, commit to it.   Eli Facenda (48:59.821) Absolutely, 100%.   Seth Bradley, Esq. (49:04.554) Alright dude, I think we got it wrapped up, man.   Eli Facenda (49:05.743) Beautiful. Awesome, Dan. Well, this was super fun and I apologize agai

Summer rewind: Greg Lindsay is an urban tech expert and a Senior Fellow at MIT. He's also a two-time Jeopardy champion and the only human to go undefeated against IBM's Watson. Greg joins thinkenergy to talk about how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how we manage, consume, and produce energy—from personal devices to provincial grids, its rapid growth to the rising energy demand from AI itself. Listen in to learn how AI impacts our energy systems and what it means individually and industry-wide. Related links: ●       Greg Lindsay website: https://greglindsay.org/ ●       Greg Lindsay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-lindsay-8b16952/ ●       International Energy Agency (IEA): https://www.iea.org/ ●       Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-cem-leed-ap-8b612114/ ●       Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en    To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited   Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa   Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa   Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod --- Transcript: Trevor Freeman  00:00 Hi everyone. Well, summer is here, and the think energy team is stepping back a bit to recharge and plan out some content for the next season. We hope all of you get some much needed downtime as well, but we aren't planning on leaving you hanging over the next few months, we will be re releasing some of our favorite episodes from the past year that we think really highlight innovation, sustainability and community. These episodes highlight the changing nature of how we use and manage energy, and the investments needed to expand, modernize and strengthen our grid in response to that. All of this driven by people and our changing needs and relationship to energy as we move forward into a cleaner, more electrified future, the energy transition, as we talk about many times on this show. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll be back with all new content in September. Until then, happy listening.   Trevor Freeman  00:55 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at think energy at hydro ottawa.com, Hi everyone. Welcome back. Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a term that you're likely seeing and hearing everywhere today, and with good reason, the effectiveness and efficiency of today's AI, along with the ever increasing applications and use cases mean that in just the past few years, AI went from being a little bit fringe, maybe a little bit theoretical to very real and likely touching everyone's day to day lives in ways that we don't even notice, and we're just at the beginning of what looks to be a wave of many different ways that AI will shape and influence our society and our lives in the years to come. And the world of energy is no different. AI has the potential to change how we manage energy at all levels, from our individual devices and homes and businesses all the way up to our grids at the local, provincial and even national and international levels. At the same time, AI is also a massive consumer of energy, and the proliferation of AI data centers is putting pressure on utilities for more and more power at an unprecedented pace. But before we dive into all that, I also think it will be helpful to define what AI is. After all, the term isn't new. Like me, many of our listeners may have grown up hearing about Skynet from Terminator, or how from 2001 A Space Odyssey, but those malignant, almost sentient versions of AI aren't really what we're talking about here today. And to help shed some light on both what AI is as well as what it can do and how it might influence the world of energy, my guest today is Greg Lindsay, to put it in technical jargon, Greg's bio is super neat, so I do want to take time to run through it properly. Greg is a non resident Senior Fellow of MIT's future urban collectives lab Arizona State University's threat casting lab and the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft center for strategy and security. Most recently, he was a 2022-2023 urban tech Fellow at Cornell Tech's Jacobs Institute, where he explored the implications of AI and augmented reality at an urban scale. Previously, he was an urbanist in resident, which is a pretty cool title, at BMW minis urban tech accelerator, urban X, as well as the director of Applied Research at Montreal's new cities and Founding Director of Strategy at its mobility focused offshoot, co motion. He's advised such firms as Intel, Samsung, Audi, Hyundai, IKEA and Starbucks, along with numerous government entities such as 10 Downing Street, us, Department of Energy and NATO. And finally, and maybe coolest of all, Greg is also a two time Jeopardy champion and the only human to go undefeated against IBM's Watson. So on that note, Greg Lindsey, welcome to the show.   Greg Lindsay  04:14 Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Trevor,   Trevor Freeman  04:16 So Greg, we're here to talk about AI and the impacts that AI is going to have on energy, but AI is a bit of one of those buzzwords that we hear out there in a number of different spheres today. So let's start by setting the stage of what exactly we're talking about. So what do we mean when we say AI or artificial intelligence?   Speaker 1  04:37 Well, I'd say the first thing to keep in mind is that it is neither artificial nor intelligence. It's actually composites of many human hands making it. And of course, it's not truly intelligent either. I think there's at least two definitions for the layman's purposes. One is statistical machine learning. You know that is the previous generation of AI, we could say, doing deep, deep statistical analysis, looking for patterns fitting to. Patterns doing prediction. There's a great book, actually, by some ut professors at monk called prediction machines, which that was a great way of thinking about machine learning and sense of being able to do large scale prediction at scale. And that's how I imagine hydro, Ottawa and others are using this to model out network efficiencies and predictive maintenance and all these great uses. And then the newer, trendier version, of course, is large language models, your quads, your chat gpts, your others, which are based on transformer models, which is a whole series of work that many Canadians worked on, including Geoffrey Hinton and others. And this is what has produced the seemingly magical abilities to produce text and images on demand and large scale analysis. And that is the real power hungry beast that we think of as AI today.   Trevor Freeman  05:42 Right! So different types of AI. I just want to pick those apart a little bit. When you say machine learning, it's kind of being able to repetitively look at something or a set of data over and over and over again. And because it's a computer, it can do it, you know, 1000s or millions of times a second, and learn what, learn how to make decisions based on that. Is that fair to say?   Greg Lindsay  06:06 That's fair to say. And the thing about that is, is like you can train it on an output that you already know, large language models are just vomiting up large parts of pattern recognition, which, again, can feel like magic because of our own human brains doing it. But yeah, machine learning, you can, you know, you can train it to achieve outcomes. You can overfit the models where it like it's trained too much in the past, but, yeah, it's a large scale probabilistic prediction of things, which makes it so powerful for certain uses.   Trevor Freeman  06:26 Yeah, one of the neatest explanations or examples I've seen is, you know, you've got these language models where it seems like this AI, whether it's chat, DBT or whatever, is writing really well, like, you know, it's improving our writing. It's making things sound better. And it seems like it's got a brain behind it, but really, what it's doing is it's going out there saying, What have millions or billions of other people written like this? And how can I take the best things of that? And it can just do that really quickly, and it's learned that that model, so that's super helpful to understand what we're talking about here. So obviously, in your work, you look at the impact of AI on a number of different aspects of our world, our society. What we're talking about here today is particularly the impact of AI when it comes to energy. And I'd like to kind of bucketize our conversation a little bit today, and the first area I want to look at is, what will ai do when it comes to energy for the average Canadian? Let's say so in my home, in my business, how I move around? So I'll start with that. It's kind of a high level conversation. Let's start talking about the different ways that AI will impact you know that our average listener here?   Speaker 1  07:41 Um, yeah, I mean, we can get into a discussion about what it means for the average Canadian, and then also, of course, what it means for Canada in the world as well, because I just got back from South by Southwest in Austin, and, you know, for the second, third year in row, AI was on everyone's lips. But really it's the energy. Is the is the bottleneck. It's the forcing factor. Everyone talked about it, the fact that all the data centers we can get into that are going to be built in the direction of energy. So, so, yeah, energy holds the key to the puzzle there. But, um, you know, from the average gain standpoint, I mean, it's a question of, like, how will these tools actually play out, you know, inside of the companies that are using this, right? And that was a whole other discussion too. It's like, okay, we've been playing around with these tools for two, three years now, what do they actually use to deliver value of your large language model? So I've been saying this for 10 years. If you look at the older stuff you could start with, like smart thermostats, even look at the potential savings of this, of basically using machine learning to optimize, you know, grid optimize patterns of usage, understanding, you know, the ebbs and flows of the grid, and being able to, you know, basically send instructions back and forth. So you know there's stats. You know that, basically you know that you know you could save 10 to 25% of electricity bills. You know, based on this, you could reduce your heating bills by 10 to 15% again, it's basically using this at very large scales of the scale of hydro Ottawa, bigger, to understand this sort of pattern usage. But even then, like understanding like how weather forecasts change, and pulling that data back in to basically make fine tuning adjustments to the thermostats and things like that. So that's one stands out. And then, you know, we can think about longer term. I mean, yeah, lots have been lots has been done on imagining, like electric mobility, of course, huge in Canada, and what that's done to sort of change the overall energy mix virtual power plants. This is something that I've studied, and we've been writing about at Fast Company. At Fast Company beyond for 20 years, imagining not just, you know, the ability to basically, you know, feed renewable electricity back into the grid from people's solar or from whatever sources they have there, but the ability of utilities to basically go in and fine tune, to have that sort of demand shaping as well. And then I think the most interesting stuff, at least in demos, and also blockchain, which has had many theoretical uses, and I've got to see a real one. But one of the best theoretical ones was being able to create neighborhood scale utilities. Basically my cul de sac could have one, and we could trade clean electrons off of our solar panels through our batteries and home scale batteries, using Blockchain to basically balance this out. Yeah, so there's lots of potential, but yeah, it comes back to the notion of people want cheaper utility bills. I did this piece 10 years ago for the Atlantic Council on this we looked at a multi country survey, and the only reason anybody wanted a smart home, which they just were completely skeptical about, was to get those cheaper utility bills. So people pay for that.   Trevor Freeman  10:19 I think it's an important thing to remember, obviously, especially for like the nerds like me, who part of my driver is, I like that cool new tech. I like that thing that I can play with and see my data. But for most people, no matter what we're talking about here, when it comes to that next technology, the goal is make my life a little bit easier, give me more time or whatever, and make things cheaper. And I think especially in the energy space, people aren't putting solar panels on their roof because it looks great. And, yeah, maybe people do think it looks great, but they're putting it up there because they want cheaper electricity. And it's going to be the same when it comes to batteries. You know, there's that add on of resiliency and reliability, but at the end of the day, yeah, I want my bill to be cheaper. And what I'm hearing from you is some of the things we've already seen, like smart thermostats get better as AI gets better. Is that fair to say?   Greg Lindsay  11:12 Well, yeah, on the machine learning side, that you know, you get ever larger data points. This is why data is the coin of the realm. This is why there's a race to collect data on everything. Is why every business model is data collection and everything. Because, yes, not only can they get better, but of course, you know, you compile enough and eventually start finding statistical inferences you never meant to look for. And this is why I've been involved. Just as a side note, for example, of cities that have tried to implement their own data collection of electric scooters and eventually electric vehicles so they could understand these kinds of patterns, it's really the key to anything. And so it's that efficiency throughput which raises some really interesting philosophical questions, particularly about AI like, this is the whole discussion on deep seek. Like, if you make the models more efficient, do you have a Jevons paradox, which is the paradox of, like, the more energy you save through efficiency, the more you consume because you've made it cheaper. So what does this mean that you know that Canadian energy consumption is likely to go up the cleaner and cheaper the electrons get. It's one of those bedeviling sort of functions.   Trevor Freeman  12:06 Yeah interesting. That's definitely an interesting way of looking at it. And you referenced this earlier, and I will talk about this. But at the macro level, the amount of energy needed for these, you know, AI data centers in order to do all this stuff is, you know, we're seeing that explode.   Greg Lindsay  12:22 Yeah, I don't know that. Canadian statistics my fingertips, but I brought this up at Fast Company, like, you know, the IEA, I think International Energy Agency, you know, reported a 4.3% growth in the global electricity grid last year, and it's gonna be 4% this year. That does not sound like much. That is the equivalent of Japan. We're adding in Japan every year to the grid for at least the next two to three years. Wow. And that, you know, that's global South, air conditioning and other needs here too, but that the data centers on top is like the tip of the spear. It's changed all this consumption behavior, where now we're seeing mothballed coal plants and new plants and Three Mile Island come back online, as this race for locking up electrons, for, you know, the race to build God basically, the number of people in AI who think they're literally going to build weekly godlike intelligences, they'll, they won't stop at any expense. And so they will buy as much energy as they can get.   Trevor Freeman  13:09 Yeah, well, we'll get to that kind of grid side of things in a minute. Let's stay at the home first. So when I look at my house, we talked about smart thermostats. We're seeing more and more automation when it comes to our homes. You know, we can program our lights and our door locks and all this kind of stuff. What does ai do in order to make sure that stuff is contributing to efficiency? So I want to do all those fun things, but use the least amount of energy possible.   Greg Lindsay  13:38 Well, you know, I mean, there's, again, there's various metrics there to basically, sort of, you know, program your lights. And, you know, Nest is, you know, Google. Nest is an example of this one, too, in terms of basically learning your ebb and flow and then figuring out how to optimize it over the course of the day. So you can do that, you know, we've seen, again, like the home level. We've seen not only the growth in solar panels, but also in those sort of home battery integration. I was looking up that Tesla Powerwall was doing just great in Canada, until the last couple of months. I assume so, but I it's been, it's been heartening to see that, yeah, this sort of embrace of home energy integration, and so being able to level out, like, peak flow off the grid, so Right? Like being able to basically, at moments of peak demand, to basically draw on your own local resources and reduce that overall strain. So there's been interesting stuff there. But I want to focus for a moment on, like, terms of thinking about new uses. Because, you know, again, going back to how AI will influence the home and automation. You know, Jensen Wong of Nvidia has talked about how this will be the year of robotics. Google, Gemini just applied their models to robotics. There's startups like figure there's, again, Tesla with their optimists, and, yeah, there's a whole strain of thought that we're about to see, like home robotics, perhaps a dream from like, the 50s. I think this is a very Disney World esque Epcot Center, yeah, with this idea of jetsy, yeah, of having home robots doing work. You can see concept videos a figure like doing the actual vacuuming. I mean, we invented Roombas to this, but, but it also, I, you know, I've done a lot of work. Our own thinking around electric delivery vehicles. We could talk a lot about drones. We could talk a lot about the little robots that deliver meals on the sidewalk. There's a lot of money in business models about increasing access and people needing to maybe move less, to drive and do all these trips to bring it to them. And that's a form of home automation, and that's all batteries. That is all stuff off the grid too. So AI is that enable those things, these things that can think and move and fly and do stuff and do services on your behalf, and so people might find this huge new source of demand from that as well.   Trevor Freeman  15:29 Yeah, that's I hadn't really thought about the idea that all the all these sort of conveniences and being able to summon them to our homes cause us to move around less, which also impacts transportation, which is another area I kind of want to get to. And I know you've, you've talked a little bit about E mobility, so where do you see that going? And then, how does AI accelerate that transition, or accelerate things happening in that space?   Greg Lindsay  15:56 Yeah, I mean, I again, obviously the EV revolutions here Canada like, one of the epicenters Canada, Norway there, you know, that still has the vehicle rebates and things. So, yeah. I mean, we've seen, I'm here in Montreal, I think we've got, like, you know, 30 to 13% of sales is there, and we've got our 2035, mandate. So, yeah. I mean, you see this push, obviously, to harness all of Canada's clean, mostly hydro electricity, to do this, and, you know, reduce its dependence on fossil fuels for either, you know, Climate Change Politics reasons, but also just, you know, variable energy prices. So all of that matters. But, you know, I think the key to, like the electric mobility revolution, again, is, is how it's going to merge with AI and it's, you know, it's not going to just be the autonomous, self driving car, which is sort of like the horseless carriage of autonomy. It's gonna be all this other stuff, you know. My friend Dan Hill was in China, and he was thinking about like, electric scooters, you know. And I mentioned this to hydro Ottawa, like, the electric scooter is one of the leading causes of how we've taken internal combustion engine vehicles offline across the world, mostly in China, and put people on clean electric motors. What happens when you take those and you make those autonomous, and you do it with, like, deep seek and some cameras, and you sort of weld it all together so you could have a world of a lot more stuff in motion, and not just this world where we have to drive as much. And that, to me, is really exciting, because that changes, like urban patterns, development patterns, changes how you move around life, those kinds of things as well. That's that might be a little farther out, but, but, yeah, this sort of like this big push to build out domestic battery industries, to build charging points and the sort of infrastructure there, I think it's going to go in direction, but it doesn't look anything like, you know, a sedan or an SUV that just happens to be electric.   Trevor Freeman  17:33 I think that's a the step change is change the drive train of the existing vehicles we have, you know, an internal combustion to a battery. The exponential change is exactly what you're saying. It's rethinking this.   Greg Lindsay  17:47 Yeah, Ramesam and others have pointed out, I mean, again, like this, you know, it's, it's really funny to see this pushback on EVs, you know. I mean, I love a good, good roar of an internal combustion engine myself, but, but like, you know, Ramesam was an energy analyst, has pointed out that, like, you know, EVS were more cost competitive with ice cars in 2018 that's like, nearly a decade ago. And yeah, the efficiency of electric motors, particularly regenerative braking and everything, it just blows the cost curves away of ice though they will become the equivalent of keeping a thorough brat around your house kind of thing. Yeah, so, so yeah, it's just, it's that overall efficiency of the drive train. And that's the to me, the interesting thing about both electric motors, again, of autonomy is like, those are general purpose technologies. They get cheaper and smaller as they evolve under Moore's Law and other various laws, and so they get to apply to more and more stuff.   Trevor Freeman  18:32 Yeah. And then when you think about once, we kind of figure that out, and we're kind of already there, or close to it, if not already there, then it's opening the door to those other things you're talking about. Of, well, do we, does everybody need to have that car in their driveway? Are we rethinking how we're actually just doing transportation in general? And do we need a delivery truck? Or can it be delivery scooter? Or what does that look like?   Greg Lindsay  18:54 Well, we had a lot of those discussions for a long time, particularly in the mobility space, right? Like, and like ride hailing, you know, like, oh, you know, that was always the big pitch of an Uber is, you know, your car's parked in your driveway, like 94% of the time. You know, what happens if you're able to have no mobility? Well, we've had 15 years of Uber and these kinds of services, and we still have as many cars. But people are also taking this for mobility. It's additive. And I raised this question, this notion of like, it's just sort of more and more, more options, more availability, more access. Because the same thing seems to be going on with energy now too. You know, listeners been following along, like the conversation in Houston, you know, a week or two ago at Sarah week, like it's the whole notion of energy realism. And, you know, there's the new book out, more is more is more, which is all about the fact that we've never had an energy transition. We just kept piling up. Like the world burned more biomass last year than it did in 1900 it burned more coal last year than it did at the peak of coal. Like these ages don't really end. They just become this sort of strata as we keep piling energy up on top of it. And you know, I'm trying to sound the alarm that we won't have an energy transition. What that means for climate change? But similar thing, it's. This rebound effect, the Jevons paradox, named after Robert Stanley Jevons in his book The question of coal, where he noted the fact that, like, England was going to need more and more coal. So it's a sobering thought. But, like, I mean, you know, it's a glass half full, half empty in many ways, because the half full is like increasing technological options, increasing changes in lifestyle. You can live various ways you want, but, but, yeah, it's like, I don't know if any of it ever really goes away. We just get more and more stuff,   Trevor Freeman  20:22 Exactly, well. And, you know, to hear you talk about the robotics side of things, you know, looking at the home, yeah, more, definitely more. Okay, so we talked about kind of home automation. We've talked about transportation, how we get around. What about energy management? And I think about this at the we'll talk about the utility side again in a little bit. But, you know, at my house, or for my own personal use in my life, what is the role of, like, sort of machine learning and AI, when it comes to just helping me manage my own energy better and make better decisions when it comes to energy? ,   Greg Lindsay  20:57 Yeah, I mean, this is where it like comes in again. And you know, I'm less and less of an expert here, but I've been following this sort of discourse evolve. And right? It's the idea of, you know, yeah, create, create. This the set of tools in your home, whether it's solar panels or batteries or, you know, or Two Way Direct, bi directional to the grid, however it works. And, yeah, and people, you know, given this option of savings, and perhaps, you know, other marketing messages there to curtail behavior. You know? I mean, I think the short answer the question is, like, it's an app people want, an app that tell them basically how to increase the efficiency of their house or how to do this. And I should note that like, this has like been the this is the long term insight when it comes to like energy and the clean tech revolution. Like my Emery Levin says this great line, which I've always loved, which is, people don't want energy. They want hot showers and cold beer. And, you know, how do you, how do you deliver those things through any combination of sticks and carrots, basically like that. So, So, hence, why? Like, again, like, you know, you know, power walls, you know, and, and, and, you know, other sort of AI controlled batteries here that basically just sort of smooth out to create the sort of optimal flow of electrons into your house, whether that's coming drive directly off the grid or whether it's coming out of your backup and then recharging that the time, you know, I mean, the surveys show, like, more than half of Canadians are interested in this stuff, you know, they don't really know. I've got one set here, like, yeah, 61% are interested in home energy tech, but only 27 understand, 27% understand how to optimize them. So, yeah. So people need, I think, perhaps, more help in handing that over. And obviously, what's exciting for the, you know, the utility level is, like, you know, again, aggregate all that individual behavior together and you get more models that, hope you sort of model this out, you know, at both greater scale and ever more fine grained granularity there. So, yeah, exactly. So I think it's really interesting, you know, I don't know, like, you know, people have gamified it. What was it? I think I saw, like, what is it? The affordability fund trust tried to basically gamify AI energy apps, and it created various savings there. But a lot of this is gonna be like, as a combination like UX design and incentives design and offering this to people too, about, like, why you should want this and money's one reason, but maybe there's others.   Trevor Freeman  22:56 Yeah, and we talk about in kind of the utility sphere, we talk about how customers, they don't want all the data, and then have to go make their own decisions. They want those decisions to be made for them, and they want to say, look, I want to have you tell me the best rate plan to be on. I want to have you automatically switch me to the best rate plan when my consumption patterns change and my behavior chat patterns change. That doesn't exist today, but sort of that fast decision making that AI brings will let that become a reality sometime in the future,   Greg Lindsay  23:29 And also in theory, this is where LLMs come into play. Is like, you know, to me, what excites me the most about that is the first time, like having a true natural language interface, like having being able to converse with an, you know, an AI, let's hopefully not chat bot. I think we're moving out on chat bots, but some sort of sort of instantiation of an AI to be like, what plan should I be on? Can you tell me what my behavior is here and actually having some sort of real language conversation with it? Not decision trees, not event statements, not chat bots.   Trevor Freeman  23:54 Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so we've kind of teased around this idea of looking at the utility levels, obviously, at hydro Ottawa, you referenced this just a minute ago. We look at all these individual cases, every home that has home automation or solar storage, and we want to aggregate that and understand what, what can we do to help manage the grid, help manage all these new energy needs, shift things around. So let's talk a little bit about the role that AI can play at the utility scale in helping us manage the grid.   Greg Lindsay  24:28 All right? Well, yeah, there's couple ways to approach it. So one, of course, is like, let's go back to, like, smart meters, right? Like, and this is where I don't know how many hydro Ottawa has, but I think, like, BC Hydro has like, 2 million of them, sometimes they get politicized, because, again, this gets back to this question of, like, just, just how much nanny state you want. But, you know, you know, when you reach the millions, like, yeah, you're able to get that sort of, you know, obviously real time, real time usage, real time understanding. And again, if you can do that sort of grid management piece where you can then push back, it's visual game changer. But, but yeah. I mean, you know, yeah, be. See hydro is pulling in. I think I read like, like, basically 200 million data points a day. So that's a lot to train various models on. And, you know, I don't know exactly the kind of savings they have, but you can imagine there, whether it's, you know, them, or Toronto Hydro, or hydro Ottawa and others creating all these monitoring points. And again, this is the thing that bedells me, by the way, just philosophically about modern life, the notion of like, but I don't want you to be collecting data off me at all times, but look at what you can do if you do It's that constant push pull of some sort of combination of privacy and agency, and then just the notion of like statistics, but, but there you are, but, but, yeah, but at the grid level, then I mean, like, yeah. I mean, you can sort of do the same thing where, like, you know, I mean, predictive maintenance is the obvious one, right? I have been writing about this for large enterprise software companies for 20 years, about building these data points, modeling out the lifetime of various important pieces equipment, making sure you replace them before you have downtime and terrible things happen. I mean, as we're as we're discussing this, look at poor Heathrow Airport. I am so glad I'm not flying today, electrical substation blowing out two days of the world's most important hub offline. So that's where predictive maintenance comes in from there. And, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I again, you know, modeling out, you know, energy flow to prevent grid outages, whether that's, you know, the ice storm here in Quebec a couple years ago. What was that? April 23 I think it was, yeah, coming up in two years. Or our last ice storm, we're not the big one, but that one, you know, where we had big downtime across the grid, like basically monitoring that and then I think the other big one for AI is like, Yeah, is this, this notion of having some sort of decision support as well, too, and sense of, you know, providing scenarios and modeling out at scale the potential of it? And I don't think, I don't know about this in a grid case, but the most interesting piece I wrote for Fast Company 20 years ago was an example, ago was an example of this, which was a fledgling air taxi startup, but they were combining an agent based model, so using primitive AI to create simple rules for individual agents and build a model of how they would behave, which you can create much more complex models. Now we could talk about agents and then marrying that to this kind of predictive maintenance and operations piece, and marrying the two together. And at that point, you could have a company that didn't exist, but that could basically model itself in real time every day in the life of what it is. You can create millions and millions and millions of Monte Carlo operations. And I think that's where perhaps both sides of AI come together truly like the large language models and agents, and then the predictive machine learning. And you could basically hydro or others, could build this sort of deep time machine where you can model out all of these scenarios, millions and millions of years worth, to understand how it flows and contingencies as well. And that's where it sort of comes up. So basically something happens. And like, not only do you have a set of plans, you have an AI that has done a million sets of these plans, and can imagine potential next steps of this, or where to deploy resources. And I think in general, that's like the most powerful use of this, going back to prediction machines and just being able to really model time in a way that we've never had that capability before. And so you probably imagine the use is better than I.   Trevor Freeman  27:58 Oh man, it's super fascinating, and it's timely. We've gone through the last little while at hydro Ottawa, an exercise of updating our playbook for emergencies. So when there are outages, what kind of outage? What's the sort of, what are the trigger points to go from, you know, what we call a level one to a level two to level three. But all of this is sort of like people hours that are going into that, and we're thinking through these scenarios, and we've got a handful of them, and you're just kind of making me think, well, yeah, what if we were able to model that out? And you bring up this concept of agents, let's tease into that a little bit explain what you mean when you're talking about agents.   Greg Lindsay  28:36 Yeah, so agentic systems, as the term of art is, AI instantiations that have some level of autonomy. And the archetypal example of this is the Stanford Smallville experiment, where they took basically a dozen large language models and they gave it an architecture where they could give it a little bit of backstory, ruminate on it, basically reflect, think, decide, and then act. And in this case, they used it to plan a Valentine's Day party. So they played out real time, and the LLM agents, like, even played matchmaker. They organized the party, they sent out invitations, they did these sorts of things. Was very cute. They put it out open source, and like, three weeks later, another team of researchers basically put them to work writing software programs. So you can see they organized their own workflow. They made their own decisions. There was a CTO. They fact check their own work. And this is evolving into this grand vision of, like, 1000s, millions of agents, just like, just like you spin up today an instance of Amazon Web Services to, like, host something in the cloud. You're going to spin up an agent Nvidia has talked about doing with healthcare and others. So again, coming back to like, the energy implications of that, because it changes the whole pattern. Instead of huge training runs requiring giant data centers. You know, it's these agents who are making all these calls and doing more stuff at the edge, but, um, but yeah, in this case, it's the notion of, you know, what can you put the agents to work doing? And I bring this up again, back to, like, predictive maintenance, or for hydro Ottawa, there's another amazing paper called virtual in real life. And I chatted with one of the principal authors. It created. A half dozen agents who could play tour guide, who could direct you to a coffee shop, who do these sorts of things, but they weren't doing it in a virtual world. They were doing it in the real one. And to do it in the real world, you took the agent, you gave them a machine vision capability, so added that model so they could recognize objects, and then you set them loose inside a digital twin of the world, in this case, something very simple, Google Street View. And so in the paper, they could go into like New York Central Park, and they could count every park bench and every waste bin and do it in seconds and be 99% accurate. And so agents were monitoring the landscape. Everything's up, because you can imagine this in the real world too, that we're going to have all the time. AIS roaming the world, roaming these virtual maps, these digital twins that we build for them and constantly refresh from them, from camera data, from sensor data, from other stuff, and tell us what this is. And again, to me, it's really exciting, because that's finally like an operating system for the internet of things that makes sense, that's not so hardwired that you can ask agents, can you go out and look for this for me? Can you report back on this vital system for me? And they will be able to hook into all of these kinds of representations of real time data where they're emerging from, and give you aggregated reports on this one. And so, you know, I think we have more visibility in real time into the real world than we've ever had before.   Trevor Freeman  31:13 Yeah, I want to, I want to connect a few dots here for our listeners. So bear with me for a second. Greg. So for our listeners, there was a podcast episode we did about a year ago on our grid modernization roadmap, and we talked about one of the things we're doing with grid modernization at hydro Ottawa and utilities everywhere doing this is increasing the sensor data from our grid. So we're, you know, right now, we've got visibility sort of to our station level, sometimes one level down to some switches. But in the future, we'll have sensors everywhere on our grid, every switch, every device on our grid, will have a sensor gathering data. Obviously, you know, like you said earlier, millions and hundreds of millions of data points every second coming in. No human can kind of make decisions on that, and what you're describing is, so now we've got all this data points, we've got a network of information out there, and you could create this agent to say, Okay, you are. You're my transformer agent. Go out there and have a look at the run temperature of every transformer on the network, and tell me where the anomalies are, which ones are running a half a degree or two degrees warmer than they should be, and report back. And now I know hydro Ottawa, that the controller, the person sitting in the room, knows, Hey, we should probably go roll a truck and check on that transformer, because maybe it's getting end of life. Maybe it's about to go and you can do that across the entire grid. That's really fascinating,   Greg Lindsay  32:41 And it's really powerful, because, I mean, again, these conversations 20 years ago at IoT, you know you're going to have statistical triggers, and you would aggregate these data coming off this, and there was a lot of discussion there, but it was still very, like hardwired, and still very Yeah, I mean, I mean very probabilistic, I guess, for a word that went with agents like, yeah, you've now created an actual thing that can watch those numbers and they can aggregate from other systems. I mean, lots, lots of potential there hasn't quite been realized, but it's really exciting stuff. And this is, of course, where that whole direction of the industry is flowing. It's on everyone's lips, agents.   Trevor Freeman  33:12 Yeah. Another term you mentioned just a little bit ago that I want you to explain is a digital twin. So tell us what a digital twin is.   Greg Lindsay  33:20 So a digital twin is, well, the matrix. Perhaps you could say something like this for listeners of a certain age, but the digital twin is the idea of creating a model of a piece of equipment, of a city, of the world, of a system. And it is, importantly, it's physics based. It's ideally meant to represent and capture the real time performance of the physical object it's based on, and in this digital representation, when something happens in the physical incarnation of it, it triggers a corresponding change in state in the digital twin, and then vice versa. In theory, you know, you could have feedback loops, again, a lot of IoT stuff here, if you make changes virtually, you know, perhaps it would cause a change in behavior of the system or equipment, and the scales can change from, you know, factory equipment. Siemens, for example, does a lot of digital twin work on this. You know, SAP, big, big software companies have thought about this. But the really crazy stuff is, like, what Nvidia is proposing. So first they started with a digital twin. They very modestly called earth two, where they were going to model all the weather and climate systems of the planet down to like the block level. There's a great demo of like Jensen Wong walking you through a hurricane, typhoons striking the Taipei, 101, and how, how the wind currents are affecting the various buildings there, and how they would change that more recently, what Nvidia is doing now is, but they just at their big tech investor day, they just partner with General Motors and others to basically do autonomous cars. And what's crucial about it, they're going to train all those autonomous vehicles in an NVIDIA built digital twin in a matrix that will act, that will be populated by agents that will act like people, people ish, and they will be able to run millions of years of autonomous vehicle training in this and this is how they plan to catch up to. Waymo or, you know, if Tesla's robotaxis are ever real kind of thing, you know, Waymo built hardwired like trained on real world streets, and that's why they can only operate in certain operating domain environments. Nvidia is gambling that with large language models and transformer models combined with digital twins, you can do these huge leapfrog effects where you can basically train all sorts of synthetic agents in real world behavior that you have modeled inside the machine. So again, that's the kind, that's exactly the kind of, you know, environment that you're going to train, you know, your your grid of the future on for modeling out all your contingency scenarios.   Trevor Freeman  35:31 Yeah, again, you know, for to bring this to the to our context, a couple of years ago, we had our the direcco. It's a big, massive windstorm that was one of the most damaging storms that we've had in Ottawa's history, and we've made some improvements since then, and we've actually had some great performance since then. Imagine if we could model that derecho hitting our grid from a couple different directions and figure out, well, which lines are more vulnerable to wind speeds, which lines are more vulnerable to flying debris and trees, and then go address that and do something with that, without having to wait for that storm to hit. You know, once in a decade or longer, the other use case that we've talked about on this one is just modeling what's happening underground. So, you know, in an urban environments like Ottawa, like Montreal, where you are, there's tons of infrastructure under the ground, sewer pipes, water pipes, gas lines, electrical lines, and every time the city wants to go and dig up a road and replace that road, replace that sewer, they have to know what's underground. We want to know what's underground there, because our infrastructure is under there. As the electric utility. Imagine if you had a model where you can it's not just a map. You can actually see what's happening underground and determine what makes sense to go where, and model out these different scenarios of if we underground this line or that line there. So lots of interesting things when it comes to a digital twin. The digital twin and Agent combination is really interesting as well, and setting those agents loose on a model that they can play with and understand and learn from. So talk a little bit about.   Greg Lindsay  37:11 that. Yeah. Well, there's a couple interesting implications just the underground, you know, equipment there. One is interesting because in addition to, like, you know, you know, having captured that data through mapping and other stuff there, and having agents that could talk about it. So, you know, next you can imagine, you know, I've done some work with augmented reality XR. This is sort of what we're seeing again, you know, meta Orion has shown off their concept. Google's brought back Android XR. Meta Ray Bans are kind of an example of this. But that's where this data will come from, right? It's gonna be people wearing these wearables in the world, capturing all this camera data and others that's gonna be fed into these digital twins to refresh them. Meta has a particularly scary demo where you know where you the user, the wearer leaves their keys on their coffee table and asks metas, AI, where their coffee where their keys are, and it knows where they are. It tells them and goes back and shows them some data about it. I'm like, well, to do that, meta has to have a complete have a complete real time map of your entire house. What could go wrong. And that's what all these companies aspire to of reality. So, but yeah, you can imagine, you know, you can imagine a worker. And I've worked with a startup out of urban X, a Canada startup, Canadian startup called context steer. And you know, is the idea of having real time instructions and knowledge manuals available to workers, particularly predictive maintenance workers and line workers. So you can imagine a technician dispatched to deal with this cut in the pavement and being able to see with XR and overlay of like, what's actually under there from the digital twin, having an AI basically interface with what's sort of the work order, and basically be your assistant that can help you walk you through it, in case, you know, you run into some sort of complication there, hopefully that won't be, you know, become like, turn, turn by turn, directions for life that gets into, like, some of the questions about what we wanted out of our workforce. But there's some really interesting combinations of those things, of like, you know, yeah, mapping a world for AIS, ais that can understand it, that could ask questions in it, that can go probe it, that can give you advice on what to do in it. All those things are very close for good and for bad.   Trevor Freeman  39:03 You kind of touched on my next question here is, how do we make sure this is all in the for good or mostly in the for good category, and not the for bad category you talk in one of the papers that you wrote about, you know, AI and augmented reality in particular, really expanding the attack surface for malicious actors. So we're creating more opportunities for whatever the case may be, if it's hacking or if it's malware, or if it's just, you know, people that are up to nefarious things. How do we protect against that? How do we make sure that our systems are safe that the users of our system. So in our case, our customers, their data is safe, their the grid is safe. How do we make sure that?   Greg Lindsay  39:49 Well, the very short version is, whatever we're spending on cybersecurity, we're not spending enough. And honestly, like everybody who is no longer learning to code, because we can be a quad or ChatGPT to do it, I. Is probably there should be a whole campaign to repurpose a big chunk of tech workers into cybersecurity, into locking down these systems, into training ethical systems. There's a lot of work to be done there. But yeah, that's been the theme for you know that I've seen for 10 years. So that paper I mentioned about sort of smart homes, the Internet of Things, and why people would want a smart home? Well, yeah, the reason people were skeptical is because they saw it as basically a giant attack vector. My favorite saying about this is, is, there's a famous Arthur C Clarke quote that you know, any sufficiently advanced technology is magic Tobias Ravel, who works at Arup now does their head of foresight has this great line, any sufficiently advanced hacking will feel like a haunting meaning. If you're in a smart home that's been hacked, it will feel like you're living in a haunted house. Lights will flicker on and off, and systems will turn and go haywire. It'll be like you're living with a possessed house. And that's true of cities or any other systems. So we need to do a lot of work on just sort of like locking that down and securing that data, and that is, you know, we identified, then it has to go all the way up and down the supply chain, like you have to make sure that there is, you know, a chain of custody going back to when components are made, because a lot of the attacks on nest, for example. I mean, you want to take over a Google nest, take it off the wall and screw the back out of it, which is a good thing. It's not that many people are prying open our thermostats, but yeah, if you can get your hands on it, you can do a lot of these systems, and you can do it earlier in the supply chain and sorts of infected pieces and things. So there's a lot to be done there. And then, yeah, and then, yeah, and then there's just a question of, you know, making sure that the AIs are ethically trained and reinforced. And, you know, a few people want to listeners, want to scare themselves. You can go out and read some of the stuff leaking out of anthropic and others and make clot of, you know, models that are trying to hide their own alignments and trying to, like, basically copy themselves. Again, I don't believe that anything things are alive or intelligent, but they exhibit these behaviors as part of the probabilistic that's kind of scary. So there's a lot to be done there. But yeah, we worked on this, the group that I do foresight with Arizona State University threat casting lab. We've done some work for the Secret Service and for NATO and, yeah, there'll be, you know, large scale hackings on infrastructure. Basically the equivalent can be the equivalent can be the equivalent to a weapons of mass destruction attack. We saw how Russia targeted in 2014 the Ukrainian grid and hacked their nuclear plans. This is essential infrastructure more important than ever, giving global geopolitics say the least, so that needs to be under consideration. And I don't know, did I scare you enough yet? What are the things we've talked through here that, say the least about, you know, people being, you know, tricked and incepted by their AI girlfriends, boyfriends. You know people who are trying to AI companions. I can't possibly imagine what could go wrong there.   Trevor Freeman  42:29 I mean, it's just like, you know, I don't know if this is 15 or 20, or maybe even 25 years ago now, like, it requires a whole new level of understanding when we went from a completely analog world to a digital world and living online, and people, I would hope, to some degree, learned to be skeptical of things on the internet and learned that this is that next level. We now need to learn the right way of interacting with this stuff. And as you mentioned, building the sort of ethical code and ethical guidelines into these language models into the AI. Learning is pretty critical for our listeners. We do have a podcast episode on cybersecurity. I encourage you to go listen to it and reassure yourself that, yes, we are thinking about this stuff. And thanks, Greg, you've given us lots more to think about in that area as well. When it comes to again, looking back at utilities and managing the grid, one thing we're going to see, and we've talked a lot about this on the show, is a lot more distributed generation. So we're, you know, the days of just the central, large scale generation, long transmission lines that being the only generation on the grid. Those days are ending. We're going to see more distributed generations, solar panels on roofs, batteries. How does AI help a utility manage those better, interact with those better get more value out of those things?   Greg Lindsay  43:51 I guess that's sort of like an extension of some of the trends I was talking about earlier, which is the notion of, like, being able to model complex systems. I mean, that's effectively it, right, like you've got an increasingly complex grid with complex interplays between it, you know, figuring out how to basically based on real world performance, based on what you're able to determine about where there are correlations and codependencies in the grid, where point where choke points could emerge, where overloading could happen, and then, yeah, basically, sort of building that predictive system to Basically, sort of look for what kind of complex emergent behavior comes out of as you keep adding to it and and, you know, not just, you know, based on, you know, real world behavior, but being able to dial that up to 11, so to speak, and sort of imagine sort of these scenarios, or imagine, you know, what, what sort of long term scenarios look like in terms of, like, what the mix, how the mix changes, how the geography changes, all those sorts of things. So, yeah, I don't know how that plays out in the short term there, but it's this combination, like I'm imagining, you know, all these different components playing SimCity for real, if one will.   Trevor Freeman  44:50 And being able to do it millions and millions and millions of times in a row, to learn every possible iteration and every possible thing that might happen. Very cool. Okay. So last kind of area I want to touch on you did mention this at the beginning is the the overall power implications of of AI, of these massive data centers, obviously, at the utility, that's something we are all too keenly aware of. You know, the stat that that I find really interesting is a normal Google Search compared to, let's call it a chat GPT search. That chat GPT search, or decision making, requires 10 times the amount of energy as that just normal, you know, Google Search looking out from a database. Do you see this trend? I don't know if it's a trend. Do you see this continuing like AI is just going to use more power to do its decision making, or will we start to see more efficiencies there? And the data centers will get better at doing what they do with less energy. What is the what does the future look like in that sector?   Greg Lindsay  45:55 All the above. It's more, is more, is more! Is the trend, as far as I can see, and every decision maker who's involved in it. And again, Jensen Wong brought this up at the big Nvidia Conference. That basically he sees the only constraint on this continuing is availability of energy supplies keep it going and South by Southwest. And in some other conversations I've had with bandwidth companies, telcos, like laying 20 lumen technologies, United States is laying 20,000 new miles of fiber optic cables. They've bought 10% of Corning's total fiber optic output for the next couple of years. And their customers are the hyperscalers. They're, they're and they're rewiring the grid. That's why, I think it's interesting. This has something, of course, for thinking about utilities, is, you know, the point to point Internet of packet switching and like laying down these big fiber routes, which is why all the big data centers United States, the majority of them, are in north of them are in Northern Virginia, is because it goes back to the network hub there. Well, lumen is now wiring this like basically this giant fabric, this patchwork, which can connect data center to data center, and AI to AI and cloud to cloud, and creating this entirely new environment of how they are all directly connected to each other through some of this dedicated fiber. And so you can see how this whole pattern is changing. And you know, the same people are telling me that, like, yeah, the where they're going to build this fiber, which they wouldn't tell me exactly where, because it's very tradable, proprietary information, but, um, but it's following the energy supplies. It's following the energy corridors to the American Southwest, where there's solar and wind in Texas, where you can get natural gas, where you can get all these things. It will follow there. And I of course, assume the same is true in Canada as we build out our own sovereign data center capacity for this. So even, like deep seek, for example, you know, which is, of course, the hyper efficient Chinese model that spooked the markets back in January. Like, what do you mean? We don't need a trillion dollars in capex? Well, everyone's quite confident, including again, Jensen Wong and everybody else that, yeah, the more efficient models will increase this usage. That Jevons paradox will play out once again, and we'll see ever more of it. To me, the question is, is like as how it changes? And of course, you know, you know, this is a bubble. Let's, let's, let's be clear, data centers are a bubble, just like railroads in 1840 were a bubble. And there will be a bust, like not everyone's investments will pencil out that infrastructure will remain maybe it'll get cheaper. We find new uses for it, but it will, it will eventually bust at some point and that's what, to me, is interesting about like deep seeking, more efficient models. Is who's going to make the wrong investments in the wrong places at the wrong time? But you know, we will see as it gathers force and agents, as I mentioned. You know, they don't require, as much, you know, these monstrous training runs at City sized data centers. You know, meta wanted to spend $200 billion on a single complex, the open AI, Microsoft, Stargate, $500 billion Oracle's. Larry Ellison said that $100 billion is table stakes, which is just crazy to think about. And, you know, he's permitting three nukes on site. So there you go. I mean, it'll be fascinating to see if we have a new generation of private, private generation, right, like, which is like harkening all the way back to, you know, the early electrical grid and companies creating their own power plants on site, kind of stuff. Nicholas Carr wrote a good book about that one, about how we could see from the early electrical grid how the cloud played out. They played out very similarly. The AI cloud seems to be playing out a bit differently. So, so, yeah, I imagine that as well, but, but, yeah, well, inference happen at the edge. We need to have more distributed generation, because you're gonna have AI agents that are going to be spending more time at the point of request, whether that's a laptop or your phone or a light post or your autonomous vehicle, and it's going to need more of that generation and charging at the edge. That, to me, is the really interesting question. Like, you know, when these current generation models hit their limits, and just like with Moore's law, like, you know, you have to figure out other efficiencies in designing chips or designing AIS, how will that change the relationship to the grid? And I don't think anyone knows quite for sure yet, which is why they're just racing to lock up as many long term contracts as they possibly can just get it all, core to the market.   Trevor Freeman  49:39 Yeah, it's just another example, something that comes up in a lot of different topics that we cover on this show. Everything, obviously, is always related to the energy transition. But the idea that the energy transition is really it's not just changing fuel sources, like we talked about earlier. It's not just going from internal combustion to a battery. It's rethinking the. Relationship with energy, and it's rethinking how we do things. And, yeah, you bring up, like, more private, massive generation to deal with these things. So really, that whole relationship with energy is on scale to change. Greg, this has been a really interesting conversation. I really appreciate it. Lots to pack into this short bit of time here. We always kind of wrap up our conversations with a series of questions to our guests. So I'm going to fire those at you here. And this first one, I'm sure you've got lots of different examples here, so feel free to give more than one. What is a book that you've read that you think everybody should read?   Greg Lindsay  50:35 The first one that comes to mind is actually William Gibson's Neuromancer, which is which gave the world the notion of cyberspace and so many concepts. But I think about it a lot today. William Gibson, Vancouver based author, about how much in that book is something really think about. There is a digital twin in it, an agent called the Dixie flatline. It's like a former program where they cloned a digital twin of him. I've actually met an engineering company, Thornton Thomas Eddie that built a digital twin of one of their former top experts. So like that became real. Of course, the matrix is becoming real the Turing police. Yeah, there's a whole thing in there where there's cops to make sure that AIS don't get smarter. I've been thinking a lot about, do we need Turing police? The EU will probably create them. And so that's something where you know the proof, again, of like science fiction, its ability in world building to really make you think about these implications and help for contingency planning. A lot of foresight experts I work with think about sci fi, and we use sci fi for exactly that reason. So go read some classic cyberpunk, everybody.   Trevor Freeman  51:32 Awesome. So same question. But what's a movie or a show that you think everybody should take a look at?   Greg Lindsay  51:38 I recently watched the watch the matrix with ideas, which is fun to think about, where the villains are, agents that villains are agents. That's funny how that terms come back around. But the other one was thinking about the New Yorker recently read a piece on global demographics and the fact that, you know, globally, less and less children. And it made several references to Alfonso Quons, Children of Men from 2006 which is, sadly, probably the most prescient film of the 21st Century. Again, a classic to watch, about imagining in a world where we don't where you where you lose faith in the future, what happens, and a world that is not having children as a world that's losing faith in its own future. So that's always haunted me.   Trevor Freeman  52:12 It's funny both of those movies. So I've got kids as they get, you know, a little bit older, a little bit older, we start introducing more and more movies. And I've got this list of movies that are just, you know, impactful for my own adolescent years and growing up. And both matrix and Children of Men are on that list of really good movies that I just need my kids to get a little bit older, and then I'm excited to watch with them. If someone offered you a free round trip flight anywhere in the world, where would you go?   Greg Lindsay  52:40 I would go to Venice, Italy for the Architecture Biennale, which I will be on a plane in May, going to anyway. And the theme this year is intelligence, artificial, natural and collective. So it should be interesting to see the world's brightest architects. Let's see what we got. But yeah, Venice, every time, my favorite city in the world.   Trevor Freeman  52:58 Yeah, it's pretty wonderful. Who is someone that you admire?   Greg Lindsay  53:01 Great question.

Today, we're speaking with Cole Ashman, the CEO and founder of Pila Energy. Pila is democratizing access to battery backup systems through industrial-grade, consumer-priced batteries that are simply plug-and-play. No electricians, no permitting, just reliable power.Pila's innovative approach is disrupting the home energy market, from enabling demand response programs to making backup power accessible and affordable for everyone. Listen today to hear how they are reshaping energy reliability and demand response access. Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Pocket CastsSelect Quotes From This Episode:"Controlling loads... shutting off your air condition, technically great, but who wants their AC shut off on the hottest day of the year?" "We're able to turn entire apartment complexes into batteries by coordinating up to hundreds of these distributed batteries." [Sponsor] ErthTech Talent: Affordable CleanTech Search FirmTo build a successful CleanTech startup, you need the right people. Affordable: Our search fee is 12-15% of first-year base salary (most charge 25-30%).Specialized: We ONLY work with CleanTech startups. Proven: 70+ placements since 2020 (Aypa Power, ChargeScape, QCells, & more). Save time and money when you work with ErthTech Talent. Plus, Silas runs it, so you already know him. — Reach out today and tell him you saw this ad.LinksCole Ashman | Pila EnergyConnect with Somil on LinkedIn | Connect with Silas on LinkedInFollow CleanTechies on LinkedInThis podcast is NOT investment advice. Do your homework and due diligence before investing in anything discussed on this podcast.Support the showIf you're gonna change the world, you're gonna need a world-class team. Partner with ErthTech Talent to help you do that, for less. 70+ Placements 5+ Years (exclusively in CleanTech) The Lowest Fees in the Market (12-15% of first-year salary) 90-day placement guarantee It's really hard to say no to that. Wait?! -- The best service is also the cheapest? Seems too good to be true, but it's the entire reason we started this company. We believe that Climate entrepreneurs are doing important work, and there should be a firm to help them find the best talent, without it breaking the bank. Reach out today for a free assessment of your hiring process. hello@erthtechtalent.com

0:00 Intro 1:12 Amazon entwickelt Software für humanoide Roboter 3:07 Autonome Tesla Paketboten nachts? 4:02 Gefährlicher Artikel: Tödlicher Tesla Unfall durch FSD 10:11 1 Mio. Powerwalls 12:30 Es eskaliert: Elon Musk vs Trump! 21:08 Konsequenzen der Auseinandersetzung 23:40 Musk vs. Trump: Abregung? 25:05 SpaceX: 500. Orbitalstart einer Falcon-Rakete 25:38 Schlechte Zahlen: Ist Europa für Tesla egal? 30:18 Über Europa hinaus 35:16 Performance Model Y auf Nürburgring gesichtet 36:20 Megapack-Fabrik in Shanghai mit Solar 38:11 Neues Tesla System verbessert KI-Training drastisch 42:57 Tesla Powerwalls gegen Stromausfälle in Texas 43:23 Neues Tesla Software-Update 44:45 Neuralink Update 46:14 Erstes Tesla Robotaxi auf der Straße gesichtet 47:35 Update zur Musk und Trump Situation 48:41 Neue China Zahlen BYD Kündigt Preiskampf an: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKeWukLq-ho 55:04 Schlechte Wochenzahlen 56:37 Outro Ihr könnt meine Arbeit mit dem Tesla Welt Podcast unterstützen indem Ihr folgende Partnerlinks benutzt: SHOP4TESLA: Erhalte 10% Rabatt mit dem Code "teslawelt" auf jetzt alle Produkte: https://www.shop4tesla.com/?ref=TeslaWelt - HOLY: Erhalte 10% Rabatt mit dem Code "TESLAWELT" auf alle Produkte: https://de.weareholy.com/?ref=teslawelt - CARBONIFY: THG Quoten Prämie. Transparent und fair : https://carbonify.de/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=Teslawelt - Oder Ihr holt euch ein Shirt aus dem Tesla Welt Merchshop: https://teslawelt.myspreadshop.de/ Zur englischen Elon Musk Biografie von Walter Isaacson: https://amzn.to/3sETBBi - Hier zur deutschen Version: https://amzn.to/45HZfkF - Die mit - gekennzeichneten Links sind Affiliate-Links. Es handelt sich hierbei um bezahlte Werbung. Ein Kauf über einen Affiliate-Link unterstützt den Kanal und für euch entstehen dabei selbstverständlich keinerlei Mehrkosten! Musik: Titel: My Little Kingdom Autor: Golden Duck Orchestra Source Licence Download (MB)

What if your rooftop solar could do more than just power your fridge?Karl Andersen believes it can—and should—power the future of AI.Karl unpacks the grid's biggest vulnerabilities, why data centers lack critical power infrastructure, and how we can turn solar-powered homes into the building blocks of a decentralized compute network. Lektra's tech fuses distributed energy with cloud computing—think “Raspberry Pi meets Tesla Powerwall meets AI.” The result? A game-changing business model where solar homeowners become micro data centers—and start earning like one.From national security concerns to GPU monetization, Karl walks us through why our energy and data systems are broken—and how his patented solution bridges both.Expect to learn:

InfluxDB just dropped its biggest update ever — InfluxDB 3.0 — and in this episode, we go deep with the team behind the world's most popular open-source time series database. You'll hear the inside story of how InfluxDB grew from 3,000 users in 2015 to over 1.3 million today, and why the company decided to rewrite its entire architecture from scratch in Rust, ditching Go and moving to object storage on S3.We break down the real technical challenges that forced this radical shift: the “cardinality problem” that choked performance, the pain of linking compute and storage, and why their custom query language (Flux) failed to catch on, leading to a humbling embrace of SQL as the industry standard. You'll learn how InfluxDB is positioning itself in a world dominated by Databricks and Snowflake, and the hard lessons learned about monetization when 1.3 million users only yield 2,600 paying customers.InfluxDataWebsite - https://www.influxdata.comX/Twitter - https://twitter.com/InfluxDBEvan KaplanLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaplanevanX/Twitter - https://x.com/evankaplanFIRSTMARKWebsite - https://firstmark.comX/Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCapMatt Turck (Managing Director)LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturckFoursquare: Website - https://foursquare.comX/Twitter - https://x.com/Foursquare IG - instagram.com/foursquare (00:00) Intro (02:22) The InfluxDB origin story and why time series matters (06:59) The cardinality crisis and why Influx rebuilt in Rust (09:26) Why SQL won (and Flux lost) (16:34) Why UnfluxData bets on FDAP (22:51) IoT, Tesla Powerwalls, and real-time control systems (27:54) Competing with Databricks, Snowflake, and the “lakehouse” world (31:50) Open Source lessons, monetization, & what's next

Can buildings store electricity like a battery?Blaine Brownell is a leading voice in sustainable architecture and material innovation, with a career spanning over 20 years. Starting as an architect in Seattle during the rise of the LEED green building movement, he transitioned to academia, where he now directs the School of Architecture at UNC Charlotte. His research focuses on the future of sustainable materials, and he has authored nine books on the topic, including Transmaterial and Radical Green.Blaine challenges conventional thinking with ideas like:Cities made of sky, where buildings store carbon like forestsLiving architecture, where structures are literally grown from treesAnd he advocates for buildings as resource banks, emphasizing that architecture should store energy, water, and materials for reuseIn this episode, Blaine discusses why sustainability must become the default in architecture, how architects can integrate innovative materials visibly into design, and what it will take to shift from incremental improvements to radical change. He also shares amazing projects, from vertical microalgae facades to concrete walls that store electricity like batteries.Listen now to discover the future of green buildings and why the materials we choose today will shape the world of tomorrow. To explore more about Blaine Brownell and his work, you can follow him on LinkedIn, visit his website blainebrownell.com, or read his articles at Architect Magazine's Mind and Matter Column.Join me, Ladina, on this green journey, and don't forget to subscribe for more insightful conversations about sustainable living and architecture and drop us a review. If you have suggestions for future guests or topics, I'd love to hear from you on my socials!Let's explore the world of green architecture, one conversation at a time.Contact: Ladina ⁠⁠@ladinaschoepf⁠⁠Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠buildinggreenshow.comProduced by: ⁠⁠marketyourarchitecture.com⁠

In this episode of YourTechReport, Marc Aflalo and Mitchell Whitfield tackle a crucial topic—emergency preparedness in 2025—through the lens of technology. As wildfires rage across California, they discuss how tech innovations like backup batteries, cloud storage, and real-time alert apps are shaping how we prepare for and respond to disasters. Key highlights include: • Emergency Preparedness 101: The best apps and tools, including Watch Duty, for real-time wildfire updates. • Backup Power Solutions: From Anchor Solix power systems to Tesla Powerwalls, explore options for keeping devices and homes running during outages. • Cloud Storage for Peace of Mind: Why backing up irreplaceable documents, photos, and memories is more essential than ever. • Lessons from California Wildfires: Personal insights on what to grab during an evacuation and how to stay ready for anything. • Future of Infrastructure: Can we move from reactive spending to proactive solutions for wildfire prevention? Whether you're in wildfire-prone areas or just want to improve your emergency preparedness, this episode is packed with actionable advice and insights. Relevant Links Mentioned in the Episode: • Watch Duty App • Anchor Solix Backup Batteries • Tesla Powerwall • YourTechReport Website Chapter Markers 00:00 - “Intro and Setting the Stage” Takeaway: Opening thoughts on wildfires, news cycles, and emergency preparedness in the modern world. 00:29 - “Wildfires and Media Coverage” Takeaway: Why wildfires are receiving less coverage and how it affects those in impacted areas. 02:12 - “Lessons from California's Fires” Takeaway: Reflections on resilience, community support, and the importance of staying informed. 03:29 - “Tech-Driven Emergency Preparedness” Takeaway: The rise of apps like Watch Duty for real-time disaster updates and evacuation alerts. 04:47 - “Backup Batteries: A Lifesaver” Takeaway: Why solutions like Anchor Solix and Tesla Powerwalls are redefining home energy resilience. 06:34 - “Solar and Battery Systems: Pros and Cons” Takeaway: Exploring the practicality of solar panels and modular battery systems for homes. 08:55 - “Quiet Backup Solutions for Emergencies” Takeaway: How Anchor Solix fills a gap with non-solar battery options for clean, silent power. 13:05 - “Evacuation Essentials and Tech” Takeaway: Using cloud storage, fireproof bags, and quick documentation to protect what matters most. 16:25 - “Tech for Long-Term Solutions” Takeaway: Discussing how tech could prevent wildfires and why proactive infrastructure investment is overdue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tons and tons of controversy and fallout from Meta's announced content moderation changes yesterday. I've got I think a fair, comprehensive rundown of all the angles. Interesting new rounds for Bluesky and Anthropic. And the coolest stuff I've seen from CES thus far, including: are rollable laptop screens finally ready for prime time?Sponsors:Acorns.com/rideLinks:Meta's fact-checking changes are just what Trump's FCC head asked for (The Verge)Social-Media Companies Decide Content Moderation Is Trending Down (WSJ)AI Startup Anthropic Raising Funds Valuing It at $60 Billion (WSJ)Lenovo's Latest Laptop Has a Rollable OLED Screen (Wired)BMW's new iDrive turns the whole windshield into a heads-up display (The Verge)New Nike Therapeutic Shoes at CES 2025 Look Like Nothing You've Ever Seen Before (CNET)EcoFlow's Solar hat is better for the planet than your style (Engadget)Anker made a solar beach umbrella, because of course (Engadget)This Slim Little Battery I Saw at CES 2025 Is Like a Tesla Powerwall for Your Fridge (CNET)I Watched a Printer-Size Gadget Boost a Phone's Battery Life in Seconds (CNET)This toaster-looking gadget boosts your phone's battery in seconds (The Verge)If you're constantly losing cables, this could be your ideal charger (The Verge)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

UNSW's Baran Yildiz on how Australia's millions of rooftop solar systems and other consumer energy assets are being integrated into the grid. Plus, a Tesla Powerwall to go with your Bunnings sausage? And other news of the week.

This week on the Team Lally Real Estate Radio Show, we interview Reina Miyamoto of Hawaii HomeOwnership Center. Reina joins us to debunk common myths about homeownership, and she discusses the courses, training, and resources available for both home buyers and renters. Reina also shares a heartwarming success story and explains how you can support HHOC, with insights from Adrienne and Attilio on the impact of community giving for business owners.We also have Duke Kimhan from Hawaii Pacific Property Management who emphasizes the importance of using licensed and registered vendors and conducting thorough background checks. Jake Kissack from Go Local Powur highlights the significant savings on electric bills with solar power, introduces Tesla Powerwall 3, and dispels the myth that solar is prohibitively expensive, providing practical steps to get started.Who is Reina Miyamoto?Reina was born and raised in Honolulu. After graduating from college, she discovered her passion for mission-driven work and has dedicated most of her career to the nonprofit sector. For the past 18 years, she has been with the Hawaii Homeownership Center, demonstrating unwavering commitment and passion for their work and program expansion. She is currently the Executive Director of HHOC.The Hawaii HomeOwnership Center is a chartered member of the NeighborWorks Network, a prestigious group comprising over 230 non-profit organizations that serve both urban and rural communities nationwide. Its mission is to offer education, information, and support to help individuals become successful first-time homeowners in Hawai‘i. By overcoming obstacles and boosting homeownership rates, the HomeOwnership Center strives to strengthen families and communities across the state.To reach Reina, you may contact her in the following ways:Phone: (808) 523-9500Email: info@hihomeownership.orgWebsite: www.hihomeownership.org/

This week on the Team Lally Real Estate Radio Show, we interview Reina Miyamoto of Hawaii HomeOwnership Center. Reina joins us to debunk common myths about homeownership, and she discusses the courses, training, and resources available for both home buyers and renters. Reina also shares a heartwarming success story and explains how you can support HHOC, with insights from Adrienne and Attilio on the impact of community giving for business owners.We also have Duke Kimhan from Hawaii Pacific Property Management who emphasizes the importance of using licensed and registered vendors and conducting thorough background checks. Jake Kissack from Go Local Powur highlights the significant savings on electric bills with solar power, introduces Tesla Powerwall 3, and dispels the myth that solar is prohibitively expensive, providing practical steps to get started.Who is Reina Miyamoto?Reina was born and raised in Honolulu. After graduating from college, she discovered her passion for mission-driven work and has dedicated most of her career to the nonprofit sector. For the past 18 years, she has been with the Hawaii Homeownership Center, demonstrating unwavering commitment and passion for their work and program expansion. She is currently the Executive Director of HHOC.The Hawaii HomeOwnership Center is a chartered member of the NeighborWorks Network, a prestigious group comprising over 230 non-profit organizations that serve both urban and rural communities nationwide. Its mission is to offer education, information, and support to help individuals become successful first-time homeowners in Hawai‘i. By overcoming obstacles and boosting homeownership rates, the HomeOwnership Center strives to strengthen families and communities across the state.To reach Reina, you may contact her in the following ways:Phone: (808) 523-9500Email: info@hihomeownership.orgWebsite: www.hihomeownership.org/

В этом выпуске: все подробности об использовании солнечных панелей на крыше своего дома, свежие видео с конференции pgconf.dev 2024, свежий котик и свежие темы наших слушателей. Шоуноты: [00:05:50] Чему мы научились за неделю [00:21:16] [Одной строкой] PostgreSQL Hacking Workshop [00:25:34] [Одной строкой] A shallow survey of OLAP and HTAP query engines [00:28:39] Tesla Powerwall [01:08:38]… Читать далее →

https://youtu.be/9BonCkAmX6sMatt and Sean talk about Matt's new home battery, and viewers share their experiences. Why would you want one?Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell episode, My New Net Zero Home Battery Surprised Me https://youtu.be/Q7piAXkqvOM?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7FwYRnWkpCSkAeFOzrgh5hYouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/stilltbdpodcastGet in touch: https://undecidedmf.com/podcast-feedbackSupport the show: https://pod.fan/still-to-be-determinedFollow us on X: @stilltbdfm @byseanferrell @mattferrell or @undecidedmfUndecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/undecidedmf ★ Support this podcast ★

This Week in Startups is brought to you by… OpenPhone. Create business phone numbers for you and your team that work through an app on your smartphone or desktop. TWiST listeners can get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at https://www.openphone.com/twist⁠ Squarespace. Turn your idea into a new website! Go to http://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Lemon.io - Hire pre-vetted remote developers, get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist Todays show: Base Power's Justin Lopas joins Jason to discuss the critical link between energy availability and GDP per capita, focusing on Texas' deregulated energy market and recent power outages (2:16). They also dive into ERCOT's role (7:40), dynamic grid pricing (20:04), batteries' potential for grid resilience (23:09), and more! * Timestamps: (0:00) Base Power's Justin Lopas joins Jason (2:16) Discussion on Texas energy grid and recent power outages (5:34) Deregulated energy market in Texas (7:40) How the Texas grid works and the role of ERCOT (9:35) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://www.openphone.com/twist⁠ (10:50) Issues with the Texas energy system, power outages, and comparison with California's energy issues (20:04) Dynamic grid pricing in Texas (23:08) ERCOT's procedures during overload conditions and the role of batteries in grid resilience (25:39) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at http://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST (30:40) Cost comparison with Tesla Powerwalls (36:09) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist (45:12) Current deployment status, operational challenges, and regulatory challenges in the energy market (50:32) Proposal for trusted vendor programs and preferred vendor status (1:03:41) Correlation between energy availability and GDP per capita (1:04:19) Solving the energy problem to boost human prosperity * Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp * Check out Base Power: https://www.basepowercompany.com * Follow Justin: X: https://x.com/JLopas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinlopas * Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Thank you to our partners: (9:35) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://www.openphone.com/twist⁠ (25:39) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at http://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST (36:09) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist * Great 2023 interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland * Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow TWiST: Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.founder.university/podcast

In this special 400th episode, Matt delves into the NBA Playoffs, highlighting the Game 7 victories of the Indiana Pacers over the New York Knicks and the Minnesota Timberwolves over the Denver Nuggets, both impressive wins on the road. He reflects on his changing television and sports consumption habits, questioning whether the reduction in screen time is truly a bad thing. He shares his recent experience with solar energy, discussing how his house has been powered by the sun for the past month. Matthew provides insights into monitoring power distribution through his Tesla PowerWall, the grid, and his new Tesla. Additionally, he talks about the joy and benefits of mountain biking, emphasizing the value of outdoor activities and the media opportunities they can create. Finally, Matthew recounts his recent keynote speech at a digital marketing conference in New York City, offering a glimpse into his professional life and the key messages he delivered. Don't miss this milestone episode packed with diverse and engaging topics!

Make sure you choose the best energy storage solution to meet your needs with this expert guide to solar battery systems from Solar Edge Zen. Learn more at https://solaredgezen.com/tesla-powerwall-2-vs-generac-pwrcell-vs-enphase-iq-vs-panasonic-evervolt/ Solar Edge Zen City: Wake Forest Address: 1428 Burchblind Drive Website: https://solaredgezen.com Phone: (917) 363-7610

Introduction of the Battery Booster Program: Kempy, the CEO of Queensland Solar and Lighting, discusses the excitement around Queensland's Battery Booster Program, a new initiative by the Queensland government offering rebates for solar battery installations. This program includes a range of batteries, from high-end options like the Tesla Powerwall to more affordable choices.Safety and Effectiveness Concerns: Despite the enthusiasm, Kempy raises concerns about the safety and effectiveness of some cheaper battery options included in the program. He emphasizes the importance of choosing quality products over merely affordable ones to ensure safety and reliability.Eligibility and Rebate Details: Paul Martin, the Director General of the Department of Energy and Climate, outlines the program's eligibility criteria, offering rebates of up to $4,000 for the installation of approved solar batteries. The program aims to support renewable energy adoption and reduce household energy bills.Critical View on "Approved" Batteries and Installers: The transcript expresses skepticism towards the term "approved" used by the program, suggesting that not all approved batteries or installers guarantee quality or safety. Kempy advises homeowners to conduct thorough research before making a decision.Inspection and Compliance: The government commits to inspecting all systems installed under the program to ensure they comply with relevant standards, aiming to prioritize safety and effectiveness. The initiative is seen as a positive step towards supporting renewable energy, but the transcript calls for cautious participation, emphasizing the importance of informed choices and quality investments.Support the showBest Solar Panel Installer in Brisbane - Queensland Solar & Lighting - Since 2012

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from Electrek. Quick Charge is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded Monday through Thursday and again on Saturday. Subscribe to our podcast in Apple Podcast or your favorite podcast player to guarantee new episodes are delivered as soon as they're available. Stories we discuss in this episode (with links): Tesla leaks Powershare Mobile Connector Tesla Cybertruck just had its first real world crash Is Rivian planning a Tesla Powerwall-like home energy storage system? Rivian Max Pack doesn't deliver much extra range in first real-world test, especially for $10K Fisker (FSR) stock bounces after EV deliveries climb 300% in Q4 More Cruise fallout: GM sues San Francisco for $121 million Toyota, Nissan, 10 others join forces to form a new research group powerhouse for software https://youtu.be/t8cysNWI5x0 Subscribe to the Electrek Daily Channel on Youtube so you never miss a day of news Follow Mikey: Twitter @Mikey_Electric Listen & Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Spotify TuneIn Share your thoughts! Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us in Apple Podcasts or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

On this show, we discuss the Intel Thunderbolt 5 standard, Toyota's battery tech plans, Tesla Powerwall 3, and using bacteria to generate electricity.   Source Links: intel.com - Intel Introduces Thunderbolt 5 Connectivity Standard - https://intel.ly/3Q5tiMM arstechnica.com - Toyota reveals its EV battery technology plan - https://bit.ly/409iF05 electrek.co - Tesla Powerwall 3 Vehicle to Grid? - https://bit.ly/3Q5tAmQ eurekalert.org - Using Bacteria to generate electricity from wastewater - https://bit.ly/45PAnXJ

In this podcast we have Bill Brooks talking energy storage system (ESS) Codes, with emphasis on the National Electrical Code (NEC). Be sure to get Sean and Bill's latest book, which is the 3rd edition of PV and the NEC, based on the 2023 NEC. To find where to get different versions of the NEC including the 2023 NEC for free check out the NEC tab at solarSEAN.com.  Disclaimer: This podcast was recorded in 2021. Keywords NEC Article 706 for Energy Storage Systems, UL 9540, Article 480, nominal voltage, cycling batteries, UL 1973, residential code, UL 1989, AHJ, inspector advice, communications between battery and inverter, flywheels, flow batteries, UPS, Australia and Hawaii, NexTracker, inverter output circuit, nameplate on ESS, apparent power, fault currents limited, maximum output current definition, LG chem battery, power converter, OSHA NRTL, ETL, Intertech, UL, SMA, UL standards writing entity vs. UL testing entity, 2021 International Residential Code, Tesla Powerwall, storage inverter, Ginlong, 9540A, liquid cooled vs. air cooled, Enphase Barbecue, Enphase in boiled water, ESS disconnecting means, readily accessible, unbalanced interconnections, single-phase inverters on 3-phase services, voltage rise, 705.12 Load-Side Connections, 710 Stand Alone Systems, plaque or directory, wire sizing, ampacity, overcurrent protection device, rounding up wire size to common overcurrent protection device size, energy storage is a source and a load, using continuous current instead of surge current, inverter input circuit current, diversion loads, C40 charge controllers without maximum power point tracking and diversion loads, energy storage as a diversion load, hot water loads, pulse with modulation (PWM), 150% correction factors for diversion loads, dc-to-dc converters, required ampacity for continuous current vs. continuous current, commercial and industrial (C&I). Links: Bill Brooks, P.E.: www.brooksolar.com www.solarSEAN.com www.HeatSpring.com/SEAN 

Francie sits down to go over the most recent specs of the Powerwall 3 battery energy storage solution from Tesla. She discusses the differences from the first iterations of the Powerwalls, the software and hardware solutions involved, and answers some potential consumer concerns. Find us on all of these places:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/outofspecpodcastApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/out-of-spec-podcast/id1576636119Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tKIQfKL9oaHc1DLOTWvbdAmazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/473692b9-05b9-41f9-9b38-9f86fbdabee7/OUT-OF-SPEC-PODCASTFor further inquiries please email podcast@outofspecstudios.com#powerwall #solar #batterystorage Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to a new Patreon Producer JEFF BALL Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily, your trusted source of EV information. It's Thursday 14th  September, Martyn Lee here and I go through every EV story so you don't have to. We go live at 5pm UK, that's Midday Eastern.  Patreon supporters get the episodes as soon as they're ready and ad free. You can be like them by clicking here. BMW M3 Set to Electrify with Quad-Motor Power https://evne.ws/3Plq33z Ionity and Village Hotels Team Up for UK Charging https://evne.ws/3rczpq6 EU Eyes Tariffs on Subsidized Chinese EVs https://evne.ws/46bIOgt UAW's EV Transition: More than Just Batteries https://evne.ws/3EFnjZE Tesla's Influence Looms Over UAW-GM Talks https://evne.ws/467Pqwn Tesla Unveils Powerwall 3 Specs https://evne.ws/48sA73x Tesla Boosts Mexico Factory Investment to $15 Billion https://evne.ws/3Ln0ygY Tesla Launches Brake Upgrades for Model S and X https://evne.ws/46bAhKA VinFast's Self-Purchase Strategy https://evne.ws/3t249uk Renault's E-Tech Trafic Transporter Set for European Debut https://evne.ws/3EFnjsC Zeekr 001 FR Supercar: Intriguing Specs Unveiled https://evne.ws/48gdDSV Florida Mulls $200 EV Registration Fee https://evne.ws/3t25qBC Google Enhances Android Auto Features https://evne.ws/3PDc7TC Chinese Battery Titans Brace for Price War in EV Supply Chain https://evne.ws/3Lml3ua

Are you ready to supercharge your understanding of electric vehicles? On today's episode, we electrify your knowledge with insights straight from the expert's mouth — Richard 'Buzz' Smith - The EVangelist. We uncover the surprising role temperature plays in EV performance and how the very act of cooling your car can impact its battery life and range. Did you know your EV's battery could lose up to 5% of its capacity over time? Buzz shares these shocking facts and more. We shift gears in the second half of our episode as we journey into the future. Picture the internet's transformation and the fall of long-distance phone call costs. Now imagine a similar kind of revolution in the EV industry, sparked by the growing infrastructure in the U.S. From Tesla's charging network to the Ford F-150 Lightning, get ready to experience the electrifying potential of these innovations. And yes, we'll also address why Tesla fires make headlines and the implications of the infrastructure rollout in Texas.Finally, we dive into the world of vehicle-to-grid and energy transfer. Imagine cars contributing to a virtual power plant, creating an energy stock market. We delve into the benefits of a Tesla Powerwall, review automobile history, and bring some hot-off-the-press news from the auto industry. And remember, the Inwheel Time Car Talk family is always ready to welcome you into our fold. Join us for live shows every Saturday morning, and let's fuel our shared passion for cars together. Get ready to hit the road with us on this enlightening EV journey!In our FEATURE segment, Konrad DeLong presents the popular 'This Week In Auto History' ..... all this and more on this episode of In Wheel Time Car Talk.Sponsored by Gulf Coast Auto Shield Paint protection and more!Lupe Tortilla, sponsor Tailpipes & Tacos Lupe Tortilla in Katy, Texas, is host to the quarterly Saturday morning cruise-in!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.---- ----- Want more In Wheel Time Car Talk any time? In Wheel Time Car Talk is now available on iHeart Radio! Just go to iheart.com/InWheelTimeCarTalk where ever you are.----- -----Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast provider for the next episode of In Wheel Time Car Talk and check out our live broadcast every Saturday, 8a-11aCT simulcasting on iHeart Radio, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch and InWheelTime.com.In Wheel Time Car Talk can be heard on you mobile device from providers such as:Apple Podcasts, Pandora Podcast, Amazon Music Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart Radio podcast, TuneIn + Alexa, Podcast Addict, Castro, Castbox and more on your mobile device.Follow InWheelTime.com for the latest updates!Twitter: https://twitter.com/InWheelTimeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/inwheeltime/https://www.iheart.com/live/in-wheel-time-car-talk-9327/https://www.youtube.com/inwheeltimehttps://www.Facebook.com/InWheelTimeFor more information about In Wheel Time Car Talk, email us at info@inwheeltime.comTags: In Wheel Time, automotive car talk show, car talk, Live car talk show, In Wheel Time Car Talk

We install a Lumin smart panel with 80% of our Tesla Powerwalls. Wow! Why?! What's a smart panel, anyway? Phil and Stephen from Lumin, "the market leader for responsive load control",  joined Micah and Jared to talk system SMARTS, and what the future might hold to take your home's IQ even HIGHER!  Learn more about Lumin at https://www.luminsmart.com/

Hace un mes, la compañía estadounidense anunció que ya podíamos comprar en España su batería doméstica. 13,5 kWh para almacenar energía y consumirla a posteriori. Os doy mi opinión al respecto, sobre todo de la forma de comercializarla y del precio.

Support SciFi Thoughts by using the following referral/affiliate links: Are you interested in Tesla solar panels or solar roof? Use this link: https://ts.la/lance356183 If you're in Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, I'll refer you to All Energy Solar: https://mbsy.co/6qCWqh If you want to learn about your addresses solar potential, visit Energy Sage: https://solarrewards.energysage.com/l/1LANCEKIND14/ Sunrun offer: The below financing total includes 11,000 for replacing the roof because the 16 year old composite shingles were beginning to slip off. Energy Bill Before Solar Install Note the red box surrounding the kWh for each month. Better to pay attention to the kWh used rather than the dollars paid due to use using a level billing program, which charges an average cost over a set of the most recent bills. June July Aug Energy Bill After Solar Installation June ‘22 July ‘22 Aug ‘22 Energy Bill After Remodeling, 2023 Half the windows were replaced with high efficiency windows.  A radiant barrier was installed in the attics.  A new stage 2 AC system was installed.  A pool was installed too though, which adds to our more energy usage, but it's immensely enjoyable. Other reports from the power utility company. With a solar power system, this rating was given to me by my electric utility: This week's cost of power. It's May so I'm having a lot of off-grid days.  Here are the number of power interruptions which didn't happen due to having battery backup:  Tesla App Screenshots The following are screenshots of a near real time dashboard about solar power generation, power wall storage, and grid usage which is provided by the Tesla Powerwall 2 controller. At this time of day it's 7PM so the sun is weak.  The following is what the dashboard looks like when a good amount of solar power is being generated. The house is demanding 1.4kWh and the sun is providing 5.5kWhs. So you see the Powerwalls are getting the surplus power routed to them so that when the sun goes down, I'll still be “off the grid” and using batteries for the early evening and sometimes for the whole night.  Sunrun Reports If you enjoyed this episode, you'll enjoy the following: Listen to this series with David Silvan about his various sustainable living projects which also includes PV Solar: The following were mentioned in the show: With Unbound Solar you can do various levels of DIY or just be your own general contractor: https://unboundsolar.com Will Prowse will walk you through his DIY projects in solar: https://www.youtube.com/@WillProwse

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from Electrek. Quick Charge is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded Monday through Thursday and again on Saturday. Subscribe to our podcast in Apple Podcast or your favorite podcast player to guarantee new episodes are delivered as soon as they're available. Stories we discuss in this episode (with links): Tesla to announce location for new factory around end of year, but where? Tesla Powerwall 3 has 11.5 kW of power Ford is making it easier for you to buy an EV BMW debuts electric i5 with gaming, hands-free driving and lets you change lanes with your eyes Mercedes says an electric CLA sedan is coming to the US next year to rival the Tesla Model 3 Mercedes-Maybach introduces a murdered out ‘Night Series' version of the EQS SUV https://youtu.be/nbGygWEUvBU Subscribe to the Electrek Daily Channel on Youtube so you never miss a day of news Follow Mikey: Twitter @Mikey_Electric Listen & Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Spotify TuneIn Share your thoughts! Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us in Apple Podcasts or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

Meet Mark Jacobson and David Keith, the leading techno-fixologists who overpromise overhyped “solutions” to the climate conundrum. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. Sources/Links/Notes:The Solutions ProjectCarbon EngineeringDavid W. Keith et al., "A Process for Capturing CO2 from the Atmosphere," Joule, August 15, 2018.Christopher T. M. Clack et al., "Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar," PNAS, June 19, 2017.Natanael Bolson, P. Prieto, and T. Patzek, "Capacity factors for electrical power generation from renewable and nonrenewable sources," PNAS, December 20, 2022.Simon Michaux's websiteRichard Heinberg, "Can Civilization Survive? These Studies Might Tell Us," Resilience, December 19, 2022.Average household electricity consumptionDavid Fridley and Richard Heinberg, "Can Climate Change Be Stopped by Turning Air Into Gasoline?," Renewable Energy World, June 19, 2018.Mark Jacobson on Late Night with David LettermanJames R. Martin, "Energy Transition & the Luxury Economy," Resilience, October 31, 2022.Yamina Saheb, Kai Kuhnhenn, and Juliane Schumacher, "It's a Very Western Vision of the World," Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.Mark Z. Jacobson et al., "Low-cost solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity for 145 countries," Energy & Environmental Science (2022).Nicole Jewell, "Leading Stanford climate scientist builds incredible net zero home, complete with Tesla Powerwall," In Habitat (2017).Raymond Pierrehumbert, "The trouble with geoengineers 'hacking the planet'," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2017).Support the show

➤ Elon Musk interviews with the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-65249139 ➤ Twitter Spaces link: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1djGXldPqNyGZ ➤ CPI report ➤ FOMC meeting minutes ➤ Powerwall 3 reporting ➤ Say opens Tesla earnings Q&A ➤ EPA publishes new emissions proposal Shareloft: https://www.shareloft.com Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/teslapodcast Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tesladailypodcast Tesla Referral: https://ts.la/robert47283 Executive producer Jeremy Cooke Executive producer Troy Cherasaro Executive producer Andre/Maria Kent Executive producer Jessie Chimni Executive producer Michael Pastrone Executive producer Richard Del Maestro Executive producer John Beans Music by Evan Schaeffer Disclosure: Rob Maurer is long TSLA stock & derivatives

We are joined by special guest James Douma @jimmy_d to discuss Tesla's release of FSD Beta V11 (specifically V11.3), Powerwall now available without requiring Solar, Neuralink, the general progression of AI, and more.Topics-0:00 Stream begins0:20 Intro2:33 FSD V11.3 is out the door18:55 Cost of FSD & the economics of robotaxi29:30 Will Tesla face the "Innovator's Dilemma"?35:30 Tesla's neural net architecture & Project Dojo47:29 Tesla Powerwall now available w/out Tesla Solar58:07 Mike's Model 3 wiper upgrade1:04:14 Neuralink talk1:31:51 Questions/Comments from viewersThread mentioned in Mike's wiper upgrade segment: Wiper/Washer Arm Upgrade MYVisit our website at https://teslamotorsclub.com/Co-hosts:Louis @nebusoftMike @SteelCloudsDoug @dougProducers:Adam @ElectricAve84James @scrappsDaniel @dannySocial:TwitterFacebookInstagramYouTubeTikTokAbout us-Formed in 2006, Tesla Motors Club (TMC) was the first independent online Tesla community. Today it remains the largest and most dynamic community of Tesla enthusiasts.Support the show

Concord, CA real estate investors that install a solar battery storage system get the ultimate return on investment. Veteran-owned Semper Solaris, (925-320-3933), offers solar panel systems with financing on the Tesla Powerwall. Learn more at https://www.sempersolaris.com

Running through the numbers to see if home battery storage is viable on my home. And comparing Tesla Powerwall, Enphase IQ Battery, BYD LVS, and Greenbank battery pricing. All my solar videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvOlSehNtuHvPZ1-dDC449w_r2M0R4jtc Forum: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1502-is-home-battery-storage-financially-viable/ Youtube: Odysee:

Hear Bill and Gloria talk about the new law that was recently passed that provides homeowners and business owners who Solar-Fit their properties with a 30% federal solar tax credit for qualifying buyers. The new increased tax credit applies to our solar storage systems as well. You will also learn about our newest offering, the Solar-Fit Sun Pak which includes a solar power system, a Tesla Powerwall, and an a/c unit. This system package is ideally designed to provide emergency power and comfort when the grid goes down in the event of the unwelcome hurricane, or any other unexpected "brown out" occurrence. If you are thinking of saving money by going solar...you will want to listen in for sure!Support the show

Merch:Kilowatt StorePodFeet:NC #904 Panel on Memory and COVID, PhotoReviewer, Migration Assistant Disaster, Affordable EVs - Podfeet PodcastsLinks:Late-night 'motor noises' emanate from Apple's mysterious car testing center | AppleInsiderRivian and Mercedes-Benz sign agreement to produce large electric vansJeep to release four EV models by 2025Lucid Loses Many Top Execs Amid Difficult Production RampFord adds three new hands-free driving features to BlueCruiseFord's second EV pickup will be designed and developed from scratchFord CEO wants to compete with Tesla, will meet with dealers to lower EV pricesMG launch the new ZS EV, still Australia's most affordable EVGM to offer U.S. Buick dealers buyouts | Autoblog2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV Revealed In Full And DetailedTesla (TSLA) scouts factory sites in Quebec and OntarioTesla formally raises FSD price to $15,000Tesla Powerwall orders without solar might resume late 2022: Elon MuskTesla is going to let you vote on Supercharger locationsInside Tesla's drive to keep Musk's battery promiseWhy dry coating electrodes is the future of the electric vehicle battery industry - Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology InternationalNew Report Details Tesla's Difficulties Ramping 4680 Battery CellsSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/kilowatt. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/kilowatt. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from Electrek. Quick Charge is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded Monday through Thursday and again on Saturday. Subscribe to our podcast in Apple Podcast or your favorite podcast player to guarantee new episodes are delivered as soon as they're available. Stories we discuss in this episode (with links): Elon Musk: Tesla is waiting for inflation to ‘calm down' before finally reducing EV prices Tesla accounts for half of China's electric vehicle exportations 1,500 Tesla Powerwall owners have already joined the new virtual power plant in California Polestar CEO shares pricing for upcoming Polestar 3 and 4 SUVs expected to compete with Porsche https://youtu.be/D6gfmSR1j9g var postYoutubePlayer;function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() { postYoutubePlayer = new YT.Player( "post-youtube-video" ); } Subscribe to the Electrek Daily Channel on Youtube so you never miss a day of news Follow Mikey: Twitter @Mikey_Electric Listen & Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Spotify TuneIn Share your thoughts! Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us in Apple Podcasts or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

In this episode, Don, Kirk and Shawn begin with a discussion about movies seen over the holiday weekend, as well as news about non-line-of-site drones and Tesla Powerwall projects. The main topic includes information about Utility Vegetation Management and an interview with retired, Right-of-way Supervisor, Ed Wheeler. After a few great stories from Ed, the group closes out with a new segment called, “What's that?” Story Links: Beyond Line of Sight: Co-ops Await FAA Change on Utility Drones Thousands with Tesla Powerwalls will back up the grid in a virtual power plant experiment EP: 6 Timeline 03:52 – The News 18:30 – Episode Topic – Utility Vegetation Management 53:56 – Listener Questions 58:48 – Outro How to reach us: Twitter: @ChangingNRG Facebook: @ChangingNRG Email: changingenergy@wemc.com Phone: 919-863-6331

NEWS: Sugar-studded protein is key to an Alzheimer's cure | The Brighter Side (01:38) In a bit of “reverse engineering” research using brain tissues from five people who died with Alzheimer's disease, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they discovered that a special sugar molecule could play a key role in the development of Alzheimer's disease. This could indicate the molecule, known as a glycan, to be used as an early diagnostic test. And opens a way to perhaps prevention of the disease Cleaning up the disease-causing forms of amyloid and tau is the job of the brain's immune cells, called microglia. Earlier studies found that when cleanup is impaired, Alzheimer's disease is more likely to occur.  Thought to be caused by an overabundance of a receptor on the microglia cells, called CD33. Past studies by the researchers showed that for CD33, these “connector” molecules are special sugars.These molecules are ferried around the cell by specialized proteins that help them find their appropriate receptors.  The protein-glycan combination is called a glycoprotein.  The researchers, to find out more about the glycoproteins, obtained brain tissue from five people who died of Alzheimer's disease and from five people.Among the many thousands of glycoproteins they gathered from the brain tissues, only one connected to CD33. What was this mysterious glycoprotein?The researchers determined the protein component's identity by taking its “fingerprint” using mass spectroscopy, which identifies protein building blocks. Then they compared the molecular makeup of the protein with a database of known protein structures. The research team was able to conclude the protein portion of the glycoprotein was receptor tyrosine phosphatase (RPTP) zeta. Further experiments showed that the brain tissue of the five people who died with Alzheimer's disease had more than twice as much RPTP zeta S3L as the donors who did not have the disease. Implying that this glycoprotein may be connecting with more CD33 receptors than a healthy brain, limiting the brain's ability to clean up harmful proteins. Gonzalez-Gil Alvarenga, Ph.D., first author on the study stated:“Identifying this unique glycoprotein provides a step toward finding new drug targets and potentially early diagnostics for Alzheimer's disease.”   A Surprising Link Between Immune System and Hair Growth | Neuroscience News (07:36) Salk scientists have uncovered an unexpected molecular target of a common treatment for alopecia, a condition in which a person's immune system attacks their own hair follicles, causing hair loss. Corresponding author of the study, Ye Zheng, associate professor in Salk's NOMIS Center for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis, stated:“For the longest time, regulatory T cells have been studied for how they decrease excessive immune reactions in autoimmune diseases … Now we've identified the upstream hormonal signal and downstream growth factor that actually promote hair growth and regeneration completely separate from suppressing immune response.” Initially the researchers were interested in researching the roles of regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid hormones in autoimmune diseases.They did not function together to play a significant role in any of these conditions.  Thought they'd have more luck looking at environments where regulatory T cells expressed particularly high levels of glucocorticoid receptors The glucocorticoid receptor (GR, or GCR) also known as NR3C1 (nuclear receptor subfamily 3, group C, member 1) is the receptor to which cortisol and other glucocorticoids bind. The scientists induced hair loss in normal mice and mice lacking glucocorticoid receptors in their regulatory T cells.After two weeks, the researchers saw the normal mice grew their hair back, while the ones lacking the receptors struggled to grow it back The findings suggested that some sort of communication must be occurring between regulatory T cells and hair follicle stem cells to allow for hair regeneration.They continued to investigate how the regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid receptors behaved in skin tissue samples. They found that glucocorticoids instruct the regulatory T cells to activate hair follicle stem cells, which leads to hair growth. Depends on a mechanism whereby glucocorticoid receptors induce production of the protein TGF-beta3, all within the regulatory T cells. TGF-beta3 then activates the hair follicle stem cells to differentiate into new hair follicles, promoting hair growth.  This study revealed that regulatory T cells and glucocorticoid hormones are not just immunosuppressants but also have a regenerative function. Next, the scientists will look at other injury models and isolate regulatory T cells from injured tissues to monitor increased levels of TGF-beta3 and other growth factors.     Engineers devise clever system for EVs to share charge—while driving | Anthropocene (13:34) The charging station expansion isn't keeping up with the growing number of EVs on the road.The number of EVs on the road per public charging point globally rose to 9.2 at the end of last year, from 7.4 at the end of 2020, according to a study by BloombergNEF analyst Ryan Fisher on the state of public charging infrastructure. In a new study, engineers propose a way around this conundrum: EVs that share charge with each other while driving. In their vision, cars with low batteries could buy some charge from others with extra to spare, all without stopping. Could be orchestrated via a cloud-based control system Electrical and computer engineer Prabuddha Chakraborty the University of Florida and his colleagues propose a two-battery system for EVs.A large, slow-charging lithium-ion battery would drive the car,  A smaller, fast-charging battery would be used for on-the-go charging.  Once powered up, the small battery would transfer its charge to the car's main battery.  “Just like in your computer you have fast cache memory—but it's expensive—so you have other type of high-capacity memories that are slower,” said Tamzidul Hoque, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Kansas The cloud-based system idea:Monitor charge levels of electric cars.  If a car's power is starting to run low, the network would alert it to other cars nearby with enough charge to sell.  Once two cars are matched with owner consent, cables would connect them for charging and they would be locked at the same speed until the power transfer is complete. Yet even in a well-planned, dynamic peer charging network, the researchers found in simulations that the total charge of the network will slowly deplete.To try to get around this idea, they propose the concept of mobile charging stations: large battery-loaded trucks that would recharge multiple vehicles at once.  Like military jets being refueled in-flight by tanker aircraft.  Using popular traffic modeling software they were able to simulate their idea somewhat.They found that it would eliminate range anxiety and re-charging wait time, and reduce EV cost by eliminating the need to have big batteries.   Scientists Use Vegetable Oil Byproduct to Remove Heavy Metals From Contaminated Water | EcoWatch (20:27) Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, collaborating with ETH Zurich, Switzerland (ETHZ), have discovered a way to turn byproduct from vegetable oil production into a membrane that filters out heavy metals from water. Ali Miserez, study author and professor at Nanyang Technological University, stated:“Water pollution remains a major global issue in many parts of the world…Heavy metals represent a large group of water pollutants that can accumulate in the human body, causing cancer and mutagenic diseases. Current technologies to remove them are energy-intensive, requiring power to operate, or are highly selective in what they filter.” The researchers noticed that proteins in peanut and sunflower oil waste byproducts, called oilseed meals, were useful in attracting heavy metal ions.Turned the oilseed meals' proteins into nano-sized protein amyloid fibrils, which strongly attract heavy metal ions.  Combined these amyloid fibrils with activated carbon and tested the filters on three types of metal: platinum, chromium and lead. The membranes were 99.89% effective at filtering out all of the heavy metals from water, with the best results for platinum and lead. The membrane made from waste byproduct proteins is a low-cost option that requires little energy for decontamination, and the researchers say this innovation could work all over the world for water purification.  “Recovering precious platinum, which costs US$33,000/kg, only requires 32 kg of protein, while recovering gold, which is worth almost US$60,000/kg, only requires 16 kg of protein. Considering that these proteins are obtained from industrial waste that is worth less than US$1/kg, there are large cost benefits,” Miserez explained. Because of the simple technology, this filtration membrane is readily scalable, according to the researchers.   Tesla launches new virtual power plant that pays Powerwall owners to help end brownouts | Electrek (25:30) Tesla has launched a new virtual power plant in partnership with PG&E in California that will pay Powerwalls owners to help stabilize the electric grid and end brownouts in California. What is a virtual power plant?Consists of distributed energy storage systems, like Tesla Powerwalls, used in concert to provide grid services and avoid the use of polluting and expensive peaker power plants. Tesla has partnered with PG&E to launch a new version of its virtual power plant that will actually compensate people participating:The company's statement: “Become a part of the largest distributed battery in the world and help keep California's energy clean and reliable. Opt-in to the Tesla Virtual Power Plant (VPP) with PG&E and your Powerwall will be dispatched when the grid needs emergency support. Through the Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP) pilot, you will receive $2 for every additional kWh your Powerwall delivers during an event. Adjust your Backup Reserve to set your contribution, while maintaining backup energy for outages.” Depending on the events and the number of Powerwalls homeowners have, they could earn anywhere from $10 to $60 per event or even more for bigger systems. The extra capacity your Powerwall provides could help avoid or reduce blackouts in a severe emergency. This way, Powerwall can keep the lights on for both you and your community. Tesla said that it has about 50,000 Powerwalls that could be eligible for this VPP, which add up to a significant 500 MWh of energy capacity than can be distributed in any event.

Hear Bill and Gloria's conversation with their friends Jim and Carol Cherry. The Cherry's are long time Solar-Fit customers and it was a real treat to visit their beautiful home and learn how solar power and energy storage has added savings and comfort to their lifestyle. Their electric bill has dropped from $200 per month down to $9 per month and their Tesla Powerwalls are providing security and protection in the event of a of a grid outage. Thank you Jim and Carol for the fun interview!Support the show

Some of the areas of the NEC that we cover in this podcast are: Ground Fault Protection, Ground Fault Detection and interruption (GFDI) term clarified (not to be confused with GFCI), 690.45 Equipment Grounding Conductors (EGC) includes DC and AC not having to increase size of EGC when upsizing current carrying conductor for voltage drop (now also applies to AC PV and modifies NEC 250.122), 250.122 EGC sized based on OCPD, Microgrid Interconnect Device (MID), Interactive Mode vs. Voltage Mode, putting multiple inverters prior to the first OCPD, 705.13 Power Control Systems (PCS) was changed to Energy Management Systems (EMS), EMS was previously just for loads, Tesla Powerwall, PCS is not the part of the EMS that is controlling sources, Batteries as Source and Load, EVs Article 625, and more! Quotes: Bill Brooks (soon to be famous quotes). “Changes in size for voltage drop do not have to increase the size of the equipment grounding conductor” “It's penalizing you for doing the right thing” Bill on 250.122 upsizing the EGC for voltage drop. “All we've done is we've taken the microgrid interconnect device and stuck it inside the inverter” Bill on multimode inverter with 2 AC outputs. “We could have a system that was 50kW going into a 100A service.” [South: at about 49 min, so let's put in intro.] “We have large systems right now, that have a 5MW interconnection that have a 30 PV array on them.”  “You can run a 400A feed to a large EV charging area, you can put 20 cars on it.” “The controller would never allow you to draw more than 400A.” “You have a controller that prevents the conductors from receiving too much current.” “At the end of the day, the NEC is all about safety. It's all about, we do not burn buildings down with correctly installed electrical equipment.” This is a recording of part of an NEC workshop at the Intersolar 2022 conference at the Long Beach California Convention Center in January 2022.   The workshop was titled: Energy Storage, PV and the NEC.   Bill Brooks is instrumental in the process of coming up with material for the NEC for renewable energy systems, especially for solar, energy storage and interconnections. Although the 2023 NEC has not been finalized or published, this is as good of a preview as you can get for knowing what the future will bring. Many manufacturers, engineers, CEOs and other decisionmakers can make better informed decisions about the future, knowing what will be in the National Electrical Code. Bill Brooks is on NEC Code Making Panel 4 (the alternative energy panel) and has been perhaps the most active member of the PV Industry Forum, which is where new material for the NEC for Solar PV, Energy Storage and Interconnections are made. Bill has been working on Codes and Standards for 34 years. Bill Brooks and Sean White also published the book PV and the NEC. Note: This podcast was recorded on an iPhone 13 and to my surprise the recording quality was way better than expected, so we decided to podcast it! WARNING: Bill Brooks and Sean White sometimes think they are funny. If you disagree with this and do not like dad jokes, do not listen to this podcast.

Phones Show Chat 696 - Show Notes Steve Litchfield and Ted Salmon with Nick Ballard (cheapretirement.co.uk) MeWe Groups Join Links PSC - PSC Photos - PSC Classifieds - Steve - Ted Feedback and Contributions Andrew Manning on Apple Watch John Tanzer and Kurt Kaufman on Qi Charging Vivo X80 Pro - GSMArena Hands-On Vivo X80 Pro Review: The best camera on a smartphone OnePlus switching to LCD from OLED for Flagships Microsoft just lowered the Surface Duo 2 by GBP500 Update to Windows Subsystem for Android on Windows 11 Android apps on Windows 11 will soon be running on Android 12.1 Device Week Microsoft Surface Duo 2 - Security Update but still no Android 12L Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max Tesla Powerwall - EcoFlow - EcoFlow River Motorola Edge+ Motorola Edge 30 Pro vs Motorola Edge+ (2020) Fairphone 3+ - A Roundup of Changes from Android 10 to Android 11 OnePlus Nord 2 5G Apple iPhone 14 Series Rumours Live Draw Every week we have a Prize Draw for your chance to win phone accessories and this week's winner is Kah Leong Ow! Do get involved before the next one by joining the Virtual Pint of Beer a Month Club - It could be you winning a prize! stevelitchfield.com/paypal.htm & tinyurl.com/pspromo Photo of the Month Chain by Matt Elphick using an Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max. Cropped only. Help us by buying from Amazon UK via Steve's affiliate or Ted's affiliate. Or buy Ted a coffee? Links of Interest PodHubUK - Twitter - MeWe PSC Group - PSC Photos - PSC Classifieds - WhateverWorks - Camera Creations - TechAddictsUK - The TechBox - AAM - AAWP - Chewing Gum for the Ears - Projector Room - Coffee Time - Ted's Salmagundi - Steve's Rants'n'Raves

Протягом усієї війни ми висвітлюємо, як ІТ-індустрія реагує, допомагає та працює в умовах російської агресії. У новому випуску говоримо про переїзд ПриватБанку, декларацію про майбутнє інтернету, передачу Tesla Powerwall Україні та поновлення найму в EPAM. Підписуйтесь на канал Юри — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKAWfbrt9PyDH7RAOr2M08g !

Matt and Sean take a look at solar roof options and discuss the multiple approaches to getting them to market.Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell episode, “The Problem With Tesla's Solar Roof”: https://youtu.be/sFwZQHZAJDc?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7UWp64ZlOKUPNXePMTdU4dYouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/stilltbdpodcastGet in touch: https://undecidedmf.com/podcast-feedbackSupport the show: https://pod.fan/still-to-be-determinedFollow us on Twitter: @stilltbdfm @byseanferrell @mattferrell or @undecidedmfUndecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/undecidedmf★ Support this podcast ★

News These are the 5 costliest invasive species, causing billions in damages Scientists are turning to dogs to learn about the secrets of ageing Review: Tesla Powerwall 2 Brendan is in love with his battery. He reviews the Tesla Powerwall 2 and give it a stellar 9.5 out of 10. Main Topic: Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome Mark is in detective mode. We discuss Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome - let the mystery solving begin! Don't be Shy - say Hi! Send us an email: VetGurus@Gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners - give us a yell now! About our Podcast Our podcast is for veterinarians, veterinary students and veterinary nurses/technicians. If you are at pet owner please search elsewhere - there are lots of great podcasts aimed specifically at pet owners. The veterinary podcast about veterinary medicine and surgery, current news items of interest, case reports and anecdotes. Wait: It's not all about veterinary matters! We also discuss other areas we are passionate about, including photography and wildlife. Thanks for joining us - Brendan and Mark. Become a Patron Become a Patron of VetGurus: Support us by 'throwing a bone' to the VetGurus - a small regular donation to help pay for our production costs. It's easy; just go to our Patreon site. You can be a rabbit.. or an echidna.. one day we are hoping for a Guru level patron! https://www.patreon.com/VetGurus Support our sponsors Specialised Animal Nutrition. Specialised Animal Nutrition is the Australian distributor of Oxbow Animal Health products. Used and recommended by top exotic animal veterinarians around the globe,  the Oxbow range comprises premium life-staged feeds and supportive care products for small herbivores. Chemical Essentials. Cleaning and disinfection products and solutions for a wide variety of industries throughout Australia, as well as specific markets in New Zealand, Singapore and Papua New Guinea. The sole importer of the internationally acclaimed F10SC Disinfectant and its related range of advanced cleaning, personal hygiene and animal skin care products. Microchips Australia: Microchips Australia is the Australian distributor for: Trovan microchips, readers and reading systems; Lone Star Veterinary Retractor systems and Petrek GPS tracking products. Microchips Australia is run by veterinarians experienced in small and large animal as well as avian and exotic practice, they know exactly what is needed for your practice. Disclaimer Any discussion of medical or veterinary matters is of a general nature. Consult a veterinarian with experience in the appropriate field for specific information relating to topics mentioned in our podcast or on our website.

Matt and Sean talk about a decentralized power grid in the form of thousands of at home batteries.Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell episode, “How My Tesla Powerwall Could Save the Grid”: https://youtu.be/_UJiglrYgJY?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7sp17ey2ydGRGBTFijdYChYouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/stilltbdpodcastGet in touch: https://undecidedmf.com/podcast-feedbackSupport the show: https://pod.fan/still-to-be-determinedFollow us on Twitter: @stilltbdfm @byseanferrell @mattferrell or @undecidedmfUndecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/undecidedmf★ Support this podcast ★

Matt and Sean talk about Matt's experience with smart circuit breakers and smart electric panels, how you might need to divvy up your power needs in a blackout, and what to do when you've got a rogue dehumidifier.Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell “This Smart Home Electric Panel Fixed My Tesla Powerwall” episode: https://youtu.be/CQWehDQ9_uQ YouTube version of the podcast: https://youtu.be/LMyCL5va7BYGet in touch: https://undecidedmf.com/podcast-feedbackSupport the show: https://pod.fan/still-to-be-determinedFollow us on Twitter: @stilltbdfm @byseanferrell @mattferrell or @undecidedmfUndecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/undecidedmf★ Support this podcast ★

Matt and Sean discuss how the aesthetics of solar tiles might not find a mass market place if panels start to be an everyday item. Also: is the cost really out of control in the US?Watch the Undecided with Matt Ferrell “Exploring Tesla Solar Roof vs. Solar Panels” episode: https://youtu.be/TxscCFyYPtoYouTube version of the podcast: https://youtu.be/kkuFN3OjvyoGet in touch: https://undecidedmf.com/podcast-feedbackSupport the show: https://pod.fan/still-to-be-determinedFollow us on Twitter: @stilltbdfm @byseanferrell @mattferrell or @undecidedmfUndecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/undecidedmf★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy, including Tesla's Q1 earning results, Tesla Powerwall 2+, Elon Musk on new FSD Beta update, and more. The show is back live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek's YouTube channel. As a reminder, we'll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in. After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps: Apple Podcasts Spotify Overcast Pocket Casts Castro RSS We now have a Patreon if you want to help us to avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming. Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast today: Tesla (TSLA) releases Q1 2021 results: delivers on high expectations with $10 billion in revenue Tesla plans to return to making over 100,000 Model S and Model X vehicles per year with new version Tesla updates new Model S delivery timeline: ‘should start very shortly' Tesla Model 3 becomes best-selling premium sedan in the world Elon Musk announces Tesla ‘Powerwall 2 Plus' secretly went into production in November Elon Musk hypes Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta driving visualizations with new update Tesla's head of UI departs, showing unseen Cybertruck and FSD images in the process Ram TRX truck was spotted on Tesla's test track, potentially benchmarking for Cybertruck Tesla says it will power all Superchargers with renewable energy this year Elon Musk says no to a new Tesla PR department, doesn't believe ‘manipulating public opinion' Watch Hyundai Ioniq 5 charge to 80% in 18 minutes with impressive charge rate Why some electric car owners return to gas – the reasons aren't surprising Here's the live stream for today's episode starting at 4 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET): https://youtu.be/sAoJDPSgsfM var postYoutubePlayer;function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() { postYoutubePlayer = new YT.Player( "post-youtube-video" ); }