← The Best One Yet
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- [00:00]
Nick
Yetis, Nick and Jack coming at you from the T Boy studio right now.
- [00:04]
Jack
We're about to play the interview part of our live show in Chicago, which is our interview with Chris Barman, CEO of Slate Auto.
- [00:11]
Nick
We think you're gonna like it. We think you're gonna love it, Jack. Let's hit it. First, a quick word from our sponsor.
- [00:22]
Jack
Now a quick break. Switching topics to one of our favorite sponsors, Florida Vital Proteins.
- [00:27]
Nick
All right, Yeti. So Jack has become an extreme collagen user. This guy's adding vital proteins collagen to each morning coffee. And Jack drinks a lot of morning coffee, I should point out.
- [00:36]
Jack
Yeah, I have three cups a day. I have a tub of mocha and a tub of chocolate. Both make my coffee taste chocolatey.
- [00:42]
Nick
So Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides is a supplement that has four benefits all in one. Helping support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints.
- [00:49]
Jack
That is how my face got dewier than a donut.
- [00:51]
Nick
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- [00:55]
Jack
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- [01:00]
Nick
Get 20% off by going to vitalproteins.com and entering promo code T boy at checkout.
- [01:05]
Jack
That's vital proteins.com promo code T boy for 20% off.
- [01:08]
Nick
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
- [01:16]
Jack
Airbnb Yetis.
- [01:17]
Nick
There is nothing more powerful in life or in business than the Double Dip.
- [01:22]
Jack
Dip that chip twice and and don't.
- [01:24]
Nick
End it with the ultimate money Double Dip hosting on Airbnb. Jack's talked so much about being a host, his friends are asking him about it. I'm getting asked about it all the time.
- [01:34]
Jack
One buddy is about to get married. He has no kids yet. He wants to travel the country dink style with his new wife. How is he gonna pay for it? He's gonna list his house on Airbnb.
- [01:43]
Nick
So, Basties, if you're going on vacation this summer, join the millions who host on Airbnb.
- [01:47]
Jack
Host your whole space. Host your extra space. Host any space.
- [01:50]
Nick
The income from putting your home on Airbnb could pay for your whole vacay.
- [01:55]
Jack
I've been doing it for three different.
- [01:57]
Nick
Properties now, and it's easy to set booking availability. And then when the booking comes in, Jack, you always say it just shows up in your Google calendar.
- [02:04]
Jack
And if you're not sure what to price your place at, check Airbnb and look at Similar listings. It's very easy.
- [02:10]
Nick
You can double dip that ship.
- [02:12]
Jack
Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host.
- [02:19]
Nick
Yetis. Our guest tonight is the CEO of the buzziest company in the buzziest industry.
- [02:25]
Jack
Slate Auto is pickup truck. That's half the price of pickup trucks.
- [02:31]
Nick
Their biggest investor, Jeff Bezos. Yeah, that Jeff.
- [02:35]
Jack
And their product. It's making Elon jealous because Slate's new car is electric.
- [02:40]
Nick
But that's the least interesting part of the car.
- [02:43]
Jack
She is building a car so low priced, you could just venmo them for it.
- [02:48]
Nick
It looks like a real life hot wheel. Like, it kind of looks like a toy. Honestly, it's. It looks just like the emoji for a truck.
- [02:56]
Jack
And it's got so little technology in it. It seems like it was inspired by the Amish.
- [03:01]
Nick
Now, Jack and I said there is opportunity in extremes. Well, Slate is the most extreme car we've ever seen.
- [03:09]
Jack
It's the disruptor of dealerships, the tamer.
- [03:12]
Nick
Of Tesla, the biggest innovator in the car industry since Henry invented Ford.
- [03:18]
Jack
Chris Barman, the CEO of Slate Auto, is our guest tonight and we're thrilled she's here.
- [03:24]
Nick
We covered when she launched this company out of stealth mode back in April, and now we get to sit with her. And you do too.
- [03:31]
Jack
Yetis, give it up for Chris Barman. Chris, thank you so much for coming. Chris, you can go right ahead.
- [03:48]
Chris Barman
Mike.
- [03:48]
Jack
Y.
- [03:48]
Chris Barman
Awesome.
- [03:49]
Jack
And just. Yeah, it's already on.
- [03:50]
Chris Barman
All right, perfect. Thanks for having me, guys. This is awesome.
- [03:54]
Jack
Chris, thank you so much for coming. This is huge. Did you drive from Michigan or.
- [03:59]
Chris Barman
I flew in.
- [04:00]
Jack
Okay.
- [04:01]
Chris Barman
But actually I'm driving back, so I'm gonna make a stop. Production plant in Warsaw.
- [04:07]
Jack
At the Slate production plant in Indiana.
- [04:09]
Nick
Nice.
- [04:09]
Chris Barman
But no, I'm gonna stop at our manufacturing facility on the way back and then end up in Michigan.
- [04:14]
Nick
Great. Well, we wanted to ask you to kick things off. Every headline about Slate in the last few months, Chris, has been about the Bezos investment from Jeff. Some have called it the Bezos mobile.
- [04:26]
Jack
How did you and your team convince Jeff Bezos to invest?
- [04:30]
Chris Barman
So let me give you a little bit of history of, like, the idea of Slate. Like the whole, how did it come to be? So the CEO of Rebuild Manufacturing, a gentleman by the name of Miles Arnone, had this idea in the fall of 2021, like, where have all the affordable vehicles gone? Like, every new car was coming out and he just looked at it and he's like, he loved when he was younger. His Jeep Cherokee, like the old xj, the boxy one, which was just a basic vehicle. And he started thinking about it. He's like, there's no VW Bugs. There's no Model T. Like, what happened to all of those vehicles? And started talking with the chairman, Jeff Wilkie, and Will Barker, who, you know is on the board, and like, hey, this isn't here. What about, like, why don't we do something like that?
- [05:19]
Jack
Something like the VW Beetle or.
- [05:20]
Chris Barman
Yeah, like a really basic, super basic car. Back to the basics. Like, only the essentials. And.
- [05:27]
Nick
Okay.
- [05:28]
Chris Barman
So they hired, at the time, the executive chairman, Rod Copes. Rod's background was from Harley Davidson and Rivian. So a little bit of that accessorization of a vehicle and bringing in some automotive. And then they went and did a search for a CEO. And I was contacted by an executive recruiter. And I read this document. And the first time I read it, I was like, this is insane. Who thinks that you can really do this? And I had been in the auto industry for a number of years, and I woke up the next morning, clear head, and I was like, okay, set aside everything that you felt encumbered. Large automotive manufacturers and look at it through this lens of really careful. Can these things be done? And started working through it. I was like, yeah, like, there is something here that this can really be done and be possible. So very fortunate they asked me to come on board, and we built a small team in 2022, improved out a business model, and then at that point, we had to go get some people to support us.
- [06:31]
Nick
Now let's get to how you actually came to the market, because it was insane before we described the car, which you can see a picture of up here, but there were zero leaks about this last spring. Suddenly these bizarre cars started driving around San Francisco with things on them, like cat therapy business, or put your baby in our car and we'll drive them to sleep. What was going on with this mystery launch you guys did?
- [06:59]
Chris Barman
So we had a great team of people that were working really hard on this because we had been in stealth for almost three years, like just working away on a car. And we were ready to come out and tell everybody, like, hey, like, we're out here and we're doing this car, but how do you go from, like, zero to, like, massive awareness in the minimal amount of time? And the team worked really hard on whatever theme they came up with. It had to showcase the vehicle itself and what it did. And so where you saw those different parity Businesses like every day there was a different version of the vehicle. Be it the truck, be it the square back suv, be it the fastback SUV that was wrapped differently and accessorized differently, but with these fake businesses to get people like a little bit of mystery, a little bit of intrigue, a little bit of confusion, like, what's going on? So every day on Abbot Kinney in la, we parked a different vehicle out there. So as you mentioned, one of them was Cryshare. So if you have your crying baby and you really want somebody to just drive it around for a while, they'll do that. But if you haven't seen the vehicle, it had like car seats on the top of it. And so it was put a little bit of stretch in there, people looking at it like going, okay, this can't be real. But actually we were kind of quietly had people monitoring and as people walk down the street and they're like, well, I don't know, maybe babies like the feel of the wind in their face and it could be really soothing. So, you know, it went from there to cat therapy was one of them. And the one that we ended with was taxiderm. My family. So, you know, if you just don't want that family member to go away, you can taxidermy and have them stay with you. But in all of this, each one was wrapped differently and shown in different configurations. So that as we came out and announced the car, it was the basis upon which, showing the scale at which and the variety at which the vehicle can be changed.
- [09:02]
Nick
So I gotta say, Jack and I were talking before the show. We love your legal team, that they were okay with this. In fact, we were thinking you're gonna be the first car company that has a Labubu doll and an Erewhon smoothie collaboration.
- [09:16]
Jack
So we covered the launch in April and on our show we described it as the first car inspired by the Amish. Because it's an analog car. There's a lot of technology we expect from cars these days that the Slate truck does not have.
- [09:31]
Nick
It doesn't have a radio, it doesn't have speakers, it doesn't have power windows. It's not in. None of these are in the car.
- [09:38]
Jack
Why do you think that someone would like a car that's so anti tech?
- [09:44]
Chris Barman
The way that we thought about it is one we wanted to make sure we looked at price point. So we looked at anything that goes in the car has to fight its way back in that people really want. And some of it is also a little bit of people are getting a little bit of tech fatigue as well. But what's unique about what we're doing is we want the power of choice to be in the owner's hands. So it doesn't mean you can't have the tech, but you decide what you want to bring into the vehicle after purchase. So as you said, no radio. We've designed that if you want to bring a radio in, the design of the center storage bin area fits for a single din. So you can bring a radio in. But we've also developed an app. Like most people today, you just use your streaming audio and your navigation and everything from your phone. Why try to replicate that? There's a great source out there. If you want something bigger than your phone, we've got an accessories rail on the lower part of the instrument panel, and that's where you can bring in a tablet.
- [10:43]
Jack
Yeah. So you make it super easy to just put your phone in there.
- [10:45]
Chris Barman
Exactly. Your phone, your tablet. And then what it does is it disconnects from the consumer electronics life cycle. So like, you know, radios today, infotainment systems are embedded in there. And in a few years, it's like totally outdated. This is like just unclip the one you have and bring a new one.
- [10:59]
Jack
My father in law has this like really expensive home surround sound set.
- [11:03]
Nick
Oh, like a lot of knobs.
- [11:04]
Jack
Yeah. But it's like, it's so out of date. I just like Aircast, my Spotify and he hates it when I do that.
- [11:10]
Nick
Well, the funny thing Jack and I noticed was when you announced the car, you said that it was not going to have a screen to change the temperature. You said it would have knobs. And everyone applauded.
- [11:19]
Jack
Everyone applauded. And I get that.
- [11:20]
Nick
Yeah.
- [11:21]
Jack
I wish so badly I could change the temperature more easily. Instead, I have to like tap the screen four times.
- [11:25]
Nick
You're kind of taking the Mr. Potato Head approach to the car. Or IKEA. I guess IKEA is the analogy here. You kind of are letting the consumer do it themselves.
- [11:34]
Jack
But that's why we said in our introduction of you that the fact that this truck is electric is the least interesting thing about it. Because Nick and I, on our show, you've heard us, we've described modern cars, especially electric cars, as iPhones on wheels. But you guys are like, you already have an iPhone. Why would I sell you another?
- [11:53]
Chris Barman
Yeah, really. Again, we just want the basic transportation be there. And we want it to be safe, reliable, affordable. So we're going to design it to the highest safety standards. A new car assessment program, five star IAH's top safety pick. One of the best warranties in the industry. And really the market that we're looking to go into, where like most electric vehicles have gone and where the whole industry has gone is really like upmarket in high end. We're looking to come in at that affordability price point. And so we think, you know, yes, we'll get new vehicle buyers, but we're looking at people who thought they could only afford a used vehicle. And now being in that price point where instead of, hey, my only option was that I had to get a car that was high mileage, had older safety standards, it's out of warranty, it might break down. You're getting the latest safety standards, you're getting one that's under warranty, being an ev, it's going to be a lower total cost of ownership for the vehicle and you can accessorize it however you want so you can turn it into your own personal vehicle.
- [12:54]
Jack
So you basically. I want to talk about customization in a second, but you basically went full model T in the sense of your assembly line, has the same exact car rolling off of it.
- [13:05]
Nick
That's classic Henry Ford.
- [13:07]
Jack
It's a two door pickup truck, electric, in slate gray. Or as you call it, a blank slate.
- [13:16]
Chris Barman
We do, we call it the blank slate.
- [13:17]
Jack
You can have any car you want as long as it's.
- [13:20]
Chris Barman
We make it, you build it.
- [13:22]
Jack
Great. So how, what if people don't want a blank slate? Tell me more about this customization.
- [13:29]
Chris Barman
So we're designing hundreds of accessories that can go on the vehicle so people can trick it out and make it their own. So one of the big ones, as you mentioned, it's only in slate gray. We recognize not everybody wants a gray vehicle, but we've designed it up front to be wrapped. So that's how you get your color.
- [13:47]
Jack
Like a Christmas present.
- [13:49]
Chris Barman
Not quite like a Christmas present, but using the vinyl wrap that's used in the industry. I mean cars today. If you get a car wrapped today, typically it's thousands of dollars and takes days in order to do it because it's not been designed up front. So you have to remove door handles and other parts of the car and then there's these complex curvatures to it that give it a design that is what was the theme of that brand. But it's really difficult to wrap it. We started working with one of the largest wrap providers in the early days, like in August of 2022. He came in and is still working very closely with us. And advised us on these are the type of handles you want to use and this is how you want to design your lights and this is what you want to do for the curvature of the vehicle. So a lot of great input to our design team. Our design team really took it to heart. And then given the fact that we use composite exterior panels, they're not sheet metal, we're able to actually mold in features that allow you to take smaller pieces of the wrap kit and install them. So we're doing it with the mind. We want it to be diy so if somebody wants to they can actually wrap their own vehicle. We'll have Slate University where you can use learn. If you're maybe not that bold and don't want to do it or you just don't have time, we'll have a network of service providers that can do that.
- [15:10]
Nick
Now a quick word from our sponsor.
- [15:14]
Jack
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- [15:15]
Nick
Ah, speed and quality. Not typically a combo you get together.
- [15:20]
Jack
I mean, Nick, you can get a fast food hamburger, but we hope you like it well done.
- [15:25]
Nick
Or Jack, you can get a 10 second haircut, but we hope you like bangs.
- [15:31]
Jack
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- [15:39]
Nick
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Jack
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- [15:49]
Nick
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- [15:57]
Jack
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- [15:59]
Nick
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- [16:03]
Jack
And if you go to ziprecruiter.com T boy right now you can try it out for free again.
- [16:08]
Nick
That's ziprecruiter.com tboy ziprecruiter the smartest way to hire. Yes, it is. Audible T boy Trivia. Here we go. Yetis. What is the biggest thing you can pack for vacation but not have to check your luggage?
- [16:24]
Jack
I think it's a leading question based on my Audible I just said a second ago.
- [16:27]
Nick
Yeah, yeah. The answer's the Audible app. It's the Audible app.
- [16:29]
Jack
Audible has the deepest selection of audiobooks, podcasts and Audible originals all in one app.
- [16:34]
Nick
You gotta stick all your clothes in a suitcase, but you get thousands of audio titles in your pocket.
- [16:39]
Jack
Right now I'm on a World War II kick. I'm listening to Doris Kearns Goodwin on FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt.
- [16:45]
Nick
How we created the arsenal of democracy. It is Jack's Roman Empire right now.
- [16:48]
Jack
Now, when we're packing for our summer vacation, we don't forget our toothbrush and we don't forget our Audible.
- [16:53]
Nick
There's more to imagine when you listen.
- [16:55]
Jack
Sign up for a free 30 day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free.
- [16:59]
Nick
Visit audible.comt boy, that's audible.comt boy. What's the craziest thing that you wanted to launch but you didn't launch? And you can. No one here will tell anyone, I promise. You can just share with us. But was there anything you guys really were like, spitballing were like, hey, let's do that. But that didn't.
- [17:19]
Chris Barman
We did. And this is. Okay. So this is gonna be like a little bit nerdy, like on the engineering side. But we up front spent a lot of time trying to understand how to do a bolted body instead of a welded body. Because when you put a weld shop in, it requires so much capital investment. We wanted to see could we do it in a lower cost way and have it all come together and meet all the right quality and safety and everything. And like, we study that for a few months and we're like, okay, that's a bridge too far.
- [17:47]
Nick
I thought you were gonna say we almost didn't have doors, but.
- [17:49]
Chris Barman
No, no, but you can. You can drive it.
- [17:52]
Nick
Not a bad idea.
- [17:53]
Chris Barman
But you can drive it without doors if you want, after the fact. Yeah, you can take the doors off.
- [17:57]
Jack
I know there's an SUV kit.
- [17:59]
Chris Barman
There is an SUV kit.
- [18:01]
Jack
Do I install that myself? Does it arrive in the mail?
- [18:04]
Chris Barman
You can do that if you'd like to. So thinking about Ikea, we used inspiration from a lot of different areas. It comes as a flat pack, so you can actually install.
- [18:12]
Jack
That's what we have up here. That's like a pickup truck, right?
- [18:16]
Chris Barman
Yep. So you get the pickup truck. If you want it to be an suv, you order the SUV kit. Two kits. It's either square back or fastback. We'll mail you the kit if you want to install it yourself. And yeah, you put it together. So first you put in the roll bar. The roll bar has airbags on it because we want to make sure that everybody's safe. Next, you put in the seat. You cannot put in the seat unless you put in the roll bar. We don't ever want to see anybody driving around with a seat without having the roll bar. And then you can put on the cap.
- [18:45]
Nick
Okay, but how Jack and I were trying to run the numbers on is $25,000.
- [18:49]
Jack
I mean, this is the most important part.
- [18:51]
Nick
This is the key part here.
- [18:52]
Jack
$25,000. Yes.
- [18:53]
Nick
I mean, Tesla's, you know, hasn't been making a profit. You have. Rivians never really made money on their cars. What is it that's going to make you guys, as you said, profitable and able to sell at this price point of $25,000?
- [19:07]
Jack
How can you be profitable on a car that's selling for half the price of the other cars?
- [19:14]
Chris Barman
So the, I mean, the business model that we took on, this was where we talked about only the essentials, taking things out that we want to put the choice in the consumer's hands to do that. So, I mean, to develop the infotainment system is extremely expensive, and those electronics are expensive. You know, we have manual window regulators, so you might think about, yeah, crank them.
- [19:35]
Nick
I don't think Gen Z knows about the crank motion for a window. It's a forearm workout.
- [19:42]
Chris Barman
But as an accessory, you can choose to have power windows. But every one of those choices helps us to get cost out of the vehicle. Another example I can give you is if you look at the inside door rests, it's the same part on the left side is the right side. In doing that allows us to only invest in one tool. We buy more of those parts. The more volume you buy, the lower the cost is on that part. And that, you know, reduces the overall cost of the vehicle. So you have to be very mindful about it up front.
- [20:13]
Nick
We gotta ask about the crashes. We were curious about the crashes.
- [20:16]
Jack
So you've made 75 of these cars so far, right?
- [20:20]
Chris Barman
We have prototypes, but we've made 75 prototypes. We've built those ourselves.
- [20:24]
Jack
And half of them you crashed on purpose.
- [20:27]
Chris Barman
We have. We've crashed half of them on purpose. It's really important us to. To do that. So, you know, we were in a phase in, you know, early 2024, where we were doing a lot of virtual modeling, so doing a lot of, you know, work in math, data and CAD and simulation and designing the car. But at some point you have to make sure, like, what you're designing there is reality. So we built 75 prototypes, and about half of them we crashed into the wall doing all the different tests that we do. And we were really pleased that they performed well. They've correlated back to our models really well. So now we've got insights that as we move forward, in order to do the final production release. We've got confidence that it's going to perform as we expect.
- [21:12]
Nick
And, Chris, you also happen to be the first car brand we'd ever heard of that had been invited to a wedding. Yeah. Which sounds like product market fit if we've ever heard it. That is beautiful.
- [21:23]
Jack
So someone sent the company a wedding invitation.
- [21:26]
Chris Barman
We received a wedding invitation from a couple out in the Long island area, and it came to Slate. Not to anybody at Slate. It came to Slate. Slate's been invited to the wedding, and unfortunately, Slate is not going to be able to attend. You are cp? No, but we'll. We're going to send some nice gifts.
- [21:45]
Nick
Good, good, good, good. So we are legally obligated to ask the next question.
- [21:49]
Jack
So this is a business podcast. AI is all that anyone talks about. Does Slate have an AI or autonomy game plan?
- [21:59]
Chris Barman
So we're really focused on this vehicle, that skew of one. We're not exploring AI right now. We're not exploring autonomy. There's a lot of smart people that are working on solving that problem. We're really working on solving the problem of the affordable vehicle.
- [22:13]
Nick
Do you like? This is the coolest. You're the only CEO we've ever heard of who is not pursuing AI right now, and I think you deserve credit for that.
- [22:20]
Jack
That deserves a round of applause.
- [22:25]
Nick
But, Chris, are you buying Bitcoin instead? No.
- [22:30]
Jack
If you did pursue autonomy, I mean, you would have had to raise 10 billion extra dollars. You know, like, that is just such an expensive thing to pursue.
- [22:39]
Chris Barman
Yeah. I mean, again, there's been a lot of smart people who have been working on it for, I mean, decades just trying to solve that problem, and they've made great strides over the years. But our focus, again, is, you know, the definition of what's affordable in automotive right now. Automotive industry right now is broken, and that's where we want to come in and solve that problem.
- [22:59]
Nick
So, Chris, where do you see the car industry in 10 years like Jack and I are picturing? We like to think of Industries in 2035, and we're thinking about our little sons, boys, babies. Are they going to have driver's licenses in 2035?
- [23:14]
Chris Barman
Yeah. So it's a really interesting question, and before I answer it, I want to ask you a question.
- [23:19]
Jack
Yes, I'd love to.
- [23:20]
Chris Barman
Okay, so for both of you, what was the first car that you drove or drove when you got your license? Because we asked this question sometimes, and some people maybe drove before, they should have been driving.
- [23:33]
Jack
1991 Honda.
- [23:35]
Nick
Jack taught me how to drive stick.
- [23:38]
Jack
I was gonna say stick shift.
- [23:39]
Nick
Yeah.
- [23:39]
Jack
1991 accord.
- [23:41]
Chris Barman
Okay. And what. Was there anything in particular that, like, you liked about it or you remember about it?
- [23:45]
Jack
It smelled like my grandfather because it was his car. And when he passed away, my oldest brother Nick got it, and then my brother Tuck got it, and then I got it.
- [23:52]
Chris Barman
Okay.
- [23:52]
Jack
And then Teddy totaled it.
- [23:54]
Chris Barman
Okay.
- [23:56]
Nick
I'm sorry about that. Mine was a Toyota Land Cruiser that was white. It was my parents. It was affectionately called the Ice Cream Truck because it had too many seats and was too bright. And so we actually would play ice cream music sounds when you're driving down the streets in New York. And it was getting some attention.
- [24:14]
Jack
Mine also had one of those automatic seatbelt things.
- [24:18]
Chris Barman
Oh, yeah.
- [24:18]
Nick
You close the door and it's like, must be nice.
- [24:21]
Chris Barman
I remember that. I remember that. But I think what's special about, like, asking that question is. And as people talk about it in. And as I asked the question to both of you, you got animated and you talked about what you called it and everything. But I think the theme and the thread that runs through that is there's a feeling of independence and a feeling of freedom once you get that first vehicle and you can start to drive. And I think even when you think about, like, 20, 35, people are still going to want freedom and independence and how they get around and what they do. And so who knows what the form factor may exactly look like? Like, who knows where autonomy may be? But I think the ability to have independence and freedom to get somewhere will always be there. So there will be some way, shape, or form of a car that's going to be piloted by people.
- [25:12]
Jack
So, Chris, there's been a recent development that can't be good news for Slate. Since 2009, electric car buyers have enjoyed a $7,500 off coupon from the federal government as a financial incentive to buy electric cars. That ends in September because of the big, beautiful bill. So Slate will be the first electric car company not to benefit from government support. If you could say one thing to the President about all this.
- [25:42]
Nick
What would it be?
- [25:45]
Chris Barman
Yeah, we would say no. I mean, we would say the same thing that we say to everybody. I mean, America just needs more affordable vehicles that are made in the U.S. indiana. In Indiana.
- [26:07]
Nick
And, Chris, last question before we let you go. You are running a startup in the most challenging industry in the United States, pulling off a challenge of taking on Tesla and General Motors at the same time.
- [26:19]
Jack
It is so competitive, so competitive, and.
- [26:22]
Nick
You get this wildly cool looking Truck right here with a business model. Jack and I said was like spirit Airlines meets JetBlue. It is out there. Any advice you have for our ambitious zillennials in the audience who are all building something right now, could be a company, could be a career, could be a relationship.
- [26:38]
Chris Barman
Yeah, I think it's, don't ever be afraid to take a risk. You never know what might end up coming from that. And even if it, you know, you stumble or you fail along the way, you're going to learn and it's the learnings that are going to then propel you to just get better the next time you go at that next big dream or next big thing you're going to tackle. So there's a lot of fun in doing that.
- [27:11]
Jack
Chris, we were so excited to cover this in April. We think it's awesome. We're so glad you came here tonight. Full disclosure on one of your reservations and I convinced my father in law to do the same.
- [27:22]
Nick
But we gotta ask you before we leave, what's the takeaway from the CEO of Slate? Chris on Slate?
- [27:29]
Chris Barman
Yeah. So we build it, you make it go to Slate Auto, check out our slate maker and we hope that you reserve one. And actually I was going to ask, so since you've reserved one, have you made one on the slate maker?
- [27:41]
Jack
I have, yeah. I went, I went pretty basic. I want a pickup truck. I always need to haul stuff and I don't have a flatbed.
- [27:47]
Nick
We're going to put a podcast studio on that flatbed.
- [27:50]
Jack
I haven't customized the colors though. I'm not sure I have.
- [27:54]
Nick
Technically that's a write off.
- [27:57]
Chris Barman
You have it now go customize the colors. You can put a lift kit on it if you want. You can do different things. You can save it, you can share it it with others.
- [28:04]
Jack
It'll be my first stop after the show.
- [28:06]
Chris Barman
All right, awesome.
- [28:07]
Nick
Thank you.
- [28:07]
Jack
Give it up for Chris.
- [28:08]
Chris Barman
Thank you.
- [28:12]
Jack
Chris. That was wonderful.
- [28:13]
Nick
Thank you very, very much.
- [28:15]
Jack
Thank you.
- [28:26]
Nick
Yeti's Nick and Jack back with you from the T Boy studio.
- [28:29]
Jack
That was a hell of an interview and a hell of a live show.
- [28:32]
Nick
That, that was insane.
- [28:33]
Jack
To anybody who came, thank you so much. To those of you who just listened today, thank you so much.
- [28:39]
Nick
And we may be coming to a city near you pretty soon. We've got some touring ideas.
- [28:43]
Jack
We're thinking of making this a monthly occasion. Don't hold us to that. But that's the ambitious goal.
- [28:49]
Nick
In the meantime, besties celebrate the win this weekend. Jack, let's grab some lozenges for this weekend and we'll see you Monday with our usual tea boy.
- [29:03]
Jack
If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad free right now by joining Wondery and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts Prime Members can.
- [29:10]
Nick
Listen ad free on Amazon Music.
- [29:12]
Jack
And before you go, tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out a short survey@wondery.com survey.
- [29:18]
Nick
We want to get to know you.
- [29:20]
Chris Barman
Tipping culture is out of control. Yesterday I tipped someone just for handing me a napkin. So when hotels.com gives me up to 20% off for being a member, I finally get tipped. And you know what? It feels good. Hotels. Com members save up to 20% off at hundreds of thousands of hotels.