Matias Muchnick0:00
How does NotCo start? It starts in a very revolutionary way. We were revolutionizing something that already existed, which is different from proposing something that doesn't exist. So we propose something that doesn't exist in an industry with very large incumbents. Therefore, the way to do it was with a lot of noise. The food industry became the common denominator of all the environmental ills known to man: deforestation, land use, water use, ocean pollution, species loss. But there is a solution. As a species, we had to prioritize two things: the longevity of our world and the longevity of ourselves and humans. If we can achieve a large part of that in the food industry without having to resort to pharma, why not? That was the main approach.
We were two finance majors, nothing to do with the food industry, but we hired an R&D company to develop products for us. That was when I realized that the technology behind R&D was determining the future of food for humans, but it was the most ancient and archaic in the world. It was three skinny guys in white lab coats in an experimental kitchen, doing trial and error, reading papers from 1970 on how to combine ingredients to generate certain textures, aromas, colors, flavors. So my approach was, 'Ah, artificial intelligence — the same AI I used in my internship to generate the best mutual fund in the world — I'll use it here to determine what humans should consume in the future to preserve the world we have with the natural resources we have, and to make humans live longer and better.'
A professor from Stanford's NBA program approached me and said, 'Mati, I love NotCo, let's talk.' I go into his office and he says, 'Mati, if there were any investor in the world you'd like to have invest in NotCo, who would it be?' I took zero seconds and said, 'Jeff Bezos.' Incredibly, the person who leads the family office of Jeff Bezos went to undergrad at Princeton with me. So he said, 'I'm going to send an email to Melinda and see if she's interested in talking to you.' Literally 15 minutes later, he says, 'Mati, she answered, she's interested. Can you connect with her in 15 minutes?' I presented for 45 minutes without stopping, probably the best presentation I've ever given, and she says, 'Okay, I'll talk to Jeff, and if Jeff is interested, he'll invest.' I thought, 'Wow, I'll die.' I said, 'Well, the chances are zero, but okay.' Three days later, I get an email saying Jeff loved it, and he loved it for three reasons: first, the team — they are outsiders to the industry, and that makes this innovative idea they want to bring to market extremely likely to work on a large scale; second, the technology is truly impressive, very scalable, very unique; and third, and here comes my Latino side, he says, 'Chef can't believe everything you've done with so little money. It's the Latino spirit we have — to find a way to do big things with nothing.'
I think a new world is coming. I think a consumer world that is much more focused on functionality — protein, fiber, probiotics — and a lot of other things. So we're also looking for what comes next. Nothing is done alone. I'm not the one who made NotCo; hundreds and hundreds of people made it. And if I have something good, it's that I know very well what I don't like to do and what I'm bad at, and that allows me to go find the best people to do the things I don't like or am not good at. Building a team has been fundamental for me.
