S8E92: Sonia Lo / Unfold - Understanding the Role of Genetics in Improving Taste & Yield and Leading with Integrity and Focus

[0:00:00] Harry Duran: You're. Sonia Lo, CEO of Unfold. Thank you so much for joining me on the Vertical Farming podcast.

[0:00:09] Sonia Lo: Thank you so much for inviting me.

[0:00:12] Harry Duran: So, for the benefit of the listener, we were connected briefly at Indoor AgCon in Las Vegas. It was my second time Indoor AgCon last year was my very first vertical Farming conference. And so it's been a slow entry into the conference world and definitely one of the best experiences when you get to meet the people firsthand, face to face, who are really making a lot of interesting changes and developments in this space. Was it your first time at Indoor Echo specifically?

[0:00:44] Sonia Lo: No. So I hadn't attended in several years, I think just like everybody else, and then had attended at the very beginning when it was very small, much more intimate, but also not full of professionals. So there were a lot of long beards and lots of people who were really focused on the cannabis industry.

[0:01:18] Harry Duran: Okay, and so what was your biggest takeaway being there this year and specifically in your role as CEO of Unfold? Was it a complete different experience, I understand, from the team it was the ten year anniversary, but it also doubled since last year. In terms of attendance, I was really.

[0:01:39] Sonia Lo: Happy to see the size, the kind of professionalization of the industry, the entrance, of course, institutional capital, which of course, then attracts institutional level talent. The thing that was most gratifying for me was that there were people that during the Pandemic, I'd only ever met them online.

[0:02:00] Harry Duran: Okay.

[0:02:00] Sonia Lo: And meeting them in person was so wonderful. And of course, nobody ever looks in person like they do on screen. There were lots of sort of exclamations, so that's what you really look like. But I also loved the fact that the booths were so informative and lots of players had really great collateral set up. So it was wonderful to, A, meet people in person after only having met them on screen over the last three years, and B, to see how very grown up the industry is becoming.

[0:02:47] Harry Duran: Speaking of experiences at conferences and events, you recently posted on LinkedIn about your experience meeting Gordon Moore, and I thought it'd be fun if you could share that little story he recently passed.

[0:03:02] Sonia Lo: It's a very poignant memory for me. I had been invited to Davos. I'd won an Accolade as one of sort of the world's 100 tech pioneers, and this was in the year 2000, so that's a long time ago. And Davos at the time was slightly more chaotic. I mean, now I think there's very organized chaos, very sort of structured, and your badge lets you go to different parts of the conference. But at the time, it literally was a sort of sleepy little ski town where really significant world leaders gathered to have a sort of off the record conversation. Right. And I must have looked very confused as I walked into the main hall. They had these sort of gates that you badged through. And this very kindly older gentleman came up to me and he said, oh, are you lost? Is this your first time at Davos? And I said, yes, it is. And I'm here as a tech pioneer. And he said, oh, well, just kind of follow me around and I'll make sure you meet really interesting people and get to all of the bits that you need to get to. And I thought, okay, great.

[0:04:22] Sonia Lo: And if I remember correctly, he was wearing, like, a cardigan. And I thought, oh, what a really nice kind of older man, right? And we ran around and we took all the little buses. And I finally said to him it was about 02:00 in the afternoon I said, I'm so sorry. You've been really kind to me. I don't know who you are. And he said, oh, I'm Gordon Moore. And he gave me his card, which was this impeccable, cream colored little rectangle with just Gordon B. Moore on it.

[0:04:57] Harry Duran: Yeah.

[0:04:58] Sonia Lo: And I think it had a telephone.

[0:05:00] Harry Duran: Number on the back.

[0:05:01] Sonia Lo: I've got it somewhere. But he said, if you're ever in Silicon Valley, look me up. And I was like, yeah, I'll do that.

[0:05:14] Harry Duran: Yeah. I think it's hard to really think about the significance and the impact Gordon has had on the industry. And you can see a lo of people talking about him and his legacy on LinkedIn and various and other places online. Can you think of anyone else? There's several folks maybe that come to mind. But just in terms of that stature, I mean, there's a law named after him as well and just kind of just thinking back about the impact of one person in an industry and how that almost, like, leaves a legacy for him.

[0:05:52] Sonia Lo: I think he stands in a class of his own right for both his accomplishments but also because of his graciousness. And I think that there is an enormous distinction between people who've created great wealth and people who leave a legacy. Right. And I think he left a legacy for being kind and thoughtful and very accomplished in a way that I think the creation of great wealth without those characteristics. Money is money. But I think that the ability to use that money to great good is something that is truly world changing. And he really walked the talk.

[0:06:43] Harry Duran: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that story. It's very nice, especially when people maybe just see someone like that from afar. To have had that personal contact with him really probably affirms for a lot of folks their opinions of him. Did that experience or did that experience color your thoughts about how important it is to be generous, to be helpful, to provide that mental role for folks who might have been in the same position you are? Do you think about that? You've had multiple roles as a CEO and as a leader. And I'm wondering how you think about the ability to provide that guidance and mentorship to folks who are just coming up.

[0:07:30] Sonia Lo: So the way I describe it is that in the last I've been working for 30 something years and during that time I think of the people who've worked for me, probably only a handful, and I literally can count the people on the fingers of one hand would not work for me again.

[0:07:54] Harry Duran: Okay.

[0:07:54] Sonia Lo: And of the people I've worked for, again, I think I could count on the fingers of one hand people that would not hire me again. Right. And so I think that's testament to an ability to work hard, but also to be compassionate and thoughtful. And that doesn't mean necessarily that I'm incapable of making hard decisions. I think what it means is you have to demonstrate your experience and longevity of terms sometimes by helping somebody who is not in the right role to understand that they're not in the right role. It is not kind to keep somebody in a role to which they are deeply unsuited. And the other rule about startups is that everybody you hire is in the wrong role to start with because they're either under qualified for the role but have sheer raw talent and enthusiasm and they grow into the role. As the company grows or they're overqualified for the role. And you just have to hope that the company grows quickly enough and continues to be challenging enough for the role to meet their expectations. But almost never have I hired somebody into a startup that is absolutely perfect at that point in time because then something is not right because the startup isn't moving quickly enough.

[0:09:25] Harry Duran: Yes. I'm curious, Sonia, you've had just mentioned your 30 year career. I saw that. Yet since it appears to be like illegal in the startup world, as an advisor, multiple roles as a CEO, I'm curious, as you were starting your career, was the goal always to lead, to be a leader of a company? Is that something that you had always aspired to?

[0:09:52] Sonia Lo: Not at all, no. My early career was, as you noted, I thought I was going to be an attorney. An attorney? Even if you demonstrate thought, leadership is always in an advisory position. Right. And I discovered after a really special internship at a firm called Gibson Duran, which at the time was the largest law firm in the United States, that I was not really going to be an attorney. I didn't like being in the advisory role per se. So I then went to Deloitte and was a management consultant there. And while I loved the deeper insight into business, I again didn't love the advisory role. And then the last advisory role I did was after my MBA, I went to become an investment banker and that really clinched it for me that I really didn't like being on the advisor side at all. Ever since then I've been a principal, whether that is a principal investor or whether that's to be an entrepreneur.

[0:10:57] Harry Duran: And as you've matured in your role as a leader, how have you grown specifically as a CEO?

[0:11:05] Sonia Lo: So I had my first CEO role when I was 29, and this preceded the whole sort of.com era. Right. So this was CEO of a retail venture, and it's a lot harder to be sometimes the youngest person at the table. And of course, over time, I'm no longer the youngest person at the table. The other way I think I've grown is, again, that understanding that somehow the best kindness is not to keep somebody in a role. Sometimes pushing them along into the right role, helping them understand where there might be a better fit, is the right thing to do for that person. It's not a kindness to leave somebody in a job for which they are not well suited.

[0:12:02] Harry Duran: Is that something you learned along the way, or is that something that guidance that was provided by a mentor?

[0:12:09] Sonia Lo: No, that's something I learned along the way, the hard way. Right. And my natural tendency is to be collegiate and friendly. And I think as a female leader, your toolkit is both broader and narrower. Right. Because I think shows of strength have to be expressed in different ways, shows of displeasure have to be expressed in different ways, because as a woman, the interpretation of how those emotions are expressed can be interpreted differently by the receiver. And as a result, you develop a style over the various many years of working with people that is about being able to demonstrate leadership, demonstrate credibility and integrity, without it being perceived as overly aggressive or hard, because there are judgments expressed around these emotions that wouldn't necessarily be ascribed to a man. So those are some of the nuances, I think, that you learn along the way.

[0:13:32] Harry Duran: I'd be remiss with the mention of the appropriate demonstration of strength if I didn't mention the fact that you're also a black belt, if I remember correctly.

[0:13:43] Sonia Lo: Not in many years, no. In taekwondo.

[0:13:46] Harry Duran: In taekwondo? Yes.

[0:13:48] Sonia Lo: So I'm South Korean by origin. Yes. So it's an amazing thing. Both of my kids are taking it now, and it's fantastic for the physical discipline, the mental awareness and discipline. It's very hard to do as an adult, the amount of time. So I gave it up after my first real job after business school, because you can't keep up a level of engagement with the sport without really being training a lot. And so I probably did it for a couple of years after I finished business school, but then transitioned to other sports.

[0:14:38] Harry Duran: Would you say that the lessons learned during that time? I took martial arts for a period of time as well. There's something about the discipline that you learn that's instilled in you, and I think those lessons never leave you, even if you don't end up continuing with the sport.

[0:14:52] Sonia Lo: Indeed. And things like flexibility. I continue to be very flexible. I probably don't have the strength that I did, but agility, the ability to be coordinated, all of these things stay with you for life.

[0:15:10] Harry Duran: You seem to have a lot of talents and interests as well. I noticed that you're a cookbook author as well. Where did that passion was that a lifelong passion for food?

[0:15:21] Sonia Lo: So I've always loved to cook. And I went to culinary school as a hiatus between one particularly challenging venture, which ended up being NetNet successful, but really draining, and then setting up my own firm. And I absolutely loved it. I loved cooking and doing so at a level that was professional. Basically, when I came back into the farming world, which was unusual, the lens that I always applied was going to be from a sensory basis, right? Does this taste good? Does it taste better? And the science, the precision of vertical farming, of course, appealed to me. But the ability to replicate that, the difference in taste and texture, the difference, the implied difference in nutrition because of the freshness, all of these things really mattered to me.

[0:16:30] Harry Duran: Did you attend with the intentions of becoming a chef, or did you just want to have the experience of learning, like, the culinary arts?

[0:16:40] Sonia Lo: I wanted to take my cooking skills to another level. I didn't really think I was going to be a professional chef for very long. And all told, I did it for about two years. Okay. And I didn't love the inefficiency of the restaurant industry. And there's a lo of waste. A lot of talent goes to waste because, again, management skills are not something that are often taught. And so you see, there's that great saying about how people join companies but leave managers. And I saw that a lot in cooking. Right. People are very talented. They join a Michelin star restaurant because they think, oh, my gosh, I'm going to learn from this great person. And then they turn out to be a monster. And it's a pity, right? It's a pity that talent doesn't necessarily get nurtured and that that sort of monster like behavior is considered very normal.

[0:17:51] Sonia Lo: And that then those people go on to create their own restaurants because they are talented, but then they manage in a very similar way. So that cycle gets perpetuated.

[0:18:04] Harry Duran: Yeah. It's almost glamorized that you think about the Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen model. They even make shows about it, and it's almost like a cliche. It's the chef that will rip people's heads off. And it's sad to think that people have that perspective and probably have had that experience working in those restaurants.

[0:18:21] Sonia Lo: Oh, they definitely have.

[0:18:23] Harry Duran: Yeah. Well, that's inspiring because I've always appreciated, I've loved cooking. The chef's Table series on Netflix I think is just beautiful. I still have my subscription to Cooks Illustrated. So I think at some point I may even just thinking about it as not with the goal of being a chef, but just I think to your point, there's something to be said about the discipline of learning the skills and improving even if the end product is just to improve my skills as a cook, I think would be beneficial. So it's something that I'll definitely be given some second thought to.

[0:18:55] Sonia Lo: I think it's a wonderful skill to have, and even at the end of a very long day, I find it enormously relaxing to cook.

[0:19:04] Harry Duran: Yeah.

[0:19:05] Sonia Lo: And now I cook for my kids.

[0:19:07] Harry Duran: Right.

[0:19:07] Sonia Lo: But I do love it. I also love washing dishes. It definitely caters to the OCD in me.

[0:19:22] Harry Duran: I can definitely relate. There's something meditative and relaxing about putting that energy towards that. So on the same page there. So as we gradually make our way into the world of vertical farming, you did have a stint at Google, I noticed as well. And I'm always curious about folks who have had experience in the Google complex, what that was like. Any takeaways from that?

[0:19:47] Sonia Lo: I think the organization today is very different from the one that I joined. I was at the cusp of the first generation of managers who were just vesting out of their shares, and everybody had made a very significant sum of money. Some had made transformative amounts and others had merely become very, very wealthy. And I think, as with so many first generation technology companies, there was a mismatch between the sheer raw talent and the management skills that were required to manage an organization at scale. So coming in as somebody who'd had more than ten years of work experience, it was challenging to be confronted with questions which didn't seem very professionalized. So I would ask questions about why certain parts of the process were set up the way they were, and I would get a response which is, that's not very googly of you to ask that question. So my sort of more measured response would be, so what is Googliness? How is it defined? And the answer is, well, if you have to ask that question, then you don't understand, which is a really frustrating and, I mean, it's a little bit like a playground, right, where you're not going to get chosen for the team because you just aren't part of the team. And my tenure there wasn't very long, specifically because of these cultural issues, and I think the organization has gone on to grow again. I think I was there at an inflection point, and I think that the self awareness of the professionalization that needed to occur, particularly in terms of management skills, has occurred. Right. And I just happened to be there at this inflection point.

[0:21:53] Harry Duran: Thanks for sharing that. It's always interesting to hear what folks experience there is like. Your next move was into CEO role at crop One, and I'm wondering if you could just tell the story about where you were at the time, what you were hearing or experiencing in terms of the world of vertical farming, and how the conversations leading up to you being offered a decision and deciding to take it, and what that experience was like.

[0:22:24] Sonia Lo: Yeah. So I wasn't a sort of arm's length hire, right? What had happened was that a former boss of mine from Deloitte had approached me because I was working with a European family investor and said, oh, you guys are making investments at early stage. And I said, sure. And I saw that it was farming, and I said, Well, I don't know anything about farming or agriculture. And I discussed it with the head of the family. And he said, oh, we know a lot about agriculture because we own a lot of agricultural land. And I said, Great. Well, here's this deal. Have a look at it. And they came back with a view, which was a very powerful one, that if the unit economics of this type of deal are even remotely true, this is something that's going to transform agriculture. And so I put in a little bit of capital alongside the more substantial check that this investor wrote and really thought nothing of it. And I was helping the entrepreneur with just sort of tidying up their books. Classic entrepreneur, lots of enthusiasm, not a lot of governance. And nine months later was confronted with a pretty serious crisis at the company.

[0:23:49] Sonia Lo: And basically the kind of question we had to ask ourselves was, do we write this off or do we try to fix it? And I spoke to all of my co investors, and they were like, well, can you hand hold him? Can you see if you can figure this out? And I said, okay. So I leaned in thinking I was going to be there for six months maybe, and I was there for six and a half years. So it was definitely an unlikely transition. Not anything that was particularly planned, but something for which I am forever grateful, because at a relatively later stage in my life, I discovered that this is my industry. I mean, this is the thing I want to do forever and ever.

[0:24:46] Harry Duran: When you joined, was it Crop One and did FreshBox? Were they both coexisting at the same time, or was there a timing that FreshBox came after?

[0:24:57] Sonia Lo: No, there was another name which the founder had given the company. When we did our trademark check, we realized there were three other companies that were trademarked with the same name or a variation thereof, with Hyphens here and there, and trademarking that particular name would have been extremely challenging. So we went through a branding exercise and the fact that we were originally in shipping containers, people liked the idea of a sort of Fresh box. And then Crop One became the holding company to hold the intellectual property. But also this notion that there was a starting point in this industry. It was almost like a reset button for agriculture. And so that's why the two brands coexist, but it went through a formal rebranding.

[0:25:56] Harry Duran: Okay. I know there's probably a lot to comment on in your time there, especially your entry into the world of vertical farming. But if you had to think about this entry into a new space, what were some of the maybe the key learnings or any AHA's that you had as a new entry, as you were learning the intricacies of this space and a lot of the business development challenges that were ahead of you?

[0:26:25] Sonia Lo: That's a really good question. Right? So it's one thing to be delivering a new product within an incumbent industry. It's another thing to be delivering a new product from a new industry. And I found myself wanting to do every part of the production process. So I've done the seeding, the germination, the transplantation, the harvesting, the post harvest processing. And I insisted that every new member of the leadership team that was hired go through the same training as all of our farm staff. And that was very valuable because then, even as we did later time and materials kind of efficiency exercises, everybody in the leadership team understood what that actually meant. The other thing was getting our customers to understand why this product was more interesting, more valuable. And probably the seminal moment came not when we were selling into retail. I mean, I think retail has such a problem with returns and losses, particularly in produce, that anything that promises longer shelf life and that has a discernible taste and texture difference is going to be readily accepted. So I never thought that that was a challenge. It was pretty much pushing on an open door, but the next piece really came around profitability. And profitability at the time was sort of a dirty word. People were like, why are you driving this farm to profitability?

[0:28:04] Sonia Lo: And the answer was, Because it's a farm, right? And the drive towards profitability really took every bit of business acumen, every under, a bit of understanding about the underlying technology and what it was capable of doing, all of the humbling aspects of plant biology because growing food is humbling, and really understanding those efficiencies that could be delivered by the team. And we forced our subscale farm into profitability for two years, which was truly extraordinary. And I think those lessons carried me forward to the point now where everybody's talking about profitability. I mean, that was one of the other big takeaways from indoor AgCon, right, is my friend and colleague in the industry, Barry Murchy, who's the CEO of Goodleaf. He said, I think the industry is splitting into the dreamers, the squanderers and the builders, right? And now it's the builders that are getting all of the attention because profitability is back in style. And that's great, but I've never taken my eye off that particular ball. And I think that this industry and vertical farming as a form factor has its rightful place in agricultural infrastructure but I don't think it's going to be able to continue without positive unit economics. I mean, I think every farm needs to be driven to have positive unit economic.

[0:29:52] Harry Duran: Yeah, that's definitely something that I notice as a trend in those conversations and in the panels, the refocus back on profitability. And I think it's probably an important discussion to have, and I appreciate that distinction of those different phases of the dreamers and the squanders. And I think it is important to especially for folks looking at the industry from the outside. Right. They're seeing a lot of the investment coming in and then they're seeing obviously the failures get highlighted. You see Fast Company, just all they talk about is like has it reached its peak cycle? And obviously for folks that are within the industry they know that this story is much more complex but when you don't have companies that are focusing on profitability it allows for some of those other failures to kind of seep through into the news and I think it's not doing the industry any justice.

[0:30:46] Sonia Lo: Yeah, I think that the industry is populated with extraordinarily bright people, right, and people who are bringing their time and talent and treasure from every walk of life. I mean there is not a preset pool of former vertical farmers out there and those lateral sort of pools of wisdom are very valuable in getting this industry up and running very quickly but also in really achieving step change gains. So I have every confidence that the industry is going to go on to again hold its rightful place in agricultural infrastructure. What I think is now happening, which is a very powerful thing to be happening, is that people are not speaking to the lack of profitability as a desirable state. Right? I think before there was this notion that you could just outrun profitability and of course there are aspects to the industry on the intellectual property development side that don't necessarily have to be profitable because capital that invests in that understands that there has to be development. But I think the farms themselves in order for the industry to scale, require themselves to be profitable, right? I mean they have to be project financible, not Venture financible. Just to give you an indication, I once ran through a really boring math exercise of what is the target addressable market? How many farms of scale would that entail? How many have been built to date? And basically the number came to about 1100 scale farms in order to have a viable addressable. Tam, in North America we haven't even hit 50 farms, right? So there's a vast, vast runway ahead of us. But what I don't have is I don't have a crystal ball as to when those fronts are going to scale but that is a reasonable target number.

[0:33:23] Sonia Lo: I think it's achievable, I think it's perfectly financible, but it won't be financible in the absence of unit profitability.

[0:33:33] Harry Duran: That's an important math exercise that I think a lot of people would are going to really appreciate. So I think that particular segment of this interview, I'm sure will be getting replayed a lot. So as we make our way into current day, after you left Crop One, you held a variety of different roles, mostly at sunset some time in the dairy industry as well. So I'll let you sort of take us through to present day and sort of highlight more memorable experiences. I know you've had some advisory roles as well leading up to the conversation about you taking on the role of CEO would unfold.

[0:34:12] Sonia Lo: So I left crop one and joined Sensei AG, which is Larry Ellison's and David Aegis's indoor growing venture. And we grew exclusively in greenhouses and in four different climates. And that was amazing. And I love the immersion into a growing form factor in greenhouses that use direct light. And so I'm very much form factor agnostic, I think where you can use light, you should the whole notion of the kind of significantly more control attributed to vertical farming, that is powerful, and I think it'll be powerful for certain crops, but I don't know that it necessarily is true in all locations. So I was very grateful for my time building, acquiring and retrofitting greenhouses and growing a multitude of crops. So not just leafy greens, which has been the sort of vertical farming go to crop.

[0:35:27] Harry Duran: Did you engage with Larry Ellison? This is Oracle Harry Ellison.

[0:35:31] Sonia Lo: This is Oracle Larry Ellison? Yes.

[0:35:34] Harry Duran: Did you get to engage with him?

[0:35:37] Sonia Lo: I did, yes.

[0:35:38] Harry Duran: What was that like?

[0:35:44] Sonia Lo: Interesting, right? An extraordinary individual and sits in an extraordinary information flow that is only comparable to probably a handful of people in the world.

[0:35:59] Harry Duran: Yeah.

[0:36:03] Sonia Lo: So I learned a great deal. And then the three boards. So I've served on the board of Griffith Food since February of 2019, which would have coincided with my time at Crop One and Heart Dairy. I was named to their board in March of 2022. And Urban Grow, which is a nasdaq publicly listed venture, I was named to their board in November of 2021. So everything has to do with next generation agriculture, whether that's regenerative agriculture, whether that's climate efficiency. The Dairy, for example, is a carbon neutral dairy, which is the reason why I agreed to serve on the board. And I think they can be a model for how dairy can be done and done well. And then Urban Grow, of course, is an EPC in the indoor growing space. And this is a much necessary and valuable aspect to the industry.

[0:37:16] Harry Duran: Define EPC.

[0:37:19] Sonia Lo: It's engineering procurement. And I think it's not consulting, but it's essentially design engineering. It's the ability. Yeah, it's a design build firm.

[0:37:34] Harry Duran: Okay.

[0:37:34] Sonia Lo: Yeah. They're architecture led. They have built over 500 facilities.

[0:37:40] Harry Duran: Okay. And that takes us. To the commerce. I'm curious about the origin stories on the show. So these conversations about you being approached and what that looks like and if that's a conversation with John or other members of the team as well.

[0:38:01] Sonia Lo: So I was approached by an executive recruitment firm that we're looking for Unfold. And given that I already had three boards that I was serving on, I was trying to think through, am I going to continue to only do board roles or am I going to take on an operating role again? And I've always believed that the genetics piece of indoor growing is going to be transformative. I think that not just for yield, which of course is the big target, but also for taste and texture. So irrespective of what type of form factor you're growing in, irrespective of where you are in terms of your distance to an urbanization, I think that genetics will play an incredibly important role. And so I joined Unfold in July of last year and have really immersed myself in how much and how quickly the genetics industry has changed in the last 15 years. So it used to be that people were still breeding the traditional mendelian way right. Unchanged since the 17 hundreds. And now with the computing power that we have and with the sequencing of the genome of so many food plants wheat, I believe, was the last major one about three years ago, we now have all of this molecular information about plants, and so the kind of 14 generations of breeding can be done computationally. And then you do the physical breeding in a greenhouse, which can dramatically shorten breeding cycles, but can also mean that you can search for traits again on a database basis, as opposed to physically having to identify them in the breeding process. So that's a huge change and very, very promising for the indoor growing industry.

[0:40:25] Harry Duran: When you were considering taking on the role, did you see it as the sort of appropriate next step in your career and thinking about the challenges that you would have in this role and the opportunities as well?

[0:40:44] Sonia Lo: There was definitely a structured view, a much more structured approach than I had taken when I joined Crop One. Right? I mean, crop One, I sort of fell into it, I think, with sensei. The opportunity to work with greenhouses and to work with Larry was, again, without parallel. And the genetics piece was something that I knew was something I wanted to add to my understanding, if not skill set. And again, the immersion has been extraordinarily insightful.

[0:41:26] Harry Duran: So we're probably nine months in roughly, I think, since you said July. And so if you had to look back in terms of what you thought you were signing up for when you joined and what your experience has been like with a team and what the roadmap looks like for you in your role unfold and for the company itself, has that changed at all? And what's the vision look like? I know it's hard to project anything beyond twelve months in this industry, but how do you think about your mandate going forward?

[0:42:05] Sonia Lo: I think the mandate remains the same. I think that the Tam is large but the availability of that Tam has been delayed and it's been delayed by a number of sort of exogenous factors, right. Land war in Europe, banking crisis, many large macroeconomic factors that have nothing to do with unfold per se but definitely affect its Tam. And necessarily I think that means that for us as a team we have to think about how we manage the company if our runway is going to be lengthened in terms of addressable market.

[0:43:02] Harry Duran: What's a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently.

[0:43:09] Sonia Lo: I think that is the tough question. Right. Which is if our Tam is there, we know it's there, but the time frame in which it's going to come to fruition is lengthened by all accounts right through just market conditions. What do we need to be doing between now and then in order to progress but also keep our costs low? And that's just the question every startup is asking themselves that's confronting a similar situation.

[0:43:46] Harry Duran: Do you think about your visibility in this role as a female CEO? Especially in light and it's something that I've experienced as I started the podcast the Scarcity of Female Leaders in the Space. And thankfully I've done my best to highlight a lot of those stories here. But I feel like there's also an opportunity to sort of shine a light on this as a viable career path and a viable industry for not only females but also people of color who might be interested in joining the industry. I think about that as being an immigrant myself. Is that something you give any thought to?

[0:44:29] Sonia Lo: It's not something I actively think about, but it's hard to ignore when I'm on a stage and everybody else is a white dude in a Patagonia vest. To be fair, I think the industry draws from so many pools of talent just because there isn't a ready pool of talent for vertical farming. I think that it's inevitably about the relationship with capital. Right. Because when an industry is venture financed, it's always sobering to remember that only 2% of venture capital gets allocated to women and that number has fallen during both the pandemic as well as the current economic situation. So if 2% is the upper limit, then I'm more than adequately represented on that stage, right? No, if 2% is not the upper limit, then we should definitely be embracing more diversity and that is across the board for anything that's venture finance and I think that venture funds are getting slightly better at it. But until we can remove the emotion and the bias from the investment process, it's always going to exist and it's always going to skew in favor of people who look like you. I think that this industry has a much better chance at sort of democratization of opportunity because food is universal. But I think also the future of agriculture in the 21st century is very much about being distributed, being digital and being proximate. And those three things would agitate for an entrepreneurial pool that are not up and down Sandhill Road.

[0:46:42] Harry Duran: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So if you think about how you entered this field, if you think about what you see when you attend conferences like indoor icon, the opportunities that present themselves, that unfold itself, what has you most excited if you sort of look to the future in terms of opportunities or just the industry itself? What lights you up when you think about what's possible here?

[0:47:10] Sonia Lo: I think those three things, right? Distributed architecture, the digitization of agriculture, and the proximity of novel architectural sort of agricultural form factors. There are two things that I believe are going to kill us off as humans. One is climate change and the other is diet because the latency between cause and effect is incredibly long and nobody realizes that their gas duzzling car today. I mean, probably today, but I think 50 years ago or 60 years ago, the cause to effect of melting polar ice caps was probably not as well understood. And the same again today of if you don't have 50% of your plate, that's fruits and vegetables versus processed carbs or processed meat. It's hard to tell a young person or a kid that's perfectly enjoying their doritos. And, you know, personally, I love doritos, so don't get me wrong, is going to be the heart attack at 57, right. So I think that our form of agriculture has an incredibly important and visible role to play in closing that latency gap for both climate change and diet and therefore reducing those threats to humanity.

[0:48:51] Harry Duran: Yeah.

[0:48:53] Sonia Lo: And so that's what keeps me infused and excited about this industry.

[0:48:59] Harry Duran: Yeah, it's interesting that it's almost a double edged sword how resilient the body is, because I think about the stuff I ate when I was little, lucky Charms and McDonald's Happy Meals and just like, wow, and that's me that learned even better. And those folks that just never learned better and just still have those bad habits. And the body somehow manages to keep not necessarily humming along, but obviously not at its prime, but it does a lot. So you can imagine what's possible if you fed it the proper nutritious food and then that's what has meaningful as well.

[0:49:34] Sonia Lo: And that's complex. Right. I mean, I think that proper nutrition is definitely something that's available today, but it's not available at low cost and it's not available deliciously.

[0:49:47] Harry Duran: Right.

[0:49:47] Sonia Lo: Because you go into a food desert and the local supermarket will have a bunch of mealy apples, right? And as a kid, you don't want to eat that. I read an extraordinary article about how children have to be served a new food a minimum of 14 times before they'll accept it. And if you are a parent that is fairly wealthy, you're going to put that broccoli on your kid's plate 14 times, even if you know it's just going to get thrown away. If you're a parent that is not, you can't afford that calorie loss, right? So you're going to put food on your kids plate that you know they're going to eat. And I think those of us in produce appreciate the health benefits of produce, appreciate the deliciousness of a berry that's been picked out of the field, but that's not the berry that gets delivered, right? So we live with this infrastructure that's kind of a 19th century scale manufacturing set of principles around food that perhaps are not the best for our health and also for our palate. And again, with that chef's lens, I'm always going to be looking for deliciousness as a driver to behavioral change. And I think that's where vertical farming has an incredibly important and powerful role to play, is that I think deliciousness is easier to dial in when you're in a vertical farming context.

[0:51:32] Harry Duran: I'm making a note that I think I just may have come up with the title for this episode, deliciousness as a Driver to Change. So I'll be listening back, but it'll have some aspect of that. So as we wrap up, sonia, thank you so much for being so generous with your time. I've been leaving a few minutes at the end of these conversations because of the nature of this podcast. We have a lot of your colleagues listening in industry, people interested in entering the industry, or people who have been doing this for some time. So is there a message that you have for folks in the world of vertical farming? And I just want to kind of open up that platform for anything that comes to mind for you.

[0:52:12] Sonia Lo: I think we have a brilliant future as long as we act with integrity and focus on the delicious.

[0:52:24] Harry Duran: That's a very succinct way of stating the challenges we have ahead of us, as well as the opportunities I'm really excited to have connected with you, to have met you, and for this opportunity for you to share your very inspiring story. So it's been interesting to see how maybe not in the moment that you could see where the path was, but obviously hindsight is 2020, and you think about all the experiences you've had, they almost put you in a position to this present day moment. And being the right person at the right place at the right time, I think is really interesting to see how sort of life lays out the path for you. It may not always be linear, but at some point you end up doing what I feel you're meant to do. So I get that sense that that's the case with you. So I appreciate you sharing your journey with us today.

[0:53:15] Sonia Lo: Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to be on your show.

[0:53:20] Harry Duran: So unfold AG. For folks to get connected with the company anywhere else, we should send people to learn more about the company or connect with you.

[0:53:30] Sonia Lo: Unfold AG is correct.

[0:53:31] Harry Duran: Okay. All right. Thanks again for your time, Sonia. I really appreciate it.

[0:53:35] Sonia Lo: You're very welcome. And so, Harry, where are you from?

[0:53:38] Harry Duran: Where did you I was born in El Salvador.

[0:53:43] Sonia Lo: When did you come?

[0:53:44] Harry Duran: My parents brought me here when I was a year old, and I was raised in New York, and so, thankfully, I had the ability to continue speaking Spanish at home, and we still had to obviously maintain a lot of the culture and the food, specifically delicious, which was helpful. Yeah. So I've always had a sweet spot for Latin cuisine, and I've been able to go back and visit, and it's been interesting to see what's been happening not only in that country, but in the world of south and Central America as well.

[0:54:18] Sonia Lo: Indeed, indeed. And I think a lot of the superfoods you look at things like green banana flour. A lot of the things that I do and I learn at Griffith during the board meetings is how you can repurpose some food waste. And a lot of that is happening in Central America right now.

[0:54:42] Harry Duran: Yeah, a lot of that thought leadership. Yeah. I'm in Minneapolis now, so I'm in the Midwest. I previously had lived in New York and La. As well, so it gets a little more challenging to find some of that cuisine, so you got to work a little harder. But I did recently come across a Salvadorian restaurant serving papusas, which is tortilla stuff.

[0:55:03] Sonia Lo: I love papusas. I live in the East Bay of Northern California, and when I lived on the Peninsula, I had my favorite papusadilla that I would go to. Right. And now I'm like, I don't know where I get a papusa, and I've got to do a little more investigation. But yes, it is absolutely. They're delicious. I love the papusa.

[0:55:31] Harry Duran: Those are my favorite, and I don't think I realized it until later on. The connection with Korean cuisine in terms of Kimchi Davidorian cortido, which is basically.

[0:55:42] Sonia Lo: Yeah, it's fermented cabbage. Cabbage, yeah, that's right. And so delicious. No, I'll eat that stuff by the handful. My family spent eight years in Latin America. I spoke Portuguese before I spoke English, and then I spoke Spanish after I learned to speak English. So I've spoken both languages all my whole life.

[0:56:10] Harry Duran: That's right. I did see you comment on a LinkedIn post in Spanish.

[0:56:14] Sonia Lo: Oh, yeah. Yes, with Mariana, where she made fun of my Spanish accent. Yeah. Why is it that you speak Spanish with a Spanish accent? And I was like, that's a long story.

[0:56:29] Harry Duran: Yeah, long story. So we'll practice a bit next time we meet in person. Thanks, Ian, for wonderful time. So.