‘Because Mars is for quitters’ – Calix w/ CEO Dr Phil Hodgson | Summer Series

Bryce: [00:00:15] Welcome to another episode of the Equity Mates summer series, proudly brought to you by superhero over 12 episodes where deep diving into some of the most exciting, interesting and well known companies from both here in Australia and over in the US. In some instances, we'll be hearing directly from the CEOs to give you firsthand insight into their companies. My name is Bryce and as always, I'm joined by my equity buddy Ren. How are you going? 

Alec: [00:00:38] I'm very good Bryce. Very excited for this episode. This is a company that we've heard a little bit about on mainly on Ausbiz when we host our show there this year, and we thought it was time we spoke about it because it is, to my mind, one of the most fascinating companies. 

Bryce: [00:00:56] Super fascinating. It's kind of a lot of momentum in the Equity Mates community, and that company is Calix, the ticker is CXL. And we're going to go through what Calix does, why there's a big buzz in the Equity Mates community, a bit about the industry, that it's operating in financials, future prospects, and we are lucky enough to be out to speak with the CEO of the company at the end of this episode. But before we jump into that. A reminder that the summer series is brought to you by Superhero. Super Hero allows you to buy Aussie and US shares and ETFs with no monthly account fees, and you can now earn Qantas points with superhero. So visit Superher.com.au/qantas To learn more. Eligibility criteria, terms and conditions and fees and charges apply, and a reminder as well that you can still win $1000 in a superhero wallet by listening to this episode and taking out your favourite fact or quote, and then posting it on the corresponding post on Instagram for this episode. So check out the Calix Post and just drop in the comments. What your favourite fact about this episode was and will select a winner for $1000. We're giving away $12000 this summer. It's a pretty decent thanks 

Alec: [00:02:07] to super thanks to Superhero. Well, Bryce this might not be my favourite fact, but it is definitely my favourite tagline and not just my favourite tagline in this episode, but of every company around the world. I have never come across a better tagline, and if people find better taglines down the Equity Mates account because I want to hear

Bryce: [00:02:27] what about ours? From beginning to 

Alec: [00:02:29] dividend, every investor needs an Equity Mates. Yeah. No, this is better. This is a battle we got to up our game, but I don't think we can beat it. Calix tagline- Mars is for quitters. Epic. Take that Elon. But if that doesn't sum up a mission statement and have a bit of fun while doing it and troll the ultimate trolling Elon Musk, then I don't know what it does. But for me, I hear that and I get up about the company absolutely. 

Bryce: [00:02:56] And to understand the origins of that tagline and what it actually means to the company and how it drives their ethos and their sort of direction into the future. We're lucky enough to be hearing from Phil, the CEO, later in this episode where he will actually explain it all now. 

Alec: [00:03:15] Bryce, I said I was excited. This is also a little bittersweet because you have this running joke here at Equity Mates that I try and buy every company that we ever hear an expert talk about on the show. It's not a joke. Yeah, it's not far from the truth. Like, I get excited very easily about some of these companies and a lot of the time with good reason. But this was one that we first heard about on Ausbiz is probably like March, April this year, like early this year. Yeah. Shout out to Henry Jennings from Marcus today, who first brought it to our attention. Yeah, and it got me excited. Yeah, I was like, It is solving a big problem. And it sounds interesting. Yeah, but I didn't buy it, devo. So it's up 600 percent over the last 12 months. 

Bryce: [00:04:01] You hate to see it. Six hundred percent in the last 12 months. A lot of that. A lot of that gain would have actually come after Henry. Yeah, yeah, yes. 

Alec: [00:04:12] I was probably sitting pretty on a nice little gain. If that's not a reason to keep listening to Equity Mates, I don't know what is, but this episode. Let's focus not so much on the financials and the last 12 months because like, that's exciting. But for me, the technology goes a little bit over my head. But from what I can understand and the problem that it's trying to solve, this is a really, really interesting company. So let's start at the beginning and talk about the core technology, which is sort of spun off a number of products. Talk to me about kiln, the kiln. 

Bryce: [00:04:45] What was fascinating is we asked Phil this question, and I'm not going to ruin his answer later in the episode. But in essence, he just said what they've built is a kiln that heats things in different ways. As a result of that, as a result of the the kiln that they've invented to be able to, I guess, hate. They can now withdraw all of the CO2 that is captured in huge industrial processes, and we'll get into some of the. Products and industries that they're there in at the moment, but at essence, in essence, what they've been able to do is yet invent this amazing kiln that has incredible impact on sustainability and being able to reduce a lot of these emissions that go into industrial processes. 

Alec: [00:05:29] Yeah, you might look at Calix and look at the set of products that it has and be a little bit confused because it seems to have its finger in a number of different pies. It's in energy storage and batteries, waste water, agriculture, cement, a whole bunch of different industries. 

Bryce: [00:05:45] Steel was a big one.

Alec: [00:05:46] Steel. Yeah, it can be somewhat confusing to say like, what's the common theme here that ties all of these products together? And it is this kiln. This kiln is the central technology that basically is a new, new way to process material to. And then it spins off a number of they call them nano active materials. But I guess like small particles that can be used for a bunch of different things. It captures the CO2 and it is sort of the the linchpin, I guess, or the central technology that that underpins Calix. Yeah. So from there, it produces a number of different products. 

Bryce: [00:06:27] Yes. Cement being the main one.

Alec: [00:06:30] Yeah. Cement being the main one, which I'm about to go deep on the cement industry. 

Bryce: [00:06:35] Yeah, I think let's do it. I think because it's easy to get confused in the technology that they've got there. You know, pretty intelligent guys over there. And there's a lot of jargon, I would guess. But let's put it into context as to how it is actually helping to solve the problem of cement and lime and then go from there. 

Alec: [00:06:54] Sure. Well, I was going to do was nod to a bunch of the other products because we're never going to talk about them again, 

Bryce: [00:06:59] like waste water and oil.

Alec: [00:07:00] Like how quick? How a solution for lake and pond water remediation, booster mag and agricultural solution for increased yield fertiliser usage, insect and Pest Management Act Imag a solution for phosphate removal. You know, like there's a bunch of other products that we're just not interested in. And if you're going to invest in the company, you should be interested in them. But in terms of us punching out a sharp 20 minute piece of content before we speak to Phil, I'm not going to go. Those very 

Bryce: [00:07:30] interested in them, though, 

Alec: [00:07:30] is he? Or I would hope so. He's the CEO of the company. But like, I think we're going to go deep on cement because that's really exciting. It's really exciting from a sustainability point of view, and it's solving a big challenge that no one else seems to really be solving well. But it's not the only string to this bow. 

Bryce: [00:07:48] Yeah. Well, I think to close that, it's that what you can be excited about as an investor is that they've invented an amazing product here and amazing technology that can be utilised across many different industries, many different sectors. As we'll hear from feel like there's many still many unknowns as to how this product can help around the world. So as an investor, the total addressable market, the opportunity is potentially huge. 

Alec: [00:08:14] So let's get into the cement industry, though, because that is what is really exciting about this company for us. So let's set up the problem why do we care about cement?

Bryce: [00:08:22] Eight percent of the world's carbon emissions come from the cement industry. It's a lot that is so much. 

Alec: [00:08:30] It's not like coal, whether you can stop using it because as an alternative, yeah, 

Bryce: [00:08:35] a substitute product. 

Alec: [00:08:36] Yeah, you can't. So it's pretty important. It's very important. I would say to materials that if I feel I can only have two materials to build a society cement and steel, like everything else, no one would know I could live without wood.

Bryce: [00:08:52] What is more fascinating, though, is that if you put that in comparison, that is more global emissions or carbon emissions than the global car fleet. 

Alec: [00:09:01] Yeah, that's the single car on the road. Staggering. Think about how hot investors get about Tesla and Lucid and Rivian. Like any or all of those electric car companies, they're solving a big problem. Cement is a bigger problem. 

Bryce: [00:09:15] Look, it's a massive problem. And given the size and yet to your point, given the the interest that it gets, it's sort of mismatched. So yeah, it's a massive opportunity to solve. 

Alec: [00:09:26] Yeah. So let's go deep on cement, OK? So the main type of cement that you say every day is called Portland Cement. It's been this world's standard for cement since the 19th century. So it's like 200 years. Portland Cement has been not a lot of innovation, not a lot of innovation in the cement market. The key raw material for Portland cement is limestone, which releases carbon dioxide as it is heated in a cement kiln. See how it's all tied together. And the process of heating that limestone and releasing CO2 accounts for over 55 percent of cement related emissions. So remembering that it's eight percent of the world's carbon emissions. That process of heating it in a kiln is over half, so it's a bit over four percent of the world's emissions. Yeah, yeah. Kind of from this point. Yeah. Yeah, so Portland cement 98 percent of world's production. I wonder what the other two percent is. I feel like they're just being contrarian at this point. Yeah. And look, there's a number of reasons why that's the case that we don't need to go into, but for some reason included a whole bunch of notes about why Portland Cement won out over other cement. So people are really just interested in it. Yeah, I did go deep on cement. I also have a whole bunch of notes about how Portland cement is made from limestone and how it goes through a kiln. Do you care about that?

Bryce: [00:10:44] Well, I think it's important to tie in the kiln here because this is where. All right. Let me kind of steps in Maine. 

Alec: [00:10:51] More raw material in Portland. Cement, usually limestone. Yeah, which is limestone, is a sedimentary rock form from the shells and skeletons of marine organisms over hundreds of millions of years. You got that? Yes. Okay. After being mined and crushed, limestone is combined with ground clay and fed into a rotary kiln. The high temperatures within the kiln, up to about 1450 degrees Celsius, are achieved by burning fossil fuels, usually coal at this temperature. The raw materials fuse into calcium silicate called clinkers. Heard of those before know the clinker is then ground up with other materials, mainly gypsum and sometimes additional materials such as blast furnace, slag, coal fly ash or ground limestone. This produces a powder Portland cement, which is stored in silos before being dispatched in bulk, and then when it gets the work site goes in the cement mixer with water. Bob's your uncle. Cement in the ground. There you go. And so in that process, heating the limestone in the kiln releases a lot of CO2. Yeah. Also burning fossil fuels to power the kiln. Yeah. Also produces a lot of CO2. Yeah. So if we look at where Calix comes in, they when the heating the limestone, they capture that carbon and they don't use fossil fuels to heat the kill. 

Bryce: [00:12:12] Yeah, that's the key difference. I think it's that they hate in a completely different way to a traditional kiln. The way they hate this kiln externally to the inner tube is different to a traditional kill then than not burning fossil fuels to do it. 

Alec: [00:12:26] So I've got a diagram here in the notes. Alongside each of these episodes, we're doing a written right up of these companies on our website. I'll include the diagram on the written right up. Yes, nice. Should have been plugging those right up thoroughly. So, yeah, yeah, externally hated. It can even be externally headed using electricity. Yeah, yeah. 

Bryce: [00:12:45] And they capture the CO2. So essentially the result is that they can produce cement net zero emissions. Yeah. 

Alec: [00:12:51] Two key sources of force of emissions. The fuel used to hate the kiln and then what has been processed in the kiln itself collects can solve both of those. Yes, that's exciting. Very, extremely exciting. What's more exciting is there's not many other players who can offer zero carbon cement. I actually zero 

Bryce: [00:13:12] carbon Portland cement, is it? You know what I mean? Like, I think a lot of the competitors are offering like ash equivalents and, well, 

Alec: [00:13:20] I'll get to that. So I did. I did try to find other competitors. There's a lot of like McKinsey white papers, U.S. government white papers on the promise of zero carbon cement. Not a lot of companies named. To be fair, Calix is also not named in a lot of those papers, so this is the idea of zero carbon. Cement is early, but if we're thinking about competitors and the industry as a whole, there's a number of things to consider. So I think we should say Calix has a plant in Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria that it's 

Bryce: [00:13:56] definitely, definitely down there next year.

Alec: [00:13:58] Oh yeah. Check it out. That would be epic. And then they also have a few test facilities in Europe, which is pretty exciting. Europe, definitely. If you think that sustainability is the next decade gold rush, you've got to be looking in Europe. So many exciting companies there. So Calix is probably on the forefront of this zero carbon Portland cement. But there are other options that that could come into play here. A few to know about so geo polymer cement. So that's cement that I believe isn't made in a kiln. And it uses like fly ash, which is a by-product from coal fired power stations like a by-product from steelmaking. One side note Australia has a hell of a lot of fly ash just sitting around. Where about? I don't know, but yeah, I was writing as I was writing about this as there's a lot. Yeah. So that's one another. One is high blend cement where it's basically blended with more other materials, so it needs less limestone, less hiding in the kiln and then its carbon intensity is reduced. Yeah. Again, not zero carbon. Then there's what Calix does, but then. The last one that I think is interesting and I think is very hypothetical is magnesium based cement had about this. No, so magnesium based cement is apparently carbon negative. 

Bryce: [00:15:24] Well, it sucks it out of the air.

Alec: [00:15:25] So I guess in the same way that like trees are carbon negative because they take CO2 like, you know, photosynthesis takes CO2 in release oxygen. Yeah, apparently magnesium basement is this can be carbon negative. 

Bryce: [00:15:37] Pretty amazing. And I'm sure some people are sitting there going, well, why aren't we doing all of these amazing things? And I don't 

Alec: [00:15:42] know why you're doing it like it's 

Bryce: [00:15:44] because the cost of all of this is incredibly 

Alec: [00:15:47] exciting. Yeah, yeah. 

Bryce: [00:15:48] And there's no doubt that, you know, we'll hear from Phil as well about the costs that are involved, like the costs of producing these, these carbon net neutral neutral emissions cement. But of course, it's only going to get cheaper. 

Alec: [00:16:02] I don't want to get on my high horse here, and I realise we're almost at 20 minutes, but the answer to that is a carbon tax. The answer to that 10 years ago, when Julia Gillard put it in was a carbon tax. Like, if we want to say we want it and this magnesium based cement to be competing on a level playing field because they are more expensive than traditional mass produced Portland cement full of emissions make Portland cement manufacturers pay for the externality of releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Give Calix the break of not having to pay because a carbon neutral and give any magnesium based cement manufacturer a credit. Because the carbon negative, they can produce credits and sell them on the open market. Like it's not rocket science. It's just a lack of political will and all of these sustainability conversations we have. We have governments, liberal governments don't want to get political who are so scared of taxing that they'll throw money at things rather than just letting the market allocate resources when we properly price an externality. Nice, nice political rally. Let's get into the financials. 

Bryce: [00:17:10] It's not profitable Ren, but it is growing its revenues quite significantly. 2016 did revenue of three point four million. And now it's doing revenue of just shy of 20 million. It's certainly making waves in the market. As we said at the top here last 12 months, stock price performance is up over 600 percent. It is still a micro cap. Well, it's a small cap market cap of 1.1 billion. Yeah, yeah, not a micro. Plenty of growth opportunities. As we mentioned at the top here, we spoke to feel about a couple of the main sectors that they're operating in, but he gives some great examples of how this technology is being picked up around the world and they're doing things that they never anticipated that would be on that sort of pipeline. So you can only imagine that this revenue number is going to continue to grow as they get better at commercialising this product. And also, I guess, building more of these kilns. But you should if you're interested. I don't know if included in our write up, but Google the kiln down in Melbourne, it's enormous. 

Alec: [00:18:14] Yeah, it's sizeable. I guess my only question is this kiln seems to be like the silver bullet to solving a problem. And obviously the product is more expensive and there's a lot of competitive stuff that I've got to go through to get this adopted by the cement industry, assuming that that's where the world is going. The big question is how protected is the intellectual property like if you and I raised a billion dollars from investors, could we build a similar kiln donor?

Bryce: [00:18:44] The answer, I would assume they've got some sort of protection. You would hope, you would hope or they're just doing the Yola open source. It's better if anyone picks this up. It's good. Good for the broader economy. 

Alec: [00:18:54] I mean, that would be that would be the altruistic thing to do.

Bryce: [00:18:56] Yeah. Well, it seems that it feels like they're that type of company. You will hear and I'm the Equity Mates community. We hear that you did drop out of the interview based on internet problems because we were undergoing a Covid test. But he spoke about how they operate their company. And there's a lot of freedom and not a lot of governance, and everyone has a lot of opportunity and empowerment to do what they like. And I know you hate meetings.

Alec: [00:19:23] But anyway, I digress. Well, let's use that as a segue way into the interview. Plenty we can talk about. Obviously, this company is on the edge of our circle of competence, so there's probably engineers and people who know a lot more tearing the hairs out a little bit. Hopefully, Phil will be a panacea for that because he is the expert in this. 

Bryce: [00:19:44] That's it. Well, let's take a quick break. We'll hear from our sponsors and then we'll get straight into the interview with Phil Hodgson, CEO of Calix. So, Phil Hodgson is the managing director and CEO of Calix, ticker CXL. Phil joined Calix in two 13, 2013 as CEO and Phil. We're really excited about this one. Calix has been spoken about a lot in the Equity Mates community, and we always like to start these interviews with the CEO describing their company in their own words. So what is Calix?

Phil Hodgson: [00:20:18] Calix is a great Australian home grown technology that is just centred around a new way to heat stuff up. It's as simple as that. It's just a new type of kill for us because of the way we make stuff up. We can do some really interesting things. We can separate the CO2 that comes out of the cement and lime processing when you're making cement alone. We can make some really interesting new materials, and we're developing those materials in just really interesting spaces like batteries and and biotech. In the kiln itself, we can electrically heat. So it's a way to assist industry move from fossil fuels to renewable energy. So three different sort of applications of the one core technology, which is just a new way to heat stuff up. So that's how I describe them

Bryce: [00:21:09] love that, new way to heat stuff up. Who would have thought that's how you would explain it, but love it. It's nice and simple. So you you mentioned a number of different industries there, and Calix is involved across a lot, you know, energy storage and batteries, waste water, agriculture, cement. You've got your fingers in a lot of pies. What's the common thread that ties all of these business units together? 

Phil Hodgson: [00:21:32] Yeah It basically boils down to to the one core technology, which is our new type of kiln, new way to heat stuff up. Heating stuff up is an important part of chemical and mineral processing and has been for for thousands of years, and we just do it a little differently. We don't sort of throw in what you hate with how you heat it, in other words, rocks and fuel and you light a match. We separate how you heat from what you heat in in a big steel tube that separates the hot side if you like from the stuff you're trying to heat up and brings with it several advantages. As I mentioned, we we can capture the CO2 when you're processing limestone to make cement online. We're not contaminating what we're heating up with flue gases and flame so we can make some really interesting and active materials. And that's the basis of the battery business, the water business in the biotech space. And of course, you know, because we don't care if we use flames or if we use electric elements like toaster elements around the outside of that tube. That's the basis of the business that we're looking to develop into renewably powered industrial processes. So. So the common thread is, is the coal technology itself just a new way to heat stuff up, as I mentioned before? 

Bryce: [00:22:46] Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, as I said, it's a company that has caught the attention of our community, given the great impacts that you're having on sustainability, which we'll touch on. So can you help us understand how big the market opportunity is here? Because, you know, for a lot of our Equity Mates community, we kind of understand the product, but we really like to hear, you know, some of the biggest products that you're working with and developing. How big is the total addressable market? 

Phil Hodgson: [00:23:14] If I take perhaps some of the markets that we're trying to address, in turn, let's let's look at the alignments made the industry, for example, that's responsible for about eight percent of global CO2 emissions, and two thirds of those emissions are coming, coming from the rock that they use the limestone. And our technology is really about separating that CO2 that's coming out of the rock. Now, the biggest kiln were built to date is a sort of pilot facility in in Germany or in Belgium with Heidelberg Cement, and we're building a fourfold scale up of that in Germany with all the big cement as well. Now, if I multiply that again by another four, that's separating half a million tonnes of CO2 from a full scale cement plant, we're in the process of scaling that up. To give you an idea of the market size, we'll need to build one of those plants every three days from now to 2050 to decarbonise the cement lime industry. So that gives you, I guess, an idea of the size of the problem that that industry faces, but also the size of the market opportunity. And so that's just cement and lime. We recently announced the application of our new kiln to look at steel and iron and decarbonisation of steel and iron, now submitting Lambert responsible for eight per cent of global emissions steel and on a responsible for seven, you know, the sort of matrix similar. It's just an enormous problem that those industries face respect to the CO2 emissions and obviously a huge opportunity for a company like ours. And then I haven't even touched sort of that. Trees and water and these sorts of things just in the battery industry space, I think most people will be familiar with the the electric vehicle fanatic. I think Delia's latest report just released suggests that the battery market will grow to eight hundred and fifty billion by 2050 as the global fleet electrifies. All of the stuff that we're doing is really trying to target more sustainable solutions. And funnily enough, those sorts of sustainable solutions have a very big potential market as the globe decarbonise. 

Bryce: [00:25:28] The cement industry is one of the really exciting parts that you know we get sort of pumped up about, given how much it contributes to global emissions and the impacts that you guys can have on that. How's the industry received the new technology? Is it? What's the dynamic like competing against the cheaper sort of carbon emitting alternatives?

Phil Hodgson: [00:25:48] It's interesting when we first came up with the idea to use our kiln to to decarbonise cement a line that was around twenty fourteen, there wasn't a lot of interest developing that in Australia, so we went overseas. We engage with the likes of Heidelberg Cement and then SIMEX, and those guys were listening. At that point, they weren't acting quick, they were listening and it was fighting a couple of champions in those industries to start to work with us to help mitigate their CO2 risk, even in those early phases. Fast forward to today, those companies are now committing to net zero CO2 by 2050 and setting themselves some pretty ambitious targets by 2030. And so the engagement with those initial interested parties has now widened quite considerably. And it's not just the people who we're working with, but we're getting enquiries coming in from all over the world, from all sorts of different cement and lime companies on how to decarbonise the industry and what to do about it. When we talk about then a solution like ours competing with the status quo, let's call it the standard sort of heavy carbon emitting cement and lime industries. I don't think any of those companies can can seriously believe that any more. Could they continue business as usual? And really over the last 12 to 24 months, that has really come home to roost, apart from big companies pledging that zero. The reality of having carbon tariffs and these sorts of things, not necessarily taxes. Tariffs in place for importing and exporting goods means that any company who wants to operate on the international stage has to look at decarbonisation efforts so cheaper. Business as usual carbon emitting alternatives are becoming a thing of the past. And so what we have got to do is really have the the lowest cost technology that we can possibly get available to help these industries transition. 

Bryce: [00:27:47] So you've developed or invented this kiln that heats things in different ways or heats things differently, as you said, and allows you to separate the source of the CO2 in the emissions components. And you know, we see that you spend or invest a fair bit into research and development as well. How do you go about finding the next use case for the kiln? Like you've got a, you know, a fair few industries that you're sort of playing at the moment, but how do you go about pushing this technology even broader? 

Phil Hodgson: [00:28:16] Yeah, very good question. It's a bit of a combination of the inbound enquiries, along with obviously our own internal sort of knowledge and research on where we could apply. It makes some of the band enquiries we get, especially around the ability of the kiln to be electrically heated, have really surprised us. We were approached and in fact put together a solution with a Swedish company who were looking at dehydrating a salt, believe it or not, in summer and then combining that salt with water in winter to provide heat and town heating and now having a lot of trouble finding the right type of kiln to dehydrate their souls in the summer. And then they came to us and we're developing a pilot project in Sweden with these guys now. So a lot of stuff actually comes in, which is which is really interesting. But the other thing, of course, is is, you know, we we have a look at where the technology could be applied. There's just a heating step. So we look at all sorts of different processes and how they heat and whether our skill could be applicable to that process. That's another way we we sort of do it. And then thirdly, remember, I was talking about those highly active materials that we can produce in our field if we want to make sort of looking at batteries or biotech space. Essentially, we go to the to the research history on what's called nanoparticles. We don't make nanoparticles, we make them a thousand times bigger. But because ours are so they're not contaminated by flames and gas and they're quite porous, like a honeycomb structure. We look at where nano. Radicals research is going in the last 10 years and and see if we could make some interesting microparticles, something a thousand times, speaking of it, but having very high porosity emulates some of those native properties. So they're the three different areas, I guess, that we use to provide the next idea or the application of the technology. Wow. 

Bryce: [00:30:11] Fascinating. There's just so much good stuff happening there and so much going on. It's yeah, it's no wonder that it's sort of making waves in the Equity Mates community. What you're doing now, we're asking every CEO that we talk to about sustainability, but obviously this is core to your mission. And it's summed up no better than one of our favourite taglines for a business that we've ever come across, which is Mars is for quitters. Bang on the front page of the website. Can you tell us about that tagline and how that sort of directs your team? 

Phil Hodgson: [00:30:46] Yeah, look. In the end, that that tagline was was thought up by our team. We were trying to work out how we could sort of communicate the message that out that our technology we're developing to solve some global challenges. It really is a sustainable, sustainable, business driven company. And one of our engineers jokingly came up while discussing, Well, Elon Musk does it so well, you know, he just has a picture of Mars, and that's what space is, because all of that. And he just said, Oh, why don't we just have Mars is for quitters. We all had a huge laugh and and then we thought, hang on a minute. That's that's actually quite good. And, you know, it's of humour, but it actually has a serious message underneath it. The really sort of says what it is that we're about. So that's where it's come from and because it's come from our stuff and and come from the way that we engage our staff, they're all leaders in the business. It really does encapsulate the spirit, I guess, of what the company is all about. That really explains where that catch phrase comes from and why it drives us. 

Bryce: [00:31:46] Yeah, Phil, it's awesome. Mars is for as if, if you're listening, go and have a look at the website and you'll see what we're talking about. But don't change that. Whatever you do, it's a great one. So one thing that Alec and I have come to understand from a lot of the expert investors that we've spoken to is the importance of understanding management. When you're thinking about investing in publicly listed companies, and often it's very difficult for us to get access directly to management, which is partly why we're doing these interviews to hear straight from the CEO and and other leaders. But how do you think about leadership as a CEO? What sort of drives you and how do you think about building and creating a team that is capable of taking beyond or beyond Mars? 

Phil Hodgson: [00:32:32] Yeah, it's it's such a hugely important question because, you know, if I have a look at how many technologies fail and they don't fail, necessarily because they're bad technologies that often fail because they maybe didn't have a great deal of luck, but then again, you often create your own luck. So ultimately, if it's a good technology, a lot of the reason that you either succeed or fail comes down to the team. And I talk about the team because I encourage each member of the team to be leaders. It's not necessarily that there's one leader in the business and in everyone follows. So we're a small enough team that I want each person to develop their leadership capability. And so that's a very important part of the culture that we have. If we don't have time for rules and procedures and things that just tend to tie up big companies are not. So I used to work for big companies, so we exactly what I'm talking about. We have enough for governance, but we don't have, you know, we trust our people. And that's important. And the second piece to this is believe right from the start that every single person working for Catholics is an owner in the company. And so we've had employee share schemes there from the start. When I'm standing there in front of my staff, they're actually my boss into some way that goes to everything that we that we do and we think about. We've got to challenge each other. No one's got the sort of right to being right. No person is 100 percent correct in anything. And so giving them ownership and giving them encouraging their leadership development is about making sure that every voice is heard in the company, which is which is really important when you talk about leadership that that's what it means to me. It's the team. It's everyone stepping up to be a leader. That's important. 

Bryce: [00:34:12] Yeah, I love that we um, we both came from corporates as well. So I certainly understand the difference in dynamic between that. And then, yeah, trying to build a small team that feels empowered and can make their own decisions. So I love that. So feel to close out again. We ask all of our CEOs this question, and it is if you think about Catholics in 10 years time, what does success look like for you? 

Phil Hodgson: [00:34:35] If I look back to when I joined Calix in 2013, I think we did our first capital raise at a 10 million dollar company valuation and where we're at today, and I'm not saying that valuation is the is the metric of success. But it's really interesting to see that the market is is now seeing the company and assessing its potential, given its track record of progressing the commercialisation journey across different lines of business. And so obviously this is a much more substantial market cap today in 10 years time. The company had better have realised the potential. It should have the best and lowest cost solution for decarbonisation of the cement a line. It has every chance of doing the same thing for steel earlier days, but it has every chance of having the same impact. It's core technology in areas like batteries, advanced batteries and biotech. Again, it's early days, but the potential there is that any one of these businesses have the potential to be very substantial multibillion dollar businesses, which is why, with what we're pursuing them while we're pursuing them, all people go, Why don't you just concentrate on one? Will that mean that the opportunity is so big and the need is great? The global challenges that each of those lines of business were developing is great as well. And so 10 years time, I want to say each of those businesses having having succeeded, having established themselves as best available technology, you know, changing the battery landscape, changing the biotech landscape and obviously the decarbonisation landscape, certainly in 10 years. Time will not be just a company known to perhaps Equity Mates and a few and a few keen investors. But I think Alan Kohler even mentioned maybe a bit more than a year ago that he thought if we could, if we could succeed in what we're trying to achieve would would be the CSL of industrial processes. So I'd love to fulfil Alan's prophecy. There you go. 

Bryce: [00:36:35] That would be amazing. You know, I'm really excited to see 

Bryce: [00:36:38] to see the progression and growth of of the company over the next few years. I think it's amazing what you guys have built and the true impacts that you can have on on site, you know, two massive industries cement and steel and the impact that those industries have on global emissions. Yeah, it's an awesome success story here in Australia, and we kind of wish you all the best. And I know a lot of our community here Equity Mates think the same and would have taken a lot of value from listening to today, Phil. So thank you very much and we appreciate your time. 

Phil Hodgson: [00:37:08] Thanks very much for having me on. Never tire of talking about Calix, 

Bryce: [00:37:13] so Ren look really enjoyable. Interview with Phil. There's no doubt what they're doing is is incredible and we're both pretty excited about it. And I know a lot of our community members are as well. So as you said at the top of the show, there is going to be a ride out with a bit of a diagram as to what the kiln looks like, how it all works. Head across to our website for that. And also a reminder that this summer series is brought to you by Super Hero, who allow you to buy Aussie and US shares and ETFs with no monthly account fees. And you can now earn Qantas points with superheroes. So visit Superhero Dot Com today you slash Qantas to learn more eligibility criteria. Terms and conditions and fees and charges apply. Head across to our Instagram page for your chance to win $1000 in a superhero wallet just by dropping one of your favourite facts from this episode into the corresponding post on Instagram. And we've only got two more episodes to go. We've got Airbnb coming up next, one of our favourite companies over in the states, and then we'll be closing out with a local Australian hero. So stick with us and we'll pick it up in the next episode. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of Equity Mates. We love hearing from you, so drop us a line at contact@equitymates.com or even better, go to your podcast player and leave a five star review. Also, a reminder that the Equity Mates content train doesn't stop when you've run out of episodes to binge. We've got a brand new website, a Facebook discussion group where on Instagram, YouTube and slowly making our way as an influencer on Tik-tok. Well, that's Ren. So come and say hello and join the community. We'd love to welcome you. Until next time.