What Does Dubstep Have to Do With Regeneration? ft. Murray Gray | TSA E22

What connects a Shoreditch nightclub at 2am, a palm agroforestry project in the Amazon, and the question of whether anything can ever truly be 'regenerative'?

In this long-form conversation on Strange Attractor, Sam sits down with Murray Gray – CEO of Sustainable Table, former systemic venture builder at Metabolic, and Fresh Ventures – to trace a throughline from DJing and the early dubstep scene in Shoreditch all the way to financing the transition to circular, bio-based economies.

We get into the tension between systems thinking and mechanistic thinking, and why you need both – the yin-yang dynamic between the rigour of structure that enables the flow of emergence. We talk about 'lowercase entrepreneurialism', the unglamorous work of actually making things happen, and why the boring stuff (regulation, legal structures, governance) is where the real leverage usually hides.

Murray shares hard-won lessons from building systemic venture studios, the trap of analysing everything before you act, and the shift from asking 'are you regenerative?' to 'are you regenerating?' – a move from noun to verb that changes who's in the room and who gets left out.
And we go deep on finance: why so much of what gets called 'high risk' is really a perception problem, how patient capital works on 25–30 year timescales, and what it actually takes to fund the people doing the most important, most intangible early work.

A wide-ranging, warm and occasionally provocative conversation about doing the thing rather than just talking about it, exploring systems thinking, patient capital, venture studios, and why the hardest work is usually invisible.


00:00 - Launching The Strange Attractor and Vision
02:13 - Introducing Murray and Starting Conversation
03:27 - Opening Remarks and Welcome
03:36 - Discussing the Building Systemic Ventures Paper
05:05 - Murray's Diverse Path and Operational Focus
07:55 - Personality Insights and Connecting Diverse Themes
09:19 - Conversation Flow and Mutual Understanding
11:12 - Balancing Planning and Action in Systems
12:14 - Electronic Music Scene as Systemic Innovation Example
15:19 - Discovering Systems Thinking and Circular Economy
17:38 - Evolving Awareness of Systemic Properties
19:04 - Tools, Language, and Prompt for Discussion
19:55 - Seeing Connections Yet Struggling to Act
20:15 - Challenges Translating Insight into Action
23:21 - Addressing Key Issue and Initiating Discussion
24:22 - Systemic Venture Building Framework Overview
26:14 - Venture Studio Support and Ongoing Presence
28:50 - Venture Survival Metrics and Founder Support
30:37 - Complex Challenges and Excitement in Venture Work
32:07 - Building Impact Ecosystem and Community Support
34:50 - Navigating Regulatory Barriers and Value Decisions
37:58 - Radical Shifts and Process Philosophy Insights
40:13 - Personal Struggle and Turning Point
44:28 - Shift After Group Meeting and Brazil Case
46:15 - Regenerative Agroforestry in Brazil and Long-Term Impact
51:27 - Patient Capital and Long-Term Return Considerations
53:46 - Rational and Perceptual Barriers to Funding
55:46 - Building Infrastructure and Trust for Innovation
59:08 - Applying Solutions Across Sectors and Challenges
01:03:17 - Conclusion and Looking Forward to Next Episode

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This is an evolving experiment.

The Strange Attractor is produced by Ecotone Studio — a creative practice exploring the fertile edge where art, science, technology and philosophy meet.

Like the ecosystems we are a part of, this project is designed to evolve. Every conversation changes the next one.

If there’s a question you’d like us to explore, a guest we should invite, or a theme you think deserves more attention, drop us a line. 

We’re especially interested in the spaces between disciplines—the ecotones where unexpected ideas emerge. If you’re building something thoughtful, beautiful or regenerative, or simply wrestling with questions that matter, we’d love to hear from you.
 
Thanks for listening. Until next time — stay curious.

Transcript

Strange Attractor Gets A New Home

Samuel Wines 0:00

Hello there, you marvelous manifestation of data. Welcome back to the Strange Attractor. We have officially I guess I spun the Strange Attractor out from Colabs to be its own standalone podcast and project or initiative. This is just to keep it a bit more of a wide remit. It's going to transcend and include Colab's members and other things where fit for purposes. But it will be primarily now I guess just focusing on this transdisciplinary living systems thinking, ecological design sort of space. And we're using it as a vehicle to speak to folks who are building small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos, who are trying to facilitate transitions to bi-based circular economies, who are trying to find ways to enter and see the world from a place of interconnection rather than separation, who are trying to advocate for approaches and ways of doing being and seeing, which acknowledge our interconnection with the natural world. So yeah, it's going to be separated from transcending, but including folks at Colabs as well. And then we'll have our Colab specific podcast too on the side. So yeah, that's like a little bit of an update from us. This episode was really exciting. I sat down with it's going to be part one of however many parts it takes to finish this conversation with Mari. Maybe two, maybe three. We just didn't have enough time to keep talking, unfortunately, on the day. As tends to happen in a fast-paced environment like Colab. Sometimes you just can't get enough space or time to be able to record the conversations. So luckily for you, he will be coming back for another chat for round two super soon. So Murray is actually one of the folks that first got me interested in systemic venture building and Steward-owned venture studios through I guess some of the work he was doing alongside Chris Monahan at metabolic. So metabolic ventures in specific. So they are, I guess it's catalyzing the transition to some circular bioeconomies over in Europe. They've been doing some amazing work over there. And I was like, why the hell do we not have that happening over here in Australia? Um and lo and behold, as a fortune has it, Murray has now landed in Australia and is living here with his partner Tara. Um so that's cool. Um and really exciting opportunity for Australia to learn from someone who's been there and done that and to see how we might be able to apply this uh challenge-led, complexity-informed approach to venture building and what sort of financing facilities might be needed to be able to bring this all to life. Um so here's a gun. Um that's pretty much all I'm gonna say. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Mari. Uh as I said, part one of two, the middle camera stopped working, it was blurry. I don't recommend trying to set up multiple uh cameras and running a podcast by yourself. Um but you know, we are growing and trying to build so that we can have a team who can help us manage and coordinate the podcast. So if you know anyone who's open to supporting or helping us bring the strange attractor to life, let me know. I would love to um I'd love to hear from you. Um without further ado, let's get into the conversation.

Murray’s Throughline From Music To Impact

Samuel Wines 3:27

Mari. Sam. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for making it onto the strange attractor. It's been a long time coming. Um, I remember. Jeez, when did the building systemic ventures paper come out?

SPEAKER_02 3:42

That would have been that is a great question. I think that was actually before my time at Metabolic. It was written by one of my favorite colleagues in my entire work lifetime, Chris Monahan. Yeah, it's he deserves that. He is a legend. I think that was came out in 2020. It was just maybe before I joined Metabolic. So that was a long time ago. And uh yeah, I that's now six years, seven years maybe.

Samuel Wines 4:10

Yeah, so I feel like I'd come across that paper, and then I think I'd found that you were working for metabolic in that space maybe maybe 2021, would have been very early on in the collabs journey. And I remember being like, this is amazing. Why do we not have people thinking, doing, or exploring this sort of stuff here locally? And fast forward to 2026, and here you are. You're in Melbourne now, so that was a pretty exciting um full circle, I guess, from reading a paper, being like, This is amazing. This is this really feels like a potential solution that's addressing quite a lot of issues, I guess, in the innovation space. Um, and that made me really excited. And yeah, so reached out and obviously um, yeah, you were happy to have a chat, and then you told me you were moving to Melbourne, which is pretty exciting. Um, but anyway, I digress. I was gonna do like a bit of a pump up like intro for you. Um, but I honestly I didn't even know how or where to start with this because like the list of everything that you do is so so long. You're a a DJ, you're uh you're a former former club rat, as I believe you almost self-identified. Um and so very deep, deeply engrossed in the arts and music and all of this sort of stuff. And then you sort of fell into um like finance and startups and um but not just like any sort of normal type of startup. You were very interested in exploring ways in which you could use like business model innovation to try and create better startups that might address issues in a way that meant that value could stay in place or would be supporting um future innovations rather than just being extracted off the top. So from the onset, you know, it feels like there's been a bit of a through line that's kind of pulled you through all of these sorts of things. And I'd love to know like what that was it curiosity led that's you've ended up, you know, now here at Sustainable Table as a CEO helping them, you know, so it's like metabolic, sustainable table, all of these things. Is there a through line for you that you can make sense of, or is it more just like what's piqued your interest?

SPEAKER_02 6:21

I think uh not to start by quoting Steve Jobs, but I'm gonna do it anyway. The dots make sense when you look backwards, but they don't at the time or looking forwards, right? I have reflected on this question as I've gone through these processes of and different transitions in my life of trying to sort of especially moving into new fields and new geographies, trying to always explain what you do, uh, especially when you have no creds in that scene, right? So I've done that quite a few times now. So I I think there was there were like a few things that I saw as themes. I'd probably edit out the investment banking part at the start of my career from this, for everything else since then, from like 20 when I was like 22. I'd say, I think like partnering with you can insert whatever phrase makes sense for you here, but kind of visionaries or innovators or people doing interesting stuff who are kind of at the edge of their pushing the edge of their field, I think is one thing, and being kind of, I guess, the trusted partner for them in some way. Um I think also like kind of doing that at the edge of the intersections of things, and the edge, I always like where's the I'm always interested, like where the frontier is of a field, or where the intersections of these fields are uh as well. Um and then probably the third thing is really trying to bring I always call it like maybe we would call it, I've called it before, like lowercase entrepreneurialism. Lowercase entrepreneurialism. Well, in terms of like, I don't think I'm like the entrepreneur, the conventional entrepreneur type or the classical entrepreneur type. But just the bringing this sort of operational rigor, trying to get things done, make things happen, etc.

Samuel Wines 8:01

So like the general manager side of entrepreneurship, which is usually forgotten about, but arguably one of the more important traits is like how do you make this thing function and work? There's a bit of that.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

And I remember we when I was in metabolic, we did these different sort of personality work personality type tests, and we did one, I forget what it's called, that had eight different categories. And one of them was the resource investigator, I think it was called. And I remember one of my other friends, Brian, who was leading food in metabolic, a friend of mine, we both got the resource investigator. So it's this person almost this guy who's going out and talking to people and kind of making things happen, building relationships, getting opportunities. So I think there's a bit of like the internal operational thing. It's always a bit of my bugbear when I work in collectives. So I'm like, I always want to think that's the core of how to improve how I work together. So the how we do the work, I'd say is one. And then the other is like the sort of resourced investigator role of trying to go out there and hunt and try and find and make things happen and bring back sometimes quite irrelevant opportunities, but sometimes it hits the spot. So I'd say that's the other piece in terms of the entrepreneurial, lowercase entrepreneurialism, like trying to make stuff happen. Those are kind of the themes I would say from when I started in music all the way through to now. And so it's also interesting and weird to connect these dots across different geographical regions, but also completely different fields, right?

Samuel Wines 9:19

Yeah, no, I I understand that. But to your point, there I'd like to use a Batesonian metaphor, like that there tends to be a pattern that connects, right? And I find in a similar sort of way, like there is a there is a creativity and a like an innovative jazz-like approach to mixing music and playing and exploring that sort of space. You also have to be very entrepreneurial with how you get yourself out there. How do you differentiate yourself to other musicians or whatnot? And I think that from a first principles perspective, a lot of those patterns can then obviously translate into entrepreneurship or being resourceful or trying to figure things out. So yeah, in in in hindsight, you can obviously see a bit of a through line. But I mean, if you're anything like myself, like with the DJing and and all this sort of stuff, I didn't really think you kind of just lean in or just try things or experiment, and then you look back and you're like, okay, I guess I had a creative agency, a digital marketing thing, and then now collabs and and it really doesn't make much sense. And I think there was a charity along the way, but here we are, and but I can still see how the skill sets that I've learned and trained can be like replicable and usable in each of those. So like just pitching concepts, like as an influencer, you're constantly pitching concepts and ideas and selling a vision. And so that translates and maps pretty, pretty strongly onto the whole entrepreneurial pathway. But I love this concept of the lowercase entrepreneur as well. Um, there's like the there is an element of like just doing the thing rather than like a lot of the time, you know, here we are talking about the things. But you can get stuck in like the doing, uh doing of the thing and not talking about the thing, or there's a lot of people who talk about the thing but don't do much of the thing. And I feel like the lowercase entrepreneur is more of like that, let's get the thing done. I'm not here to try and get the round of applause at the keynote. It's more just like, what do we do to build this from the ground up? Um, that I kind of resonate with as a concept. Totally.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

I think as you were speaking, I was reflecting on the fact that there have been cases where I've talked about the thing and tried to put names and shape around everything and pre-plan and when I've started something new, um, and too much, and then not just on the doing. Um, and there's other times where, you know, on the flip side, like how you can tell stories is so key to this, right? How you create things that people can connect with, and it's sometimes it's framing it in a certain way and suddenly it clicks with them. And it's also interesting looking back. So that's when you're looking forward to like you're staring at the mountain, you're like, don't know the path up, and you're how do you find your way up? You kind of need a bit of both, but also how you reflect back on things that you've done, and as you accrue more wisdom, if you will, how you interpret what you did before also evolves,

What Club Culture Teaches About Systems

SPEAKER_02 11:58

right? So, you know, what I thought I was doing at the time, I suddenly, like, for example, maybe this is a bit of a big jump, but I sort of was reflecting on how the electronic music scene is kind of a great example of like what you might phrase as system innovation, in the fact that I like that. I nudged this in a little article once that I released of like what you had. So going back to the music thing very briefly, like I can't take too much credit for this because my brother started a talent agency that was working kind of again at the kind of forefront of certain kind of new emerging electronic music fields or scenes, right? Or genres. Um, and what was really interesting about that is that it a there were genres that were influenced by others that amorphed into this like new genre that no one could really put shape around, and they sometimes gave it a name, but they didn't really know what it was, what it really was. And people were going to physical places, and there was this club in in London called Plastic People, it was a bit of a legendary club in Shoreditch in London. That's where essentially like dubstep was born, and then all the fudge that came off dubstep, which was a very exciting time, and we were kind of in and around that at the time. So you get people innovating and bring tracks into this physical club, but all the sort of diehards would go is a Sunday night, like nine to two in the morning. So who goes to that, right? That's you go to people really nerding out. Insane time slot, right? Yeah, and then you know, you'd have people testing stuff in the club, and then it wasn't just people who were like producers and, if you will, consumers of just the fans. All the people in the crowd were also the ones who are making music, right? So they go and they'd be excited and influenced by what was being played, they go back to the studio and they go make stuff inspired by that, you know, come back into the club, but also people were interacting online. So that's when aim was something. AO interno messengers was a thing. So people also interacting between different locations and then getting inspired by different things, and so you end up with the just like merging, sort of innovative field that's really at this forefront, exploring together, and you have this web of like physical places, you have the online space, and you have lots of different people. Some people came from dub music, some came from techno music, many others, and you get this merging together, and then suddenly it like jumps over to the US, and then you have that happening, and it all starts to splinter off. A few die, new things emerge, and so to me, it's like a great encapsulation of how we think in systems observing how these scenes work, some things die, some things re-regenerate, lots of people coming together with different ideas and a sense of collectivism, actually, right? People were really just like, sure, there were some egos at play like there are anywhere, but you see how this like bottom-up emergent thing really has this collective community aspect to it as well.

Samuel Wines 14:35

It's almost essential for any of this, like the true innovation is like humans' best collective sense making is done. I mean, human's best sense making is done as a collective. And it's when you bring these people together into like, I think Brian Nino called it senius. Um, it's like when you create these senius spaces and places that can be hybrid, you know, digital, physical, but that tends to be where you get the emergence of this really new and innovative sort of stuff. So I can, to your point, I can that's a really beautiful example of how that systemic thinking, you might not have I imagine back then you didn't have the scaffolding from a language sort of perspective for this, but you're embodied in it and you understand it like in that sort of physical, relational, like I've I've I've lived this sort of thing and have perceived this. And then I'd be curious how long in your journey of um just trying to figure the world out, was it that you came across like systems thinking um and like circularity and all these other concepts that you know I know metabolic is super well known for that being their core thing is like how do we advance the transition to circular biobased economies? But was this through metabolic or was this something that you came across beforehand?

Learning Systems Thinking At Metabolic

SPEAKER_02 15:44

So when I was about 30, I made this jump from music into like what I thought at the time was sustainability. That's where I started, and it was quite a big shift for me because I think you know I really needed a bit of a life transformation, let's say, right? And I just sort of explored for a couple of years, got a few gigs, tried stuff out, the little stuff for free, worked across a range of different things. And I forget how I came across Metabolic, but I remember coming across it, and I think I was thinking about being to Amsterdam at the time. I was living in Barcelona, and I felt there's not really a scene here to your senior's point, which I love by the way, that concept. There wasn't really a scene there for someone who's new into it that could really like nurture, right? So Amsterdam really had it. And I was I don't remember how I found it, but I remember the moment that I just remember the feeling. I was like, wow, someone is developing in this field. What my brother and I was helping him was trying to develop in the music industry, which is this we also essentially this ecos, almost an eco-specifical metabolic ever used to call it an ecosystem of organizations, right? And the same thing that with reprise Howard, my brother, and me helping him in the team, we're also trying to build all this stuff that intersected together between representation and publishing and press and events and all this stuff, right? So I was like, wow, someone's doing this in this field, isn't that amazing? And then I think I started to dig because I was still learning about all this stuff. I didn't, you know, I think you start, it's a bit like the music analogy when you get into a new genre, you start with the basic stuff, yeah, and then you get deeper and deeper and your taste sort of matures.

Samuel Wines 17:19

I'm house, I'm into house, and then suddenly it's like it's more of like a dub techno house crossover with a little bit of Afro house. It's like I but it's you know, you start getting really nuanced. I I understand. Yeah, very nuanced, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:30

And sometimes a bit too nuanced. Yeah. So yeah, so I just remember that feeling, and um, I think honestly, I didn't really know about systems thinking at that time. So I'd say in hindsight, I haven't really thought about this before, but I think it's really through the act of starting to work. And I worked with Chris for like six months. I remember contacting him in COVID. We've been talking for ages, and I said, Hey, why don't I just help you out a couple of days a week? Just to see how this goes, just you know, for nothing or whatever, right? And we start working, and I think it's when he was writing the paper, actually, right? So we just started working, and then I'm like, okay, he's this guy's got very interesting ideas. Like the guy I don't know, anyone really thinks like Chris, right? Incredible thinker. So that's I think I started to get into it. And I also remember Eva, who's founder of uh founding founder CEO of metabolic, giving a systems thinking training for our little team in like one of the early months that I was there, which is a huge gift, right? She's really you know advanced in this stuff. And we had we went and built one of those for the food system in Europe, which was something that I took on when I joined Fresh, which is this um Systemic Venture Studio, whatever that means. We'll talk about that, I'm sure. So I think just you know, I didn't know it really, but it then, you know, it makes sense to some people naturally, I think. And the thing that Eva was used to say was like, everyone is a systems thinker. Just being a taught out of us, yeah, or you just don't necessarily put words to it, but you are thinking about interconnections between things. We have thinking about the laid effects, you're you know, all these different systems properties. People are thinking about this stuff, it just this gives you a language and the tools to do it, right?

Samuel Wines 19:08

That was exactly my felt experience of learning the tool set um and the skill set as well, was that we all are natural systems thinkers. It's just that we're taught a very mechanistic, reductionist way of looking at the world, and that then shapes the way we perceive things. But this feels much more intuitive or natural. Like when you're told about this stuff, it's like, ah, I mean, we would have had to have known this sort of stuff when we were hunter-gatherers or even like two, three hundred years ago when we were less, let's say, mechanically technologically dependent. I think things like the steam engine and then electricity have really changed our way of how we perceive things. Um, I don't think it was that long ago that we all had to sort of think in cycles and loops and all of this sort of stuff, especially if you're growing food or gardening or anything like that. Um cool, nice. So Can I make a comment quickly? Yeah, please. Sorry, I just emerge.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Go for it. So I have this thing I think. I fully agree with you. And I think there's this, I think the there's still the risk is of the system's thinker is that it can become overwhelming. And it's struggling, then you see the connections between all these different things, it's very hard to move to action. Right? So a couple of things I think are interesting, just the little ideas to drop. I think using kind of the mechanistic think here thinking or mechanistic more what might be considered more mechanistic approaches approaches as a forcing function for some things. So I'll give you an example, right? Um in our organization um sustainable table right now, like we've we've set some like very like simple, quantifiable goals. I don't say goals in my personal life, by the way, at all. I don't really use them. But what we needed at a time was something a bit more mechanistic, but that also enabled in my eyes, it enables everyone to work emergently because they just have something which is just like a forcing function, right? And that doesn't mean it's trying to be really structured and mechanistic, it's just a a thing to then enable us beneath that there's all this world of this very complex world and things that need to happen to enable that goal, right? For example. So I'm interested in how you can use some of the tools in the mechanistic mind to enable us to put some bounds around the system thing, because sometimes it becomes boundless and everything is interconnected, and you're like, uh. And I think this also like doing this intersection of doing and analyzing is like there can be a sense, and I have this risk myself, of like trying to analyze everything and understand everything before you do anything. It's impossible. Yeah, and so it's a bit like and everyone's mode or and the system you're working and stuff, it's different, what's required and how what your capabilities and your frame is and everything and everything else. But just finding what the right cadence is of like sort of action, which might be seen more as like trying to control or push or whatever, which is a fair critique in some cases, but I think. Don't throw the baby out of the bathwater. We have to act. So sort of how do you find wherever this like flow is of doing, reflecting, seeing, understanding, having that system's mind, but also just you sort of got to just sometimes tunnel and just do and see where you get. So I think these things of just like the mechanistic versus systems, there's a there's a value to the mechanistic thinking. Oh, absolutely. Right? Okay, I'm not sure. Yeah, no, no. I think a lot of people, I think it's the implicit thing that people say. They they know it, but they don't say it. So I'm glad you say that.

Samuel Wines 22:29

It's uh I I like to think of it as yin-yang. You can't have one without the other, and then there's a little bit of each within one or the other, right? And I think that with a lot of this work, you need the rigor of like some of those structures to be able to then allow for the flowy sort of um capacity within you, right? So I'm I'm all for I think you need both. Like we still, you know, we still set KPIs and things like that at work, but you acknowledge that like not everything that you can measure matters, not everything that matters is measurable, like you know, whatever that sort of saying is. Um, but it's still there's immense value to like a reductionist scientific way of looking at things, but it's like it's not the only lens, and it's bringing an ecology of ways of looking at something that allow you to maybe perceive it in a different sort of way. Um, so I definitely, yeah, I I resonate with that and the need for both. Um, so I understand exactly where you're coming from there. There was a point that I really wanted to tap on. No, no, no. We we no, this is great. There's like um there's so many sort of like points and things to pick up on this that I think like anywhere we go in the conversation is gonna be delightful. Um so is there anything else on on this note of the systems thinking and the the mechanistic thinking and the need for like uh like pluralistic ways of looking at the world that you wanted to touch on further? Or did you want to jump into um fresh ventures?

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Well, I think there's an intersection of those two things, actually, right? So which we can explore. Yeah.

Inside Systemic Venture Building And Fresh

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Maybe I'll talk about fresh briefly as an intro. Because good that people know what this is and talk about it. So you talked about systemic venture building paper. So really what that was that Chris developed was you know how to bring a system, essentially how to bring systems thinking into building ventures and also trying to contribute, I would say, to systems change, right? So it was using these tools of systems thinking to identify what you should the pro the challenge you're trying to solve, let's say, and then how you design the venture, but very importantly, what almost a wraparound enterprise structure is around this to protect the mission. So saying to use student ownership, for example. And then the idea was like, well, okay, not many of these exist because this is kind of somewhat new language and a new way of thinking about it, especially to combine these things with a new way of looking at it. So okay, we probably need to sort of create these from scratch to some degree. Um and Fresh, which is a partnership with um some other partners in Rotterdam, Barton Hoop from Impact Express, was really applying this to how do you help transition the European food system to one which is regenerative. So primarily focus on regenerative agriculture, right? So the studio model was essentially what our model was was a program of let's say aspiring entrepreneurs who are individuals who may or may not have an idea but have a motivation to change the food system and work in regen ag, right? So a program for three months which brings them together and they go through like what's what are we gonna work on, what are we gonna build, and they go through like a co-founder matching process. And a big part was us bringing in the systems lens and systems thinking knowledge as well as some understanding of the food system and agriculture. And then the follow-on step was like, okay, I keep knocking this, I'm sorry about that.

Samuel Wines 25:46

No, that's chills. That's okay. That's not not everyone, we don't always have a microphone in front of us.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

So oh, yeah, sure. I'm I'm too expressive, perhaps. No, no, no, that's that works for me. So the second part was a studio where we typically were, okay, what are the three or four that we think really have a lot of promise where we can also help the most to say, okay, they've started something. Can we help them get through that for that tricky first like one to two years with quite a lot of risk and we can and they don't have many resources? Can we essentially almost accelerate and de-risk their journey by giving bringing capability, network, access to financiers, etc.? So then we go, okay, they're out of that valley of death, one of the valleys of death, as they're called, and then they're you know they can move onward with some light support from us, but ultimately go on their journey, right? That was that was the idea. Um and I think there was like huge lessons. So I was really involved from sort of when the first round of money was already raised when I started, but then we were like, how do we design and deliver this, the program, and then the studio, and then the second round of the program or the first round. So I was really involved in that like two years before Chris and I kind of went back a little bit into metabolic. And I think there's really interesting lessons around we made it quite technical and intellectual, the systems thinking side at times. Um and the the bound of the system we gave people was the whole European food system. It was too much. It was actually like, oh, people have some really powerful cap capabilities they're coming in with and an interest. Get them to focus on that and then get into that world and analyze what they should do and feel what they should do rather than look at the whole thing and be like, what do we work on? It's funny. People basically came back to the original ideas they had at the beginning, having done all this like systems work.

Samuel Wines 27:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

And we're like, okay, it's helpful if they can just like bound this a bit more and go deeper into where their intuition is taking them, and then from that analyze.

Samuel Wines 27:38

Well, it's also like there are interventions at different scales. So maybe their scale is right, and then maybe, but then now they're aware systemically from a wide boundary lens, how their venture might fit into a bigger sort of umbrella that you're working on. Because I imagine like there is an element of like, well, what makes a venture systemic? Or is it the individual venture, or is it the studio that's systemic, or is it a bit of both? Like I can see how um people might, you know, this is like a classic thing. I think Tom Chi said this. Um it's like everything that works in practice works in theory, not everything that works in theory works in practice. And I imagine there would have been elements of like maybe people have been like, oh, well, that's not systemic enough, or this is like the domain. So uh but then it's like, but if it works, it works. So did it did it work? Did what you did.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

I mean, I think it's it'd be fair to say at this stage that I was involved in the in the initiation of and Barton Hoover's still running this now, and then they're maybe their fourth or fifth cohort. So they've there's someone's many more learnings and iterations and refinements that have happened that I'm also not so up on, right? And respect to them for continuing it and building it to what it is. So it still exists. I mean, that's one of the biggest in a way, like you know, one of our metrics at the beginning was just like how many ventures survive because the survivability rate, the statistic you hear is that 90% die, right? Or 90% don't succeed, whatever that means.

Samuel Wines 29:02

Was in the first two to three years or something.

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Right. Yeah. So we were just like, can we help help entrepreneurs do this? And then the main thing is like, do you survive for X amount of years? Because then to be honest, um, it's like the Lindy effect.

Samuel Wines 29:15

If you come across those with Nassim Nicholas Tolebo, chances of your survival every year or every year that your startup survives longer, is there's a more of a chance of it surviving.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Totally, and it's a wider theme. I mean, I love Nassim Nicholas Toleb.

Samuel Wines 29:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

You know who that is. Right. Black Swan author.

Samuel Wines 29:29

As I've told you, I've got all these books. Haven't read one of them.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

But there's a thing called the Lindy effect, which I think is very powerful. He's got a lot of these interesting like heuristics. But very briefly, like essentially, I think there's a cafe or restaurant called Lindy's, uh, just off Broadway in New York, and they'd always discuss like which Broadway play is gonna stick around or not. And essentially what they realized the longer it's been around, the the like the higher the likelihood it's gonna be around for that same amount of time. So, like cats, I think, is a very long-running play. So it but you probably put your you know, put some money on the fact that cats is probably gonna be around for a while, or Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon after it's been around for a while, it's still here. We went the other day, it's still full. You could probably bet your money that's gonna be after 20 years. An entirely new player, you're like, most of them don't make it, right? So, you know, with that, it's like, well, same with the survivability rate. You you hang around for three, four years, your chances of surviving are way higher than if you've been around a year, right? Absolutely. So, like, if we could de-risk that part, you're like, okay, we can get you through this, but we've got you through the most challenging bit where you're on your own, and a lot of it's you know psychological and emotional as well for founders at that stage, right? Trying to do something very complex. So I think there's that's a huge part of it. And to your point around what's a systemic venture, I mean it was very funny doing the the the selection process of like who should be in the studio for the first one because we hadn't done it before. And so again, you try and we try to design a more structured process, which is very helpful to give you guide rails, guardrails, but ultimately you just get into live debates, right? And a lot of it's still done in the gut. You can try and score everything, you can have criteria, it's just feels like the right vibe. Yeah, and then there were some really debated because you know, some maybe on paper, based on this like framework that Chris and I made of what a systemic venture, maybe in our eyes didn't, you know, weren't as high or something like this, but you know, actually had other aspects that were really, really powerful about them. And a lot of it comes down to like your personal philosophy and things like this. So it's very interesting going through those processes where you go like, okay, how can the tools be guardrails for us? Because intuition I think is very important, but also you need to have these things that help you like the test against them where you might be having a bias or something like that, right?

Samuel Wines 31:43

Yeah, it's not by the book, it's in the spirit of the book, is what I'm hearing you say with this. And it seems like at least the way that I interpret it is that it's like important to have both the rules and then also acknowledge that like you can still play with the rules. Totally.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

It's just they're just guides to just save you from yourself sometimes, if you will.

Samuel Wines 32:03

You know? No, no, I I I get that.

Can Australia Build Steward-Owned Studios?

Samuel Wines 32:05

And I it's it's really exciting hearing you talk about all of this. And as you know, like you know, we've got the impact program on and we've built Colabs and kind of everything that you've just said there about creating a community, trying to build a system or an ecosystem that can support to try and make it easier for ventures to continue ongoing. Um so helping them not feel isolated, providing a network to support them, being able to introduce them to folks. Like this is everything that Colabs was about. Um and we sort of built it based on the feedback from people of what was needed in the ecosystem, and then we've kind of co-designed to get to where we are now, and then you know, come to the realization that um there's not many new ventures coming through the works because there's not really many people supporting them very, very early on. People are usually very happy to come and support them once they've already got a few runs on the board or once they've hit 37 home runs and they're like officially the best player in the team, you know. Um, but the the reality is like there needs to be that really early on support, which it sounds like Fresh Ventures is kind of doing it's like, you know, people have an idea and then you're trying to provide a bit of a scaffolding for them. And that's something that we've been trying to work on, honestly, for the last four to five years is like how might we build a venture studio or a program or something to try and help bring people together and create pathways to address challenges within our bioregion to support transition to more circular bio-based economies. And I think that's where we sort of gelled. Um, and yeah, it's been it's been a challenge, but it's been to that point of like with just building it and iterating and trying to figure it all out. Because currently in Australia, I don't know if we even have the framework legally to be able to set up a venture studio. Oh, so I I'm still trying to make sense of it like heads of tails of myself. Like, do it is it a charity that owns a hundred percent stake in a company which then has the shares in the startups? It's so we're still trying to figure it all out. But um, like that that approach that you've taken is exactly what we're trying to emulate here. So it's exciting to hear that it's played out and that it that makes me feel like it is possible here. It's just how do you adapt that and be contextually relevant in Australia?

SPEAKER_02 34:09

Yeah, and I think there's a few things, nuggets in there of like there's a lot of the boring stuff, which are constraints or enablers. Like, how do you there's many ways to structure event studio, right? Um, which will be relevant to certain contexts and in terms of what's needed for that topic, for example, and is like based on what you where the financing scene is at and where you can actually raise financing it to, etc. Right? So and then there's such regulatory barriers, like can we do it or not? So this is all the boring stuff, if well boring maybe for some people it's exciting, so I don't want to label it boring. Uh but it's the stuff that doesn't get talked about on LinkedIn or in these exciting podcasts that we're doing right now. Um but it's very important, and I think these are the things that actually like yeah, and this is what I'm really interested in, these very specific things where you're like this particular way that regulation works is stopping X from happening. And I think the more and more specific you can get, I think I was saying to you the other day in a conversation about Stripe's initiative Frontier, which is about trying to, you know, it doesn't really matter if you uh like believe in their mission or not, but they're trying to, I think, mobilize like a significant amount of money into the carbon market advanced market commitments for the carbon markets, right? But they've gone so because they've got the sort of tech mindset and they're very smart, they've found a very specific thing like this is the particular most leverage point that is and then they spent a significant amount of time testing if that'll make a difference. It's very interesting. So I think I'm really interested in those little little things that are that are stopping. And the other thing I'd say with regards to what you said is it's sort of this need to think really ambitiously and big on the one hand, and maintain philosophy around what we think is important, but also this this challenge of like, well, you've got to start small, and then what are you prepared to trade on and what are you not prepared to trade on?

Samuel Wines 35:58

That is a massive one. It's so hard. The triage, it's like you have to, there's always going to be some form of ethical action to intention gap where it's like, oh, I really value this, but then I have to source this, but I can't afford that. And it's like finding that point of triage is like, it feels like, especially in the the impact space, is like a a non a non-avoidable thing. You know, you have to find a way to try and make it work.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

Totally. And I think like if you take what we might label a very purist approach, if it's all got to be true, nothing can be there for the next 10 years. Well, not even get something going.

Samuel Wines 36:32

Like even longer, man. Like there's no such thing as sustainable or regenerative in our current system. Yeah. Like it's like the whole thing is built on extraction and exploitation. Obviously, we want to try and change that, but we have to change it from within that system, and that system is inherently structured like that. So I'm always very wary of like obviously we use these words and it's really important to gesture towards a thing. But the reality is like all profit is kind of just extraction, and most of it's come from like war or oppression. And that's a big, that is a big call to say. It's a big call. But you know, that's whether that's extraction from social or environmental sides of things, but it doesn't mean that that couldn't be done, and then portions of that could go back into supporting the regenerative capacity of place because that's an amplifier. So you might be able to take 80% from a place, but as long as you leave 20% back in the place to support its continual flourishing, um, that might be all that's needed to be able to ensure that it can be bioproductive. And it's like, so it's like the idea of the honorable harvest. I think Robin Wool Kimmerer talks about that. It's like you don't just take everything, you need to leave some there for the the birds, the bees, for nature. Um, and I feel like that's a really important thing that we have to be trying to weave into how we how we generate ventures and then how we how we decide what like where val like what value is, how we decide what to do with the profit, all of these sorts of things I think we're gonna have to radically shift. But yeah, I feel like you were you you were very curious about something I said. Do you want to do you want to loop back to some of that?

SPEAKER_02 38:06

That is actually related, I think. So it's sort of the question is what are your boundary conditions? Like, so for example, I'll give you two examples with regards to this, right? So one would be we were always like we want to in fresh, everything should be steward-owned, right? Which is a that's a big, big ask. Yeah, it's a more complex governance and finance and operational financing structure, uh, which aims to protect the mission and but also to put the people who are running the organization kind of at a steering wheel, right? But then you sort of go, okay, um, we had at our first cohort a hardware startup, right? And that that's quite cash intensive. So they had to go and raise like quite a few million in their pre-seed round. And it's like risky from a hard hardware new founders doing hardware, lots of risk there, right? Which is different to a software startup. And you're saying, hey, we're steward-owned, and we need like X amount of million. And they're like, okay, how do we get our money out? And what about the risk? You're adding more risk on. And so maybe it's very relevant for one, but maybe for another, I'm just giving you an example. Like, but like essentially, then you're like, do we is it a is it like, do we never trade on this? We're like everything has to be steward-owned from day one, for example, right? And the other thing I would say, which is very relevant to the sustainable table work, and I'm again I have to acknowledge another organization for this called IRA in Europe, which is doing amazing work around, which is a farmer-led movement in Europe around advancing regenerative agriculture and farming, um, uh, primarily the policy lens, but way beyond that now. So they released a report that was like the biggest takeaway for me was like rather than asking if someone is regenerative, which is sort of like a noun or an end state, you're asking, are you regenerating? Which is a and a and a process, right? And I think that's super important because if you say like your boundary condition is you have to be regenerative, it implies there's an end state and a line, number one. And then you're like sending this bar that like suddenly no one, you can't talk to anyone who isn't apparently regenerative, also in your interpretation.

Samuel Wines 40:06

It creates a bit of an in-group-out group. What you're saying sounds a hell of a lot like Alfred North Whitehead's like processed-oriented philosophy. Um, but yeah, no, I I I I resonate deeply with that. I think um having a transition from a very noun-based language to more of a verb-oriented language, I think is really good for building things and especially for like this regenerative work as well. Switching to that sort of way of looking at the world or the way of framing things, I think helps acknowledge that it is a process and it's an ongoing process. We're never going to get to regeneration. You know, it is it is a constant cycle, um, and that's always happening. Even if we're doing things that are degenerative, there are still elements of regeneration happening at some scale or in some way. So that's why it can be so nuanced, and someone can be like, I am doing regenerative oat milk, and you're like, buddy. Like, yeah, I guess the plants grow. Um, you know, but it it's just an interesting one, like not wanting to be too critical to this point around having to understand that you've got to be like a realistic with your the trade-off between the the the values you have and how to be able to make it happen. And it is a a real like I I struggle with this. I mean, this is probably one thing that I struggle with the most, and having to like if I was thinking of something where I've had to change my mind on the most, it's around like the having the the the pro-topian future idea of what it's gonna be and then the reality of where the system's at. And the Overton window hasn't expanded enough to allow that to be possible, and then you have to kind of adjust your your mindset. Like, I'm so I'm curious, like what is there anything that you've had to like radically reshift your worldview or check your assumptions or anything in this space?

Mindset Shifts From Capital To Communities

SPEAKER_02 42:00

Um well, look, if I look back 10 years, obviously, like you know, I'm a different person, the fact that all my cells are different and everything else, of course, but ultimately I I reflect and I'm like, wow, I'm I'm like the same at the core in a soul thing, maybe the same person, but in everything else is different. Really? And I think almost I was removing the layers so that the true soul could come out, right? To some degree over the last decade. Um so a lot. Has there been a moment of like, whoa, I really saw things differently? Um I think it's mainly been moments actually where I've realized how narrow my lens has been just because of the context type in it. So I was like um, so I there's an organization I work with called Transformational Investing in Food Systems or TIFS, and Rex Raymond, who I consider a good friend and collaborator, we've been talking for years around the time of Fresh. And before we even started working together, he was really he made a lot of very valuable connections for me. And one of them, which I'm very grateful for, lovely guy. Love that guy. So he he was offered to come to this this um this collective gathering in Salzburg and Austria, but he couldn't go. So he for some reason he referred me, and I was like, I'm not sure Rex, why you referred me for this, and it was called Connecting Capital to Communities, right? So it's really trying to say how do we move like sort of a large amount of money into like community-led solutions, and it was about food, water, and housing, I think. I've been going there, it was a really international group. In funnily enough, in the hotel where the sound of music was set, right? So very nice place, very interesting place. But there, for example, I was just like, well, I've been sitting in the Netherlands here, and obviously, metabolic is working quite internationally at the time because when I was a metabolic. I was like, oh my god. Like my my life experience is it's been so narrow because there's people from you know, there's individuals from Zambia, individuals who are doing water in Mexico, there's water. You're working in the Philippines to people doing you know housing, affordable housing in the US with steward-owned structures. And I was just like, I thought I had seen some stuff. I mean, worked in music and travel to the world and this kind of thing. And I was like, I've seen nothing. And the scale of things that people were talking about, I was like, okay, I haven't talked about these kind of size and numbers before. And the whole thing. I came back like, and I'd honestly, the my reaction initially, I didn't know what to do with it, and I almost thought about leaving on day two. And calling my wife and being like, I can't do this, I need to leave. And then that was the moment where it like shifted for me in that in that group meeting. So I really remember going back and uh and being like, okay, this has shifted something in me. Because I think I've just seen this whole world, I felt so much more motivated to also work on this stuff. It really, I don't know, put something quite visceral around the stuff that we've been doing and talking about. So that was one I think. And then a lot of it, honestly, is like going to place and meeting people. So I mean, like lucky to to in the last couple of years to be pulled to different places internationally to work. And always the big thing is like going to a typically more rural place with, and and it's really important to go with partners who are local because there's a trust thing, and if they bring you, then people will also, you know, I think they'll be welcoming anyway, but they will truly welcome you because they're like, okay, you're vouching, kind of, yeah, because they've got the trust in place, right? And seeing those places and hearing from people and understanding what they're trying to do, it gets very easy to like abstract this stuff, and you talk about it in the abstract, and we all doing stuff on nice posts on LinkedIn, and you talk about the thing, but then you go to the place and you're like, you put there's an embodied thing that you're putting to the words that you're talking about.

Samuel Wines 45:42

It's like this is the farmer who we're helping support with this approach, which means that he can like with this regen ag this means that the whole community is getting extra value, which means that you know their kids can go to school, or there's these all these other flaw ons, but you actually meet the kid, you see the school that's being built, you see it all in person, and suddenly it becomes very real. So, is there some element of this that you'd like to touch on, like to give like a concrete example? Like maybe the the work in um Brazil with Rockefeller Foundation?

SPEAKER_02 46:15

Yeah, so I uh metabolic and then and me were working with tips um on really we were it was essentially saying like initially it was like how do we sort of scale the adoption of regenerative agriculture and what's the intersection of finance and enabling that? That was sort of the opening thing that we started with, and it evolved over time in a couple of programs we did. Um, but in the second evolution, we were like, the idea was, um, especially with Rocano Fellow's new strategy, it was like, how do you take a place-based approach or a landscape-based approach to try and say what are these models of like a scale in the adoption of regen ag? What's the role of financing in that? And can we link that to local school meal provision? So you have regenerative school meals, quite a lot of things at once, right? So interesting challenge. So we were we were really going and saying, well, how can we find these examples of initiatives that already have some traction? There's already some adoption of regenerative, there's maybe an organization that's or might be these days called a backbone organization, or just like a landscape-level initiative, or sometimes it's an individual. Many different words for this role, but a role there that's already doing this kind of like coordination orchestration work, right? So we're looking for initiatives like that that we thought had innovative approaches to, I would say, scaling impact, not just necessarily like more farmers farming regen or more carbon sequestered, but just interesting ways of how they could scatter impact. Um, and I remember like landing in the Amazon, like the Amazon my first trip and going to Berlin, where COP was going to be, and going with my good friend Marcelo Swerner, who was living in the Amazon at the time and really trying to work with um really, you know, I think people of the forest, if you will, I think is how they refer to themselves. Um, you know, in that some indigenous groups, but all local communities, to say how can we align kind of regenerative agroforestry work, so regenerative agroforestry with local prosperity, um, and the connection to schools. So there's sort of economic component to it. There's obviously working with land and country and the ecological component, um, and there's a social side of like people I think fundamentally would like it if the food they grow would be feeding local kids, right? So you know, going and meeting people, and you know, I'm completely different. You know, I'm an English guy living in the Netherlands who's come from a US, who's supported by US philanthropy, US organization, coming to the Amazon, my local Amazon friend who's actually from Sao Paulo, who even because the diversity of Brazil is also, you know, is probably seen slightly differently as not a local fully, right? So we're there and we're talking, and he's translating, and you're talking to farmers who are talking about some of the challenges. But you're also going to see, because there's a bit of a hub, Toma Asu, it's called, there's actually a hub there of regenerative agroforestry projects, particularly. So you go and see, like, okay, who's the sort of pioneering farmer who's been doing this for like two decades or whatever, who's nailed it, the ones who are like the fast followers who are like learning from what he's done. And then you also see the ones who are like farming, I think, probably in somewhat in relationship to land, but they're doing it probably a bit more conventionally, and they're squeezed by the system, constantly squeezed, right? In every direction, and you're hearing from them. So you just have these conversations sit in a circle, everyone's so welcoming, they give you the food, you know, and you're listening, um, and also trying to contribute importantly, I think. Um, and you really just gives body to like the the variations of things across the spectrum, the challenges of like this, like it's just things are so far apart, it's very hard from a logistics standpoint to do anything. You know, a lot of the money's sitting in the south, coming to the north, for example, it's all these different dynamics of play at multiple levels, and you just get this visceral sense of like connecting with people, think about huge systemic challenges that are stopping this from moving, and the very small, like about the micro things of like sometimes just an annoying little thing about how policy works for procurement is preventing them from selling food, and you're just like this little significant but small thing is in the way. So you just get this expansive view of like everything that's going on, and you're like, okay, you come back and you're like swimming with questions and ideas, and you're like, okay, how can we? What are the moves here to our point earlier about sequencing? What are the actions and moves here to work with help Marcello, who's ultimately the person who's trying to advance this with them? But how can we help sequence what this is, and also how can we bring the finance thing that's going to support him to do this work? Where a lot of the work early on is intangible, right? To some degree. Like it's it's sort of tangible because I think philanthropists recognize the need for engagement and discussion and building community and doing initial trainings and stuff like this. But it's a while before you get to like what might be considered like tangible outcomes and impacts, right? And it's long term, it's like years, to be honest. And even like we're doing palm agroforestry, that takes like if you were to plant a palm tree, like it's it's like 15 years. It's like at least five years, I think, is to us productive at all, and then another 10 until its peak.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

So you're thinking like generationally, right? And we did this financial modeling, or like another party did financial modeling of like palm agroforestry, like regenerative palm agroforestry. And you see the peak, and it's like the peak productivity and economic returns, if you will, for the community, which is important, the economic returns, right, as well as all the other benefits, is like, you know, almost half a lifetime.

Samuel Wines 51:48

25, 30 years or something like that. Something like that, right?

SPEAKER_02 51:50

And you're like, okay, like this is you're trying to think on all these different timescales, all these different levels, and then also encapsulate that into like a project that people can feel comfortable funding. So this is kind of the enormity and the dimensions of doing this kind of work. And so it's encapsulated in two days of going on on a tour with these people who very kindly took me around, right?

Samuel Wines 52:11

So I'd say that's like that's a very tangible outcome. And but to your point, like um uh or or process, um, you know, that you're working towards outcomes. It's it that to me encapsulates like how you can be doing all of this amazing work and that's so complex, but and and it can look like nothing's happened or it's actually maybe going backwards, but it's like right before a phase shift, and that's like then it's gonna like switch and it kicks in, and it's like, okay, cool, to your point, they'll see the returns in like 20 to 30 years, but you know, you can't necessarily see it now. So, like this concept of patient capital or folks that are willing to invest in the long term to be able to support these projects, like how did you like how did you I mean, I I guess they were already partly on the journey in that sense, right? They were already ready and willing. And I'm trying to think, how might, how might something like that be positioned to people in an Australian context? Like, how would you position it for sustainable table? Um, or are the people already in the room that you need to be talking to about financing things? Because this sounds like 30 years, you know, that's how long you need things to really be funded to be able to support and actually make the intervention take place. But we're stuck in a very like quarterly returns on impact investment still.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Yeah, I think, you know, so I think also there's a probably the impact, the impact returns, if we even want to say that that naughty phrase uh to call it impact return, but like I think would be over 30 years. But probably the financing need is somewhat shorter term. So it's about like when is there financial return and also when there's like an impact return, right? So I think sorry, I think there's a few things.

Funding Regenerative Farming Without The Myths

SPEAKER_02 53:50

So if I just if I anchor this in like regenerative food and farming, right, for example, I think there's in general you see different barriers. So um you might say there's like rational barriers. So different capital providers, they're like, the return isn't really high enough for me. Can't invest, right? The risk is too high, for example. So the risk return profile doesn't make sense to me. Or it's like the time horizon. Okay, I kind of want the money back in five years, for example, seven years. Because they're they'll think of the opportunity cost, they could put the money somewhere else, right? Or they're like, look, the transaction cost is very high, like going and finding regenerative food and farming initiatives. Like, I don't know where to find them, there aren't that many, and you know, trying to get the data that I need to do this because I don't have it. It's like very costly for me. So suddenly doing transactions is way too expensive. These are all like what you might label as rational barriers for why people may not finance something. And I think that's applicable to other other sectors. Again, probably not an original idea of Murray's, but that's how I'd frame it, right? So, you know, and some of those may be real, right? But what we're talking about is okay, so I was talking to someone that I the other day, and we were talking about how someone thinks something is high risk because they actually don't know what the risks are, so they just say they're high. Right? Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. Right? So they're just like, well, I don't know, so let's say high risk. Oh, this is not data, there's no precedent. So they're like, we don't know because there's no precedence. So, oh okay, and then what do you do if there's no precedent? It's chicken and egg. There's no precedent, so no one funds it, and then no one's funding anything, so that doesn't create precedent. So there's no evidence base for people to work from, right? Um, and then if you think about time horizon, it's like, well, okay, maybe if you extended the time horizon, actually you get the risk return that you want because these things just take a bit longer to play out, right? You can't expect like a venture site style time horizon here, for example, right? And transaction costs is also something that's overcomable um with, you know, I'm not going to be too self-promoted here, but with organizations like ours and some of our partners who are in the field and working, right? So there needs collaboration. The other important thing is like, so I think there's a bit of a melding around, okay, particularly for people who are who control their own, who are asset owners, who maybe have their own wealth, for example, they have a bit more control over what they decide to do about these different parameters, particularly the risk return time horizon thing, right? Or how they view risk. The other thing I'd say is like they're a sort of perception, they're like mindset barriers. You're not even aware of this field is one. Um, you're not, you know, you're not very familiar with it, so you don't know the ins and outs of how it works. So if you look at like regenerative food and farming, is like people just don't really understand the business model very well. It's a slightly different business model to farming, or maybe they're just not that familiar with with food or agriculture in general, right? And again, you could apply it to other ones where it's just this know the name but don't really understand it. But also it's a perception thing, right? So what I see in Australia, which is probably true many places, is I think some of the perception, I hear this just from multiple different people. So this is just me regurgitating what they've said. But I think, for example, regen food and farming is seen as like a bit hippie, which might be a philosophical left-leaning thing, let's say. So, you know, that's like, oh, it's for the people who are that that vibe. It's sort of like small scale, so it's only small only work, only small scale stuff, it's hobby farming, it's not large scale. You know, I'm gonna work large scale, so it's not gonna solve our food problems.

Samuel Wines 57:17

It sounds very, very much like an Australian mentality. I think there's like a very conservative, like a lot of farmers are very conservative, and that's you know, I've done this, and this is how my dad did this, and this is how I his dad did this since we got this land, you know. So there's definitely that sort of generational thing, as well as just like the systemic barriers about getting locked into something, like, you know, oh well, we've got this, we need to use this fertilizer or this product, and we've got these seeds here, and we have to get them from these people. Um, and then it's like it's not like we save seeds long-term.

SPEAKER_02 57:49

So yeah, exactly. And I think but also I'm talking about like capital providers, right? So there's farmers, and I think I agree to some degree, and I think also it's important that there are people around farmers, because essentially farmers had to have a lot of constraints put on them and burden put on them, which means if they were probably removed, then probably many people might farm this way, right? But there's all these system constraints put on them, whether it's from markets or policy or culture or whatever else, which or technical, which you know, financial, etc., which prevent them. But I think the perception thing, you know, small scale, maybe a bit hippie, fringe, so there's only a few people doing this and unprofitable, which I think most of these aren't factually true when you look at the evidence, but again, it goes back to the evidence base. And the interesting thing about these two barriers is you know, people think they're rational barriers, they'll be like, oh, the return. The return isn't high enough, or the risks are too high, for example, right? But it's actually a perception thing. They just don't know. So they just think, oh, it's risky. And then they they trick themselves. It's a bit like Daniel Kahneman, sort of um, what is it like Thinking Fast and Slow? Yeah, thinking fast and slow, like uh sort of like mind one and two, they call it, or something like that, right? Yeah, yeah. And so they quickly just go like, oh, it's too risky, it's no return, or uh, you know, like uh it's too expensive for us to go and find deals. That's really a perception thing, because again, they haven't got the evidence base, there aren't people who are really in it who explain this stuff. So I think it's very interesting from that perspective. So I think look, these two things together, and where I come to with this is like um you know, and I think there's some other things around like, okay, do we have the right sort of infrastructure in the middle, whether it's a social infrastructure to rebuild trust, or the kind of honest brokers who are in the middle who can help these transactions to be enabled, etc., and also create the structure so people feel comfortable with from a more technical sort of perspective. Um I think ultimately you get down to it just like, okay, how do we address some of these things? Some of it is, I think, uh people who are at what you might label asset owners who can make these decisions themselves who aren't managing someone else's money. It's a bit harder when you're managing someone else's money to be like, hey guys, we should do a 20-year time horizon and we should ignore this risk that we don't understand you and say it's fine or whatever. I'm simplifying. It's very hard for them to do that. But someone who's like, you know, who is able to make decisions with their own money, like is a very important sort of leverage point, right? And then um I think a lot of the time it's like part of it is like, can we have a pipeline of really well-prepared initiatives? So we're strong anyway, but they just need a little bit of support to get them ready, where they're like, okay, they make sense, they're presented in a way that makes sense to people, right? And we're clearly articulating these kind of things they're looking for, what the risks are, what the return profile is. Okay, the time horizon's a bit longer, but they can understand that. Um and so having something more structural where we can have support these to come through, having someone who's maybe the honest, what I might label the honest broker in the middle, who has the financial expertise, but also understands regenerative. I'm really interested in these roles that are missing in the system. Like the hybridization roles. And there's a great organization called Steward, who we're partnering with, who's now going to be working hopefully in Australia. A couple of Dan, who was actually on the phone to this morning, who's playing this role, so it's super exciting. Done it in the US quite very successfully, started to do it in Europe, and now we'll be doing it in Australia. So I'm really interested in these roles, and luckily Dan and Stuart will be playing that role, hopefully. So I think there's that, and then there's a bit of education and like how do we build the field in the capital provider's side to say, hey, respect, you know, obviously with respect and care and everything else, but like if you're open to this kind of stuff, to this field, maybe some of the maybe there's we can build your understanding of it. Maybe there's some perceptions that maybe you know we could evolve somewhat through building the right evidence base and stories and what Sustainable Table did before my time was really bring investors to farms and get farmers to present what they were doing and tell their stories of regeneration and stories of place. And I think from an emotional standpoint, a perception standpoint, people were shifted significantly. Now what we need to do is say, well, we need to do the more technical thing of like, okay, do you have the right structures you can finance and you have comfort with these more rational things? Right. So I think we did the mindset thing really well. But maybe this the technical sort of rational barrier thing is the next stage for us.

unknown 1:02:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:02

So I think that's some of these things, and I think this is probably applicable to a lot of these more emerging fields around okay, are we who's ready to rethink this rational stuff? Risk, return, time, horizon, cost, right? Are there intermediaries who are who can help that process and also build these pipelines, if you will, for want of a better phrase, which is a bit of a I know it reduces these amazing innovators to a pipeline, but I'm just going to use that language for now. Yeah, I get I get the sentiment. And and you know, and there's this more intangible work of how do we address these kind of mindset barriers, which are, you know, comes down to can we demonstrate as evidence and case studies that actually demonstrate maybe buck what they think? Can we build knowledge? Can we give people a sense that these are cases actually that might pique your interest, et cetera, et cetera, right? And build a sense of community with the finance providers, because I think ultimately there are people who are sometimes leading who are like, hey, where's everyone else? I'd love it if more people came in and we could do this together and co-finance stuff. And so it's helping that happen. So I think these are all different things when it comes to like you talk about Australia and how we can address some of these things. I think these are some of the things which are quite interesting, applicable in regenerative food and farming, probably applicable in other sectors and themes.

Next Round And How To Help

Samuel Wines 1:03:16

They definitely are. Now I know we're gonna have to we've got a hard stop soon, so we'll kind of have to come back for round two. But just quickly on that, that's exactly so. We use the framing Marvin Harris's infrastructural framing, like infrastructure, social structure, superstructure. Good innovation has to address all three. So it's like the physical environment needs to be built to support the innovation. You need different organizational structures and patterns or legal frameworks to help it be adoptable. And then culture, how do we perceive this thing?

unknown 1:03:41

Yes.

Samuel Wines 1:03:42

Anyway, Mary. We'll be back for round two. We're gonna have to make this happen because I still feel like there's 101 questions I want to prompt you with. And we haven't even really fully delved into sustainable table. So round two.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:58

Yeah, yeah. That's it. But thank you.

Samuel Wines 1:04:00

No, a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:01

We could have got on all afternoon, I think.

Samuel Wines 1:04:03

Yeah, definitely. All right, you made it to the end again. I um thank you. It's um it's wild to think that people actually stop and listen. Um, you know, I I constantly have folks coming up and saying they listen to the podcast. And um, yeah, I guess it's been really actually quite hard and and difficult for me to get this out there and start doing this sort of content because I always felt like um I got inferiority or um imposter syndrome with this sort of stuff. Like, who am I to be talking about this or who am I to be trying to make any of this sort of stuff happen? And obviously, like um it's kind of a lot of that is in my head, and it's not necessarily true. Um, and even if I don't understand this fully, no one does. So there are no experts when it comes to exploring this sort of stuff. We're all just trying to figure it out as we go. Um, and that's kind of helped me realize that um, yeah, this just needs to be stuff that we create and this needs to be out there, and we hopefully are learning in public and trying to figure this out and hopefully build something collaboratively through co-design with folks who want to see more content and meet other people who are interested in how we might be able to bring about a more resilient and regenerative future. So stay tuned. There's a lot of awesome things happening with the Strange Attractor. It's now gonna be a part of Ecotone Studio, which is our new adventure that we're spinning out. That is like a uh transdisciplinary design and creative studio that is um yeah, gonna be where the podcast sits. We're also gonna help people with creating content, events, workshops. There'll probably be some educational stuff coming through there as well. Um so stay tuned. We're very excited for that. And yeah, if you know anyone who has an interesting story to tell or is working on cool stuff in this space, um, reach out, let us know. We're always looking for more interesting people to interview on the podcast. And yeah, to all those out there who are trying to make a more viable future than the default, uh, thank you. I appreciate you. And best of luck on all of your adventures.