To listen to our entire conversation with George, click on the player.

Tom:                            Tesla Motors, Apple, GAP: George Blankenship’s executive resume fairly screams disruption. At Tesla, redefining the car buying experience. At Apple, designing brand-building retail methodology. And at GAP, managing the growth of more than 250 stores per year, with an eye on energy and environmental efficiencies. Thank you for joining us, George.

George:                       My pleasure to be here.

Disruption: Driven by pursuing customer delight

Tom:                            So, Tesla, Apple, GAP: Three iconic American brands. What are your key takeaways from those experiences?

George:                       Well, I think the one thing that all of them do is, they focus on the customer first and then sort of back into everything from there, whether it was the way we presented clothing and the design of the clothing or the way we looked at what would be good for the customer, and then back into the technology. And then at Tesla, we looked at the customer experience of buying a car and thought, you know, there’s probably a better way than the way it’s been done for the last 100-plus years. And so, we thought there’s probably a better way for the end user, the customer, and that’s what we set out to do.

Tom:                            I’m sure it’s not news to you and you’re following this, but retailers are filing for bankruptcy at a record rate these days. They’re trying to cope with a rapid acceleration of online shopping. During the first quarter of this year, at least 14 retail chains filed for bankruptcy, almost surpassing all of 2016. Retailers are closing stores faster than ever. A deep recession might explain this, but GDP has been growing for eight straight years. Gas prices are low. Unemployment is under 5 percent. In the last 18 months, we have seen wage growth, especially for middle- and lower-income Americans. What’s going on?

George:                       I think it’s a couple of factors. One is obviously online retailing is impacting brick and mortar. But I think as important or more important than that is that a lot of companies over-expanded, and there was a lot of supply of places for them to go. A lot of shopping centers that maybe shouldn’t have been built in the first place. There’s one there, and then another one comes and builds across the street. And so now, you have two in a place where really one would thrive. So, one ends up winning, the other one ends up losing.

                                    And a lot of the retailers you’re talking about, one of two things happened: either they over-expanded and they shouldn’t have, or they didn’t react enough to downsize when they should have, or they lost connection with a customer.

                                    And I think what’s important is, while the bankruptcy is going on, most of those companies are not going to go out of business. They’re going to right-size and come back.

                                    But, at the same time, there’s some major companies out there who are going into brick and mortar. You’ve got Warby Parker, who was online and going into brick and mortar. Amazon Books just opened up their sixth brick-and-mortar retail store. They’ve opened up Amazon Go in Seattle. So, while one’s moving out, there are also ones that are moving in.

Tom:                            Among those moving into brick and mortar, are they making this move to provide experiences, especially the kinds of experiences that make for good social media content?

George:                       I think it’s really to learn as much as they possibly can about their customer.

                                    An online retailer has a connection in a certain way with a customer. They know their buying habits. They know the kind of things they buy. They know those types of things, and they can suggest that online, based upon an algorithm, but people aren’t algorithms. People are people. They have a character. They have a desire. They have a way of looking at the world, and sometimes the only way you can interact with that — the only way you can really learn about that is to interact with them directly.

                                    Why did Apple open up stores in shopping centers when no one was doing that, whether it was to interact directly with the customer when they were not thinking about buying a computer? We wanted to be there, take care of them, and then open the Genius Bar. So, no matter what Apple products you have, no matter where you bought it, no matter when you bought it, if you need help, we’re there for you and you can come to the Genius Bar and get taken care of.                                   

                                    Tesla opened up in shopping centers so that we could interact with people when they were not thinking about buying a car, and it’s just a totally different relationship. And that’s the reason you do it. It’s so you can interact directly with your customer and so they can understand you better and you can understand them better.

Defining disruption

Tom:                            The theme of the Alltech Ideas Conference was disrupting the disruptors. Disruption sounds a lot like chaos to a lot of us, but it’s important today. And why is it important to understand disruption as a positive thing?

George:                       Well, yeah, disruption could be thought of as chaotic and confusing, and people see it as reckless, but it’s really not.

                                    It’s really very, very simple. It’s when you look at something. It could be an industry, or an activity, or a process that’s been done the same way for a long period of time. It could be done the same way for 20, 30, 40, 100 years and generally people think it’s okay. But the reason it’s important is because the end user, the customer, usually develops a new set of benefits, a new set of things that are better for them as a result of the disruption.

                                    I mean, think about the Apple iPhone. Think about all the things people rely on their iPhone for today, whereas if you went back before the iPhone, phones worked. They were phones, but they weren’t an active part of your daily life. Now a smartphone is a part of most people’s daily life.

                                    You think about things that have been done the same way for a long, long, long time and somebody comes in and just finds a better way for the customer to interact with something or to do something. And it’s just different benefits that are generally better.

Tom:                            Innovation in technology is keeping a pretty blinding pace these days. If disruption in that area or disruption in general becomes the norm, is there risk of all that constant churning and change outpacing our capacity to process and roll with the changes?

George:                       Not at all. People embraced the iPhone right away. People embrace the way Tesla sells cars, which is different than the auto industry has worked for 100 years. You know, they embrace it right away.

                                    I think back, 20 years ago, Amazon went IPO 20 years ago. And now, look at the impact Amazon has had on the way we do things. At first, it was Amazon and then it was Amazon Prime. So, you get delivery in two days. Now, it’s Prime Now, where you can get thousands of things available for delivery in an hour.

                                    Yes, the technology enables things, but some of it is the people enabling things.

                                    Look at Uber. Think about Uber. All right? Technology, a smartphone, allows you to have a sharing type of way of sharing your car. So, think about the experience. You push a button and a car shows up on a map. You can see where it is. It shows up at your house or your business. You get in the car and you go. You never pull out a credit card. It’s just a better overall experience.

                                    Tech enables a lot of things, but sometimes it’s just the process, like how you buy a car. It’s done differently now at Tesla without any change in technology other than you can order something on the web: a car. But other than that, it’s the shopping for the car that actually changed, that’s disruptive. But again, we thought it was a better way for a customer to buy a car.

Tom:                            From the business perspective, not the consumer point of view, but the business perspective, are the concepts of disruption and sustainability compatible?

George:                       Well, sure. Look at what Tesla’s doing. Let’s use them as an example, alright? At a Tesla store today, you can walk in and you can buy a car or you can buy what’s called a power wall, which is a battery pack that you hang on your garage and you charge it up and then it runs your house from the batteries. And then with their acquisition of Solar City last year, I mean, today, you can walk into a Tesla store and you can buy an entire program. It will take you from solar, the battery, battery to run your house and charge your car. So, it’s disrupting the way you buy a car, but it’s also disrupting the way you can actually get off the grid and from there charge your car. So, you can live totally off the grid with one visit to a Tesla store.

Funding disruption 

Tom:                            How about attracting investment capital to a business model that relies on game-changing technology, on constant innovative change? Is that difficult?

George:                       Well, when you live in Silicon Valley, there is investment capital that’s out every single day searching for what they believe could be the next disruptive technology or disruptive process to invest in. There’s a big difference in how it’s looked at today versus in the past. In the past, they were saying “Okay, show me how soon you’re gonna make a profit, and how much profit, and how soon?” All those kinds of numbers, whereas today, it’s looking like, “How much money do you need to become the leader in this?” You’re probably not going to make money for seven, or eight, or nine, or 10 years or whatever. But if you can become the leader in what you’re doing, that’s more important to us investing in you than it is saying, “Oh, in 29 months, I’ve got to break even.”

                                    So, it’s a little bit different here. Now, I realize that I’m sort of in a unique pocket here in the Silicon Valley. I’m sure it’s probably more difficult to raise investment capital in other places. But here, you’ve got people looking to invest and you’ve got people looking for the investment. And is it available? Yes, it is if you have a great idea.

Tom:                            To what extent should a disruptive concept or technology be market-tested before there’s hope of attracting that investment capital?

George:                       Well, a lot of investment capital, they want to be in so early that there really is no time for testing. You’re investing in an idea because that’s where you get in the earliest and where you get in with the most opportunity for the lowest price. You know, obviously, if you’re early in …you’re the one who has the most opportunity to make the biggest gain. They would rather take multiple shots at something like that, knowing that two or three or four of them might not make it out of 10, but the ones that make it could be substantial. I mean, think about if you were one of the early investors in Google or some of the online — I mean, I saw the other day where 20 years ago — I think it was May 16 — Amazon’s IPO. And if you had invested $10,000 in Amazon 20 years ago, it would be worth $4.8 million today. So, how tested was Amazon before it went in and how long did it take to make a profit? And look at all the incredible things they’re doing today.

                                    You want to be in early. So, oftentimes, there isn’t a lot of time to test it before you actually invest.

Tom:                            So, it’s really a very strong hunch that what we’re talking about holds promise.

George:                       I think seasoned venture capitalists and those investing money are able to step back and look at things and say, “You know what, I think this has a niche. I think it has a place. And I think the place could be very big in the future. And if we get in on this now, and this becomes the leader, this could be really big.” And they step back and they sort of — you know, there may be five people in the room and they’ll look around at each other and go, “What do you think?” And if three or four of the heads nod yes, well, “Here. Here’s $30 million dollars.” It didn’t use to be like that, you know? It didn’t. No one ever did that kind of thing. But in today’s world, that’s what happens with a great idea that seems to have legs that people can look at and say, “If you can own this, it will be huge.” And that’s what people want. They want to own something and be huge.

Tom:                            So, what can make the difference between a business being disrupted versus being the disruptor?

George:                       Well, let’s go back 10 years ago. iPhone 1 was launched in June of 2007. And I believe the iPhone disrupted the cellular phone industry, actually the whole phone industry. And ask yourself: If on the day that Steve Jobs stood up and said we’re going to do a phone, chances are if you had a phone in your pocket, a mobile phone, it was a Nokia, a Motorola, a Palm or a Blackberry. Well, how many people have those in their pockets today? So, you can either be the disruptor or be disrupted. I think those four phone companies would probably wish they were the disruptor, not the ones who were disrupted. I think you always want to be on the front end of that.

Tom:                            You’ve long been a change agent, if you will. A champion of innovation. What sort of disruption are you engaged in these days?

George:                       Well, I’m helping Amazon open up their brick and mortar stores, just as a consultant, just sort of helping them get into that world. Other than that, what I’m doing now is I’m being disrupted as a grandfather. I’ve got four grandkids, and I love spending time with my wife, and my kids, and my grandkids. And I think, you know, the nice thing about grandkids is they make you young again. So, I guess I’m being disrupted by them as much as I’m disrupting the world.

Tom:                            My last question was going to be what about your work do you most enjoy, but I think it’s been upstaged by grandchildren.

George:                       Once you have grandchildren, they make you young again. They have a perspective on life that just makes you smile every time you see them, and they’re always glad to see you too. So, it’s a wonderful, wonderful situation.

Tom:                            George Blankenship, thank you so much for joining us.

                                    We appreciate it.

George:                       Absolutely my pleasure, Tom. Have a great week.

Tom:                            You too.

George Blankenship presented at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For free access, click on the button below.

The world seemed convinced that 2016 was the worst year in history, a theme that media outlets from The New York Times (“2016: Worst. Year. Ever?”) to The New Yorker (“The Worst Year Ever, Until Next Year”) featured profusely at the end of the year. John Oliver, host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” even blew up a giant “2016” during his season finale.

When we take a closer look at the overwhelmingly negative stories filling the news — from war and disease to poverty and inequality — it’s not hard to understand why we feel so pessimistic about where the world is heading, because it’s all we seem to hear.

Peter Diamandis, however, couldn’t disagree with this paradigm more, pointing out that the technology currently in the hands of billions of individuals today illustrates a power that only countries and governments possessed 20 years ago.

“I want to give you a view of the world that impassions me,” Diamandis, founder of the XPRIZE Foundation and co-founder of Singularity University, said at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). “It’s clear that the world is getting better at an extraordinary rate.”

What’s the key thing driving this lightning-fast change? Exponential technology.

Below are the five exponential trends that Diamandis says will change the world (and you).

1. The world is going linear

While humans have evolved to think and live in a local and linear fashion, putting one foot in front of the other in measured, baby steps, Diamandis said that today the world is global and exponential.

“Things are changing year to year, not century to decade,” he explained. “This can be disruptive stress or a disruptive opportunity, depending on your point of view.”

He pointed to the example of Facebook buying Instagram in 2012, the same year that Kodak, ignoring the digital photography trend, went bankrupt. Technologies are doubling in power every year, giving rise to increasingly powerful exponential technology. In fact, the rate of disruption is so fast today that the average life of the company has dropped to 15 years.

“The question is, as you’re starting companies and solving problems: Are you basing these on exponential trends?” asked Diamandis.

The technologies that are evolving today and changing the world are riding Moore’s Law, he said. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore noticed that the number of transistors per square inch on circuits had doubled every year since they were invented. This trend is continuing and can be applied to all technology. In fact, it’s right on schedule and is enabling us to innovate and make progress at increasingly faster rates. 
 

2. 6Ds of exponentials

Diamandis described the way that exponential technology follows Moore’s Law and explodes onto the scene, much as apps such as Snapchat have done in recent years, in six steps, or the “6Ds of exponentials.”

He explained the first three steps in the following way:

 “In the early days of digitization, that growth is rather deceptive,” he said. “But all of a sudden, 30 doublings later, it’s a billion times better, and it becomes disruptive.”

After the initial three steps, technology reaches the last three critical steps:

• Demonetized. Think Uber and Airbnb, which don’t have to create products from scratch.
• Dematerialized: Technology that once filled entire rooms can now fit into your pocket, such as iPhones.
• Democratized: Demonetization and dematerialization enable you to offer your products to billions of people around the world.

Importantly, Diamandis noted that by 2022, 3 billion new consumers will be online and consuming those products, representing tens of trillions of dollars flowing into the global economy. They will buy technologies that continue to connect the entire planet digitally via ventures such as Google’s Project Loon, further increasing the rate of exponential technology.
 

3. An explosion of sensors and networks

A key element driving exponential technology to new heights includes the sensors and networks connecting people, places and things globally, from drones and satellites to the smartwatch on your wrist, taking images and collecting data on everything imaginable. This connectivity is propelling us from a period of time when we’ve virtually been “blind” to one in which we have an unlimited supply of information.

“This, for me, blows my mind,” said Diamandis. “It means that these sensors will allow us to know anything we want, anytime, anywhere.”

Furthermore, this technology is experiencing massive price reductions. Huge sensors that were millions of dollars in the 1960s are only $1 today and are molecular in size. This trend is showing no signs of slowing down, and Diamandis predicts that soon we’ll all be proud owners of such tech, such as augmented reality glasses we simply can’t live without.
 

4. Exponential technology will transform every industry

Faster, cheaper computing power is leading to unexpected consequences, Diamandis said, in which technologies such as robotics, 3D applications, virtual reality and artificial intelligence are combining to produce even more groundbreaking products. This is causing a paradigm shift in which every industry will soon be revolutionized by more efficient technology, such as self-driving cars and Watson, an artificial intelligence (AI) program that won an episode of “Jeopardy!” in 2011.

Some skeptics are worried about the negative consequences these new technologies might have.

“I’m not worried about AI as ‘The Terminator,’” said Diamandis. “I’m worried that AI is going to transform job markets. It’s the rate of change that we need to deal with.”

5. Moonshot thinking

The last, and arguably most important, of Diamandis’ five exponential trends is “moonshot thinking,” or thinking about how you can impact more than a billion people with a single venture.

The phrase, coined by Google, is the idea that today, any one of us can think about achieving 10 times more growth while the rest of the world is only focused on growing by 10 percent. Diamandis said that this requires a shift in mindset, since we have been trained to accomplish 10 percent more by merely working hard.

“When you ask yourself to go 10 times bigger, it forces you to think in a radically different fashion,” he said. “It forces you to throw out all that you’ve done before.”

He said that, personally, he focuses on “What’s the moonshot?” at the beginning of all of his new ventures, such as Human Longevity Inc., which aims to make being 100 years old the new 60 years old.

“I think, ‘OK, this is impossible; now let’s figure out how to make it happen,’” said Diamandis.

The news may continue to beat us down with up-to-the-minute, anxiety-inducing doom and gloom, but by using exponential technology, we can take matters into our own hands to change the world for the better.

“We’re living in the most exciting time in human history, a time when you as an individual have access to more capital, more computational power than experts in any time, ever,” said Diamandis. “You can solve any problem you put your mind to, and, ultimately, it’s the power of your passion and your mind that’s the most powerful thing on the planet today.”

“It turns out that in agriculture, we have some big problems we’re trying to solve, and we have some people with technologies that could really help us,” explained Aidan Connolly, chief innovation officer at Alltech. “But we really have to help them to help us.”

With the population steadily rising, it is important to find sustainable ways to nourish the masses. At ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17), 10 ready-for-market companies took the stage by telling a crowd of 4,000 potential investors and business partners what their plans are to disrupt the industry.

How can these companies change the way we farm and the way we eat?

Agrilyst: Determined to help indoor farmers save money and increase yields through data collection, Agrilyst aims to be an at-home digital agronomist pushing farmers to achieve year-round revenue.

AgriWebb: Optimizing farm efficiency and looking to solve a $25 billion issue in agriculture, AgriWebb supports farmers by tracking their data and accreditation needs.

 “I wanted to solve real problems for real people,” Kevin Baum, co-founder and CEO of AgriWebb, told the crowd.

Alesca Life: As a company that allows commercial-scale farming anywhere, Alesca Life saves water, promotes urban farming and meets the demand of fresh produce and organic food. Because farms are available in a shipping container, Alesca Life CEO Stuart Oda said that his company provides “local food production by anyone, anywhere.”

eFishery: Overfeeding at shrimp and fish farms is a big issue in aquaculture, especially when 80% of the total cost at farms is feed. eFishery senses a fish’s appetite, adjusts the amount of feed needed and automatically distributes it to reduce a farmer’s cost by up to 21%.

Greengage: When light can affect a chicken’s physiology, behavior and productivity, farmers should look to Greengage for a solution. Their LED lights that can last 60,000 hours can reduce mortality rates, increase yields and lead to more productive chickens.

Hargol FoodTech: As the world’s first commercial grasshopper farm, Hargol FoodTech is disrupting the industry by proposing a new, sustainable grasshopper protein. With 72% protein, essential amino acids and a neutral taste, it has the potential to become a power protein player in providing solutions to our world’s future food crisis.

MagGrow: An astounding 70% of what is sprayed does not reach the target crop, and as the CEO of MagGrow, Gary Wickham, said, “It’s waste,” particularly when 80% of the world’s available water is being used for agriculture.  By using a magnetic spraying system, MagGrow disrupts the status quo by reducing water drift by over 80%. It is “truly using less to grow more, and that’s what the world needs,” explained Wickham.

Moocall: Using calving sensors to measure contractions, Moocall can predict when a cow is going into labor. This innovative device will text and email a farmer an hour before the cow gives birth, marginalizing the $2 billion loss farmers experience per year due to cow and calf death during birth.

SkySquirrel: Utilizing the disruptive technology of drones, SkySquirrel has created a technology used for monitoring crop health. This invention can save the wine industry $15 billion per year by detecting diseases in the vineyard.

Tevatronic: “What do you think will happen with a system that will decide for you?” Oleg Koral, Tevatronics CEO, asked the crowd. The company, which is revolutionizing the future of irrigation, has developed an autonomous system that knows when to start and stop irrigation on crops so they receive just the right amount of water at the right time.

The culmination of a 15-week program called The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, the 10 companies (which were chosen out of almost 200 applicants) have been provided with mentorship and new industry connections. They also received over €300,000 in software perks from Google, Amazon and Softlayer.

“Since starting The Pearse Lyons Accelerator 100 days ago, we have doubled our revenue,” Agrilyst CEO Allison Kopf enthusiastically told the crowd.

Connolly, one of the mentors of The Pearse Lyons Accelerator program, gave future and current entrepreneurs a piece of advice before ending the session.

“You have to be passionate about what you do, but the focus is absolutely critical,” he said. “The business is not going to come to you; you have to go and find the business.”

One thing is clear: with disruptive ideas from around the world and a growing interest by investors in agriculture, a sustainable future seems more possible than ever before.

To listen to our entire conversation with Dror, click on the player.

Tom:                Selected from more than 180 applicants, Hargol FoodTech is among the 10innovative food and agriculture ventures around the world brought to Lexington to make its case for investment. Co-founder and CEO Dror Tamir is among presenters in The Pearse Lyons Accelerator program — his latest stop in what has been an enormously successful whirlwind world quest.  Hargol … is in the grasshopper business. Dror, thank you for joining us.

Dror:                You're welcome. Happy to be here.

Tom:                We're pleased you're here, especially given all the traveling that you've been doing. We'll get into that in just a moment because it's very interesting. But first, I have to ask, edible grasshoppers. Do tell.

Dror:                Yes. Well, I can start with the story about the expected increase in global demand of protein. It is expected to double by 2050. And we all know that existing protein sources have their limitations. So the demand for alternative, high-quality protein will skyrocket. That's one story.

                        The other story is grasshoppers are the most widely eaten insect in the world, by about 2 billion people worldwide, mainly in regions where there is a lack of protein in people's diet. Today, they just collect them in the wild, and it means that they have a very limited season of four to six weeks. We will enable them to farm them year-round and reduce their cost significantly.

Tom:                I understand that you have developed a way to lengthen the normally short breeding season of edible grasshoppers. Is that correct?

Dror:                A little bit different. What we did was shorten the eggs' incubation period. In the wild, it takes about 40 weeks for the eggs to hatch, which means they can have one cycle a year. And what we did, we incubate in an incubator the eggs and we reduce the period to two weeks, meaning that we can have 10 cycles per year.

Tom:                And how did you come up on this idea? What instigated it?

Dror:                The funny story is, I'm an accountant. So accountants have very strange ideas. But the real story is, my previous startup, Plate My Meal, is dealing with obesity prevention and, while working about that startup, I learned about malnutrition and the lack of protein in people's diet. So as an entrepreneur, when you see a big problem, you start looking for a solution, and I came up with grasshoppers.

Tom:                When we think of grasshoppers, of course, especially in this country, we think of a bug. However, there are other parts of the world where it's nothing at all to have a handful of grasshoppers. What is the end product like? Is it a powder? Or is it a grasshopper?

Dror:                Both.

Tom:                Both?

Dror:                Yes. Just south of the U.S., you have Mexico, and the local grasshoppers called chapulines are a national dish. You have tens of millions of Mexicans in the U.S., and the demand for grasshoppers is high, and there is no supply of them. So when we look at the market potential and the opportunities, we look at two different products. One is, we mill the grasshoppers into a protein powder. We sell it to food manufacturers that produce healthy foods based on it. And we also sell to restaurants in Southern U.S. And that's about 35 percent of the demand that we see from the market.

What does a grasshopper taste like?

Tom:                I have to ask, what does a grasshopper taste like? Not chicken, I'm sure.

Dror:                I'm using that answer, usually. The thing is this: The grasshopper is almost neutral in taste and flavor, so the actual taste depends on the way you cook it. So you can get a taste that feels like shrimps or small fish, a nutty taste, or even a wheaty taste.

Tom:                Tell me about the company's former name and why you changed it to its current name.

Dror:                Oh, that's a good question. Former name was Steak TzarTzar, and, actually, everything started as a joke because steak tartare, we all know what it is. And tzartzar in Hebrew means crickets. So it started like that. And the name really caught, and people really liked it until we had our first investor from the U.S., and said we cannot pronounce tzartzar, you have to change the name. So we came up with Hargol, and that's the name of the kosher grasshopper from the Bible.

Winning global competitions with grasshopper genius

Tom:                Now, as we mentioned earlier, you've been experiencing quite a whirlwind of excitement in recent weeks. How is this interest in your product influencing your plans for the future?

Dror:                That's a complicated question to answer. What happened in recent weeks, we got a lot of attention and attraction from all over the world, and it means that it's hard for us to maintain the focus we had. Our focus is on the U.S. market. We want to produce an ingredient to food manufacturers. Keep it simple with a single product to a specific market. And the attraction from all over the world, from Europe, from Africa, from Asia, means that there's very high demand for whole grasshoppers frozen, freeze-dried, roasted, for powders of all kinds of species of grasshoppers, and we have to maintain focus on what our plans are and keep all these new opportunities to a later stage of the company.

Tom:                You have a great deal of momentum going for you right now, and you are in the midst of some pretty serious globetrotting. Can you describe for me what the past week or so has been like for you in your travels?

Dror:                The past actually three weeks, since we finished the Alltech Accelerator in Dublin. We've been working hard with their team, with (the) Dogpatch team and Alltech, to perfect our pitch. And the moment we finished that demo day, three weeks ago, we applied to several competitions, startup pitching competitions, five of them, actually, and we won all five. Some of them are international. The largest one, just two days ago in Singapore, with over 10,000 startups from over 100 countries, and it's unbelievable for us to imagine that grasshoppers could beat all these amazing technologies. I can only tell that this is the hard work of Alltech and Dogpatch with us to get the pitch to that level.

Could grasshoppers be the next sushi?

Tom:                How do you envision your concept — and I should interject here that I understand that you're targeting two different markets, the grasshoppers themselves and also the protein supplement, I suppose. How do you envision these concepts affecting the average consumer's diet or the dinner table?

Dror:                Well, as we see it, the new protein sources, it will take them a long time to replace existing protein sources. It's hard to change our behavior, our habits. So it's the same as it was with sushi. In the '80s, no one would ever try raw fish in the U.S., and now it's common food you can find everywhere and it's really cheap. And we believe that it will be like that. It will be only insects or only grasshoppers. You will have a variety of new protein sources: plant-based, algae-based, cultured meat maybe, and many, many other sources. And eventually, they will become part of our diet. And we will have, because of that, many new food applications that we will be able to find in the market, and we also see it getting into the pet food industry and feed industry as well.

Grasshoppers…on Mars?

Tom:            There's a lot of lore around this insect, many stories, and I know that you have plenty of them. Can you give us a few?

Dror:                Sure. Let's do some amazing facts about grasshoppers and insects.

                        First, grasshoppers have been around on Earth before the dinosaurs. They're an ancient, very efficient creature.

                        Second thing, grasshoppers are the only kosher and halal insect in the world. They are mentioned on Leviticus as kosher. Actually, that's the name of the company, Hargol.

                        And the last thing is that's our vision in Hargol FoodTech and it will be that missions to Mars will have insects as part of the closed system to support humans on this long and challenging trip.

Tom:                And why is that?

Dror:                Because insects first are really efficient, and they provide zero-waste farming, meaning they can use any waste generated by humans and plants and generate with that protein and fat for the uses of both humans and plants.

Tom:                What do you enjoy most about what you do?

Dror:                It's fun. We're having so much fun. We're having so much laugh about it, so many jokes. The joke I like the most is that our CTO Chanan Aviv, for over 30 years, has been growing, breeding and eating a wide variety of insects, and this is why he is the only guy with hair on his head on our team.

Tom:                Dror Tamir with Hargol, which is among the 10 companies chosen for The Pearse Lyons Accelerator program. Thank you for being with us.

Dror:                Thank you very much.

Dror Tamir presented at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17) as part of a special pitch fest by the top 10 agri-tech startups selected for the Pearse Lyons Accelerator program. To hear more talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

Dr. Pearse Lyons, president and founder of Alltech, took the stage with an enthusiastic smile — a smile that was clearly concealing an exciting secret. Luckily for the 4,000 attendees in the audience, ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17) was just beginning, and the secrets of how to be a disruptor were about to be revealed.

The theme of the conference, “Disrupt the Disruptors,” is about changing the status quo and shaking up the industry by developing and embracing products and ideas that save time and money, improve efficiency and are user friendly.

Aidan Connolly, chief innovation officer and vice president of corporate accounts at Alltech, emphasized the importance of agriculture embracing new, disruptive technologies on-farm.

“If you don’t embrace disruption, you’ll go out of business,” he explained.

Welcoming disruption becomes synonymous with welcoming the future, and the future of agriculture features more efficient farming, faster results and money saved.

Connolly detailed the eight technologies that have the power to transform agriculture through disruptive innovation:

1. 3D printing
2. Robots
3. Drones
4. Sensors
5. Artificial intelligence
6. Augmented reality
7. Virtual reality
8. Blockchain

“Innovation is key to disrupt an industry,” said Connolly.

While it is important for businesses to accept disruption, what does it take for them to achieve disruption in a competitive, ever-expanding market?

Dr. Lyons made his message very clear: “Mainstream companies sell products; great companies sell dreams.” 

To be a disruptor in its industry, a company must sell not only what they are interested in producing, but what the consumer wants; it is a two-way street.

“Being a disruptor is about having the dreams of your people aligned with yours, and your dreams aligned with theirs because, ultimately,” said Dr. Lyons, “they’re the ones who count.”

In addition to realizing dreams through disruption, he explained that these dreams and ideas are not enough — companies must also have ideals. Laying out the roadmap for successful disruption, Dr. Lyons explained the non-negotiable ideals of Alltech:

1. Remaining a privately owned company
2. Reinvesting time and money into our companies, products and employees
3. Speed: Don’t get it right, get it going
4. Having fun

By starting with a dream, innovators and entrepreneurs can begin their journey of disruption. Disruption, after all, begins with just ONE great idea.

“Sometimes you think that to change the world, you need to do the impossible,” said George Blankenship. “I look at it differently. It’s not impossible  —  it just hasn’t been done yet.”

In April 2017, Tesla bypassed General Motors to become the most valuable carmaker in the U.S. Although it only held the top spot briefly, this tech-savvy, boundary-pushing company is not only turning the automotive industry on its head; its innovation is also causing far-reaching disruptions in fields like energy storage, which is critical to the future of renewable energy.

How did a seemingly fringe enterprise blow by some of the most iconic carmakers?
 

According to Blankenship, former executive at Apple Computer, Tesla Motors and GAP Inc., who spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17), it is absolutely critical to assume that someone is going to redefine your industry.
 

“Whoever does is going to hold the world in the palm of their hand,” he said.
 

The disruptive tactic that Blankenship employed at Apple and Tesla focused heavily on giving customers something they couldn’t live without, before they even knew they wanted it. The clearest example is our modern dependence on smartphones, not for the phone itself, but for the wealth of apps that allow us to lead more efficient lives.
 

The key, Blankenship said, is to create a long-term customer relationship.
 

“What can you do that will keep customers wanting to come back again and again?” he asked.
 

Apple now has one of the most loyal communities of customers in the world. Blankenship said the three most important things a company can do to ensure long-term customer relationships include:

1. Letting people know they are important.
2. Letting people know they will be taken care of.
3. Letting people know that you will be available to help them.

Blankenship first executed this strategy at Apple by transforming the company’s brick and mortar stores from simple retail sites to engaging venues where customers could connect directly with a product. They also became the home of the Genius Bar, where customers could stop by to ask for advice about the Apple products they already owned (and purchase even more once they were on-site).
 

Now that greater connectivity and the internet are making it more convenient to learn about products and order them online, the physical stores themselves should be the place where experts make a difference by giving customers time, attention and an experience.
 

Today, this is exactly the stratagem that Tesla is employing. It is redefining the car buying experience by becoming the first car manufacture to put the brand into shopping malls, where families are visiting, taking selfies with their children inside the cars and, of course, asking how soon they can buy the latest model.
 

“You will know if your store is successful and you’re doing a great job if everybody leaves smiling,” explained Blankenship.
 

To excel, Blankenship said it is vital to cultivate a disruptive mindset by doing the following five things:

1. Simplify: Focus only on what’s important.
2. Courage: Don’t listen to outsiders.
3. Alignment: Demonstrate conviction.
4. Celebrate: Successes and failures.
5. First step: Take it!

“So, who in this room is ready to close their eyes, envision the possible opportunities of the next 10 years, and then make a difference that will change your industry forever?” asked Blankenship. “Somebody is going to do it. The only question is: Will it be you?”

Tom:                Technological innovations have the ability to transform every link in the food chain, from seed to fork. We're joined by the author of those words, Alltech's chief innovation officer, Aidan Connolly, to talk about disruption and the accelerating pace of change. Thank you for being with us.

Aidan:             Thank you.

Tom:                “Disrupting the Disruptors” is the theme of this conference. Sounds a little bit like chaos, or are we interpreting that too literally?

Aidan:             Well, you have to remember that although Alltech has become a very large organization employing over 5,000 people, we're still led by an entrepreneur. We're still led by the man, Dr. Pearse Lyons, who created and started the company, and he very much enjoys disrupting things. If you work for Alltech, you would know that. So the conference reflects the fact that he sees the world changing tremendously and that conventional thinking is not going to solve the problems that we are facing. We need to think differently about how we confront those issues, and if we do so, in the right way, we'd profit from our solutions.

What is disruption?

Tom:                That word, “disruption,” is becoming something of a buzzword, and the originator of the theory has complained that the term is frequently used loosely to invoke the concept of innovation in support of whatever it is that person wishes to do. What, in your view, defines meaningful disruption?

Aidan:             Well, it is something that you hear a lot of discussion about, and, obviously, you hear people from universities, people, academics, talking about it. But practically, I feel that innovation is all about doing the same thing better, whereas disruption is about doing things that make the way we do it today obsolete, and that obsolescence of the old ways of doing things is overused as a phrase, there's no question about it. We do hear people talking about things that are fairly conventional and how they're going to disrupt them, but we've seen huge disruption in all markets in the last three to five years. We think of the Uber model disrupting the way that we get moved from place to place, we think of the Netflix way of disrupting the model of how we get our movies, and you look at businesses that are really struggling to cope with the level of disruption of the scene, in particular, in our area, areas such as the food business, grocery stores, shopping malls that are empty, et cetera. So the level of disruption that we're seeing just requires us all in business to think differently about what we do and to really prepare for that business is not going to be the same as — it's not going to be as usual.

Tom:                The pace of disruption today seems to have really accelerated. Won't something soon come along and disrupt your disruptor?

Aidan:             Of course. And sometimes you feel disruption is like being on a conveyor belt. You're walking along, and just about the point that you get to one spot, you have to keep on walking because, if not, you start being pulled back. So there is no question that the level of change in society no longer allows you to come up with a new business model or idea and expect to get away with maintaining that for 10 or 15 years. You have to be on a continuous disruptive innovation pathway.

                        What I would say is that this perhaps is not as different as we think. We did for 200,000 years maintain pretty much a hunter-gatherer existence. We started farming about 10,000 years ago. That led to the development of cities and civilization and the time to think and innovation and art and all of the creative stuff that we're doing today. We have to assume that although we're seeing acceleration, which seemed mind-boggling in the last 10 years, that's going to continue. It might even accelerate.

Investing in disruptive ideas

Tom:                Do investors in disruptive technologies or innovations need an iron stomach? Do they need to be pretty tolerant of risks?

Aidan:             I think a lot of people use the phrase “I'm looking to invest in a unicorn, I'm looking for the unicorn, and I'm trying to figure out what a unicorn is.” But, of course, the unicorn, in their language, is this one business opportunity that you invest $10,000, $100,000 and magically, over a number of years, with the insight that they have to create businesses worth $100 million or $1 billion. The reality is, there are very few of those out there, and, of course, they are well-reported in the newspapers and in the media because that is what people are excited by.

                        I think if I'm an investor, I have to assume, as we always do, that we're going to have some successes, we're going to have some failures and we're going to have a loss in the middle.

                        And make sure that you maintain a portfolio approach to how you invest. So would I invest $10,000 in one project, or would it be better investing $1,000 in 10? I would feel the 10 is always the better way to go.

                        Yes, there are people out there with unique insights into where the future of the world is going to go, but the vast majority of us are not that lucky. And as such, we have to embrace what we see as the opportunities but also be prepared to spread our risk.

                 Digital technologies that will transform how we farm

Tom:                 In a recent article, you identified eight disruptive digital technologies with the power to transform agriculture. Which technologies made that list?

Aidan:             I hope I can remember all eight now off the top of my mind, but I remember we have hardware solutions, such as drones and robots, sensors. We have the software applications of virtual reality, enhanced reality, artificial intelligence. Of course, we think a lot about the internet of things, bringing all of these together. From my perspective, all of these have tremendous opportunities to change the way in which business is done — all types of business — but the gap between where we are today and where we could be in food and agriculture is even larger.

                        So, from that perspective, I think that the gains can be much greater. You take a technology such as blockchain, which most of your listeners probably will not know what blockchain is. It's a little bit like bitcoin to allow you to have transparency in a system where you don't actually know who manufactures, who transforms or changes it, who packages it and who delivers it. The food system is a classic example of that. But you need that transparency to make sure that if there's a food scare, if there's a requirement for going back and finding where something bad happened, you can do so.

                        So blockchain is another transformation of technology. But, from my perspective, all of these eight areas all can transform food and agriculture. Some of them are closer to being implemented. For example, robots we already see being used on farms to help milk cows, sensors to detect the water content of soils so we can irrigate better. But then others, maybe like virtual reality, are further away, will require larger investments, and as of yet, we're looking to the future, not looking at today.

Tom:                Among them, is there one or are there some that you find really compelling?

Aidan:             I think people talk a lot about the internet of things, and that clearly is the central point of all of this. As in feedback from devices from the information you're collecting, bringing that back  to your systems, to your computers and being able to analyze and understand what you're seeing.

                        But fundamentally, I think artificial intelligence is the one I would go for. That is the one that I think is the most transformative, the most disruptive and the one I'm most excited by.

How should businesses deal with digital disruption?

Tom:                Borrowing from a question that you've raised, given that artificial intelligence, or AI, has the potential to revolutionize many areas of a company's operations, including their decision-making processes and their budgeting abilities, how best for an organization to invest in and leverage AI?

Aidan:             That's a really good question, and obviously I posed it myself in the article we published on alltech.com and on my LinkedIn page. I think you have to be extremely hard-nosed about really understanding what the technology is and who's behind it. And, of course, for most of us, we don't feel comfortable asking some of these writing algorithms or mathematical formulae, "Now, how do I use this? What does it do?" But it has the ability to transform life and transform, in particular, work life. So we really have to dig into it, and the classic questions exist of “What is it going to do for me and for my business, my customers? How is this going to help me make more efficient or better or do so at a lower cost?” Examples of where it's being used today, that's clearly something that is very, very important. So while I wouldn't necessarily focus on existing sales, I'd like to look at existing uses and applications.

                        I think, while a lot of us feel very uncomfortable with trying to understand technology, I don't see any aspect of business today which will not be affected by it. So I think it's kind of important for us all to read as much as we can, research these areas. There are tremendous articles online on the internet that you can read. And obviously, don't rely on one. Read many of them. But I've also recently formed a kitchen cabinet of friends who I know I can call on who have the time and the interest to understand this better than me, who can give me very good advice as to whether, from an Alltech perspective and/or my customers' perspective, whether something being promoted actually has the ability to deliver what it says it can deliver.

How innovators and tech entrepreneurs deal with failure

Tom:                How important is it to the technological entrepreneur, the innovator, to accept risk and even accept the possibility of failure going into it?

Aidan:             It's absolutely essential. So if you think of the types of companies I've seen in my short space looking at this since the creation of The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, it's surprising to me how many things can happen that you just can't predict. You can have somebody sadly fall ill. In one case, I saw somebody who's in his 40s die of a cancer that we did not know when he was setting up his business, so obviously, he could never have. We've seen situations where anchor customers go out of business, the customer that you're most reliant upon.

                        So you have to accept that when you're talking about 10 or 100 or 1,000 companies, a certain percentage of them will have things happen to them which are just not predictable. And back to my suggestion of taking a portfolio approach to how you invest or how you select, obviously you can do your best to find the companies you think are likely to succeed. But if you try picking a single company, I think you're always taking a risk, a very large risk that your investment strategy will not be successful.

Tom:                And if it's not successful, if failure turns out to be the outcome, what should happen then? What should you do with that?

Aidan:             Well, ideally, it should be money that you can afford to lose. I mean, that's the essence. For yourself, personally, or for your company, you shouldn't be overextended into something.

                        I met a company last week who have twice invested in technology that they were told would transform the way their factory worked. They, in one case, invested $600,000, the next case $300,000, and both times the software failed to deliver on its promise. So they're down $1 million. If they couldn't afford the $1 million, they shouldn't have invested it. It is clear they believed that if they succeed, this will put them at a tremendous competitive advantage over everybody else in their business, but at the same time, you have to understand many of these technologies don't succeed.

Bringing it back to the kitchen table: How will ag disruption impact the consumer?

Tom:                How does this ongoing disruption in the agriculture sector affect the average consumer's kitchen table?

Aidan:             It could affect it in many, many ways. The most obvious, which was surprising to me, was to see a 3D printer printing food. If you think that's hard to believe, just imagine a cake being produced where the machine is just moving in circles and it's basically using food ingredients to print out the cake and create it perfectly. So will that be capable of producing burgers and fries in the future? I'm not sure about that, but why not? That 3D food printer today is about $3,000. So, maybe expensive, but starting to sound like it's within the realm for people who wish to do that. I could imagine the same thing clearly for drinks, maybe being even easier when drinks are so deconstructed.

                        If I think about what it could do from the point of view of traceability, I see McDonald's having a virtual reality farm visit. So if you are the type of person who wants to go to McDonald's — and this is being held in England — and you want to see where their food is being produced, their potatoes, their beef, their tomatoes, you can actually put on the goggles and you can visit their farm virtually without ever having to leave the store.

                        And if you think in terms of what's happening in traceability of food, I mentioned blockchain earlier. This is very important as well for places like China. But Walmart having used blockchain in China is bringing it back to the United States and implementing it here to make for better traceability. When there is any sort of issue with packaging, maybe even food safety, they know exactly where in the chain the problem occurred and how to solve that problem quickly.

                        So I see these will basically, I believe, hopefully help to continue to make food more affordable, make food safer. I'd like to think it will add flavor to food and allow consumers to do what they said they want, which is to understand more where their food comes from.

Tom:                Alltech Chief Innovation Officer Aidan Connolly, thank you so much.

Aidan Connolly spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17).To hear more talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

[DUBLIN, Ireland] – As fossil fuels deplete at astounding rates, biogas production is fast becoming an alternative source of economic and renewable energy. Alltech’s new product, DIGEST P3, improves the profitability of anaerobic digestion by optimising biogas productivity. DIGEST P3 is an enzyme complex produced by the breakdown of organic matter through a process called solid state fermentation, with production similar to that of yeast fermentation. Since Alltech has nearly 40 years’ experience in the fermentation of yeast for both the animal health and brewing industries, biogas fermentation is a logical next chapter for the company. Through mastery of solid state fermentation techniques, Alltech can produce enzymes economically and pass this cost savings along to customers.

“This is exciting. This is why I love what I do,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech. “We have taken our expertise and decades of knowledge in fermentation and applied them to the development of DIGEST P3. Remember, efficiency on the farm is what we are experts in. Alltech is all about adding value and efficiency and bringing sustainable solutions to market. Dealing with waste, while at the same time producing renewable energy, is simply another way we are using innovative and ground-breaking technologies to solve our customers’ issues.”

DIGEST P3 works with methane-generating microflora to help break down feedstock components previously inaccessible through digestion. This enhanced feed breakdown allows for more readily available energy and protein for the microflora, resulting in additional biogas volumes from the same amount of feed input. DIGEST P3 allows for flexibility in feedstock formulation through the inclusion of byproducts and alternative raw materials.

“We are working with customers to optimise the flexibility offered by this technology,” said Niall Brennan, biogas project manager at Alltech. “We are seeing some customers reduce their feedstock inputs and maintain their gas outputs. It is very encouraging to see the range of benefits DIGEST P3 offers Alltech customers.”

Alltech has just completed a research trial with Harper Adams University in England to identify optimum performance-enhancing additives. The trial was run utilising DIGEST P3 in commercial plants across Europe. In the trial, DIGEST P3’s additional feed breakdown led to increased biogas production, reduced feed costs, reduced power consumption and uplifts in operating profit.

“Since implementing DIGEST P3, many of our customers have witnessed significant improvement in substrate efficiency,” said Brennan. “This allows our customers to decrease the amount of substrates they input each day, yet maintain a consistent energy output.”

For more information on DIGEST P3, please visit go.alltech.com/digest-p3 and stay connected through Twitter and Facebook.

[LEXINGTON, Ky.] — ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17), held May 21–24 in Lexington, Kentucky, is certain to inspire and motivate producers and agribusiness leaders, but more importantly, it will prepare them for the future. The three-day conference will bring together industry experts from across the globe to share insights and solutions to today’s most pressing issues within agriculture.

To provide an opportunity for every corner of production agriculture to engage in disruption, ONE17 will include various tracks, including a focus session specifically dedicated to aqua production. From consumer demand for sustainable, healthy farmed fish to the potential of seaweed, ONE17 will provide real-life solutions for aqua producers.

“We believe it’s important for everyone involved in agriculture to be inspired to harness disruption,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech. “The aqua production focus session will provide practical solutions that position aqua producers to meet consumer demands, sustainability requirements and profitability objectives.”

ONE17 aquaculture focus session

• Simpler Salmon: Is there an easier way to combat the sticky issue of sea lice?
• Back to the Basics: Consumers want a sustainable, healthy farmed fish without fish oil or fish meal, but they still want the health benefits that come from a normal fish diet, specifically DHA omega-3. Can we solve the fish oil and fish meal problem?
• Seaweed's Enormous Potential: Discover the potential of one of nature's original foods, from iodine to fiber and beyond.
• Total Sustainability, Total Traceability: Recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) not only reduce water use, but maintain water quality and reduce ammonia toxicity.
• The Faroe Islands: A Small Group, but a Great Disruptor:. Faroe Islanders are successfully delivering what consumers want in their fish: the right color, the right taste and the right DHA levels. They also produce their fish with minimum water requirements. Do the Faroe Islands offer a model for the future?

For more information on the ONE17 aquaculture focus session, visit: one.alltech.com/aquaculture.

Register before April 1 to save $300 on your passport to innovative ideas at ONE17.

Join the conversation on Twitter with #ONE17.

[LEXINGTON, Ky.] — ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17), held May 21–24 in Lexington, Kentucky, is certain to inspire and motivate producers and agribusiness leaders, but more importantly, it will prepare them for the future. The three-day conference will bring together industry experts from across the globe to share insights and solutions to today’s most pressing issues within agriculture.

To provide an opportunity for every corner of production agriculture to engage in disruption, ONE17 will include various tracks, including a focus session specifically dedicated to poultry production. From topics covering in ovo techniques and the use of CRISPR/Cas9 genome modification to the effects of backyard farming and consumer meat preferences, ONE17 will give poultry producers real-life solutions.

“We believe it’s important for everyone involved in agriculture to be inspired to harness disruption,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech. “For poultry producers, however, we understand that innovation must be practical and profitable. Our poultry focus session will facilitate open discussions about what’s ahead for the poultry industry and will drive the disruptive thinking that could determine long-term success.”

ONE17 poultry focus session

• In Ovo: Counting your chickens before they hatch? Could in ovo techniques be the next disruption in the poultry industry, and what benefits could they deliver to the consumer?
• Chickens by Design: What implications does CRISPR/Cas9 have for the world’s preferred protein?
• Slow-Grown Disruption: Is the slow-growth movement a disruption? Is it sustainable?
• Chickens and Eggs: Two growing markets have emerged: backyard farming and large-scale consolidation. What are the opportunities?
• Disruption in Washington: What can we expect from the new leadership landscape? How could the food chain and global trade be disrupted?
• The Biologist’s Toolbox: Precise gene editing technologies are the newest tool in the biologist’s toolbox, but are we pushing ethical limits?

For more information on the ONE17 poultry focus session, visit: one.alltech.com/poultry.

Register before April 1 to save $300 on your passport to innovative ideas at ONE17.

Join the conversation on Twitter with #ONE17.