PivotCalifornia Forever CEO Explains Plans to Build a New Community | Pivot
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55 min read · 11,394 words- 0:00 – 1:59
California Forever’s premise: building a complete new community in Solano County
- KSKara Swisher
Jan Sramek is the CEO and founder of California Forever. His company, with the help of some Silicon Valley billionaires, has acquired 62,000 acres in Solano County, California, which is north of, north and slightly east of San Francisco over the last few years with the goal of building a new community. So, we've wanted to have you on for while. We have so many questions. K- Scott particularly has a lot of questions. But there's been a lot of mystery around California Forever. I, I need you to explain exactly what you're planning and, uh, I, and I get a sense of why it was secret at the beginning is you were buying up all, 62,000 acres in this area north-east of San- just north-east of San Francisco, um, centered in, uh, you know, in Solano County. Um, so talk a little bit about what you're doing for people who don't know.
- JSJan Sramek
We are trying to get California to build again, uh, and solve this problem that we have, um... It's still the center of innovation, it's still this economic engine for the whole country, but it's the first time in the history of the country where people are moving out of a place like that. Um, and we're doing that by building a new community in Solano County, about an hour north of San Francisco. Uh, and in some sense, this should be the, um... This is the oldest kind of business model, um, in the world. We run out of houses, we should find some land, um, that is not prime farmland, that is not sensitive ecological habitat, and build a complete community there. And then I think what's different is we're not building a subdivision, we're building a complete community. And so we're building something that someone who grew up in an old neighborhood like Noe Valley or the Marina built a hundred years ago would recognize. A complete community with homes and apartments and schools and shops and jobs and churches, um, and, uh, we believe that this can be a really unique economic engine for Solano County, which is a part of the Bay Area that has been left out of the prosperity that, that's happened here o- over the last 20 years.
- 1:59 – 3:57
Why planned cities fail—and why this one might work
- KSKara Swisher
So, most cities just happen, you k- you know, they just sort of occur w- and then the, and then cities build on top of cities, right? That's the whole concept is, like, Rome has 10 different versions of itself depending on the era. Creating something out of nothing, a lot of cities that do this i- in the history have not worked out well. Brazilia, I was thinking lots of different things have, they've been trying to create the perfect city. Why did you, besides California needs more housing which, uh, obviously is, is a big deal, um, why do you think it'll work by just creating it out of nothing where people weren't naturally going to build themselves or settle themselves?
- JSJan Sramek
Yeah, I mean, I, I think that first of all it's a, um... I mean, in America, it's, it's, it's a fairly young country, right? And so almost all cities are new cities.
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
And we have really good examples of cities that were started-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
... by a person or a company that turned out to be spectacular. Some of our most beloved cities in America were started this way. I mean, Savannah, Georgia, um, Philadelphia, um, Irvine in southern California. We have a lot of really good examples of places that were basically started by a company. Um, and I think what's, um... The other part of it is, we're building in an area that actually people have said before should be built. Uh, the US Commerce Department, uh, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Association of Bay Area Governments all said in the '50s, '60s, '70s, that sometime in the 2020s we are gonna run out of space in the Bay Area and we should build somewhere, and they all concluded that this was basically the best place to build. That by that point, we will have run out of space in the, in the Bay Area and this would be a really good place to build. And so there's a lot of precedent for why this would happen, and I think the cities that have, um... The planned cities that have failed, I think they failed for two reasons. I spent, I spent two years before I started working on this kind of going back and reading the history of all of these projects. Brazilia and all, and every project that you can, that you can name.
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- 3:57 – 5:23
A ‘city as a platform’: minimal rules, strong bones (the street grid approach)
- JSJan Sramek
And I think they failed in one of two ways. Either people were building them in a place where there was no demand, which is not the Bay Area, or the developers came in with some kind of singular vision they were going to impose on the city and it's gonna be this perfect kind of, um, master plan. And, and our approach to it is very, very different. Our approach to it is very similar to how a place like San Francisco or New York were built. Or indeed, kind of locally, Rio Vista or Benicia or Vallejo which is, you lay down a street grid and, um, you do a really good job doing that, and then you think of the city as a platform. And it's, it's y- you don't say the houses are gonna be beige and they're gonna have these windows and this is where the residential's going to go and this is where the, um, the small houses will go and this is where the big houses will go. Instead, y- you do the bare amount of correct planning in the beginning and then y- we let the city kind of emerge out of that and a lot of different people and builders and architects and companies and residents come and they build their lives and, and I, I think cities are this unique invention that we have where, particularly in the society that we live in today, and it's, uh, it's, it, there's, there's challenges now, but I think cities are still the place where people with a lot of different values can come together and build something really special and out of that disagreement and c- chaos and conflict-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
... something really special emerges, and that's what we're trying to do here.
- KSKara Swisher
Scott?
- 5:23 – 7:51
Scott’s core concern: housing solution or techno-libertarian ‘secession’ project?
- SGScott Galloway
Uh, nice to meet you. So, I, I want to try and, if I can, describe the tension around what I think, I think some of the tension you're facing or the questions. So when I first heard about this, I loved the idea of, of creating massive housing such that young people finally have their shot, right? I think that, uh, slowly but surely homeowners have weaponized local governments to restrict housing permits and the American dream, if that's buying a home, is increasingly sequestered from young people, so I like the innovation, I like the idea that they're doing something similar in Florida where they're incorporating a city, tons of new housing units. I love that. The, the thing I think that sent chill down my spine, or chills down my spine when I, was when I read some of the comments from Balaji Srinivasan-... and is... I think people are worried that... Is this, this new techno neo, neo-libertarianism where people who are very blessed want to start their own... want to basically secede from the nation (laughs) and want to create their own government, want to create an... You know, everyone has the right to create local politicians. But I guess this is... My question is, is this rooted in opportunity for young people that haven't participated in the spoils that a lot of these people have enjoyed? Or is it a vision for a different type of society, which quite frankly just makes me very kind of... it scares me a little bit. Can you, can you walk us through that?
- KSKara Swisher
Uh, I'm gonna just put some update for, for... Scott was just referring to former Andreessen Horowitz partner. Uh, this guy is calling for something like tech Zionism. He said his vision is to ethnically cleanse San Francisco of liberals. He has some scheme around colored shirts that people wear. It's demented actually, but a lot of tech people are trying to take over San Francisco government with donations and their own mayoral candidates, which is their right to do so, although some of the things that pop out of their mouth are just so heinous and stupid at the same time, which is very hard to do. Um, so talk about this because a lot of people feel like given some of the investors, which I think does include Marc Andreessen, who is a big backer of Balaji, um, California Forever's connection to a movement that wants to build a place where tech elite can live under their own rules or, or the idea that you're trying to do a different kind of governance, new kinds of governance. And I know Mike Moritz, who has been an investor, has talked about that, the idea of a new kind of governance. So, ch- t- s- perhaps separate yourself from that or not or just say, "What we're trying to do here is..."
- 7:51 – 10:13
Sramek distances the project from ‘network states’ and ‘smart city’ fantasies
- JSJan Sramek
Yeah. No, I mean, I think we're not trying to do any of that and I think there's a lot of baggage that tech has created in building new cities that unfortunately we are on the receiving end of it. But, um, my interest in this from the beginning was very simple. I really care about the built environment. I, I really think that walkable dense places, um, are special. I think walkable cities have amazing impacts on, um, the sense of community and creativity and human health and knowing your neighbors and all of these things. And so for me, the primary interest has always been, how do we build more housing so there's more opportunity? And then how do we make the place walkable? Because if you look at these old neighborhoods like big parts of San Francisco or Georgetown or the West Village-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
... um, it's clear that a huge proportion of Americans love them, but they've become these oasis for the rich because we've stopped building them. And so these walkable communities today, working families just can't afford them. And so for me, it was about building a place like that. I have very little interest in innovating on, um, in particular two things that tech has done. And the first one is, there's this, um, tech libertarian kind of floating cities, um, network states and so on. I have zero interest on any of it. Um, Balaji is not an investor. Um, and, um, there's also this kind of smart city component of it, what some other people have tried to do, and I have zero interest in that as well. I mean, we're building a place that actually is, from that perspective, really, really boring.
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
We're building a place where if all we did was build a great combination of some of these old neighborhoods I mentioned like Noe Valley and Marina and Mission and West Village and parts of Philadelphia and Georgia, Savannah, Georgia.
- KSKara Swisher
That are presumably more affordable, correct?
- JSJan Sramek
More affordable, absolutely. Because, because we... They are expensive because we don't have very many of them. If all we did over the next 30 or 40 years was build something that people looked at in 50 years the way that they look at those places, I would be over the moon. We don't need to do anything else.
- KSKara Swisher
But, but you are gonna get saddled with that tech thing because given some of your investors-
- JSJan Sramek
Yeah.
- KSKara Swisher
... you know, they're very... among the wealthiest people on earth. So it... And, you know, some of them are... have their nonsensical "I'm moving to Australia," some of them, "I'm gonna go in space," like you said, it's a Jeff Bezos thing, the floating city. That's his dream of the world.
- JSJan Sramek
Mm-hmm.
- 10:13 – 11:53
What ‘new governance’ actually means here: faster, predictable permitting
- KSKara Swisher
Um, of course in sci-fi, that's always a bad dream for most people and a good dream for rich people. Um, so you're gonna carry that baggage no matter what. Like, no matter what, given your investors, right? One. Two, they, they feel, um, anti-democratic in a lot of ways. So presumably the governance here, even when Mike, and I happen to like Mike Moritz, um, talking about new kinds of governance, presumably democracy's at the center of that, correct? It's not... What's a new kind of governance?
- JSJan Sramek
Yeah. I mean-
- KSKara Swisher
I don't even unders-... There's...
- JSJan Sramek
I think what, what Mike was referring to-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- JSJan Sramek
I think what Mike was referring to in that email, I think it's an old email from 2017-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. It was.
- JSJan Sramek
... um, was new kinds of governance when it comes to making it easier to build.
- KSKara Swisher
I see.
- JSJan Sramek
The thing that we've been obsessed about since the beginning is why does it take two years to get a permit to build a small apartment building in San Francisco?
- KSKara Swisher
I just added a door, it took me forever in San Francisco, but go ahead.
- JSJan Sramek
Exactly, exactly. And so if you look at the ballot measure that we proposed, the only innovation... I mean, it's an 80-page ballot measure, and the only innovation on governance that's in it, the only one, is it says it should be easy here to build buildings. We're gonna do an environmental impact report on the whole community. We're gonna study all of the impacts and then we're going to say-
- KSKara Swisher
And safety is important because it's San Francisco. Yeah.
- JSJan Sramek
Safe... Exact- exactly. And we said, "A- a- as long as you're building something that fits in here, you should be able to get a building permit in 60 days."
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
And so that's the only kind of governance innovation that we have.
- KSKara Swisher
But the governance is democracy, correct? (laughs) I mean, it's not like-
- JSJan Sramek
Oh, absolutely.
- KSKara Swisher
... we're not going to innovate on some-
- JSJan Sramek
No, no.
- KSKara Swisher
... let's have a king or let's have, you know, Marc Andreessen be king for a day or whatever, let's not have him be a king any day. But, um, when you, when you-
- 11:53 – 13:46
Why the early secrecy, and the farmer lawsuit controversy
- JSJan Sramek
No.
- KSKara Swisher
... were doing this at the beginning, you had to be very secretive and obviously there was a lot of back and forth with local landowners. Um, did you talk about why you did it that way? Presumably because you didn't want the prices to go up like crazy, like, "Ooh, rich people are here with their money bags," and, um, uh, you, you also, um, uh, filed a lawsuit against accusing 40 Solano farmers of price fixing on land, which they've denied. So talk a little bit about that because you've got to get the support of the community moving forward too and the elected officials that are there now.
- JSJan Sramek
Yeah, I mean on the, on the buying the property quietly, um, we, we've done the same thing that, uh, for example, Disney did when they were buying the property in Florida for, for Disney World.
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
Which, um, is just standard practice. I think for us it was partially about the prices, but it was also... We felt that you could design a really great community here, but someone had to basically control a large amount of the land so you could place things correctly. For example, one of the things that we did is, um, in the ballot measure is we doubling the security buffer around the Air Force base here. And we would not be able to do that if there were 40 different landowners trying to build a project in the community, so that was part of it. And then, um, on the loss-
- KSKara Swisher
Just so people don't know, there's a big Air Force base nearby for people that-
- JSJan Sramek
Right. Right. Exactly. Um, which by the way, one of the biggest challenges for the Air Force base?
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
Number one, the people who work there are struggling to afford to live here.
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
And number two, their spouses often commute one and a half hours every day to Palo Alto because there's very few jobs here. And so we've had an amazing response from many of the people who serve on the base saying, "You know what? Actually, this is the best thing that's happened to the base." Um, and then on the lawsuits, I mean, the main thing I would say is, is, is we've settled the majority of them. Um, there was a recent ruling in the case from the court that basically said there is evidence that this happened. Um, but we've been very reasonable on settling it and, and, uh, we hope we'll be able to put that behind us soon.
- 13:46 – 15:43
What success looks like: starter homes, compact density, and a ~$400k entry point
- SGScott Galloway
So, uh, first off, I, I find your comments really heartening, um, and I also want to point out that masking your identity when you're a buyer is common practice. NYU does the same thing. Um, because... Anyways, for a lot of reasons, you, you don't necessarily want the seller to know who you are. Get our greed glands going. Young people have been held out from the American dream of buying a home. What do you envision? What does victory look like in 10 years out in terms of the price of the home, the amenities? You know, paint the vision here for why this will be a net positive for society.
- JSJan Sramek
Yeah. Affordability was a really big criterion for us from the beginning and we designed the whole community with that in mind. And the biggest component of that is if you look at what developers are actually building today, we've basically stopped building starter homes. And that's a big part of the problem. If you talk to people who've bought a home in the Bay Area in the '70s or '80s or '90s, their first home would be 1,000 square feet to 1,200 square feet, kind of, three b- three bedroom, one bathroom, small single family home, and then they would build equity and, and they would grow in it and eventually trade up. Um, for all kinds of reasons in the real estate business, we've stopped building those homes. Um, the community we have is unus- uh, that kind of we proposed is unusual in that, um, California has a standard that says affordable by design, and what it basically says is if you can build a walkable community where you have row houses and ADUs and small apartment buildings, they can be affordable by design. You can actually build units that you can buy that are not deed restricted, um, from the beginning. And so I think we would have homes or apartments starting at probably $400,000, um, which even by Solano County standards is really affordable. I mean, you can't buy a new home here for $400,000. And we, we do that by really innovating on what we build and the density and then using the land much more wisely, um, in a much more compact footprint.
- 15:43 – 18:41
Timeline, obstacles, and the biggest regret: community rollout and political skepticism
- KSKara Swisher
So, what... You wanna get this built presumably, correct? What, what, w- what do you think e- the timing is on this and how it's happening and... is there a chance it wouldn't happen and, and, and that it could- couldn't happen? What do you need to succeed to go forward? Certainly, there's interest in more housing in California. That said, a lot of people are in fact moving back. All those people who insulted California on their way out are now, "AI is back." Like, there's o- there's a lot of, there's... You can see it in San Francisco and the, and the Palo Alto area. There's real growth and, you know, Google killed it. This, in the f- you know, they haven't moved anywhere, you know? There, there's other things. So there's, there's a little more excitement around living in California than there was a year ago even or two years when, r- a couple of years when you started this. What is the prospects and what's your biggest challenge? And if you had to go back and e- repair a mistake you made, uh, what would it be?
- JSJan Sramek
Yeah, I mean, first of all, I, I started this eight years ago, not two years ago. I've been, I've been working on this for eight years.
- KSKara Swisher
Right. That's right.
- JSJan Sramek
Uh, and so we've been through the whole cycle in California of excited, people are leaving, people are coming back. I, I think to your point of people are coming back to California, that, that makes the need for this even more prescient. Because if the AI boom continues and the salaries continue i- in, in, in the Bay Area, that's going to just increase the pressure on the housing market and it's gonna be harder and harder and harder for working families to stay in San Francisco or in, in, in Palo Alto. Uh, and so I think the AI boom is just another huge reason for why, um, this needs to happen because the Bay Area needs more housing. Otherwise, it's just gonna be an oasis of the rich. Um, in terms of what we would do differently, I, I think we, we would have liked to introduce the project to the community differently. We were preparing for that when Conor wrote the article. We were probably a month away from being able-
- KSKara Swisher
He's the New York Times reporter. Yeah.
- JSJan Sramek
Exactly. We were about a, a month away from wanting to talk about it. Um, I, I also wish that some of the elected officials had kept more of an open mind instead of condemning the project in the beginning. I think, um, it's totally fair for people to say, "You know, this looks like a really big idea. I'm not sure it works, but I'm gonna stay open minded and I'm gonna look at it when there's more details." I think a lot of people rush to conclusions, um, um, without merit, and I think that's particularly concerning when they have presided over the situation getting worse and worse and worse for working families for the last 20 years and they haven't been able to do anything about it. And I think we should be a bit more open, to Scott's point about new solutions, because whatever is it that we're doing-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
... California is no longer working for working families. I, I don't think anyone is disputing it.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, I think that's a very good point. I just think when you're coming in hot with a lot of rich people and you've already experienced some of their behavior, you, you, you, you don't trust them necessarily, even if it's a good idea, um, which I think this actually is. Uh, Scott?
- 18:41 – 23:25
Investor motivations: ‘profit plus’ and a long-term capital base
- SGScott Galloway
Do you see this more as... The folks who are funding this, and there's nothing wrong with a profit motive-... but do they see an opportunity to, um, find a place where there's less owning requirements and they want to be in the business of, of development, or do they see this as an opportunity and the two aren't, the two aren't mutually exclusive, a social ill? How important it is, is it a new form of governance or just bringing housing prices down? It, when you're, w- what, what are your investors up to here? What, when they sit down with you, what does success look like for them because these guys have enough, well, not, not have enough money. That's ridiculous. They always want more money. Um, what do you think their objective is? Do they still see this as a social good or do they see this just as a great economic opportunity?
- JSJan Sramek
I think it's both and, I mean, we've been, we've been very clear from the beginning that it's a full profit investment and over the long run, this can be a pretty good investment. It does require kind of a 20-year, um, time horizon which is part of the reason for why, um, I went to the people that I went to to raise the capital. It's much longer term, much more patient capital. Um, I think for all of our investors, it's a, I, I've started to say profit plus investment. And so, if you look at the people who've invested in it, um, they all have causes that they really care about and I think if you ask them, I, I can't speak for them but, um, for someone like Laurene Powell Jobs, I mean, a lot of her work has been about economic opportunity and economic mobility and sustainability and, and, and whenever I talk to, um, um, her or the team, those are the questions I get asked is, "How do we make it more sustainable? How do we make sure that teachers can live in the community?" How- The way you build it.
- KSKara Swisher
The way you build it. Yeah.
- JSJan Sramek
How do we make sure that, um, we have th- that it's not a food desert? How do we make sure that there's really high quality food available for kids in the schools? Um, when we talk to, when I talk to someone like, um, like, like Reid Hoffman. Uh, I mean, for him, Reid is an eternal optimist. I mean, he believes that we can solve things. He believes that technology can solve them, and he believes that, um, a lot of the innovations coming out of the Bay Area have really made the world better. And so, he asks how do we make the opportunity as broad as we can possibly make it? Um, for, um, someone like Nat Friedman or the Collisons, they are really passionate about high quality walkable places. And so, we talk about design and how do we make this an amazing place. Um, uh, I think Mike Moritz has been extremely invested in improving things in the, in the, in the Bay Area. I mean, um, he's spent hundreds of millions of dollars in philanthropy in San Francisco trying to make it better. And, um, so, uh, when I talk to Mike, it's about how do we create homes that people who work in the Bay Area can afford and, and how do we make it e- ... The last discussion I had with Mike about can we help nurses be able to live here instead of flying here from Idaho. I mean, that's starting to happen. It's so expensive to live here that nurses are flying in from Idaho.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, uh, you know, I think it is easy to be suspect of some of, some of the people, um, and, and intentions of them, eh, from the get-go, um, 'cause of past behavior.
- JSJan Sramek
Yeah, I mean, per-
- KSKara Swisher
But, you know, I think a lot of... I think that at the heart of the good part of it is believing in California and, you know, one of the reasons I call my book A Tech Love Story is 'cause I do believe in the great possibilities and I hate what they've done to the place, so why don't they use the better parts of their nature to do things which is, um, I'm glad to hear you saying it's not going to be some demented space.
- JSJan Sramek
I, I, I hate the term. I hate the term.
- KSKara Swisher
Like, that's-
- JSJan Sramek
I found the term internally and, uh-
- KSKara Swisher
I really don't want-
- JSJan Sramek
I mean, if, if I, if I can-
- KSKara Swisher
Cities aren't smart.
- JSJan Sramek
If-
- KSKara Swisher
That's why they're doing it.
- JSJan Sramek
Exactly. Exactly. And, and if I can just comment on the investors. You know, (sighs) I, I think when I started working on this in 2016, there was this popular narrative that, um, kind of venture capitalists and billionaires in general are wasting the capital they have investing in dumb messaging apps and they should really do something in the, in the real world-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
... to make life better for working families.
- KSKara Swisher
Yep.
- JSJan Sramek
And then three or four years ago during COVID, the popular narrative was how dare all of these people who've made their fortunes in California take the money and go to Texas and go to Florida and just take it away? And I think we found a group of people who really believe in California, who really want to double down and they did exactly what people have been calling for, invest in hard things in the physical world-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- JSJan Sramek
... with an uncertain payoff that requires 20 years patience and, um, that doubles down on California. And so, I'm really proud of, uh, the cap table that we have and I know why people, um, kind of see this as controversial. But these are just people who love the Bay Area and they want it to work-
- KSKara Swisher
Well.
- JSJan Sramek
... for everyone.
- KSKara Swisher
Last question, Scott. Yeah, go ahead.
- 23:25 – 25:46
Government posture and the Solano County equity argument
- SGScott Galloway
I, I just wanna say, I, I-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- SGScott Galloway
That's not even a question. It's just a, that's a great point. And some of the people on your cap table, I do not think a great deal of, but I, I think, I think what you're doing here, assuming that you're being honest about this, you're exactly right. They're not going into space. They're trying to make the pl- this place more habitable. I, I think it's a really, a really excellent point. What, wha- if you could, if you could say anything, wh- what is the level of cooperation or non-cooperation from either the state government or the federal government? Do they, uh, have they embraced this as a, as another signal of innovation that'll bring more people to California or are they suspect of it and feel threatened by it?
- JSJan Sramek
You know, the, the, the state government and the federal government is, is not a unitary body. There's a lot of different stakeholders in there, but I think what we've seen in general is people are really excited. Um, housing used to be a priority for the California government. The, the, um, to your point, Scott, it's become a priority for the federal government because house prices across the country have just gotten so crazy in the last five years. And so, what we've seen is a lot of excitement from people saying, um, "Boy, if, if, if you can get the buy-in of the local community, we would love to help." And so, I think the opportunity for Solano County which is, which is a part of the Bay Area that really has been left out, um, um, one data point that is incredible, in 2002, the average household income in Solano County was 90% of the rest of the Bay Area. It was about $6,000 a household less. Over the last 20 years-... it's the gap has widened to 30%. The average household in Solano County makes $40,000 less than anyone else in the Bay Area. Um, and the county hasn't gotten its fair share of employers, it hasn't gotten its fair share of, um, tax dollars, infrastructure dollars. And so, the opportunity that we've seen from state and federal government is to say, "If you can get the buy-in of the local community, we would love to help." And I think there's a real opportunity to bring a lot of state and federal funds to Solano County, um, and, and really make this ... make the county better for the people who live here. Uh, and it's, it's a really special place. I mean, I, I moved here, uh, with my wife and two kids. We live here. Uh, we've made so many friends in the last year that we've been here, and I really care about, uh, it getting its share of the economic opportunity in the Bay Area.
- KSKara Swisher
That's true.
- JSJan Sramek
And I think we have the most credible plan to do that, that's being proposed here in the last 30 years.
- 25:46 – 27:11
Land use, renewables, and designing for heat: cows, sheep, solar, and wind-cooled streets
- KSKara Swisher
But what about the cows? What about the cows? (laughs) Uh, it's, it's, it's, uh, the town ... One of the main towns there was Vacaville, which means Cowville.
- JSJan Sramek
That's true. You know, we have, uh-
- KSKara Swisher
And cheesing.
- JSJan Sramek
... and it's a good question. I mean, the, the, the, the-
- KSKara Swisher
Just don't let Christie know (overlapping dialogue)
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah. Just bring on Christie. She'll take care of it.
- JSJan Sramek
We will ... We're gonna build-
- KSKara Swisher
(laughs)
- JSJan Sramek
... an amazing place for the cows in the greenbelt. You, you know what we're doing now? Uh, we ... The, the community is going on about a third of the land that we're building on. On the rest of it, we're building solar farms. It turns out that the sheep really like grazing underneath the solar panels because they don't have to stand in 105-degree heat in the summer.
- KSKara Swisher
It's hot out in Solano County, um, much more than people realize how warm it is in the out- ... 'cause the Bay Area seems like a cooler environment (overlapping dialogue)
- JSJan Sramek
You know, you know what's the most special thing about, um, uh, designing this right? It turns out that it's windiest in the summer, and so if you design the street grid correctly and you orient it correctly, the wind can cool it off kind of like it does in, on some of the islands, for example, in, uh, in, in say, the Caribbean or the Mediterranean.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. It's beautiful land out there. I love it out there. I think it's so beautiful. Well, in any case, Jan, thank you for coming on and answering questions. We'll be watching it carefully. Um, you know, it's, uh, uh, uh, you're right. You're 100% right. Bugging them to do bigger things is what I've been doing, and this is definitely a bigger thing. And they're not building space colonies, so that's always a plus. (laughs)
Episode duration: 27:11
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Transcript of episode RrTUb-k0KSg
