Nirav Patel is the founder and CEO of Framework, a consumer electronics company that focuses on creating products that are long lasting and sustainable. He is a former engineer at Apple, Meta (Facebook), and Oculus VR.
Framework was founded in 2019 on the philosophy that the greatest positive environmental impact can come from creating products that last longer, thus generating less waste. Their first product is a thin, high-performance, and fully customizable laptop. In 2021, they were listed as one of the top 100 inventions of the year by Time Magazine. They are currently available in 9 countries, with plans to extend to more in the near future.
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The Problem with Consumer Electronics:
Globally, we create roughly 40 million tons of e-waste each year, which comprises over 70% of our overall toxic waste. (Source: https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/electronic-waste-facts)This includes consumer electronics such as laptops, tablets, and other household electronics. Each of these products are extremely costly and are made of materials with a large environmental impact. E-waste is non-biodegradable and accumulates in the environment, causing soil, air, and water pollution. (Source: https://www.genevaenvironmentnetwork.org/resources/updates/the-growing-environmental-risks-of-e-waste/)
What is Framework?
Framework is designed to minimize the amount of e-waste generated by providing consumers with a fully customizable and easily upgradable product. The Framework laptops are made up of several easily removable components which can be replaced as technology updates overtime. Product owners are able to take apart the laptop to replace old or broken components, or to add-in specific features that they need such as various modular ports. The aim behind this is to extend the lifetime of the laptops, thereby reducing the number of products a consumer needs and reducing the overall e-waste generated.
In this episode we address the following questions:
What is your driving force? 0:57
What is something you learned in your prior work in the tech sector that you have translated into your current company framework? 2:50
How do you make a sustainable business model? 6:45
How do you handle product repair? 8:00
Can you tell us more about the product? 10:00
How do you make the products more sustainable on the material side? 14:18
What types of goals do you have for impact and sustainability in your product? 15:10
What measures are being put in place for sustainability at "end of product lifetime"? 17:00
What are the products available? 19:00
Who are your target customers? 20:00
What are your end goals for this company? 23:00
How big is Framework currently? 24:00
Have you raised money so far? 25:00
What are your top tips for founders in climate tech? 25:30
If you were to restart your journey, would it look the same? 26:50
Do you have a book recommendation? 27:15
How can people contact you? 28:10
Memorable quotes from the episode by Nirav:
"If you are starting any kind of company you should have a problem that you are passionate about fixing; that challenge is probably going to crush you if you don’t have the passion to follow it through."
"If your device business is about maximizing the number of new devices you are selling, then fundamentally it is going to be very challenging to focus on longevity and sustainability."
"Manufacturing is responsible for over 75% of the carbon emissions. The short window of time where the product is made vastly exceeds the carbon emissions of the entire lifetime of the product."
"The best thing we can do is make sure that you can use a [consumer electronic] product for longer."
Website Framework: https://frame.work/
Contact: linkedin.com/in/nrpframework
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Transcript based on AI and beta- status:
Narrator:0:00
You are listening to Sustain Now. In this podcast, you will learn from successful entrepreneurs and scientists about the newest climate change solutions to address the climate crisis, from food and agri-tech over energy material innovation to circular economy. This nonprofit podcast is hosted by Frederica. She is a tech entrepreneur and climate enthusiast. You can find show notes and background information on www.SustainNow.ch. Enjoy the show.
Friederike:0:35
In today's episode, I am speaking with Nirav Patel, founder and CEO of Framework. He is a former engineer at Oculus VR, apple and Facebook. Framework is founded on the philosophy that the greatest positive environmental impact can come from creating products that last longer, thus generating less waste. The first two products are laptops, which can be customized, upgraded, repaired and upcycled by the customer itself. Founded in 2019, framework is now available in nine countries. In this episode, we will talk about the inherent problem of hardware producers' business model to sell more products but, at the same time, trying to be more sustainable. We also discussed why we would like to have the market of the electronic consumer products and why this is a good thing. Please join me at my next Fireside Product Chat with Nirav. Thank you so much for joining my podcast today now.
Nirav:1:39
It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Friederike:1:41
Today we have another Fireside Product Chat I'm very excited about that one With probably one of your most used technologies laptops. I can't imagine a life without a laptop. I think I was 20 or 21. I got my first laptop because it worked for IBM. I had this very thick one which you carried around. I remember that very vividly. Everyone was like, wow, you have a laptop. That's amazing. It's like almost 20 years ago. The question now is how can you make a laptop more sustainable, hands more durable? I think I don't know what's lifetime right now of a laptop. It would be great to hear more about that. That question has been addressed by you, nirav. When you look back on your career, what has been your driving force to become a founder and develop a sustainable laptop?
Nirav:2:33
Ultimately, it's about problem solving. If you're starting really any kind of company, you should have a problem that you're passionate about fixing. Otherwise, that challenge is ultimately probably going to crush you if you don't have the passion to solve it driving you through. For me, ultimately, it was about fixing what I felt was a pretty broken industry. I've been in Consumer Electronics for over 10 years, across Apple and then into Oculus, building VR headsets, finally into Facebook, of course, continuing with the VR headset mission. Throughout the entire time, I just saw an industry that was pretty fundamentally flawed, primarily so with this idea that Consumer Electronics products are disposable, these extremely advanced, expensive, important objects in our lives that are also quite environmentally damaging, of course, being things that you buy, use for a couple of years and then stick in a drawer or send out to the landfill, oftentimes for very simple reasons. Things like batteries work out, which they will do just based on their chemistry, or a screen cracking or a port being flaky. For me, fundamentally, that felt like a problem that was both solvable and a problem that needed solving.
Friederike:3:45
Yeah, I totally get that. I remember. And the funny thing is, if I go back when I was like 16 and like gaming, you know, and you had the stationary computers and you could still, you know, like the new, I remember I was following always okay, when is a new graphic card comes out, because then you could dismantle it, put a new graphic card in it, and now we're like so it's a block of laptop and if it doesn't work anymore you can't really do anything by yourself, etc. So I can very, very relate to that. Coming from you know Okolo's, apple and Facebook. What did you learn most which you could now transport into that? Your new company framework.
Nirav:4:25
Yeah, the really critical learning was the business model fundamentals ultimately, which is that if your device business is about maximizing the number of new devices that you're selling, then fundamentally it's going to be very hard to build that business to focus on longevity and sustainability, because you're trying to balance these two things. On the one hand, your business model depends on maximizing the number of products that you're selling and, on the other hand, your mission depends on minimizing the number of products that you're selling, and those two things are fundamentally at odds. And so you know, looking at Apple's business, which is obviously quite healthy, but also even what you know Oculus, now META, are trying to do with VR these are fundamentally actually platform focused businesses. The idea is less to drive you to buy a device, although maybe in Apple's case it is still the drive you buy device. But it's actually more so to make sure that when you're using that device, that you're happily engaged in it, that you're able to use it for as long as you can, that you're able to use it every day for as many hours as you can and in doing so, actually have incentive alignment between what's good for you as a consumer and what makes sense economically for that company. And so for a VR headset or a game console or a smartphone, many other types of devices, that's basically software. It's that you're using that product day to day. You're buying and using software, and that's good for you because you're getting to use that software and that device in the way that you want to use it and it's good for that device maker, that platform owner, and that they're getting to benefit from that lifetime value of the person continuing to use that product and engage in that software and buy those apps or buy those games. But when you look at hardware, it really is this very transactional model where, if you're a device maker, you're selling that object and that's it. Your relationship with that customer is done, and so your focus is on how do I sell that device again to that customer again or to another customer. And so for us at Framework, we really thought about this and thought through how do we build long lived hardware in a way that actually enables us to continue to exist as a business as a healthy business but still maximizes the benefit to that consumer and minimizes the harm to the environment? And so for us, similarly, the focus is not on let's sell as many laptops as we can, it's let's make sure that every laptop we sell is used for as long as it possibly can be. And we do that by designing our products to be repairable and upgradable and customizable so that when that person buys that framework laptop, that's not a one-off transaction. That's actually the start of our relationship with that customer, where they know that at any point in that lifetime of usage they can always come back to us and get that next upgrade and get that next module and in doing so, of course, get a product that continues to work well for them for longer. And for us, of course, it's great we get to have that relationship with that customer. That's an economic relationship where we get additional revenue over time and in doing so again because that product is being used for longer and not needing to be fully replaced, we're reducing the creation of eWaste. We're reducing environmental impact because fewer devices need to be manufactured.
Friederike:7:31
Yeah, super interesting. Coming back to that business model, I really liked the relationship you just said. You know, our biggest learning, your biggest learning, was actually how can you create a business model and it's kind of conflicting with sustainability goals If your goal is to sell more of the hardware product Now you are a hardware producer as well what's your business model? And compared to the price, what I've seen, it's round about the same, like an Apple laptop, I would say so if your goal is not to sell every two years a new laptop to the person, but rather upgradeable, etc. How do you make that Business model makes sense and profitable if the actual unit price is probably lower of the products? If you replace it, recycle, etc. How do you make that business model work?
Nirav:8:19
Yeah, the core for us ultimately is that it benefits us as we gain market share. We're starting from zero and so it's actually okay for us that if we look at maybe the 10 year revenue of our relationship with a customer, that total revenue ends up being lower than if that customer bought three new laptops and said, maybe buys you know, one and a half framework laptops and just buy some upgrade parts. That's actually perfectly in line with our model. We want to take the notebook industry, this $200 billion industry, and turn it into a $100 billion industry, but one in which we're capturing more of that pie, and that's actually a model that we're going to just continue to take, category by category, across consumer electronics. So we want to actually really go and shrink the entire consumer electronics industry, which is not something you often hear from a start of mending a category.
Friederike:9:08
Especially not from Silicon Valley startup. Okay, fantastic. So really your plan is to shrink it because you say you don't need that amount of new laptops every year. You rather want to go. You know, have less, use less. And what about the service business? You know the recycling or the actual repairment. Do you offer that by yourself or do you have to go as a consumer? Do you have to go to specific locations or can you go everywhere to repair, or can you do it by yourself?
Nirav:9:40
Yeah, we actually do have four service centers around the world right now. But the thing that we've prioritized and the thing we've seen play out actually really well is enabling the end consumer to be able to do repair themselves, so designing our products to be so easy to repair and so easy to open up that anyone, whether they've ever been inside of a computer before or not, is able to just follow that video and follow that step by step guide and be able to do that replacement. And the thing that we're finding actually is that oftentimes it's more of actual mental barrier. It's this idea of like thinking am I someone who can actually fix a product or open up a computer and be able to change out of part inside of it? It's more so that than it is actually a gap in skills or a gap in, you know, technical knowledge. And so when we find that someone needs a new part or needs an upgrade or has some issue and they need to replace something, we'll send them that guide and they're a little bit hesitant at first and they're wondering, like, can I actually do this? And then they'll do the swap and write back to us and say, okay, actually that was really easy. And now I feel like I understand how this thing works. I feel like this is something I could do at any time.
Friederike:10:43
It's really driving back to the times, very long time ago when, you know, we had just a stationary computer is and you could do everything yourself and change everything and super. So, coming back to the actual product, so right now I think you have two product lines right, like the 13 and 16 inch right. Maybe you can, for the people first time here, more about framework, explain a little bit more. What's the product, what makes it so unique, what makes it better than others and how does the technology work behind it? So, more thinking about do you have, then, if it needs to be repaired to have a certain software in it and say like, hey, you need to repair it. This is this other step. So, just you know, talk a little bit more about the actual product. What makes it really different? That would be super interesting.
Nirav:11:32
Yeah, definitely. So today we have the framework laptop 13 that we've been shipping for a couple of years and the framework laptop 16 that we actually just recently announced and will be shipping towards the end of this year, and fundamentally these are just good, refined, high performance laptops, and when people hear modular and repairable, immediately their mind goes to this this must be that think pad that you were describing earlier, that you know phone book thickness computer that you're kind of lugging around, but actually it's almost exactly the same thickness and weight as a MacBook Pro. So we built this very thin, minimal form factor using good materials like recycled aluminum, magnesium alloy, and within those constraints basically within the constraints of having this minimal, thin, cost, competitive, performance, competitive product we've designed it to be as repairable and as modular and as customizable as we can, and so that means you know basic things like being able to replace the battery easily, being able to replace the panel, being able to add more memory and storage if you ever need to. Over time, we've actually taken it far beyond that as well, so we've even enabled things like processor generational upgrades things that you've only ever been able to do in desktops in the past bringing that into a notebook form factor by enabling you to actually be able to replace the entire mainboard. So that means that if you bought a framework laptop back in 2021 and it came with Intel 11th gen processors, which were the latest and greatest at the time, you can actually take that laptop that you already have. And if you're someone who needs more performance, run, you know intense applications you can actually upgrade this year to the latest and greatest Intel 13th gen or AMD 7040 series processors. So being able to get that level of performance boost that, historically, would have required you to go and buy an entirely new computer, you can do just by swapping out one module. In addition to that, we've done a lot of things around personalization and customization, and laptops have often been these one size fits all objects, where you are forced to buy the product that the manufacturer defined and if it doesn't fit your needs, you have to adapt yourself to that computer or by, you know, dongles or docs or other things to make it work the way you need it to. What we've done instead is actually to make the device highly customizable, so all the ports on the machine are actually end user swappable. So when you're ordering a framework laptop, you can actually choose what ports you want and then be able to switch them to whichever side of the laptop you want and then change the ports over time if you need to, even things like cosmetic customization. So part of making the display easy to replace is that we didn't glue in the display, we didn't glue the bezel on. What we actually did is build a magnet attach bezel that you can swap and actually color customize, so that lets you, of course, personalize your machine but also makes it really easy to access that display for replacement. Then on the framework laptop 16, we've actually taken things even further than that. We've enabled discrete graphics, so high performance graphics. That's optional and modular and upgradeable, which is again that type of performance you've only ever historically been able to get from that desktop. Being able to do that graphics upgrade, like you mentioned. That's something that we've actually brought into a notebook form factor. On top of that, we've actually also made the entire input deck of the framework laptop 16 modular and customizable, so much like you might have your favorite mechanical keyboard, your favorite mouse and all of your peripherals around your desk. We've actually enabled that, again within a notebook form factor. That's just a normal thin, light, minimal sleek enclosure.
Friederike:15:01
Wow, sounds super cool. I think I'll order that next time. It's very cool, especially the personalization and that you can change that. When you just described the different ports and how annoying that is if something gets upgraded and you have like, okay, no, I don't have the suitable ports anymore, you have to have thousands of adapters to actually adapt it to it. Thinking about the sustainability, one part is, of course, that you can upgrade it and you can repair it. What about the actual materials used for the laptop? Do you have there any sustainability goals on that part? Because, as you said, you, waste is a big problem and the actual production of the cables and everything else, what is used for the laptops, is also quite environmentally impact. How do you make the products more sustainable as well on the material side?
Nirav:15:52
Yeah, absolutely so. In every aspect of the machine we try to use best in class material. So basically we go out to the supply base and we figure out what is the highest percent content of post-consumer cycle aluminum. We just grab it. Even if it's a few percent more to spend on that material, we think that's a good thing to do. It's a worthwhile thing to do so. On average we've got about 55 percent post-consumer aluminum and post-consumer cycle aluminum, about 35 percent post-consumer cycle plastics. Then for packaging, we make sure that we use 100 percent recyclable packaging throughout.
Friederike:16:27
The actual materials used. Do you have a certain goal like CO2? As well as comparing, let's say, a Mac computer to your computer, are you measuring what CO2 impact or any other measurements you take, what kind of impact sustainability goals you track?
Nirav:16:45
Yes, we actually do have a full lifecycle analysis in progress with Fraunhofer, so that's something that we'll be sharing once we get the results later this year. That's something that we're pretty excited about. But ultimately, because our products are focused on longevity, really the core goal here is minimizing the impact per year. So if you think about something like a notebook or a phone or another consumer electronics product, in general, the vast majority of the environmental impact comes from the manufacturing phase. For something like a notebook, it's often something like 75 percent of the overall carbon equivalent emissions happen during manufacturing. So that short window of time where that product is made actually vastly exceeds the amount of carbon emissions of the entire lifetime of usage, which is wild. To think about that notebook that you're using for three or four or five years. The entire lifetime of you using it across that period of time is the energy there is a small fraction of the energy that it took to manufacture that thing. So that means for products like this, the best thing that we can do is make sure that you can use it for longer, so you're basically amortizing that impact from manufacturing over a longer span of time. So that's ultimately our core focus. We really think about emissions per year across the lifetime of that product.
Friederike:17:59
Can you give it like a comparison? Do you know, like or is it something you said, like we'll come by end of the year the life cycle analysis, or do you have already some rough numbers what the saving is in the end?
Nirav:18:09
Yeah, our target in general is to double the length of time that you can use your product. So something like a notebook typically has around 300 kilograms of carbon equivalent emissions. So instead of that being spread across three years so about 100 kilograms a year we want to spread across six years about 50 kilograms a year. That's ultimately fundamentally our goal. But, really importantly, we want to make sure that when we're making a product that normally lasts three years, last six years, we don't want that to be that you're kind of, like you know, suffering through those six years. We want to make sure that that entire six year span of use is actually good and productive and that you're getting a product that is actually working really well for you, and we want to enable that by making it easy for you to swap out parts that need to in order to make sure that product is working well for you.
Friederike:18:52
And what about, like the end of the life cycle? So you know, like, say, six years, seven years, you know it's not repairable. How do you do the recycling? What's the end of the lifetime? Looking like?
Nirav:19:03
Yeah, this is an interesting one. There's a couple of things we're doing here that are pretty unique. One is that we're actually designing most of the modules in the system to be reusable outside of the laptop. So that mainboard, for example if you're someone who's going and upgrading that mainboard from the older processor generation to a newer one let's say three years then that old mainboard, which is actually among the most energy intensive parts of the system since it has most of the big silicon dies on it, is something that we want to make sure doesn't just go sit in a drawer or go out into landfill. And so we've actually designed that mainboard to be usable as a standalone computer on its own, and so we've done things like release design files so you can actually 3D print a case. And we've been working with PC peripheral makers. So we actually just launched a case with Cooler Master, which is one of the bigger PC peripheral PC case makers, which is just a simple little enclosure that you can take your mainboard and drop it into and now have a second computer to be able to use. And the important thing about this is that even if you're somebody who has no need for that second computer which you know, in many cases, people just won't have that need. The fact that you can use that mainboard as another computer means it retains value in a way that if you don't want it, there's someone else in the world who will be able to make use of it, and so we want to make sure that it's easy for you to be able to get that mainboard that you're not using to another consumer, and so part of what we're building a framework is actually a marketplace where, in addition to being able to pick up new parts or new products directly from us at framework, we want you to be able to pick up third party compatible parts to again enable longevity, but also even be able to participate in that ecosystem and be able to resell parts and products that you're not using so that they don't go into a landfill but instead get reused for longer and longer.
Friederike:20:46
Okay, where is it available right now? Framework the laptops.
Nirav:20:50
We're in nine countries today, so everything's direct to consumers, so directly through our website framework. Today we're in US, canada, germany, france, netherlands, uk, ireland, austria, australia, and we're expanding to a few more countries. We've got Italy, spain, belgium and Taiwan coming this summer and then we're going to continue our country expansion. We know there's a lot of demand from from folks across the world, so that's something we're going to continue to do.
Friederike:21:15
You should pump up Switzerland in a way. I think the spend for electronic devices is extremely high, so maybe that's that we can order that as well. I know it's always the import question and it's a small country, etc. So who are your target customers? Is it primarily be to? You said it's directly to consumer? Is there a certain subset of customers you're looking for, like the gamers or like the normal business people? What's your target groups?
Nirav:21:48
Yeah, it's a great question. So as a startup, we've been very careful to sort of sequence our audiences. That's not to say where we're going to restrict who can buy our product, but just thinking through, okay, who's going to be most readily available to accept this new way of interacting with these products? Who can we get to in a way that's really efficient and fast and really enable and solve their needs? And so those power users this PC enthusiasts, oftentimes Linux users, people, os choice and, really critically, also people who deeply care about their environment, environmental impact or trying to reduce their impact. Those have been early audiences that have been really excited by what we're building and have been coming and picking up the product very early on. We've also been very deliberate not to build the product in a way that it's an enthusiast product or a power user product and that goes back to it's a competitive form factor, it's competitive performance, it's competitive price, and so we want to make sure that it's really anyone who needs somewhat premium, high performance notebook is able to come and see the framework laptop and sees that oh yeah, actually this is really applicable to me and it has these nice additional things like I can use it for longer and I can upgrade the performance I ever need to and I can customize the ports. So that's on the consumer side of things. And then we've actually seen quite a lot more interest from businesses, and we expected to see early on. So we started out with this focus being consumer, because we assume that businesses are going to want to see more of a market in history before they come and jump in and pick up a product from a startup. But we actually just got an immense amount of inbound interest coming from SMB's and also some enterprises and the thing that we learned is that it's actually similar to the consumer challenge that businesses especially if you're an IT manager in a small business you really do want to have more ability to manage and control the computers that are inside your company, be able to repair them on the spot so that employees aren't sitting down waiting for their machine to be out of service depot somewhere. And you want to be able to keep your data in house and be able to not have to have that data go out to the service center. And of course, you also want to be able to use those machines for longer. You don't want to necessarily have that three year replacement cycle just to keep machines functional. You want to be able to extend that out to four or five years to reduce costs and, of course, reduce environmental impact as well.
Friederike:23:58
I can imagine that the B2B is could be super interesting because, thinking back at the time when I worked for IBM, it was such a hassle every time and it was like even if they produced at that time the ThinkPad by themselves, it still was such a hassle and I think still every two years or three years I got a new one at that time. So I can imagine that this could be a very interesting way as well as a business profit for different businesses in that space. Thinking about what's your end goal? You just mentioned before other consumer products as a little side sentence, but what's your end goal? What do you want to achieve with Feinberg?
Nirav:24:40
Yeah, it really is to bring this mission across consumer electronics. We look across almost every category and we see the same problems products that are pretty stable and mature Use cases aren't really changing a lot. People's needs around what they need out of these products aren't changing very much, but they're still forced to buy and rebuy these products every two, three, four years just because simple things are wearing out, Whether that's your headphones or your smartphone or your computer. Oftentimes it is something as simple as a battery or screen cracking. That's forcing you to buy these very expensive advanced objects that you don't necessarily need to be, and so we see that, of course, as a very clear opportunity, not just for us as a business, as a way to reduce the impact of the industry broadly.
Friederike:25:25
Can you share some numbers or what's the amount of customers or revenue or whatever you can share, like, how big are you already? I think you found it five years ago or something like that.
Nirav:25:35
We're just over three years old.
Friederike:25:36
Three years old.
Nirav:25:38
Yeah, we've been selling products for just over two years almost exactly two years actually, so I can't share specific numbers, but one thing that is actually quite promising is that I'm sure, as you've seen, or maybe your listeners have seen, the PC industry has been in a pretty dire space for the last year. There's this nice boost or maybe nice, in some ways, boost where suddenly people bought a lot of computers in 2020 and 2021 for, of course, clear reasons, and then, going into 2022 and 2023, there's been just a very, very steep decline. So we're seeing 30 plus percent decline year over year from most PC brands. Throughout that time, actually, we've continued to grow. So, basically, our products are resonating in ways with consumers and with businesses that mean that they're gravitating towards us more so than they are to the incumbent brands. So, even in this tough time, we're growing, which means we're actually capturing market share, which is exactly the thing that we wanted to be doing to be able to fulfill our mission.
Friederike:26:36
Have you raised money so far for that mission?
Nirav:26:39
We have. We actually did a series A round with Spark Capital at the beginning of last year and that's actually an investment firm that we worked with in the past at Oculus as well. So they have basically a strong belief in consumer brands, basically consumer brands that are building something that's interesting and compelling.
Friederike:26:56
What would be your top three tips for founders in the current investment climate if they want to start something like you did?
Nirav:27:02
Yeah, sure, of course it is. It's a tough climate right now. I think really that one of the most critical things is maybe, unlike years past, in startup world, it's actually really, really important to focus on business fundamentals, sort of those almost pretend metrics around driving growth at all costs and ignoring revenue and ignoring profitability. All those things are no longer what investors care about. To a large extent, investors are looking at businesses as businesses. They actually have to have sound, reasonable business models. They have to have longevity baked in, they have to have economics that makes sense, unit economics and just long-term economics. And so I would say, if you're starting a company now, basically put yourself in a position where, to the extent possible, you actually don't need that investment because you're operating a business that's just a healthy business.
Friederike:27:51
That's a big mind shift. No Thinking about the last 15 years of the digital revolution age, where it's all about growth, all about just showing how markets share. You can capture to now a lot of more sustainable business in that sense as well. It's a huge change and I can imagine it's a lot of challenges as well. If you still need money right now, If you look back and restart your life, would it look the same or different?
Nirav:28:22
Sure yeah.
Friederike:28:23
Like coming from all these big talking about the last 15 years, coming from all the big companies you mentioned before.
Nirav:28:29
Yeah, it would look pretty similar. I mean, I feel obviously very proud of the things that I've been able to build. I'm very happy with the path that I've been able to take and, of course, all the people I've been able to meet and work with, spend time with over the years. I feel really very fortunate with the place I've been able to go in my life and that has been able to take me here at Framework.
Friederike:28:49
Okay, do you have a book recommendation or a podcast or anything like that?
Nirav:28:54
Yeah, I've maybe a pair of books especially relevant to this discussion. One is Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson and the other is Termination Shock by Neil Stevenson. These are this very interesting pair of novels that are both about climate change, ultimately, and the societal and technological changes that could potentially come about in an attempt to offset or reduce climate change. They both take quite different viewpoints of how the future will play out. As it comes to that, they're very interesting pair of books to read together.
Friederike:29:31
Fantastic, so thank you so much. We're at the end of our fireside chat. I probably speak a little bit longer with you as well, but how can people reach out to you if they want to know more about you or your company?
Nirav:29:45
Yeah, our website framework is the best way. We actually have a community forum that's extremely active, not just with consumers on the product, but actually developers as well. People are creating new modules and parts for the ecosystem.
Friederike:29:57
And let us know when you're available in Switzerland.
Nirav:30:00
Perfect, we'll do it.
Friederike:30:02
So thank you so much for joining my podcast. It was really a pleasure.
Nirav:30:06
Thanks, it's great to be here.
Friederike:30:11
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