Minter Dialogue with Torsten Hoffmann

Episode Highlights:

– Torsten’s Journey: Discover how Torsten transitioned from the business side of documentary filmmaking to creating impactful films on emerging technologies.
– The Space Economy: Learn about the different sectors within the space economy, from rocket launches to satellite data, and the potential trillion-dollar opportunities.
– Technological Innovations: Hear about the incredible advancements in satellite technology and their practical applications, from agriculture to infrastructure monitoring.
– Geopolitical and Commercial Aspects: Understand the geopolitical dynamics of space exploration and the commercial ventures driving the industry forward.
– Inspiration and Challenges: Gain insights into the challenges of documentary filmmaking and the inspiration behind Torsten’s latest project, “Fortitude.”

Torsten shares his unique perspective on the intersection of media, technology, and business, offering a thought-provoking look at how space exploration is shaping our world. 

Tune in now to explore the fascinating world of space with Torsten Hoffmann. 

Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com. Otherwise, below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to rate it here.

To connect with Torsten Hoffmann:

• Check out Torsten’s hub site, TorstenHQ here
• Find out more about Torsten’s film, Fortitude, including how you can host a screening
• Find/follow Torsten Hoffmann on LinkedIn
• Torsten’s other major films:
  • Bitcoin: The End of Money as We Know It (2015)
  • Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet (2020)
• Check out Torsten’s IMDB

Other mentions:

• My interview with Donald James, NASA leader and author
• My interview with Dr Michael Hauser, Former Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute

Further resources for the Minter Dialogue podcast:

Meanwhile, you can find my other interviews on the Minter Dialogue Show in this podcast tab, on Megaphone or via Apple Podcasts. If you like the show, please go over to rate this podcast via RateThisPodcast! And for the francophones reading this, if you want to get more podcasts, you can also find my radio show en français over at: MinterDial.fr, on Megaphone or in iTunes.
Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign-off music is “A Convinced Man,” a song I co-wrote and recorded with Stephanie Singer back in the late 1980s (please excuse the quality of the sound!).

Transcription courtesy of Flowsend.ai, an AI full-service for podcasters

Minter Dial: Torsten Hoffman. So, lovely to have you on my screen, to chat with you. You are a man of many talents and interested in many things, and I got the chance to hang out with you on the topic of artificial intelligence, also a common area of interest. In your own words, Torsten let’s start with who are you?

Torsten Hoffmann: Well, I’m your neighbour, almost, right. So, let’s start with that common connection. Yeah. So, I’m a filmmaker, I’m a techno optimist, which basically means I am passionate about emerging technologies, about technologists and capitalists building a better future. That’s the main theme of my work. And I’m sure we’re going to get into some of those topics in more detail. But, yeah, filmmaker, in short.

Minter Dial: So, let’s talk about why you’re my neighbour. Why did you move to London? Your background is German, yes?

Torsten Hoffmann: Correct. I lived in Munich, worked in Munich for a long time and then migrated to Australia. Actually, I had an eight-year stint in Australia. Really lovely country. And Melbourne is a beautiful city. And just before COVID it kind of drove me back to Europe. A bit more exciting for the intersection of media and technology. Australia isn’t maybe the best place. And there was really only two places in Europe to go to. Either it’s Berlin or London. And then I just met my partner and we now have a small family in London. And I just love London so much.

Minter Dial: Well, congratulations for the babies and such. So, let’s now talk about. Because it’s a business that I’m aware of, I’ve done my own documentary film. Let’s talk about how and why did you get into filmmaking, documentary filmmaking at that. Because your background doesn’t seem to be that in terms of your business side.

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, exactly. So, I came in from the business side. I was doing deals for documentary makers. I sold a package of documentaries to Netflix or Samsung or these platforms, and at some point, it just made click. The click was basically, oh, well, these guys can do. Can also do. Right? So, it’s not rocket science to become a filmmaker. It’s maybe not that impressive. Also, you can hire all the skills in the world, right? A camera guy or an editor or whatever. You can get that. Whatever you can’t do. And then the actual topic that I’m most passionate about at that time was in 2014, bitcoin. I kind of came across it. I understood it because I had written a paper about alternative currencies during my MBA time in Oxford. And so, it clicked for me. Like, wow, I need to tell this story and get it to millions of people. And, you know, the first documentary isn’t high budget. It isn’t like a pro thing, but it was successful and was kind of my start to the documentary world. And each one, as you’re aware of probably with your books and your projects, each one gets better and better and bigger and bigger and. Yeah, here we are.

Minter Dial: Yeah, it’s certainly the first one. I’ve only done one, but the learnings of the first one must have been huge. And the fact is that your very first one about bitcoin went viral. To what do you attribute that? How? Because, I mean, the end of the day, it’s all very well doing a video. We all know that video is the hot thing, but it can be the best kept secret, even a video. How do they go viral?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, so let’s talk about a hype cycle, right? I just did this talk about hype cycles, the Gartner hype cycles, and I named it tulip, or trend. So, there’s these things that come up and then disappear again. Right. You don’t want to be at the wrong time at the curve, but also you don’t want to bet on the wrong topic because it’s going to be gone with just a flip flop. What is going flesh in the pan or something. Right. And if you get the timing right, there’s so much tailwind that you can’t go wrong. Right. And so, with both my bitcoin and crypto films, I just got the timing right because there was just a ten x of the price, ten x of the interest, and then it’s kind of easy to get this viral moment. And actually, interestingly so, bitcoin, if you look at the, the chart and the technology behind it, it goes into these four-year cycles, the halving of the supply, and you can basically see in four years cycle, it goes up and then there’s a crash three years in a row, it’s going to be the best asset in the world. And then the fourth year, it’s going to crash. It’s going to be the worst asset in the world. So, it’s basically a good example of how these hype cycles can build on each other. And my films also mirror that curve.

Minter Dial: Well, that is the quintessential problem of doing things about tech, because as I wrote my book, future proof in 2017 about all the technologies that were being disruptive. I mean, I think it was pretty spot on. But the ability to be evergreen in a content is in tech is basically impossible unless you’re just talking about mindset or something.

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah. And the key point here is, all right, you are a content creator. I’m a content creator, and it makes sense. But actually, even if you’re an entertainer, entrepreneur, or if you’re an engineer or a graduate and you want to start your career, these curves, getting those curves right is kind of important, right? If you get it right, you’re going to get the great job. So, you can create a company, you get funding from investors if you get it wrong, if you’re just a year later or so. My failure example is virtual reality. I had a virtual reality company either a little bit too late or a little bit too early, depending on how you discuss it. But now metaverse is hot again, right? And then at some point, VR was the hot thing, and in the middle there was like the Valley of Death, basically, right?

Minter Dial: Well, I, funnily enough, in future proof, I specifically chose not to talk about VR because I didn’t think it was one of the top twelve attacks. But getting that feeling of understanding, how do you stay up to date and figure out what is the next thing? Do you have a specific set of sources, or is it just pure intuition?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah. So, with bitcoin, I told you how I got into it, and then I did two films. The last one is actually pretty big. It’s on Netflix in Europe and many tv channels all around. Cryptopia. Yes, Cryptopia, correct. And then my new one. Right. So, that’s about the space industry. So, that’s another emerging technology, controversial in many ways. It was just kind of looking at those curves, and some of the curves are going right up, like the rockets launching or the satellite satellites in orbit and some other curves that you might want to look at is costs going down. So, famously, Moore’s law, right, the cost of computing is going down. All right, we understand this. The cost to sequence the genome DNA goes down. Aha. Okay, then, now the biotech revolution happens, personal health and all that. And in the space example, the cost to orbit is like 100 times cheaper now. And with Elon Musk’s new rocket, soon 200 times cheaper than it was with the space shuttle. So, you can see those trends, and then you start to understand, then start with the interview process. And one of the guys who runs the largest satellite constellations in the world, he says, well, from our first satellite to our current generation of satellites, we have a performance increase of 10,000 x, because the cameras get better, the data, the cost gets lower. So, it’s incredible. If you compound all these effects together.

Minter Dial: At the same time, it can be somehow lots of duds in terms of technologies, the number of technologies that have come up and fizzled away. Then the other thing which is funny both about space and AI is that both of them have been around for quite a while. Maybe these individuals who are trying to make money out of space are the precursors. And there could be another cycle where in 5-10 years time, we’re back to a little bit like the winter of the AI.

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, that’s actually a very good point. You have to look at the revenue. Thanks for pointing that out, but it’s pretty obvious. Rocket lab, that’s the second biggest rocket company in the world, or SpaceX. If they could launch ten times more rockets, they would have them booked out, so to speak. So, there’s demand and billion-dollar companies are being created what is maybe a little bit more iffy. So, going back to the space and domain is there’s three private space stations going to be built now. So, is that actually a business model that makes sense? And maybe from a strictly commercial perspective that’s not the case. But there’s also government money in this, right? So that’s key. It doesn’t need to be private industry or commercial revenue. It could be government grants, it could be government contracts. And those space stations will be rented out by ESA and NASA and all these space agencies. Same with the rocket companies. So, here in Germany, I’m currently in Germany, there’s two new rocket companies. Why would you build a new rocket company if Elon Musk is ten years ahead? Well, because the government wants. It has the national interest. Right. So, you look at all these pieces of the puzzle and then I think, yeah, I think space is going to be a thing. Maybe not all of it. Some of it.

Minter Dial: Well, it certainly is a hot topic. Let’s talk more about your film. There are a couple other questions I want to get back to with regard to Torsten Hoffman, but maybe we’ll see if we get back to that in the end. But. So, let’s talk about how fortitude came about. When was the spark? Because, I mean, ultimately, as you’re passionate about tech, there’s so many topics and you had to make a decision about space. And a documentary film takes quite a while to happen. So, you have to worry about all the development, the budgeting, and then making it happen, getting the interviews. And the more famous people you have, the more likely they are to say, oh, sorry, I can’t do it today. And then next thing you’re on to your whole schedule is Kabolix. Because these two famous people, whether they’re politicians or multimillion billionaires. So, what about the very first moment you said, right, this is it.

Torsten Hoffmann: I’m going, yeah, that’s actually also quite an important thing. Content creators, they always look glamorous when they release something. Wow, this is a fantastic project. But it starts out, excuse me, as a little idea. And the way I create my films is I take my own money and time at risk, right? It’s basically a year investing into this, starting to film, so I can show. Show it to the first customers or first investors. So, yeah, it’s a big risk. And also the way I work, which is not very smart in some ways, but it’s my process, is I don’t have a script and then start shooting. I start shooting and then I start to learn, okay, maybe I should go down this rabbit hole, or maybe these guys can introduce me to these other people. So, that’s why I took three years, 90 interviews, four continents. I mean, it’s a massive project. Not very smart from a financial perspective, but that’s how I work. I’m passionate about these things, and I want to learn. Audience will also kind of appreciate, okay, this is new.

Minter Dial: Well, let me just dovetail into that question, which is around the art of documentary filmmaking and the demand. It’s my observation, of course, that video is the big media medium that runs it all, YouTube and all that TikTok videos, even reels versus, anyway, text. And within video, generally, it skews younger. But for the older people, certainly my generation and above looking at documentary films, there’s an unending thirst for Second World War documentary films looking for science fact, as you say, moving from science fiction to science fact, whereas the younger ones are sort of in an escapist mode and everything. So, I mean, documentary filmmaking, the challenge, of course, is somehow making it work for you as a financial model. When you’re big, you’re one of the big documentaries, filmmakers. It’s one thing. Getting there is what you’re obviously on that path there, but is there market shares that talks about the quantity of film that’s being devoured? That is fact full as opposed to factless.

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, fact light. Yeah. You know, that’s such a good point. When you look at a lot of these Netflix mini series, five episode on one story, so many examples, you wonder, this could have been done in 20 minutes rather than five times, 45 minutes. It’s being soft. And that’s. Again, normally documentary makers are getting hired by a tv channel, right? You have the script before, and you shoot to whatever they you to do. And I’m the opposite. And I kind of follow almost like the podcasting model that you have much more experience in. Obviously, it’s like an hour or two, 3 hours sometimes about one very deep topic. It’s very detailed and people love it. Right. The biggest podcasts in the world, in the business and tech world, they’re like 3 hours long and they’re like really, really deep, deep tech. And I want to capture that kind of on film. I’m the documentary version of that. And that means lots of facts, trying to condense them down, making them entertaining and trying to capture. So, trying to keep the attention level up. That’s why I’m super fast paced. And I’m happy to share some clips later as well.

Minter Dial: Well, that’s lovely. Yeah. The notion of these Netflix documentaries my wife and I watch, and we’re just constantly bemused by the lightness of their facts. I mean, good lore. And this is. What is this for teenagers? I mean, no offence to teenagers, but I. But this doesn’t sound like very deep facts or actually, sometimes not even well qualified or researched. Sometimes it feels. So, what you are doing is sort of doing deep dives on things, which presumably is not a market for the, you know, the quick consumers of video. You need to have people who are like Joe Rogan prepared to go deep down ragged rabbit holes and follow you wherever you go.

Torsten Hoffmann: And I think that comes with building your own audience. Right? I mean, when you write a book, you kind of know what the audience is and wants from you. And the way I connect to audiences is through events. And you asked about the business model just a minute ago. So, of course, half of the revenue should come from Apple TV. In this case, the last one was on Amazon. I did a deal with Netflix, so that’s good. But the other half of the revenue should come with events. And I love these events. I sit on a panel, I do a little intro, but then actually seeing the audience react and then asking questions. One will be super fun with space, because everybody loves space. And I’ve been doing many of these test events in the past, and I get a feel, yes, I think there’s a. What’s it called? A product market fit, right? Because the students, oh, they’re excited about this thing. And then I have one of the events, the former chief scientist of NASA was with me, and she’s, oh, wow, you really captured this one. So, I get a feel for it and then can still kind of shape it at the end of the postproduction kind of, like, what I learned in these test screenings. And, yeah, that’s how I developed my product.

Minter Dial: So, if we break down space, obviously, one of the areas of space, as it started with Kennedy and such, was to do things for space that help us in our daily life. The type of research that was done at that time felt more about how it can teach us about life. For example, Earthrise, the photograph, the famous photograph that’s kicked off the ecological movement, as you and I were discussing right before. Then you have the second one, which is making money out of it. There’s a third one, which is the geopolitical stance and how space is basically the new Wild west and how people go. But what do you think is driving people’s fascination? There’s another one which is, I would like to become an astronaut. And you mentioned the notion of risk. As an entrepreneur, I feel that. But most people are shying away from risk. Maybe they live vicariously through the astronauts who actually do their shit and risk their lives to go up into space. What do you think is the attraction? Why does everybody love space? I mean, obviously, that’s a huge question, but it feels like in your film fortitude, you’re moving towards the economic side of things, but there’s so many. And so, how do you keep an angle, even in your film? Which rabbit hole did you want to go down? Because basically all of them are separate in some way.

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, yeah. Let me just quickly challenge you on the premise. I think you were spot on. Just the order I thought was maybe off. So, I think it all started with the geopolitical side of things, right? The Americans wanted to be the Soviets. The Soviets were leading first. And then. And then, of course, the last decades really was all about the scientific exploration looking out, but also the scientific research that you mentioned or looking down to earth and developing climate models and all that, right? And now this is the commercialization. That’s what only really existed for the last one or two decades. And that’s what I’m passionate about. That’s what I’m covering in fortitude. But people are not inspired by making money or by making Elon musk a rocket company even richer. I think your question, the heart of the question is really about making us feeling, like, bigger than ourselves. So, like seeing some. The universe, right, and all the major religions, you know, somehow related to the heavens, right? And we’ve been looking through the skies since the ancient times. I think there’s an element of that. And then, yeah, seeing those famous pictures or even Hubble telescope or now, James Webb, those images are just kind of. I don’t know what it is. It’s fascinating. And so, I have a bit in the film about what got you inspired to go into the space field. And the one guy read the science fiction. I read science fiction when I was a kid. Right. The one lady drew little plants on the moon and now she builds this company in Paris growing food in these domes in space. So, everyone is slightly different, but is inspired from a very young age. Interestingly. And no other industry. Sorry to interrupt you there, but no other industry. Oh, as a kid, I wanted to be a crypto millionaire. Nobody says this, right? But space has this special thing, so that’s why it’s different.

Minter Dial: Well, for sure, I’ve had on my show a number of people actually, who have been participating in the space research, evolution, race, whatever. And it’s a little hat tip to my friend Donald James as well as to Doctor Michael Hauser, who’ve both been on my show. So, if we think about space, there’s also a lot to worry about. And the media likes tend to focus on worrying. I bring this up because you position yourself as a techno optimist. And I’ve had the chance to work with you on some elements with regard to AI on that. Having done your film, and it’s about to launch what’s just launched now, we’ll be releasing this right after the us premiere, which will be July 16. Which was going to be was listening. Was July 16. It’s funny to talk about the future in the past, but having done the film, do you have more worries, less worries? Do you feel more optimistic or less optimistic since you’ve come through this whole cycle?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, I start to get worried about the space debris issue. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. Maybe you talked about it on your show. The Russians famously, they shot down one of their own satellites that created even more debris. But the issue is that the speeds at which these objects travel, you only need a tiny speck of paint to hit the space, station it at the wrong point and it’s going to, you know, it’s going to cause havoc, right? So, the fear is really we’re going to have a death in orbit at some point because more astronauts are going to up the space stations. We have a scene about the space Hilton hotel, you know, and at some point, you know, maybe something will happen. But however, on the positive side, scientists are working on these crazy ideas. Maybe we can give birth in space, right? Or like, how is that going to. Artificial womb. So, like, how are we going to, you know, populate a city on Mars in future? I mean the good and the bad. So, it’s almost like a question for us, right? Do we want humanity to have the first combat kill in orbit in space or do we want to have the first human born in space? And so, it’s. Yeah, tricky. Tricky. I don’t know, I’m a little bit worried about the space debris issue for sure.

Minter Dial: Yeah, it does feel like for me, and the fact is that it’s unregulated or is it even, is it unregulatable? I mean all these debris, all these satellites.

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah. How do you attribute that speck of pain that you can’t track even to something? I mean there is. So, we have the United Nations in the film, we have the Department of Defence in the US in the film. Many companies are working on this issue, the analytics companies tracking all these pieces. And then the rocket launches happen at the right window where there’s space and time to do this. There’s a lot of solutions and a lot of regulatory kind of framework, but it gets tricky because how do you also a satellite launched in the fifties, maybe that space agency doesn’t really exist anymore. Right. Or like. Yeah, it’s not a perfect answer here for sure.

Minter Dial: Well, if we go back to your initial pushback, to which I fully adhere, which is the geopolitical story, somehow space is still going to be geopolitical, especially since its now become economic, because anything to do with money makes everybody. And how do you address the part of space that is behind the big wall, whether it’s the wall in Berlin that used to be, or the wall in China, the great firewall of China, because they too are doing a lot in space.

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, it appears that the Chinese space economy and the Chinese space system, with their little alliance, will be very separate from the western world. So, a lot of people on the camera basically said, look, don’t ask me about China. I won’t be able to get clearance from my organisation if I say anything about China, so keep off that topic. I do talk about it, obviously, and need to cover it. I mean China represents a major space station. Now they’ve had huge achievements, both their own space station with some moon landings on the far side of the moon. So, definitely something that we cannot ignore. But maybe going back to what I’m covering in 42, that’s a space economy, and most of these companies are based in the US, in the UK, in France, has a very strong space economy as well in Germany. So, that’s the players I look for.

Minter Dial: Most the other country that it seems we should be mentioning is India. It seems that they’re very keen on it, too. And is there. I have no idea. Is there drive in space?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah. Sorry to interrupt, but yeah, absolutely. And that goes back to the 1950s and sixties in America. National pride. Right. And being a forward-looking nation, that’s happening in India right now. And Modi. So, the president, I think he went on the campaign trail in his latest election with a bridge, a rocket and a palace or something like that. So, the rocket is an iconic image, obviously. Again, it’s largely driven by government there. I don’t think there’s many corporate and commercial players. So, I didn’t really cover India. After three years, 90 interviews, that was enough. But I’m sure it’s very compelling. What’s happening there?

Minter Dial: Well, in looking at what’s happening in space today, it feels like there’s this massive opportunity. You talk about the trillion-dollar business. Can you give us some ideas as to what the pockets are? 1 trillion will be in space tech, 1 trillion will be in food tech. I don’t know. How does it break down for us more mere mortals?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, sure. So, the way I structure the space economy is everything that goes up. So, the rocket, the launch sector. Right. And the astronauts. And that’s number one. Number two is everything that goes down. That’s the data, mostly. And then number three will be the space-to-space economy. What happens in orbit, which is very tiny, so that would be refuelling satellites, those private space stations, that’s maybe a few years out. What’s already happening is the launch sector is big. Elon Musk’s company, famously, I think their valuation now is 180 billion. They have billion dollars launch contract. So, that’s happening. And then the largest part is the space to Earth. So, the second part, the data that comes down. So, tv broadcast has been around for 50, 40, 50 years now. The data that comes down and now Starlink and these kind of connectivity platforms, and it’s already. So, I might get this wrong. I think it’s a $300 billion business annually now. And everyone, all these experts and forecasters, basically estimate it’s going to be one to $2 trillion in 1015 years. So, it’s not a controversial statement, but it’s a nice tagline for my documentary.

Minter Dial: Yeah, it is. And I think one person actually mentions it in the film, at least one. Anyway, so when you talk about something like the Hilton Hotel or the space hotel, is that going upwards or is that space to space? How do you qualify that one that.

Torsten Hoffmann: One would be space to space, I think. Although the astronauts. Yeah, I don’t know. That’s an edge case, so to speak. And then people ask me, oh, what about the moon? What about Mars? Right? I mean, that’s not really what I cover, and that’s very far in the future. But there’s, I think, five missions going to the moon this year, next year, and with private payloads on it. In fact, like, as a gimmick and promotional thing, we send our end credits and names of our producers. That’s going to be part of that moonlander. My name is etched into the metal. Our end credits, the thank you notes is there. So, that was kind of cool. I sent bitcoins, whitepaper, Satoshi up there to the moon. So, that was kind of cool because, yeah, it’s really happening. I mean, that wouldn’t have been possible just a couple of years ago, for sure.

Minter Dial: So, you did 90 interviews, is that correct?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah.

Minter Dial: What was the most surprising thing that came out of all your three years of interviewing space folks? Because you come from the outside and I’m wondering what, you know, like, relative to your expectations or typical expectations of space, maybe what sort of elements, or elements became shocking or different or surprising for you?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah. What really surprised me is how good these satellites are getting. So, I’ll give you an example because it sounds like. Yeah, who needs satellites? Okay. A secret agent or something like that. No, but actually there’s infrared constellations. Now, they can see through buildings. So, you could see whether maybe the heating is too high or the window is leaking or whether your competitor is working a night shift or not. Right. Based on the heat in the building. There’s a company that does. Many companies, actually, that does help agriculture sector. So, you could literally, I’m standing in a pineapple field in Ecuador and saying, look, this part here needs more water and this part needs more fertiliser. We can see it from space. And the most crazy one, I mean, you will appreciate this. There’s a German company that takes two satellite images from slightly two different angles, right? And you can calculate the math behind it. You can then calculate that individual tree, how high it is based on the 3d image of it can see whether the leaf or the chlorophyll in the leaves changes, which means, okay, this tree is about to die, which means it falls. Is it big enough that it will impact the train line or the pipeline next to it? So it protects train lines or oil pipelines and sends out the crew to cut it down safely rather than create a big accident. So, think about that, what that means for a utility provider or an insurance company. Those are the use cases. Again, I’m interested in the business model. That kind of makes sense, right?

Minter Dial: Well, my mind goes a little bit wobbly or at least negative, because if I think about the ability to detect a moving piece in a building, I think about how that might be useful for the war to find someone who’s moving in a building. I mean, especially when you think about how certain wars are being now carried out in, to name one, Gaza in cities. I mean, obviously that’s happening in Russia as well. I can imagine that a whole bunch of governments with more malevolent ideas in mind could be using those same technologies. And so, that’s also a business model.

Torsten Hoffmann: Model, yeah, I think, I mean, the governments have been doing this for a while, right? The Russians and the Americans and Chinese have way better satellites for a way longer time. They can do things that we don’t even imagine. I think what I talked about here is, look, they have satellite constellations. Once a day it goes over this factory. It can cheque or it can see the heat signature of whether the machines are on. Right. You wouldn’t be able to pinpoint a person, you won’t be able to do it in real time. But still, there’s a lot of analytics data. And another famous example is, of course, and it’s all automated with machine learning. So, imagine you track the parking lots of 20,000 Walmarts, right? How many cars are on it at this time in the morning or something like that. You cross references for many years and then correlate that to the share price. Right. So, it’s an investment angle and that actually seems to work very, very well. So, those kind of. So, don’t worry about privacy, don’t worry about war. That’s the government side has taken care of that one.

Minter Dial: That’s brilliant. That’s a phenomenal use case. You can start seeing how, of course, that also needs a lot of AI, big data analytics. AI is going to be integral. If you’re a business, a regular business person doing industrial work, like creating shampoos, as I did for 16 years, how should, and why should a regular industrial business person be thinking about space? And maybe they should be also thinking about the disruption that space could provide, just like the, you know, the case you use for Walmart. Do you feel like businesses should be, business executives should be actually turning their eyes to space?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, I mean, it’s very hard to paint a broad brush. And I talked to people at Nestle or was it Nestle? No, it’s a coffee company. I don’t know. So, they use space for their I 10,000 farmers in Africa to provide services and analytics like that. You could track supply chains better. I mean, there’s many of those type of use cases. So, I think when it comes down to tracking CO2 and carbon footprint, a lot of space technologies are being used. Maybe in the background, maybe it’s not like top of the agenda for the executives, but somewhere in the background that’s being tracked as an example, pollution, obviously, methane, like all these things will come from space data. Can I go back to your earlier question about what surprised me? Because another element is the astronauts, and we’re kind of almost making fun of them nowadays. The billionaires going up for ten minutes. How great is that? Well, first of all, you have to give credits to the billionaires. They’ve been putting money into it 20 years ago and now it starts to happen. And now people start, well, wow, they’re getting rich. But they put millions into this space for two decades. But even though it’s just 20 minutes in low Earth orbit, it really inspires generations of young people. So, I have an Egyptian, a Mexican and an Indian astronaut. And they are really inspiring a new generation to get interested in space and engineering and stem and look into this as a career. And I think that happened in America in the 1960s when that’s happening in other countries now. It’s very, very inspiring.

Minter Dial: Well, it reminds me that I had also on my show a woman called Esther Dyson. And Esther was the first. She’s a cosmonaut, right? She was trained to be an astronaut under the Russians and she’s now a massive angel investor out of Europe. So, she’s not in the film, is she?

Torsten Hoffmann: No, she’s not, but I’m familiar with her, actually. The other woman who’s really crucial to the, the history of space travel is Ansari. Doctor Ansari. She funded the x prize, which then Richard Branson bought the winning team again 20 years later. They flew the first couple of astronauts up with their space plane. So, yeah, Doctor Ansari is really the foundational figure here.

Minter Dial: Yeah, it’s cool to now know these names. So, I want to end with, as far as the film is concerned, a last question, which so and I’m sort of merging with my co passionate interest of AI. I asked perplexity, which is my favourite chatbot or at least, you know, whatever Lloyd these days. Perplexity. AI, what’s the most perplexing question or what are the most perplexing questions about space, and I want you to react to it. The first one was wolf. Do you imagine what the first one would be?

Torsten Hoffmann: Um, no, no.

Minter Dial: There are so many anyway, but it said the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, look, I have no. No comment on this. The smartest people in the world with IQ’s of 180 haven’t figured it out. There’s no way I’m going to crack. Have a good crack at it. Sorry.

Minter Dial: Well, here’s. Here’s why I actually wanted to ask you the question. Because somehow the exploration of space is part of our imagination, the Petit Prince and science fiction and everything. And we talked a little bit about risk earlier, and I feel, as you know, risk is one of my little topics about how we’ve created a society that is risk avoiding, risk aversive, and rather be precautionary and. And live clean, endless lives, but not do anything that’s risky and how actually that then kills the business of adventure, because if you don’t want to have risk, then you can’t have adventure. And so, coming back to this particular question with perplexity, the nature of dark matter and dark energy, what I think is funny is that we’re living in a world that doesn’t have, or is running after matter what matters? Mattering, as John Vervaeke talks about it and this sense of purpose. And I was just wondering to what extent there could be a relationship between searching for dark matter and that which matters. Yeah.

Torsten Hoffmann: Wow. I just find it, isn’t it crazy to think that we think we’re so smart and we know everything about the universe, yet, like 70%, whatever that number is, of what the universe is made of, the magic, you don’t even know what it is. Isn’t it, like, totally mind blowing? Yeah.

Minter Dial: Yeah. Well, I think these are good questions to have on psychedelics or not. So, Torsten how do people get to see fortitude around the world? How do you. So, I mean, for doing my film, you know, sometimes Amazon would have it in certain countries, dot co UK, but not in or whatever it. How can people find where to see fortitude wherever they are in the world? Because people, of course, listen to this podcast around the world is like, 11% are from India.

Torsten Hoffmann: Oh, wow. Okay, cool. Yeah, so I made sure that distribution is my background, so that’s actually the easy part of the equation for me. So, Apple TV is a global deal, and there’s also going to be a global Amazon deal and for all countries, basically, as a filmmaker, I mean, this is maybe a little bit self-promotion here. But on Amazon I don’t really make not even like a couple of cents per view on Apple it’s higher. On my own website it will be the highest or at events it will be even better. Right. So, that’s why my attention is always oh, go on Apple, go on my website or visit the event all around the world. So, that’s kind of like the business priorities.

Minter Dial: Well, I totally get that. My goodness. And then plus if they come on your site, you can engage with them and that. I just want to talk about the distribution piece because the challenge I certainly felt it was getting it out and documentary films, the business model and how much you’re going to get paid for if you do Hollywood production, big film. That’s one thing. What about exclusivity? Don’t these Apples and Amazons and Netflixs wish for? Oh, I want it only. And here you are with the ability to have it on Apple and Amazon and your site. Site. How do you approach that? Can you just force it because you’re Torsten Hoffman?

Torsten Hoffmann: Not yet, but I think that might be my next film. I get Amazon, Apple, whatever, to make an offer for an exclusive deal that would be preferable. That way would reduce my risk. But at the moment it’s non-exclusive everywhere. So, it’s my interest to get as many people watching it to create more of a brand, more of an awareness. And maybe my next topic I can strike an exclusive deal.

Minter Dial: Nice. Well, that was my last question. What is the next topic? What’s the next thing we should be investing in? Torsten?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah, well, don’t ask me for investment advice. Actually, Virgin Galactic going back. I think it’s from that moment Richard Branson went to space to today the stock price is down 98%. So, you got to be careful. You have to invest. Even space is a thing. The curve is going up the right side of the hype cycle. You can still do very badly in the stock market and investing. Look, my next topic is obviously AI. You’re an expert in this AI and the future of work, I think will change so much of our global daily lives. So, that’s definitely coming. And the one after that, I’m not sure. Maybe you can help me find some big questions.

Minter Dial: I’d love to. It’s been a pleasure having you on. Torsten How can people obviously get to your site, get in touch with you if they have a desire to participate or I don’t know how you like to propose you for fortitude. You had 90 people. Wasn’t they necessarily coming after you? I’m sure you had to go after them, but what’s the best way to get in touch with you, follow you, track you down?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yes. So, I’m Torstenhq on all platforms, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, X, Facebook, wherever. Instagram. And torstenhq.com is my website. And they can find anything, including contact details, emails and stuff like that there.

Minter Dial: Beautiful Torsten headquarters, eh?

Torsten Hoffmann: Yeah. Or high quality, or could be anything. Who knows?

Minter Dial: Ah, love it. Brilliant. Many, many things. Wiele Danke. Thank you so much.

Torsten Hoffmann: Thank you!