Senra Systems' $65M Series B: Fixing Aerospace & Defense's Biggest Bottleneck

[00:00] People need more rockets, people need more missiles, people need more cars. Everything in the hardware space is booming right now. And the center of all of it is wire harnessing. I saw this firsthand at SpaceX where wire harnessing was the bane of our existence. We started about three years ago and today is completely different. Center Systems officially closed our Series B fundraising for $65 million. We had lower carbon, Interlagos leading the round. A lot of our existing investors coming into the mix such as Sequoia, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, 8BC, Andreessen Horowitz. [00:30] and yet it's the backbone to everything that's being built today. You have a legendary career. You're at Rodcom, then you're at SpaceX, then you've done a couple of space companies since then. Elon had hired me because he wanted to build the digital nervous system for the 21st century rocket company. The world needs more wire horses and I want to build every one of them. [00:48] *outro music* [00:58] All right, Jordan Black, we are here at Senra Systems today. Thanks for joining Sorcery. Absolutely, thanks for having me. So you have a big announcement. What's going on? Yeah, absolutely. [01:11] Center Systems officially closed our Series B fundraising for $65 million. We had Lower Carbon, Interlagos leading the round. [01:20] with a lot of our existing investors coming into the mix, such as Sequoia, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, 8VC, [01:27] Andreessen Horowitz [01:29] uh and we're really excited for kind of the next few years as we kind of start hyper scaling into this

[01:34] hard tech boom that we're all seeing around us. [01:36] - So for people who don't know what Center Systems is, can you explain that a bit? And then I wanna definitely go into the funding [01:43] environment because you started about three years ago and today is completely different. [01:48] Absolutely. So Center Systems is supercharging the skilled assembly workforce. [01:53] and we're starting with this thing called the wire harness. [01:56] And what it is is like, [01:58] the nervous system of anything that requires electricity. So it's what [02:02] sends power and data in your rockets, in your cars, in your generators, in your planes and everything. [02:08] Um, [02:09] And the whole thing is done by hand today because it's [02:13] flexible wire, all custom made, and it's pretty much arts and crafts. What's really difficult about it is there's [02:20] hundreds of miles of wire harnessing in your plane, miles in just even your car, [02:24] and it's really expensive, it can be 25% of the cost of your vehicle, [02:28] and to give a moment too. [02:29] And so what happens [02:31] is... [02:32] people... [02:34] need more wire harnessing because the world's getting more electrified people need more rockets people need more missiles people need more cars people need more generators [02:41] Everything in the hardware space is booming right now. [02:44] and the center of all of its wire harnessing. [02:47] The difficult part is [02:48] Demands going like this. [02:50] but the supply chain is drastically decreasing because [02:53] It's a skilled assembly workforce that's doing this for [02:56] 20 to 50 years. [02:57] all by hand and they have all the tribal knowledge. [03:00] And they are the machine at the end of the day. They are truly the backbone of this entire workforce.

[03:05] And if it's Bob and Judy building in the corner and they leave, we don't build more wire harnesses for this product line or this company or anything else, too. I saw this firsthand at SpaceX where... [03:15] I was the manager of the research and development team for electronics. So I did a little bit of everything that went into a rocket and a satellite. [03:22] and Wireharners team was the bane of our existence. And we outsourced 95% of it for Falcon and Dragon back in the day. [03:29] and it was a really painful process because everyone hasn't changed the process since the Cold War era. [03:35] And what Senra is really trying to do is like, how do you kind of bring this [03:39] industry into the 21st century with software, technology and robotics as well. [03:44] So in terms of [03:47] Miles. [03:49] of wire harnesses, how are you [03:51] measuring [03:53] success and scale here. I know there's a certain target you want to get to with the build out of this facility. So what will that facilitate? [04:00] and what are you trying to accomplish? Yeah, so there's just this ever growing demand of wire harnessing and it's all around us. It's literally [04:07] in the microphone we're wearing today. [04:09] And success for us is just continuing to scale with our customers and making sure they're not only happy with us, but that we're [04:17] meeting the demands of any of their business needs too. So when people need more satellites, or people need more missiles, or people need more rockets, [04:24] harnessing is not becoming the bottleneck harnessing is actually becoming [04:27] the [04:28] least of their concerns at the end of the day too. We hit our, you know, exceed our revenue targets. I think the main milestones for us are, you know, filling out this entire factory, supporting all the major platforms that we're currently on or continue to grow into. And

[04:43] Um... [04:44] and then making sure harnessing is like [04:46] the least bit of worries for any of our customers too. [04:49] Um, [04:49] We have some big accomplishments that we actually completed our software system, AMP, from start to finish so anyone can go [04:57] quote a wire harness to getting it shipped in our end-to-end software system so [05:02] similar to this software system spacex had warp drive that like power the entire ecosystem of manufacturing like [05:07] We essentially are doing the same thing of how do you build this custom made manufacturing system [05:12] for a very bespoke [05:13] an unscalable process to be able to scale this factory through that too. [05:18] So you have two facilities here in Southern California. You've one in Redondo and you have this one in Cyprus. [05:24] What's the difference between the two facilities? And I guess even behind you, [05:29] if you could explain like how the teams are sectioned out. - So in the wire harness world, [05:34] Customers have a whole plethora of different problems that they work with. [05:37] And one of the biggest ones is how do you go [05:39] into the prototype phase as quickly as possible, where I design a new [05:44] satellite bus, I design a new defense system, [05:47] and WireHard is the last thing to get designed, but one of the first things that's needed for them to actually turn it on and build it. So we built Redondo to be [05:55] a really great prototype new product introduction factory of [05:59] getting onto all these platforms and really helping the customer for their problems today. [06:03] We built this factory to be able to say, great, we solved the problem today. How do we solve it for tomorrow? Which is like the scalability aspect of being a very cost effective supplier. [06:12] and that embedded partner throughout the whole journey. So this is where we're actually going from prototype to production and doing it in real time. And that's where kind of the split is. So the future of Senra,

[06:22] is to just build more factories close to our customers where they kind of have this embedded [06:27] engineering partner from the early prototype phase and we're giving them manufacturing advice, we're giving them supply chain advice, and we're really going anywhere from the napkin sketch into like a real product with them as close as possible or as quickly as possible. [06:40] And then the other aspect is building more factories for scale because the current U.S. industrial base cannot keep up with the amount of demand that's going to see. And if we have hundreds of miles and planes and we need to go. [06:51] three to four X that every single year. We can't keep up with it by just having [06:55] no official training programs, [06:57] no real scalability on the software side. Taking a step back, looking at the broader macro picture, [07:03] reindustrialization of America is [07:06] super hot right now. There's conference around it, shout out to Reindustrialize, and Hillen Valley Forum and all these kinds of things. So [07:13] What are the industries that you're going after to help reinforce [07:18] And... [07:19] bring back to the US. And then are there any newer ones you weren't expecting that are kind of growing really fast? [07:26] Yeah, you're absolutely hitting on the right trend. I think the US is now being reactive of like, we have a need. [07:32] there is a huge supply chain gap between [07:34] what products we need to build in the US that are critical and like what the industrial base can support. [07:40] specifically wire harnessing because it's such a manual [07:43] assembly task. [07:44] It's not like you can just go buy more machines and run them. [07:47] or get more factory space, you have to go find [07:50] more skilled workers [07:52] in this

[07:53] niche environment that there's no official training program for, no official [07:56] instructions of how to tell someone to do it. [07:59] old tribal knowledge. [08:01] And so I think the biggest fact is like, center is being reactive to the problem. [08:05] or proactive for the problem, which is [08:08] We know we're going to have to 3 to 5 extra demand in all these defense systems. [08:12] how do we start building up the supply now so that we're ready to go ahead of it too. [08:17] I think the other aspect of it is [08:19] We're seeing a lot of the demand coming from these scaling companies like the Andurals of the world and the SpaceX of the world that [08:26] are moving very rapidly into their production phase, and they need to have that agility with [08:31] suppliers today versus the 800 plus mom pop shops that exist all over the US that are [08:37] not just not only growing or [08:40] Not only are they not growing, they're actually going away. [08:42] and either private equity is buying them or they're being absorbed into other companies or anything else. And it becomes a very scary moment of [08:49] If this one company in the middle of nowhere state [08:52] goes away, we don't build more of this fighter jet or more of this missile or more of anything. [08:57] So Senra is really being proactive on that portion of like working with our customers say, how do we make wire harnessing leads to your problems? How do we digitize the whole things that you and I can go build a wire harness versus this bespoke process too? [09:09] What is the split between commercial and government customers? Like it has government become a big customer of yours. The government knows that wire harness is a big issue. And we've been working very closely with some of our [09:20] folks on the Hill on [09:22] not only policy improvements, but

[09:25] Um, [09:26] government relations on how do we work not only with the government but with also [09:30] the people they were buying from, which is mainly the primes and the neo primes. [09:34] and they've been extremely helpful into like [09:36] figuring out kind of that narrative. But most of ours is in the defense space because that is what's like, [09:42] is hyper growing right now. We do plan to go more into the commercial market, but a lot of these primes that are also [09:49] are going to be both. [09:50] on the government side and on the commercial side too. If you could just go back [09:54] the beginning, the origin story of co-founding it with Ben, [09:58] a trip to Mexico, a pizza robot. Like what happened then and how hard was it to start up? [10:04] So I saw this problem firsthand at SpaceX where I owned so much of this manufacturing that went into the R&D environments for all these different programs within SpaceX. [10:14] and harnessing was the bane of everyone's existence there. [10:16] and it wasn't getting better, it was just getting worse. [10:19] And I went to go to Mexico and Puerto Rico and Costa Rica and all over the country to find wire arms factories. And it was all very similar of just. [10:27] wooden tables, a process changes the Cold War, [10:30] and just this really fragmented market. [10:33] And companies like SpaceX were really struggling. [10:36] I went to Mexico to see how they did [10:38] wire harnessing for automotive, [10:40] and spoke to the production floor and was like, can I hop on the production line? And I've been doing harnessing at this point for like five plus years at SpaceX. [10:48] I like to think I'm one of the experts in it. I've seen it from [10:51] design, manufacturing on the supply chain side of it. And I couldn't even build a harness down in this like very high rate environment. And it would really kind of open my eyes to is like,

[11:00] If someone like myself [11:02] who has studied this process and has really gotten into depth with it. [11:06] can't even go build a harness. [11:08] then something's fundamentally broken, which is like we're not giving the right tools to the technicians. We don't have the right infrastructure. We don't have the right systems in place. We don't have the right everything. And there's a death by a thousand paper cuts. And I describe harnessing as kind of like, [11:19] the TSA of manufacturing, which like, there's just so many things to fix. [11:23] but it's like this never ending, [11:25] process on that side too. [11:26] And so, [11:29] Quit my job with Ben, my co-founder, who was also at SpaceX and helped write a lot of the application software for Starlink that helped scale their production from day one. And we started my apartment building harnesses on our carpet floor. [11:44] And so from quitting SpaceX, [11:46] Two weeks later, we started building harnesses for a company called Stellar Pizza. [11:50] that is automation for pizza making. [11:54] And I just went to all the startups in the El Segundo area. And back then, there was a lot less of them around. [11:59] and say like, [12:00] I'm a wire harness startup. I love to just go build for you and just whatever price you want, whatever lead time, I don't care. I'm just trying to get my foot in the door. [12:08] And it's really eye-opening just to start getting our hands dirty on like, [12:12] in my apartment on a table, all hand tools and figuring that out too. [12:17] And the fundraising environment is definitely very different than now, which is [12:21] explaining why hardware is very important, showing the growth of it, showing [12:26] why software technology can make a big difference. [12:28] SpaceX obviously paved that path

[12:31] before me of like where I just got to see it firsthand, but now like kind of convincing the entire [12:36] capital market of like, [12:38] This is a very old industry that's all done by hand. [12:41] Uh... [12:42] we will adopt the best technology to make it the most streamlined, harness manufacturer in the world and as automated as possible. And so, [12:49] I flew [12:50] all over the country with this [12:52] wire stripping machine, which is about the size of like a printer, to different investors. [12:58] And what I did was I took a 600 page book of how to build a wire harness today. And I took this machine and I said, [13:05] Here's the old process, manual tools, a lot of documentation. [13:08] Here's the new process. [13:10] configured machines and one button that you press to kind of be able to do the entire manufacturing process. What do you prefer? What do you think is better? And it was really kind of putting it [13:19] in people's eyes of like, [13:21] The fix is simple, but we need to have the time and effort to be able to implement this across an entire industry too. [13:28] And so a lot has changed since then, whereas like, [13:31] Now we've just seen companies grow so fast, just even [13:36] the startups that I even knew that were in WeWorks and [13:40] their apartments as well to now they're, you know, multi-billion dollar companies today. And we support a large amount of them. And it's been, you know, very exciting to actually be part of this industrial based growth of like, [13:51] We have the companies that are growing today, the new ones. We have these industry primes that are working with us of like getting into their supply chain because they'd see how broken it is today. And it's just kind of like.

[14:01] yeah, we're building, making history, and we're actually being part of all of it too. [14:05] It is crazy because even three years ago, El Skunda was like really just starting to take off. And to your point, they're now multi-billion dollar companies that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars each, even from like Hadrian to Rebel to Nominal and Shinke, Jay's new company. [14:21] Like, this-- [14:22] And then you can go down to like [14:24] I don't know, like Rainmaker and Rangeview and all these other types of companies are here. [14:28] It's just wild to see that. But I'm really curious between the lines of all those and these new companies that [14:33] have kind of started with vertical integration at its core, thanks to SpaceX. [14:38] From your perspective, and you obviously know this because you had to outsource, when should you vertically integrate and when should you not? How do you know the line? Yeah, but I think it's like a simple economics question of like, [14:49] Is it [14:51] Does it [14:52] make you profitable in the long run or not. And so something like [14:56] making your own custom work instruction software [14:59] It is better for us to do this long term because it will make us more effective as a company. Or a lot of these other companies as well. [15:07] vertical integration makes so much more sense because [15:09] either the industrial base around them can't support it, or it's just better off because they can go maximize the output too. [15:16] I think what's very interesting with wire harnessing is [15:18] Nobody wants to do it internally because you'll never be as good as maybe someone like Senra. We're like, we're the industry experts. We have our own training program. We have our own custom operating system for wire harnessing, and we have our own custom automation for this entire process. So if you want to bring it internally,

[15:33] you have to go be the industry expert. [15:35] overnight and it's very difficult to do it. [15:38] And it's not something you can go learn on Google or YouTube or go take a class. You're going to have to like be entrenched in it and also be... [15:44] as obsessed as maybe I am about the world of wire harnessing today too. So I think vertical integration is like [15:51] Incredibly important. We do a ton of it here. [15:53] That's why we built our own manufacturing operating system. That's why we built our own custom machines. That's why we're building our own automation backbone. And we're continuing to figure that out. [16:02] But other times, we are partnering with companies. We don't plan to be this... [16:06] Uh, you know, [16:07] AI modeling company. We plan to partner with companies in the future or even on the robotics center. The jury's still out, but [16:14] If there is a company that meets our goals of a low cost robotic arm that can do the dexterity work of a wire harness technician, [16:22] we should absolutely be exploring that option too, versus trying to [16:25] reinvent everything ourselves too. [16:27] It's hard. This is a little side note, but [16:30] I was out to lunch with two friends [16:33] And one of them is Sarov from Starpath. And we were out to lunch. I think it was like a Sunday. And he was like, I got to go back to the shop and meet deadline. And we're like, oh, well... [16:44] We were kind of joking. We're like, "Oh, we'll help. What do you need to do?" And he's like, "Well, I need to clean batteries and I need to make wire harnesses." And we're like, [16:51] cool okay like let's help like how long would that possibly take [16:56] So, um... [16:57] my friend Justin and I went with Sara back to Star Path and [17:02] I think it was like a Sunday

[17:04] We got there probably at like 7:00 and we probably left around like 11:00 PM. And we were just like, at that point, we were just like, [17:11] We were just like so... [17:14] We were really competitive with ourselves that we wanted to complete it. Like we had to make like maybe like 100 or 300, like some ridiculous amount of wire harnesses. [17:22] and we're just like sitting there tinkering. [17:25] pictures because I'm a girl. And it was just really funny. But you're doing it and you're like, this is so repetitive. I could totally see a robot arm doing some of that work. [17:35] But to your point, like you're one trying to help train [17:40] people in the industry to do this faster. I think you said that [17:43] your program takes like a two year thing, a two year training. [17:47] kind of windowed down to four weeks. And then in [17:51] Southern California, right? Like there's just so much talent around here. So that's why you have these facilities here. [17:57] How much of the talent that you bring in are you bringing through that training program? Yep. So on the training program itself, [18:05] We're actually the only US Department of Labor certified training program for wire harnessing. [18:09] And then this is something we vertically integrated. So we are training people in four weeks versus like the two year time frame that happens. And that two year time frame is truly [18:18] You take someone, you have them shadow very skilled people for [18:21] one to two years, and then you hope they pick it up. [18:24] and it's not a very established way to do this. [18:27] And I always describe it as kind of like a cheesecake factory, which is like, imagine there's no culinary school and there's no recipes and you just look at the menu and go figure out how to make.

[18:35] any of the things on there. [18:36] It's incredibly difficult. [18:38] Um, [18:39] And so for us, we're actually training really the new workforce. And so when you look around here, [18:44] It's actually not so much of the [18:46] older workforce, which is typically the average age of a wire harness technicians between like 48 to 55 years old. [18:53] It's this new workforce of people who want to work with their hands, [18:56] who want to get the industry expertise, [18:58] and break into the aerospace defense market. [19:00] uh and we're absolutely being able to do that because we hire based on attitude and aptitude of [19:05] Can you use your hands? Can you read instructions? Can you build their way too? [19:08] but it's only possible not only with a training program, but like the operating system around it. Because when you were building harnesses with Sarov, [19:14] Like, [19:14] it probably been impossible to do like [19:16] here's a box full of wires, go figure it out. [19:18] you would have spent [19:19] days or weeks figuring what to do, but someone had to like [19:23] you know, grab by the shoulder, do this, this and this and this. And that's the really hard part. And so for us, like the stages of center is really like, [19:30] figure out how to standardize the unscalable, which is [19:33] when you take all the inputs in, [19:35] making it so simple that you're creating that recipe for the technicians and then the training program for them, too. We're optimizing every single step of the process by removing all the little death by a thousand paper cuts that has to happen, whether it's moving material or finding a tool or staring at a drawing for two hours because you're trying to figure out what the hell to do next. Like that's the optimization standpoint. And the last thing is the automation portion of it, which is like, [19:58] I am doing this repetitive task over and over again. How do you get the human removed as much as possible? [20:03] And what's really great about Senra is like, [20:05] both the technicians

[20:06] and the entire engineering team are all in the same boat of like how do you automate this as much as possible how do you bring as much technology into so we're doing a multitude of things of like [20:14] we are gathering all this data of like, [20:17] what a wire harness looks like in the digital world, but doesn't really exist today. [20:20] what does a wire harness build look like in the digital world, which also doesn't really exist today? [20:24] And then we're actually putting all these camera systems to start gathering all the data of like, [20:28] someone physically doing these parts, [20:30] So in theory, [20:31] we can actually say we were the first ones to automate this because we're gathering all the data and getting ahead of the curve too. [20:37] And I look at it as [20:38] solar back in early 2000s, which is converting a photon to electron wasn't [20:43] basically responsible for anyone to go [20:45] move into that direction, but now it's incredibly cheap. So this is why you see solar farms and you see solar energy on housing and everything too. And similar with harnessing or automation, [20:55] - The first time we have been talking about [20:56] The dexterity and the models might not be at the caliber we need today to go automate this. [21:02] but we are getting ahead of the curve right now that we'll be the first one to say, [21:06] we're ready to go automate this. [21:07] almost completely because we are gathering all this data for the next generation of scalability too. [21:14] This episode is brought to you by Brex, my favorite. You become what you spend on. And I refuse to spend my time on work that shouldn't exist. Expense reports, receipt chasing, and manual closes. The companies building what's next from Vercel, OpenAI, Anthropic, Granola, and Deepgram. [21:34] all made the same call they all run on brex brex is the intelligent finance platform that combines cards expenses and banking into a single stack with agentic finance built in ai agents that handle expenses automatically

[21:49] Enforce policy before spend happens and close your books in minutes. That's why Sorcery runs on Brex, so I can spend time on building and not busy work. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash sorcery. That's b-r-e-x dot com slash s-o-u-r-c-e-r-y. [22:11] Bye! [22:12] Turing is training the next generation of AI with tasks that require real expertise and real world judgment. That's why companies like NVIDIA, Anthropic, Salesforce, and Gemini partner with Turing. Turing builds realistic reinforcement learning environments and data systems based on real operational traces. The kind of infrastructure Frontier Labs need to train superintelligence. Visit Turing.com slash S-O-U-R-C-E-R-Y. [22:40] Do you imagine humanoid robots working within here? Are you just going to have armed robots? Not armed robots, but armed robots. With guns, they'll have ASK. Are we going to see optimists and figures around here? Or what's the... [22:55] Standard will always adopt the best technology to make sure we're building a high quality product at a very high throughput as well. [23:01] So whether it's humanoid robots, robotic arms, custom machines, [23:05] The answer is still looking a little bit unknown. [23:08] but we're [23:08] dabbling in all those different aspects today. [23:11] How do you do R&D on that? [23:13] going to these [23:14] robot companies and seeing like, how are they selling you? I'm really curious. So [23:19] Ben

[23:20] Shanahan, my co-founder, is leading up kind of this AI and robotics team, and he's going to all of the [23:27] robotics companies, whether it's on the software side, whether it's truly on the hardware side or the modeling or anything too. And we're kind of getting this glimpse of the puzzle of like, we are the most manual manufacturing [23:38] assembly portion of [23:39] any single product line. [23:41] and seeing what works out there, what are the biggest differences or biggest gaps in this [23:45] sector. [23:47] and then figuring out who are the right partners to. So for example, like our first step is like, [23:51] creating vision systems for the entire company, [23:54] to start gathering the data and also figuring out like utilization of the team too. So if someone says, [23:59] how [24:00] how efficient is your technicians? It's actually impossible because as I have hundreds of technicians, I can't go stare at each one and figure out [24:09] who's sneezing at one point, who's going to the bathroom at another point, who's, you know, talking to their friend at another point, it's impossible. [24:14] So we actually created this vision system in the factory to [24:17] start [24:18] almost tracking all the little things that everyone's doing, but like doing it automatically. This wouldn't have happened three years ago. [24:23] It's doing it today because of the technology we have. And then it's going to be maybe another few years, there's Dexterous robots that say, I can go put in [24:32] you know, makeup on my face. And it's like, that's actually a very similar dexterity thing. [24:37] you're finding a very complex feature to go build off of. And it's like, we're gonna keep going down into the direction too. [24:43] But ultimately, [24:45] the future of American manufacturing is not just automation, it's configuration. And so we're putting a lot of effort into [24:50] How do we configure all of these systems in the future

[24:52] versus just programming it once calling you to aid. [24:55] because out of the hundreds of miles of wire harnessing that's on a plane, there's still hundreds of unique wire harnesses, and that's also just [25:02] one company in one vehicle and Sandra wants to go build for everyone eventually. So, [25:07] Let's talk a bit about the talent on the team. Obviously you and Ben founded the company, you came from SpaceX. [25:13] We're in the, I don't know, is this a valley of SpaceX? We're in like literally wherever. Everybody in aerospace and defense is really kind of congregated now. [25:22] but you recently just brought in an industry legend [25:26] Ken Venner, who was the chief information officer of SpaceX. How did you bring him into this and what else are you hiring for? [25:34] Yeah, so we are incredibly lucky to have Ken and he is a breath of fresh air of like what we need to go build over the next few years. But [25:43] Ken built the operating system that helps scale [25:47] SpaceX from hundreds of people to thousands of people [25:50] and did the same thing at Broadcom in the 80s. And so he's just like, [25:53] the legend of [25:54] how do software systems enable scale? [25:57] and enable this new type of efficiency for manufacturing companies too. [26:01] Um... [26:03] It was really important because like we were hitting a wall on so many of our different operations of like, [26:09] we need to give [26:11] everything has to be in our digital system. [26:13] for [26:14] buying parts to tracking inventory to even working with a customer. [26:18] that [26:19] it wasn't actually the building the software is a hard part is like, [26:22] knowing what to build.

[26:24] and what direction we need to go build that product line into. So Ken is just [26:28] saw the vision instantly of like, [26:30] This is a company that will be [26:33] 10x its throughput based off an operating system, not just 1 to 2x. [26:38] Kind of how it happened was one of our recruiters [26:42] reached out to Ken and was like, there's this wire harness company [26:45] Would you be interested in just being an advisor? [26:47] and [26:49] I met Ken on like a Tuesday. [26:52] We had a lunch in Newport Beach that weekend. [26:56] and then sign the offer, [26:57] and then next week he was hired. [26:59] and [27:00] It was a really quick process, but we were very [27:04] gung ho or [27:05] Maybe that's not the right word. [27:07] We were [27:08] very confident in his abilities from not only just being a legend in the space but also like [27:12] he saw the vision day one, which is like, [27:15] see all these people working around us. [27:17] And you can just see how efficient they are and how [27:20] they're always having hands on harnesses, what we like to call it, where they're being incredibly efficient with their time, based off of the operating system that you won't necessarily see in the physical world. [27:29] but it has this huge effect on the physical world too. And, um, I kind of always look at, you go back to like the culinary examples of like, [27:38] Making pancakes is really easy, but the hard part is finding the recipe and the ingredients and the setup of the pan. [27:45] but flipping the actual pancakes is not that bad. [27:47] It's just... [27:48] everything that's around it is the hard part. And that's kind of what harnessing is. [27:52] It is still a very difficult process per se,

[27:55] and complex. [27:56] But if you can figure out how to get all the inputs simplified into a very streamlined process, [28:02] and making it so like, [28:04] can me and you can go build. [28:07] A harness? [28:08] That's really the ultimate goal. [28:09] And so what roles are you going to be hiring out for? [28:12] We are going to be hiring more software engineers to continue to build the operating system. Technical program managers is a really big one too. Someone who's going to be the interface between the customer and the manufacturing site. And this is really one of our value adds is like you get to go talk to someone [28:27] who is [28:28] an extension of all these companies and their teams of [28:31] you need a harness i don't care if you need it faster than your current supplier it's half broken i need to go fly to wherever you need to to go talk about the uh manufacturing process like [28:40] we are going to be [28:42] the most white glove service in this industry as much as possible. [28:45] We're hiring more technicians, manufacturing engineers. So we have a whole plethora of whether [28:50] you don't know what a wire harness is, and you're hearing this podcast for the first time, and you're just like, "This seems like a cool company, I'd love to get my foot in the door." [28:58] Come build harnesses. Four weeks later, you'll be building harnesses for all the big aerospace defense companies. [29:02] If you are working at a prime or an OEM or anywhere else and you're like, I would love to be on the other side, on the supplier side, but really seeing kind of that [29:12] Uh, [29:13] new age portion of it, which is not just built to print, it is [29:16] working as this extension of these engineering teams and being this embedded partner [29:20] That's really what we're going for too. [29:23] You obviously knew this when you were at SpaceX, but when you started the company, obviously there's like a lot of

[29:29] There's a lot of adrenaline involved. [29:31] Were you just looking at everything and being like wire harness, wire harness, wire harness? Like, how was that? And are you noticing that with your team too? Are they just like excited about this or seeing how... [29:44] wire harnesses are literally in every product we use? I think so. I think it's two things. One, [29:51] I didn't grow up being like, I'm obsessed with wire harnessing. [29:54] I grew up [29:55] being [29:56] starting my career off as a technician at the Santa Monica Pier fixing roller coasters. [30:00] And then also as a bartender and a bouncer and like on the customer service side. So this company is kind of the [30:06] best of both worlds which is like [30:08] I love customers and I love kind of delivering some product. And then I also love manufacturing. [30:14] And... [30:15] What I kind of fell into at SpaceX was a little bit of everything, which is [30:19] Here's harnessing. [30:20] I got to go move into [30:22] a little bit of a broader scope where I got to see [30:24] a lot of the supply chain that went into it [30:26] And what kind of got me obsessed with harnessing was, [30:29] It's [30:30] so difficult to change this entire industry to make it 10x better, because there's so many little things that have to happen to make this kind of like raise the entire ship at the entire time. [30:40] But the other thing, portion of it too, is like, it's all doable. It's all in my head. And I kind of have the, like the master plan, uh, either, uh, in my head or an investor text or some board meetings or anything else like that. But it's like, we are going to be the ones that really change this entire industry because we're going to be. [30:56] constantly raising the ship or

[31:01] every single time there's a paper cut, [31:03] We're going to put the bandaid on it. We're going to fix it for the long-term ride. And then, yeah, I think it's really cool to see wire harnessing everywhere. When I'm on a plane, you'll see it. When you're seeing a generator, when you're being mic'd up, when you're in the car, anything else like that. I even had a rat eat through my wire harness in my car and the Toyota dealership was, this is going to be $5,000. I'm like, you're talking to the wrong guy. I will go fix this myself. But like, [31:27] Everybody has a wire harness story, which I think is really funny. And when we're like, [31:31] going talking to the government or going to talk to even these primes [31:35] It's really a simple case of, [31:37] Raise your hand if you ever [31:38] been hurt by a wire harness and most people are like, yes, it's done X, Y, and Z to me. [31:43] And our problem is to go fix all of that too. With $100 million in total capital race to date, you have collected some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley from Sean Maguire of Sequoia, [31:54] to Paul Kwan of General Catalyst to Dellian at Founders Fund and now Lower Carbon and Interlagos. [32:01] But there's one name that I find so interesting that co-led your Series A. [32:06] Or did he lead it? [32:07] Ah, co-led it. He co-led it. [32:09] And this name [32:11] It's very interesting, keeps on popping up with these companies in LA. One of them was Revel as well. It's Dylan Field. [32:18] So how did he get involved in Senra and what was the investing process like? [32:26] Uh, [32:27] I got connected through Dylan Field, through one of our investors. [32:30] And I have always been a fan of him personally because he's like the dream CEO that I want to be, which is,

[32:37] so level-headed, [32:39] an amazing operator [32:41] has been through so many different [32:43] storms and processes of like building a company for 13 years. [32:48] And this is just the beginning for Figma too. [32:50] And this is just the start of it, which is crazy to think about. So just as an operator-- [32:57] I'm a huge fanboy. And then [32:59] got to meet him, share the vision of like, this is why I'm obsessed with harnessing. And we were [33:04] talking about making the Figma of wire harness design. This is two years ago when we want to digitize a lot of the inputs into our factory. So I spent a lot of time with him on this is how we're building the manufacturing side. This is how we're building the software side. And we went on, you know, some long walks. We spent a lot of time in the factory. [33:23] And then one day I was like, I'm going to go out to fundraise. And he's like, I would love to put in some type of allocation in the round. [33:31] And then [33:32] you know, long story short, ended up co-leading it with a [33:35] CIV, which is another really great investor of ours, has been incredibly helpful throughout this whole process, too. [33:42] And I think the advice I got [33:44] Um... [33:46] early on was [33:47] choosing the right investor is really important, but also choosing the people you really want to build this company next to. And, you know, [33:55] you respect [33:56] all of the lessons they've learned or all the things that they've built in the last few years or [34:01] the path they've taken is incredibly important. [34:04] as much as I can learn from great operators like Dylan and great investors that we have in our cap table,

[34:10] the more successful sender will be. [34:12] Yeah, he's the coolest. [34:13] He's the best. - Really cool. - Yeah. [34:16] Speaking of cool, how did you come up with the name? [34:19] People, there's some rumors around here. You're a big fan of a podcast. [34:25] Sadly, I've never actually listened to the David Sennacher podcast, but maybe I have to. [34:31] Senra is just the word harness backwards. [34:33] We just took out the H and the S because we're deleting the horseshit of harnessing. [34:36] Oh my god, seriously? [34:39] Yeah. [34:41] *sniff* [34:42] Were you high when you came up with that? No, we went back and forth actually with Jay was a really big component of coming out with that name. So Jay was our first investor in Senera. [34:55] And me and Ben and Jay spent a lot of time trying to figure out the name [34:59] And it was just, we went through so many wacky names. [35:03] and then [35:05] My personality is I like to keep things simple. [35:10] you know, [35:11] from the dinners I eat to the manufacturing floor I build, [35:15] So what's like a very simple name? It's like well [35:18] The company also has a very simple philosophy of like take a [35:22] really fragmented and bespoke process and just use common sense to make every single part of it better. [35:28] or delete the horseshit. [35:32] - The phrase I always say is like, the horse, the bullshit's over. Like, and that's kind of something we always have here. It's like, if it takes 20 minutes to go do this thing, how do we do it in one minute? How do we do it even faster? And like, that's how my mind will always work. So it comes from the name.

[35:46] Delete all the horseshit. [35:47] whether it's in a wire harness, [35:49] or anything else we go build. [35:50] That's hilarious. Also, you guys should like [35:53] sponsor the wires that he uses for his podcast. I would love to. So there needs to be some sort of integrated strategy there. I'll give him the shirt. Yeah, that works too. Okay. As we wrap up and thank you so much for letting us in here. I know you're building out an 80,000 square foot facility. This is insane. I can't wait to see what it looks like in like [36:16] maybe a month or three months we have active [36:19] construction going on behind us the whole time. We've cut a couple times. [36:23] a lot of patients. [36:24] So thank you very much. [36:25] But what are you most looking forward to in the next 12 months? [36:31] I'm most looking forward to where we build factory number three and, uh, [36:37] all of the growth we were going to have in the manufacturing and the [36:43] customer sector too. [36:44] I just want to build. [36:46] The world needs more wire harnesses, and I want to build every one of them. [36:49] Do you think with the SpaceX IPO, more people are going to be throwing money at you? [36:54] - Possibly, but I also just think it makes it where people worked at SpaceX, including me, for the mission, [37:03] and want to work on a really challenging problem. [37:05] And I think now with the SpaceX IPO, people will have [37:09] Beep. [37:10] more liquid. [37:11] And I think people are actually more scared of like, oh, people are going to retire this, this, and this, and you'll talk to Ken.

[37:18] I think it actually makes it more... [37:19] do you have an interesting problem to solve? [37:22] and [37:23] can you go bang your head against the wall to actually solve it too? I mean, that's going to be the exciting thing. So whether it's [37:28] The capital markets open up more. [37:30] or the talent pool opens up more [37:32] I'm excited for both of it. [37:34] So AI harnesses are so hot right now and you're in the middle of it. So how do you choose between Anthropic or OpenAI? [37:41] - Yeah. [37:43] What? [37:47] It's the biggest thing. Everyone's talking about what? [37:50] AI harnesses. AI harnesses? Yeah. [37:52] Um... [37:54] You're creating all the AI harnesses, right? All of them. [37:58] Yeah, every single one of them. What's the most popular one? [38:01] Ha ha. [38:03] - Okay. [38:04] *laughs* [38:06] Um, [38:07] you [38:07] Are you bullish or bearish? [38:09] uh... [38:11] I'm incredibly bullish that AI will go build the harnessing. [38:15] *laughs* [38:16] The company should shut our doors and we'll have OpenAI build our harnessing soon. Okay, so you're team OpenAI. I'm team OpenAI. I like to support the OGs. So I know we covered a lot and I made some dumb jokes, but is there anything else that we missed? [38:32] - The President and the President, the President, [38:32] I think the one thing is... [38:35] What drives me every day for this company is [38:38] People just need more warehousing. [38:40] uh... [38:41] the world's becoming more electrified. [38:43] We need more of everything that requires power and data. [38:46] And I think we're one of the only companies there

[38:49] that is taking a [38:50] really strong stance into making this entire [38:52] industry better, from the manufacturing, the design, to the engineering services we provide. [38:59] And [39:00] if Center doesn't exist, [39:01] I think it will be very difficult for us to scale [39:04] not just the industrial base, but any of the critical systems we need to go build here too. [39:08] Wire harnesses. [39:09] in nuclear facilities, in data centers, in space data centers, in satellites, in cars, in [39:16] What else? [39:17] coffee makers and generators and hair dryers and hair dryers. [39:22] Yeah. [39:22] Without wire harnessing, nothing turns on. [39:25] Wire harness. [39:25] It's life. [39:27] - Okay, thank you so much Jordan. - Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, this is great. - Ken, thank you so much for joining. - Oh my pleasure, I'm so excited to be here. - We just had an amazing sit down with Jordan, we went through the company, we talked about you joining the team. [39:42] You have a legendary career. You're at Broadcom. [39:45] Then you were at SpaceX, then you've done a couple of space companies since then. [39:49] So just-- [39:50] Like, I think it would be really interesting to maybe [39:53] Let's start first with why did you join Senra Systems? [39:57] Yeah, I was really excited about center systems because cable harnesses [40:02] is such a large, fragmented, unautomated business, and yet it's the backbone to everything that's being built today. [40:09] There isn't an autonomous vehicle or high-tech piece of equipment that doesn't have sensors, actuators, and computers. [40:15] that all need to be connected together [40:17] through a cable harness and most engineers, it's the last thing they think about and the last thing they wanna build.

[40:23] And yet Jordan looked at this and said, this business is ripe. [40:26] for consolidation, [40:28] and improvement and he's just making the right investments to scale up and scale out a business [40:33] And scaling up and scaling out are my core skills. So like when I was at Broadcom, [40:37] I joined them and there were a thousand people, 400 million in revenue. [40:41] and the goal was to scale. [40:43] And we, in the 11 years I was there, grew to 10,000 employees and 8.6 billion in revenue. [40:50] did 52 mergers and acquisitions. So it's all about finding markets and growing reliable, repeatable, scalable businesses. [40:57] And I think we can do that again here. [40:58] What's going to be your playbook? [41:00] - Playbook is get it defined, get it working consistently and reliably in such a way that you can now replicate it and then go out and replicate it multiple times and then every time look for ways to improve what you're doing. [41:16] make that improvement, [41:17] And then, [41:18] move it across the entire organization. That's exactly how we did it at Broadcom and it really worked well. [41:23] And it was very similar to how we did SpaceX, which is bring automation to the table [41:27] to help people do the right thing at the right time and have the system provide them the right information [41:33] at the right time. [41:34] and then scale [41:35] the company without scaling all the employees, literally to how the company is growing. [41:40] So both Broadcom and SpaceX are having a bit of a moment right now. [41:46] I guess if we look back at Broadcom, to your point, you helped scale that company up. [41:50] And it, [41:51] reached a massive

[41:53] inflection point. [41:54] So what were the biggest lessons that you learned there? Yeah. [41:59] The biggest lessons are each size you are as you grow. [42:03] requires a different behavior from the company. When you're 10 people, [42:06] It's a network of us just talking to each other. I need very little processor systems. It's smart people just doing the right thing. [42:12] You get to 100, you need a little more process but not too much. [42:16] and then you get to 1,000 and you need more process, [42:20] But again, not too much, because you can constrain a company by putting too much process in too early and stunt the growth. So you always have to assume smart people. [42:30] stupid systems, let the right people do the right thing in the moment. [42:34] but track them. [42:35] how they're doing it, what they're doing, and make sure they're accountable for the actions they're taking. And then you get to 5,000, 10,000. It's like everyone knows the piece they know, but they don't understand how a whole business works. [42:46] But bringing that information together and presenting it to the top level people so they can understand how the whole company is operating together. [42:53] is kind of the focus. [42:55] Broadcom's growth path, and when I joined SpaceX, it was again about a thousand employees, [43:00] producing about one booster a year. [43:03] and through the years of growing up Warp Drive, the custom platform we built there, [43:08] We scaled it up to 40 boosters a year and 9,000 employees across multiple locations. And it was just that... [43:15] continuously look at how people do what they do and then collect and present the right information at the right time. [43:21] How did you make the decision to go to Broadcom to SpaceX?

[43:25] Broadcom to SpaceX. So Broadcom to SpaceX was a pretty simple one. The company had gotten big enough that it wasn't really innovating anymore. It was kind of just operating and I get bored in those situations. I'm not really a true... [43:37] just run the system about continuously improving the system [43:41] And the CFO at Broadcom at SpaceX was an ex-Broadcommer that I knew. He invited me up one day. [43:47] to just do a tour of the factory. I wasn't looking for a job, but he invited me up. I did this tour of the factory, which is [43:53] in Hawthorne, downtown LA-ish. And here they are building... [43:57] big metal objects, it's almost cheaper than anyone else in the world [44:01] in downtown LA and I'm like, well, this is crazy. But I have manufacturing in my blood. [44:06] My entire career has been in manufacturing. I'm like, this is a pretty interesting place. I have no idea who they are, I don't know what they do for a living because SpaceX wasn't a name back in those days. [44:14] and they're an hour at least away from where I live. [44:17] So he offered me a job and I'm like, I don't know, I want to drive an hour up to this place, but [44:21] It was such an interesting story that Elon was going to [44:24] save humanity from itself by colonizing another planet. [44:28] because we're going to screw this one up and we need to keep humankind going. [44:31] And it was another scaling opportunity. So I thought about it, talked to my wife, and in the end decided to bite the bullet, take it. [44:38] It was a great move. [44:39] And so you're a chief information officer there? Chief information officer working for Elon and Gwen. Yep. [44:45] So I built all the systems and IT technology that drove that business. What was the day-to-day like? I just... [44:51] Day started at 5 o'clock in the morning, driving up to Hawthorne, trying to miss the crowd, getting in by 6:00.

[44:57] and then working with all the various groups in the organization to define how they were operating and making sure [45:03] We were not only collecting the information, but we were presenting design changes they were making up front and their impact on operations and making it very apparent very early what was going on. [45:13] so that you didn't get to a certain point and go, like, that design change just cost us $5 million to implement. They knew [45:19] as it was going through, so it was a very tightly coupled system. [45:23] that kept everyone working together and then just trying to scale the business. [45:27] I was like, you know, [45:29] because they had a visual, a purchased application he wanted to build. [45:34] the digital nervous system for the 21st Century Rocket Company. And I'm like, I started that way at AT&T early, early in my career building because no purchase software existed. [45:42] and the opportunity to build it again, I'm like, this is either the smartest thing or the stupidest thing we've ever done. And I have no idea right now whether this is smart or stupid. [45:50] And I'd say for the first two years, I didn't think it was such a smart idea. [45:54] by year three when we really had the software working well and the company was really using it. I'm like, this man is a genius. [46:00] He figured out what we needed to do, how we needed to get it done. It became [46:03] one of the major differentiators for how could [46:06] how SpaceX could scale. [46:08] and keep all the information together and connected with each other. What do you think the key components of Elon's magic is? Number one is first principles thinking. Eliminate before automation is clear to what he's saying. And... [46:22] remove before automate [46:25] is an activity and then just holding people really accountable and driving them. The whole concept of a responsible engineer is what I learned there and that person

[46:34] owned that part from [46:35] first requirements all the way through to post-flight. There were no handoffs. [46:39] there's no finger pointing either. You got it done, [46:42] or you are no longer employed. And that kind of accountability, and that everyone else is serving you getting your part through the process, [46:49] really created ownership. [46:52] Like, and the people there worked 10, 12 hours a day, and didn't think about it. Like, it wasn't like we were required. It's just like, [46:58] You're looking around at 7 o'clock at night, and nobody's left yet. Like, I'm not going to leave yet. I need to still finish the thing I'm working on. And so, [47:05] long hours, but really committed to the mission. And Elon was really good about keeping the mission [47:10] as a forefront focus for what we were doing and just kind of energize everyone to get it done. [47:15] I know Elon is obviously a big spotlight of SpaceX, but I haven't heard many stories about Gwen and what it's like working with her. Oh my God. What was it like? What are the biggest lessons that you learned from her? So, Gwen was to Elon what Henry was to Nick at Broadcom. [47:34] Nick was the aggressive, make it happen, drive people, [47:38] to the very last ounce of juice they had, [47:41] And Henry was pick up the mess that gets created, help people figure out really what they're trying to do, make sure everyone's. [47:48] safe as they go forward, I'd say Gwen is exactly the same thing for Elon. Elon is just very driven, very focused, very motivated, very [47:57] uh, [47:57] hard to work for. Never worked harder in my life than when I worked for him and Gwen was [48:02] as [48:03] driven as Elon, but in a nicer

[48:07] way that helped the company keep moving forward and not just burn everyone out as they went. [48:11] But [48:12] Brilliant, brilliant. Knew where to focus, what to do, kept things going when Elon would go, [48:17] up and focus on. [48:19] Tesla, the boring company and that kind of activity. [48:22] She was like the glue that held it all together. [48:24] with [48:25] such a strong culture like that, [48:27] How does that impact [48:29] scaling it. Does it make it easier or harder? Yes, it depends how strong it is and replicatable. I'd say for the time that I was at SpaceX, they were able to [48:38] to sustain the culture. [48:40] as it grew up. [48:42] They hired... [48:44] promoted, trained to keep that accountability culture in place and that [48:49] outcomes-based culture. [48:53] in place while we were going there. I've been at other companies that [48:55] did it really well when they were small and as it scaled up it didn't scale with the company [49:00] And then the company became much more [49:02] corporate-ish in its behaviors and characteristics where the outcomes weren't as important as [49:08] the PowerPoint that you created or the people that you know. [49:11] Because [49:12] SpaceX is now... [49:14] reaching critical stage with the IPO for [49:17] wealth creation and kind of the benefit back to the employees. I know that this has happened over time with secondaries and tenders. [49:24] But this is one of the largest wealth creation events ever. [49:27] Why are you still motivated to keep working? [49:31] What would I do if I wasn't working? [49:33] I don't know. Right. That's the question. I don't have to work. [49:35] Having left Broadcom, I didn't have to work anymore. I left SpaceX, really didn't have to work anymore.

[49:41] I like interesting problems. [49:42] with interesting people trying to make a change that benefits mankind. And so... [49:48] Senra was just that unique opportunity for me to come in and take [49:52] a dormant market that I think is critical. [49:55] to what's about to happen in the US economy or the worldwide economy and really make a transformational change. [50:01] And Jordan gave me that opportunity and [50:04] I've been here six weeks. [50:07] And friends ask and I'm like, every day is a great day at work. I feel blessed to be working with this group, creating what they're creating. [50:14] Like to me, this is the second example. [50:16] of building what they built in Redondo. [50:19] And until you built it three times, you don't know if what you've built will replicate itself. So number two is just the beginning of all the things that worked at Redondo that don't work down here. Say that model doesn't really work because it was [50:30] Locationally oriented, so now we got two. [50:33] We got something as soon as we build the third one, I think we'll have a rinse and repeat model and then [50:38] Games on. Like we're just going to go into this industry [50:41] increase the speed, reduce the price, up the quality. I think it's just a very exciting time. [50:47] This is obviously a little bit of a... [50:50] a little bit of a reach but maybe it's not when we had we just recently had tom mueller on yeah and we were doing a tour and he's like oh yeah it only takes three [50:58] versions of an engine to get it right. And so maybe it's the same with the manufacturing facilities. It could be. I mean, the law of threes, it could just be the third time you got it and they're [51:09] in different locations.

[51:11] forces, as I think Tom would, to the engine. It's like, [51:14] three different versions of the engine the first one just got you go on the second one you learn from the first but not enough and then third one it's like all right i think [51:21] finished fixing this and then just incremental tweaks from there. I think in what we're doing, it'll be the same thing here. [51:28] Because the industry has [51:31] significantly changed with AI and automation [51:36] The way you scale businesses now is dramatically different than before. [51:40] throwing more head count at it, but now we're [51:44] throwing really talented headcount at it, [51:46] and then also automating some of that backend [51:50] with [51:50] technology, AI, all this kind of stuff that's happening. So how do you imagine [51:56] companies now scaling up with this new mix versus just purely [52:01] - Yeah, yeah. [52:02] Something like SpaceX and Broadcom? [52:05] AI didn't exist, and so it just took longer and it was harder to build the systems and the documentation. [52:14] and [52:14] figuring out where the automation opportunities were, and to digest the data to figure out where the trends were. [52:20] Like at SpaceX, I had grown up to having a team the size of about 175, building the core platforms. I got a team of six here. [52:29] I don't really think it's going to scale much more than maybe one or two more people. And I think I'll be able to do exactly what I did. [52:35] at SpaceX with only six because AI drives most of what we're doing. And AI is now starting to enable things we weren't even capable of doing

[52:45] where it's SpaceX. [52:46] That's one of the areas. And then you just look at machine automation or robotics. [52:51] and the ability to cost-effectively apply it. Like AI is just driving the cost down and the speed up. [52:57] associated with finding unique ways to apply [53:00] technology to help humans do what they're great at. [53:03] and getting the mundane, boring tasks out of the work that we do. [53:08] What do you think of the name Senra? [53:11] I have no opinion one way or the other. I don't know how Jordan came up with the name. So he just told us. Oh, so like you should tell me that story because I actually don't know the story. [53:19] They took the word harness [53:22] Okay. They took off the H. No, this is what they did. They took the word harness, they flipped it backwards. They took the H and the S off because they don't like horse shit. And all that stuff is... And that's the name. It's Hart Sandra. Wow. [53:35] I had never heard that story. Good way to come up with a name. Names are so hard to come up with. Like I've got a winery and getting the name for the winery was incredible. [53:42] No way. Where's the winery? Up in Sonoma. So if you're up in the area, please come visit. It's Auteur Wines. [53:48] So we're both in Healdsburg and in downtown Sonoma. What kind of wine is it? [53:53] Pinot, chard, rose of pinot, and sparkly. [53:57] That is so fun. It is such a great business to be in. How long have you been doing that? [54:01] since '09. [54:02] Oh my god! For a while and we're just starting to scale right now so it's a great time. [54:08] It's both a great time and a terrible time to be in the wine business. Like it's a shrinking market, but we're growing share in a shrinking market. [54:15] It's good side project. Yeah, it is. That's the other reason I work. Wineries are not cheap and I need some money to fund the winery.

[54:21] I guess people always find something to do. They find some side hustle to go do. Well, awesome. Okay, so... [54:28] As we close out, what are you most looking forward to in the next 12 months working with Sunra? [54:34] I'm looking towards the scalability of the company and the simplification of it and the ability to show [54:42] how a dormant business [54:44] can literally apply technology to be a transformational change in this particular industry. [54:49] Amazing. Well, Ken, thank you so much for walking through your legendary experience. [54:54] why you decided to join Senra, and of course, really excited about your winery. So everyone go check that out. Please do. Thank you. It was a pleasure. [55:03] Thank you. [55:03] All right, Jordan, what's the plan? So I'll show you part of our production facility. This is only 25% built up. [55:10] So everything around us will start having more tables, more machines, more automation, [55:15] over the next few months to really fill out the space and we planned it to be [55:19] almost at 100% capacity by the end of the year too. [55:23] So starting off here is a dedicated production line for one of our defense customers. [55:27] We're building actually 4,000 plus of a unit [55:30] uh, [55:31] weekly. [55:31] and this is where Senra did the prototyping early on. [55:36] stepped into production. [55:37] and be able to scale very quickly after that too. [55:40] are each one of these [55:41] Bay is a different customer. How do you organize it? Yeah, what's really nice about the center method is that each one of these bays is a different customer, different harness. Harnessing [55:50] It's so high. [55:51] mix in the sense of like,

[55:53] You have a SpaceX rocket and it has thousands of unique wire harnesses and now [55:56] Not only do we build for maybe one of those companies, but [55:59] hundreds of them in the future. [56:01] We need to be able to say, we can go do a production run and spend a week, a month, a year on that production line. [56:06] and configure the whole thing in a few hours versus [56:09] you know, [56:10] weeks or years to be able to do it too. So that's why a lot of harness production is [56:14] You find a few people who do it. [56:15] they just do it over and over again, and it's hard for them to go switch to a new product line [56:19] because all of the tribal knowledge and setup takes so long too. [56:22] So when you see all these different product lines around here at different bays, [56:27] we're constantly changing what we're building. [56:28] based off of what the customer needs are too. So it's being as agile [56:33] and configuration [56:35] configurable as possible for the customer. [56:38] It seems like such a satisfying job. [56:40] You know, back in my day, [56:42] I made some wire harnesses, I told you in the interview. Yeah, yeah. [56:45] Um, [56:46] So you could see different bays, [56:48] different groups of automation, but they all look very similar. [56:51] which is like, [56:52] If you come back here in two weeks, you'll see an entirely completely different harness being built. [56:57] and we'll [56:58] you know, ramp up the rate of how we build it. [57:00] and then change a lot of the tooling, fixturing, harnessing programs [57:03] but everything's being built on the operating system. So you look around, [57:06] Most people are building everything with their hands. [57:08] uh, [57:10] The biggest secret sauce is that [57:12] They're not looking at a drawing or trying to find a tooling or anything too. They're incredibly efficient because [57:17] the operating system is giving them that perfect recipe and that silver platter instructions every single time too. [57:22] So most other companies you might see,

[57:24] would actually be [57:25] here's a piece of paper or the printed out email from a customer [57:28] and you're kind of [57:29] pushing the technician to go figure it out and build it. [57:32] without the actual proper resources to do it. [57:35] How are the assembly lines [57:38] organized. [57:39] And then [57:40] In terms of the talent here and the training, do you start with simpler ones and then work up to more complex ones? [57:46] I mean, I'm looking around and some of them look super [57:48] complex. [57:49] Yes. [57:50] Typically when people start here we get them on more of the simplified systems [57:54] to get their [57:54] reps in [57:55] but everything is all different shapes and sizes too in the harness world. What's pretty incredible is that most of the people around us [58:02] I've never seen a wire harness a few months ago. [58:04] and now they are [58:06] ramped up building high quality harnesses with our [58:08] different systems and the manufacturing platform we built today. [58:11] So what's really great about all this too is that like [58:14] It's a very configurable system of like, they might start on some simpler ones. [58:17] the beginning [58:18] But then they're building really complex things, you know, very shortly after too, to kind of after they got their reps in. [58:22] And most of the people here [58:24] or trying to build that 10 year career of, [58:26] going from apprentice technician [58:28] to [58:28] more senior technicians over time. [58:30] So what are we doing here? All right, so this is called a wire crimp and this is all done by hand today. And one of the hardest parts is visually inspecting it. So you have to look at this really tiny thing. [58:42] smaller than like a fingernail. [58:45] and figure out, does it look good or bad? [58:47] And this is all done by hand today by very skilled, [58:50] inspectors who've been doing this for [58:52] 20 plus years. [58:53] So one of the things we've been spending a lot of time on is like this like AI

[58:57] in robotics sectors like how do we also get rid of this kind of inspection portion of it because harnessing [59:02] is incredibly critical for turning things on, but also [59:05] the quality output of it too. [59:07] and to be like a little morbid, [59:09] Like the reason why the astronauts signed the Apollo 1 mission was like, [59:12] a small nick on a cable jacket of a wire harness. So like even the smallest [59:17] Uh... [59:18] Nick [59:18] or cut on the wire harness could be very detrimental for the whole system itself too. [59:23] So what you see here, [59:24] is he built kind of our own system of [59:27] This is a very high rate production order for a defense company. [59:30] And [59:30] If you look on the screen, [59:32] I'm putting in [59:33] this thing called a wire crimp. [59:35] And you can see it's measuring [59:39] what it looks like [59:40] And instead of visually inspecting every single time, [59:42] I come over here, I hit capture, [59:45] And then it actually... [59:46] will tell me if it failed or not. [59:48] And I don't actually have to have anyone inspect this thing anymore. It could be the operators and technicians on the production line saying, [59:55] Do I have good or bad quality? [59:56] And this is really important as you continue to scale of how you not just scale with people, but better process and more [1:00:02] efficient manufacturing methods too. [1:00:04] - And so what is it actually, is this like a thermal camera? What is it looking at? - This is a 2D vision system. [1:00:10] looking at a picture [1:00:12] of one part of a wire harness [1:00:14] and saying, [1:00:16] this does not meet the inspection criteria or the design intent of the company itself. [1:00:21] Thus, we need to fail this. [1:00:23] and then alerts the technician [1:00:24] We can go throw it away, we can rework it, we can go do more training, but this forces

[1:00:29] us to say we have less human error in the process [1:00:32] for such a manual manufacturing method. [1:00:34] And where do you and how do you keep the standards for what each one of these different harnesses [1:00:40] you're looking for. [1:00:41] And that's a great question. [1:00:42] The reason was really important for us to build this manufacturing operating system for the get go. [1:00:47] So if we started just kind of down this path, [1:00:49] it wouldn't have been helpful because we would have done it [1:00:52] and then we would have went back to the old methods because it's just been faster to have someone else manually inspect it. [1:00:57] Now, once we create these programs, [1:00:59] It's in our custom manufacturing system. So we can just rinse and repeat this every single time. [1:01:04] We're taking all this data of good and bad wire harnesses that we build, [1:01:08] and have this kind of giant library of [1:01:11] we are training a model to say, this is a good, this is a bad. [1:01:14] wire harness. And so whether it's a wire harness from [1:01:17] YOU KNOW, I THINK I THINK I [1:01:18] an airplane company to a missile company to a [1:01:21] automotive company [1:01:23] they're all sharing very similar data of like what a good [1:01:26] wire harness is and what a bad wire harness is. [1:01:27] and we're the ones [1:01:29] really collecting all that data to actually make a perfect quality output every single [1:01:32] Okay, so we'll go through each of these different sections and see how it's made? Yeah, absolutely. Today's episode is sponsored by VCX by Fundrise. [1:01:41] the public ticker for private tech. [1:01:44] allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. [1:01:48] Learn more at GetVCX.com. [1:01:51] Some of you may not have heard this yet, but our sponsor Public just launched something called Generated Assets, and it brings AI into investing in a way I've honestly never seen before. Here's how it works. You type in an idea like AI-powered supply chain companies with positive free cash flow or defense tech companies growing revenue over 25% year over year. Public's AI then dispatches a swarm of agents that scan every single US stock, evaluates them, and instantly builds a custom index around your thesis. What really stands out is how clearly it explains

[1:02:21] why each stock is included. And before you invest, you can even backtest your idea against the S&P 500. So you're making decisions with real context, not just guessing, [1:02:30] And beyond generated assets, Public lets you invest in stocks, bonds, options, crypto, all in one place. They'll even give you an uncapped 1% match when you transfer your investments over from another platform. If you want to build a portfolio that actually reflects your thesis, visit public.com slash sorcery. Paid for by Public Investing. Full disclosures in the description. [1:02:51] Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit Deel.com slash sorcery. That's D-E-E-L.com slash sorcery. [1:03:07] So you mentioned when you started the company you would travel around with machine with you and a big book. Was the selling process harder then? What is it like now? [1:03:19] Selling customers is, [1:03:21] maybe not the most difficult process in the sense of like, [1:03:25] we built our, our, a lot of this word of mouth. So, [1:03:28] I didn't have a sales team until four months ago. [1:03:31] Oh my god. [1:03:33] - Really? - So we didn't have a sales team until four months ago. [1:03:35] because it was... [1:03:37] one, people just hate wire harnessing, but two, it's like, [1:03:40] if you're building a good product, [1:03:42] people will know about it and you need to [1:03:45] you build a good product. [1:03:46] people want [1:03:48] more of it too. [1:03:49] So, [1:03:50] that is... [1:03:51] part of the sales process. Also, it's like they come here

[1:03:53] And it looks very different than your typical factory where like, [1:03:55] There's a lot of automation. [1:03:58] Uh, [1:03:59] very organized big buckets and bins of material. [1:04:03] You have people who are technical experts like me and the manufacturing team that they can go call at any given moment. [1:04:09] of the day. [1:04:09] So, [1:04:10] with customers. I think it's more about [1:04:14] hearing them and putting your money where your mouth is. [1:04:16] But in the beginning it was [1:04:18] I would knock on these people's doors and say, [1:04:21] Give me your worst harness. [1:04:22] and I will build it for you versus [1:04:24] give me your [1:04:25] biggest program and biggest production volume and let me go jump into that because [1:04:29] I want to grow with them as well, too. [1:04:32] I have a dream. [1:04:33] What is the difference between [1:04:36] BETWEEN THIS AREA OVER HERE. [1:04:37] So this is all inventory management. [1:04:39] - Okay. - So with harnessing, it's kind of like Legos where [1:04:42] you need [1:04:43] you know, [1:04:44] either tens or hundreds of unique parts that go into it. [1:04:47] because it's an assembly process. [1:04:49] And so [1:04:50] What we do is that we have [1:04:52] as parts come in and we do all the ordering and management material here, [1:04:56] people are kidding every single last piece that goes into a harness. And because our systems are so critical, [1:05:01] everything from those. [1:05:03] fastener and washer and the connector and wire [1:05:06] It has to all be tracked. [1:05:07] versus [1:05:08] just one part that we kind of mold together to. [1:05:12] We got a nice fan action here. We do, yeah. [1:05:15] - Got your face. [1:05:16] So if you didn't have... [1:05:19] your role as [1:05:22] CEO,

[1:05:24] What role [1:05:25] would you want [1:05:26] here. [1:05:28] That's a great question. [1:05:29] I... [1:05:30] I think... [1:05:31] the, [1:05:32] my dream role would either be [1:05:35] purely [1:05:36] on like sales and business development. I love talking to customers. [1:05:39] I love helping them. [1:05:41] have them call me in the middle of the night and we go figure out their biggest problems. [1:05:45] or something more on the operating side of it of like, [1:05:48] really focusing on the technology to make [1:05:51] the manufacturing team, [1:05:53] more effective. [1:05:55] And like, it's [1:05:56] a never-ending problem because we can always [1:05:58] do better, build faster, [1:06:00] make more technology to speed every single part of the process up to. [1:06:03] What is on this table? [1:06:05] Uh... [1:06:06] This is a 120 foot long harness that goes [1:06:09] into a defense system. [1:06:11] and [1:06:12] We got called in the 11th hour to go build this thing in two months. [1:06:15] because they are blocking a multi-billion dollar program. [1:06:19] and then we are building it today. [1:06:21] So, harnesses will be-- [1:06:24] as long as this [1:06:25] long table to as small as fitting in the palm of your hand. [1:06:28] Wow. So all different shapes and sizes. [1:06:30] We'll make sure to blur that out. Yeah. [1:06:35] Okay, so the 25% that's built out is obviously over here. [1:06:39] I mean, you have a lot more room to go. We'll go look over here. Is it going to be like kind of the same [1:06:46] structure of where the different bays are. [1:06:50] and then spread out, are you going to have, like, are they going to be pods

[1:06:54] Like how does it work? [1:06:56] manufacturing is all common sense. What we want to do is like [1:07:00] get all the material management along this kind of [1:07:03] one row right here. [1:07:05] where it's easy for material to flow in from the bay doors, and then goes immediately to production over these bins too. [1:07:11] So, [1:07:12] on either side of these pillars will just be more [1:07:15] manufacturing footprint for what we build today. [1:07:17] Um... [1:07:18] And then the real goal is to be able to scale in different sectors, get even more shifts of people going through this too. [1:07:26] I [1:07:27] But one of the biggest learning lessons I have for building this company is we continue to run out of space. [1:07:32] started my apartment, ran out of space there. [1:07:35] started in a smaller factory in Torrance, ran out of space there. [1:07:38] within a few months of being in Redondo, we ran out of space. And so [1:07:42] We really built this [1:07:43] for kind of all the demand we're seeing. And also we want to be able to scale with our customer growth too. We want to be able to tell them if they need a 10X their throughput in the next few months, we are right there with them to do it as well. When we talked to Ken just now, it was funny because we were talking about Tom Mueller too, but he said, [1:08:01] It usually takes three tries, rules of three. So once you get to the third factory, you'll figure out if this really [1:08:07] we'll scale and hit the road. And then and Tom, you know, he was talking about the different versions of engines. He's [1:08:14] the Merlin engine man, and he said it took three tries. [1:08:18] They got to a really good engine and now it's all over the place. [1:08:22] But yeah, so that's my little analogy. Yeah, I think it's something similar where like the...

[1:08:27] initial factory build in Torrance was like [1:08:30] just try to brute force and make it work. The second factory was like, [1:08:34] Inverdondo. [1:08:35] "How do you standardize the system?" And this factory is like, "Can you truly scale it?" And then once you figure out how to truly scale it, [1:08:42] than it is copy and paste. And like, how do you kind of make this a [1:08:45] copy and paste model of like [1:08:48] manufacturing skilled assembly. [1:08:50] So how are you dealing with air conditioning? [1:08:53] We were planning to put [1:08:54] company in called Big Ass Fans. Seriously? Yeah, that's what it's called. These giant fans that go overhead too. [1:09:01] Well, at least you're not in the valley. Yes, exactly. I don't know why. There's a lot of facilities over there. I don't know why. It's super hot. It's really hot. Yeah. [1:09:09] It's like always 100 degrees. [1:09:11] Ha ha. [1:09:12] I think it was a manufacturing company part of the [1:09:16] secret sauce that's not actually that secret is like can you make a good working environment for the people who are here so it's [1:09:23] the air conditioning, [1:09:24] the snacks, the [1:09:25] records on the wall, things like that, that just make people feel comfortable. [1:09:29] this is my home and I want to be able to come in here and feel comfortable versus the bathrooms aren't working or [1:09:35] there's, you know, you don't have coffee and you're tired that morning. Like it really becomes like, how do we give them the best tools with technology and the best workplace [1:09:42] environment too. I will say you have a really good selection of snacks and beverages over there. I did [1:09:48] Take a bar and a piece of gum [1:09:51] And I had a coffee, so. [1:09:53] Satisfied customer. I'm very satisfied to be working in here today and I'll be here until midnight.

[1:09:59] - Perfect. - Well, thank you so much. I'm excited to see the 75% [1:10:05] get billed out, maybe we come stop by when that happens, and check in on quality control. - Yeah, absolutely. [1:10:12] I'm watching. [1:10:12] Yeah, you're an expert now. I'm an expert. And if you have not checked [1:10:19] out or sit down version yet. [1:10:21] We did a sit down interview with Jordan and then we also did [1:10:25] a sit down with Ken who just recently joined. But thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Cool. [1:10:30] Amazing. [1:10:31] Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, Sorcery.vc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.