Episode 237: Lithium Confidential (Interview with Chris Berry)

Hi, it's Joe Lowry. Welcome to another episode of the Global Lithium Podcast. Today is episode 237. I am the guest on this episode. I am interviewed by many-time podcast guests and the gentleman I call the voice of reason Chris Barry Chris is uniquely qualified to interview me he was one of the first people to read my book. He's a voracious reader and to be honest when I sent him the manuscript before I submitted it to be printed I was a little bit nervous about whether he would think the book passed muster and getting Chris to say, "Hey, yeah, this is really something worth everybody in the Lithium industry should read this." And I then I asked him to write the blurb for the back cover because I really respect the fact that he's a very well read individual. So his support just encouraged me that maybe this book was actually readable. The challenge in doing a memoir that's really focused on not just Lithium, but on the expat experience, what it's like to take your family to two very different countries on the other side of the world and in raise your kids in different cultures. I try to cover a lot of ground in this book. That's why it's so long. And I originally designed it to have short chapters so that in this era of shorter concentration spans and social media cycles. I felt that having shorter chapters making them easier to read and I literally did have the vision of people buying the book and as I advised it the fast markets event. If you don't want to read it all the way through, it's a choose your own adventure book, but a great way to read it is to just put it in your bathroom. And when you go in the morning or the evening to do your business, it's about most of these chapters are long enough to read. In the time frame, you're sitting on the toilet and if you do your business twice a day at home, in 50 days you'll be through all 100 chapters. Some of the chapters are a little too long for that, but many of them you could probably do two chapters in one sitting, so to speak. I wanted to thank fast markets for thinking of this book. Several months ago I was asked whether I would want to talk about the book and do a book signing at this year's fast markets event. And of course, that was a great opportunity. I just wasn't sure at the time whether the book would be available. And we tried to make sure it was out in the world by early June and we were able to accomplish that. The only difficulty we had is that there were a lot more people that wanted books at fast markets than I was able to get books there. So apologies to people like YJ Lee who had asked me to sign a book and by the time I saw YJ, the books were all gone. But just to clarify, this is the book is out there. You can get it on Amazon Kindle or you get paperback via Amazon. But if you live in a country or a place where it's not easy to get items from Amazon, if you have a local bookstore, I have a secondary printer that distributes through a worldwide network and bookstores, Ken order that way. Or if you're so inclined, ask your library or it's available to all libraries as well. The challenge that Chris and I had was we were allocated 45 minutes, generously allocated 45 minutes at fast markets. But this is a book that covers my 35 year history in the lithium industry and my life before I got into the lithium industry, which is admittedly the very short part of the book. But the fact is that a lot has happened in this industry over those decades I've been involved in. The real challenge was to meaningfully discuss a 500 page book in 45 minutes. Chris was very well prepared and asked really good questions. I have to say that I was watching that clock and thinking I was trying to cover a lot of ground and answer Chris's questions in a meaningful way. But I really wasn't up to the time challenge. So there's many other questions that are asked that are only partially answered. And that's just a nature of again trying to cover a very wavy book in a very compressed time period. I do want to say a couple of things before you hear this is that some of the questions and some of the people I talk about, it was just impossible for me to give Chris meaningful answers that had sufficient nuance. And if you read the book, it is much clearer than some of my answers on this podcast. And I'll give a couple of examples. I talked about the joint venture partners I dealt with in Japan and particularly the owner of the chemical company. And he was a unique individual. He's no longer with us. And I certainly don't want to sound disrespectful in any way because I'm a very, very big fan of the Japanese culture. And I think if you read the book, that really comes through. But in this podcast, when I talk about Mr. Hanjo, it was a challenge dealing with him because he did feel he was a very special person. And he did feel or made me feel like I certainly wasn't worthy to be doing business with him. And anybody who knows me knows I'm pretty competitive in that that didn't play very well with me. So my comments about Mr. Hanjo shouldn't be taken as any indictment of the culture. And Chris did ask me about two people in the question I'm referring to. And the other one was a gentleman named Maraisan. And I, because of the time crunch, I didn't really have time to fully develop that answer. And I just want to say this, Mr. Maraisan, as I always called him because I always showed him respect, was really a seminal character in my learning how to do business with Japan. And I can't say enough about how much I respected him. He passed away in the last year. He was 27 years my senior. I was still playing golf with him up until a couple of years ago. And I believe that he had more impact on my success in Japan than anyone. And that would be closely followed by my Japanese teacher Shima Sensei. And I talk about her significantly in the book. And she remains a friend to this day. And I just wanted to give that context because some of the comments I make in the interview may sound like that I was negative on the culture a little bit. I wasn't negative ever on the Japanese culture. It's sometimes hard. When you've moved to Japan, there's a lot of ways you have to modify your behavior. And there are a lot of ways that people think they're going to change Japan. But Japan changes everybody that lives there. And I think I certainly experienced that and for the better. But I didn't want to mention specifically Maraison because I didn't really fully answer that question. Chris asked. And this is just out of absolute respect for what Maraison did for me personally and for my career. And he was just a great, great character. And when you read the book, if you read the book, I think that will come out. There were many others. But the other one I would say was our other partner in Japan, Nihon, Kakaogu, Kogyo, Mr. Yamaguchi. And well, starting to name names gets dangerous because there's also probably one of the best stories in the book was about my first trip there in meeting Sembason. But I don't want to give everything away. So you just have to read the book. The other thing I really wanted to make clear is that I deeply respected both cultures that I lived in. And China was very, very different than Japan. But not better, not worse, just different. And in this interview, because it was in such a compressed time period, I don't think I articulated that. The way I would have. like to. I do talk about my driver Philip who remains a friend to this day, part of the family. And that we were blessed to have Philip in our lives. He was, he certainly was much more than a driver. And there were times when I gave him assignments that I literally had him represent us in some smaller cities, meeting with like the head of the Communist Party. And they didn't know he was my driver. And he had heard me talk about FMC so many times. He could, he could do it in his sleep. And, and he did. And I, I talk about one of those occasions in the book. And it really was a big part of the last year of my life writing this book. Much more so than the podcast because I do the podcast a couple times a month. It's a, it's a few hours in an effort. Writing this book was a big part of over eight months of my life. And I had to go through 35 years of notes. I had to do a lot of fact checking. I had a lawyer go through it. As I say in this interview, my daughter's counsel, she essentially made me take or didn't make me, I, I heard vice, I took 20,000 words out of the book. She says, dad, you got a lot of great stories, but you don't need to tell every one of them in this book. And that really brings me to another point that this book is just, is much about family and expat experiences. Is anything else? And one thing I learned very early on was to listen to my family. And since I've had global lithium and since I've tried to do the podcast and other media, I really learned from my daughters because they're just better at it than I am. And you know, my daughters were in it before I was. And my wife is the best public speaker in the family. And I, yeah, it's, it's, it's humbling to be the least talented person in a family of four. But I think I certainly fit that description. I think you'll, you'll get something out of this. And as I said on the last podcast, if you listen to that, I am asking for the order. I am asking you to both buy this book, whether you buy the Kindle version or the paperback version. And I'm also asking you to go on and write a review because that helps the whole process with the podcast I never asked for stuff like that. I don't believe on any podcast I ever asked people to subscribe or to like it, maybe in an early episode, but I don't think so. You know, if I'm wrong, somebody I'm certainly, I'm sure will DM me and tell me that on episode three, I said, please like the podcast. The podcast was a hobby. Still is a hobby. It's been a very successful hobby. But writing this book was a lifelong goal that I finally accomplished. And so I want to thank again, fast markets and Chris Berry and without further ado, Chris Berry talking to me about lithium confidential. Zolanda's offers technology and services that support both direct lithium extraction and conventional evaporation ponds, minimize the environmental impact of your lithium site through Zolanda's data driven insights and tailored solutions for each extraction method. Go to Zolanda's.com for more information that's ZEL ANDEZ.com. Thank you all for joining us at the end of day two for what promises to be a no-holds bar. I tripped down memory lane with the one and only Mr. lithium, obviously having written a terrific book. Let me probably not be the first to tell you that the way in which it's written is really. This is a lot of emotion and I thought it was a wonderful written book. So congratulations. Thank you. And for people who don't know, when I started the podcast in 2017, Chris was my first guest and there was a reason for it because he is the voice of reason. It's probably why I'm sitting here today. So thank you for that. And we'll get into that. I want to talk about the podcast, but maybe to start again, you know, the book, when I read it, I felt like it was divided into into two halves. The first half being the beginning, right? And we'll talk about that in a minute, up to FMC and then the second half is of course right around when we met 2015 today. And so they're both very interesting because they really describe where you are in your life. And so to start, you grew up the youngest of six in a two-stop light Irish Catholic town. You were mowing lawns by six cattings in junior high. How much of that hustle and the wanderlust that defined your career that we find out about in the book traces back to that upbringing? Well, my real travel inspiration was I had an uncle named Joe Lowry and he was multi-lingual naval officer during the war and then he lived in Johannesburg. He lived in Japan before I lived in Japan. So I was in the first Joe Lowry to move to Japan. And he only came back about every two years. But I love the stories. I love the idea of just being able to travel. And then at 43 he was number four in Pepsi. He quit and became a Catholic priest, which was kind of a non-standard move. He was an interesting guy, but he was, he was my inspiration. But the hustle part is when you're the youngest of six back in those days. You got knocked around a lot and dinner was competitive. Interesting. So in 1982 in the book, I believe you had mentioned that one of your New Year's goals was to write a book. So 40 some odd years later, but I will do you can't be more than 45. I am 69. Wow, almost almost there. I'm ancient. I'm like a cornerstone. You're timeless Joe. You're timeless. But 40 some odd years later, you've obviously accomplished that goal. And so what did finally sitting down to write lithium confidential teach you about your own story that you hadn't seen while you were living it? That's a great question. And it really gets to the heart of why people, a lot of people have asked me this week, you know, why do I do it the book? What'd you get out of right in the book? And then I had 35 years of meeting notes from my time at lithium. So I had a stack. And when I say a date and a meeting, I met with Gangfan and I met with TNC here, I met with it's from meeting notes. And re-living that I had forgotten how I mean this industry's changed so much. I mean China was in a full panic when I arrived because green bushes was in receivership. They couldn't get spot. SQM had cut Gangfan off because the market was better in other places. And so the white guy that just moved to Shanghai was like the only representative of the Western lithium world. And I just had to say these three people coming in and needing lithium. And watching that start play out over the years watching Gangfan, TNC, all those people that I was meeting with all the time, reading those notes just reminded me of how dramatic the change. You know, everybody knows how big TNC and Gangfan aren't out. And so the first gang weeping was the first lithium billionaire, Lealand, it was the second lithium billionaire. But I knew when they had nothing. Which they would go back down memory lane. And the irony was Gangfan went public in 2010. And I was still living in China running FMC's lithium business. They asked me to be on the board. And I said, well guys, there's this thing called conflict of interest. And I really appreciate the opportunity. I should equate FMC that day. I should have gone on to get Gangfan board. I would be a very rich man if I had I'd done that. But you won some. You lose some trust for a long. Oh nice. So let's continue with the sort of the beginning arc. Before lithium, there was a virus, the Moussa company. There was an FBI agent named Jules knocking at your front door and a handful of other memorable moments that I won't spoil so people can read about them in the book. What did those early experiences, those very experiences teach you about how to read people and how to how to play within the system? Well, my fire extinguisher, I took the drawings for the flight line fire extinguisher for the S-16 I was not a technical guy, but I took that from. from drawings to the first article testing. I got to do the fire test myself. I could do a lot of force base, to get the ratings, you know all that. But the guy I worked for was one of the classic entrepreneurs, who was always trying to gain the system. And I didn't really know all the things he was doing, but when the FBI came to my door and wanted to talk, you don't say no to the FBI, but this guy was kind of like, he's in Jamestown, New York, which is a very small town. And if you're in Jamestown, New York and the FBI, you're probably not a real player. So he, a bunch of papers in his hand, he started asking questions, I figured, okay. I'm not in trouble, he made it clear I wasn't in trouble, but they wanted to know if I could give him any insights. And I wound up doing, I testified in a huge lawsuit. But this guy who owned the Fire Extinguisher Company was a very large man. And the most exciting thing that happened during that time is he pointed a loaded shot gun at me and he was not happy when he was doing it. And I didn't think he was gonna shoot me, but I didn't really want him to sneeze either. You know, I, so, you know, when I got out of the grass and I just went into my first mainstream job with an oil company, the guy asked me if the job was really interesting to me. And I said, well, I've had some interesting experiences before this. I always would tell that story. - Interesting, so, all right, so Oil and Gas and now let's talk about when you came into the lithium world of lithium business. You came in as a self-described being counter, exiled to a basement office greeted by the original Mr. lithium, a gentleman named Jerry Orison with what he, and I think his first words to you apparently were, another being counter is just what we need. - Yeah, Jerry had already retired in this consultant, but he was still like the alpha male. And he saw me in the hall and he was like, "What are you doing in here?" - So he's sort of a, not necessarily an obstacle, but wasn't exactly welcoming with open arms. The HR told you flatly, you would never do sales without a chemistry degree. So how did you navigate those barriers and sort of break through that wall? - Yeah, I mean, the feedback I got was stay in your being counter lane and I just wasn't willing to do that. And fortunately for me, all the original founding guys of the lithium world were transitioning out. FMC had bought the company. They were bringing FMC people in. They even considered me an FMC by a person, even though I had only worked for FMC Gold for 14 months before I came in. And I waited until the leadership changed and I started making my pitch about getting out of the basement where the accounting guys were and getting a real job. And I was invited to be in a corporate boom-doggle type to exercise and trying to do what they call the balance scorecard, which was BS, balance scorecard, BS. And what I got to be on the team that did it as the only financial guy and then I just selling myself, - Leverage that. - Got to let me out of here. And they gave me the opportunity. - Okay, and so they gave me the opportunity. You grabbed it with both hands. - The lithium in the early 90s was a tiny, clovey, two producer world of poles and swaps and selling customer-assured competitors material under a different product number, which is stories which, if you can elaborate on, what did operating in that tiny oligopolistic market that culture teach you that still shapes how you think about the market today? - Well, the lithium was a lot easier back then because this is really before much material came out of China and that only went to Europe to the low end of the grease market. It was, what's now Apple Marl and what's FMC lithium is now part of Rio and we were the only two, as QM had to start it yet. And almost all our customers had a dual-sourcing policy and they were only two of us. So you did it for your rocket science scientist to have at least some share. You'd have to be pretty bad at not you. So I like the structure of the industry because I'm gonna get a chance to succeed in a environment where the customer might be able to cut me from 40 to 20% share, but he's not gonna cut me to zero because his policy won't allow me to do it. - He can't. - Sure. - I mean, it was like, I'm no dumb. It just is like shooting fish in a barrel until I get to QM came in. - Then we'll get to how the market has evolved here in a few minutes, but I wanna talk about your family because that is that theme and the individuals, your wife Connie, your kids factor, I think significantly in success of your career, your career in general. And again, I think that learning about them and everything that they went through during your career was one of the most meaningful and memorable parts of the book. And so, you've mentioned, I can't actually envision this, but you've said you were a natural introvert. - Yeah. - You used to bring a book to parties. - Yeah, that was real. My wife hated it. We would go to parties and I would bring a book and I would like find an empty room and just, she'd come and find me. - Life of the party. - Make me, so you're, as you say in the book, your wife Connie was much, she was far better at the social side of the business, the press and the flesh, the relationships. - Yeah. - How central was she to building the customer relationships that became your edge? - Well, back in those days, Lithium was just, it was such a small world, and you knew your customers really well, but we had industry association meetings. - Was this an agent at this point in time? - No, no, no, this is still in North Carolina. There was the TMS, the NLGI, the, you know, the Fritz association, and we were members of all. But I would go and Connie would be the life of the party. It made it easy for me, 'cause, but, I had to overcome my shyness, but I used to carry, when I first started meeting customers, I used to carry a paper towel in my pocket to wipe my hands off before I shook hands. And I did that for probably the first six months. - Wow. - Yeah. - Interesting. - Another family question. So, you know, you go from North Carolina to Japan and later to Shanghai, that meant that your two daughters grew up as what I believe you call third culture kids. - Yes. - And Connie, absorbed what you also call that hidden cost of a global career. And so, as you look back at that career and your family and the growth in Japan and China, what do you think that life gave them? And what do you think it cost them? - It gave my, my wife had a great time. I mean, that is very apparent in the book. My wife played Helen Keller on Japanese national TV. And I said, "How can you screw that rule on?" And we did PlayStation Voices as a family. I did MLB, X Games, all those kinds of things because they needed native English speakers. And my wife became the president of the PTA. We moved in the middle of the year. We arrived on February 29th, 2000. And by March 15th, my wife was running the PTA, parent teacher association at the international school. And then she would, towel agents would come lying, white kids, and for commercials. And my wife said, "I think you need a 12 year old door. "We should, I got him. "You need this, I got him, "but anything my family can do is mine." So, my kids, the English Voices online, and the English tapes did. When my younger daughter was seven, the first year we were there, she had a photo shoot for a kid's fashion catalog. And then when we got it, it was called Penthouse. But it was, as an actual photo shoot, I don't remember that. And that's every father's dream. You want your seven year old to be in Penthouse. It was just, it was a fun life because I started learning Japanese and earnest. Well, before I got there, I started the tapes. And then I had a great teacher. My teacher's great uncle was the Lord Proofy Seal, who was number three in the Japanese War Machine. And that I could not have had a better, she had great perspective, and she also had, she had the old, the old book that everybody I did business with, she could tell you whether they were a player or not. Didn't she turn you away? No, no, no, no, she just made me, I had to go and I had to interview. And I'm 42 years old. And she said, I don't take everybody. And she usually just teach grad students. And I knew enough, like, you know, my very childish Japanese at the time, but I knew enough and she knew I had really studied, well, I don't think he did that. But she didn't want me to take the equivalency test until I was thirty for a year. And I said, well, I just want it. I wanted to do it after seven months because they only give it once a year at that time. And she said, well, this is an bridge club. So what you're going to do this, we're going to, we're going to, two hours and one on one, three days a week. And if you've ever studied, you, you're in your 40s and you're studying foreign language, one on one with a teacher who takes no nonsense. It's, that was probably the hardest part of my job. Wow. Thanks for that. So this episode is also brought to you by MLC. Are you looking for the highest purity calcium products to produce battery grade chemicals? Look no further. MLC is your reliable partner. Check out line4lithium.com for more information about MLC's calcium solutions and expert support. That's L-I-M-E, the number four L-I-T-H-I-U-M dot com. Bouncing around a little bit, but so we're in Asia, the lithium story shifts east almost by accident. With Sony commercializing lithium ion in your Japanese partner Hanjo, really pushing FMC to wake up and pay attention to what's happening. How did you end up being the one to follow it to Asia when global or corporate had really meant everywhere except Asia? Well, at the time FMC thought the future lithium was organometallics and pharma and anionic polymerization. So, we've looked at them and they didn't believe the battery thing was ever going to happen. They said, you know, we've heard these kind of stories before. So that's why they just let me have it because they didn't think it mattered. And that was just when the battery took off. So I couldn't have been luck here because for the next 10 years, they still thought this battery thing's never really going to go anywhere. And their whole strategy was predicated out of the downstream. And I got to do the upstream and I kept, once I moved to Japan, you know, I was meeting with the battery guys almost weekly. And you could see in Japanese we're changing their cell phones every six months because the battery's got better and the screen's got better. And we were still using nickel metal hydride in the United States. So it was an interesting thing because I just had access to a story that my peers didn't have. Because we were still using those old Nokia, it is with the, you know, the brick nickel metal hydride batteries over here. Crazy. So, sorry, go ahead. No, I just, it was, it was still tiny, but it was growing really fast. And unless you were over there, you wouldn't have any idea, right? And I had, from 95 to 2009, when every six weeks, and then they just said, well, she just moved over there. But they didn't move me over there for battery. They moved me over there because our partners in Japan were ripping us off and they do it. And my job was to fix the joint ventures. It just, the stars all aligned for me because they thought what I was doing was super strategic. They would have had somebody else do it. Interesting. Because I didn't fit the profile of what they thought a commercial guy should be because I wasn't a cameo heroine, you know. And I was willing, I was willing to go. Which is a big part of it. That's interesting. So that's a great segue. You mentioned joint ventures and partners. I want to focus on that now as you're building your career and establishing those relationships in Japan. So Hanjo had lectured you on, quote, the spirit of 50/50 while you kept pointing to the signed agreements. And so Moraison, and maybe you can explain who these gentlemen are, told you to rely less on the letter and more on the spirit. So because that served them well, if I can, he could be to do that. How did these two individuals really teach you, maybe inadvertently, in terms of how to operate inside Japanese and Chinese culture? Well, Mr. Hanjo was grandson of the founder and he was in his 70s when I started going. He believed himself to be the elite of the elite, the special and the special. And literally, to him I was a guy, a gen dog. A salary man, not really worthy to be in his presence on a regular basis. And you know, that doesn't really go over well when you're really, you know they think they're better than you are. And he bragged that he lived through the war but he never had to go to war because he was so special. He wore out the war in a bunker, which I always see like, does anybody else know this? I mean, I was always just surprised that when I knew the culture and what I experienced, when I met with Sori, they treated me wonderfully. But this guy is running a little chemical company. He's a partner with an American company and he's just like, why do I have to deal with you? You're not even the top guy. And I just managed to ingratiate myself with the rest of their team and ultimately he knew he had deal with me and he did but he never liked it. Interesting. So one of my favorite lines, from the entire book, is Trust Compounds Faster Than Capital. And so in a business like Lithium, which is when it was so relationship-driven, how have you seen that play out? What are some examples that you can share with us and how do you build that kind of trust across cultures and across decades? The best example I have is when Tesla first was starting in Symmental Mental Mental Mining was making their cathode and Tesla always gave them exaggerated numbers and the cathode guys always worried about it so they always wanted to make more. And they literally, the first year of Tesla having cars on the road, they claimed they needed 65% of our hydroxide capacity. And I said no, you know. But I said, if you want to sign a take-and-take, I'll let you sign up. And I was charging them, just to put some context into the numbers. Esquivel was 7 on hydroxide for 5,500 and so was Abel Marlon. I was charging them 8,500 because they couldn't be our spec. And then I later to take her pay on it. And the contract we did literally said that on price escalation, in the event we didn't agree whatever I said was the price and they signed it. And they only do that if they trust because I said I will never take advantage of you and I will never enforce this take-or-pay as long as I can get rid of this stuff. Guys like me get fired for giving one customer 65% of our capacity and they don't take it. And that relationship, that trust, I got contracts that they wouldn't sign now, but they signed because by the time I was doing this I had been 7 or 8 years with them. I was then living over there. And we usually our company would switch guys in a couple years and those are evolving. I was a consistent presence and they trusted me. Talk a little bit about the differences in culture and negotiation between Japan and China. Oh, this is my opinion. Based on my experience, people that have also experienced may have had different experiences. But for me, the Japanese would always, they never told you exactly what they thought. You always had to just figure out between the lines. They never wanted to say no. It's almost not in a little capulair. It's like, oh, this will be difficult or some euphemism. And in China, it was always very clear. I mean, you know, we were being used to pound his pricey wine and his calculator and stick it in my face. And I could say yes or no. The Japanese never did stuff like that. It was always, but you always knew that if you weren't really careful with the Japanese and that's why even after I learned Japanese, I would never speak Japanese in a meeting because it's a less direct language. And I would speak without translation in English because if I spoke Japanese, then they say, well, you know, that word means four things and we just took it to mean that. So, in the world, just a lot of moving parts to a business. But to me, the Chinese was still a confusion culture, but it was more directness. At least in my relationships, then the always subtle subtleness of the Japanese. So, what about relationships outside of business? I mean, you write a lot about your driver in Shanghai, a general name, Philip. And he actually said to you once, I don't care if China and America go to war, I am your driver and your friend. So, what do relationships like that that aren't directly business related? What do they teach you about what endurance when corporate structures aren't at play? Well, that was one of the most interesting things to me about the man on the street in China when I was living there was Philip, was a high school graduate, but he hadn't gone to college. But he knew more about American history than the average high school senior. He would ask me about Nathan Hale. or he asked me and the whole culture knew more about us and we're curious about us. And most Americans went over there and I just wanted to be a lower in English and not get their hands dirty. So Philip, to me, was my barometer of, if I had a question about something that was going on, I didn't ask my staff guys because Philip would also say to me, if you don't learn your tones better, nobody but me will ever understand your Chinese. And the average Chinese would just say, "Oh, it was almost like Japan. Everybody said how well you spoke, but they had no idea what you said." So that was a little different. But yeah, Philip was a huge part of my life, but the other thing was, if anybody's been to Shanghai and written on the maglev, Philip was the driver of the guy from Thesson Crouple put that in. And those guys called him, his English name was DVD. And then he worked for a guy who ran Gillette over there. And that guy, he said, "He treated me like the steering wheel." And I sat in the front with him. I helped him learn English. He helped me learn Chinese. When my daughter gave the senior speech, which she graduated from high school, we got extra tickets. Philip sat down in the front with us, and all the wealthier Chinese parents, you know, Asian parents were not happy that my driver was in the front row with us. Because he was part of the family. So let's get back to the corporate world. And things are moving along. You're in China now. Let's talk about the end at FMC. Clearly, let's do career-depining moment. Is Eric here? No, no name. Your time there ended when I might characterize as rather unceremoniously, you, the main redundants, and you came home that night, and Connie referred to it or refrained it as a Christmas present. 100%. And so-- I did not feel that way in that moment. Of course not. Absolute. It's a shock to the system, but how did getting let go turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to your career? Well, I called myself a dead man walking in, that's in the book. As soon as I came back, because I had really not had a boss for 11 years. Well, I had-- I talk about one of my bosses who tried to get my shorts a little bit, but my bosses were pretty much-- I'm over there. It's a different times. I'm as long as things are going well, which is keep us updated. And I thrived in that environment. I did-- I literally felt like I had my own business. And when I came back, it was like people always thought I was living in communist China, but I came back to politically correct America. And the first week I was there, I had a yellow sticky on my desk when I got back from lunch, and somebody had done an audit of my industrial hygiene. I was told my keyboard wasn't at the right height. And this was like-- I said, we're like China now. We're like, this is like the equivalent of a DUNS cap that has somebody put a yellow sticky on his A. We need a unit of lift or keyboard up, but that's what they were doing then. I moved back around Christmas time. And I said to my assistant, who was the same assistant I had when I left 11 years prior, I said, "Cathy, I need some Christmas cards." And she looked at me and she goes, "It's holiday cards now." And I said, "Cathy, you and I both know all the closets in this building, and you know damn well, there are Christmas cards." And one of those closets. And I said, "I got Muslim customers that are going to send me Christmas cards. I got Shinto customers that are going to send me Christmas cards." I said, "I'm not sending them some Wienyats holiday cards." And yeah, it was just a lot of things like that. So I knew I was the typical expat that it stayed over too long. I got used to that freedom and was not going to adjust. And so 18 months later, I was on the street. There you go. Well, so you called your final FMC payout the C-Money for global lithium. You vowed never to depend on a single employer again and realize that maybe 20% of your corporate time have been truly productive. Yeah, that was probably the biggest revolution I had when I was home doing global lithium. And I thought, "Damn, I don't really have to work all that hard." And I thought, "Well, what am I doing here?" And then I thought back to my days at FMC. That was in like six hours of meetings a day and most of them didn't have an agenda. I'm actually working more in a much compressed period of time. And the biggest suggestion I had was I hadn't lost my shyness. So I spent a lot of time talking to people at work and it's me and the dog. That was hard for about six months. But then I was the business guy built up and I was traveling. I was traveling more the first few years of global lithium than I even was at FMC. And I was average in 150 days a year when I was next to that. What was the hardest part of betting on yourself? Was it the ability to sort of leverage your knowledge and network or what were some of the specifics there? Well, you know, you get the axe and I had no like John Evans was one of the first people to call me. And he said, "Okay, sign up for expert calls." I didn't know what an expert call was. But within three months Gangfan had given me a contract and they offered me more than FMC was paying me. And I turned him down because I knew the lithium ion ring was kind of cheap on the fundamental level of his being. He pays me this much money for a year. It's going to be a year. And I said, "Pay me half, but I can do anything I want with anybody else too." And so that's how that relationship started. Then Galaxy and Toyotasou show. Hanzo was actually my first client because they hired me before I was actually out of FMC. And I don't want to misremember what's in the book. But it was less than a year and I was making a lot more money than I had been making in FMC. And in my best year at Global Lithium I made more than I made in my first 15 years at FMC. So it all kind of worked out. So obviously a huge part of Global Lithium has become the podcast. The podcast started. Thanks to you Chris. No, I don't know about that. I was sort of the spring training. Maybe. The podcast started as a hobby. It's still a hobby. You thought it made. That's right. You thought it might run for a handful of episodes. And yours truly was the first guest in Buenos Aires. I mean, what has the podcast given you that either your older career or your consulting never could? It keeps me connected because the guests I have. The real benefit of the podcast usually is what we say before we record and what we say after. Because that's one of the stuff that I can't leave in the podcast is said. And so I have a lot more than just my clients that are on the podcast. So I think having that as another way to stay informed about what's going on has been a huge benefit. But it was just a shock to me because I literally. When I started getting the statistics and I got over 100 countries and I got over 150 countries. And then I ran it through his spreadsheet and Bhutan was the only one out and out on there. Because North Korea came in. I thought, wow. You mean it? Yeah, I really did feel like that. I was like, hey man. I got a rock in podcast. They listened to me and killing me. And excellent stuff. You mentioned earlier your directness or your bluntness. And so your part of your brand I would argue is built on being brutally honest to the benefit of all involved. Even critiquing bank analysts knowing it might cost you work. And so, you know, across your career, what would you do differently and what would you not change? I would have calmed down at a younger age. I mean, I just. I took myself too seriously a lot at the times and I guess, you know, the older you get, you get a little more reflective. And I wouldn't have fought as many battles. I wouldn't have picked my battles more carefully. But the essence of I think what made me successful was honesty. And I didn't always deliver it in a compassionate manner maybe. But, yeah, I just think I would have been nicer. And it's with Tom Benson here. He always. he's been on my podcast a few times. He says, it's nice to be nice. I think my grandfather said it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice. Good advice, everybody. Anyways, we're rounding the bend here. I have a non-book question for you. Do you remiss if I didn't get your thoughts on the market as we're up here at the past markets conference? So, you know, you're end of the Lithuanian winter thesis rests on a simple point that the Western press mists, which is trying to dominate its processing but not resources. even China needs lithium to get more expensive. So with the SSS demand, pardon me, accelerating prices recovering, I mean, it's tripled in a year. Where do you see the market? Where do you see the US versus China supply chain race heading next? I don't think it's a race. Because if it's a race where we got our highly kicked a long time ago, I think the US has the capacity to have what they need as far as for defense purposes, for whatever purposes the government defines. But the thing we don't do that China has done very well is they picked the lithium ion battery, EV supply chain, as one of their national champions. I would say they have put at least a trillion dollars in, and it has 25 years. But they're also dependent. The GATL knows it. I was saying this in 24 that once you get somebody like CT, I mean, it used to be 20 companies where 80% of the market. Now, two companies are 50% of the market. And one company is 35% of the market. Rough terms, though. Come back as they know it's 33.2. I don't really care. Those are rough numbers. And now I end this book, and I actually had to reopen the book to end it. But with CTL, who I had advised in 2016, 2017, 2018, hooked them up with projects, and then they were always just too arrogant to be a little. And that's why Gangphen has Kachari and not CTL. Because I entered the CTL first, but after CTL was too hard to deal with, I just took Lack to Gangphen. So, I mean, I just. I think we're at a point now, or when CTL came back to me in February, and said, "Can you help us get South American products?" And I said, "Well, I could." But, you know, there's some subtleties to it. But that told me I was right when I called it, because no matter what CTL does inside the borders of China, they can't get enough inside the borders of China. And they know the price has to be in the 20s long term, too. But they're still going to try to control it. And I have a lot of respect for that company, but I think to frame it as us competing with China on this, we gave it up. And I think we need to decide what we have to have for our own purposes. But this is like the LA Rams play the junior high team in the Super Bowl right now. And unless we get our shit together, sorry, that's the way it's going to stay. Interesting. Okay, well, let's try. I say that as a problem, Eric. Closing question will end on a higher note here. I know. At the end of the book, you write that you never felt you deserve the title Mr. Lithium. But I appreciate it the irony given how Jerry Orism, who we mentioned before, first received you, as you near the end of your journey here. And that's just. You might disagree. You're staying in fear being staying too long rather than living too early. How do you want this chapter of your Lithium story and your part in it to be remembered? I don't think. The Lithium story is a lot of people. And maybe I have a little dot in the Lithium story. But I did my best with the limited assets I have and did okay. But I just don't want to be like drooling up here. And then you guys have to give me the hook to give me off the stage. My brain still works very well. But you don't want to be the guy who hung around at the party too long. Sure. So again, I want to congratulate you on a terrific book. It's beautifully written and I learned a lot about you and your family. Well, I do want to say something because when I first started doing the podcast, Chris used to talk about books when he was behind. What are you reading now, Chris? Chris is a real reader. I've got your worst dog way. Don Wayne Hunt is in the back and he read the unabridged. Because I cut 20,000 words out of it. It's pretty thick, but I cut 20,000 words out of it. And Don Wayne waited through the entire PDF I said, I mean like two days. And he says, "Don't cut." And so, you know, I would just say, if you have any interest in this book, it's a choose your own adventure book. I wrote it in 100 chapters because people's concentration levels are not what they used to be in my opinion. And I always say the easiest way to read this book is to put it in the bathroom. And when you're going to do your business, my chapters are short. You read it chapter. And if you go twice a day and 50 days, you'll be done with the book. I recommend you read it straight through, but this is a real strategy as well. And I thank Fast Marcus for giving me the time to talk about this. Amazon kind of failed me. I was supposed to have a bunch of books here. I have dispersed most of the ones I have. I have a three or four left. So where can people-- But if anybody wants a signed book and I don't have a book for you, I have stickers I can sign and you can put it in. And that's a viable thing. My daughter Tim Ferriss-- I got a Tim Ferriss on a graph book that way. Wow. Anyway. Thank you for putting up with me. Yep. Thank you 43 minutes. Time and attention and look forward to reading the book again. And again, thanks to everybody listening to the podcast as well. Because I don't know how anybody listens to my voice for 236 hours. But thank you. Faster speed. Yeah. Okay. How many people listen to podcasts in more than 1.0? Still what are you-- One? Oh, God. It's pretty fast. Don't worry about else. 1.2. Okay. Yeah. All right. I'm not there yet. I still just do one. All right. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate you. And there you have it. Some thoughts on the book Lithium Confidential. Again, I hope you will buy a copy. And if you are trying to educate others about this industry, I think this gives people a good perspective on what's happened in this industry since 1990. Thanks again to Chris. Thanks again to Fast Markets for giving me the time and supporting me. The next episode has already been recorded. It was also recorded at Fast Markets. And I talked to Standard Lithium CEO David Park. And that'll be out in the next couple of days. Thanks again for listening.