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David Hammer

David Hammer

Aug 13, 2026

6:42
Your thesis sort of came from a fire safety perspective as well, which is, you know, how do we make this ecosystem of batteries that is supporting the broader ecosystem of delivery, how do we make that safe and effective? How do you think that has impacted the way that you've tried to grow the business?
7:01
Yeah, it's a good question.
7:03
You know, it's worth maybe noting, you know, when I think about where Populous came from, I think a lot of it really came from the observation or the intersection of really a couple different things, one of which was certainly the battery fire crisis.
7:18
The battery fire crisis kind of gave us a motivation, and I think in particular when we think about working with cities, the kind of alignment that we needed to be like, okay, we have the ability to kind of work, you know, to solve a clear and present problem for New York City, right? But I'll also say that that I don't know that the battery fire crisis by itself would have been enough to drive pop wheels, right? There were really a couple different things working at hand.
7:49
And something you actually just hinted at a second ago, which is I don't think we would have been able to make pop wheels work if we also hadn't realized that there was an economic opportunity at the same time for our customers.
8:01
Part of the observation, so your average delivery worker who's on an e-bike needs multiple batteries to work a full day, right? They need usually at least two full charge cycles, if not more.
8:10
And if they, say, are living in the outskirts of the city and delivering in the center of the city, that means they need a place to charge their second battery.

15 MINS LATER

23:06
Once we're there, then

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