#78 Ben Cartwright: The Second Life of AI Hardware Will Become a Big Market

I thought it was very interesting because you had spent, was it, I don't know, several years in Asia, right? In China? I

lived in China for about six years total.

Okay.

Yeah.

So just give us a little bit of the background of what landed you there and is that kind of how you got your first foray into the whole world of electronics recycling, demanufacturing?

In a roundabout way, yeah.

I was single and I was living in Colorado and I just wanted to, I'd lived there for 10 years and I wanted to experience living overseas.

And I kind of traveled around the world and looked at a few places and I didn't want to move to China at first.

I just wanted to see the Great Wall.

And, but when I was there, I met other Americans that were living in Beijing.

I remember one guy in particular, he was like, man, you got to move here and learn Chinese.

And I'm like, I don't want to, I don't really want to learn Chinese.

You know, I didn't really want to learn.

That wasn't part of my journey, like learning a language.

It was one of the experiences.

And he's like, no, man, you learn Chinese because it will unlock whatever you want to do for the rest of your life.

He said, you want to live in France? You get a job because you speak Chinese in France.

You want to live in Africa? You can get a job where you can use your language skills to live in Africa or America or China or whatever you want.

And you kind of had this conversation.

And I'm like, hey, this does make a good point, probably.

So I committed to it.

I moved to Beijing, learned Chinese.

And then I really loved how it opened up the culture, learning about the culture and their history sort of firsthand.

I could read something about history and then go visit that place and touch it and feel it and smell it.

And I loved it.