Alexander Blum of Applied Bioplastics talks bioplastics pricing, manufacturing & profitability

Certainly.

So speaking about my industry particularly, I mean, I would love to be able to discourse on nuclear or other, you know, sustainable energies and whatnot.

It's just not my domain.

So I'm going to stick with materials.

The first problem, and this is going to upset some people, so prepare yourself for angry comments, but...

Scientific leadership is not business leadership.

Scientific leadership is highly important to our industry.

We cannot do any of what we do without the leadership of scientists.

However, in my experience, and I think the record shows that scientists don't typically make good business leaders.

Right.

There is there are so many other skills that you have to have and science is extraordinarily specialized.

Right.

You need to have charisma.

You need to be able to raise funding.

You need to be able to sell product.

You need to be able to financially model.

You need to be able to understand your market and customers.

And often that is not the case with scientific leaders.

Right.

However, who else should get the benefits from something the scientists invented, right? In a fair world, the scientists would create something awesome that the world needs.

People would pay them for it.

Everybody goes home happy.

But that's just not how it happens.

One of the problems, the biggest structural problem that should underpin everything else I'm about to say is that plastic is the most important invention of humankind.

It is the most important.