this week, elon musk wants to be known as techno king. reaction this morning from eric berger who's written a book about musk's early days at spacex. 3d printing grows up with 3d printed houses. and 5g brings new opportunities for gadgetmakers. that's this week on "press: here." ♪♪ good morning, everyone. i'm scott mcgrew. i have a printer here in my home office. my first guest has a home office in his printer. oakland-based mighty homes prints outbuildings like home

offices using a giant 3d sprinter. it usually takes about 24 hours, and by the time they're done and other materials are added like floors and lights, you get something that looks like this. they can be home offices or backyard yoga studios or a small home for the mother-in-law, what the industry calls an accessory dwelling unit. sam reuben is chief sustainability officer. thank you for joining us. let me start with what problem does this solve? i mean, wooden nails have put up some houses for a good couple centuries now. what problem are you solving? >> yeah. so at mighty buildings, what we're doing is we're addressing the fact that we don't have enough labor to build all the housing we need. here in california we need about 2.5 million units just to be on par with the rest of the country, probably about 3.5 million to actually close the housing affordability gap. because even with covid we're

seeing particularly high rent and particularly high ownership cost. and it's not just an affordable housing issue, we're actually looking at the missing middle. so your firefighters, your teachers, people who serve our communities. but more and more can't afford to live in our communities. >> is that where the bottleneck is, is mostly labor? because i know we're not building houses fast enough in california. but the way i hear it is often sort of the government wanting to slow down sprawl or the amount of homes being built. >> i mean, it's a very complicated issue. when you talk about governments, then you have to talk about the state government, which is really pushing to create more and more housing and actually removing local control in a lot of cases. so then you have the local communities who want to maintain of what their housing looks like while also needing to meet their regional housing needs allocations which are particularly high for this most recent round. >> we started by talking about these adus. but you just recently announced that you're going to build an

entire community in the coachella valley. an entire community of 3d printed houses. >> yeah. we're really excited. it's the world's first zero net energy and 3d printed community. we're able to produce units for about 40% less than comparable quality traditionally built units. we're also to do it with practically 0% waste. we're eliminating 3 to 5 pounds per square foot that goes in the landfill with a traditional build. we're not only increasing the productivity to be able to get housing out faster. we're also doing it in a way that's stable. construction's about 11% of all global emissions. so it's really important that as we solve the housing crisis and really get all these units out there that we're doing so in a way that doesn't further exacerbate the impact on climate. >> when you talk about printing, is it a plastic material? how do you know that -- you

know, we were talking about wood but also brick or stone. we've established that houses made of those materials can last hundreds upon hundreds of years. you wouldn't have data on how long the stuff you're using lasts because it's new. >> so what we've developed is effectively a synthetic stone that doesn't have silica and it doesn't have the same issues you have with more traditional stone materials. we do a lot of work with underwriter laboratories which is one of the world's most respected and third-party certifying agencies. we're testing our material extensively to demonstrate full compliance with the building codes. we've been doing accelerated tests showing outpassing 70 years. that's one thing we're continuing to do. we have units in the fields. we're continuing to check in with our customers there and see how it's doing. but all the testing we've done indicates it will perform quite well over time. >> as far as the adu's are in

place, these are not necessarily inexpensive. i think i saw one that was 300 square feet and it was more than $150,000. you already own the property, so that doesn't include the property. there are a lot of homes in america that cost about $150,000. so they throw the property in for free. >> one of the things you have to realize is things are -- california has high material costs in construction. and what you also have to realize is that that price that you're talking about, 150 plus for a 350 square foot studio, that is an all-in price. that doesn't just include the unit. that also includes the site work, the foundation, the utility hookups, the title and the permitting process. you've got a fully finished bathroom and kitchen with a washer and dryer, refrigerator, cooktop, microwave already comes in as a part of that. so it's move-in ready. >> mother-in-law unit idea, a lot of cities have resisted it

for a long time, and then they realized this is something that needs to be done. >> a lot of cities would still like to resist it. but that's one of the changes that has been happening at the state level since 2017. california has passed a series of bills that has required communities to allow adus as long as they meet minimum standards that the state has established. >> now 150 k for what could be a home office or an adu, i'm guessing you're going to see an acceleration in demand. so not everyone is going to necessarily spend $150,000 on a home office. >> these are not necessarily targeted to be home offices. because the real goal of adus is actually to be rentals and to really create more housing stock. so with the units we're delivering, they actually provide an income opportunity. and also with the really low mortgage rates right now, the cost of getting that funding for that isn't as bad as it would normally be. but we're also seeing people use

them for multigenerational living. and also they need more space. >> all right. sam reuben is the chief sustainability officer at mighty building. thank you for being with us this morning. and "press: here" will be right back.

♪♪ welcome back to "press: here."

what to do with elon musk? a few days ago, he notified u.s. government regulators that he wants to be referred to as the techno king of tesla. for real. tesla filed official title changes with the securities and exchange commission. "the washington post" uncovered data showing workers at his tesla plant contracted covid even after he ordered them back to work after local health officials warned it would be dangerous for them to return to work. meantime, his company spacex continues to launch small sal lights into orbit intending to spread internet access around the world while perfecting its new starship spacecraft that may one day take humans to mars. eric is a reporter. he joins us from houston.

i was in carmel yesterday, saw your book on the shelf. i was very excited that i was going to have you on the show. i want to mostly talk about rockets, of course. but what do you make of this techno king thing? he wants to be known as techno king. >> you know, musk is nothing if not a character i think. so he probably was having a bit of a lark, although clearly since he's filed paperwork he's serious. he's very serious on the spacex side of things for getting credit. his title is the chief engineer of spacex. >> which is interesting because the guy did not study rocket science in college. he came into rockets not knowing a lot of rocket science. >> you're right. he had a physics degree, among his other undergraduate degrees, and decided when he was going to get into rockets that he would read a lot of textbooks and everything that he could basically find. over the years has plenty of hard knowledge in working through lots of issues.

>> i think one of the most astounding things. and you think that i was most impressed by the launch of falcon heavy or maybe the private restaurants going to the iss was the first time he spent a dragon cargo capsule up to iss. a lot of us as kids light up model rockets for fun. here's a guy who says i want to be in the rocket business, teaches himself a lot about the rocket business, and sends a capsule to the international space station. >> yeah, that was really historic that first cargo dragon spacecraft because no private company had ever built a spacecraft that came back from space before. and here they were with a brand new rocket not only proving out the falcon 9 but also putting dragon on it. >> now your book title includes the phrase "the desperate early days." explain to me why. >> well, there's two reasons. they faced both a cash crunch and a time crunch as they were going along. and the company was founded in 2002. they had failed launches.

they were building a simple rocket called the falcon 1 to get to orbit. and they failed in 2006 and again in 2007 and then again in 2008. this was the summer of 2008, they had the hardware for just one more rocket left. they were out of funding. this was during the great recession of 2008 so they couldn't raise private capital. and so it was literally a couple dozen engineers on a tropical island piecing together this last rocket. and if they hadn't made it, of course, the company wouldn't exist today. >> it is important to remember back as we look at all the things that they're successful with, with falcon heavy and starlink, even putting the car into space, which a thought was a wonderful pr stunt that, it was extremely touch and go. >> oh, without a doubt they could have failed multiple times. it was literally, you know, no one had done this before, built a privately built orbital rocket

like this. and they were originally going to launch from an air force base in california. they ran into red tape there and so they had to build this launch site on a deserted tropical island in the pacific. and, yeah, they could have died on multiple occasions. >> i can recall he would get pushback from congress as well, must've faced some skeptical lawmakers. i can remember him testifying before congress. a lot of people thought -- in congress thought that leaving rockets to ula and to boeing was the way to go. >> he can understand some of their skepticism of handing over the u.s. launch industry to the techno king. he's always had that kind of outsider personality. the fact of the matter was, you know, a lot of people in congress were trying to protect a vested interest of boeing and lockheed, and spacex came along and was really trying to disrupt that and throw that, toss the

apples off the cart, if you will. and they were succeeding with the falcon 9. and as they went along doing these things like trying to reuse rockets, congress was not supportive, by and large. >> well, and one of the reasons that they were able to succeed, spacex was because of a commercial orbitable -- president trump took a lot of credit during that launch of the first private astronauts. but in fact it was long before president trump. >> yeah. there's no question spacex got a lot of help from nasa along the way. they got their first contract or grant from nasa back in 2006. and then in 2008 they got a commercial resupply services. that was an operational contract to deliver cargo to the space station. so you can look back, and that started under the bush administration. the obama administration was enormously supportive of commercial space, and they spurred the development of the commercial crew program you

referenced, which did launch humans. and then that mission, which took place last year, happened under president trump's watch. so, it's interesting. you've seen over the years the white house typically, whether it's republican or democrat, has been pretty supportive of commercial space. and spacex in particular, congress much less so. >> nasa has, you know, caution built into its dna. it's obviously accomplished amazing things and even recently with mars. but it's often seen as plotting and slow. and spacex is sort of cutting-edge and scrappy. but then again, spacex hasn't killed anybody yet. it takes just one dead astronaut for nasa to say, hold on, we need to stop and make sure we know what we're doing. and i'm not for a second saying that spacex engineers aren't incredibly careful and incredibly professional. but losing an astronaut is a way of completely sobering up an organization. >> well, that's absolutely a risk going forward. they're going to launch probably five human missions within the

next 12 months. and that is taking on a lot of risk. nasa and spacex have had an interesting relationship. nasa's culture is very risk averse, rather plotting. and spacex is going as fast as they can moving forward and taking more risks. so the two cultures, i think there's been some clash. but i think it's also been good because spacex has helped staujy old nasa move along. and nasa helped spacex find some weaknesses in their system and address those before you get to human flights. >> i want to circle back to what we started with. and that is this techno king thing. there's been some concern expressed by some in congress, musk would smoke pot in a video podcast. he's made some strange allegations on twitter and some strange claims, funding for tesla. at the same time, he has made huge strides forward with electric cars and with private space travel. can you reconcile those two

narratives for me, the same person? >> you know, i think, you know, musk is, on one hand, this sort of titan of business who has founded these two great companies. on the other hand, he's kind of this awkward nerd who is finding himself in this world of congressional landscape, competing with other industries. and i think he uses twitter at times to blow off steam and to have fun and to sort of release some of the tension that involves running two large companies and being one of the richest people in the world and sort of a celebrity. he's a complicated person. you've got to take the good with the bad. if you're going to change the world, you're going to have to break some eggs along the way. >> derek berger is the author of the new book "elon musk and the desperate early days that launched spacex." we appreciate you for being with us this morning. "press: here" will be right back.

welcome back to "press: here." i was counting the number of things in my home that use wifi, not just the computers and the phones and the tablets, but the xbox and the security cameras, the thing that runs the solar panels, which i don't even really know quite what that does, and the thermostat. some people have wifi-enabled refrigerators and toasters. i don't know exactly why. but all of these gadgets and inventions benefit from the fact that wifi is largely

unregulated. anyone can invent a thing, and that thing can access the internet. which brings us to 5g. you know it as a super fast cell phone service. you may already have a 5g phone. but part of this 5g spectrum is going to get the wifi treatment. it too will be open to inventors and gadgetmakers to do whatever. we have the ceo and founder of 5g company, chip company edge q. he's one of the valley's leading experts in cell phone connectivity. previously with qualcomm. i think most consumers are fairly unimpressed or confused by 5g. because i can stream a netflix movie to my phone now. i don't really need it to stream any faster. but it could be the thing that attached to 5g that could be really kind af amazing, right? >> yeah. scott, nice to be here. thank you for having me. yeah. so 5g is a lot more than just

connecting cell phones. 4g does a pretty good job of it actually. so 5g, you know, the evolutionary part of it is to connect phones, but then the revolutionary part of 5g is to connect things, like you said, connecting things at the home. but, more interestingly, connecting things in like a factory or a campus environment like a workplace where you may have lots and lots of equipment. think of like cameras, think of like robots that are in a logistics factory like a feddex or building cars, these robot arms that do welding and things like that. these things being connected, you know, and they have some interesting characteristics that only 5g can solve. and that's where the interesting part of 5g is. and that world is just starting to take off with automation that's going on. so, i think that you'll find in

the next five, six years, there's going to be a massive amount of automation that's going to come to a lot of these industries, sometimes called industry 4.0. so 5g's really much more about that than just connecting cell phones. >> when we look behind the scenes of a factory or a television station, there are huge bundles of wire and cables running through the walls and ceilings. so the factory of the future, obviously you still have to power the robot or the assembly line with electricity. but all of those wires and cables could someday replace -- be replaced by just wireless signals ping ponging back and forth. >> absolutely, much like your laptops. if you think back, you used to have docking station and there's wires coming into the docking station. so nowadays the batteries are pretty sophisticated, they go on for a day. and there's no ethernet, no cables, nothing. very similar to that a robot

would have batteries that would last for a while. and that would take care of the power portion. but when it comes to communications, there's no need to have these tethered cables anymore. and 5g can really take care of that. >> and the inventer who's going to invent the next who knows what does not need permission from verizon or at&t, right? it uses a chip, maybe one made by you, and then can access the unlicensed spectrum of 5g. >> yes. 5g has many aspects to it. one of them is the unlicensed aspect also called nru. it's just a technical word. but basically unlicensed portion of 5g where it would operate on the frequency of wifi essentially, in which case you don't have to go buy spectrum from the government like the sec. that is an aspect that is very exciting and very interesting. some people think that will be the next big thing because it

opens up for a lot of people to innovate without actually purchasing this expensive spectrum. >> and i think that's what we saw in wifi, right, is there were -- i mean, the obvious use of wifi which we now take for granted is, oh, look, i can walk around the house with my laptop, i'm not connected to the ethernet cable. but then all of a sudden the nests of this world and arlo and what not said, oh, hold on, if we can send a wireless signal back fast, we can do something amazing with something that has nothing to do with a computer. >> that's right. look, any time you have, you make it easier for people to use, and that's where mass adoption takes place and the price curves are brought down. that happened with wifi. and wifi is everywhere. everything is connected with wifi. i expect to see 5g kind of do the same thing. right now it's still considered an expensive technology. and as this thing gets into the

unlicensed arena and into the private factory, things like that, we will see the prices go down for it, in which case anybody can afford it, and lots of interesting hobbyists, activities will take place. and i think interesting gadgets will come out of that, too. >> so let's circle back to what 5g brings as far as these devices go. because as a factory manager i would say, whoa, wifi seems to work just fine, i'll just use wifi. because in the case of a robot i don't necessarily need high-speed data. am i saving power? am i getting better range? what has 5g given me? >> it's a little bit of everything. one main thing to think about when it comes to 5g that is different than wifi. cellular in general has this characteristic, it's very reliable in terms of communication. like, if i'm talking on a phone, most likely that call will be just fine as long as i have a signal for it.

wifi sometimes the signal seems to be good but then it just never goes through. so it's a more reliable technology. but there is another aspect to 5g that is very unique to 5g that wasn't true in 4g. it is designed for these applications. and the way it was done is that there is an aspect of security, and there's an aspect of latency. particularly, latency and reliability are very, very important in factories. for example, think of a drone or a robot. it has to make local decisions very fast, but also it has a controller or something that it has to talk to. so the communication has to be fast. it has to be within sometimes a millisecond. and those kinds of decisions have to be made, and has to be made reliably. so that communication has to be super reliable. you can't have noise or if there is noise you can't have lost packets, things like that. what 5g allows is this super low latency and high reliable communication. and that really is one of the

cornerstones of 5g. >> finally, let's talk about chips in general. you make chips. i assume your fab is overseas, is that right? >> that's correct. we are based out of santa clara, california, right here. and we, just like everyone else, all the semiconductor companies, we are overseas. >> we are seeing these shortages in chips, speaking generally about the industry and also specifically with you. first of all, are you seeing a shortage in chips? are you able to get chips when you need them? >> yeah. so given we are in the early stage of the company, the amount of chips we need are not massive. so we're not seeing the same level of a shortage. but in general there is a supply chain constraint that has kind of taken place. president biden was talking about that a few weeks ago. so we are seeing that. but i believe this will get settled within 2021 itself, and that the world will go back to a

normal supply chain again. >> let's hope the world goes back to normal in many ways. the ceo and founder of edgeq. thank you for being with us. we'll be back.

that's our show for this week. as we leave you, a reminder, we have a sister podcast called "sand hill road" all about venture capital. you can find that wherever you get your podcasts. my thanks to my guests, and thank you for making us a part of your sunday morning. ♪♪ one year after the bay area became the first to lock down nationwide, we're looking to the future with a new series about life after the pandemic. including stories about the housing market. >> your child education and mental health. >> working from home and your

carbon footprint. >> going on vacation, finally. >> and with what the vaccine breakthrough means for the next pandemic. join us for our special series "coming back from covid" all this week on nbc bay area news. >> announcer: nbc sports, home of the olympic games, the the nhl, the pga tour, premier league and primetime's number one show, sunday night football. only on nbc. welcome to the u.s. bank nbc sports report. hello. i'm glad you're with us. we're inside our nbc sports studios. in honor of women's history month, we are profiling some of the most influential women across the sportin