in week a quiet electric powered debut in new york city, head of the nation's largest

artificial christmas tree company joining us from a christmas market in france, and a world champion video game player makes millions helping people bet on real sports. that is this week on "press: here". good morning, everyone. i'm scott mcgrew. we cover all kinds of great startups and great ideas on this show. and we have for many, many years. which means we have seen companies trying to build an air taxi more than once. companies with brilliant leaders, a guy who created google self-driving cars, the guy who created google street view. his kitty hawk company shut down recently. bi but we're not deterred. we just have to find the right team. so we were very happy to see jobe aircraft in santa cruz

delivering a working vertical takeoff and landing to the u.s. air force. they even delivered it ahead of schedule. and then at a wall street heliport taking people to and from manhattan to jfk in minutes. i asked head of product to give us a briefing on where the project stands and how soon we might be able to get a ride ourselves. good morning, eric. so these are real aircraft, they carry real human pilots performing real missions. >> that's right. thanks for having me on this morning. >> so this is something that is happening now. we've all seen this as sort of a dream or is this a test bed, that sort of thing. but you've got these flying in the air as does the air force. >> sthaert. so jobys that been around since 2009 and have been working really hard at this problem for

over ten years. we've been flying the pre-production prototype for about four years. and we've done over 1,000 test flights with these aircraft. and we just rolled out our production prototype back in june and first one of those aircraft is what we delivered to the air force. >> and i'm surprised by how quite these things are. i'll put up a noise map here so the viewer can see it. regular helicopters will be on the right, joby on the left. it is electric and incredibly quiet. >> that's right. there is a bit of a myth out there that if you just make something electric, it is quiet. but what joby realized is that you actually have to take advantage of what electric propulsion lets you do with aircraft to make something that is truly transformationally quiet. so making the motors the right way, the electronics that run the motors the right way and designing the propellers and rest of the airplane around that power plant to make something that really is remarkably quite.

so when you standing 300 feet away from it, you can have a conversation and you don't have to raise your voice. and when it is in airplane mode, so when it converts and flies like an airplane, it is almost silent. we think that is a transformational capability that will allow these aircraft to be used in many more places than helicopters can right now. >> to get them into places that helicopters use right now, you have to change the infrastructure because airports have jet fuel. they are quick to be able to refuel a helicopter, but they haven't got a place to plug in your airplane. >> tlaert. that's right. so what does the infrastructure look like. so we're excited that the mayor of new york city announced that as part of the rfi that they are putting out for the heliport, electrification will be an important component of that, the first electrified heliport around. and so that is exciting. seems that the work and we're

doing and messages we're communicating about how important this is and what the potential, transformational potential of this type of aviation is for the way people move, is really starting to resonate with people around the world. >> and you have that defense contract as well. the air force, i think that is a real feather in your cap, because the air force takes things extremely seriously. and to sell one to the air force is a real achievement. >> yeah, we've been really -- it has been a great partnership with the agility prime program which is an accelerating program within the air force, came out of the air force research lab which is based right in ohio. we recently announced our first scaled manufacturing facility will be in dayton. and the agility prime program has been an early supporter of joby and continues to be a supporter and we transition inned to then working directly with the air force for the contract that we announced earlier that year. and then we delivered the first

of the aircraft that will be -- that is being operated under that contract back in september. so that was really exciting and we're, looking forward to deepening that work that we're doing with the air forceoff the coming months and years. >> i'll guess the question you get most off often is safety. if a helicopter engine quits, the pilot can come in for kind of a soft landing. how does to work with four rotors? >> we have six propellers and they can point from forward to up. and we've designed the architecture with safety as kind of the number one goal from the very beginning. and so each of those six rotors, any of them can shut downed a the airplane can still function as intended, complete the mission. but each of those motors that drives one of those propellers is actually two motors. and each of those two is driven

by an independent set of electronics and each of those is driven by an independent battery. so we have layer of redundancy so no single point of failure. pretty much unheard of for strert cal takeoff and landing air craft. >> and people often compare the jetsons. the idea there was everybody had a flying car. this is not that. this is more of an air taxi. and you were working on the same idea over at uber. >> that's right. we basically are intending to deliver this as and on-demand service. uber is one of our partiners. i came over to joby when they acquired the uber technology team back in 2021. and so what you'll be able to do is open up the uber app, select the joby option, and a car will come and get you, take you to the nearest vertiport and you will be pooled in with other people because we'll sell it by

the seat essentially. and then at the remote and wherever you are going, at the far vertiport, another car will meet you or if you are close enough, you can walk to your final destination. but it is all be linked together seamlessly, so and on demand rapid quiet emission free transportation option for anyone who wants to use it. >> can you ballpark how soon it might happen? >> we're targeting commercial service in 2025, so just a couple years away. >> i know you'd be uncomfortable discussing competitors or what they did wrong, but this is something that has escaped a number of companies. can you play devil's advocate for me and say what are the challenges here, why is this so hard to do, and i think equally a valid question, is it worth doing? >> yeah, i'll go in reverse order. we think absolutely it is worth it. there need to be more options

for the way people move around. and so i think from the two dimensional into the air changes the equation as to how you can think about moving swiftly, easily and frankly kind of magically that you the city that you live in. that is an amazing thing that we can bring to the world through the new technology. why? we think that the approach that we've taken is the right one is that we really focused on again how do you make this practical. what is the product led vision of how do you actually bring it type of technology to people on a daily basis. so that idea that we had the right characteristics, the right noise signature, it can take up and land vertically, so flexible operations, it has four revenue seats so we can have foyer people sharing the ride in it, plus the commercial pilot in the aircraft. and we're starting to fit within all of the existing rules, so we have a pilot inside the aircraft, we fit within the existing air traffic control

system. we're taking a very pragmatic approach to how this will roll out and develop. and we think that that is the right way to it and look at it. and we take this step by step approach to bring it to life. however, this is an aircraft that you will be paying to take a ride on. and so it has go through the faa certification process. and that is a very intense, pre-market approval, very intensive process that requires a lot of capital to get through and it is incredibly rigorous. so we are deep in that process with the faa. and we have to finish that before we can deliver our commercial service to customers in cities just like this one all around the world. >> and we'll track your progress as you move forward. eric allison, appreciate you making the time this morning. he is from joby. we wish you luck and we'll be back in a moment.

there are a lot of traditions at christmas. my family has a cookie plate that is so big it takes two people to hold it. and also for reasons that date back to my norwegian grandmother, we have soup for dinner. and then the friendly debate about how many packages we should open on christmas eve. my mother always worries that there are too many packages to appreciate and therefore christmas would get out of hand and we should open more. the other faction in the family says no, it is christmas eve, not time to open them yet. there is one thing that we can agree on, that artificial christmas trees are easier and safer and less messy than real christmas trees. this is my parents' tree in chicago. all set to greet the family. and mac harman is ceo of balsam

hill and they make great christmas trees. he is joining us from france. looks like a hallmark movie out there. >> and i'm here in one of the most epic christmas markets in the world. takes beautiful place and it is just completely decked out everywhere you look. >> so i want to talk about france in a second, but let's start with the trees. in are people who absolutely insist on a real tree and that is totally fine. but the artificial market has really grown. >> it has. every year it grows a little bit. and i don't know that that is so much people going away from farm-grown trees as much as it is more people decorating with additional artificial trees. we're seeing people starting to put up not only a tree in the living room, but the family room, maybe the foyer and dining room and kitchen. so we're seeing more people using more trees. >> better argued than i am. you sell high end trees. as this market grows, some of it is on the low end. low end trees have gotten pretty

good themselves. things that you don't make. they are your big competitor i assume. >> that is for sure. there are definitely all sorts of choices out there. we focus on highly realistic trees, so that is where we are. and for some people, that is not the right thing for them or they want a more affordable ogs. so we're seeing thoseularity as. my encouragement, get one that lasts. if you get a low end tree and have to throw it out, that is not great for the environment. if you use artificial trees for more than five years, they have lower impact on the environment. so we hope that people use our trees for 10 or 20 years. >> and i also assume it is up to the user as to whether it is white lights or colorful light, but do you have a personal opinion? >> i love both. so we have a lighting feature called color plus clear. and you can have all the lights white, all the lights multicolored or half and half. and i like using that in

different ways. most of the time i like them all white. if i'm watching a movie, i go multicolored because it is more dim. and sometimes fun to have half and half. so that is what i do for christmas dinner as an example. >> and we often talk about the supply chain. you are exposed to the supply chain in the same way toyota is. require one year you had trouble sourcing the little cotton mittens that you put in with the tree to protect people's hands. how is the supply chain this time? >> because the economy has slowed down around the world this, year has been great. we've gotten everything in early and so no supply chain challenges for christmas 2023. so that is helping me sleep better at night for sure. >> what about prices, have you had to raise your prices as inflation has become an issue? >> we have not had to from inflation. because we had to raise our prices with the supply chain crisis, christmas trees take up a lot of space, and so we had to raise our prices a little bit in the past and we were able to

keep them where they are bauer our prices went down, inflation went up, so we were able to hold the prices steady. so that has worked out well for the consumer that they are not paying more this year than they have in the last couple years. >> what about direct retail? you had tried a pop-up at the big mall here in silicon valley. is that something you are still doing? >> we are. we have an outlet store and we're in a bunch of nordstrom and also william sonomo. so we're hoping to test out more next year. >> and finally tell me about where you are. i've always wanted to go to a christmas mark in europe. are you out there buy something. >> christmas markets are a unique concept in europe, some in the u.s. but not quite the same yet, and just all these

towns that decorate for christmas. you can see all the people behind me. there are traffic jams because so many people are coming in and it is a week night. and what they are is just stall after stall, some are selling food, local specialties, some selling christmas decorations, others selling jiljewelry or ot things. this is open container, you can wander around with your wine and browse and shop and eat. just super fun and super festive. and it is cold. so people are out here doing this all the time and it is freezing cold. >> and i'll buy you a drink next year because that looks like great fun. always wanted to get out to one of those. good luck with theholiday. mac, always a pleasure. >> happy holidays.

welcome back to "press: here." last week i was speaking with the creator of just answer about how ai was affecting his business. just answer connects people with questions, with experts with answers. veterinarians, dishwasher repair people, that kind of thing. and one of the subjects we touched on is how much money these people were making answering questions. and the answer is a lot. and some of you asked about it. so in the spirit of fairness, i asked a different company to answer the same company. i asked steven schwartz, ceo of whop to join me. good morning. i want to talk about sort of the selling expertise online. your approach is different than my previous guest. not dishwasher repair experts. it is more in the digital realm, right? >> yes. correct. >> and so what do you sell

online? >> so whop sells all sorts of different things. full spectrum is really crazy. i think that that is one of the things that makes the online world really exciting. you are not bound to the same constraints in the physical world. so you think about what products are on amazon maybe, toilet paper, dog food, only really -- how many times of toilet paper can you really have. but on the online world, you can actually have almost endless customization for whatever it is that you are selling. >> give me a skooum examples. an example of a product your sellers are selling. >> a lot of sports picks, so people sell different alpha that they have in sports betting. so maybe they sell some type of algorithm, maybe information that they have about games that they feel the rest of the world should know. people sell education related to

trading on our platform. people sell software, tools to be more productive. there is a huge spectrum of different products that are sold. >> and you were mentioning sports and betting and sports expertise. i want to bring in one of your sellers. the number one seller in fact on your site, he goes by the nickname joke i should point out. and you run something called beat the books. i want to start with what is that? what book am i beating? >> so it is basically the books are the sports books, fanduel, draftking, and we find ways to basically beat them. so we find ways to win more and we give those out to our clients and our clients bet on those plays and beat the books with us

basically. >> and this is hardly a hobby. are you making big money. >> i do this full-time. it is basically like a 24/7 job because most of my work comes on my phone. so i'm just basically on my phone like all day looking at lines. because there is like a big difference of like let's say you kind of lisa murkowski have to know exactly what line every single player opened at. let's say if a player opens at 17 1/2 and then that player goes to 15 1/2, you have to be like okay, wait, why did that happen. so it is kind of like a full-time job where even when i'm not necessarily working i'm still on my phone just looking to see what players have what lines. so, yeah, definitely a full-time thing. >> give me some picture as to what the income for you is. >> so i don't like to say the exact numbers, but i will say like we're making -- this year we'll make over $5 million. and that number just keeps rising. so as the more states that

become legal, the more available clients that are able to join our group. i think right now sports betting is only legal in 17 states. in my opinion within the next five years more than likely at least half the states will be legal. so i think our business will just continue to grow and grow. at this point we're expected to make a little over $5 million. >> and i assume, nobody listens to the weatherman if the weatherman gets the weather constantly wrong, i assume you are keeping track of how accurate your predictions are, will the 49ers beat the seahawks or whatever. how accurate are you? >> so we actually track every single play and we use what is called the unit system. so every single play we attach a unit to it. so one unit should be 1% of your bank roll. we always tell people to start with 100 units. so you will basically be betting 1% of your unit per play. and i think within a year and a half, up over 2,000 units.

and i think i can clearly say like we're the only scorer that tracks and recaps every single play. because i think my group wins a lot more than everybody else's. so we're very transparent. gambling community in general, there is not much transparency, so we try to be different from everybody else and we show every play that wins along with every play that loses. and we do that every night. we have a bot that pulls all that data from a spreadsheet that we use and that bot pulses the data every day. sorry day people can see how much we win and how much we lose. >> and you wouldn't have subscribers if you weren't winning at least 51% of the time, right? >> well, so it is not really -- we don't look at it that way because a lot of the plays are like high odds plays. we post a lot of plays that are over plus 1,000 odds so we don't really have to win 51% of the time. we really only have to win like 15% of the time. so most of the plays that we post are low risk and high rae

ward. we don't really have that many consultants who post plays that. we don't really have that many consultants who post plays that have to win over 51%. our like maybe win margin is lower but profit margin is higher because we risk less to win more. >> a little like venture capital, you bet on ten and you win on one and you are just fine. so you mentioned that you were a professional madden player and i think some people were lost about that. you played -- you're one of the best madden football video game players in the world. in 2020s you were the world champion. an you were making six figures just playing madden. >> yeah, so i actually had a business as well with madden. i used to sell the plays that i ran on offense and defense. and i would make them into an ebook and also sell that online. so i had a six figure business selling my plays on offense and defense. and then i was also sponsored by a team called exit which they

used to pay me a monthly salary just to be a part of their time and i also would make money from the tournaments that i would play in. i think i retired with $350,000 in like madden winnings. so i was making like almost $200,000 almost a year just from playing madden. >> and my last question for you, what is the main madden tip a player should know? if you play against your buddies, what is the secret from the world champion madden player? >> so obviously just run shotgun bunch. that is the best formation in madden i think since like maybe 2008. and we're in 2023. so it has been the best formation for 15 years. so if you are a regular person who wants to get better, if you run shotgun bunch against your friends, more times than now the you'll be able to find players open. >> and let's bring steven back

in. joke is your best top earner. what is he doing that other people can learn from if they want to sell, you know, knowledge online? >> good question. i think that at the end of the day, all of the products that are sold are raised in kept. and if you don't have amazing quality content, you will be in trouble. and when we say content, it is not just text and pictures and videos. in joke's case, it is real value that he consistently provides to his customer base. and i think like we said earlier, the numbers don't lie. and eventually when you have big audience and they are paying on a consistent basis, there is real value being offered. >> that is fantastic. i wish both of you the best of luck. i'm going to go play the shotgun against my boys on madden now that i know that. joke, steven, appreciate you being here. "press: here" will be back.

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that is our show for this week. my thanks to my guests and thank you to making us part of your sunday morning.

damian trujillo: hello and welcome to "comunidad del valle" i'm damian trujillo. and today wreaths across america they're back on your "comunidad del valle". ♪♪♪