#33: Kira Smiley (TidalX) – Seeing the Unseen: Ocean Tech, AI, and the Data-Driven Future of Aquaculture

Kira Smiley is the Global Director of Sales and Marketing at TidalX AI, a startup born from Google[x] (now X, the moonshot factory), focused on developing radical technologies to support the ocean economy while sustainably managing and protecting it. Since joining Tidal in 2020, Kira has worn several hats across business development, product, international customer operations, and program management. She served on the leadership committee for Alphabet’s Women of X organisation for several years and is a member of the Coalition for Sustainable Aquaculture. Kira attended Stanford University and received both a B.S. in Earth Systems and an M.S. focused on sustainable global food security and the environment. She is a 2019 recipient of the DoSER Public Engagement Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Introduction to Kira Smiley and TidalX Technology
00:04:19 - Importance and Environmental Impact of Tidal's Technology
00:08:49 - Health Monitoring and Sea Lice Management
00:10:23 - Tidal's Mission and Origin at X the Moonshot Factory
00:13:29 - The Origin Story of Tidal and its Partner Mowi
00:20:03 - Kira Smiley's Background and Interest in Aquaculture
00:23:13 - The Sustainability of Fish as a Protein Source
00:27:06 - The Culture of Innovation at X
00:32:49 - The Principle of "Starting with the Hardest Thing First"
00:35:10 - Transition from R&D to a Commercial Product
00:40:51 - Early Challenges and Pivots in Development
00:43:18 - Factors Leading to the Spin-off from Alphabet X
00:48:52 - Tidal's International Expansion and Strategy
00:57:10 - The Future of the Blue Economy and Investment
01:07:10 - A Call to Action for Innovators and Final Remarks

Useful Links & Resources:

Kira Smiley: LinkedIn
TidalX AI

Aqua Nor Conference, Trondheim, 18-21 August 2025

World Bank Report - Harnessing the Waters: Sustainable Aquaculture

Coalition for Sustainable Aquaculture
Global Salmon Initiative

Google X: Website

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Get in touch with The Ocean Age's host Fed DeGobbi on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠, ⁠⁠X⁠⁠ or by emailing directly at fed@oceanage.co

The Ocean Age Podcast is produced by Charlotte Raffo and edited by Nebojsa Lešević. Sarah Carpenter and Giulia Leanza are our research assistants. Eliana Caragia manages Distribution and Engagement. 

Please send in your feedback: what do you want to hear more or less of? Any suggestions? Would love to hear what you think!

Transcript

Fed DeGobbi: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Ocean Age. This is the podcast for the entrepreneurs, the professionals who want to succeed in the ocean economy and have a positive impact. I'm Fadi Gabby and my job here is to sit down with people doing remarkable things in the ocean space and extract the strategies, the frameworks, the ideas and the actionable insights that made them the best at what they do and that you can take and apply in what you're doing. Today, I speak with Kira Smiley, who is the Global Director of Sales and Marketing at TidalX AI, a startup born from Google X, now X the Moonshot Factory. focused on developing radical technologies to support the blue economy while sustainably managing and protecting the ocean. We discussed some of the biggest problems facing aquaculture and some of the most exciting technological advancement that could help solve them. Here's my conversation with Kira Smiley. Tidal is a tech company, so I think that for the audience to best appreciate this conversation, it makes sense to start by explaining in simple terms maybe what is the technology that you guys have developed. Would you mind giving an overview just to set the scene?

Kira Smiley: Yeah, absolutely. So the technology that Tidal developed and is continuing to develop new features for as we move into the future was essentially two parts. But the main purpose of it is to provide a window into the undersea world so that farmers in aquaculture can make better decisions. And so that looks like essentially two parts. The first is a underwater camera system. with multiple different cameras, a winch that moves the system autonomously, so without anyone needing to interfere or manually move it, within these large aquaculture pens, currently primarily focused on salmon, which can have up to 200,000 fish in a given pen that can be up to 30, 35 meters deep. And so you have a system that's moving autonomously throughout that pen, in real time capturing video, And then we use AI and machine learning as part of that to interpret and give estimations on real-time biomass or the growth and distribution of the fish, fish health indicators, behavior indicators. And we also can connect to feeding systems so that we can actually feed the fish in a way that is really efficient and thereby beneficial to both the environment and also cost-wise to aquaculture farmers so that it can be more efficient.

Fed DeGobbi: Okay, what does it look like visually, in practice?

Kira Smiley: If you look at it in the hardware side, there's a few big components. The first is this underwater camera system that looks like a stereo camera, so two camera eyes in the front and a bottom camera, and then a long tube with a light and a top camera at the top with winch keys, which then connect the system via ropes to the autonomous winch, which is a simple two part winch that moves the system on a horizontal and vertical access. And then that connects all the information, sends it to a server, which then connects it to the cloud. And that's where a lot of the actual work and let's say the AI is run.

Fed DeGobbi: Right. And this hardware is sort of swimming around the pen.

Kira Smiley: Exactly so it's on that winch system but it's moving all throughout the pen up and down over the entire course of it all the time so that we get a really broad distribution of the fish that we see in the pen rather than a sample where you're just stagnant in the pen you wouldn't see as many fish. The reason is often sick fish or fish that are struggling might hang out within the pen in the top, in the bottom, on the sides. And so it's important that we can see a broad representative sample of all the fish in the pens.

Fed DeGobbi: So, Tyler's platform was named one of the Time Magazine's top invention of 2023. Why is the text so important, so innovative?

Kira Smiley: Yeah, when we started out now years ago, there was no camera system that could give this type of insight to the degree that we could in a full all-in-one system. And so I think it's innovated on two sides. One, not only does it provide benefits in terms of saving costs and helping farmers to be more efficient in their operations, which means using less resources, which means a better carbon footprint and environmental footprint. But it also has fundamental impact on the way that you operate and that can impact the environment. So for example, the feeding software that we developed using AI allows you to basically feed much more efficiently only when the fish are hungry and to make sure there's no feed waste. And the feed waste is not only, or feed, is not only 40%, give or take, of the operational costs of a given company, which is huge. It also is one of the biggest contributors to carbon footprint for companies, both in the making of the feed, as well as then if you have feed fall through to the seafloor, that can cause eutrophication and environmental damage, and so that's negative as well. And so by being more efficient, and connecting that holistically to insights on growth and health and other environmental metrics. It allows us to give this really clear take in this all-in-one system that allows you immediately to have more information, to act on the information, and then to have much more sustainable and efficient aquaculture production.

Fed DeGobbi: Very cool. So let's break that down. So you introduced the autonomous feeding feature and its impact and positive environmental impact. What about, let's, let's talk about all the other components. And with a particular interest in the positive environmental impact or any sort of significant impact that it could have.

Kira Smiley: Yeah. So for example, let's talk about biomass. So before these types of systems existed, you would look into the pen, you would maybe take a sample of, you know, 20 fish, maybe put in more resources to get a few hundred fish out of 200,000, which of course isn't a statistically significant representative sample. and you'd have to make guesses on how many fish you had on the total biomass you had in a given pen and then you had to guess how much to sell based on that. That meant that you might order a truck to come and maybe you underperformed and you had less fish than you thought you did or maybe you had more and had to order another truck. And so in not having an efficient transition from what you actually needed to come pick up and what you actually could plan for, you end up potentially having more waste and carbon impacts with the transportation and it made for a less efficient system. And so, first of all, you need to know what you have underwater, right? To be able to manage something, you need to be able to measure it.

Fed DeGobbi: Is there an element of also knowing when to pick them up?

Kira Smiley: That's part of it too, exactly. And so because we know when the fish are growing to a size and you know when you want to harvest them, that means that you can more effectively plan for not only how much to plan for, but how many and when to plan to come pick up the fish.

Fed DeGobbi: So it sounded like there was something else I interrupted.

Kira Smiley: Yes. So the second piece is we think about health. So health and sea lice is unfortunately something that plagues a lot of the salmon industry. And so it's particularly within Norway, sea lice is a big challenge that's been increasing as water temperatures increase. due to climate change. And so because of this, measuring sea lice and being able to monitor and mitigate them is very important. And by us being able to provide automatic counts of those sea lice levels, it allows us to understand where we are at compared to the pretty stringent government regulations that exist. And you can better plan for when you need boats to come and treat the lice. And of course, these boats, they carry their own set of transportation, carbon emissions, etc. And so being able to plan well and ensure that boats don't come out when they don't need to, ensure they come early and at the right time to prevent having more and more outbreaks. It allows for not only more efficient operations, but it also helps fish health so that you're not pulling fish out of the water. but rather a system is actually counting the fish underwater which benefits the welfare as well.

Fed DeGobbi: It sounds like it's all about efficiency essentially and efficiency in reducing waste and in reducing emissions.

Kira Smiley: Yeah, I mean, think about energy efficiency, right? We turn off the lights in a room when we don't, when we aren't in the room and we try to reduce water waste or electricity waste. It's the same thing for aquaculture where really efficiency in many ways is sustainability because when you're efficient with your resources, you're not causing waste or using too many and that is beneficial for the environment.

Fed DeGobbi: Definitely. Have we missed any other application?

Kira Smiley: Yeah, I mean, there's plenty. I think most of them tend to relate to that health aspect. So anything from detecting health concerns so that you can catch and treat those early. And that also helps prevent more fish mortality if you can catch those issues early. And when fish die, of course, that's a big waste in resources, but if also it's a challenge for fish welfare. And so being able to detect, catch, monitor, and respond to that early is important. And being able to track different behavioral tendencies that we do also can give more insights into the health of the fish. And so there's plenty that goes into that, but I think overall it's thinking about growth, it's thinking about health, and it's thinking about efficiency and sustainability.

Fed DeGobbi: I believe it was you that said at some point that Tidal was built to see the unseen and turn something invisible on the surface of the ocean into something that you could understand and therefore manage. Does that mean that you started from a specific problem and then set out to develop an innovative solution? Or was it the other way around where you've come across a cool technology and you went out looking for applications?

Kira Smiley: That's a good question. So to understand how we went about that journey, I think it's helpful to understand how X the Moonshot Factory within Google's parent company Alphabet works. And so the Moonshot Factory is basically this company or the innovation lab R&D business incubator lab that exists within Alphabet. And so within that, there's many different projects or moonshots that try to take on huge problems that impact millions, if not billions of lives. And that is at the center of a combination of that huge problem. an innovative approach and a groundbreaking technology. And so moonshots tend to be right at the center of all three of those. If you only have two of the three, you may, for example, have an interesting problem and a good way to solve it, but the technology doesn't exist to make that possible yet. Or you might have a cool technology, a really interesting approach, but no real problem to apply it to, which ends up being a bit useless. And so that's why all three of those is important. And within that, we started out within recycling multiple different projects. And so within the Moonshot Factory, there's this idea of failing quickly and being able to drive true outcomes. And so because of that, there's projects that have happened in the past that have to do with the ocean, anything from seawater being turned into fuel to things around seaweed. And so these learnings from these projects, though they may have gotten recycled or shut down, those all bled into this moonshot around how do we protect ocean health while feeding the world sustainably. And within X, we often have projects and it's important for us to have lighthouse partners. And so in this case, Moe, which is the world's largest salmon aquaculture producer, approached us and said, hey, we have this challenge. We're trying to understand more about the health and the growth of fish. Is there something that you might be able to do? And so through finding a key partner, getting that real world experience, of course, we were technologists and had experience with AI and robotics, but we were not fish farmers. And so we couldn't imagine all of the nuances to the challenges that existed there. And so it was critical that one, someone brought this problem to us and had the experience to tell us how it actually is lived. How is that experience in practice? And so then we could take the tools that we knew to then start to innovate and design solutions that could help resolve that challenge and provide greater insights. And so that's essentially how title came to be.

Fed DeGobbi: Right. Well, we'll come back to that because I do want to go deep into the sort of origin story of Tidal and on also how the sort of product was developed, which is fascinating. But I wanted to come back to the tech for a second. Is the tech relatively affordable?

Kira Smiley: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that there's two ways to think about it. First, the technology was designed for salmon aquaculture pens, right? And amongst aquaculture, the salmon industry definitely is the most industrialized and probably has the most technology from any other species that is farmed currently. That being said, there's more It has 20% of the value within the aquaculture market within salmon. And so for salmon aquaculture, I would say absolutely, we've done our very best to make sure that we drive down costs, that it is affordable. And we see that the benefits that we give in terms of the cost savings from knowing your biomass, from reducing lice treatments, from having more efficiency in feeding, then pays back. for itself, essentially, so that the cost is absolutely worth it. For other species, for let's say smaller scale aquaculture or other ones, this system is the equivalent of having maybe a Ferrari where you might need a Prius there. And so the hardware itself maybe something that needs to be slightly adapted for other types of aquaculture pens or styles. However, the software, once it's built, it's fairly scalable. And so that's what's important to remember is we designed this system for finfish. Salmon being one of those configurations. And so we have this product for salmon, but we also have the potential and have done some experimentation and research around this so that we can fairly simply adapt to other species as well in the future.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, the reason I asked is because emerging aquaculture types like seaweed, for example, seaweed farming, could benefit from this kind of technology. And there's an element of using technology to make data and insights more widely available to enable smaller players and perhaps less wealthy regions or less privileged individuals or groups to access and benefit from aquaculture and the opportunities in aquaculture. And what do you think about that?

Kira Smiley: I think it's a very good point. I was recently at the Global Salmon Initiative's yearly summit that they have, and a big portion of that conversation had to do specifically with how do we take the lessons that we've learned in the salmon industry and the technology industry as applied to salmon, and start to spread those to other species as well. So we had someone from Tilapia Farm Visit and others from different species who were also involved in speaking at this conference and I think absolutely one of the reasons we started with salmon aquaculture was because they have power and networking and it takes care of a lot of the the baseline challenges so that we could focus on just developing the AI and the right robotics for this. That meant that we could solve the problem with a partner who had the funds to invest in that type of R&D. And then once you have that type of technology, you can start to say, okay, now, how do we downsize or how do we scale it in the right way so it's appropriate for these other types of aquaculture that may not have the same funding or budgets, but just as deeply need this type of technology so they can be more efficient, so they can be more sustainable and they can operate in a way that is better for both food security and for the environment. And so that I think is the long-term goal for many of these technologies is how do we start to take this and eventually translate it so that it can be available for other species as well.

Fed DeGobbi: Okay. So I guess the software is potentially already there in terms of being cross

Kira Smiley: Yeah, it's a matter of really just finding the right infrastructure and the right housing for that software AI technology to then be adapted to other species.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah. How do you adjust a Ferrari down to a Prius in this case? Is it a case of redesigning it in a simpler way with simpler materials or less sort of advanced cameras perhaps or sensors? I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm trying to picture it.

Kira Smiley: No, it's a good question. And you're on the right track, which is to say that, like I said, the AI and the software is made such that it's a configuration for salmon. And so you can have another configuration for a different finfish species, such as yellowtail or seabream, for example, it would be a different configuration. At the same time from the hardware side or the camera perspective, you may be able to have a different sensor or a different type of camera that still has the right specifications, but maybe is better adjusted to being moved around or is better adjusted to having slightly less advanced sensors, but something that still does the job in a way that can provide the degree of granularity and insight that is required for that particular environment.

Fed DeGobbi: Is there a particular element of the hardware that is the most expensive and significantly more expensive than everything else? Or is it a combination of things?

Kira Smiley: I would say one of the things that we had to focus on when we developed Tidal was making sure that we had a stereo camera that was precise enough so that we could really accurately estimate the biomass. That was something that back in 2017, et cetera, that didn't really exist. And now, luckily, technology has come a long way. And so every year there's new types of sensors and stereo camera technology has improved as well. But where in the past you could use a monolens camera, so a camera with one lens that looks up, for example, to monitor feeding manually, now with stereo cameras, we can start to actually see depth, which allows us to predict the biomass. And so that was the piece that I think was important to have and something that is critical to be able to really accurately estimate biomass as it exists today.

Fed DeGobbi: Fantastic. So stereo cameras as in two eyes, just like humans.

Kira Smiley: Yes, just like humans.

Fed DeGobbi: Right. Let's take a step back. Take us back to your Stanford days. I might be a bit of a jump now, but what did you know about aquaculture then and what inspired you to get yourself into this weird and wonderful space?

Kira Smiley: So I always cared about sustainability and climate change. And the later I got into Stanford, as I was transitioning from an undergraduate degree to a master's degree, I started to really hone in on food systems in particular, because food is something that connects everyone. It's part of culture, it's part of survival, but it's also such an important component And so many of the agricultural emissions are related to food systems and general carbon emissions globally are related to food systems. And so I, at some point at Stanford, started to study the impacts of meat on the environment. And so part of that was looking at the impacts environmentally of beef consumption versus pork versus chicken, etc. And I saw and learned that fish was one of the most sustainable aspects or one of the most sustainable options for animal protein. And within that, I kept studying and my master's advisor, Roz Naylor, who has done quite a bit of work with the Center on Food Security and the Environment at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford, taught a class where I started learning more about those emissions, but also that the ocean was fairly overfished. It was 90% fully or overfished, as was covered in one environmental economics course I took. And so if we want to have more sustainable protein options, but So many of these other options have such intense carbon emissions. So beef, for example, could be up to 12 kilograms of feed to just one kilogram of beef that you can eat. And so that's not very resource efficient, right? And so instead, fish is a great option. The ocean is fairly overfished. And so if we could have aquaculture as an option to provide more sustainable protein, but done in a way that is really positive for the environment, not damaging the ecosystem, and is regenerative and resilient, then that could be one really positive way to support a growing deficit in calories that we'll need to feed 9 to 10 billion people by 2050. And so then I got really interested in aquaculture and in food systems in general. And so I did some work down with a professor named Rob Dunbar down in Southern Patagonia on a trip where I started learning about aquaculture, about the fisheries and the tensions that existed, but also how many of them were running out of places to fish. And there were lots of boats right outside the economic zone that were there just waiting and catching all the fish so they couldn't go into the fjords in Chile. And so I started to think about, wow, if we could have alternatives in a way that supports both economics of local communities, also livelihoods, also doesn't destroy the environment and provides good food, that would be a win-win-win. And so how do we make that possible? And so through a number of different events and focusing more on food systems, I was introduced to X and was introduced to some people working on food system challenges within X the Moonshot Factory and ended up at Tidal.

Fed DeGobbi: Right. Let's stop there for a sec. You said about finding out that fish was one of the most sustainable protein options. Were you surprised by that? Because, you know, there's a lot of documentaries, there's a lot of opinion pieces around that maybe hit the general public that would make you think it's the opposite. That fish is not at all sustainable. And I suppose from the point of view of the public, it's easy to forget about the rest. If you keep hearing about, for example, how summer farming is bad and it's terrible for the environment, then you end up going to the supermarket and buying chicken, aren't you? And maybe not realizing that that's not necessarily any better.

Kira Smiley: Yeah, I mean, I think that we always have to think about counterfactuals. So it is a fact that often in the media, you find an example of something that is, you know, shocking. And so you focus in on that fully without thinking about is this representative of the entire industry? Is this representative of the industry across the entire planet? And also you don't think about, well, if not this, then what else? And so if we think about food systems and food system sustainability, it is a fact that species that use far more resources, land and water in converting to that whatever you get at the supermarket or grocery store, it's more intensive for other species than it is for fish. It's also a fact that the oceans are very intensely fished and that we need to evolve the way that we are fishing to not cause damage to seafloors, to not have bycatch. And at the same time, aquaculture, while it's an alternative and a solution, it's also something that needs to be done well, right? In any situation, there's often good actors and bad actors, or there's examples of where things could have been run better operationally. But I think what people have is the stigma against fish farming in the same way that it existed maybe 20 years ago. And the communication and rhetoric looks at it historically as opposed to what is the current situation and how does this operate today. And so I think we as consumers need to be up to date to say, okay, what is the actual reality here? Ask for more information and transparency, and then also think about the counterfactual. So if I don't get this, what will I get instead? And what's the environmental impact here? And all of those help contribute. It's a lot of mental and emotional labor to think about food systems and what you eat every day. When you go to the grocery store, you want it to be an easy decision, right? You want to just pick something. You're thinking about price. Maybe you're thinking about something you read online about your choices. But ultimately, as consumers, we need to try and be better informed and demand and ask for industries to provide that information so we can make better decisions. And at the same time, that's part of why we established TIDAL and established technology, because it can not only bring more transparency into what's happening underwater, but it also provides the tools to farmers who before maybe they had issues, but they didn't know until right around the time they were harvesting. Now they have those insights from day one, And so they can much better manage and measure and enact changes to make sure they're operating in a way that's good for fish welfare, that's good for the sustainability of the ecosystem, and it monitors what's actually happening and not just relying on anecdotes. Ultimately, we just want to make data-driven decisions.

Fed DeGobbi: So if you want to do it properly, if you want to do it sustainably, you need to have the tools to measure it and understand it better.

Kira Smiley: Well, I think it certainly helps if we want to make informed decisions rather than relying on anecdotes alone.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah. It's time to go back to X. And I think most people want to have experience in an environment such as the one that you were immersed in during your time at X. So could you maybe paint a picture of how it was being there and how you felt during that period?

Kira Smiley: Sure. So walking into AXA Moonshot Factory, it was immediately there were robots moving around. There's all sorts of things that are happening because it is just this hub of innovation. And so one of the things that I loved was this place called the Design Kitchen. which is a place that any project can go use as a resource, and you can ask for almost anything. One time, and this is a bit of a joke, but one time someone was having a birthday and forgot candles, and they went to the design kitchen and said, hey, we need birthday candles, and they were able to create something on the spot. So truly, they can make almost anything. And that is a place that allowed us to try and test out the very earliest versions of the technology that we wanted to then take it out into the real world to test as a proof of concept. And so having this space where people don't shut down ideas, but they're really on the idea of yes and and what else could we do rather than shutting something down early gave you the space to be so imaginative and to really think about what is the biggest I could do to not just make incremental change. So 1%, 2% change. Instead, how do we think about 10X impact? What if this was 10 times better? And often when we force ourselves to think on that scale, we can't just keep going and slightly improving the technology as is. We have to fundamentally rethink, how do we create something that can make this type of impact? And it allows you to be more creative because you're not tied to previous processes that were used. And so in thinking that way, I think it's a space where everyone was encouraged to fail and celebrated when you did fail because it meant you learned something and you could pivot more quickly to something new that could work instead. And so I think it's a really innovative, it's a very cool environment to develop title within. And I think that the model they have now to spin out companies outside of Alphabet so they can really take off. and truly develop and build the commercial expertise and growth is a great model that I hope continues because I think it allows you to have the space and the freedom and the funds, thanks to Alphabet, to innovate and take risks more than you might in a regular startup environment. But then spinning out with investor funding allows you to then scale and take your ideas and your company to the next level.

Fed DeGobbi: Was it quite contagious in terms of how it sort of molded your approach and mentality?

Kira Smiley: I mean, imagine walking into work and having the CEO come by on rollerblades. That's the kind of environment that the Moonshot Factory was. And within that… Now you're painting a picture. Yeah, exactly. And within that, we learned different principles. So one was that 10X 10%. One was starting with the hardest thing rather than checking off easy pieces first. Another principle was around being able to bring in outside perspectives and diverse perspectives. And so I think all of those principles really ingrain themselves into how I think about innovation and how I think about scaling something that could have a really big impact on the area that I care the most about, which is the environment and food systems and oceans. And so I think those are principles that no matter what problem it's applied to, I'll definitely carry those with me for the rest of my life.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, absolutely. Is there any disadvantage in starting a company as an Alphabet X project? I'm thinking, I don't know, the pressure that you might've been under, the focus on the technology and the sort of unlimited options. Is it easy to get lost in all of that, sort of see your possibilities? What are the drawbacks, if any?

Kira Smiley: There's definitely the risk of that. I think the benefit from being within the moonshot factory was people will open doors for you and they hear, you know, the Google name or alphabet name. And so you can make connections in a way that might be hard if you're a one or two person startup. On the flip side, sometimes people come in expecting that you are a Google and that you have a ready-made product, which often, as Xers, is not the case. And we were working on early prototypes because we wanted to test lots of things before it's very finalized. making sure that there's the right communications to ride that balance where yes, we're associated with that heritage, but we're also kind of a startup and we're still building this and we're still developing. And so that is a bit of a tension that it was important to manage. The other piece is that some companies are great within Alphabet, and some of them are better served outside of the Alphabet ecosystem. And very often those companies ended up spinning out and working outside of Alphabet. So Dandelion, for example, worked on geothermal energy. And it was something that is really wonderful for the environment, but didn't fit exactly with the profile of companies within Alphabet. And so it was better operating outside. And so I think there's different fits, but ultimately great for taking risks and great to have the companies scale outside of Alphabet once you have enough commercial traction and you really want to move quickly.

Fed DeGobbi: Was there any other mindset or approach that you've learned during your time at X and that you still rely on today?

Kira Smiley: Yeah, I think, let's see, there was the, you know, think about 10x, not 10%, build diverse perspectives. We said one of the issues was, or one of the principles was start with the monkey, which we said, essentially, if you were to teach a monkey how to speak Shakespearean English and to balance on a pedestal, what would you do first? I'll ask you, what would you do first?

Fed DeGobbi: I have no idea. Would you teach the monkey English first and then adjust? I don't know.

Kira Smiley: Yeah, I mean, that's exactly it, which is it's probably much harder to see if the monkey can speak English, first of all, rather than maybe building the pedestal or training it to stand on the pedestal that's been done before. And so start with that hardest thing, which is teach the monkey and see if it turns out that the vocal codes join a line and you really can't speak English, it's not possible. Better to learn that quickly before you've trained the monkey to balance and then realize after the fact, after lots of time and effort and resources, oh, this wasn't even possible. And so I think that's one of the biggest things that stuck with me, which is start with that hard thing first, because then you can do that fail fast option and you can shift to something if you find it's impossible early on.

Fed DeGobbi: It's such a key one, isn't it? Because as humans, we, maybe I'm talking about myself, it's so tempting to just go and do the easy thing because that's the one that gives you a bit of satisfaction. You're like, okay, I'm going somewhere, you know? And so you end up building a website.

Kira Smiley: You have the dopamine hit, you check something off in a box. And yet think about how it feels after you've done all of that and realize that, oh, this wasn't even possible. And if I'd started with the hard thing, then I could have realized and pivoted or tried something different and saved all of that time and effort.

Fed DeGobbi: As much as it is painful to find out that the monkey doesn't speak English, it's way less painful than realizing it after you told everybody and built a website about talking monkey.

Kira Smiley: And that was one of the things about the moonshot factory is that we typically didn't announce projects until they were fairly far along, which meant that we had the space and the privacy to pivot quickly if we needed to. And so that's an important part of these moonshots.

Fed DeGobbi: And I guess there's no stigma, there's no shame in figuring out that, yeah, that's not going to work. Let's do something else.

Kira Smiley: Exactly.

Fed DeGobbi: When did you realize that Tidal had what it took to transition from a concept to a commercial product? Because Tidal did end up spinning off from X. I keep calling it X. How would you refer to it? Is it X the moonshot factory?

Kira Smiley: I typically say X, but now that Twitter was reading into X, it can be confusing. So, you know, X, the moonshot factory. As long as people understand context, I think on this podcast, we will be fine.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah. Okay. So yeah. When did you realize that?

Kira Smiley: I had a professor when I was at Stanford and a boss as well at X who said that the best money is money from a customer. And I think that when we realized that we truly had a technology that we had a customer who was interested in buying and scaling and were able to start scaling to hundreds of units, that really was the sign that, hey, this is something real and scaling to more and more of these systems and continuing to want more is a really big indicator that this is something making an actual difference and that is worth what the cost is and the effort, et cetera. It's making an impact. And so being able to start seeing that scale with a customer who is willing to pay, made a big difference. And I think that that was a big indicator and sign, as well as just being able to see that we could really estimate with a high degree of accuracy, the biomass, we could truly feed using AI in a way that helps support feeding efficiency. So seeing the results and then seeing the scale were really good indicators for us that, hey, there's something here and we really want to stick with this and continue to gain traction.

Fed DeGobbi: And this customer, was that Mowi?

Kira Smiley: Mowi was definitely the first customer that we had.

Fed DeGobbi: Mowi, for those that don't know, biggest salmon producer in the world, I believe?

Kira Smiley: Yes, correct.

Fed DeGobbi: Based in Norway.

Kira Smiley: Yes, exactly. Well, globally, but yes. But I think that, you know, having them as an R&D partner and having the investment from them made a big difference. Having them as our first customer made a big difference. And then as we scaled beyond Mowi and opened up to other salmon producers globally and saw more traction there, it was also an indicator that, you know, this isn't just a project or a company that is exclusively working with Moe, this is something that is beneficial to the entire industry. And that was a great indicator as well.

Fed DeGobbi: And just to sort of locate this on the timeline, we're talking sort of 2023 when you sort of started seeing these results and starting getting customers? What was that?

Kira Smiley: Well, I would say that we were working with Mowi, you know, from early days in 2017, 2018, we were building out the technology and then In, you know, between 2022 and 2023, we started expanding to other customers as well and launched commercially to be open to other customers. And then 2024, once we spun out of Alphabet and became an independent company, we were able to quickly hire a team in Norway and expand and establish new headquarters in Bergen. You know, most recently we've established partnerships and launched operations officially in Chile. And so since Spinout, we've been able to really scale our operations much more quickly as well.

Fed DeGobbi: Okay. Okay. Let's go through that transitioning process from sort of being an experiment to a validated innovation. What challenges did you encounter on the way? Was there any failure or you mentioned pivots along the way that shaped the current iteration?

Kira Smiley: I would say that the pandemic hit and suddenly we couldn't travel to Norway very frequently like we had been doing. And so we had to be very intentional about designing the technology, about hiring a remote team within Norway who could help run operations and install our systems. build really strong customer success foundations. And so that almost was a forcing function to allow us to move from us science team within the moonshot factory going out and doing this research project to suddenly saying, here's our systems. We're a little bit separated now, but we have a team that can actually operate this in person. And that was a good forcing function to say, how do we build the processes so that this is an actual company? And that was something that I was definitely deeply involved in, was thinking about how do we take this into something with more process, with teams and move away from just R&D. And I think that that was a pivotal moment in time for us to transition to that point.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah. It must have been difficult to build a team. I mean, building a team is difficult on its own, but building a team remotely in Norway whilst I imagine you'd have been in the US.

Kira Smiley: We were, yeah, we were mostly in California and had a great field service provider team in Norway that helped take us from zero to one. And it provided the building blocks to help us shape the blueprint for how we operate today as a company in Norway and globally.

Fed DeGobbi: Right. I need to ask you this. I've got this story that I, on my notes, that it's about AI mistaking a fish for an umbrella. Am I making this up? What is this?

Kira Smiley: No, you're absolutely right. So if we thought about the earliest days of the technology.

Fed DeGobbi: So this is at the beginning in 2017.

Kira Smiley: Yeah, the very beginning, you know, early, late 2010s. And we were looking at, are there AI models that exist today within Alphabet that we could use to detect these fish? And as we applied those sticker, you know, out of the box AI models to do this fish detection, it detected, for example, a fish as being an umbrella. And so the answer was, we need better data sets and we need to go collect this data ourselves and train a model to not only detect a fish as a fish, but also estimate the biomass of that fish and the growth over time of that fish. And so being able to start realize that what existed today wasn't good enough and then build from there was a big key part of the early days of the technology development.

Fed DeGobbi: So the camera technology was good enough. It was the brain tech that wasn't good enough at identifying- Not even that.

Kira Smiley: We also realized that there weren't stereo camera systems that had the right precision that we wanted and needed to have the accuracy that we wanted to predict with 98% accuracy on the biomass estimation. So then we also not only had to train our new AI models, so that a fish was a fish and not an umbrella. But we also had to develop our own proprietary stereo camera system and full camera system and autonomous winch so that we could have a system that was moving throughout the pen, collecting that diverse data set, and also something that could give us the precision we needed.

Fed DeGobbi: That's fascinating. Cause I mean, is there something that makes it so specific and particularly difficult? Is it being underwater? Cause I mean, I'm thinking, you know, 2017, 2018 camera technology, at least for the general consumer was already pretty good. What is it that makes it so difficult? Is it this sort of this sort of stereo component?

Kira Smiley: Yeah, part of it was a stereo vision. Part of it was being underwater. Part of it was being able to have the right calibration. So you didn't need to recalibrate very often. And so ultimately it was just a matter of, can we create a system that really works for our specific use case? And so we ended up choosing to develop our own system.

Fed DeGobbi: What were the main factors, some of which you may have already hinted to, that contributed to Tidal spinning off from Alphabet X into becoming a commercial viable solution? And it's completely up to you if this is a good time to introduce a framework that I really wanted to cover, which is the Delta framework and how that sort of shaped the development of Tidal. I don't know if it's relevant in terms of What were the requirements within X to decide whether Tidal was ready to spin off?

Kira Smiley: So Tidal was maybe the grandfather of that new framework that existed because we were one of the first companies, we were the first project to follow that model in a lot of ways. And, you know, there had been similar different iterations and ways of spinning out before, but I think Tidal was one of the first ones that many have since followed in that same model as they spun out. Essentially, within the Moonshot Factory, it's always been this idea that once you reach a certain point, whether it's, you know, scaling the company size, whether it's commercial traction or X number of factors that lead us to believe and lead the head of the Moonshot Factory, Astro and his team to believe that the company is ready to go out on its own and to graduate into its own company. Then historically, sometimes that company would spin back into Google. Sometimes it would be a company within Alphabet. And sometimes, rarely, it was a company that was established outside of Alphabet. However, Tidal was one of the first examples of this new model, which is more and more of these companies now are spinning out outside of Alphabet with external investment so that they can scale more quickly out of Alphabet. And that's something that we were one of the earliest companies to follow this current model, and more and more are following in those same footsteps. Essentially, a lot of it is commercial traction. And because there's outside investors coming into the mix now, or there's investment from non-alphabet companies being involved, you have to go through the same scrutiny you would in fundraising. And so it's commercial traction, it's technical viability, it's does this have promise and is this the right product market fit, et cetera.

Fed DeGobbi: And do you feel that Clido as a startup had to go through extra steps and scrutiny compared to any other startup? And is that what ultimately benefited the project in the long term?

Kira Smiley: That's a good question. I think that we, having been within Alphabet and having been within Google X from the beginning, had to think about, or within the Moonshot Factory, had to think about scale very early on. How do we have this company? be something that truly can impact millions or billions and have something that's 10x scale as opposed to starting really small and incrementally increasing. We were thinking about the scale from the very beginning. So that maybe is one point of additional scrutiny that we went through. The other piece is as we had to prove ourselves time and time again within, X that we were a project that had success and could continue. So we wouldn't get shut down or recycled throughout the process, which many of these companies, most of them are shut down or recycled or turn into some different type of project. So part of it was continuing to make it through those phases, going through the fundraising process with investors. And I think ultimately now being outside of Alphabet, we have the ability to scale very quickly, we have the ability to run more marketing and comms and to hire locally in different places. And so it's given us the autonomy to move quickly and to scale as we want to. But we're really grateful for all the R&D investment and all of the support from Alphabet that we had in the early stages we were going through that R&D phase.

Fed DeGobbi: What was the most difficult thing to prove throughout that process? Was it the technology? Was it the commercial viability or something else?

Kira Smiley: I think that it was something that many companies were looking for. You know, we've heard, hey, this is exactly the system we've been waiting for for years and years. And so it was clearly a problem that people wanted solved. The biggest challenge I think was getting to the right accuracy level with robotics in the ocean. If you think about, maybe you've talked to other underwater robotics companies on your podcast, the ocean is definitely trying to kill hardware. right? It's corrosive, it's intense, there's storms with waves that are many, many meters high. And so having a system that was robust enough to survive that environment in freezing conditions, in summers, underwater at 30 meters depth, and have it give accuracy when we estimated lice or biomass or fish health conditions, that is a huge technical challenge. And so when we were able to actually accomplish that and prove that at scale in all conditions, in various seasons, in different geographies, that was really critical for us.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah, I can see that. It's almost like you're trying to build a tank with the accuracy of a very tiny device

Kira Smiley: Exactly.

Fed DeGobbi: I wanted to talk to you about Chile and international partnerships in general. I haven't announced this publicly, though by the time this episode comes out I may very well have, but I'm going to be taking this podcast on the road over the next few months and exploring a couple of emerging blue economy hotspots. And the first stop will be the patagonia region in chile and argentina now. I know that you said chile is an important piece of the puzzle for you guys title could you explain maybe what is happening and why.

Kira Smiley: I think that the Chilean aquaculture market often follows the Norwegian aquaculture market in certain ways. And so they look to Norway in many ways to see what technology is being adopted there, to see different farming techniques and to adapt them. Chile has slightly different infrastructure, but I think one of the biggest changes they had in the past five years alone was the advent of Starlink and different types of technology to really connect many of these different places has led to having more remote feeding centers, has led to a big technological uplift that has made it great grounds for now establishing more of this type of precision smart camera technology. And so it's really the right moment I think for a lot of growth there and for a lot of technological adoption to drive the industry to the next level in terms of precision and accuracy in estimations, in terms of sustainability overall, and in terms of huge leaps and bounds in operations.

Fed DeGobbi: Okay. So in terms of what made you choose Chile, it was the promise of growth and the potential that you're seeing in that area.

Kira Smiley: Yeah, and I think, you know, Norway is probably the biggest proportion of the salmon market. Chile is close behind. And so it is a logical next place to go once we had established in Norway. And then, you know, it takes some time to adapt because Chilean aquaculture, though in some ways it looks and feels similar to salmon aquaculture in Norway, is also fairly different. And so we needed to go learn about the aquaculture market there and what we needed to adapt so that it fit that particular market, and what challenges they faced that maybe were different from the ones in Norway so that we could respond and help drive, you know, sustainability and better operational efficiency there as well.

Fed DeGobbi: Yeah. I'm curious, what is different? I'm not sure.

Kira Smiley: The easy piece is that in Norway, you have these circular pens that maybe have 200,000 fish. And in Chile, they have these steel square cages that are about 40 by 40 meters or 30 by 30 meters and are in big groups altogether. And so right away, that infrastructure is different. I mentioned that, you know, historically, they didn't always have the same network connectivity. Now with Starlink, that's made a big difference. And I think overall, it's similar in some ways, but they have different types of sea lice, for example, or harmful algal blooms that are in Chile, but not so much in Norway. And so they have different biological challenges they face and just infrastructure differences overall.

Fed DeGobbi: Is there anything particularly exciting about Chile at the moment?

Kira Smiley: I think Chile often follows the path that Norway goes on in terms of technology or operations. And now I think the moment where we started to hit a lot of growth in Norway, I'm seeing that same environment now in Chile. And I think it's really ripe for taking the next steps in terms of general development and adoption of this type of AI and technology applied to aquaculture.

Fed DeGobbi: How important is this partnership for you and Tidal?

Kira Smiley: So within Chile, we're launching and working with any semi-architecture company that wants to work with us. So we're already doing some work with other companies. I can't state which ones, but we're working with other companies. And one of the partnerships that we have established is with a company called Empresas Maxor. which has operations all throughout Chile, has expertise in field service providers, and also is very integrated within the Chilean industry. So we've established a partnership with them, with them being one of our major arms of operation within Chile. And I think that that will be an excellent way for us to continue to scale with on ground support in a way that you would not get if you were sending people to come help from Norway or from the US, where people want to pick up the phone and have someone in Chile to answer them, you know, in the next five minutes. And so it was an important partnership for us. And I'm excited to see how that continues to deliver benefits as we start to scale there.

Fed DeGobbi: Have you already come across any obstacle or misconception about Chilean aquaculture?

Kira Smiley: I think in terms of differences, I mentioned there's biological differences. So some of the lice species that they have there is a little bit different. Some of the feeding methods they have there are a little bit different. And so that definitely takes a little bit of adaptation to make sure that we're meeting their needs. And I think that the mistake would be to assume that everything is exactly the same as it is in Norway, which is simply not the case. But I think with the learnings that we've had over the past few years and the new partnerships we have, I'm really excited to see how it continues to progress.

Fed DeGobbi: What is Tyler's approach to international partnerships? Because I do get the sense that it's a huge part of your success. And I wonder whether you've sort of developed a, almost like a manual of this is how an international partnership should be done. Can you share anything about that? What's your approach? Do you contact companies and basically say, Hey, we're launching here. If you're interested, we're ready. What's the recipe?

Kira Smiley: I think that much of it has evolved over time, right? As we've grown, I would say the international part of the partnerships is more happenstance than anything else. It just so happened that while we were in California, much of the salmon and aquaculture industry was happening in Norway and now happening in Chile. And so by chance, those are the partnerships we needed to establish. But I think that as terms of ground rules, It is so critical to have a lighthouse partner or an aquaculture partner that is willing to take some risk, that's willing to understand the process of developing new technology. New technology is never perfect from day one. It requires data collection, it requires validation. And so having a partner that's willing to go along for the journey, for anyone who's trying to develop new technology, that's incredibly critical. And then being able to take that and have teams on the ground who can help to then scale locally, I think is also really critical to having success.

Fed DeGobbi: So you almost need somebody who is willing to be part of… A journey, right? Yes, yes. With everything that comes with it, the good and the bad, I suppose. All the obstacles that will no doubt get in the way.

Kira Smiley: Yeah, and there's benefits for being a first partner, right? You get the earliest, you get the technology before anyone else opt-in because you are that first partner. You also have the chance to give feedback and make sure that that feedback reflects your problems. Obviously, when technology companies are solving, they want to make sure that what they're solving is generalizable, but being the first partner can often give you more of a voice because you're talking to them frequently. There's definitely benefits and reasons that these companies would want to be a first mover in this space. And there's reasons that other companies might want to wait and be a second mover or come once it's fully commercialized or a little bit later on when it's really validated at scale. And so It depends on the type of company you are, but ultimately I think that there's time and a place for companies to take the lead and to really push and be that partner to these companies that have the tools, but really need that on the ground expertise from people who have decades of experience in the industry so that they make sure they're solving the right problems.

Fed DeGobbi: I read about a new report this morning, actually, published by the World Bank on the future of aquaculture. You may have come across it. It said that aquaculture is potentially the largest sustainable food investment opportunity over the next 25 years, which is no small statement, and that it could generate as many as 22 million new jobs by 2050. with something like 1.5 trillion predicted investment opportunity in the sector over the same period. What do you make of these stats? They sound huge, borderline unbelievable.

Kira Smiley: I mean, I think if you think about it, we know that we have a population that will need more calories by 2050. Your numbers quoted 50%, right? We know that there's limited resources or limited space on terrestrial ecosystems to expand. We don't want to cut down more forests. We need to be more efficient. But if we're thinking about sustainable food systems, the ocean is 70% of the cover of the entire planet, right? And rather than having it be a victim where it's suffering just from impacts of ocean acidification and climate change, if we can leverage the ocean and create resilient food systems that are both regenerative but also providing food security, it's this enormous opportunity. And this is the decade of the oceans. I think SDG 14, Life Underwater, is historically one of the most underfunded And so that means that it has one of the biggest opportunities to have more investment and more funds put into it. So that was a big focus of the UN Ocean Conference that we had recently in Nice. There were so many conversations about how we can both protect the ocean, but also make sure that we're providing more opportunities for food security there. And so we know as well, I think in this study, you might have read that now aquaculture has surpassed wild-caught fisheries in terms of the amount of food that's being produced. And so it's growing. and we've seen more interest in terms of investment. It's just a matter of can we do it in a way that doesn't follow suit of intensive agriculture that causes environmental damage? Are we able to do this and learn from that agricultural revolution and have something new for aquaculture in a way that we can create a system that is good for the planet and for people and for the ecosystems underwater?

Fed DeGobbi: Absolutely. The opportunity is there. That seems pretty clear. What do you see as the current biggest challenges still faced by aquaculture?

Kira Smiley: I think one of the biggest challenges is in communication. So we mentioned, there's stigma in terms of fish farms and opposition to that, that may be slightly outdated and may also be a company that's not representative of the entire industry. So communication and being more transparent and being able to share what's actually going on, I think is really important. On the other hand, I think that salmon aquaculture is only 2% of the total volume of fish produced out of all of aquaculture. Most of that growth is happening in Asia. 70% of it is happening there and much of it is smallholder aquaculture. And so being able to expand or cause more growth in that space in a way that also does not damage the environment and that keeps that ecosystem balance in mind, I think will be one of the greatest challenges that we face, but one of the most important ones. And if we leverage technology correctly, it can help be a tool so that we don't go down, you know, the same path of industrial intensification, but can have something that really does support place-based communities and place-based growth and support a growing industry that can really be good for the planet.

Fed DeGobbi: So in terms of doing aquaculture properly and doing it sustainably, why is it not a no brainer? What's the obstacle? Is it that it is more expensive to do it sustainably? Is it more difficult? What's the, you know, what's the hold back and can technology overcome it?

Kira Smiley: I think that a lot of it has to do with the locations, with policy, with many different reasons. So for example, in Norway, one of the greatest challenges of continuing industry growth is around the sea lice challenge, which is becoming more intense. And so mitigation is really important there. It's also a matter of space. You have to do very intensive analysis of the ocean seafloor and the location and make sure there's enough water flow through and it won't interrupt, you know, native species. And so there's a lot that goes into finding the correct location for it. Within the U.S., there's challenges around policy, but there's groups like the Coalition for Sustainable Aquaculture, which is supporting open ocean aquaculture and working with bipartisan groups to try and make sure that that can be done sustainably and in a science-based format. And so there is more policy than other areas. And globally, I think that depending on where you are, there's different challenges. Maybe it's policy, maybe it's getting the correct siting, maybe it's having the investment to be able to scale infrastructure, you know, any number of reasons. But I think that with any industry, we'll see growth in certain areas. And hopefully, if we're able to leverage the right tools, we can see it grow in a good direction rather than going in intensive and in a tiking mindset instead of in a regenerative mindset.

Fed DeGobbi: In some cases, not to say that it is the case for Tidal and for this sort of sector, but in some cases you see that private companies don't adopt a new process, a new technology, a new way of doing things the right way unless they are forced to, or obviously unless they have a strong financial incentive for doing so. Do you see policy as potentially affecting and influencing the adoption of technologies such as titles in the future? Is it just a financial factor?

Kira Smiley: I think it's a combination of both. So in some ways, having let's take Norway, for example, in Norway, there's fairly strict lice level regulations. And so that means that rather than trying to pull fish out of the water and count in a non statistically representative sample, that they use to estimate for the rest of the population, you can use technology to automatically do that without pulling fish out of the water and risking higher mortality. That is a great benefit, and part of that is driven by the regulations that existed. On the other hand, these types of technologies, like I said, they can save a lot of money in terms of being more resource efficient, in terms of being more effective in timing and other pieces. And so that's just a business benefit in and of itself, in addition to the efficiency and the sustainability that comes with it. And so on one hand, I think that to really have scale technology for different industries in the ocean, we really do need to have things that make sense from a business standpoint. At the same time, if there's support from the policy perspective, I think that that only serves to help drive adoption more quickly. And depending on the way the regulation is set up, can really help drive more transparency as well, which allows you to measure more, which allows you to then make bigger changes that are more effective.

Fed DeGobbi: So title has come out of a mentality of addressing and resolving problems worth solving. Do you see any other important problems worth solving in and around the blue economy?

Kira Smiley: Absolutely. I think when we were within the moonshot factory, we very much were talking about this idea of a platform for the ocean economy. And we've done some work in other areas as well and see a lot of potential there, whether that's in blue transportation to drive more sustainability there, whether it's in blue carbon. So we did some work in Fiji and in Indonesia around using our camera systems to detect and model seagrass on seabed floors near shore. And so there's a lot of opportunities there. And I think expanding within blue food to other species, there's so much that can happen. And I think that many of the building blocks that we've developed as TIDAL will then help serve as the baselines that we can use to eventually apply to, you know, other industries within the ocean and to help drive the blue economy. And I'm excited to see, you know, other companies come into that space because the ocean truly is this, this ocean of opportunity. And there's a lot I think that can be done here.

Fed DeGobbi: Is there a lot of competition at the moment or do you see it as a blue ocean?

Kira Smiley: Good question as well. I think it depends on what you're talking about. In terms of technology within oceans, I think there's a lot going on and a lot more that could happen. Absolutely. I think in terms of smart camera technologies, there's been several that have popped up. I think there's a few that are coming out as leaders alongside title in this space. And I think that that's good for driving both competition, but also for pushing each other to be better and to continue to evolve and to not stay stagnant. And so competition in some ways is great. In other ways, I think that naturally you'll see ultimately some leaders come into the space and others may, you know, die off or pivot or do something else. But I think The main point is, let's keep building this ocean economy. I think there's so much that can and should happen in this space, and I hope to see more join.

Fed DeGobbi: If you could decide now, what sort of people would you want to join the ocean economy? I'm thinking people and skills and ideas.

Kira Smiley: Should I give you names? I'll call out my friends that I want to join. I'm joking. I think that it's a combination. So one, investment. So anyone who can invest into the space and help drive this, that's a huge win.

Fed DeGobbi: And you feel that there is a good return on investment for them, that a good reason for investment to come in?

Kira Smiley: Yeah, I mean, I think you're seeing more and more of that investment grow. And you heard from the World Bank report about the growing interest in investment. I think that it's a space that definitely is growing and is a place that is de-risked, especially with more technology. being able to measure and to give insights into what's happening. Those baseline technologies then unlock the ability to have new innovation on top of that, that you can actually still be able to measure the changes in the impact and validate it in a way that allows you to have less risk because you know what's happening underwater. And so one, I think investment arms coming into the space, huge. Second, I would say that there's many large and maybe historical industries that are in a space that they can start having big transformations to drive sustainability, to drive technology adoption. And so having really established companies start to think about pulling in or partnering with innovators so that they can drive and rethink their systems that they're a part of, that's another big area.

Fed DeGobbi: What's an example of that?

Kira Smiley: Let's think of the shipping industry. Yeah, shipping industry, for example, it's an industry that's very established, has been around for a long, long, long time, and is also really ripe for innovation. And we're seeing that more and more. And then I think lastly, having more innovators come into the space, but with innovators who have a humble mindset. So anyone who comes in and assumes they have the answers to people's problems, I would say, take a step back, go talk to someone who actually spends time in the ocean and learn from them. Because I think that what we can't have is people coming in and assuming they know what's best, because that not only turns off the industries they want to work with, but also can drive the wrong solutions or band-aid solutions. And so instead, having people that are willing to really listen, to work closely with partners who have decades of expertise, and then learn from them and apply the tools and skills they have. Those are the people that I think need to be in the blue economy to have the next transition and the next phase of explosive growth in terms of what's possible.

Fed DeGobbi: That's a really good point. This is probably a good time to bring this to a close. Is there anything you would like to mention in closing that we haven't brought up? Anything that you'd like to point people to?

Kira Smiley: Absolutely. I think one of the things that's most exciting to me about the system, the title of design and about smart technology for camera systems underwater for aquaculture and potentially beyond that is that the innovation keeps happening. It's continuing. It's an ever-growing journey. So we, for example, since launching outside of Alphabet last year have released new features around fish behavior. We've released new features on welfare. We've released an entire new camera system that will allow us to operate in submerged pens, which is just in showing that as aquaculture evolves, we too will have to keep evolving to make sure that the technology continues to solve the needs of the industry and to solve the needs of a changing biological environment and the new challenges that arise because of it. And so once you start innovating, it's not going to end suddenly. It's going to continue. And I'm seeing that with tidal every single day. And I think that we'll see that broadly in the ocean economy as we move forward into the next decade.

Fed DeGobbi: And I guess that makes it exciting as well. It makes it difficult and it makes it, it's almost like a goalpost keeps moving. But at the same time, especially coming from a mentality of an entrepreneurial and innovative mentality, that's quite, that's where the fun is, isn't it?

Kira Smiley: Yeah, new challenges and always new ways to solve them. And I think that's what keeps people motivated.

Fed DeGobbi: Where can people find you and Tidal and learn more about what you guys are doing?

Kira Smiley: So people can visit our website, titlex.ai and can visit our LinkedIn page. In addition, we'll have a team that's at Aquanor, which is one of the world's largest aquaculture related conferences in Trondheim in Norway coming up in August. And so if they will be there, I would highly recommend checking out our booth, visiting us and learning more.

Fed DeGobbi: Fantastic. Thanks for that. We'll put that in the show notes for sure. And thank you so much for your help in deconstructing such a technical and complex area of the ocean economy. One that can be somewhat scary at times, but also incredibly energizing and full of potential. So it's been really great talking with you and thank you so much for taking the time.

Kira Smiley: Thank you. And I hope that there's more people who join in the ocean economy. And I think that being able to see the innovation continue and kind of rethink around the stigma on aquaculture and think about how it could actually be something for the benefit and how technology can help is important. And I hope that people take a pause and think about it.

Fed DeGobbi: Excellent. Thank you so much.