47. Grant Romundt: How Ocean Builders is Creating the Future of Floating Cities and Underwater Living
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Mizter Rad (00:08.616)
Hello beautiful humans! Let me share a news clip from August 2075 about 50 years from now.
Ocean update, the United Nations has officially recognized Aquanova as the world's first sovereign floating nation after its modular sea communities connected to form a larger territory than Monaco. Using revolutionary marine stabilization technology, its 100,000 residents experience less motion than people in conventional high rises on land. The nation's unique saltwater agriculture system now exports
more food than Singapore, while its Citizenship by Investment program has now become the most exclusive passport on earth, with applications exceeding those of traditional countries for the third straight year.
Now, of course, I made this up. But as I speak to you right now, I'm literally recording 11 meters underwater in one of Ocean Builder's seapods off the coast of Panama with around 200 metric tons of water pressure on the walls around me. What once seemed like science fiction is beginning to become reality. We all know the feeling of being stuck in crowded cities, breathing polluted air and looking at a concrete instead of blue skies. With nearly 8 billion people on earth and rising sea levels, threatening coastal communities.
We're facing a space crisis unlike anything in human history. But what if I told you there's a new frontier for human habitation that covers 72 % of our planet's surface? Today's guest is literally building the future of ocean living with high tech sustainable floating homes called SeaPods. Meet Grant Romundt the co-founder of Ocean Builders. These guys are building ocean communities all over the world. And I'm actually recording this episode in one of their underwater sea pots right now in Panama. Grant, thank you so much for joining me in this incredible underwater space. How are you doing today?
Grant Romundt (02:40.746)
I'm great. Thank you for the intro. Glad you are on board the C-Pod and in our underwater room. That's a very special place.
Mizter Rad (02:49.96)
It is a fucking special place. It's amazing to be here. Grant, I'm sitting here 11 meters underwater in one of your seat pods, which is, of course, pretty mind blowing in itself. For our listeners who can't see this, can you describe what I'm experiencing right now and how you manage to build a structure that can withstand around 200 to 300 metric tons of water pressure?
Grant Romundt (03:18.542)
Sure. So we designed a very innovative floating home that is actually floating three meters over the water and it is connected from the bottom of the house with a tube that goes into the water and very far down under the surface of the water. And we use that underwater room that you're in now as a way of pushing that house up because we need extra buoyancy.
So we needed to make this big, buoyant room that would create all the lift that would push the house up. So that's why we actually created that room. And we originally didn't really design it to be a living space. We just needed it to create this lift. about 20, 15, 20 meters underneath you, there's a very heavy weight, about 60 tons worth of weight, which stabilizes the whole structure. So it's...
It's a very interesting structure. when we were developing it, we thought, well, why don't we make this room into an actual room where you could live in if you wanted to. You could turn that into a second bedroom. then it wasn't too long after that that we came up with the idea, my business partner came up with the idea of creating, doing an underwater Guinness World Record.
attempt for living underwater for longer than anyone else has in history and we just completed that a few months ago. So we proved that you can not only live on the water but also under the water and showed it and we had a huge media event that was focused on that just showing the viability that this is real. I think when I grew up there was all these stories about
Mizter Rad (05:06.6)
That's impressive.
Grant Romundt (05:12.332)
maybe in the future we'll have underwater cities and there's these fantastic images and ideas people had. And I never thought that we would actually be building it one day or that I would be building it one day. Here we are.
Mizter Rad (05:15.815)
Right.
Mizter Rad (05:28.07)
Right. Amazing. Amazing. Okay. We can talk about the actual structure of the 60 tons holding the whole bog under the water later, because I really want to get into the structural topics here later. what I wanted to maybe get from you at first is, because you said that the underwater room where I am right now,
came by accident in a way, it was not, the functionality of it was not really to hold living. But if it's not designed for people to actually live full time here, or if it's more like an experimental space at this point.
By looking at it right now, do you feel like people would like to live underwater at some point or is this something more for a niche group of humans or how do you see this happening? Because it's pretty rough to live under the water for a long time. I'm sure Rudy, the co-founder, your partner, your business partner can talk more about that. But what are your thoughts on this?
no.
Grant Romundt (06:46.622)
yeah, I, I think that originally, the idea was that we would just use it as a float for flotation and you wouldn't actually be living under there. and then the idea evolved and I don't think it's really going to ever turn into something where people are going to be, that I lose you.
Mizter Rad (07:10.936)
Yeah, I'm here now. Can you hear me?
Grant Romundt (07:13.228)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sometimes it's body there.
Mizter Rad (07:15.418)
Yeah, what were you saying? Sorry, I'm going to turn off the camera just to have a better maybe connection.
Grant Romundt (07:23.266)
sure I'll turn that off over here as well.
Okay.
Sorry, what was the question again? Just so I'll start it from the beginning.
Mizter Rad (07:34.342)
So I want to know if you think.
Do you think people really want to live underwater versus on the surface? Maybe not right now, but at some point.
Grant Romundt (07:49.942)
I think that people are interested in living underwater as like a novelty experience, like you do adventure, holidays, adventure tourism. And I think that's what is ahead of us in the years to come, that there might be a market for underwater.
unique underwater experiences, just like there's a lot of adventure tourism that's coming up because people want to try something new and interesting and something that's novel that people haven't done before. And so I think there's a market for that. Do I think people will actually be living underwater full time? I don't see that happening anytime soon because it's quite tricky. There's a lot of complexities to make it actually work.
And it's quite beautiful being at that depth because you have such a unique view on the world where outside your window sometimes you have hundreds and hundreds of
Mizter Rad (08:49.904)
Yeah.
I'm telling you, I have 1,000 fish right now in front of me. It's so amazing. And it almost feels like they're listening to the conversation and they're curious and they just like look in the window and then go and then leave again. It's fantastic.
Grant Romundt (08:56.846)
Yeah, it is really beautiful. It's like a nature discovery. It's like a discovery.
Grant Romundt (09:10.936)
Yeah. Yeah. So it's a really cool thing to experience. And when we started the underwater Guinness World Record attempt, being in the underwater room was quite rough because we hadn't yet made it into something that you would actually want to stay in for a period of time because it got very hot, very humid, and we didn't have great airflow. And we've improved on
upon these things. So it's actually much nicer now to stay underwater. And there's some more work we need to do if we want to make it into something where the average person might want to come and have a vacation. We need to take it a little bit, the technology a little bit further before it's ready for that. But I think it can reach a point pretty easily where it can become a unique underwater adventure tourism.
Mizter Rad (09:59.211)
Right.
Grant Romundt (10:08.366)
thing.
Mizter Rad (10:09.414)
That sounds like a great vision. I'm sure there's a lot of pieces of the puzzle missing. But you touch the topic of technology and I'm staying in one of the pods here in Panama. And I've noticed that it is packed with technology. Smart toilet, smart shower, smart lighting. There's even a smart bed that I've never seen before in my life.
Grant Romundt (10:35.214)
Yeah.
Mizter Rad (10:39.174)
What's the thinking behind all this technology? Why not making a simpler floating home, so to say?
Grant Romundt (10:51.374)
Well, I first got introduced to Floating Homes as an Airbnb that I found 2016 in Toronto, Canada. And I found it, I loved it, fell in love. I just stayed for a one night experience then loved it so much that I extended for a week and a month and three and a half years later, I was still there. The only reason I left was to come.
and build my own vision of what a floating home could be. And during the time that I was living there, I started putting in a lot of different technology. And I guess I just, I see a vision of how I want to live myself. And I'm trying to create that in the world so other people can have the experience too, if they like it. If they like it, then we build more. If they don't, then...
It's just for me and that's fine. But I think there's a, I think people want to experience something that's very technologically advanced. has a lot of smarts to it. So your home can be very intelligent and, and help make your life a little bit easier and also be good for the environment and have an incredible lifestyle. So you can have these incredible views. Like you have 360 degree views on the C-pod that you're staying on now.
And it's just breathtaking everywhere you look and living on the water is just an experience that is really very special. mean, we've come up with something that is completely unique in the world. And I think once people experience that and, and how the technology can improve their lives a little bit, then I think, I think we'll have a waning combination. It's also good for the environment. It actually creates.
It's eco-restorative, it creates a marine environment underneath the water.
Mizter Rad (12:49.926)
How does that work, actually?
Grant Romundt (12:53.042)
the submerged steel that's, part of the flotation device of the C-pod, is something that we, we've turned that into basically like a coral reef, using a couple of things. Number one, sea life, they like steel. The iron and the steel specifically is something that, is usually deficient in lot of marine life. So we're feeding that to them so that that becomes.
you know, a really good thing. And in addition to that, we're putting a small electric current through the steel, which helps protect the steel from rust. It's a known phenomena that you do if you put a little small electric current through the steel that will protect it from rusting. So by doing that, we're actually pulling a little bit of calcium carbonate out of the surrounding water, which sticks to the steel and forms a protective layer over the steel. But
like coral and other sea life, they really like calcium carbonate because that's good for their, that's their building blocks of their structure, their bones and their, you know, the actual coral material or other marine life as well. They need calcium carbonate. So we're actually feeding them the core nutrients that they need to survive and thrive. So that creates a marine environment.
Mizter Rad (14:07.302)
Thank you.
Mizter Rad (14:22.534)
Very interesting. And I want to go deeper into the technology I've seen. mentioned, sorry, I mentioned before that there's a smart toilet, a smart shower, even a smart bed. But what I also found fascinating is this brain, quote unquote, this device that is surrounded by cables and is floating in a small container next to the wine fridge. What is that?
Grant Romundt (14:49.794)
Yes. That's our brain computer.
Mizter Rad (14:50.79)
Someone told me it's like the brain of the pod, but can you tell me how that works and what it is exactly?
Grant Romundt (14:59.052)
Yeah, so that's when we were building the computer for the home that runs all the electronics. We wanted to have something that was unique. Something like, you know, in the movie Back to the Future where they have the flex capacitor that's a special thing that makes the time machine work. And then at the center of the enterprise, there is a dilithium crystal. So we were kind of throwing
ideas around of what we might have at the center of the C-Pod that makes it work and makes it makes the magic happen. And then the idea that we would have a liquid computer at the center of the C-Pod because we're liquid because we're on the water. So why not have the entire computer immersed in liquid that looks like water? It's actually a non-conductive oil that
Mizter Rad (15:34.693)
Mm-hmm.
Mizter Rad (15:57.412)
Okay.
Grant Romundt (15:57.414)
is totally clear and it's non-conductive so it can be immersed, the computer is immersed in this liquid and it keeps it cool so it doesn't get as hot as normal computers would get, especially with all the AI functionalities that goes on on that computer. So it keeps it cool, but it also does another really important function which is it protects it from the marine environment which is very toxic with the
with assault error and that's very close to sensitive electronics. So it has the benefit of protecting the very sensitive electronics of the home computer that runs the whole pod. So now instead of lasting two, three, four, five years that the electronics in the brain computer will last 10, 20 years probably, there's no reason for it to wear out from
Mizter Rad (16:29.478)
Yeah.
Mizter Rad (16:52.347)
Mm.
Grant Romundt (16:56.878)
corrosion because it's protected.
Mizter Rad (17:00.816)
Did you build, did you guys build this as well? Is this like your invention?
Grant Romundt (17:04.588)
Yes. Yeah. all the technology, most of the technology in the C-Pod is our technology that we developed. And the it's an immersion computer. So it's not the only one in the world, but there's very few of them. They are used for cooling for computers, but there's not too many that actually use that process. For us, makes sense because
We wanted to have it on the ocean and have the computer protected from corrosion. But it also was something unique that we could do that I thought was pretty interesting. And we're also running very advanced AI circuits on there. So it actually helps to keep the temperature down and keep the operating temperature cooler, which saves power as well.
Mizter Rad (17:59.664)
Yeah, so how does that work actually? Are you all wireless or are you wiring all these connections or how do you connect each? Yeah.
Grant Romundt (18:09.886)
that's a very good question. Yeah, very good question. We, when I may, when I was living in the Airbnb in Toronto in the, in 2016, installed about a hundred or more wireless devices around the house and, they're all using wifi protocols for the most part. And the amount of,
Mizter Rad (18:34.022)
Mm-hmm.
Grant Romundt (18:36.682)
radio waves that were in this house that house were just so much I actually I actually didn't feel very good after about six months of living there with with all the electronics installed once that everything was done and I kind of felt like I was living in a microwave so I decided when I was going to build my own smart home from scratch I wanted to do it in a way that was
really, really healthy. wanted to have the smartest house, but also one of the healthiest homes to live in. So I wanted to build it with as little radio waves as possible. We do have wifi in the house, obviously, so you can use your phone or your tablet or your computer inside the house. But we wanted to minimize all the wireless connections.
So we have very few wireless devices. The only thing that we have that are wireless are the blinds. And the next version of the pod that we're working on eliminates that as well. We're going to develop our own blind system. So it's going to, we're buying it off the shelf blinds, but we're building our own controllers to control the blinds instead of using their wireless protocol.
retrofitting our system onto it. So it doesn't use any wireless protocols at all. It's all wired. So it's, it's, it sounds like it's going backwards a little bit because now it's going wireless. We're wired. Yeah. But, living in a house with 80 to a hundred or more wireless devices didn't feel good to me. So I, I, I really want to make the, a super, super healthy home. And I think that's part of it.
Mizter Rad (20:04.144)
Hmm.
Right. Everything is wireless.
Mizter Rad (20:22.704)
That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, what I've seen in both parts is a lot of engineering. as a civil engineer myself, I appreciate that. And I can imagine all the engineering challenges that you have overcome. And I'm thinking, you know, when NASA develops tech for space travel, for example, space exploration, we often get
amazing spin-offs that become part of our daily lives. Let's say things like the GPS or memory foam or I learned also that even some camera sensors in your phone come from that.
Grant Romundt (21:07.544)
Mm-hmm.
Mizter Rad (21:08.454)
Has solving these ocean living challenges led to innovations that could become normal, so to say, on land someday, you think? I'm thinking about water waste management, energy systems, or even construction techniques that might benefit everyone.
Grant Romundt (21:30.036)
you know, maybe five, 10 years ago, the technology to do what we're doing didn't exist. There's just like all these new technologies are coming available. but what's been really difficult is finding the best and then putting them all together and finding the right mix of these things to, to put it all together in one house. And that's been an incredible amount of research and a lot of.
the integration hasn't been done by anyone before, so we've done a lot of, development work and, we had to build a lot of our own systems because they just didn't exist. So I think a lot of the innovations we're doing in the audit of the integration work we're doing is going to be able to build better homes in the future. so absolutely. I agree with that. there's systems where you can, recycle your, or you can treat your wastewater.
A lot of people, you you mentioned the smart toilet already and we've put in hundreds of hours.
Mizter Rad (22:32.122)
Yeah. How does that work actually? I find it fascinating. First time I use one of those, it's like, and it's in the middle of the ocean and I'm like, my mouth is open every time I go.
Grant Romundt (22:45.74)
Yeah, it's a fat, I love the toilet. yeah, we spent a lot of, development hours, like hundreds and hundreds of hours trying to figure out how to do the bathroom experience, the toilet experience, right? Because, a lot of boats, they, the, bathroom smell and they're awful and they're a bad experience. And we wanted to create something where people, you.
Mizter Rad (22:49.126)
Go into the toilet,
Mizter Rad (23:02.256)
Yeah.
Mizter Rad (23:08.101)
Yeah
Grant Romundt (23:15.07)
have go to the bathroom or have a shower or use the kitchen or whatever you're doing, everything should be a really good experience. So nailing that has been hard. And that's why we've done a lot of research to get the right toilets, get the right systems. So we instead of putting in a normal toilet, we put in a smart toilet, which isn't totally unique in the world. It's quite popular in Japan and some other countries. We're adding some new technology to it. So it's
Mizter Rad (23:21.574)
Hmm.
Mizter Rad (23:37.51)
Right.
Grant Romundt (23:44.92)
can be voice operated so you don't have to touch any buttons at all, which is even nicer. so that's coming. Then right now we're working on a way of treating the waste so that the waste, once it's gone through about a two or three day process, can be about 98 % clean.
Mizter Rad (23:49.158)
Mmm.
Yes.
Mizter Rad (24:08.838)
you
Grant Romundt (24:14.696)
and clean enough to meet most countries like vast majority of countries in the world's standards for releasing the water into the ocean. And so it's going to be better than what comes out of most sewage treatment plants on land. that's great. We're really looking forward to that. We're putting that technology into our new pods that we're developing now. And we could do an extra step.
Mizter Rad (24:40.678)
So tell me more about that. Sorry to jump in here, but like it goes into sort of like a box and then and that's underwater as well and that's being treated there underwater and then three days later it's released into the ocean kind of thing.
Grant Romundt (24:57.154)
It doesn't have to be underwater. just needs to go through about six different chambers. And as it progresses from each chamber, one chamber to another, it gets cleaner and cleaner and cleaner until it's reaching the end. And then it can be released because it's cleaned. And it uses really simple technology. It's not some crazy stuff that is very far out there science-wise or...
or very expensive. It's actually very low tech. It's using bacteria, but it's also using a bubbler. So it kind of bubbles air through the system. And just like when you have water, when you drink water at the bottom of a mountain that's coming down a mountain stream, it's incredibly clean and it's healthy to drink.
Mizter Rad (25:35.91)
Hmm.
Mizter Rad (25:41.363)
Okay.
Grant Romundt (25:52.546)
but water that's sitting around and stale is not healthy. it's usually because the water that's coming down the stream is going over rocks and there's a lot of bubbles as it's going down the rocks, running down the stream. And those bubbles create hydrogen peroxide, which helps clean the water, helps kill all the bacteria and all the bad stuff that's in there. So as it goes through these different chambers, it goes through bubblers and then different bacterial
systems are in there as well that help clean it and digest the bad stuff and at the end you have water that's it's quite clean.
Mizter Rad (26:32.486)
Interesting. And in terms of waste, like solid waste, say in the kitchen you're cooking and then there's stuff organic and organic plastics and so on, how do you manage that in the sea, in a floating home?
Grant Romundt (26:39.256)
Mm-hmm.
Grant Romundt (26:50.344)
well, if you have garbage, you just need to organize to take it away. Like you do anywhere else. If you have garbage in your land home, then someone comes by and picks it up, once a week or whatever your garbage route, garbage truck route is, with us, we just have to have a boat come by every once in a while and pick it up and take it away. So it's the same, same process. We don't have anything magical with that right now. so yeah.
Mizter Rad (27:06.362)
Mm-hmm.
Mizter Rad (27:14.383)
Impressed.
Mizter Rad(27:19.482)
That makes sense. I want to get this right, Grant. How do you actually build these pots? And now we can get deeper into the structural part of it. I learned from Mike yesterday that the pots are actually floating. Some people would imagine that you actually build the foundation, dig a hole on the ground, and that's how the pot holds. But it is not like that. I want you to maybe...
Grant Romundt (27:36.568)
Mm-hmm.
Mizter Rad (27:50.608)
Tell us more about that and how the whole process of constructing this part in Panama was because I also learned that you used local labor and you build pretty much everything by yourselves. So how was that process?
Grant Romundt (28:08.264)
yeah, that's a good point. A lot of people come out to visit the sea pod and they get off the boat, get onto the pod and, they don't even know it's floating because it, it, there's so little movement depending on when you're visiting. Some days there's more movement than others, but a lot of times people will be like, are you sure this is a floating? Cause there's so little movement to it. And, it is completely floating and you can jump in the water and
Mizter Rad (28:27.802)
Yeah.
Grant Romundt (28:36.118)
you know, put a mask diving mask on and check it out for yourself. but we have a huge, these huge tubes that are filled with air that create the lift that pushed the house up over the water. And that's something we, we made several small scale demos, that were just computer models at first. Then we, we made very, you know, one, one to 10 version.
scale models, so very small ones. And then we made the one third scale model and then we built a full size model. So we did, we went through a lot of iterations to make sure we got everything right before we did the full size version. And we have a, built a research and development factory in Panama to build these units. And we took all of our learnings from building our scale models.
and a lot of science and simulation programs as well on computers. And then we started building. We hired some local workers to help us do the work of bending the steel and welding it. the floating structure is made of steel and then the house that's above is made of fiberglass.
So it's very traditional kind of boat building materials. so it's nothing, the materials aren't really anything unusual or new, just our configuration is completely different.
Grant Romundt (30:19.278)
So the government of Panama didn't quite know what we were. You know, we're trying to get the vessels registered as boats and they just don't look like normal boats. So it took some time to go through the process to get them approved as a marine vessel. It took about three years to do that, but now that they're done, the next ones are quite easy to do because we've set out the process.
Mizter Rad (30:46.278)
Hmm.
So this is technically registered as a boat. That's why there is a flag of Panama on top of
Grant Romundt (30:56.172)
Yep, that's right.
Mizter Rad (31:00.696)
I see, I see. Okay, so you developed all the infrastructure here on site in Panama with local help. Let's say, how long did it take you to build the first pod?
Grant Romundt (31:00.748)
Yep.
Grant Romundt (31:10.947)
Mm-hmm.
Grant Romundt (31:21.21)
the first fully functioning pod that we could live in, took three years. We started in 2019 and it was on the water in 2021. And that's, that's the pod that you're in right now. And that's my pod.
Mizter Rad (31:32.815)
Mm-hmm.
Mizter Rad (31:37.158)
.
Grant Romundt (31:41.262)
I was living there for two and a half years up until a couple months ago. Now I'm, I've been traveling. Otherwise, um, it's really hard to get me out of the pod because I just don't want to be anywhere else. I love, I love my creation.
Mizter Rad (31:41.51)
Mm-hmm.
Mizter Rad (31:51.672)
I can't imagine. They're going to have to kick me out tomorrow because I don't think I want to live.
Grant Romundt (31:57.868)
Well, I won't be back for a couple of months, so I don't know if there's anyone tomorrow, but you can stay another day or so, maybe.
Mizter Rad (32:06.156)
All right. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. So it took you about three years. And with what you've learned and the learnings that you've had and the kind of improvements that you need to, you know, you need to do, how fast can you build one today if you were to start?
Grant Romundt (32:17.4)
Hmm?
Grant Romundt (32:27.182)
Um, I think the, well, we've been developing for about two years, uh, uh, a new manufacturing methodology that's going to speed up the production quite a bit. And that took about, well, that was about two years, maybe even a little bit longer than that. And we're now kind of putting that into, into, uh, into action.
Mizter Rad (32:49.552)
Okay.
Grant Romundt (32:56.906)
And, but we've made quite a few changes, so we're having to redo quite a few elements. So that process is going much faster now. Things are just getting faster and faster. So we're, we did a complete redesign basically in about four months, whereas it took us over two years before. And
Mizter Rad (33:09.158)
Mm-hmm.
Grant Romundt (33:19.246)
We're just getting quotes from some subcontractors to help with the different parts we need to have made. And I think we'll make the first new one in six to nine months. And then we'll make multiples of that after that. That will be a fraction of the amount of time that it took us to build the first C-pods in Panama.
Mizter Rad (33:45.414)
Okay, before I forget, I know I have a bunch of listeners of the Mr. Rat Show that wanted to share some questions with me. And one of them was about a storm hitting the pot. What happens when a big storm hits? How do you, how do these structures handle extreme weather? Because right now the weather in Panama is absolutely beautiful, but I can't imagine.
being there with a huge storm. I imagine it's a very different experience being in the pot during the storm versus what I'm experiencing right now, which is beautiful skies, nice weather, nice sun, and so on. So are the pots built storm resistant or?
Grant Romundt (34:36.268)
Yeah, we can take waves of up to about five meters. like the unit that you're in right now, can do about five meters. And I think the most we've ever had were we had someone living on board was about three meters. And it's fine when you're on, but getting on and off is a little bit tricky because a three meter waves is, is pretty radical. It's pretty crazy. Trying to get from a boat.
Mizter Rad (34:40.752)
Okay.
Mizter Rad (34:53.656)
Okay.
Mizter Rad (35:02.664)
Alright.
Grant Romundt (35:05.13)
onto the pod or from a pod onto the boat. They're both moving at different rates and getting from one to the other is a little bit tricky. We've actually come up with some better methods of doing that transfer. So we can actually go in, we can go pretty comfortably in 2.2 meter waves. But above that, gets a little bit, you have to be in good shape to be able to do that kind of transfer. But that...
Those kinds of waves are not where you'd want to put your C-pod for a living place because the two and a half meter waves is a lot. And that's beyond where you want to be living. We're doing that there as testing, research and development, testing how far we can push the limits. so that's a totally different case from where you want to live. The pod where you're in,
You know, we don't get those kinds of waves there because it's a much more protected area. And we're also in Panama, which is outside of the hurricane zone. And that, that just eliminates most of the bad weather that, you know, we want to avoid with very large waves, big storms. So it's, it does quite well in big, big, storm conditions. So, I think we're pretty well positioned for that.
And the next versions that we're making are even more optimized, so we'll be able to take even bigger waves and the units will be even more stable. Like the new version of what you're going to be in is, it's going to be probably three or four times more stable. So a two and a half meter wave won't even, won't do much at all.
Mizter Rad (36:57.414)
Does that mean that you could go with the spots deeper into the ocean or that that wouldn't make sense anyway because of the convenience of being close to the shore and being able to, I don't know, go to the grocery store easy, go to land, transport yourself, et cetera.
Grant Romundt (37:16.27)
Um, yeah, people want to be, uh, have access to land and convenience for shopping and for, um, getting to their car so they can go to the city if they want to go see a show or go to a fancy restaurant or something. So, uh, I don't think it's really going to be a thing where there's you're, you're very far from shore. It's just, it's, it's nicer when you have a nice view of.
Land in the background, maybe a couple miles away at the most. It's quite beautiful when you're out there. It's quite stunning actually, especially at sunset. It's very nice. But being too far out, it's... I don't think that's really going to be all that popular.
Mizter Rad (38:07.91)
Right. I mean, let's talk about jurisdictions. You've been building and testing prototypes here in Panama, as you said. And of course, you've learned a lot through that process. What is next? Are there projects happening in other places? I see a book here next to me that talks about floating cities in the Maldives, floating communities.
Are there projects happening in other places like the Maldives or Saudi Arabia or what other locations and opportunities do you see around the
Grant Romundt (38:37.602)
Mm-hmm.
Grant Romundt (38:47.558)
well, Maldives is building a floating city. Saudi Arabia has also announced that they're building a floating city. other countries have announced, floating cities. Maldives is being built that that's going ahead. That's, that's, that's going into production. So we are, we're actually putting up to 20 C pods in the Maldives floating city.
So that's the project we're working on right now. That's why I'm not on this plot right
Mizter Rad (39:17.318)
That's quite a lot.
Grant Romundt (39:21.196)
Yeah, yeah, that's they're going to be kind of like pearls around the city. They're going to be dotted around the city as throughout the development over the next year and a half or two years when we're going to be them all out.
Mizter Rad (39:41.318)
Wow, interesting.
Grant Romundt (39:41.966)
Yeah, we're very excited about it. We have a slightly new, well, very visually different design of the C-Pod that we'll be doing for that. We haven't shown that publicly yet. We should be announcing that probably in the next two months.
Mizter Rad (39:56.784)
Thank you.
Grant Romundt (40:05.102)
So that's very exciting. I hope Saudi Arabia goes ahead with building their floating city. That would be fantastic. Yep, that's announced to be in the Red Sea, part of the NEO project.
Mizter Rad (40:14.212)
Is that going to be in the Red Sea or?
Mizter Rad (40:23.554)
part of the NEON project, okay, I see. Well, they're very picky with anything that has to do with impacting the ecosystem in the Red Sea. So it has to be very environmentally proof, anything that goes in the water there, from what I learned.
Grant Romundt (40:41.23)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's not that hard to do. It just takes some planning and being conscious about it. people sometimes look at what we're doing and think that there's no way of doing it in a way that can be responsible. But that's usually using their preconceived notion of what we've done on land. And that's usually always been destructive.
Mizter Rad (40:50.704)
Yeah.
Grant Romundt (41:08.768)
So they just assume it's going to be more of the same. And we just put an incredible amount of thought and attention into how to make a home on the water to be eco-restorative. And in fact, every home we put in the water becomes a marine habitat. it actually, every home that we put on the water makes the water better, you know, makes the ocean rehabilitate just a little bit more.
Mizter Rad (41:11.974)
Hmm.
Grant Romundt (41:38.978)
that actually creates more more homes for fish that creates more home for more space for coral to grow
Mizter Rad (41:39.408)
Mmm.
Mizter Rad (41:50.33)
Yeah, some people would immediately think that we're disturbing their habitat, but we're actually creating new ones, according to you.
Grant Romundt (41:59.244)
Yeah, absolutely. If you swim around the base of my sea pod, or even the base of the underwater room that you're in, you'll just see thousands and thousands of fish. And there is no fish there.
Mizter Rad (42:14.584)
I'm literally seeing thousands of fish through the window right now.
Grant Romundt (42:19.276)
Yeah, I believe it. I believe it. think the last video saw their last week maybe the last time I looked at the underwater camera live feed. It had, I think maybe more fish than I've ever seen floating around outside. So it was.
Mizter Rad (42:34.586)
But why is that? it because there's some plants, something growing around the structure? Is that it? Is that food for the fish? Why is it happening?
Grant Romundt (42:47.63)
Well, at first, like day one, it's not a known habitat, they don't know it's there. And they're, they start coming and then it becomes a habitat over time, it becomes a place where they hang out because there's, there's, it's actually a structure. If there's nothing, usually the, the ocean, people think that the ocean is filled with sea life, but usually for the most part, it's just a big desert.
Mizter Rad (42:55.418)
They're curious.
Mizter Rad (43:17.989)
Right.
Grant Romundt (43:18.01)
And if you put a structure there, then it becomes a source of shade, becomes a habitat. Things start growing on it. Barnacles start growing on it. The algae starts growing on it. And so it just becomes over time a place where sea life can take root and grow. And in our case, we've been in the water for more than a year now.
Mizter Rad (43:25.638)
Hmm.
Grant Romundt (43:47.854)
and that location. So the fish know it's there because it's become a home. Some fish were born there and they don't know any other they don't know any other home. It it's Yeah, there's it has a lot going for it. It's already there's soft coral growing on the structure on the steel already. So there's a lot
Mizter Rad (43:59.142)
Mm.
Mizter Rad (44:09.542)
Yeah, I can see that definitely. Let me switch gears here because I want to talk a bit about accessibility. And you mentioned that there's a project in Maldives and then there's the Neon project in Saudi. Both sound a bit, I'm not sure, I don't know much about the Maldives project to be honest, but the Neon project of course, there's a lot of money being invested and
Grant Romundt (44:19.934)
Mm-hmm.
Mizter Rad (44:38.17)
As far as I understand, a lot of the projects that are being built in the Red Sea right now are tapping the luxury market. Nothing against that. But of course, it's a very specific target group. When you talk about C pods right now based on the cost base of building one of this, is this targeting at the moment just rich people or do you see a future where
this also becomes a home that the average person can afford.
Grant Romundt (45:12.006)
well, the floating city in the Maldives is actually being targeted for the local market more than the foreign luxury market. So the, the C pods around it itself, it will be more of the high end properties, but the homes on the inside in the city are targeted as more, more for the mainstream. And, so it's a combination of both in that case. A lot of times the,
Mizter Rad (45:21.36)
interesting.
Mizter Rad (45:34.97)
Mmm.
Mizter Rad (45:39.428)
Okay.
Grant Romundt (45:41.986)
Though in our case, we're developing so much technology to put into the homes that it's really hard to do it. So it's cheap. know, there's so much cutting edge technology that will become less expensive over time with mass production. But the homes on the, and it's also very, very low density housing for a C-Pod. And you don't have the...
Mizter Rad (45:50.246)
cheaper. Yeah.
Mizter Rad (46:06.501)
Mm.
Grant Romundt (46:11.968)
It's not like an apartment building where there's so many people in a smaller space that the cost per meter. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So the homes on the inside of the floating city are designed to be, to be able to take care of advantage of having a lower cost per unit.
Mizter Rad (46:16.25)
Right, economies of scale,
Mizter Rad (46:32.134)
I I'm curious about something Grant, I want to understand your personal motivation here. What made you so obsessed with building homes in and on the ocean? Like was there this specific moment, you already mentioned this moment in the Airbnb in Canada. Was that the moment in your life that pushed you in this direction?
Grant Romundt (46:39.427)
Mm-hmm.
Grant Romundt (46:55.478)
No, when I was living there, I had no idea I would start another business. thought I had my, I had my business that was running pretty much by itself at that point. And I didn't have to do very much. as a software business, I was building a mobile education apps for well professionals, Clarell, OPI, dioxin, a lot of L'Oreal brands as well. And I had most of the business outsourced. So
Mizter Rad (47:05.924)
What kind of business was that?
Grant Romundt (47:24.054)
I'd only have to attend a few meetings a month just with the customer and have all my team implement all the work that needed to be done from that point. So I had a pretty nice lifestyle and I didn't think I'd start my own business doing this. And then I met my now business partner who came up with this whole new way of doing the flotation where your home is over the water.
which gets it out of the wave. So it's actually much more stable than a normal home that's floating on the water itself. So that just got my mind going. And I thought, well, this is, this is pretty amazing. I can't not do this. It just became, I had to do, cause I thought, well, I can apply, I can do all the smart home things I wanted to do. I can do something that's eco-restorative. It's good for the planet, good for the environment. And
Mizter Rad (48:07.594)
Yeah, sure.
Grant Romundt (48:20.258)
do something that could really make a difference in the world. I had a hard time saying no to that.
Mizter Rad (48:27.654)
Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine. You know, I'm sitting here 11 meters under water right now and I can feel how humid it gets. The sound of water drops around me. Also, I actually I don't know why I'm listening to water dropping around me. I think it's normal. explained me yesterday, but it's still intimidating. It feels.
Grant Romundt (48:41.165)
Mm-hmm.
Mizter Rad (48:55.13)
scary being surrounded by all this water, especially if you know that there's so much pressure on the walls around me. How do you think with your work, you can help humans overcome this natural fear of being underwater, but not even only underwater, it's just out in the water because we're not used to it necessarily. Do you think this psychological barrier is something
Grant Romundt (49:00.547)
Mm-hmm.
Mizter Rad (49:22.17)
that you will or are already addressing in your work? Or do you think this is something, some job that someone else should do anyway?
Grant Romundt (49:32.79)
Well, I think we're doing a really good job with it actually. My C-Pod that you're staying in, is, it has a lot of the amenities that a normal land house has, but now you have incredible views. You have access to water, which you don't have on land. have, you're really close to land, so you can jump to land anytime you want. So I think it has a first-class kitchen experience, bathroom experience, shower experience.
It's like a sleeping experience as well on the bed, which is on the smart bed. So I think we're addressing a lot of those issues in that unit specifically. That's, I think that's really solid. The next model is going to be even better because it's going to be, you know, we're just taking everything to the next level or one or two levels above. And
So yeah, think that's, I think that means quite a bit. I think that that makes it a very nice place to live. Now the unit you're on is definitely pushing the boundaries more because it has, it's so much further from land and it does, it's little more awkward.
Mizter Rad (50:43.8)
Right. How far are we? How far am I from land right now?
Grant Romundt (50:49.342)
You're 1.7 kilometers from the other sea pod and from that island. So that's, it's not too far, but it's far enough that it's, you know, it's noticeable. And then getting on and off is still not totally elegant of an experience. So that's...
Mizter Rad (51:05.346)
yeah, definitely.
Mizter Rad (51:12.575)
No, I saw the water ski elevator.
Grant Romundt (51:17.506)
Yeah. Yeah. The elevator is this one. Yeah.
Mizter Rad (51:19.142)
That's very futuristic. Almost like the jet sounds.
Grant Romundt (51:25.13)
Yeah, that is really a cool thing. So basically that is you'll be able to drive your jet ski into a platform on the water and then you press a button and then the whole jet ski and the platform lift you up out of the water into the bottom of your C-Pod and that becomes your parking space. Yeah.
Mizter Rad (51:47.174)
That's crazy.
Grant Romundt (51:49.44)
So that's a really cool, unconventional thing. And for us, it actually makes a lot of sense. And I don't think it's going to be too long before we'll have automated drones or automated jet skis that can do that process without you having to fiddle with anything. There's already some autonomous jet skis on the market that can do point A to point B waypoint navigation. And it's not too far off where they'll be able to
park it basically in the dock and then trigger the lift to go to bring you up into the house.
Mizter Rad (52:29.99)
Wow, that's fantastic. I'm wondering, Grant, about all these opportunities that ocean builders and anyone else working in the field are creating for the future generations. What new kinds of jobs or skills and entrepreneurial possibilities do you see emerging from this new trend or this new concept of ocean living? How do you think young people
today should prepare for careers in this space.
Grant Romundt (53:04.334)
Well, we'll need marine biologists to study better ways of living cohabitating on the water. That's, I think, going to be very important. There's going to be new designs that we haven't even thought of yet, mechanical engineering things that we need to solve, marine engineering things that we need to solve to make it
Mizter Rad (53:14.458)
Hmm.
Grant Romundt (53:32.426)
even more compatible, more stable, more comfortable? Who would have thought of having a jet ski lift to lift you up and to park you in the under part of your floating house?
Mizter Rad (53:41.83)
Only if you were a Jetsons fan you could imagine that.
Grant Romundt (53:48.214)
Yeah, well, it's definitely a Jetsons fan. Yeah, there's so many. I think this is kind of like a new frontier. And with that, there's going to be so much innovation that's going to be needed to happen to really take this where it can go. And I think over the next 20 years, a lot of this innovation is going to be happening. And it's going to be very exciting to see it all unfold.
I think we're innovating a whole new way of living on the planet that will be really, really special and very unique. And it's going to be something that you can't get with any other land-based home. We just have something that is a very unique lifestyle that may not be for everyone, but I think once you've tried it, it can be very addictive.
Mizter Rad (54:41.126)
Definitely. I mean, I've tried it for one night and I'm already in love with it. know, Grant, you have to run. I also have to run. But I always like to ask this question to my guests because my show is about how the world would look like in 50, in the next five decades and 50 years from now. So I want to know from you, how do you imagine ocean and underwater communities?
Grant Romundt (54:47.352)
Great.
Mizter Rad (55:08.686)
in 50 years, how do you think they're going to evolve? Do you think this parts, the parts you're building and other kind of water structures that other engineering firms and building will become? Will we see entire floating cities, you think?
Grant Romundt (55:28.598)
I think the first entire floating city would be finished completely within 10 years. And from that point, it's only going to accelerate because the proof of concept would have already been built. So I think in 50 years, we're going to have quite a few ocean-based cities that are just off the coast of major cities around the world that give you a whole new way of living and new options of how you can live.
and there's going to be tons of innovation. It's going to be, I'm very excited about how it's all going to unfold because I'm living it and it's just so amazing to be on the water like that and all the new options that it gives you for how you can live and the quality of life that you have.
Mizter Rad (56:19.942)
Thanks.
Grant Romundt (56:22.158)
I think a lot of people are going to see that and experience it more and more. And I think living on the water in floating cities will, will really take off in 50 years. I think there's going to be a lot of floating cities. It's hard to say how many, but the number of structures that you'll be able to see on the water is going to, I think, surprise us. I can't even imagine what those structures might be like, how big they can be like. There's, um,
people are designing some superstructures that can be massive structures on the water. And that's something that can't happen in the next couple years because we need to start, you know, small and prove the principle and get people to experience it. And then more and more money is going to go into it, then the cost is going to go down and then you'll be able to build bigger and bigger structures and there'll be less risk. So people will be more
People will be more interested in investing because the risk, a lot of the risk is going to be taken away. So I think in the next 50 years, we're going to be seeing a lot of floating cities.
Mizter Rad (57:29.19)
And I can tell you something, I mean, from my side, I've been here less than 24 hours and I feel so much more connected to the ocean and ocean life. I see all these fishes around me and they're just so beautiful. It's so nice to be around them. And hopefully that also happens to everyone else that's experienced this. It's like this connection to nature, nature that is not so close to us regularly.
Grant Romundt (57:59.502)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mizter Rad (58:01.03)
Grant, it's been an incredible experience talking with you while I'm actually experiencing both underwater and surface sea pods, the ones you built firsthand. Thank you so much for sharing your vision and for building these super remarkable spaces.
Grant Romundt (58:21.846)
Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been great being on your show and I hope people can experience the C-Pod one day and see why we're so excited.
Mizter Rad (58:31.91)
That's fantastic. Until next time, beautiful humans, stay curious, question everything, and maybe, just maybe, it's time to look beyond the shoreline and see the ocean not just as something to cross, but as a place we might one day call home. Thank you. Hasta la vista.