David Zapolsky on Amazon's Scale, Infrastructure and AI Future

David Zapolsky on Amazon's Scale, Infrastructure and AI Future

WSJ

Tue, September 22, 2026 at 5:43 PM GMT+3

• AMZN -2.24%

David Zapolsky has witnessed Amazon's growth since his arrival at the company in 1999. Now the chief global affairs and legal officer, he discusses the company's AI infrastructure strategy, sustainability commitments and regulatory standards.

0:00 spk_0

1st, 1st morning of the show and we got our, what the 2nd slot, exciting, exciting stuff. It's good to see all of you here and I'm really grateful to have David here in conversation with, with us. Uh, there's a lot to talk about when it comes to Amazon and global affairs, I would say. Well, thank, yeah,

0:17 spk_1

first of all, thanks for having me. Great to be here and, uh, you know, it's first thing in the morning.Morning, so it may take some time to get warmed up, but yeah, there's a lot goingon.

0:24 spk_0

Well, if we want to warm up, we can start way back in 1999. So you, one of the reasons I was excited to talk to you today is that you've been at Amazon from when it had about 7500 or 7600 employees.

0:37 spk_1

2500. 0 really?

0:38 spk_0

OK, yeah, amazing, 2500 employees, and now you have how many?

0:42 spk_1

1.5 million-ish. OK.

0:44 spk_0

Big,

0:46 spk_1

it's been an amazing story and an amazing transformation and you know, having been there since we were just a little bit more than a bookstore, um, I joined in late '99, so we were already into music and video and we just launched tools like that was the big thing, tools.Uh, we had electronics and toys, so like tools like, like, yeah, like power tools, yeah, it was a, yeah, it was, uh, that was a, that was a pet project of our then short-lived vice president who we had, uh, who, who was with us at the time, who was a tools expert.

1:18 spk_0

All right, so you got your 1999 self and you got your 2026 self. What?What do you, what is your 2026 self desperately wanna tell that new guy, that new lawyer fresh out of the firm who's showing up and uh and, and meeting this Jeff Bezos guy? Well,

1:36 spk_1

so, uh.I wouldn't give advice to myself about Jeff because you know I got to meet Jeff very early on the first weekend I was working at Amazon. We were in the middle of the, I, I started as the first and only litigation and regulatory attorney at the time, and, and so we were in the middle of the infamous one-click fight with with Barnes and Noble, and we'd sued Barnes and Noble over a one click patent which was widely derided as as being not patentable.But we had a patent and we got a preliminary injunction against Barnes and Noble for sort of copying the features that Amazon was, was pioneering and, uh, and so Jeff was a witness in that and, and so my first weekend there I was, I was in Jeff's conference room and I remember, you know, prepping him for his deposition and walking into the deposition room and he looked at me and said, Where'd you come from?You know, and, and, uh, so I had the, uh, the opportunity to work with him and get to know him very early on, so I wouldn't give myself advice on, on, uh, working with Jeff. Uh, he, he's, uh, uh, uh, an inspiration to work with, and I, I've enjoyed my relationship with him. What I would say is, um.Uh, is, is the company's gonna get a lot bigger than you think it is. Uh, I remember seeing a, uh, a senior leadership.PowerPoint. That's how old we are like we still had PowerPoints at Amazon. We haven't had them banned them, yeah, since 2003, but like there was like a 2000 era PowerPoint that that was on my boss's desk, and it said something like, you know, the road to 5 billion, and I just thought that that's never going to happen. That's crazy. That's just bananas valuation company, no, no, like revenues, revenue, revenue, yeah, yeah, and we were at about 780-800 million at the time. I'm like 5 billion. That's, that's crazy.Uh, so, you know, uh, having just crossed, you know, 600, 700 billion last year, it's, uh, just keep thinking big like the, the, the, the, uh, leadership principle about think big, it, it matters and you really have to think big in order to stay ahead of where the company's going and.The other thing I would have said would be don't try to predict the future because you can't, and I stopped doing that, you know, 3 or 4 years into my Amazon tenure. I just, people would say, what's, what's going to happen next? Like I have no idea. Like I won't, I won't predict the future for more than like 3 to 6 months because you just can't tell how different the company is going to be, you know, when I, when I took over as general counsel in 2012, you know, I wouldn't have thought we'd have to build an entire legal group in.LA in Culver City to support, you know, uh, uh, a major entertainment business, and nor would I have expected that I'd have to like create a group that, you know, that is expert in satellite law and space law, um, or autonomous vehicles or, or, or, or the, you know, we were already in the cloud at that point, but no idea how that would big that would become.

4:33 spk_0

So, so let's talk about some of the other things you've had to grapple with over the period, um.We're all thinking nowadays about data centers, right? I mean, this is something we, like many of you are probably wondering when's he going to ask about data centers? Well, right now, um, the fact is, you know, that it's, it's not only something that's suddenly, you know, occurring to many people like what, what's going on in my backyard, it's something you guys have been building for decades.And so I want to ask you, as you know, an experienced builder of data centers and other giant buildings that no one really get to see the inside of, uh, how, what's that process like you show up and you go, that field is going to be a giant building.

5:22 spk_1

Well, I think I'll start by saying I think the industry as a whole can do a lot better in talking about um what data centers are, what, what are the, what the value they can bring to communities where they're sighted, um, and I think that that whole data center uh industry kind of grew up in a culture of secrecy and so we're having to, to, to really push to why is that? I think in part because it's super important to keep them secure.And so early on, you know, if nobody knows where your data centers are, they're going to be more secure. And so I think there's, there is, there's a mentality of like we don't really want to be very public about them because they're, you know, they could be vulnerable to attack, to, you know, sabotage. So I think that's part of it, but I think you know we certainly have completely pivoted away from that because we realize we're going to have to be much more transparent and we are at this point.One of the problems in operating in secrecy is that if there are narratives that get out there that are incorrect, it's harder to, it's harder to set people straight, and so there's a lot of incorrect narratives out there about water. Most people don't realize that at least the data centers thatThat we use, you know, they don't use water to cool like over 90% of the time. If you really care about water, you should shut down your golf courses because there are many, many, many times the usage of water than data centers. In many cases we don't use water at all to cool.Really depends on the climate and where the data centers are and where we do use water we use reclaimed water, non-potable water, and Amazon has gone further and madePositive pledge to be by 2030 to return more clean water to communities where we have data centers than we use. We're 75% of the way there and and you know that means in some places that means we're not using water at all. In a lot of places that means we're investing in water reclamation efforts that the community that's community led. We've done that in Virginia and in eastern Oregon.

7:38 spk_0

The issue I think that kind of clouds that is that there are power centers nearby that are using an awful lot of water, and that is not always part of the tally that you guys because you don't own the power plant.

7:52 spk_1

Well, in some cases we, you know, we're the major consumer of power plant. We, we have over 700 wind and solar facilities around the world and over 28 countries alone. We, we generate over 40 gig gigawatts of renewable energy, so we have some input into that. We, you know, we, we offset as of a few years ago we offset all of our operations with renewable.With renewable energy and so we're working cooperatively with the utilities that are in the communities where our centers are to make sure that the water impact of what we do is mitigated and that ultimately we're going to be working with communities to ensure that we don't have a negative impact at all on the community water.

8:41 spk_0

Do you still have a net zero carbon pledge for 2040?

8:44 spk_1

Absolutely.The the the climate pledge, um, uh, emblazoned on the on the side of Climate Pledge Arena, which is a few blocks from my house, go cracking, uh, uh, is, uh, is very much in, uh, in, in, in force. Um, we, in fact, this is Climate Week as well, everybody in the room consistent with our pledge to, to have over 100,000 by 2030.Um, and, and we have over 700 other companies who have signed on to the climate pledge to work with us and together, some of, some of whom are our biggest commercial competitors, um, to, to, to trade best practices information on.And how we can all move towards a carbon neutral world.

9:27 spk_0

So how does nuclear play into all this? I mean, we hear a lot about it. We know that it is one of the power sources that has somehow went over like both sides of the political spectrum because of its greenness and because I guess nukes are.Cool enough for I don't know whatever, but uh there's somehow like Jane Fonda is not making any noise anymore. What, where, where are we really at with nukes? So

9:52 spk_1

I'm old enough to remember the no nukes days, the no nukes concert. You remember

9:56 spk_0

that Jane Fonda and Ted Bruce Springsteen.

9:58 spk_1

And yeah, Neil Young and um you know, I, I, you know, there was a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt in the, in the late 70s and early 80s about nuclear and

10:10 spk_0

there were also bad designs. Yeah,

10:12 spk_1

correct. But you know, here we are 50-ish years later and um and you know, and we're looking at places like France where 80% of their grid is nuclear and seems to have worked for them and it is incrediblyImportant strategic advantage that France has that they are, you know, 80% nuclear and so, you know, I think.The science has gotten better. The way we design these plants has gotten better, and you're seeing a recognition of that in the desire to include nuclear in the portfolio of non-carbon energy sources that we need to invest in. And so you know for us that means we're we're working with in Pennsylvania.To, uh, you know, to, to site a data center right next to an existing sort of full scale nuclear plant, not Three Mile Island. They had a branding issue.

11:10 spk_0

Is it one that's been continuously operating, or was it one that was,

11:12 spk_1

I think it's been continuously operating. It's in, I think it's in Berwick, Pennsylvania.And so you know that's underway. We have an investment, a significant investment in in a Washington state company to develop small modular reactors, and that's in eastern Washington,

11:31 spk_0

and that's the timeline I'm most curious.I've heard China has these small modular reactors, but we don't have them yet.

11:38 spk_1

I'veheard anywhere from like 2030 to 2035 as being when we can roll it out at scale. I had a lawmaker tell me last week I was in DC.That that they feel like, um, you know, it's it's a bit like fusion, right? It's always 10 years away. I'm, I'm much more of an optimist and I think the fact that we've invested, I think $500 million in this X Energy project in eastern Washington really shows we're putting our money where our hopes are and, and I think you know that's, that's especially exciting because one of the big barriers to bringing on more energy generation.Is the transmission system, which is hopelessly out of date. 70% of the transmission system was built more than 25 years ago. Permitting for new transmission is kind of a nightmare, you know. We may see, you know, one of our most important policy objectives, and one of the reasons I was in DC last week is to is to.Look to continue the momentum toward possible permitting reform at the federal level. We might be in a moment where that's possible, although, you know, we, we felt that way two years ago and we didn't get there. So, so transmission is is super important and obviously if you can build a facility that's small right next to.What you need to have energy go to, then you reduce the load on, right?

13:01 spk_0

You could theoretically power your whole operation with your own nuclear reactor and sell excess power back or give if you want to be charitable to the place that's hosting your data center,

13:13 spk_1

right? But even more important, you're not, you don't.Not reliant on the transmission infrastructure to get it from where you're generating it to where you need it to go and and and and so you know that said, we're also working with utilities to pay the cost of transmission upgrades where we know we're going to need that in order to avoid affecting rates of consumers.We thought that the ratepayer protection pledge that the White House put forward earlier this year was a useful one, and we signed on to that, and you do that by working with utilities and working with communities to make sure that if there's transmission infrastructure that needs to be built as a result of a new large load, you know that we're paying that cost. We're paying the cost of new generation, obviously.Um, you know, there's a, there's, uh, as an example, we, we actually had to get a regulatory exception in Virginia to allow us to build a transmission facility that would enable some of our large loads to serve data centers, you know, upfront instead of going through the utility.Because we didn't, we want to make sure that the cost didn't get included in the utilities rate base, and they did grant that permission. So I think there's lots of tactical, creative ways to work with utilities and communities to to mitigate any impacts on on consumers.

14:33 spk_0

So before we move on to AI, I just want to ask one more.In terms of the new power that you're adding, how much of that is carbon emission power, because that's been the issue, right? This ramp up of AI, the power demands, no one has these alternatives like in enough places and mature enough indevelopment,

14:57 spk_1

right? I mean, there's going to be places where we're going to need to rely on natural gas, at least as a bridge, and you know that's just, and natural gas, by the way, is a lot cleaner than sort of coal grid, but.Uh, you know, again, it really depends on where you are in, in, in the world, where, where you are, and it's, this is not limited. This, these all these issues. One thing I've learned, I've, I've learned more about this space than any other subject in the last 3 years.

15:21 spk_0

They didn'tteach it in law school. They

15:22 spk_1

didn't, no, and uh.And it looks, I mean, there are similar problems all over the world. Everybody's experienced. You go to Ireland, you go to Singapore, it's the same story. And so we have to be creative and we have to be flexible in terms of working out how to bring on new renewable generation, you know, one of myWhen I, I, I started working, leading the public policy team about 4 years ago, and on one of my first trips out to Singapore, I was like, Well, why don't we just build more offshore wind, and they all kind of looked at me like I didn't have, you know, a head or something. We're on the equator. There, there isn't any wind, you know, there isn't enough wind to make it commercially viable. So, you know, how, you know, we're learning. Yeah,

16:07 spk_0

that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. Now I'm going to think about that all day.Um, all right, so let's talk about AI. I mean, you know, there's, I mean, I'm not gonna ask you what your pee doom is, but everyone probably knows that expression now after last week. I mean, obviously this, we went from being like, oh, AI is taking jobs to AI is gonna kill us all, right? I mean, and, you know, nervous laughter ripples through the room and every room we're in now because we're like, is that real? We don't know if it's real. And of course we can all guess like our own.I give it a 10% chance of destroying, you know, but the truth is like the powerlessness that most people feel is because all of the decisions are in the hands of big tech companies right now, including Amazon, um, and the, so the question is like.How much of that discussion is happening with this rapid rollout of AI? Like what are you guys talking about? Has the conversation shifted? I know you were probably talking about it way before we were, but like what is going on right now behind the scenes that you can share with us? Well, I,

17:08 spk_1

you know, it's, it's not new and it's not rocket science, uh, even though it seems like it. Like we've actually been.An advocate for responsible regulation of AI for years. I've been talking from stages like this for at least 3 years about how we need to look at, you know, what are the risks, work backward from the worst case risks, and have some reasonable guardrails, regulatory guardrails, and make them interoperable between parts different parts of the world, make them standards, and you know the headline in today is that you know.OpenAI and Anthropic are calling for global standards. Yes, like, you know, we've been saying that for a long time and so, you know, there's risks involved in any new technology. It is critical that companies exploring new technologies, whether it be nuclear or AI, like that when they release products to the world, that they're safe and that they're tested and that they're vetted andAnd that we use the best science and the best knowledge that we have to ensure that they're safe. It's a little bit like, you know, racing so hard, you know, releasing cars without, without remembering to put the brakes on. Like, OK, it's up to the companies to put the brakes on.Cars before they release the next model car and so you know we don't think there's a trade-off. There should be a tradeoff between speed and safety, but we need to make sure that when we launch new products that they're they're safe and we've done everything we can to ensure their safety. So but

18:34 spk_0

when I, when I say that it's, it's in the company's hands, I'm not just saying because you're the ones driving it. I'm also saying because we don't see.Both, you know, a federal regulatory like push or a global cooperation push. Yes, well, you know, I mean this is like it's that's the frustration

18:54 spk_1

is more cooperation than people, people think, I mean.The, the, uh, the AI sort of safety institute is is is still a thing. I mean it was known as a different um under a different name under the last administration, but I think that's being built up, you know, we're members of the of the Frontier Model Forum, which is a group of companies that are, you know, trying to build and building frontier models that that trade information about how.How we're testing these models, how we're making sure they're safe, and so there is a fair amount of collaboration that's happening both at the policy level and more importantly at the science level in forums like that. So we're we're working hard to make sure that connectivity exists and is robust and that those conversations are taking place and I think that sort of sort of frontline cooperation.Um, you know, may get lost a little bit in some of the, the headline rhetoric that, um, that, that comes from public statements that some of the leaders, um,

19:53 spk_0

like, yes, super intelligence and all that, um, the question is what, when are we going to see something that signals.That the government, that the global community is taking this as seriously as some people. Well,

20:09 spk_1

I, you know, I don't know is the answer to that question. You know, we've been talking about it for a while and maybe it requires the kind of scary rhetoric that, you know, that we know that has entered the debate in order.get governments to sit up and take notice as somebody who sits in industry, you know, I don't think we ought to be waiting when we're not waiting for governments to regulate in order to to make sure that the products that we offer and services are safe. Like that's actuallyThe industry's responsibility first and foremost, it would be great if we could get as much cooperation among different companies, different scientists and governments to, you know, to help in that effort. But, but I don't think there's a sense like, well, there shouldn't be a sense that we can't.Um, you know, we can't put the brakes on the car until there's regulation requiring brakes, right, you know, like that's, that's, uh, that's the wrong order of, uh, uh, of, of things, and, and, and I don't think it's actually how, uh, how the sort of thoughtful people in this industry are, are operating right.

21:16 spk_0

OK, well, so let's pull back a little from the doomsday scenario and just go more to the day to day. I mean, you guys are, are your business, you, let's, let's break it down. You have.You're sellingYou know, through AWS you sell access to other companies' models. Yes, you are an investor inAnthropic OAI and others as well, and then you're making your own models, so that that kind of makes you like the Amazon store of AI models.

21:50 spk_1

Well, you know, who would have thought but and we're also, you know, we're also building, you know, the the the infrastructure to train.Uh, models and to and to run the rest of our economy, our services from advanced manufacturing to the electrification of, uh, of, uh, an automation of, of our transportation system.To the movies that you watch on Amazon Prime or Netflix, you know, all of that is powered by this infrastructure which, you know, the build out of which I kind of like and everybody has their own favorite model. I, I like the interstate highway buildout from the. It took 20 years, created a generation's worth of great construction jobs.It was critical to not just to commerce in the United States and the ability to travel, but to national security, which is one of the big reasons why it was, but I think the infrastructure buildout, which will also be used in the adoption of AI and the training of AI, is akin to that biggest difference being.It's all being financed by private capital instead of the government, um, which I think is a huge opportunity for the government and for for communities.

22:59 spk_0

So you want thegovernment to help fund it.

23:01 spk_1

I'm not saying that. No, I'm I'm saying we want the government to let us do it, right, right, right, right, right, to inform permitting. There are parts of the country where you really, you can't build a new renewable energy plant. You just can't. It's too hard. So, so that, so we're at that level of the stack. We're also using AI to to build outward facing applications, so things like.You know, our shopping assistant and the feature that allows small and medium sized businesses to come to Amazon, use the tools, create absolute premier content advertising without the need for an expensive studio and feature it as they sell their products and obviously the most recent consumer facing and enterprise facing.Innovation would be Amazon Quick, which is, you know, which is a desktop assistant that is, you know, that uses a bunch of AI models in the background but you know, allows you to hook to your to your email, to your, to your Slack, to everything. I don't think we've played around with that yet. You should play around with it. I use it. I mean, it's, I think it's pretty incredible.Really is a day to day assistant that lives on my desktop and now it's integrated with the phone, which we didn't have initially, which was super annoying, but now it's, it is very

24:18 spk_0

useful in terms of AWS clients who are taking advantage of the AI offerings. Like what, what are you seeing in terms of what they're buying and what they're buying it for? Like who?Are they, are they gravitating towards certain types of models? Are they looking at lighter weight, cost effective? I mean, what is, what are the business decisions? I think,

24:37 spk_1

I mean, I think it's all of the above. One of the really great features about Bedrock, which is the main premier feature where enterprises within the cloud, within the secure cloud environment.can use any number of models. I think there's over 100 models from, you know, the big, you know, frontier models to open weight models to our own models to smaller ones, you know, because they don't all cost the same, and it lets enterprise customers experiment, mix and match, decide what kind of model they need for which, which workloads. It's, it's not at all clear that, you know, you need.Mythos for every single, you know, to process email in your back room like that's, uh, you know, that you could use a lot of a cheaper one. So we're seeing a whole variety of innovation. I think one of the most exciting things for me as I've watched this space grow is, you know, Amazon is going to do its best to innovate in new applications, but like, you know, if you think about the number of enterprise customers, and it's like over 100,000 who are using these.experimenting with them. I think the biggest interesting innovations are going to come from them when they apply these things to their business and the way they operate their organization.

25:48 spk_0

And are you able to meet the demand? Is demand still off the charts? You hear, I mean, this is part of why the stock market tends to be buoyant these days. I don't haven't checked it today, but you know, like the, the question is whether or not.We're going to see any slackening of this demand curve.

26:09 spk_1

I think the demand for inference, which is really the use of these models, is, you know, is, is continuing to expand and quickly. You know, Bedrock is one of our most successful launches.

26:19 spk_0

Doyou have to limit how much you give customers or charge a premium because the demand is sohigh?

26:24 spk_1

I don't know for sure.I don't think so on the inferant side. um, I know that there's tremendous demand from, you know, the model builders for chips and training, training, and, and I, I, I know that that's a constrained resource for sure, um, and, and where that balances out in terms of the resources we have to devote to, um, you know, to, to users of Bedrock. I, I'm not, I'm, I'm not positive, right,

26:49 spk_0

um, OK, so let's talk about outer space.Um, you know, so how soon till Amazon delivers space internet to, to catch you up? There's a constellation of satellites that rival is trying to rival Starlink. You're at around 400 satellites in theair now.

27:11 spk_1

We need about 33,200 for our generation one to cover most of the Earth. But the way this works is that if you get a critical number and 400 is about right.You can provide service to a certain latitude band all around the earth andkistan, uh, you know,

27:27 spk_0

it's, I think that's what you guys just signed a deal we did you know,

27:31 spk_1

a year ago I was here for Anga and my first meeting of the first day, I still kind of, you know, adjusting the time zone was, you know, was with the president of Kazakhstan who was to announce a deal with Kazakh Telecom, another sort of.Uh, thing I never thought I would do, you know, 26 years ago when I, when I started, but you know, apparently now it was like, you know, they filmed the whole meeting and there was the paparazzi were outside and apparently I'm now huge in Kazakhstan, but, um, I mean, uh, no, we're building, you know, we can, we can serve certain latitude band and as we get more of our satellites up we can, we can serve more, more, more areas. I think we're still on track to um.To, uh, turn on the first, uh, tranche of service, um, later this year, uh, at least that's what, uh, our, our, that's what panels told me, and, uh, so, and that'll be really exciting because the service is amazing. I've seen it in action.You know, at the moment it's significantly faster than the nearest competitor. It's enterprise ready. It's going to have some synergies with the AWS infrastructure for enterprises that want to use it. It will serve everyone from consumers to schools to hospitals to largeenterprises.

28:44 spk_0

Yeah, how much does it, how much does this provide kind ofProprietary backhaul for you and AWS. In other words, if you've got data centers all over and you want them talking to each other and they're there are places where you can't. Yeah,

29:00 spk_1

Ithink there's lots of interesting applications to to merge those functionalities. We also have satellite to satellite communication.Which is, which is an upgrade made possible by the most recent technology and that's actually attracting a lot of interest from government customers as well. And so you know there's a lot of possibility there. It's it's very exciting and for me the most exciting thing is when we're able to bring service to places that really haven't seen that type of high speed internet service before. So earlier this year I was in South Africa. We signed one of our approaches.That differentiates us, I think, from some of the competition is really willing to work with local partners with local telecoms.

29:46 spk_0

I mean, you have to because you're already doing other business in those towns

29:51 spk_1

in those areas. Well, we, yeah, although we don't, that's not something that Amazon is normally known for working, you know, sort of working with partners or outsourcing to partners, but we signed a deal with Herotel in South Africa, which is, which means they're going to offer the service.It's going to be branded them or powered by Amazon. They'll own the customer relationship and pricing, but as a result, we're going to be able to serve rural communities, farmers, areas that haven't had access to internet that would enable them to do things like remote learning or telehealth or really high-end applications and so you know that's pretty exciting.

30:29 spk_0

I mean the first provider there specifically because even if you have a satellite overhead somewhere, you still need permission.To broadcast and have that radio relationship with the ground on that in that country, right? You need, you need the right like you can just be like, oh, we have satellites, we don't have to talk to these folks.

30:47 spk_1

You need the right licenses and you need you need permission in some cases you need ground infrastructure.To enable it, so, um, you know, all of that's, I think, on track in South Africa and in many other places in the world, and I, you know, hopefully the northern United States, coincidentally, including Seattle, who knew, uh, would, you know, should be part of the first, the first, uh,

31:08 spk_0

that

31:08 spk_1

is

31:08 spk_0

a coincidence, who knows, OK, um, and, and.I think in some cases you have to use SpaceX rockets to get your satellites up, which is kind of a funny thing since SpaceX obviously owns the.Only leading competitor to this,

31:25 spk_1

we are right, it's true, we're, you know, working with every launch provider that can provide meaningful functionality to help get our constellation in orbit, and that means working with Ariane Spas in France. We're working with SpaceX. SpaceX has been a terrific partner in terms of you know, launch reliability andFunctionality working with ULA and you know Blue Origin and we'll be working with Blue Origin as soon as they can.

31:50 spk_0

Jeff Bezos' rocket company,

31:52 spk_1

very separate and

31:53 spk_0

very separate, but it'd be nice. It'd be a synergy, right? You know,

31:57 spk_1

mostly we're just looking at like getting our satellites in orbit.

32:02 spk_0

Like, absolutely. Well you have a deadline, right? You have to meet,

32:05 spk_1

well, we met the, we're fine with the deadline, you know, we sort of got enough built and got enough because we have 1000 satellites on the.Ground ready to go. So it's really launch capacity is a constrained resource, and we have, I think we have rights to purchase rights to over 100 launches in the next couple of years in order to enable us to move more quickly to get globalcoverage.

32:32 spk_0

It's hard to get things into space, which doesn't change no matter how good our tech on Earth gets. You still got to getthose rockets.

32:39 spk_1

Although it's getting cheaper and getting cheaper in part because of the efforts of SpaceX and Blue Origin and you know the advent of reusable rockets and you know we're, we, you know, and that's the design that's that was, you know, talking to Jeff 20 years ago that was his, his vision was like he wants to make the cost of space go down so that there can be much more innovation, much more activity in space, much like the internet was, you know, when, when, when he innovated Amazon.com.