Interview with Lars | Noah’s Story

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Hey guys, Noah here.

So I decided I wanted to not only share interviews with inmates but also with some of my lifelong friends on the outside who never cease to inspire and amaze me with where they’ve taken their lives.

First up, Lars Lisell.

He’s been my friend and by my side since childhood and one that didn’t turn to drugs as I did. This is the friend that all our parents were envious of and wished their kids were more like. 

Well look at him now…he is living in a van down by the river, or close to, a camper at an abandoned factory. 

ha, it’s not as bad as it sounds, but over the last year or so, he quit his cushy engineering job and started a business with a couple of other engineering buddies, setting up facilities to mine for crypto currency. 

If you don’t know much about crypto currencies, don’t feel bad.  To my understanding, they are a form of electronic currency, the most famous of them is Bitcoin, and I believe that is the currency that Lars and his cronies are after. Lars would probably do a better job than I am trying to explain not only what they are, but how they mine them and then sell them. After-all, I am in prison and don’t have access to money or the internet. 

I asked Lars if he would be willing to let me interview him on the topic, and he said yes.  He said he would be glad to answer some questions as well as provide plenty of pictures about the current job he is working on and the camper that he has been living in for the past several months. 

Lars is someone I call once a month every single month. 

He also picks up every-time when I call.

And he has also came to visit me with my other favorite childhood friend, Gavin, a handful of times. 

(Noah left, Gavin middle, Lars right)

What I love most about the phone calls with Lars is he always has something to talk about…a new adventure of sorts, because typically when I call, he is in some other state either for work or pleasure. 

Lars has backpacked across both South America and Europe. He went to Vietnam on his honeymoon. He studied abroad in Australia in college. And he did a sabbatical last year at one of the Universities in New York and then decided to pick up and move there with his wife Ally. 

What I know about Lars is that he’s adventurous, he’s an animal lover, he loves working on old motorcycles, he is a solid nine, but his personality takes him to a 10, he snowboards and skis, and he has been one of the best friends to me over the years (one I don’t deserve). 

I guess I am starting to see why all our parents from grade school loved Lars so much growing up. And if he didn’t beat me (and Gavin) out for homecoming King, I would probably feel the same way.   

So, let’s get started and learn more about Lars and why I think he’s pretty great… 

First, I want to hear about why you decided to leave Denver and move to the Big Apple?

New York has a draw that is difficult to describe.  It is a city of high highs and low lows. New Yorkers are from everywhere, so there is a blending of ideas like no other place I have been.  There are people from rural Alabama and rural Tanzania, inner-city Detroit, and inner harbor Hong Kong. 

People come to New York with a mission and drive, and everyone wants to make something for themselves.  It is a good place to develop and stress test ideas.  Plus, I can’t get enough of the bagels. 

 

What is your favorite thing about New York?

My favorite thing about New York is probably biking around the city and the beach.  I didn’t know there were beaches in New York until I moved here, it was a surprise bonus.  I also really like the comedy scene.  There is good comedy, seven nights a week. 

 

You now have easy access to travel by train to so many cool cities; you have Gavin (childhood friend), Hauser (college buddy), and Luke (brother) nearby and have visited all of them. What has been your favorite city to visit so far?

I really like Philly.  It is cool and gitty and hasn’t gotten expensive yet.  I also like D.C., the museums are incredible.  My nieces and nephews are getting old enough now that they are starting to like going to those kinds of things, so it is fun cruising around the Smithsonian museums with them. 

 

Can you tell us a little bit about the job you left and why you decided to do something new? At what point did you feel confident enough to quit?

That’s a complicated question.  The short answer was the election in 2016.

The Department of Energy lab I worked for specialized in renewable energy, and it felt like all of the progress we made during the first part of my career was evaporating.  I wanted to stay in the renewable energy space but do something radically different and more applied, so I decided to take the plunge and set out on my own. 

I am very much a believer that nothing happens without focus, so I decided to focus all of my energy on this new endeavor.  There are three of us, and we’ve been at it for over a year now. 

Since you started working with crypto currency most of our conversations have gone right over my head. But I am still intrigued to hear about your adventures. Can you please explain to the readers, what a crypto currency is, and how do you mine for them?  

The key innovation with crypto is that it is decentralized and open-source, meaning that no one person or entity can make decisions for the collective. This is different than other currencies that are typically controlled by a central organization. There are many places in the world where the central organization makes poor decisions during times of uncertainty.  

The value proposition for crypto is that the rules of the game are set in advance and cannot be changed. At our facility, we set up mines that compete for currency “rewards” for doing things like processing transactions and completing blocks in the blockchain. They are really just big data centers that are full of specialized computers. 

Does your company have a name? How did you come up with it?

Our company is called “Sangha Systems,” which is another word for collective.

We liked the idea of trying to build a group of people who worked together towards a goal. Our central thesis is that over the medium and long term, renewable energy will out-compete fossil energy generation (which looks to be happening faster than we expected).  So by creating facilities that utilize renewable self-generation from the outset, they will have an advantage over their peers.   

Have there been many points where you told yourselves, “this isn’t going to work?

Too many to count. It has been very stressful, and there were times when I felt too tired to continue.

Luckily my business partners were able to carry me through the low times. 

Has your financing come from outside investors, or is it all from personal investments or contributions?

So far, it has been all bootstrapping.

The problem with taking on investors is that the pressure can rapidly increase, and they are typically not concerned with the long-term health of the company.  They just want a return on their investment. Right now, we are stable without outside investment, so we’ll keep doing that until something changes. 

I can’t imagine you have been making too much money, what has it been like living off of Ally, and is she sick of it yet?

Ally’s been a really good sport about the whole thing and has been tremendously supportive. She owns a company herself, so she understands the difficulty of launching a company and getting a foothold. Eventually, I hope to make some money on this. 

What has been the most rewarding part of this new business venture?

The most rewarding part is probably the possibility of creating something great. Each milestone feels like a huge victory.  Creating something that is a reflection of yourself is also very fulfilling. That’s also the scary part because there isn’t a lot of blame to spread around when something goes wrong. 

 

So you are currently in a small town in Illinois at an abandoned factory mining for these coins. How did that happen, and what has the experience been like?

When we started construction, it quickly became apparent that we need someone there every day.  We couldn’t pay anyone to do it, so I called up mom and dad (they are still super supportive of their little boy, even though I am 34 now). They let me use their camper for the summer, so I lived a very spartan life while we built the first phase of the facility.  In some ways, it has been kind of like coming home. The area reminds me of Roseau in many ways. 

How long will this operation in Illinois last?

We have a 10-year lease on the facility, so we’ll be there at least that long.  Maybe longer if things go well. 

Is this the only build out you guys have done so far, and are there others that are already planned, or what is next?

I’m trying to stay focused on this project, but my business partners are starting to look around a little bit. When running a business, you can’t slow down or lose momentum, so there isn’t much time to stop and appreciate it. 

Our long vision is to run all of our facilities on renewable energy, so I am starting to lay the groundwork for that. We are hoping to start construction on a solar deploy around this time next year.

I’m headed back to NY for the holidays, so I am looking forward to some downtime. I might even strap the skates on and do some fast laps on the rink at Rockefeller Center.

You can this good friend of ours, Lars, and the adventure he is on here: Website | Twitter