Podcasts about Versus

En este episodio a cargo de Alexnation y Gatonejo tenemos como tópico VERSUS de Personajes Icónicos. Además, como de costumbre discutimos las noticias más relevantes, mencionamos los juegos a publicarse, y compartimos con ustedes lo que hemos estado haciendo, jugando, viendo, y/o leyendo. 

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestDonny ComedianJohn GrimesThis Week We DiscussBlack Tacos vs Mexican TacosTaco Bell vs Dell TacoCool Ranch vs Nacho CheeseS/o To Our SponorsHIMSHIMS.com/squaddReady to reach your goals? Visit hims.com/SQUADD to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you.Better HelpYou don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find support in therapy.Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/SQUADDBlue ChewRight now, when you buy two months of BlueChew Gold, you get the third for FREE with promo code SQUADD. That's promo code SQUADD. Visit BlueChew.com for more details and important safety information, and we thank BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast.Cash AppNew Cash App customers can earn $10 if they use code CASHAPP10 in their profile at signup and send $5 to afriend within 14 days. Terms apply.

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestJordan Conley Dion LackThis Week We DiscussGive Up Kissing vs All Sauces 5 Million Now vs Everything Under $1000 Is FreePermanent Clown Make Up vs Clown Outfit

Tom Rath is a researcher and #1 NYT bestselling author of 12 books. His latest works are How Full Is Your Bucket? And What's the Point? Turning Purpose Into Your Daily Superpower. Greg and Tom discuss the broader arc of Tom's work, translating research on wellbeing, engagement, and strengths into practical tools. Tom describes shifting from self-improvement to “other-improvement,” using Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s question “What are you doing for others?” as a daily compass, and reframing purpose as an hour-by-hour “portfolio” rather than a single grand mission.  He contrasts purpose with passion, criticizes status and social-comparison traps, and argues that the responsibility for one's wellbeing largely rests with individuals because many employers and leaders model unhealthy, always-on habits themselves. Tom explains his concept of job/task/relationship/cognitive crafting, the primacy of relationships, and how AI increases the need to prioritize proactive, creative, human work over reactive tasks that are likely to be automated. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: What's the point of any given hour in your day? 13:57: What's the point of any given hour in your day, and is it doing something that serves other people, makes a contribution to the world? Or is it something that kind of winds you up and gets you charged so you can be at your best for other people? Kind of just asking, the point of that is even more important now than it was 12 months ago because, as I've studied this and gotten more into all of the tools that are available at our disposal with AI right now, the things that can be automated and just require responding instead of thinking about something and initiating or creating, those are the things that are going to be eliminated most rapidly. So my mindset on this has changed a little bit in the last six months, even to say I think everybody needs to be a little more critical and ask some of those questions because if you're doing something that just involves pulling together some numbers or responding to some emails, that's not sustainable anymore. Your strengths don't make a difference in isolation 50:31: The point of uncovering your natural talents or pathways is not so that you can go out there and beat your strengths into the world and tell everybody about your strengths. The point of it is so you can be more systematic about engineering how you apply those strengths to serve your clients and your customers and your community and the people around you because your strengths don't make a darn bit of difference in isolation. They kind of come to life in the context of a relationship and of a purpose. Can you make purpose more practical? 11:52: Telling people that they need to go find some big grand purpose at any stage in their life may do more harm than good because it produces a level of anxiety where you're thinking it's something larger than it really is that you need to find, or it's one big thing. Versus, as you get into the work, I've found that if you treat purpose like something you do on an hour-by-hour basis, and it's multiple touch points throughout a day, and it's a way to restructure what you do and reprioritize your daily routine, that you can make purpose into something practical. And when you're able to do that, your day is a little more rewarding. Show Links: Recommended Resources: Eudaimonia Donald O. Clifton Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Guest Profile: TomRath.org LinkedIn Profile Wikipedia Profile Facebook Profile Social Profile on X Guest Work: Amazon Author Page How Full Is Your Bucket? What's the Point? Turning Purpose Into Your Daily Superpower Strengths Finder 2.0 Strengths Based Leadership Life's Great Question: Discover How You Contribute To The World It's Not About You: A Brief Guide to a Meaningful Life Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

01. Max Styler, Vintage Culture, Ali Love - Freaky 1 02. Dubvision - Run 03. Fred Pellichero, Loors - EMMA 04. Welker - Tussy 05. Sophia Guerrero - It's A Baby 06. Andrey Exx - Wanna Give You 07. Wh0, Low Steppa - Raise Them 08. Versus, Albert Breaker, King Ro - Bottle Flip 09. John Dahlback - Hits Like This 10. Felguk, Watzgood - It Just Won't Do 11. Tony Romera - Waste My Time 12. Dubdogz, Deep West - Hole In The Head (Fool Girl) 13. Kiro Prime, Kenty Clide - Bounce It 14. Goom Gum - Imagine 15. Hugel, Kurd Maverick - PYHU (Put Your Hands Up) 16. Argy, John Cala - BOOM 17. Fedde Le Grand - This Is A Groove 18. Kryder - Time 19. Goodboys, Departamento - Discoteca 20. Wax Motif, Maeta - You Forget 21. DJ Quba, Sandra K, Ishnlv - Love Don't Let Me Go 22. Meduza, Varun Jain - Dola re Dola 23. Francis Mercier, Mp3, Shammalee - Inshallah 24. Betical - Do It Again 25. Wenzday - Keep On Dancin' 26. G-pol, Zss, Arta - Slick Like MJ 27. Don Diablo - Sound Of Da Police 28. Dannic - Tombo 2026 29. Steve Aoki, Jessica Audiffred, Jon Z - Fotopaparazzi 30. Adam Sellouk, Doriann - Carnage 31. Benny Benassi, Rafael Cerato - Can I Feel 32. Dimitri Vegas, Like Mike, Ne-yo, Danna Paola - Mexico 33. Agua Sin Gas, Antoine Clamaran - What You Do 34. Switch Disco, Korolova - Empty Skies 35. Ummet Ozcan - Iunu 36. Ferreck Dawn - Say What You Mean 37. Plastik Funk, Chester Young, Hackatone - Digital Safari 38. Sevek - Bad Girl

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestKanisha BussCamille WatersJazmyn W.This Week We DiscussSee How Long Everyone Has Left To Live vs See Lines Connecting Everyone Who's Hooked Up?Beef W/ US Government vs Illuminati Paper Straws vs 1 Ply Toilet TissueS/o To Our SponorsBlue ChewRight now, when you buy two months of BlueChew Gold, you get the third for FREE with promo code SQUADD. That's promo code SQUADD. Visit BlueChew.com for more details and important safety information, and we thank BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast.

Die neueste Episode unseres Premium-Formats The Round-Up präsentieren wir ausnahmsweise frei und gratis für alle Devils & Demons Zuhörenden. So könnt ihr mal in unser facettenreiches Supporter-Programm reinschnüffeln, ohne Risiko. In unserem 10. Round-Up besprechen wir (Chris, André, Teresa) die Filme Psycho Killer, Invisible Maniac, Undertone, Bone Lake, Versus, The Furious, Marco, Faces of Death und Cannibal Mukbang in gewohnt charmanter und freier Art. Wenn euch das Format gefällt und ihr auf den Geschmack gekommen seid, unterstützt uns gerne auf Steady, natürlich nur, wenn euch der finanzielle Rahmen dafür gegeben ist.

Interview de notre guest   L'un des artistes les plus prolifiques et qui s'engage sur et pour la scène électronique locale depuis plus de 20 ans : GREG DELON. DJ, producteur, fondateur de label, créateur d'expériences avec des concepts de rendez-vous aussi bien festifs grand public qu'intimistes et pointus, DELON est un véritable touche à tout de l'électro.  Avec des armes solidement forgées aux grès de résidences mythiques et de scènes partagées avec les plus grands, Delon se réinvente sans jamais perdre de vue sa ligne de mire : faire danser son public et émouvoir son auditoire.  Chaque événement est un appel au partage, chaque set une faille dans le temps, chaque création un combat artistique et politique.  Son dernier album remontait à 2022 entourés d'artistes de son label WOH, et il nous offre cette année un nouveau cru : "TRACES" ainsi que le volet 5 de VERSUS, un single qu'il signe à 4 mains avec son ami CEBB. Delon est notre guest de cette 164ème émission !! Pour suivre Delon :  Facebook Instagram Spotify Soundcloud

Ever feel like money is disappearing from your practice? Tiff and Dana share where practices tend to find that missing money, as well as how to trim down those expenses. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I always want to say on that opening, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com and I have to really think about it. Hello, Dental A Team listeners. We are back here. Dana and I have been on a podcasting frenzy we love these days and then we're like out of breath and I also love that because it feels like productive and anaerobic. So I'll take it. I've got Dana here with us today. Dana, thank you so much for riffing with me today, for being here, for blocking out your morning, for podcasting and just   All awesome, awesome. Thank you for being an awesome part of this team. We were literally just talking about how my brain just is like ping pong, ping pong, and then I won't finish a statement. That was it. That was me proving to you that that really happens real life. So, and don't cut that podcast team, whatever. Dana, how are you today?   DAT-Dana (00:38) you   doing really good. am honestly and truly, I feel like today we've rift a lot and we've come up with some really great, I think, content ideas for doctors and teams. And so, so far, I'm super proud of us today.   The Dental A Team (01:01) I agree. I agree. think the marketing one, if you guys haven't listened to the marketing matters, I believe that's what they're calling it. But there's a marketing one that Dana and I just did. I actually, I think that was one of our best podcasts. That was so good. So good. And KPIs again, I know we talk about KPIs a lot, but we really went on a very good tangent of inspiration versus motivation for those KPIs. So I agree. I think it's been fun. And I love talking profit now.   Dana, I think you and I have grown to love profit. Not that we didn't love profit before, but I think we've grown to really, really see some high value in the profit side and just love finding it and talking about it more than we ever did before. So I want to talk about profit today. And we talked about it a lot. It's a huge piece of Dental A Team's Magic Sauce is really, really working systems and   logistics and business and leadership to turn into profit because at the end of the day, that's the only way the business is going to survive. And Dana, when we talk about profit, think teams tend to be like, okay. And I think doctors think teams hate it, that they don't want to hear about it, that they don't want to know that it's like, yeah, that's going in your pocket. But the reality is most teams want to know that their business is profitable because most teams   want a place to work, if nothing else. They want a profitable company because it guarantees that they get to stay where they're at. And if you guys have, you know, we talked about that inspiring why earlier, and if you've got a really inspiring place, you've got a place that people want to work, they want you to be profitable so that they can keep working there.   DAT-Dana (02:44) I agree with you. And doctors, if you feel like your team doesn't care about profit, then it's because they don't understand what profit means to them. And so I think that instead of so often, doctors just shy away from it. And I think instead of shying away from it, make sure that they know what that profit means to them. Because Tiff and I can say, hey, we know and hands down, you're right, Tiff, like people are going to pick job security, right? They're going to want to be in an office that has job security. Do they know that that's profit? Probably not.   The Dental A Team (03:09) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (03:13) Right? And so somebody says something about that or like that. Do they want to grow in their position? Yep, they probably do. Do they know that that comes from profit? Maybe not. And so I think sometimes it's just like, hey, my team. Well, if your team doesn't want to talk about profit or you think they don't care, it's probably just because they don't understand that profit drastically impacts their lives too.   The Dental A Team (03:35) Totally agree. That was massive, massive. And that's the space of really understanding the intentionality behind what you're doing. So if you intend for the team to understand profit, then they will. You'll say the words and they'll understand it. profit turns into not only job security, but it also turns into being able to invest in more tech, more, I don't know, chairs. Oh my gosh, do know how many times as a front office team member I was like, can I just get a new chair? My back hurts so bad.   And they were like, well, let's look at the budget. I'm like, cool, what do I have to do to get a new chair? But those things all come from that profit because we can't spend what we don't have. And so teams really understanding what that turns into and also like how can we impact the community? We've got kids sports teams coming in saying, can you ⁓ sponsor our team? Can you do night guards? Can you do this? Like we wanna be able to say yes to all of those things and that comes from the profit.   Now you know our stance on profit, but Dina, what about disappearing profit? I've had actually, I've had this come up a couple of times. I've had a couple of emails from doctors that they're like, I can't find the money from 2025. I don't know where it went. I should have had X amount of dollars, 400, $600,000 and it's gone. I'm like, okay, well let's look for it. And Dina...   Love those and I hate them because I'm like, well, what do we do for a year? Where what were we doing here? Okay, so I have you know, I have my ideas on where it goes and and we dig and we find it we usually find it but Dana Where do you see the biggest question marks on when doctors say where's the profit? Like where the biggest question marks? Where do you start digging and where are you usually finding it?   DAT-Dana (05:01) Yeah, it usually leads to a rabbit hole, but...   Yeah, typically I am digging first and foremost into just like expenses, right? Like where did expenses fluctuate? Did we spend more than we needed to or did we spend in arbitrary areas just because we weren't keeping track of it? So honestly and truly, do you know what your BAM is and can you assess very easily or quickly like months where it is?   well below well above right so that you can kind of watch those flexes. just worked with an office on this not that long ago and I'm like hey from January to March expenses swung by $100,000 right like what happened let's dig in here because those giant fluctuations to me are a red flag of like hey we're not watching something or something got overcharged double charged things like that so I think the first place to tackle is just like knowing those things like knowing what   the profit should be, knowing what the expenses should be and are you, do you have a cadence where you are looking, reviewing? Because I think what happens is we hire a CPA, we get into QuickBooks, everything auto syncs into QuickBooks and we just kind of like set it and forget it.   And I think that like we don't know that sometimes hey things can swing that Gigantically if we're not looking at those things and we're not looking at those prior to making decisions, right? We're not looking those before we're like, hey, yeah, you can have a raise or hey Yeah, I want that cvct writer. Yep. Let's it's time to mill same-day crowns and we didn't look at that now We're in a big swing of expenses   The Dental A Team (06:51) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (06:52) So I do feel like making sure that all of that is to say, making sure that you know what your numbers are when it comes to expenses every month where they should sit roughly and honestly and truly what you're spending all your money on.   The Dental A Team (07:06) Yeah, I have practices Dana that have Amazon Prime. I think everybody has Amazon Prime. My sister and I canceled Amazon Prime actually, and we just have Amazon, which is wild. And every time you try to purchase something, they try to sign you up for Amazon Prime. But it's kind of like, it honestly reminds me of all of the financial stuff you've done with all of the companies we don't have to name. But ⁓ it reminds me of those because you really second guess the purchase.   And then you're like, okay, well, let me let it sit in the cart for a minute. And then you go back in, you're like, why did I even have this here? Or I'll throw stuff in the safe for later because I'm like, well, it's not on sale right now. And I'm not gonna get it today. So do I really need it? So I'll put it in the safe for later. But I have practices that are so Amazon Prime ready that they're like, we need paper. I'll just order it real quick.   we need pens. you like those pens better? You like the Sharpie pens? I'll order those on Amazon real quick and we'll have them here tomorrow. Right? So they're just constantly processing these Amazon orders. And then what happens, I have a practice that was like Amazon galore. I'm like, where is all of this money? Like what is happening here? And then what happens is you've got some demo supplies, some front office supplies. It's impossible to like see the difference because of how you're placing the orders. It's just this constant running battle or Walmart. I'll have   practices that are like, we have a list. So I just sent Joanna to Walmart and I'm like, okay, but why aren't these on orders? And we say, we watch the dental supply budget and ordering really closely. And we'll say order two times a month. Once is phenomenal, two times a month max order your dental supplies.   but then we forget those front office supplies and they're sneaky or the paper towels or the toilet paper or just those like paper supplies, they're sneaky. And I have seen that happen where the practice literally had to be like, okay, we're revoking Amazon and you're gonna send in a list just like you do for dental office supplies. And we will both order the same as we do for dental office supplies.   DAT-Dana (09:08) Yeah, you're so funny that I have an office where it was like, okay, well, you hit your you hit your dental supplies, you hit your office supply budgets. But like, what is this? ⁓ that's Amazon. And I'm like, Okay, but what did we order from Amazon? Like, how much of that was dental supplies, office supplies, like stuff for the team? Like, where do we need to that? then I know that's just Amazon. I'm like, No, but that's money spent. And it's spent in one of these categories. And it should be part of your budget for those guys. Like   If you need an Amazon budget, right? If that has to be a thing, fine, we can set one up, but understand that that's coming out of all these other buckets.   The Dental A Team (09:40) Crap.   Correct,   yes. Or if your Amazon is your personal Amazon too, and it's getting run through the same and whatever. Yes, I agree. I agree. I have a couple of practices too that I have like a small equipment budget because they'll add that into their supplies. And it's like their supplies are 18 % one month. And I'm like, what the heck? I'm like, you can't just, if you need hand pieces.   We need a budget for handpieces. You can't just order Cabotron tips because we need Cabotron tips. We've got to look at it and we've got to budget that in and make sure that we have the cash for it. So I totally agree. Another one, think, are subscriptions. So the Amazon Prime is a subscription, so make sure that that's in there as well. But we get hit with a lot of subscriptions. I remember this is like an update.   me mostly, but I remember magazine subscriptions, right? And it was like, what the heck? We would pay monthly for magazine subscriptions and then you found out like they're gonna send them to you anyway, so cancel the subscriptions and they're gonna send you the magazines no matter what and I don't think anybody's reading magazines. So those kind of subscriptions, gosh, a lot of people will have like a Uber Eats subscription for the practice or a DoorDash subscription for the practice. Are those necessary subscriptions?   And what are we paying out of convenience that's getting used sometimes that doesn't need to be there? So I think subscriptions and then allocating supply orders correctly.   DAT-Dana (11:05) Yeah, and I even think office tech subscriptions too, like how, you know, patient communication and then like review requests and then, and sometimes like we can bundle those and get a better dealer. Sometimes it's like, hey, well, this does this, but this also does part of that. And like, we're just overlapping a lot of those things. And so can we condense them into one thing? So I think even just looking at like your office tech, because oftentimes like those are a big chunk of budgets and I'm like, Hey, but are you utilizing that? Like, yes, you've got this, you've got this   The Dental A Team (11:09) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (11:33) review subscription, is great. But like if we're asking in person and we don't feel like, I just think sometimes we have these things just because they sound fantastic, but we're only using a very, like a small fraction of it. And there's oftentimes a workaround on that small fraction that like, again, we can just reduce because we don't necessarily, we aren't using it consistently or it overlaps with something else that we have.   The Dental A Team (11:46) I agree with that.   Totally agree. That makes me think of like some of the analytics companies, you know, high cost that also have patient communications, right? So, but then we've got a patient communication platform, like maybe Weave or something. We're like, well, but like Weave doesn't connect with this piece well, or it doesn't pull this report, right? So we have this one that's pulling the reports, Weave that I can do text messages and emails from. So I don't use it over here, but I don't use that over here. And we're paying thousands of dollars between two.   two models, well, is there a third model that maybe encompasses both or can we, what can we shift around? So I totally agree. That happens a lot actually. Or people will have the dental intel or the Adit. love Adit. So they'll have Adit and they're like, okay, well I get my reports and I can pull all my data. Should I sign up with whatever company for text messaging? And I'm like, well, what Adit does that.   DAT-Dana (12:34) Mm-hmm. Yeah.   The Dental A Team (12:56) Right, like most of the analytic companies these days, it wasn't that way. When I was in practice, it wasn't that way. So it's been pretty recent within the last, I would say three to five years that the analytics companies started piecing all of those things together or vice versa. The communication systems are now doing analytics too. So I think they don't know, but it's a huge space of savings, especially because those analytics, they're expensive.   DAT-Dana (13:19) Yeah, I agree with you. And, and all those platforms are great. It's just which one works best for you. And which one will you get the most bang out of for what you're paying in that monthly subscription? Because yes, they all do the same thing, but yet also a variety of other things. And so like which package best fits your office. And I think just even annually assessing that and annually looking at your tech bundles and like, are we utilizing it? Is it a better platform? Because they're all fantastic platforms. It's just what you're going to use within your practice.   The Dental A Team (13:25) cracks.   Totally agree. It's like the cable subscriptions, right? We used to get hit with those with the wifi and the cable and the phone and these bundles. And the next thing you know, you're $30 more and you didn't even realize that it had changed. I totally agree with you. Yeah. So subscriptions, supply costs, something that I find. And I think a lot of people tackle this one first. They'll look at like employee costs. So what's my staff cost? And totally yes. Watch for overtime. I also like to caveat.   Overtime typically means that there's a systems failure because we should be able to get the work that we need done and the amount of time that we have. And so, Dana, I often see overtime as understaffed or incorrectly staffed. maybe our job descriptions aren't clear. Maybe there's someone that's doing everything. Everybody else is leaving at 4 p.m.   when the patients are gone and then that person's there till six cleaning things up. So over time, definitely, I definitely watch that and I look at staff costs, but it honestly is one of the last places that I look because we need the people there to produce what we're producing. And then, ⁓ Dana, taxes, taxes. You guys, I have a practice that I love so much. I have got a two or three practices this year that is like, my gosh, where'd the money go? And I'm like, well, you...   had $600,000 of taxes last year that you paid for 2024, and then you also paid your 2025 taxes. So you made up for what you were lacking the year before. But remember that auto email that I've got going out, or remember how many times we talked about, did you put the savings aside for your taxes? If you put the savings aside for your taxes and you paid out of that savings, it is still going to show up on your P &L. That does not mean that that money is gone. It just means that it was used over here.   and you should still be saving for your taxes. But Dana, I think that is one of the biggest spaces that doctors or business owners in general, because I've seen even, we've worked with non dental offices that they quote unquote lose their money because they had to pay taxes.   DAT-Dana (15:55) Yeah, and I will say too, an even something that I think I noticed in a trend in that is like taxes on their personal distribution, right? Because it's like, ⁓ I pay payroll taxes and and like they know they have to pay business taxes, right? But depending on how they structure paying themselves, we kind of forget that we   The Dental A Team (16:05) ⁓ yes, yes.   DAT-Dana (16:15) to pay taxes on our own personal distributions or how we pay ourselves because, for team and all those, they're just like auto deductions and auto things that come out on our P &L and we see our pay, right? We see our pay come out, but what we don't see come out and we sometimes forget is that we are taxed on the money that we pay ourselves. So doctors, that's just like also I see that.   The Dental A Team (16:16) Yes. Yep.   Yep.   DAT-Dana (16:38) having a lot, but it's like, oh, well, I was prepared for taxes, but we forgot. Like, yes, we were prepared for the business taxes, but we weren't really prepared for the taxes on our personal income that came from the practice.   The Dental A Team (16:50) Yes, or vice versa. Karen and I were literally just talking about this on Friday, we went for a walk after summit and she was like, gosh, like CPAs, like just need CPAs to like get it all. And I'm like, well, I think CPAs are either like thinking of the business or they're thinking of your personal taxes. And it kind of, does suck, but you can't rely on one person or one entity to do it all for you. You know, you've got, we've got multiple people looking at it and you've got to be responsible to your money. So a lot of CPAs are like,   you know, yes, you've got your personal taken care of. And then you get hit with $400,000 of business taxes. Or they're like, awesome, we've got your business taxes taken care of. And here's your $200,000 of your personal taxes. And that's like, no matter what, something's going to come up short. So just know, this is what I need to save for. I'm going to save 40 % on the side. And if I don't have to pay 40%, cool. I've got savings for next year, or go spend it. I don't care what you do with it, but you've   you've prepped and you've saved for those taxes because that is the biggest space. Legitimately, I have an office that was missing X amount of dollars. And when we looked at the tax payments, it was X amount of dollars. It literally equaled out. It's like there was your profit because you weren't prepped for those 2025 taxes. Now it's 2026. You know, we're we're backlogging. So, yep.   DAT-Dana (18:06) Yeah. And I think we   hire like we bring on CPAs, we bring on financial advisors, we bring on all these things, but the end of the day, like they don't know you as a human. And so it's your responsibility to to like share like what kind of human you are with them. And so like if they're setting up that you take individual distributions, and you know that like, if money gets tight, you're not going to sit that aside, and you're not going to put it in a savings account for taxes, like, say that I think that sometimes like   The Dental A Team (18:31) Yeah.   DAT-Dana (18:32) Yes, they're going to give you advice based on like what our best practices or what they feel like will set you up for the most tax savings or the most tax success. But you know you as a person too. And if you know that you're not a great saver, maybe a personal distribution really and honestly and truly isn't the best thing for you, even if that's what they advise. So I think also to like know yourself, be able to communicate those things and make sure that the advice that they're giving you or the directions that they're giving you is something that you will truly do too.   The Dental A Team (18:50) Totally.   Yeah, I totally agree with you. Totally. we can't see. Maybe they can. But that's not their job to check and see did you move that money. I know a financial advisor that gets asked a lot that they're like, well, shouldn't my savings be those? He's like, I don't know. I don't know what you're doing with your savings. I advise you on what you should do. I'm not the one that's moving the money. I'm not your money manager.   And so we do the same thing. We advise you on what you should be doing, but I'm not in your accounts nor do I want to be in your accounts seeing what you're actually doing. I'm trusting that you're taking the advice and you're moving forward. And when I ask, did you do the thing and you say yes, I'm trusting that you did it. So huge caveat, I love that. And then honestly, last but not least, and this is why I do not tackle employee cost first is collections.   Oh my gosh, I have so many practices that are like, Tiff, where's my cashflow? And we look at it and I'm like, well, where are your KPIs? Because your collections right now is less than 90%. Like where, where's that? And your month's fluctuating is going to, can create cashflow like month by month stretches, like a little skimping here or overflow here. But on average, you should be at 90 % or higher collections. And Dana?   I think collections is a very overlooked space when it comes to the P &L because we're thinking they don't think about the collections. They just think about, okay, this is my P &L and it's like it's a separate entity. At that point, they get the P &L and it's totally separate from the practice. Like that doesn't, the practice doesn't matter anymore. This is the P &L, but they have to be smashed together.   DAT-Dana (20:20) Yeah.   Yeah, they do. I think too, like collections, feel like doctors always tend to just like look at production because it's the one thing they can control, right? It's it's the thing that they can really control, tackle, push for. And so I feel like that's a number that they look at heavily. And then I think collections, right? Yes, which doctors understand that collections is the money in the bank, right? I think we understand that concept, but we don't necessarily look at the health.   The Dental A Team (20:44) Yeah. Yep.   DAT-Dana (21:02) of the collections within the practice. And you're absolutely right that like, can we cut all over time? Can we look at team and say, look, no more over time, right? But if the overtime is what they were using to get the collections to 98%, right? Versus 87 % without it, right? Then maybe that's not the thing that we've got to tackle. We've got to look at that collections network.   The Dental A Team (21:18) Mm-hmm.   Yeah.   DAT-Dana (21:26) Or we can say, like, yeah, we can cut our supply budget and you can take a supply budget from 6 % to 5%. But is that gonna move the needle as much as taking your collections from 85 to 98?   The Dental A Team (21:33) Pressure.   Correct. I love that. with that, go look at your collections. That was massive, Dana. Thank you. I love when I can get you on a soapbox and you're like, just go do the thing. And that was beautiful. Thank you. So disappearing profit, is a thing. Not having cash flow, it is a thing. Is it normal? Normal? Like, yeah, we see it. Is it what you should have? No, no. You should know your numbers forwards and backwards. If you're at summit.   You know that if you were not at Summit, you should be at our virtual events. They're freaking awesome. Our in-person events are amazing. We literally go through line item, PNLs at most of our in-person events for this reason, because there's always just something hidden. There's just like when you comb through your personal bank account and you're like, my gosh, or when you use Apple credit card to pay for everything. And then you're like, my gosh, now I got to pay my credit card off. And how did I spend $2,000 this month? Because it was easy.   It's easy to say yes to Amazon Prime and just order it right now instead of waiting and saving. So go through, comb through. You should do this quarterly. Make sure that at least yearly, I would do it quarterly. Make sure that things make sense. There's nothing that's been hidden in there. There's nothing that's orders are duplicated. There's not subscriptions that you shouldn't have and that your collections, you should be looking at that constantly. And you should be looking at that with your KPI.   reports, your scorecards with your consultant. If you're a client of ours and you don't know what I'm talking about, get on your consultant because you should. Especially Dana and I's clients. If you're out there, we love you and you just let us know. I think.   Action items, pull your P &L. It's where out of Q1, you've got a whole quarter to look at, you've got a quarter and then some at this point to look at, and we're coming up on the end of Q2, so it comes up really quickly. Go look at it, look to see, are there things that you can bundle? Or do you have a bunch of subscriptions that, you know, you've got multiple different companies overlapping that you can use one or two rather than five? Are you using the scanner that you're paying the monthly subscription for? Are you using all the things that you're paying for?   Is there anything that you can reduce and what is your collections at? If you can say yes, you've done both of those things and your collections is where it should be. Now we're going to take a look at, is your schedule full? There's so many layers. Like we're going to take a look now at production, team, like really how big is your team and do you have enough production to support the team that you have? So Dana, anything you'd like to add?   DAT-Dana (24:10) this, I think just like you said, know those numbers inside and out, look at these things regularly, evaluate expenses on a quarterly basis, ⁓ and take a look at those subscriptions because they can hit us hard as well as those taxes.   The Dental A Team (24:26) They're sneaky. Both of those are sneaky. Awesome. Thank you, Dana. All right, everyone, go leave us a five star review. You know, we love to see those. We love to know that this content was awesome for you. Let us know any tricks or tips that you have as well or things that are working well for you. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. When you're ready, if you are not yet a client and you're ready to find that disappearing profit, reach out. You guys, we are like hounds when it comes to this stuff and really freaking good at our jobs. So the systems behind the numbers and the systems behind the money,   We will help you figure out what's working, what's not working and get you in the best shape of your life. Dana, thank you so much for today and everyone, we will catch you next time.

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestBrent TaylorLou Lou Gonzalez This Week We DiscussFlight Attendant On Los's Only Airline vs Bus Driver On A Hood RouteHood Chinese Spot vs Fancy Sushi Restaurant One Fore Life; 90's R&B vs 2000-2010 Hip HopS/o To Our SponorsBask & LatherExplore viral bestsellers and products of healthier hair of ALL types from Bask and Lather. Go to Baskandlatherco.com and use code SQUADD for 20% off.SquareIf you're starting a business, or running one that deserves better tools, Square helps you sell, manage, and grow without slowing down. Right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com/go/squadd . Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today.

The squad breaks down Ne-Yo's frustration over being judged for his three-girlfriend lifestyle and the "cancel culture" hitting his contracts.

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestMark Gregory Dion LackB.T. KingsleyThis Week We DiscussChurches vs Popeyes 10 vs 1; Cane Corsos or KangaroosClothes Shopping At Good Will vs Grocery Shopping At Gas StationsS/o To Our SponorsHIMSHIMS.com/SQUADDReady to reach your goals? Visit hims.com/SQUADD to get a personalized, affordable plan that getsyou.Blue ChewBluechew.comRight now, when you buy two months of BlueChew Gold, you get the third for FREE with promo code SQUADD. That's promo code SQUADD. Visit BlueChew.com for more details and important safety information, and we thank BlueChew for sponsoring the podcast.Better Helphttps://betterhelp.com/SQUADDYou don't have to be on this journey alone. Find support and have someone withyou in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/SQUADDCash AppFor a limited time, new Cash App customers can earn $10 if they use the code CASHAPP10 in their profile at signup and send $5 to a friend within 14 days. Download Cash App today or visit cash.app/new to learn more about this and other great features launching now.Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures.

The people wanted MORE on course content, so that is exactly what we have delivered... HOWEVER, this time, not in Scotland but in SPAIN. The Toms fly over to La Hacienda and San Roque to try and BREAK par and rekindle the VERSUS series for one last hoo'rah! NOT ONLY THAT... but thanks to Golf Breaks we have got a VERY exciting announcement as they jump onboard for EMAIL CORNER! ALERT ALERT ALERT - in this podcast the boys had been awake for hours, in the sun, playing lots of golf... VAST SWATHES of this pod will make little to NO sense. Fancy booking your own AMAZING GolfBreaks trip, click HERE - New episode of GIRML... Monday, Thursday and Friday (fortnightly) ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - thetoms@golfisruiningmylife.co.uk ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tik Tok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IGOLF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Send us Fan MailWe're putting Peter Pan against Toy Story 2. One is a timeless Disney classic, the other a sequel that arguably outshines the original — but only one can stay. Expect strong opinions, questionable logic, and a final decision that might divide listeners.Support the showGet in touch at...Email us podcastelimination@gmail.comText or send a voice message to 07713163065 and get played on the showThanks for listening.

Episode 466, including tracks from Pogostix, Subversive Intent, Suicide Eyes, Mad Tab, The Surge, Dead End Lane, Project Sell Out, Brixton Cats, At The Gates, and Versus. The episode is loaded with a bunch of new music shared with us, a couple great albums/EPs, and wrap up the show with a Melodic Death Metal track and an Alternative track.

En este episodio a cargo de Sparrowolf y Gatonejo finalizamos el VERSUS de Tekken. Además, como de costumbre discutimos las noticias más relevantes, mencionamos los juegos a publicarse, y compartimos con ustedes lo que hemos estado haciendo, jugando, viendo, y/o leyendo. 

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestJordan ConleyJames DavisCourtney HaynesThis Week We DiscussSoul Food vs Mexican FoodGroup Dinners vs Solo DiningMove To English Speaking Country W/ Your Money/Valuables vs Foreign Language Country W/ A Million DollarsS/o To Our SponorsBetter HelpWhen life feels overwhelming, therapy can help.Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/SQUADDThat's BETTERHELP.com/SQUADD

From building Applied Intuition from YC-era autonomy tooling into a $15B physical AI company, Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig have spent the last decade living through the full arc of autonomy: from simulation and data infrastructure for robotaxi companies, to operating systems for safety-critical machines, to deploying AI onto cars, trucks, mining equipment, construction vehicles, agriculture, defense systems, and driverless L4 trucks running in Japan today. They join us to explain why “physical AI” is not just LLMs on wheels, why the real bottleneck is no longer model intelligence but deployment onto constrained hardware, and why the future of autonomy may look less like one-off demos and more like Android for every moving machine.We discuss:* Applied Intuition's mission: building physical AI for a safer, more prosperous world, powering cars, trucks, construction and mining equipment, agriculture, defense, and other moving machines* Why physical AI is different from screen-based AI: learned systems can make mistakes in chat or coding, but safety-critical machines like driverless trucks, autonomous vehicles, and robots need much higher reliability* The evolution from autonomy tooling to a broad physical AI platform: starting with simulation and data infrastructure for robotaxi companies, then expanding into 30+ products across simulation, operating systems, autonomy, and AI models* Why tooling companies came back into fashion: Qasar on why developer tooling looked unfashionable in 2016, why Applied Intuition still bet on it, and how the AI boom made workflows and tools central again* The three core buckets of Applied Intuition's technology: simulation and RL infrastructure, true operating systems for vehicles and machines, and fundamental AI models for autonomy and world understanding* Why vehicles need a real AI operating system: real-time control, sensor streaming, latency, memory management, fail-safes, reliable updates, and why “bricking a car” is much worse than bricking an iPad* Physical machines as “phones before Android and iOS”: Peter explains why today's vehicle and machine software stack is fragmented across many operating systems, and why Applied Intuition wants to consolidate the platform layer* Coding agents inside Applied Intuition: Cursor, Claude Code, internal adoption leaderboards, and how AI tools are changing engineering workflows even in embedded systems and safety-critical software* Verification and validation for physical AI: why evals get harder as models improve, how end-to-end autonomy changes simulation requirements, and why neural simulation has to be fast and cheap enough to make RL practical* From deterministic tests to statistical safety: why autonomy validation is shifting from binary pass/fail requirements toward “how many nines” of reliability and mean time between failures* Cruise, Waymo, and public trust: Qasar and Peter discuss why autonomy failures are not just technical issues, how companies interact with regulators, and why Waymo is setting a high bar for the industry* Simulation vs. reality: why no simulator perfectly represents the real world, how sim-to-real validation works, and why real-world testing will never disappear* World models for physical AI: hydroplaning, construction equipment, visual cues, cause-and-effect learning, and where world models help versus where they are not enough* Onboard vs. offboard AI: why data-center models can be huge and slow, but onboard vehicle models need millisecond-level latency, low power, small size, and distillation-like efficiency* Why physical AI is not constrained by model intelligence alone: the hard part is deploying models onto real hardware, under safety, latency, power, cost, and reliability constraints* Legacy autonomy vs. intelligent autonomy: RTK GPS in mining and agriculture, why hand-coded path-following worked for decades, and why modern systems need perception and dynamic intelligence* Planning for physical systems: how “plan mode” applies to robotaxis, mining, defense, and multi-step physical tasks where actions change the state of the world* Why robotics demos are not production: the brittle last 1%, humanoid reliability, DARPA Grand Challenge-style prize policy, and the advanced engineering gap between research and deployment* Applied Intuition's hard-earned lessons: after nearly a decade, Peter says they can look at a robotics demo and predict the next 20 problems the company will hit* Qasar's advice to founders: constrain the commercial problem, avoid copying mature-company strategies too early, and remember that compounding technology only matters if you survive long enough to see it compound* Why 2014 YC advice may not apply in 2026: capital markets, AI company dynamics, and the difference between building in stealth with a deep network versus building as a new founder today* What Applied is hiring for: operating systems, autonomy, dev tooling, model performance, evals, safety-critical systems, hardware/software boundaries, and engineers with deep curiosity about how things workApplied Intuition:* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AppliedIntuitionInc* X: https://x.com/AppliedInt* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/applied-intuition-incQasar Younis:* X: https://x.com/qasar* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/qasar/Peter Ludwig:* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterwludwig/Timestamps00:00:00 Introduction: Applied Intuition, Physical AI, and 10 Years of Building00:01:37 Physical AI vs. Screen AI: Why Safety-Critical Changes Everything00:02:51 The Origin Story: Tooling, YC, and the Scale AI Comparison00:05:41 The Three Buckets: Simulation, Operating Systems, and Autonomy Models00:11:10 Hardware, Sensors, and the LiDAR Question00:14:26 The Operating System Layer: Why Vehicles Are Like Pre-Android Phones00:19:13 Customers, Licensing, and the Better-Together Stack00:21:19 AI Coding Adoption: Cursor, Claude Code, and the Bimodal Engineer00:26:41 Verifiable Rewards, Evals, and Neural Simulation00:31:04 Statistical Validation, Regulators, and the Cruise Lesson00:40:25 World Models, Hydroplaning, and Cause-Effect Learning00:43:34 Onboard vs. Offboard: Latency, Embedded ML, and Distillation00:50:57 Plan Mode for Physical Systems and Next-Token Prediction Universally00:53:04 Productionization: The 20 Problems Every Robotics Demo Will Hit00:58:00 Founder Advice: Constraints, Compounding Tech, and Mature-Company Mimicry01:05:41 Hiring Philosophy: Hardware/Software Boundary and Engineering Mindset01:08:50 General Motors Institute, Education, and the Curiosity MindsetTranscriptIntroduction: Applied Intuition, Physical AI, and 10 Years of BuildingAlessio [00:00:00]: Hey everyone, welcome to the Latent Space Podcast. This is Alessio, founder of Kernel Labs, and I'm joined by Swyx, editor of Latent Space.Swyx [00:00:10]: And today we're very honored to have the founders of Applied Intuition, Qasar and Peter. Welcome.Qasar [00:00:17]: You guys really know how to turn it on to podcast mode. That was, you guys are real pros at this.Qasar [00:00:23]: They were just joking around right before this, and then they flipped it pretty quick.Alessio [00:00:29]: Oh, yeah, it's good to have you guys. Maybe you just wanna introduce yourself so people know the voice on the mic and they'll know what they're hearing.Peter [00:00:33]: Oh, sure. Yeah, I'm Peter Ludwig. I'm the co-founder and CTO of Applied Intuition.Qasar [00:00:38]: And my name is Qasar Younis. I am the CEO and co-founder with Peter.Alessio [00:00:42]: Nice. Can you guys give the high-level overview of what Applied Intuition is? And I was reading through some of the Congress files, when you went out there, Peter, and eighteen of the top twenty global non-Chinese automakers, you two guys, you have customers in agriculture, defense, construction. I think most people have heard of Applied Intuition tied to YC when it was first started, and then you were kinda in stealth for a long time, so maybe just give people the high-level overview of what it is today, and then we'll dive into the different pieces.Peter [00:01:10]: Yeah. So at Applied Intuition, our mission is to build physical AI for a safer, more prosperous world. And so we work on physical AI for all different types of moving systems, everything from cars to trucks to construction and mining equipment, to defense technologies. And we're a true technology company, so we build and sell the technology, and we sell it to the companies that make the machines. We sell it to the government, really anyone that wants to buy a technology to make machines smart.Physical AI vs. Screen AI: Why Safety-Critical Changes EverythingQasar [00:01:38]: Yeah. And I think in the broader AI landscape, a lot of the focus, rightfully so in the last, three years has been on large language models, and so everything fits in a screen. Like, whether it's code complete products or things like that. And what's different about us is we're deploying intelligence onto a lot of things that don't have screens. they're physical machines. There are sometimes screens within the cabin or for example of a car or a truck or something like that, but most of the value we provide is putting intelligence that is in safety critical environments. So that those two words are really important because learn systems can make mistakes if you're asking for, like, some, so something like, “Tell me about these podcast hostsQasar [00:02:28]: that I'm about to go meet.” But you can't do that obviously when you run, like, as an example, we run driverless trucks in Japan right now, as we speak. We can't have errors. Those are L4 trucks. Yeah.Alessio [00:02:40]: Yeah. Was that always the mission? I remember initially, I think people put you and Scale AI very similarly for some things about being kinda like on the data infrastructure side of things. What was the evolution of the company?The Origin Story: Tooling, YC, and the Scale AI ComparisonPeter [00:02:51]: Well, from the very beginning, we always wanted to, really be a technology company that helped generally push forward the industrial sector. And so we started off working in autonomy. Our very first customers were robotaxi companies. And we started off doing a lot of work in simulation and data infrastructure. And then over the years, we've expanded our portfolios. Now we have, over thirty products, and it's a pretty broad technology play within the landscape of physical AI.Qasar [00:03:19]: Yeah, I think the Scale reason is because we're all YC Universe companies. But it was a very different company. Scale, was, is more of a services company, data labeling company fundamentally. We started and still are, do a lot of tooling. So like, you think developer tooling is now in vogue again, thanks to the AI boom. But honestly, ten years ago, it was out of vogue. It w Like, doing a tooling company in 2016, 2017 was not, like, the thing to do because, I don't know if you remember, the VCs generally, their views was that toolings are They're just workflows, and workflows ultimately are not really interesting. And we've gone and come, full circle with that. But when we started the company, our kind of it's kinda like in the periphery of what the company wants to be. It was like, from our earliest days, like, we wanna deploy software on physical machines, like on cars and on trucks and things like that. And obviously, we didn't know that the transformer boom was gonna happen. We didn't know that autonomy systems would become end-to-end. Those things we didn't know. And why that's important when autonomy systems become end-to-end, it is just now those models can be generalized to, multiple form factors. And so back nine, ten years ago, tooling was a great way, and still is a great way to, build the technology and sell technology to our end customers, a lot of them who wanna build this stuff themselves. And so we just offer like a spectrum of solutions from you can just use like one part of a development suite of tools all the way to buying the full thing. The way to think about the company, or at least the way we think about the company is, as Peter said, a technology provider. It's kinda like, what NVIDIA does or what an AMD, but we just don't do chips.Qasar [00:05:06]: We don't do silicon. But we're a technology provider fundamentally. And I think even, we used to joke when we started the company, like, we're not the guys to build, like, Instagram. Like that was just towards That's not our That's just not us in a most fundamental way. IAlessio [00:05:20]: You have thoughts.Qasar [00:05:21]: Yes.Qasar [00:05:22]: Well, it's, it's I mean, I think it's just like what And I mean, we worked on Maps and stuff, Google Maps. Consumer products are extremely difficult for a lot of different reasons. It just, I think doesn't scratch the itch. I think we're like Michigan guys who are kind of more of that traditional engineering kind of a realm, or lineage. we used to jokeThe Three Buckets: Simulation, Operating Systems, and Autonomy ModelsPeter [00:05:41]: I gotta say, though, what was clear ten years ago was that there was so much more that was possible with software and AI in vehiclesPeter [00:05:47]: and that was generally the space that we started in ten years ago.Peter [00:05:51]: And the precise path that we've taken over the years, I think we've been strategic, and we've adjusted to make sure that we're actually building stuff that's valuable to the market. And like, the technology has changed so much. Like our own technology stack has completely changed, I would say, roughly every two years. And so now we've probably done, let's say, four complete evolutions of our own technology stack. And I sort of see that cadence roughly keeping up.Peter [00:06:13]: And so the way even we think about engineering is almost on this two-year horizon, we're preparing ourselves that, hey, like, we wanna invest the appropriate amount, but then also be very dynamic as the research gets published and as our research team figures out new advancements and adapting to that.Qasar [00:06:27]: Yeah. One thing that has been consistent is the type of people we've, we've recruited. It's engineers who are fall into the sometimes very traditional, like, GoogleQasar [00:06:38]: -gen suite, but way different from, other companies. We are hiring folks who really know the intersection of hardware and software, who know really low-level systems. Obviously, traditional ML researchers and folks who've, actually, put ML systems into production. That's been pretty consistent. I think that, like, you look at the mix of our engineering, eighty-three percent of the company is engineering, so it's, like, a giant list.Qasar [00:07:05]: A lot of engineers.Alessio [00:07:06]: Which, by the way, a thousand engineersQasar [00:07:07]: Yeah. A thousand engineers.Alessio [00:07:08]: that's on your website, so I imagine it's up to date.Qasar [00:07:11]: It is, it is up to date, yes. Yes.Alessio [00:07:12]: okay. And then forty-plus founders.Qasar [00:07:15]: Yeah. We would tend to also, This was more luck than strategy. But we've recruited a lot of ex-founders. It's been a great place for founders, YC and non, ‘cause obviously I know a lot of the YC folks. It's kind of like we recruit a lot of Google people.Qasar [00:07:33]: For them to exercise both their technical and non-technical skills because, we're, we're, we're on the applied side. We have a research team that we do fundamental research, we publish, and we've, we've had great traction there. But fundamentally, the business wants to take this intelligence and deploy it into production and there's, like, a certain type of person that's more interested in that.Alessio [00:07:54]: Yeah. You mentioned the tech stack, Peter, so I just wanted to give you some rein to just go into it. I'm interested in where Wayve Nutrition, starts and ends in some sense, what won't you do? What, do you do that's common among all the verticals that you cover?Peter [00:08:10]: There's a few buckets of work that we do, and we've been at this for almost ten years now, so the technology's pretty broad. But we got startedQasar [00:08:17]: Yeah, with a thousand engineers, like, you could work on lots of things.Peter [00:08:19]: There's lots of stuff, yeah, espe-especially with AI tools to help.Peter [00:08:22]: So we got our start in simulation and simulation tooling and infrastructure. And so generally, if you're trying to build a very complex software system that involves moving machines, you need to test that, and the best way to test it is it's a combination of virtual developments, a simulation, and then also obviously real world testing.Peter [00:08:39]: And then there's a very careful process of that correlation between the simulation results and the real world results and ensuring that the simulator is in fact accurate to that. Simulation's a very deep topic.Peter [00:08:49]: We have a whole suite of products in that, and we could talk for many hours about that specifically. But that is one part of what we do as a company. Reinforcement learning as a subpart of that is also super critical. I think a lot of the a lot of the best advancements happening in a lot of these AI systems right now in some way relate to reinforcement learning, and with now we have lots of compute, and you can do tons of interesting things for reinforcement learning. The second bucket of work that we do is on operating systems technology. true operating systems. Like, think about, schedulers and memory management and middleware and message passing and highly reliable networking and data links. Like, the reality is, if you want to deploy AI onto vehicles, you need a really good operating system. And when we were getting deeper into that space, there wasn't really anything that we were happy with.Peter [00:09:39]: Like, things existed, absolutely, and we were using what was available in the market, and as an engineering organization, we roughly realized these things aren't great. We think we can do this better, and so let's, let's build something. And that was then the that was the moment of inspiration that started our operating systems business, which is now a very real business for us. And in order to write and run great AI, you need a great operating system, and so that-that's what got us into that. And then the third bucket that we work on, it's, it's true fundamental AI technology. Models, we do a lot of work in, as mentioned, the foundational research, but then the also the world models and the actual autonomy models that are running on these physical machines, and that's across cars, trucks, mining, construction, agriculture, and defense, and so that's both land, air, and sea.Qasar [00:10:31]: And also, a smaller subsector of that third bucket is the interaction of humans with those machines.Qasar [00:10:38]: So that's a multimodal, experience. Historically, if you're moving a dirt mover or any of these machines, there are, like, buttons you press, whether they're actual physical tactile buttons or something like a touch screen. That's just That fundamentally is changing to where you're just talking to the machine and the machine and you're teaming with the machine.Alessio [00:10:58]: Voice?Qasar [00:10:59]: Yeah, voice, absolutely, yeah.Alessio [00:11:00]: Oh.Qasar [00:11:00]: And also the machine just being aware of who is in the cabin, what their state is. you can think from a safety systems perspective, the most simple version of this is, like, the driver is tired, right? They're, they're if you get those alerts when you're driving your car and saysHardware, Sensors, and the LiDAR QuestionQasar [00:11:15]: -maybe take a coffee break, that take that times, a couple of order of magnitudes up. But this concept of teaming man and machine is important. When you think about running agents or just running, different instances of, Claude and doing work for you in the background, you can take that analogy out, almost copy and paste and put it into, like, a farm, where you have a farmer who's running a number of machines. So where they interact with the machine is where there's maybe a critical decision or a disengagement or something like that, but generally speaking, the agent on the physical machine is running and making decisions on the behalf of the farmer until there's something maybe critical. And that's also what we work on. So that's not pure autonomy. It's a little bit of a mix, but it falls under, autonomy. In the automotive sense, that's typically defined in SAE levels as an L2++ systemQasar [00:12:05]: -with a human in the loop. But just take that idea, to other verticals.Alessio [00:12:09]: Yeah. You've not mentioned hardware at all, like sensors or obviously we you mentioned you don't do chips. I think even in AV there's, like, a big, cameras versus lidars. Like, what are, like, in your space maybe some of those design decisions that you made, and are they driven by the OEM's ability to put things on the machinery? And like, how much influence do you guys have on co-designing those?Peter [00:12:32]: Yeah. So we don't make sensors. Like, we're, we're not a manufacturer. Obviously, we use a lot of sensors in our autonomy products. in terms of what actually goes on the vehicles, we have a preferred set of sensors that we, let's say fully support, and then our customers, they can sort of choose from those. And obviously if there's a very strong opinion on supporting something else, we'll add that to the platform as well. And the lidar question is at this point sort of the age-old,Peter [00:12:59]: topic in autonomy, and the state of the industry right now is lidar is hands down a useful sensor, specifically for data collection and the R&D phase of autonomy development. if you see, for example, a Tesla R&D vehicle, it actually has lidar on itPeter [00:13:17]: to this day, right? In the Bay Area we see these. you'll see, like, Model Ys or Cybercab that have lidars on them just driving around. So it's, it's useful because it gives you per pixel depth information. So if you can pair a lidar with a camerand you can say that, well, this camera's looking this direction, this lidar's looking this direction, and now for each pixel of the camera I can see how far away is that pixel. you can actually then use that as a part of your model training, and then the that depth information then becomes a learned, a learned state of the camera data. And then when you're doing the production system, you can now remove the lidarPeter [00:13:52]: and now you can actually get depth with just the camera. And so that difference between, like, a highly sensored R&D vehicle and then the down-costed production vehicle, we use that across our whole portfolio of products. And of course the end goal is you want super low cost and super reliable.Peter [00:14:08]: And then in certain use cases you have some more, bespoke things. Like in defense as an example, you do things at night oftentimes, and so you care about sensors like infrared, more so than And you don't, you don't wanna be putting energy out, so you don't wanna use lidar or radar.Peter [00:14:23]: but you still need to be able to see at nighttime. So yeah, we work the whole gamut.The Operating System Layer: Why Vehicles Are Like Pre-Android PhonesAlessio [00:14:27]: Cool. So that's kinda like on the hardware level. Then on the OS level, how does that look like? What is, like, unique? my drive- I drive a Tesla. Whenever I drive some other car that has a screen, it always sucks.Alessio [00:14:38]: It's on, like, cheap Android tablet. It's like, it's laggy and all of that. What does the OS of, like, the autonomy future look like?Peter [00:14:46]: When most people, it's really what you just described. When you think about operating system in a vehicle, you're thinking about the HMI, right? The human machine interface, and absolutely that's a an important part of it, but that's actually only one thin layer on top. So when we talk about operating systems for, like, AI in vehicles, there's many layers that go deep into the CPU critical realm and embedded systems, and you're talking about the real time control ofPeter [00:15:13]: let's say the electric motors or the engine and the actuators, and you have different redundancies for different, let's say, the steering actuation in the vehicle. And all of these things, need very core support in the in the operating system. And then of course for autonomy you have real time sensor data that's streaming in, and the latencies there are really important, right? If you try to Imagine you try to run Microsoft WindowsPeter [00:15:35]: like streaming your sensor data in or controlling the vehicle. Like, the latencies are gonna be absurd. Like, you can never do that. And so what's special about what we do is we really have this system level thinking, right? So we're looking at, we care about every performance characteristics of the entire system, and then we also, because we're doing a lot of the software or all of that software, we can fine-tune and control all of those things. So we can very carefully tune in the latencies for every aspect of the system. We can carefully tune in the memory management. We can have the right, fail-safes and fallbacks, for different things. ‘Cause you have to account for what if, what if there is a critical failure? What if there's a cosmic ray that flipsPeter [00:16:14]: a bit in the middle of the processor that causes some, malfunction? And you have to have a fail-safe to all of that, and so the core operating system is a part of that. And then the one last thing, which is a lot less exciting but is, actually a very big topic, is reliability of updates.Peter [00:16:30]: so the I have a Tesla and you get updates fairly frequently, right?Peter [00:16:36]: Once a month. Most companies that are making vehiclesPeter [00:16:40]: are basically never doing updates, and they're And even if they are doing updates, they're usually only updating maybe one module. Maybe they're updating the HMI module. But they're not able to update, let's say, the CPU critical parts of the system.Peter [00:16:51]: You have to go into the dealer for that. And so with our operating system now we can actually enable highly reliable updates of any system in the vehicle, and that's way easier said than done. Like, there's lots of technical, technically deep stuff, in the tech stack to do that in a way that you're not going to accidentally brick a vehicle.Peter [00:17:08]: And right? If, imagine yourAlessio [00:17:10]: That would be bad.Alessio [00:17:11]: Bad.Peter [00:17:11]: Bricking a car is a very expensivePeter [00:17:13]: and honestly, like across the industry maybe one of the most just pure impactful things that we've done is we've just, we're, we're now enabling the industry to actually do software updates.Alessio [00:17:22]: Just to clarify as well, who is the customer for this? Like, I assume a lot of hardware manufacturers have their own firmware, and I'm sure some of them would just have you write it for them because you're experts. And others would have their own. Like, who pays for this? Who invites you into the house? Is it, is it the end user, or is it, is it the manufacturer?Peter [00:17:41]: Yeah. So let me make an analogy firstly on the on the fragmentation of software. So physical machines today are more akin to the state of the phone market before Android and iOS existed, right? So I worked on Android at Google by the way many years ago, and part of the reason that Larry at Google decided to get into Android was they wanted to run Google products on a bunch of phones, and they bought all of these phones from the industry, and it turned out they had like 50 different operating systems on these phones. And it was virtually impossiblePeter [00:18:17]: for Google to make their app run on all 50 devices equally well. And so the solution was, well, actually what if, what if they created-A really great operating system and made it attractive to all of these phone makers, and that was sort of the genesis for what Android was and why Android existed. It was a way for Google to get their products onto really wide diversity of devices. The state of the physical, industry right now, it's a little bit like that. Like, there's yes, these companies have firmware, but they have so many different operating systems, it's so fragmented, and to actually get a modern AI application to run on these vehicles, you actually, you first have to consolidate the operating system, and so that's, that's why we've done that. And then, your specific question was who are our customers? It's, it's, generally it's the companies that are making these machines.Peter [00:19:06]: And we're, we're, we're selling our technology to them to really simplify the architecture and then enable these AI applications to run on them.Customers, Licensing, and the Better-Together StackSwyx [00:19:13]: How much is reusable across? Like, do you have, like, one OS that is just configured for everything, or is there some more customization that is needed?Peter [00:19:22]: Yeah, highly reusable. So the fundamental technology is quite universal, right? So things that we do have to think about though are, like, chipset support. And so if you're, if you're coding, let's say, an LLM and you have start with an assumption that, “Hey, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use CUDA, and I'm gonna run this, on an NVIDIA chip,” then you don't really have to think about the hardware in that sense. Like, you're just, “Okay, I'm just I'm in the CUDA/NVIDIA ecosystem, and I'm, I'm going to use that.” But the hardware, especially in safety critical systems, it's a lot more diverse. There's not one or one or two players. There's a bunch of different chipsets that we have to support. And so our operating system doesn't just run on, like, the equivalent of X86. It has to, it has to run on a number of different architectures from chips from a bunch of different companies. But again, we've been working on this for a long time now, so we have, we have support for all of those chipsets. And then when you want to then run the AI applications, we can then do that reliably across now a variety of providers.Qasar [00:20:19]: And I think that is, like, heavily inspired by Android, right? Android has a huge suite of testing and it's a reliable operating system that runs on thousands of devices. And we think we can, we can do the same in all these physical moving machines, with the difference that we're really in a safety critical realm. Android isn't.Alessio [00:20:40]: So on Android, I don't need to use Gmail, I can use Superhuman. Like, what about your machinery? Like, can people bring somebody else's automation to it, or is it kinda like all-in-one?Qasar [00:20:50]: You have to use us. No. Yeah. we're If, Yeah. Yeah, it's totally open. Yeah.Peter [00:20:56]: Yeah. our philosophy is that we are a technology company, and so we license our technology to customers to use how they want. And so if a customer wants to If they wanna license our autonomy tech and our operating system, then great, we'll license those. If they just wanna license the operating system and then use different autonomy tech, that's fine also, and we have great documentation andSwyx [00:21:17]: Or if they wanna use developer tooling.Peter [00:21:18]: Yeah, exactly.AI Coding Adoption: Cursor, Claude Code, and the Bimodal EngineerSwyx [00:21:19]: It's, like, a better together if, obviously, if you, if they work together. Is it all C++ I assume is with different compile targets?Peter [00:21:27]: We use a lot of C++.Peter [00:21:28]: Rust is sort of a hot, the new hot kid on the blockPeter [00:21:32]: for a bunch of things as well. But yeah, the lower level you get, especially when you get to real-time constraints, you hit C++ at some point, and at some point maybe you work your way into assembly when needed.Swyx [00:21:44]: Oh, damn.Alessio [00:21:46]: I'm curious about the coding agent adoption, just, like, since you're mentioning more esoteric languages. Like, what's the adoption internally? What have you learned?Peter [00:21:55]: Yeah. We use everything. So Cursor was, I think the hottest tool in the company for a good while. Now Claude Code, I think has taken the reign on that. We have a internal leader, leaderboard that we use just to sort of encourage adoptionPeter [00:22:09]: with-within the company. And yeah, it's, they're phenomenally useful. it's, Honestly, we take inspiration from some of those tools also in how we're adapting some of that mindset of thinking to the physical realm. Like if it's so easy to build an app for this or that thing that lives just on a screen, we can We're taking now a lot of the same ideas and applying that to, “Okay, well, if you wanted a physical machine to do something, how easy can we make that, using our own tooling and platform as well?”Alessio [00:22:40]: Are you changing any of, like, the OS architecture, kinda like the way you expose services to, like, be more AI friendly or?Peter [00:22:48]: Yeah, absolutely. The in the early days of our tools infrastructure work, it was a lot about, You had engineers that were experts in certain topics, but the things that you're dealing with, they're oftentimes more mathematical or more abstract, where actually GUI tools are very useful for certain things. Like as an example, we have a product we call Sensor Studio, which is, it helps you design the sensor suite for your autonomous vehicle, whether, again, it could be a car, it could be a drone, could be a mining equipment, could be a robot. And you place sensors in different places. You There's different, There's a library. You can understand what are the trade-offs that you're making in the design of that system, and that was, like, a very, a very GUI intensive, thing ‘cause it's a little more like a CAD tool in that senseSwyx [00:23:37]: YepPeter [00:23:37]: if you've seen CAD tools. Nowadays, though, right, we expose all of the underlying APIs for that and now using, AI agents, you can actually configure a sensor suite with just text and likely reach a better result than you could've through the GUI in the past, and we're taking that thinking now through the whole product portfolio.Swyx [00:23:57]: Another thing I was thinking about is just in terms of, like, AI, adoption, does it change your hiring at least a little bit, or how do you, how do you sort of manage engineers, differently?Peter [00:24:08]: Yeah. absolutely, it does. we, I think like every company in the Valley right now, are evolving our hiring practicesPeter [00:24:16]: because the skills required to be effective are changing so fast, right? you used to really select for just rote implementation ability and now it is more the AI engineer skill set, right? Where it's like, yeah, how to implement, but actually-Just banging out code is no longer the core job, right? It's, it's actually knowing what questions to ask, knowing how to tie, how to tie together these different AI tools. And so the interviews that we give now I think are way harder than they've ever been.Peter [00:24:46]: But we also allow, right, selective use of AI tools to solve the problems. And I think in that you start to see more of a bimodal distribution of engineers, right? You start to see like wow, there's, there's this subset of people that they really get it. Like they're, they're all in and they've, they've clearly invested the hours needed to learn these tools and how to be effective.Peter [00:25:09]: And then there's sort of the group of people that haven't done that, and that the productivity gap is just enormous. And so we're, we're trying to obviously select for the people that are really into this.Qasar [00:25:20]: I first wrote the my AI engineer piece three years ago, and when I first wrote about it, I was like, “Actually, not everyone should be an AI engineer,” ‘cause I think there's a there's an extremist stance where well, every software is an engineer is an AI engineer. And my actual example of people who should not be adopting AI was embedded systems and operating systems, and database people. Are they adopting AI?Peter [00:25:41]: I think it's the classic bitter lesson, topic, which is the Six months ago I would've said the same thing, but it's, it's becoming super useful for every domain.Qasar [00:25:53]: I'm sure.Peter [00:25:54]: Right? Like,Peter [00:25:56]: there was, I think six months ago, or maybe a year ago, if you tried to use, let's say the latest Claude model for writing shaders, GPU shaders, the results were probably underwhelming. And if you use the latest model now to do that kind of task, you're a little bit blown away, like, “Wow, that actually worked. That's amazing.” And we see the same thing in the embedded realm. No question though, especially when you get into safety critical systems, the human validation isPeter [00:26:25]: is 100% key. Like I You're not gonna trust your life to a an AI written software that's, that's not been very carefully, checked by humans. And so I think now the really the challenge is about that appropriate level of human validation for these safety critical systems.Verifiable Rewards, Evals, and Neural SimulationAlessio [00:26:41]: How do you think about, yeah, touching on the simulation side, I think verifiable reward and reinforcement learning is, like, the hottest thing. What have you done internally to build around that? And like, what gives you What makes you sleep at night? Like, if somebody's like, just web coding something or likeAlessio [00:26:57]: wants to try something new, you have like a good enough system. Because I think the opposite is also true, is like if it's super easy to write anythingAlessio [00:27:04]: then it puts a lot of work on like the verifiableAlessio [00:27:07]: side of it. Like, what does that look like for people?Peter [00:27:10]: Yeah. So verifiability, a broader bucket of like evaluations, right? Like how do you evaluate the results that you're, you're getting? I think this is probably the hardest problem right now, because the As the models get better, it can be harder and harder to find the faults on the system.Peter [00:27:29]: And so like the problem of doing proper eval to find those faults, like that problem also keeps getting harder as the models get better. But it's no less important than it's ever been, right? You still there are still going to be edge cases that are not met and whatnot. And so it's, it's a big area of investment for us. On the reinforcement learning topic, the key thing is there's all these new requirements that come to be in the latest generation of these technologies. So for example, end-to-end is the big thing right now in autonomy and physical AI, which is you can now train these models that can effectively take sensor data in and then put control signals out, and get really good results out of that. But the way that you train and improve those models is really different from the previous generations. And so to do reinforcement learning on an end-to-end model, you now need to actually simulate all the sensor data, right? So then this becomes a we call our, work in this neural simulation, but it'sPeter [00:28:26]: think of it like a hybrid of Gaussian, splatting and diffusion methods, and where you really care about performance. Like performance is everything. If you can't do enough simulation fast enough and cheap enough, you actually can't get results that are worthwhile, in the end. It also gets to a lot of our work in embedded systems, which is like performance critical work, and that performance optimization, performance criticality, it carries over to a lot of the model training work. because, like, the only way to make it affordable is it has to be really fast.Qasar [00:28:58]: I think it's worth a few minutes talking about our own, evolving thoughts on verification and validation withinQasar [00:29:05]: kind of, traditional simulators, which are, you can think of like vehicle dynamics or something like that, which you're just taking textbooks and taking those formulasQasar [00:29:13]: and putting them into software, to like now this neural sim/world model universe. I think that's an interesting topic.Peter [00:29:20]: Yeah. So in more traditional development, right, you oftentimes would have, more black-and-white answers to questions.Peter [00:29:28]: And so the in Europe as an example, there's, a regulatory, system, it's called Euro NCAP. It's the European New Car Assessment Program, and as part of that, the vehicles have to pass a bunch of tests, and those tests actually, include, safety systems. So automatic emergency braking for a child that runs in front of a carPeter [00:29:51]: or let's say an occluded child that runs out and you hit it. And so you have You end up with sort of these binary answers of like, well, did the car under test pass this specific test? And there's a very well-known set of test casesPeter [00:30:05]: that the vehicle has to pass. And that was how the industry worked, let's say, until 10-ish years ago. But what's changed now is with these models, everything is statistics, right? Like you no longer have a black-and-white answer, but it's like, well, how many orders of magnitude or how many nines of reliability can I get in the system, and how can I, how can I prove that to be true? And the big unlock honestly for physical AI as an industry is that these models are just becoming much more reliable. Right? Things like things actually work a lot better. It's like the number of nines you can get out of these systems are now good enough that it actually becomes cost effective to really deploy these things. And so the big shift in, so verification and validation has been from a little bit more of a Again the past it was strictly requirements, and are you meeting or not? And now it's more of a statistical, verification and validation case where it's all about how many nines of reliability and meantime between failures, that sort of thing.Statistical Validation, Regulators, and the Cruise LessonSwyx [00:31:04]: And is the target audience regulators or even the customers are yeah, if you I imagine the customers are bought in, and it's mostly regulators that need to be satisfied.Peter [00:31:15]: We do work with the US government, we do work of course with the European governments and the government of Japan, and the government is not like an AI lab by any means.Peter [00:31:25]: So Swyx [00:31:26]: They just care about the outcome.Peter [00:31:27]: They care about the outcome.Peter [00:31:28]: And so we do education, in that regard, and like so sort of teaching about, “Hey, this is how we think validation should be done, and this is an approach that we think is reasonable,” and how to think about like when is a driverless system actually safe enough to go on the roads and that sort of thing. But I wouldn't say that the government is asking for it. It's like we're more teaching the government in that, in that sense. It's honestly, it's more so for our own, our own comfort, right? Like, we want to build very safe systems, and then of course our customers care deeply about that as well. But in that context we're also typically educating our customers.Qasar [00:32:01]: Yeah. Our first, our first core value is on round safety. So I think we can't underline enough that, us also verifying and validating that the systems that we're deploying are safe to us is probably as important as, like, some regulator or a customer saying,Swyx [00:32:19]: Of course. Okay. Yeah.Swyx [00:32:20]: You have to satisfy yourselves.Peter [00:32:22]: As I say, as a whole across the world, regulation oftentimes it's like a almost lowest common denominator. But like, you really have to substantially exceed what the regulators are expecting to make good products.Swyx [00:32:33]: Yeah. One thing I often talk about, I think and I try to make this relatable to the audience also, is Cruise, where they had an accident that basically ended the company. I wonder if people overreact to single incidents, because incidents are going to happen regardless, right? ‘Cause it's a statistical thing, but as long I don't know if regulators understand that, you cannot extrapolate from a single incident, but we do because that's all we have to go on. And your sample sizes are necessarily gonna be lower than, I don't knowSwyx [00:33:00]: consumer driving.Qasar [00:33:01]: Yeah. I think the Cruise example wasn't a technology failure. there was The real, compounding issue there was just how did the company talk to the regulators and what was their kind of behavior, and I think that became more of the issue. If you look,Peter [00:33:19]: It isn't It definitely was a technology failure, but it was made much worse by theSwyx [00:33:23]: Put the car back on the woman.Qasar [00:33:25]: Yeah. And let me put it another way. There is a version where Cruise still exists.Swyx [00:33:29]: right. Right.Qasar [00:33:30]: Right. It'sSwyx [00:33:30]: It was like the last strawQasar [00:33:31]: ItSwyx [00:33:31]: in like a long chain ofSwyx [00:33:33]: like issues.Qasar [00:33:33]: So do you feel like ATG had that horrific accident or someone actually dying, because, that was a homeless person crossing the street? So yeah, I think we can't understate enough that ultimately, like, statistical validation of something, that's one part of it, but it's not the only part of it. Like, consumer and let's say, mainstream adoption of these technologies is also gonna be part of that conversation. I think companies like Waymo are doing a lot of service positively to the industry in the sense of they're, they're setting a high benchmark and they're showing, kind of in a very responsible way how to, how to deal with these. There have been Waymo incidences as well. They've just not been as significant as the Cruise one that you mentioned. But yeah, so I think you'll just continue to see that. I think probably the long term question is really gonna be, again, around Like it is very clear humans are way worse drivers statistically.Qasar [00:34:29]: Like, there's no, there's no debate. And so at what point But we're emotional animals.Swyx [00:34:34]: Yeah. So my thing is, like, we have to get to a point as a society where we accept horrific accidents that would never happen by a human because statistically we understand that it is safer overall. In the same way that planes, they're safer, than I think they're the safest mode of transport that we have.Qasar [00:34:50]: Yeah. it's more dangerous to drive to the airport than it is to get on a flight.Qasar [00:34:53]: So if you're everQasar [00:34:54]: if you're ever getting nervous about getting on a plane, just think “I just gotta get to the airport.”Swyx [00:34:58]: Yes, we're flying.Qasar [00:34:59]: If I get to the airportQasar [00:35:00]: I'll be good.Swyx [00:35:00]: But then it's, planes also concentrate the tail risk if planesQasar [00:35:03]: Yeah. AndPeter [00:35:04]: And I was, I don't think we honestly have to worry about there ever being, accidents from these systems that are like much worse than what humans would cause, ‘cause humans do terrible things.Peter [00:35:14]: Like, people fall asleep at the wheel all the time.Swyx [00:35:16]: I have.Swyx [00:35:17]: Like, I'll call, I've been a drowsy driver.Peter [00:35:19]: Kinda drunk drivers, and that'sPeter [00:35:20]: that's the extreme end of the example. But these AI systems, you have redundancies, you have fallbacks. Like, there's many things have to go wrong for there to actually be a something catastrophic because there's, there's so many, fallbacks that these systems have.Alessio [00:35:36]: your simulation is like so vast because there's so many use cases. What are, like, maybe things that worked in a simulation and then you put it out and it's like, “F**k, this isAlessio [00:35:45]: this just did not work at all?”Peter [00:35:47]: Yes.Alessio [00:35:47]: IsPeter [00:35:47]: That's maybe a bit of a misconception, about simulation there. So let me go a little bit, more technical on this. So at first go, no simulation is going to represent the real world. There's always a process of this, sim to real matchingPeter [00:36:02]: where you actually, you need the real world feedback to basically feed into the parameters that are being used in the simulator, and you have to do that, it's like this validation flow, a number of times until you can get some confidence that, like I think the simulator is now accurately representingPeter [00:36:19]: what's gonna happen in the real world. Now, if you have a situation where you've done that full validation and you thought that it was accurate and then there's something different, those are much trickier cases, and that's, that absolutely can happen, but really I think the validation process is a really important part. You can never skip the simulation validation process, like where you're actually ensuring that, hey, the actual, my sim to real gap here is small enough that I can trust these simulation results. And there's, there's so many fun things that you can do when you get into it. Like, I'll, I'll give one fun example that came up recently is like in these humanoid robotics, systemsOverheating actuators is a real problem, right? So obviously phenomenal demos. IPeter [00:37:01]: The most amazingAlessio [00:37:02]: For 10 minutes.Peter [00:37:03]: The most amazing I can get. I love, I love watching robots do acrobatics like everybody but the these systems actually overheat, right? If, like, And one of the ways you can use simulation though is you can actually have that, the temperature of those actuators be one of the parameters that's representedPeter [00:37:18]: in the simulation. And if you're doing reinforcement learning over a certain task, then the robot can actually adjust its motions in the simulation to account for the fact that, oh, it knows that as it's moving, it's actually beginning to overheat this motor. But if you didn't have that parameter of, let's say, the heat of that motor represented in the simulation initially, then your RL policy might It will disregard that. And now you run that on the robot and the robot will overheat and fail.Alessio [00:37:43]: I guess the question is, like, how do you have all of these parameters taken care of while also understanding the deployment environment? Like, temperature is like a great example, right? WellAlessio [00:37:53]: why did you make my robot worse when it runs in like a freezer?Alessio [00:37:57]: So it actually shouldn't worry about that. it's like, yeah, how do you design these simulations?Peter [00:38:02]: This is honestly the This is what makes simulation so hard, right? it's because you Simulation is fundamentally about you're trying to optimize the development of a system, right? Like, how can I build this system faster and better and cheaper and what are all the levers that I have to actually accomplish that? And because simulation's just a software program, you can, you can change it a lot more easily than you can hardware systems. And then what's particularly awesome about the let's say, world models and using that as a part of simulation is now the simulation doesn't just scale with, let's say, adding new math equations inPeter [00:38:36]: but we can actually scale the simulation environment now with additional real world data and that also unlocks a whole new field of robotics.Qasar [00:38:46]: There is a meniscus line where you cross where still doing real world testing is better. there's, in this, sim-to-real gap, you can reproduce reality at exceedingly expensive costs and this So nothing is free. So really you have to you're finding that line where you're getting great performance, you're getting great feedback, whether it's on the training side or on the eval side, but it's way cheaper than doing it in the real world. At some point it, that doesn't make sense. And so even, from our earliest days in autonomy, our view was you're still gonna do real world testing. You There's, there's not, there's not this, magical land where you're not gonna do that. And maybe even like a more nuanced version of this in like traditional software development is, most of your testing for software in a vehicle, 95% of that can be like traditional CI/CD kind of, flows that you would have in traditional web development. But once you have Now you, let's say you have a truck. Well, you can do like 4% of those in like a rig which has all the components, the electrical and electronics of a truck, but doesn't have, it doesn't have the tires and it doesn't have the And then you have the 1%, which is actually the vehicle. There's something There's a similar analogy in terms of using simulation for intelligent systems. You can do a lot in a simulator, but in using world models, but ultimately it's, it's physical AI. So you're gonna deploy it on physical machines andQasar [00:40:17]: the freezer example comes to, comes to light.Alessio [00:40:20]: The world model thing has been to me the hardest thing toAlessio [00:40:22]: wrap my head around. Like we have Faith Eliyon on the podcast.World Models, Hydroplaning, and Cause-Effect LearningQasar [00:40:25]: We've been doing a small series with like another Intuition company, General Intuition as well.Qasar [00:40:31]: yeah, and I mean, lots of, lots of coverage on NeRFs and yes.Alessio [00:40:34]: Yeah. It feels like we talk with about, the heliocentric system, right? It's like in a world model, if you just feed visual data, the model might learn that the sun spins around the Earth. It makes sense, right? And it's like, well, not really. And I think what are like some of these other things that like hydroplaning is one thing I think about, is like can a world model understand hydroplaning and like what amount of water like causes it to happen? And it's like, yeah, to me it's like I don't understand how you guys do it. I guess it's like the real thing is like when you're doing both cars and the highway in Japan versus the excavator in a mine in,Qasar [00:41:13]: ArizonaAlessio [00:41:13]: wherever you're Arizona, wherever you're deploying them.Alessio [00:41:15]: How much of it are you relying on the world models to like generate the simulations for you and then try and close the gap after versus like giving the world models as a tool to your engineers to like curate the simulations if that makes sense?Peter [00:41:28]: Yeah, totally. So yeah, I can say at a pure engineering level, I think if you're hoping to do real world deploys and you're purely relying on a world model approach, you probably won't get to something that works, before you go bankrupt. So there is just a very practical mindset of like, world models are amazing and they're extremely useful for a lot of use cases, but there are a lot of other things that you need to do to actually get something started and something deployed and working. most fundamentally, world models are all about It's understanding the world, but also understanding what's going to happen. It's like the cause-effect relationship.Peter [00:42:01]: Right? And so like it, right, if you have a take some sort of construction tool, and that construction tool is gonna be doing some work on the Earth in some way, it's gonna be moving earth, the world model needs to understand that cause-effect relationship. Like, okay, when I, when I take this material from here and put it over there and now I have things that are over here and not over there anymore and that cause-effect, relationship. data obviously is a is a big problem. The hydroplaningPeter [00:42:26]: one is actually a really great example because it's actually quite non-obvious sometimes. Right? It's like, well, it's, it's raining and well this road, has, let's say the appropriate curvature to it so the water is running off the road and cars are driving faster here and then you approach a road that's very flat and water is now puddling on that road and all of a sudden cars are driving slower because when they were driving faster they were starting to lose control. And there are a lot of visual nuance, very nuanced visual cues in the scene and so I do think in the world model concept there's a good chance that the model actually would learn that you should just drive slower when these visual cues exist, and that's obviously the beautiful-The beauty of, these kinds of models where they just, they learn these non-obvious things.Swyx [00:43:14]: It doesn't need to know about hydroplaning to know that it needs to drive slower.Peter [00:43:17]: Yes.Swyx [00:43:17]: I guess it's Yeah. I wanna ask questions about, also deploying models. I presume, like, you use a lot of these world models for training data and simulation, but what about deploying it onto the systems in production? Presumably you have you have, like, GPUs on deviceOnboard vs. Offboard: Latency, Embedded ML, and DistillationSwyx [00:43:36]: but they're I keep saying on device. What's the what's the right term for that?Peter [00:43:40]: On machine.Swyx [00:43:41]: On machine.Peter [00:43:41]: Or embedded, yeah.Swyx [00:43:42]: Yeah. What is the embedded world like? because for people who are not used to that world, this is very alien.Peter [00:43:49]: Yeah. So it's actually We call it onboard and off board.Peter [00:43:52]: So like, onboard software and off board software.Peter [00:43:54]: And the great thing about off board software is you don't have to care about time, and you can run really large models, right? So you can, you can say, “Well, this model, I don't care if it takes one second for it to give me a result or 10 seconds for it to give me a result, because we have time.” And the models can be really big, and they can run, in a data center or on a on a huge GPU and you can obviously have distribute to compute, et cetera. But onboard you don't have any of those benefits. You're like, “Well, I need I have this many milliseconds where I need an answer from this model.” And so a lot more of the energy then is about, think of it more like distillation and it's like truly efficiency and like, literally every fraction of a millisecond counts. And you can't have a situation where the model takes too long because then the vehicle can't actually function.Peter [00:44:42]: And so you can, you can still use a lot of the same techniques, and the models themselves you can think of as like a derivative of larger models that you can run offline, and then you're, you're trying to just get a model that is still performs really well but it's, it's a it's smaller, small enough version that you can then run on this embedded system where you care about latency and power.Qasar [00:45:03]: Yeah. And I think like, the broader point I think which, maybe is not obvious but it's worth saying is in physical AI world, we're not really constrained right now by, like, the intelligence of the models. It's actually what Peter's talking about, it's actually deploying them inSwyx [00:45:19]: The hardware they give you.Qasar [00:45:21]: Yeah. On the hardware you give you.Qasar [00:45:22]: And so And there's just a reality is of safety critical systems. So those end up being the your limiting factorsQasar [00:45:29]: rather than, let's say, a limiting factor for, a foundation model companyQasar [00:45:34]: is gonna be just capital maybe or researchers.Qasar [00:45:38]: So we're, we're in that way dealing with, for us as people who kind of come in that realm with like a very interesting Those constraints force creativity.Swyx [00:45:47]: And I imagine, nobody was deploying or giving you the hardware for transformers back in 2018, whatever, but now they are. What's the evolution like? just peel back the curtains a little bit.Peter [00:45:59]: Yeah. Transformers first off, I think the paper was originally published in 2017.Swyx [00:46:02]: 2017.Swyx [00:46:02]: So there's no time.Peter [00:46:04]: And ISwyx [00:46:05]: But I'm just saying I guess I'm saying, like, embedded ML systems usually, like, a lot less parameters, a lot less compute, and now, like, orders of magnitude more.Peter [00:46:14]: Yeah. absolutely. what I was gonna say though was I think in the in the original paper in 2017, maybe it's in the last paragraph, somewhere in the paper they talk about, like, “Oh, by the way, this technique might be useful for, like, images and videos as well.”Peter [00:46:30]: These last subjects.Peter [00:46:31]: And it took a few years for that impact to really hit. But like, now, we're seeing transformers are everywhere.Swyx [00:46:39]: Yeah. Vision transformers.Peter [00:46:40]: And then then the compute just keeps getting better and better. But you do have this fundamental trade-off, right? It's like you have power, you have cost, and performance and like, getting the right, getting the right mix of those things in an embedded package that can also be, like, shaken and baked in all thePeter [00:47:00]: conditions that these things have to have to operate in. But yeah, I think that they're only going to keep getting better and so we also try to plan our strategy understanding that, we know the rate of improvements of these systems.Swyx [00:47:11]: Yeah. So like, Google just released the Gemma 2B modelSwyx [00:47:15]: that effective 2B model. Is that useful to you guys or is that too big?Peter [00:47:18]: You can run that model on an embedded system, definitely.Peter [00:47:21]: the So yes, it's, it's useful in that regard. The bigger question is, like, what do you use it for in an embedded system? Like, you actually need to customize it quite a bit to make it useful for something. But yeah, you could run a two billion parameter model, definitely.Swyx [00:47:35]: It also interesting, like, what percent is a custom ML model that only does that thing versus a generalist LLMSwyx [00:47:41]: which probably is not that useful actually for your context.Peter [00:47:46]: Like, you, like, you can imagine different use cases, right?Peter [00:47:48]: So theSwyx [00:47:49]: The voice stuff, yes.Peter [00:47:49]: Yeah, the voice test. Totally, yes.Peter [00:47:51]: So for the actual, autonomy elements, that's 100% in-house. We do every bit of that, the data simulation, the model, everything. But when you get into the more generic use cases like voice or voice assistant kind of thing, that's where these more generalist models like Gemma actually can be quite, can be quite useful.Swyx [00:48:09]: Yeah. And then there's also obviously a trade-off between, like, what percent must you do on machine, versus just call home.Peter [00:48:16]: Yeah. It's all about latency.Swyx [00:48:17]: Latency.Peter [00:48:17]: It's all about latency. Yeah.Swyx [00:48:18]: Yeah. Well, like, I think actually in a lot of contexts, especially in the US, you can just have a connection to the web.Qasar [00:48:26]: Yeah. I think though most of our universe is everything has to be fairly, embedded and local because just the nature of Even in the US there's a lot of likeSwyx [00:48:39]: PatchinessQasar [00:48:40]: don't haveQasar [00:48:41]: have coverage, right? And if you look at, like, the old world of autonomy within mining, which is, like, long before transformers and kind of, neural networks, in the like CNN and kind of a universe, they were really just hand-coded, systems. They were just like, this machine is gonna run to that place with thisPeter [00:49:03]: That was our GPS, like very accurate GPS.Qasar [00:49:05]: Yeah. And so that worked, and that worked for 20 years, so why would we actually need to use transformers or kind of more modern end-to-end systems? Mainly because you can only really run a path and run backwards. That provided a lot of value, but m-Not as much as you get when the machine is actually intelligent. It's, it's seeing, it's perceiving, it's acting in a dynamic world.Alessio [00:49:28]: I looked up RTK, real-time kinematic, one to two-centimeter accuracy.Qasar [00:49:32]: Yeah. Fantastic. But the and fantastic in faraway lands where there's not gonna be cell phone coverage.Peter [00:49:39]: Yeah, so it's widely used on the legacy mining and agricultural autonomy systems today. So like, for example, a combine that can be precise within one or two centimeters as it's driving down the field, they use RTK.Qasar [00:49:53]: Yes.Peter [00:49:53]: But it's, it's expensive.Qasar [00:49:54]: Yeah. And it's, it's, it's autonomy, but it's not intelligent in the way that I think all of usQasar [00:49:58]: if in twenty-six we'd be talking about intelligence.Alessio [00:50:00]: In one of your blog posts, you mentioned research on large scale transformers that are similar to those doing modern generative AI. What are, like, the big differences other than, “You're absolutely right. I should steer the car, so you probably wanna remove that?”Peter [00:50:14]: We have a diversified bet strategy internally, and the reason we've done that is because we operate in now a bunch of industries, a bunch of geographies, and each of the approaches has, obviously a different risk to them.Peter [00:50:27]: And so like, we're not going to put all of our eggs in a single basket for a single approach because that approach may no

So going back more than 30 years, I was involved in work on childhood obesity. It was a prevalent problem at the time, but little attention was being devoted to children and weight issues. And it was fair to say that the field, as it were, was an academic backwater. Little was known about short and long-term effects of childhood obesity. The social and emotional lives experienced by the children hadn't really been documented or studied much. There was very little known about treatment or strategies for parents, but thankfully, things are different now. Thanks in part to the work of a number of really innovative people in the field, and one of the most innovative is our guest today, Dr. Joseph Skelton. He's a professor of pediatrics and founder and director of Brenner Fit. FIT stands for Families in Training, which is the family-based pediatric obesity program at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He's also editor of the Journal of Childhood Obesity is involved in clinical care, research, education, and community outreach. Dr. Skelton has just published what I think is a really important book through the American Academy of Pediatrics, entitled Your Child Is Not Their Weight: Parenting in a Size Obsessed World. I was asked to review the book and was delighted to see it before it was published and just was so happy to see that such a book existed at all, but such a good quality book at entering the picture. Really a very important advance in our field. Interview Transcript There have been some books about pediatric weight issues in the past. Who is this book for and how is it different than what's been out there? I feel overall the big audience for this book is any parent, especially of my generation, that were raised during some really toxic diet culture in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. And so, I think the main folks that that's for is that parent: I want my kids to eat healthy, to be active, to lead healthy lives. But I don't want them to become concerned about their weight to feed into our culture's focus on the ideal body image. I don't want to feed into that. But you know I do want to pay attention to the health habits. How can I do this in a healthy way? How can I focus on health habits with my kid that's not a focus on weight and do it in a way that's backed up by science. You know, that's what parents always want to know. Am I doing this right? Am I causing harm? And it is actually who the book is dedicated to, you know, all those parents that were raised in a toxic diet culture and want to do things differently with their children. So, in modern day America, what is life like for a child whose weight exceeds the standards that we know might be healthy, and for the parents who are raising those children? From personal experience and 20 years of running a program, as well as what the research shows, it can be kind of rough. Despite a lot of the advances that we've made around weight bias we're still in a place that kids are trying to live up to this idealized body image. And then they have all these toxic messages when it comes to nutrition and body image. I think it's rough. We know that kids in bigger bodies tend to have a lower quality life. They tend to have more symptoms of depression, anxiety; and it's because of this world that we live in. You mentioned messages that they might be getting from places like the media, but what are interactions like with peers and teachers and doctors and others in their lives that are affecting how they feel? Yes. So, the adults in their life were raised in that toxic culture. They're my generation and the generation behind me that was raised in that. You know, there's the myth that a smaller body is healthier than a bigger body. And I think we can't break away from that. And I think that still sort of comes through. We still see this as a lifestyle issue, and everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a thought of, you know, well, I did this... and I lowered my cholesterol... I did this and I lost weight, you need to do it too. And I think in the medical profession, because of a lack of understanding, a lack of training - I think that still occurs. I don't do a ton of medical education. I'm getting more and more into it, especially when it comes to areas around nutrition. But that's what I'm trying to avoid in the next generation of healthcare providers and even actually a lot of our community collaborators, teachers, and stuff like that. To get away from that. This is not a simple issue, so don't share advice because sometimes that advice can be damaging or could be wrong. You know, good lord how much I hear about carbs on a weekly basis. And not the carbs I like to talk about, which is around dessert and Carolina Gold rice and all these other food stuff. But it tends to be around sort of demonizing certain foods and just really bad messages that still are floating around out there. Let's dive in a little deeper about what you refer to as toxic diet culture that was especially pronounced in previous generations. What does that mean? Does it affect standards for what the ideal body looks like? What about messages about how much control you have over that yourself, and how responsible you are for your weight? How your self-image should be influenced by how you look? But tell us more about what you mean by that. We wanted this to be a book that didn't necessarily dwell on weight so much, but actually one of the first chapters is to say let's cover how complex weight really is. We know that 50% or more of someone's weight is heavily, heavily influenced by their genetics. Where they live, you know. The amount that our lifestyle affects that is much, much smaller. It's the minority of what goes into our body size. And even that, our habits are so influenced by the world around us. But it's, you know, trying to get people to understand that, hey, body sizes are just different. I love this picture from the Olympics and it was a medalist in gymnastics- it was Simone Biles; you know, the huge media personality of Ilona Maher who is a bronze medalist in rugby; and then one of the women's basketball players. You're talking 4'9", 5'10" and pure muscle and six foot seven, all people at the top of their game. And not only different heights, different body types. And, you know, body type is a hard thing to talk about because there's not standard body types. We're all just built differently. And starting that message at a young age that people are just oftentimes built differently. There's very little control that we have over our weight. And even though there are things that we can do about weight, what you can do is you can focus on your habits for health. And that has just gotten lost. We talk about in the book the, we call it veiled weight talk, and it's basically where you're just substituting the word health for the word weight. And kids pick up on that. They know when their parents and others are talking about weight. And so, a really big thing we want to accomplish is like, Hey, you know, eating for health is important. Being active for health is important. In my world, and I did one part of my early research in this, and we always try to have that message as there's so much more to health than weight. In our medical world right now, our primary outcome on these lifestyle changes that people are making is weight. You mentioned genetics as a contributing factor to who is affected by the problem. Tell me how you look at the food environment out there that people are exposed to now, and things like food marketing and the processing of foods. The availability of all these foods that are contributing to obesity and things. And the reason I ask is, you know, there was a time in our country when the prevalence of childhood obesity was probably close to zero. And there are plenty of countries around the world where that's still the case. But now in many countries there's large amounts of childhood obesity. And it's not as if the genetics have changed. When people move from other countries to the United States, their weight tends to go up. Their genes obviously don't change. There's something pretty toxic about the food environment that's driving this. So, thinking about things that way, does that help parents by shifting some of the blame from them and their children to an environment that they might be able to manage in some way? Absolutely. Because parents…they blame themselves oftentimes. You know, how did I let this happen? What did I do to sort of cause it happen and it's not. So, we do try to shift that of looking at ourselves as the reason blame. But you can kind of look at the - and I'm just going to focus on nutrition as the focus - the broader food environment and how that impacts. We tend to get a lot of buy-in or understanding when you talk about how they are trying to market to kids. And so, for any parent, all you have to do is bring up the checkout line at a grocery store, you know? And all the things that are at the kids' level that is just made to make your life as a parent hard when you're trying to feed your kids well-balanced regular meals but you're just kind of constantly walking through this landmine. It's the same thing with electronics and social media. There are so many things that they have a lot more money than you do to market to you than you do to protect yourself against it. And it absolutely influences it. And the way I talk about this is really when it comes down to snack foods, and using the parenting language that snacks get you between long periods of time between meals, but that got co-opted by companies marketing snack foods. And when you see food, smell food or hear about food, you kind of want that food. And that's what parents have every day to now the point is. Snacks always have to be crunchy, salty, and sweet, and we're supposed to give kids snacks when they ask for it, because that's what these companies tell us about hunger. You know, hunger hits us every time and you have got to have this bar to sort of get through that. Parenting is hard enough and then trying to parent through this when they're directly marketing kids... you know, in most European countries, they're not allowed to market to kids. In some countries it's age eight. Some countries it's age 12 because they don't quite recognize this is marketing, they're want you to buy this. It makes it a lot harder for parents. You know, when I was on the faculty at Yale, I got to know a political scientist. A very impressive person named Jacob Hacker. And he'd written a book called The Great Risk Shift. What he talked about was how government and American businesses have systematically shifted the responsibility for overcoming harm from products from themselves onto the consumer. And that's really true in a way here, isn't it? Because the problem is created by corporations who are marketing unhealthy foods in such high levels. It's not the only cause, but it's certainly an important one. But the responsibility for solving the problem then falls to the parents and the children who have it. And one party has way more resources than the other. As you said, it's really not a fair fight and parents have a very tough battle dealing with these things. Yes. There was a marketing study called The Nag Factor, and I'm an old Simpsons fan, you know. You imagine the people behind the one-way mirror watching things and trying to manipulate. And that's what the nag factor was. How can we get kids to nag their parents more effectively? And what they found is parents that were immune to nagging tended to be the more educated, higher-income parents. And so, they literally had this plan of we need to change how we're getting these kids to nag. We need to give them reasons to nag. And that's when you started seeing vitamin C, high in protein. So, you think the checkout at the grocery store is bad, but then the signage in the commercials each and every day are giving kids reasons they can go to their parents to tell them get me this. Because nagging is not going to be enough for the high-income parents. They have to have some purpose behind it. You know, when I was growing up, the only way I saw advertisements for food was on Saturday morning cartoon television. And there were three channels showing it. Well, it shows how old I am, but now it's just an avalanche of messages on social media, built into gaming, and it's just everywhere. And it's probably pretty hard for parents to control that. Wouldn't you say? Well, now that you've said that, that's what my phone's going to start doing. The next time I open up my Facebook, there's going to be an ad for some sort of food camp because it's listening to us. Absolutely. Oh yeah. There's just no comparison. And I think that's also something very hard for parents, regardless of the topic, is what worked for me that my parents used is different than for my kids. And even between your kids. You know, my 24-year-old and my 20-year-old are completely different kids. You wouldn't even know they're related and different personalities. And so, what worked for one, you can't necessarily apply to the other. And whereas we love the idea of multi-generation households and, you know, being involved and being there to give advice. And you should take the advice of your parents, but it doesn't always apply. It's just a different world. I feel like I need to give credit to my East Tennessee farming roots. There are two stories I always remember my dad talking about when they would go to a car hop. Maybe some of your listeners know what a car hop is maybe they don't. It's like a Sonic, you know, it's the old school drive up. Or for you Atlanta folks, like the varsity drive up. My grandparents would make my dad put on his Sunday clothes. You know, that was how rare they went out is they would actually get dressed up driving into town to go try these hamburgers and these French fries. Versus now you can you DoorDash that 24/7. I mean just what a different world and concept. And I still have to share this other story for my grandfather, who my oldest son is named after, he was a tobacco and sustenance his farmer in East Tennessee. And every time I have a med student that's a vegetarian in my cooking class, I always tell the story of he came home one day, and he was talking to my aunt. He says, you know what? The county agent said one day people are going to be eating soybeans. That's so funny. Soybeans were fed to cattle back then. It's really just how drastically we change and now it's changing even faster. I mean, my grandchildren will be light years different than what my children are. Let's dive back into your book. Tell me about the collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics and how did the book come about? They have had two books in the past that were sort of geared towards parents, you know, how to address weight in your kids if your child has a problem with their weight, what can you do about it? Well-written books. They had done well. But they were looking to try to do something different. It was kind of time to sort of update that. And the last book was great by Natalie Muth. It was a fantastic book. So, a lot of my friends were on the 2023 clinical practice guidelines. And when that came out, there was a huge blowback from the eating disorder community. And, again, it's sort of the polarization of our country right now. And, they had asked me to speak at a conference saying, hey, can you try to do something in the middle? They knew that we included elements of the body positivity movement in what we do. We're big adherents and teachers of authoritative parenting. And they said could you try to give a talk that kind of goes in between what we're trying to do with the treatment of obesity that's affecting children's health as well as the body positivity movement. It's kind of, again, speaking of the Saturday morning cartoons, it was kind of those things that everyone stepped back, and Bugs Bunny was still in the front and got volunteered. It was sort of one of those situations. And so, I gave this presentation and they said, hey, well, what do you think about turning this into a book? Would you be interested in writing a book? And I said, absolutely not. I don't have time. And never in a million years would I do it. But this needed to be out there. So, first of all, the AAP asks, as a pediatrician, you do it. And second of all, I feel like this book needs to be out there. Both for who I talked about earlier, those parents that don't want to hurt the kids' feelings, make them hate their bodies, feel like something's wrong with them, which is what a lot of kids say. But it's also for those parents that are wanting to do something. These are the parents that, you know, they want to put their kid on a diet or make a comment to them of you sure you need to have seconds on that? You know, which we know can do damage. And of course, parents, you know, they don't want to hurt their kids and get in the way. And so, it was kind of geared toward those parents that were starting down an avenue that may not have been safe. You know, they don't have access to a good evidence-based program. And so, it's also for those parents that says, hey, your kids aren't little adults. Don't take these weight loss approaches to kids. It's just a different beast. We'll come back in a minute and talk about specific parenting strategy, but you alluded to this blowback from the eating disorders fields and the clinical guidelines. Tell us a little bit more about that, because it's one of the key features that would drive the need for a book like yours. I'm not an eating disorder specialist, but there was a big concern that one of the big recommendations that was new was that you can't have watchful waiting anymore. It used to be, you know, if younger children were starting to gain weight, before you intervene or start into treatment or start to change a lot that maybe just wait to see if, you know kind of the old-fashioned thing, are they going to outgrow it? Are they going to go through a growth spurt? So that was a part of the recommendations. The evidence says that watchful waiting in today's world, you're unlikely to see a kid outgrow it anymore, including bariatric surgery, use of medications and things like that. And so, they felt like this increased focus that this was going to cause pediatricians and parents to focus even more on weight and therefore lead to eating disorders. And then that was coinciding over the previous five years, a lot of studies were coming out and then it got put into a couple of systematic reviews of meta-analyses that showed that kids in bigger bodies, kids with overweight and obesity, had a two to three times higher prevalence of eating disorders. Because typically eating disorders are always thought to occur in underweight or thinner children. But it actually is much higher risk of these in children in bigger bodies. And so, we use that term threading the needle, how do you help families who want to do something about their child's weight for health reasons but not worsening disorders. And so that blowback was really saying, hey, by increasing focus on this, you're going to make things worse with that. And it was kind of surprising. A lot of my good friends were on that practice guidelines and they're kind of taken aback because these are experts in the field. Well-meaning people that for 10, 15, 20 years had dedicated their careers to helping these kids looking for help. And I think any care provider to be accused of causing harm is always, always jarring. Tell us how you navigate that and what sort of advice do you give parents in this book? Yeah, so one is that I call weight literacy. It's sort of understanding this is a complex issue. It's not something you did. This is something that happens. We can't always explain it. There are still things, this is where you read too much of this science, it gets you really paranoid about microplastics and things like that. There are some legitimate arguments to me be made there in endocrine disrupting chemicals and stuff like that. We can't always explain why kids are growing bigger than other kids or at a heavier weight. So, the weight literacy, sort of, understanding this is a complex issue, this is not a lifestyle issue. And the second thing is it's worthwhile to focus on healthy eating and physical activity for health. Sometimes that will see improvements in weight, sometimes it won't. But it's still important to do. That's the idea of getting away from that weight being the primary outcome. We feel like this is a great adjunct for someone who might be pursuing bariatric surgery or medications, because it does give us the opportunity to not keep pushing kids harder on nutrition and physical activity, which could lead to that disorder eating. And I think the final thing is sometimes parents and kids are aligned. You know, give me a 15-year-old girl that wants to lose weight. A 15-year-old girl that wants to lose weight, that is unfortunately a child that's very high risk of developing disordered eating. And maybe the parents really wanted to help. But what oftentimes we see a lot is tension brewing between the parent and child. The parent making efforts to help the child with their health and their weight, and the child interpreting those efforts as you think I'm fat, you think I'm ugly, you think something's wrong with me. And it's causing that tension: you know, you can't eat too much of that. Taking Food away. That movie Spanglish with Adam Sandler, several scenes in that sort of reflect that of just small comments that parents can make. You know, actually wanting to help and how that can hurt children. And what we would hope for a lot of parents is to say how can you do this in a way that can be helpful. And one of our chapters is called how to not talk to your children about their weight. You know, the idea that parents don't need to feel that pressure to bring that up. Now, if their child wants to talk about it, absolutely they need to be there, and we give a lot of tips for that. But, you know, your job as the parent, you don't really have control of your child's weight, but there's lots that you can control and lots that you can do to promote the healthy development of your child. You know there's a heavy dose of compassion in your book. That was one thing that appealed to me about it and impressed me. Because if one thinks about a book for parents on dealing with their overweight children, you sort of default to, oh, this book is probably a diet or an exercise program, or things like that about how the child can change their weight. And you're talking much more here about understanding the psychological world of the child. Being sensitive to possible risks of talking to them in ways that are unhelpful or lead to eating disorders and things like that. It's wonderful that you pay so much attention to those issues. And it's very affirming because you're saying that there are some things parents can do about this in ways that affirm their children, accept them as individuals. It's built into the title of your book that your child is not their weight. And that just means so much, I think. Oh, thank you. That is what we had hoped. I mean, you know, parents love their children and in endless, endless ways. And the parents are the key to their children and their children's health. And I feel like sometimes we push too hard. Now we're doing it for good reasons. We want this child to be healthy. We want to help make some improvements. And we put a lot on the parents' back. And I think sometimes then that pressure then is extended to the children. And a lot of this is trying to get parents some insights of, we know you love your children. Here's how to make sure that your child is being loved. You know, the old parenting typology, and I kind of go through some of that history in there, really kind of gets at that. But sometimes we do or say things that doesn't make their children feel loved by accident of course. And it sort of highlights that, not to make parents feel bad, just so they're aware. I've been guilty of it. None of us are perfect parents. And you know, making sure that our kids are feeling, loved by us. Family-based treatment is obviously the key. And I always think of one of your, one of your hypertension studies, I think from 1983. I still quote it to this day. You know, the idea that even though we talk about family-based treatment, we're usually dealing with a parent and a child. The dyad. Now they're representative of the family and I've always felt like something was, sort of, missing there. And two things really influenced me. One of that is one of my co-authors, Dara Gardner-Edwards, who is a licensed clinical social worker. And they are all about the family. They know how to do family assessments. And so, recognizing there's more than just those parents and the child in the clinic with you. In addition to that, working the whole field, I didn't know about human development and family studies. Didn't know that was a field and actually came from the University of Minnesota. I was one of the early. Strong program. So, UNC-Greensboro, our neighbor over there. I started working with a professor over there, Cheryl Buehler, and we would go meet over sushi and she essentially taught me a four-hour freshman-focused family studies course. And just this whole other world, social science world of family dynamics and recognizing when you're working with that child and parent. You may or may not be affecting the family dynamics in the household, of that family system. And so being able to extend differently and having some more appreciation of the complexity of families and the relationships with families. Hopefully we're helping people understand making changes in health habits, relationships matter. We have a project going right now, led by one of my medical students. She was always impressed, in shadowing with us, of how many siblings were picky eaters. And I brought this up to my team, like, oh yeah, this is a huge stress. You know, this parent is obviously wants to change the habits of the entire family but is obviously focused on this child we have in clinic. But the struggle of having this other kid that's a picky eater really throws off those dynamics. And being able to account for that and that stress that that puts on families, and what can we do around that? Oh, that's so interesting. You know, the more aggressive, dramatic treatments that are being used for adults like bariatric surgery and the GLP one drugs, how do they fit into this picture? Yeah, so we feel like it's a perfect adjunct if someone is pursuing with this with their child, because it still is talking about that parenting approach. And it's not really going to change anything with how you're parenting around these things. You know, bariatric surgery for many years has been done safely and effectively in children. Not that it's always perfect, but again, because of the cost, the idea that it's not reversible and typically you want that done in a center that's very experienced with working with kids. So, access issues tend to be really big with that. It can be very effective for some kids but is not available to everyone. We're in the same situation with the medicines with GLP1s. There's one that has been approved for use down to age 12, and overall, they tend to work very well with kids. But we're in the real world now. We're learning a lot about that. It can be miraculous for some children because it gives them success with their weight. It takes pressure off themselves. We're always trying to prevent that restriction, both in hearing that from another adult or the child doing it themselves, trying to tell themselves to eat less. It's always going to backfire. It's going to increase your hunger and things like that. And having that GLP1 is going to help with that. It's actually going to lower that pressure. And oftentimes they can get in that healthy routine much quicker. In others, it's causing some problems. We are seeing some kids that it is absolutely wiping out their appetite. And we're figuring out now the kids are sort of at risk for that. And you can't do that. The kids gotta eat. But for some kids, they just lose all appetite whatsoever. And they can't not eat. And so, we're still figuring out through the real world. But I think, what we're also finding is the job that we do in these multidisciplinary teams, it's just as important if not more important when you're using medications than when you're not. Let me ask you a big picture question and let me see how optimistic you might feel about how, where things are going. So, think of a physician who is treating people with lung cancer. So, the lung cancer is caused by this terrible environmental influence: cigarettes. And the physician then is in the position of having to treat the people who have that really unfortunate problem. And thank God there are physicians who do that, and there's research showing how to treat it effectively. But of course, it would be better if the environmental insult that's causing the problem in the first place didn't exist. That would make everybody happier, except for the companies that sell the product. So, do you think you and colleagues who are doing similar work are faced with a similar kind of a problem? There are all these environmental things that are helping push this problem in the first place. Thankfully, there's kindness, compassion and effective care available and your book helps push that forward even further. But are you hopeful at all that the environmental situation, you know, all the bad foods and stuff out there is changing in a positive way so that there might be less of the problem, or it might be easier on the children now who deal with the problem? Some people think it's getting worse. Others think we might see some progress. But what do you think about that? My brother is an HR guy and he kind of talks about these different typologies with that. And, I forget, I'm called something like the mad scientist, which is you're very pessimistic in complaining, but you have enthusiasm. I don't really know how to take that. But I think, you know, I'm enthusiastic obviously about this topic and what we can do to help parents. But I'm a little pessimistic when it comes to the broader world. I think there's enough, and not saying that every for-profit company's bad, but I think a lot of history is on my side with that. I don't get paid more the more kids I see and the better success I have. I don't get paid more. My job is to be here to help. But, you know, companies, every time I see a for-profit company that comes out and says safety is our number one priority. Or, you know, your satisfaction is number priority, I'm like, no, it's not. Your number priority are your shareholders. And I think that's a very, you know, jaded way to say, I don't quite trust companies right now because of that. Are there some positives that you see, and do you see some changes being made in some menus? Do you see some different products out there that are really trying to get it healthy? But it's hard. I think I have some trust issues and I think that's well founded. Maybe that's my Appalachian background. I tend to be very distrustful of the large mining companies coming in. That, speaking of your lung analogy, that I think I have some healthy distrust that is well founded. So, I think trying to help, and that's obviously a big movement that we have, of trying to help people be more discerning parents, more discerning consumers. But it's hard because they, like you said earlier, they have a whole lot more marketing dollars to convince you to buy their product than we have trying to convince them to make smarter choices about it. BIO Joseph A. "Joey" Skelton, MD, MS, FAAP, FTOS, DABOM is a Professor of Pediatrics, and of Epidemiology and Prevention, at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He is the Founder and Director of Brenner FIT® (Families In Training), an interdisciplinary pediatric obesity treatment, prevention, research, and educational program. He serves as the Director of the Center for Prevention Science in Child and Family Health, Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Pediatrics, Associate Leader of Community and Stakeholder Engagement at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Childhood Obesity. He is board certified in Pediatrics and Obesity Medicine. His research and clinical work has focused on the treatment of children with obesity. He has secured nearly $10 million in funding over the past 15 years, has given over 50 national and international presentations, and has over 130 peer-reviewed publications. He enjoys teaching cooking classes that are both fun and informative to anyone who will listen.

In a world of noise and distraction, there is a trend in “Bringing Simplicity Back To Investing.” RICK FERRI and I talk about why it’s important for investments and why it’s important for individuals. You’re going to leave here understanding a new framework for looking at your investment portfolio and hopefully bring some peace of mind as you go forward. https://youtu.be/8EFnt_UTjEA Rick Ferri has been a good friend to the podcast. He shares his insights on simple investing, emphasizing the importance of clarity, discipline, and understanding the core principles of investing. He discusses the pitfalls of complexity, the value of index funds, and how to maintain a disciplined approach amidst market noise. https://open.spotify.com/episode/743dxOLLgZjUzKszZo4Owy?si=57mqK1ZmQ0a7LPdcwVoQ-g Keywords investing, index funds, simplicity, portfolio management, financial planning, discipline, asset allocation, tax efficiency, global growth, investment philosophy Key topics The philosophy of simple investingThe stages of investor learning: darkness, enlightenment, and simplicityThe importance of cash flow and intrinsic value in investmentsAsset allocation based on liabilities and time horizonTax-efficient investing strategies for taxable and retirement accountsRisks of alternative investments and private equity in retirement plansDiscipline and automation in maintaining investment strategies Chapters of “Bringing Simplicity Back to Investing” 00:00 The Philosophy of Simple Investing07:03 Stages of Investment Understanding11:19 Financial Planning and Purpose17:57 Implementing a Simple Portfolio23:01 Discipline in Investing30:46 Navigating Complexity in Wealth Management Resources Rick Ferri’s Website – https://rickferri.comBogleheads.org – https://bogleheads.orgIndex Fund Book by Rick Ferri – https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Rick+Ferri&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 Website – https://rickferri.comTwitter – https://twitter.com/RickFerri Skeptic’s Guide to Investing Outline: “Bringing Simplicity Back To Investing” Introduction: Three parts to simple investing: Philosophy, Strategy, Discipline Part 1: Philosophy: Overview: Embrace Simplicity – the Education of an Index Investor – 4 stages 1: Born in Darkness (who you ask, chasing returns, naive research) 2: Finding Enlightenment (measure, compare, enlightened) 3: Complexity Traps (slice'n dice, factors, the fallacy of perfection) 4: Embrace Simplicity (global equity, specific fixed-income as needed) Part 2: Portfolio Strategy Overview: Making the Philosophy Work for You 5: Setting Goals (family – culture, career – taxes, risk tolerance) 6: Managing Risk (three ways to allocate assets: required return, risk avoidance, cash-flow) 7: Tax Management (three account types, asset class tax, tax avoidance) 8: Investment Selection (ETF vs fund, balanced funds & TDFs) Part 3: Discipline: Overview: Implement, automate, stay the course 9: Implement fully (consolidate, tax issues, lump sum vs DCA) 10: Maintain regulatory (automate new, rollovers, TLH) 11: Adjust as goals change (accumulation vs distribution, tax situations, legacy) 12: Stay the Course (recommit occasionally, continue ed., conferences) Transcript of “Bringing Simplicity Back to Investing” Frazer Rice (00:00.962)Welcome aboard, Rick. Rick Ferri (00:02.3)Well, thank you for having me. Frazer Rice (00:04.258)Well, thank you. First of all, want to thank you for a kindness you showed me way back in time and having me on the Boggleheads podcast. It was probably worth at least 25 % of my book sales and it was a lot of fun to do and never forgot it. So it took a while, but here we are back on my podcast. And what I want to do is go through a little bit about really the three parts to simple investing, which I think is something, especially now with the proliferation of alternatives, a lot of noise with crypto. That sometimes we kind of lose sort of the forest for the trees as far as what’s the right things to be thinking about in terms of an overall investing philosophy sort of embrace. And so maybe let’s start with that. How do you think about the parts to a good investing thesis and what is your overall worldview on that? Rick Ferri (00:55.804)So I’ve been in the investment advisory industry now for 40 years. And what I have learned is that the simpler you can make investing and the simpler you can make the portfolio, the better for you, the better for your family, the better for those who will inherit your portfolio. Don’t make it complicated. Complexity is just job security for those people who are selling you things and trying to manage your money. And in the end, you don’t benefit from that. They do in the form of fees. And if you just had a simple portfolio of a few good index funds and maybe some individual securities, you’ll be much better off and your family will be better off in the long term. And that’s the philosophy of simple investing. Frazer Rice (01:50.947)Mm-hmm. Rick Ferri (01:53.208)The second part is a strategy. How do you go about doing this, particularly if you’ve had a complex portfolio? And the third thing is discipline, which is how do you stick with simplicity as an investment philosophy? Frazer Rice (02:06.318)Sure. and without the second two, it’s great to have high-minded thoughts and so on, but if you can’t do it, it’s all for naught, and then if you can’t stick with it, then the best laid plans just kind of go asunder here. So let’s go back to the philosophy for a second here, and as you think about, it’s almost like the life cycle of discovery and learning about how these things work. How do you think about that from an ARC perspective? Rick Ferri (02:12.561)Ha ha. Rick Ferri (02:36.05)So generally when you’re new to investing, you’re going to ask other people for advice. I where you get that from, might be a friend or family member, maybe a professional advisor, might be coworkers, maybe you’ll just get on the internet and start searching. I don’t know, but 99.9 % of the time you’re gonna run into advice that is not very good. And the advice will be, you should put your money here, you should put your money there. Use these 10 different funds. It’s just a lot of confusion, quite frankly. I call this stage darkness because you don’t, you you’re just investing in the dark. You don’t know. And a lot of the advice is going to be very short based upon short-term performance. So recency biased people are going to be recommending, but you know, growth stocks because the Magnificent Seven has done well in the past. Or buy crypto because crypto went up a lot in the past and so therefore you should buy it now. And so most of the advice you’ll get in darkness is going to be recent based upon recent performance and rather than looking at it over say how should you be investing over 10, 20, 30 years and that will end up being quite different. So darkness is where we all begin. And most people stay in darkness. They never get out of darkness because they don’t put the brain cells to work to look at how am I doing? I mean, how has that done for me? What seems to be happening in my portfolio? Really? Do I really know what’s going on? And then the ones who are very fortunate start asking questions about, what if I just Frazer Rice (04:06.125)You Rick Ferri (04:31.334)bought the market and bought an index fund and just got the return of say the US stock market or the international stock market and that’s all I ever did. Would I be better off? And the answer to that 98 % of the time is yes, you would be better off if that’s all that you did. And if you come to this realization, I call it the second stage, which is enlightenment, where you now realize that, okay, all the stuff I’ve been doing may have been okay. I’ve been moving in and out of things, but now I need to start looking at just buying the market and holding it for the longterm. And that’s enlightenment. But for some people, it doesn’t stop there. And they start to dig into this idea of indexing. When you start doing that, it’s good that you’re learning, but you’ll start running into a whole lot of noise. That is alternative indexes, enhanced indexes uh… explore strategies all of these things that you’re going to take this nice simple concept called indexing and make it complicated again. So you start adding all these things to your portfolio because it has the word index in it or maybe the word passive in it and uh… advisors are notorious for doing this it’s called complexity for job security Frazer Rice (05:39.148)Right. Rick Ferri (05:54.066)Basically, are, you know, you take the idea of indexing and you just add a lot of things all around the edges of it and you make a simple portfolio complicated. So the third stage of this process of simplicity is complexity. In other words, you’ve made something simple complex. Okay, so the last stage is Frazer Rice (05:54.221)You Rick Ferri (06:18.544)Simplicity. That is that you realize this is going on. You realize that all the stuff that you’re adding to your portfolio is just making it all complicated again. And that the people who are benefiting from this are not you, but the people that are selling you all this stuff. And you say, that’s it, I’m done. I’m going back to my second epiphany, if you will, which is simplicity. I’m just going to go back to a simple portfolio of a few broad index funds, US stock market index fund. An international stock market index fund that covers the whole market and a couple of bond funds, municipal bond fund and maybe corporate bond funds or treasury bond funds. And you could use index funds for those as well. And it’s a really low cost, very tax efficient and very simple. Frazer Rice (07:05.953)A couple of quick asides here. The first one is for people who are coming into this in and they’re in the darkness, but they are informed maybe from the TikTok world or Robin Hood or Kal-She or these or these betting orientations and distinguishing between betting and investing. How do you think about that and kick people over to the positive side of the force so that their emergence from the darkness into the enlightenment and simplicity doesn’t take them in a place where they really touch the stove in a bad way and have a bad experience that’s simple but bad. Rick Ferri (07:32.988)Right, okay. Rick Ferri (07:51.484)So there’s a concept called intrinsic value. You may have heard Warren Buffett speak about this. Well, you want to buy things that have cashflow. Bonds, for example, have cashflow. They pay interest. Stocks have cashflow. You have companies that are going concerns. They earn earnings and pay dividends. They buy back stock and they reinvest money. So you can value these things based upon these cashflows. Real estate has cash flow, it pays rent, or maybe you own timberland that you can cut the wood or you own a farm where you can harvest or lease it out. mean, these are cash flows. So the first thing that I have for cut in investing is cash flow. How do my investments generate cash or will generate cash later on down the road? That’s different than say buying gold or Bitcoin or currencies or commodities. Those things don’t have a way of generating a cashflow. One bar of gold put in a safe is one bar of gold a thousand years from now. It doesn’t become two bars of gold. doesn’t get little bars of gold. It doesn’t pay interest and so forth. mean, so unless you’re good at Frazer Rice (09:12.994)Right. Rick Ferri (09:16.966)Buying low and selling high, you can’t really expect to make anything other than maybe the inflation rate. And with commodities, you actually earn less than the inflation rate. Gold has earned a little bit more than the inflation rate. Where Bitcoin is going to end up, I have no idea. But the speculative assets are the ones that usually don’t have any intrinsic value. People are just betting on price because that’s all you have. I f price is going up, let’s buy it. Because the price went up. I don’t know where it’s going, but the price went up, so let’s buy it. And maybe someone dumber than us will buy it at a higher price from us, and then we can make money. But I mean, you have to trade these things. And what information do you have? None, really. It’s very difficult to come up with information that the market doesn’t already have. And you’re not a professional trader. So you might get lucky. I mean, people do get lucky. You you can flip a coin. And pick heads 10 times and if it comes up head 10 times it doesn’t mean you’re a good coin flipper you’re just lucky and so you can get lucky and you can make money doing this but it’s not a long-term investment strategy to do that it’s best to buy things that have cash flows or will have cash flows in the future. Frazer Rice (10:30.175)As I like to tell people, you not only have to be right, you have to be right twice, and then you have to be systematically right twice in order to make a living out of it. even professional traders struggle at that. And to think that you’re going to be better equipped than a lot of those folks is folly. And so I try to talk people out of that whenever I can, because I think… Rick Ferri (10:35.42)Correct. Frazer Rice (10:58.101)It’s just very difficult to play in that space and have that turn out to be a success. Okay, so we kind of have some ideas here around the philosophy and sort of the idea of, you know, sort of garnering luck versus skill and those types of components in that portfolio strategy, that second phase, maybe take us through that a little bit and how you take a good philosophy of simplicity and make it work for you. Rick Ferri (11:22.18)Right. So this gets into a little financial planning at the beginning of it because you can’t invest without a purpose. I you have to have a reason why you’re investing. It might be to pay future liabilities such as college for your children or retirement, or maybe you want to leave a legacy or maybe just trying to build wealth for the family, whatever it is. I mean, you have to have a purpose. And so what is the purpose? What are you trying to do? And you have to look at your life and you have to say, are my liabilities? What are my short-term liabilities? Do I want to buy a house? Or do I want to send my kids to Ivy League school? Do I want to retire early? And what are my liabilities? And sometimes it involves other family members. Maybe you have parents who need your help or siblings who need your help. So that’s a liability. The first thing you have to do is look at what are my liabilities? And included in that is how much you want to leave to your children. I often ask people, okay, you’ve got $10 million. How much do you want to leave to each of your three children? And they don’t have any idea. I said, do you want to leave more than 10 million or you want to leave less than 10 million? And a lot of people would say, well, they’ll get what’s left. Well, that changes the whole concept of investing if they’ll get what’s left. Frazer Rice (12:43.318)Sure. Rick Ferri (12:43.634)Versus, yes, I want to leave each of my child five million dollars when I die and I’m starting with ten. Okay, well that changes how you invest your money. So these are the liabilities. So that’s where you start with. And then you start looking at well, what are the short-term liabilities and what are the long-term liabilities? And long-term liabilities can be funded with equity. Meaning things that are ten years or longer out. I usually I tell people anything you’re to be spending your money on between say, Now and 10 years from now probably shouldn’t be in equity. You’ll be getting dividends and interest from your portfolio, which is fine. You could just spend that money. But in addition to that, I big chunks of money that you might be spending to buy a vacation home or whatever it is really should probably not be in equity. But the money that’s going to be not used for 10 years or longer, 20 years or maybe ever in your life, that can be in equity. don’t differentiate that first. A lot of times asset allocation, that’s what we’re talking about, starts with, well, what do you want between stocks and bonds? What do you want your portfolio to look like? What percentage in stocks and what percentage in bonds? I don’t think you really get to that number until you know when you’re going to be needing the money. If you’re going to be needing the money 10 years out, fine, that money can be in stock. So that would allocate a portion of that long-term money to stock and that might be a percentage. Okay, so that’s what we start with. A real basic look at who you are and what do you need and when are you going to need it and what are you trying to do for your heirs. And then that leads to an asset allocation between stocks and fixed income. The stocks again, I’m not investing in any stock money in liabilities that I have in the next say 10 years. So it’s long term. Okay. Now we have to look at the stock side. That’s the easy stocks. Stock investing is easy. I quite quite frankly, I’m working on a book right now about this, but stock investing is very simple. It’s much easier than fixed income and bond investing. Stock investing is simply we buy the global equity market. We’re just trying to buy the growth of global economic growth, global GDP growth. We’re trying to capture that, which has been going on. Rick Ferri (15:08.594)Fairly steady for about the last 250 years and continues to be that way as more and more countries shift more towards capitalism and away from fascism and communism and so forth and realizing that capitalism is the way if you want to take care of your people and you want to increase standards of living all around the world, it’s done through capitalism. much a fact of life. Capitalism works. Well, I’m well. Frazer Rice (15:31.185)I think many can agree with that, although it might not be popular here in New York. Rick Ferri (15:37.425)The reason New York existed was because it was a port for capitalism at first. So I mean, is the financial capital of the US still is New York. So you could disagree with it because you live in New York, but you’d be in a minority and you’d be outside of reality and history as well. But the idea is that it’s all I’m trying to capture this global growth of… Frazer Rice (15:41.686)That’s right. Frazer Rice (15:55.648)Exactly. Rick Ferri (16:03.026)Global economic growth, which is about 2 % per year in real terms. So if I get from equity, if I get the inflation rate and I get 2 % real growth and then I get about a 3 % dividend yield and that comes from both cash dividends and then buybacks, we’re looking at about a 7.5 % expected return from global equity. And that’s good enough. I mean, that’s all I need on my equity side. I’ll be outperforming inflation by about 5%. I’ll have to pay some taxes, but I’ll still have an actual real after-tax return of about 3%, which is good. Okay. The rest of it then goes into fixed income. And what type of fixed income? Well, that depends on what type of account that you have and what your taxes are. So if it’s in a taxable account, it could be municipal bond income, because it’s probably your best bet if you’re in anything other than a 22 % tax bracket. Or if it’s in your retirement account, could be corporate bonds. And depending what state you live in, it could be treasury bonds. But you don’t expect the treasuries or the corporate bonds or the municipal bonds really to give you much of a return over taxes and inflation. If you could pick up 1 % over taxes and inflation over 20 years or so by being in fixed income, I mean, you’re actually doing well. So that is more of a stabilizer, meaning you don’t want to be all in stock because you can’t handle the volatility of the stock market. It goes up and down too much, even though the asset allocation would say, well, you should have an awful lot of your money in stock because you have a lot of money that you’re not going to be needing in the next 10 years. But a lot of people can’t handle having a lot of money in stock. So you have fixed income that at least keeps up with taxes and inflation over the long term. And that becomes part of your asset allocation as well. So it’s kind of how you This is what you do first before you go out and pick any index funds. You have to go through this process. Frazer Rice (18:00.116)And then as part of that, I spend a lot of time basically all day, every day thinking about the tax management side of things and helping people understand their appetite for volatility and how that impacts their long-term goals and things like that. The creation of these buckets to understand where you are in your tax situation and where you’re going to be, that can have a pretty significant impact on how things do. And from your perspective, I that’s really just, that’s a function of projecting out the purposes that you described before with your current situation and then the vehicles with which to invest in. Rick Ferri (18:38.226)Right. And you’re not trying to hit the ball over the fence here. I mean, you’re just trying to get your fair share of the returns that are available to everybody. And through index funds, and this is where index funds come in, you can get exactly that. I mean, you could buy a global equity index fund, a global equity, covers the entire globe for a few basis points, 0.05 % per year fee. It’s very tax efficient. And that wasn’t the case. 30 years ago, 40 years ago, but it is now. that’s the way you should do this. You don’t want to leave out all these ideas that you’re going to go out and hire people who are going to outperform that because they don’t. A vast majority of them don’t. Frazer Rice (19:21.963)And so the machinery to implement these portfolios, ETFs are sort of standard tax-efficient ways to do things. Mutual funds distribute gains at the end, which is sometimes a nasty surprise for people who are learning about this. Maybe take us through your analysis on how to implement this index investing in a way that stays simple and tax-efficient and at the same time helps you take advantage of what’s out there. Rick Ferri (19:52.883)So we have to divide up the world between your taxable money. Again, you already have a portfolio. So you have all these legacy assets in a portfolio, in your taxable portfolio. Then you have your retirement portfolio, 401k, 403b, 457 IRA, rollover, Roth IRAs, tax-free portfolio. So you have to look at taxes first. To implement a…simple portfolio say in a 401k if you have access to a target date index retirement fund like a Vanguard or an iShare or a State Street very low cost Fidelity has one too but very low cost index target date retirement fund this does it all for you you don’t have to do anything you just have to buy one fund based upon what the asset allocation is underneath the hood of that particular fund. How much in stock, how much in bond. That’s all you need to do in a 401k. You could roll your own in a 401k by buying individual index funds like a US stock market index fund, an international index fund, and say a bond index fund. So you could do your own allocation if you wish. But a target date fund works really well there. In a Roth account, you probably just want to have equity because there’s no tax in a Roth account. So you want to get maximum growth out of that account. So I would you look at the Roth account and I’d say, well, I’ll just buy the global equity index fund and my Roth account. And that’s it. All I have. So you’ve got your retirement accounts, which are target date fund. Very simple. You’ve got your Roth accounts, which are just a global equity index fund. And the only thing you need to worry about is your taxable account. Taxable accounts always have issues because people will come in and they will have this list of stuff that they already own and guess what there’s a lot of embedded long-term capital gains in there and if you just sell it and go to a index portfolio you may not be doing the clients a good service because they’ll pay a tremendous amount of taxes and if they’re over 65 they’ll have to pay more for medicare ermor they’re going to lose their over 65 deduct i mean lots of bad things happen when you just sell out of a taxable account Rick Ferri (22:04.722)So there you’re going to be a little bit more tactical. know, you’re going to wait. The market will give us some opportunities to trade out of some stocks or some investments that may have losses. So you can then take those losses. You could sell other things to that have some gains to offset the losses. And I mean, you may never get out of everything that you’ve got in a taxable account. But the idea is to have this portfolio out there of say, a US total stock market index fund and a municipal bond fund. That you want to move towards. So as you’re selling these things off, you’re just putting the money in a US total stock market fund. And the reason I say US total stock market in a taxable account is because they’re so tax efficient. The dividend yield is down about 1.2%. They don’t distribute capital gains in an ETF. And that’s a great fund for a taxable portfolio. But you just can’t sell everything and buy it. You’ve got to crawl your way out of what you currently have. Frazer Rice (23:05.715)No, you have to do it thoughtfully or else you create hits that are unnecessary. So as we segue to the discipline portion here, one thing that’s popping up is the, I think the discipline to stay simple. The world out there, the US in particular, is making retirement accounts safe for alternative investments like private credit and private equity. Rick Ferri (23:10.256)Right. Frazer Rice (23:31.211)I just bristle and shudder because I think there’s a level of complexity and illiquidity that is misunderstood and it is going to be difficult, nay impossible, to properly educate people on where those things sit in the asset spectrum to the point where they justify their fees or anything like that. Maybe take us through what you think on that as we get to the discipline portion of how you sort of stay the course with this mindset. Rick Ferri (24:00.924)Well 401ks are allowing these private equity investments and private debt investments in, but I personally have not seen any of my clients and I have a lot of clients and I charge an hourly fee. So I’m not trying to sell anything or manage anybody’s money, but nobody’s asking for these things. where, where are they getting the idea that they should own them? Well, they’re getting from the people that were selling them, right? The people who are making fees from them. I haven’t seen any useful data that says that these things actually enhance your return. Alpha goes to the manager. I say that over and over again. If these things actually produced a higher rate of return than say just a corporate bond index fund, you’re not going to get it. It’s going to go to the advisor, it’s going to go to the manager, and all you’re going to do is take the risk. You’re going to take the risk and they’re going to get the excess return in the long term through fees. They don’t make any sense. You don’t do it. It’s just the rehash of active management and mutual funds, which has already been dismissed as not producing anything for you, the investor. It only generates fees for the people in the investment industry. This is just another iteration of that and we’ve already seen some cracks. Isn’t that what Jamie Dimon said? What are they cockroaches? I think is the word that he used in the private equity market. And yeah, I mean, this is not new. This is just a repackaging of ideas just that now they’ve been allowed to go into the 401k market. But you have to ask yourself why haven’t they been allowed to go into the 401k market for the last 40 years if they’ve been so great? It’s because the SEC Frazer Rice (25:31.978)Right. Rick Ferri (25:58.703)The Department of Labor said, no, we’re not going to allow these things in there. you give people enough rope to hang themselves. They’re not going to hang themselves, by the way. Somebody else is going to put the noose around their neck. And that’s the advisors who are doing that. Frazer Rice (25:59.499)Department of Labor and right. Frazer Rice (26:19.066)And I mean, a different podcast probably, but it’s something where the liability really is going to shift to the planned sponsors. I don’t care what happens and you know, they’re going to present these things and something’s going to blow up. And it’s like, know, you may you gave me the option and they’ve already those lawsuits already already proliferate. OK, so back to discipline a little bit here. What should people be doing in order to make sure they can carry carry out the. Rick Ferri (26:39.367)Yeah. Frazer Rice (26:47.147)What they’re doing in a systematic way and keep themselves safe from being distracted by all this noise. Rick Ferri (26:52.86)So again, that’s why we start out with the philosophy. You have to believe in the philosophy of simplicity and simple indexing. You can’t just jump to it because some TikTok video said buy index funds, okay? If you’re just jumping to it that way, then you’re not gonna have the discipline to stick with it because it’s just another phase or fad or whatever in your mind. You don’t really truly understand. Frazer Rice (27:14.346)Mm-hmm. Rick Ferri (27:22.32)Why you’re doing it this way. So it gets back to the philosophy. Really got to understand the philosophy and why this works better than 98 % of everything else out there over your lifetime. And then you create the strategy for yourself and now you’re working towards completing that. Again, in the retirement account it’s done quickly, but in your taxable account it could take a while. The discipline is while you’re getting your portfolio in line, the first thing you need to do from a discipline standpoint is actually do it. Actually go to your 401k and change what you’re investing in. Because so many people will do the strategy, but it never gets actually implemented. Or maybe it gets 50 % implemented. It never gets old. It doesn’t, I don’t want to say never, because I have a lot of clients who do fully implement it, but I also have clients that I’ve given them the plan and three years later or five years later they come back and they haven’t done anything. Okay. And so I say, you need to implement the plan. Nothing has changed. So you got to, the plan first off has to be implemented fully. And then once it gets implemented fully, it’s a lot easier to maintain it. But if it never gets implemented fully, then of course you can’t maintain it. So implementation of the plan fully is the first discipline, the first part of discipline. And then once that’s done, maintaining it. In other words, not being drawn off course. Yeah, it’s fine to say, the price of oil is gonna shoot through the roof because what’s going on in the Middle East, so I’m gonna buy an energy index fund. That sounds like something I should do. No, it’s something you could think about. Something might be interesting, but it’s not something you should do. So discipline transcends the urge to do things. In other words, like John Bogle said, don’t just do something, stand there. And that takes more going back and remembering why you have this philosophy, going back and looking at the data. Rick Ferri (29:46.151)going to the right place to find information. And I’ll mention the bogeyheads.org website to go back and remind yourself why you’re doing this. If you’re gonna stick with it and these things help you stick with it. The more you automate things too, the better it is. Like we’re in a 401k just automatically invest in the target date fund and don’t do anything else. So automation helps you as well. Frazer Rice (30:05.736)Hey, hey. Frazer Rice (30:14.109)No question, if you can take these things out of your own hands in many ways and delegate it out and it happens automatically, just a chance of success on that front. And then if life intervenes and things need to be adjusted, you deal with it at that point and not have CNBC or the world news whipsaw your viewpoint on these different things. So as we wind down here, just talk a little bit about the service that you provide, sort of these larger family office clients, because I think in a lot of times they gravitate toward complexity, they gravitate toward FOMO investing and how you help to center that back to this worldview so that they get where they’re going at scale at sort of that ultra high net worth world and remind them of you how they got there and how to not be how to not leave by by getting cast aside into these different whirlpools that are out there Rick Ferri (31:13.778)That’s a great question. So you got to pick your advisors well. So some of my clients have a net worth over a billion dollars. I have several clients that have several hundreds of millions of dollars and believe me, They have simple portfolios, total stock market, total international municipal bonds. It’s all they have. And it may seem strange, but they don’t have these limited partnerships that you can’t get out of or syndicated deals that may sound good. I say to them, you don’t have enough money to own those, meaning that if you’ve only got $100 million, you’re just chump change to the Goldman Sachs of the world or the Morgan Stanley’s. When it comes to who’s going to get the good deal on a the next private equity deal or venture capital fund. You’re the person they sell the leftovers to. I know it’s hard to people to accept this. They think they have a lot of money if they have a hundred million. But the fact is they don’t. I mean, if you’re not sitting on five, ten billion dollars, you’re not going to get preferential treatment. You’re going to get you might get lucky. Just like everything else, the coin flip idea, but most of the time you’re not going to end up coming out ahead. That’s not the way they make you feel when they sell you these things. They make you, even if you had a million dollars and your Wells Fargo broker is trying to sell you some limited partnership, they’re going to make it feel like you’re very special and that this is a very special deal that is just for you. Frazer Rice (32:46.505)You Rick Ferri (32:50.322)And that’s how it’s going to be sold to you. But in the end, when you look at your performance and you say, I want to get out of this thing and you can’t, you realize at that point that maybe you shouldn’t have done it to begin with. And I’ve had experience going back 30 years working with some of the very largest families in the country, some magnificent seven IPO families, and they all want to get back to simplicity. They want to get rid of all of the stuff that they had gotten. And it’s true. And it’s better for estate planning as well because you need to transfer these things eventually to somebody else’s name. Frazer Rice (33:35.785)you’ve triggered me. I’m dealing with this on multiple levels, on multiple different things, and I’ve had to be trustee on some of the complexity and sort of sit Indian style and try to own your way through it. It’s brutal. So. Rick Ferri (33:53.81)Wouldn’t it be so much nicer just to have, let’s say, a single total stock market ETF to have to deal with rather than all that other stuff? Frazer Rice (34:01.807)No question. OK, so as we wind down here, how do listeners and watchers find you? Rick Ferri (34:09.478)Well, they can find me at Rickferri.com. I’m not currently and I won’t be taking on any new clients. I’m sorry for that, but I have a set clientele and that’s all that I am working with and I won’t be expanding my clientele. But there are other people that do this that believe in what I do. And you can go to Rickferry.com and you could find their names there. But me personally, you can find me on Rickferry.com. I’ve written several books about this. I’m writing another one. And but I apologize that I’m not off the market as far as hiring me personally. Frazer Rice (34:45.645)I love it. But at the same time, your books and your other ways that get out there, they are on RickFerri.com. So we’ll have that in the show notes. In the meantime, Rick, thanks for being on. Rick Ferri (34:52.07)Yes, exactly. Thank you. https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

“Music of the Triduum”, a concert performed by the Thomas Aquinas College, New England Choir & Orchestra on April 16, 2026, as part of the 2025-26 St. Vincent de Paul Lecture & Concert Series. Choir and orchestra organized and conducted by Matthew Santos (NE'26). - 00:11 — “Adagio for Strings in G Minor” | Albinoni - 07:03 — “Stabat Mater” | Pergolesli - 11:11 — “Ave Verum Corpus” | Mozart - 14:19 — St. John's Passion, BWV 245, No. 39, Chorus: “Ruht Wohl” | Bach - 24:21 — Membra Jesu Nostri, No. 3: “Ad Manus” | Buxtehude | Soloists: Rose Reilly (NE'27), Helena Krestyn - 34:32 — Membra Jesu Nostri, No. 7: “Ad Faciem” | Buxtehude - 43:02 — Easter Oratorio, BWV 249, Chorus: “Kommt Eilet und Laufet” | Bach | Soloists: Samuel Livingston (NE'26), William Rosa (NE'27) - 48:14 — Christ Lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4, Versus 2: “Den Tod Niemand Zwingen Kunnt” | Bach | Soloists: Maureen Shields (CA'30), Eleanor Stoutz (NE'26) - 52:13 — “The Messiah”, Part 2, No. 44: “Hallelujah” | Handel - 56:24 — “The Messiah”, Part 3, No. 53A: “Worthy Is the Lamb” | Handel

Do you ever feel like you have a laundry list of reasons why you can't ever take a break from your practice? Kiera is here to say, if that's how you're feeling, it's time to step away. In this episode, listeners get to take a breather. Kiera talks about the two parts of success (the "suck" part and the success part), and what you can do to hit a mental restart. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and I hope today is such a great day for you. I hope that you're loving your life. I hope that you are enjoying it. And if you're not, today's podcast might be for you. Today is about when leadership gets heavy, how CEOs navigate the seasons you can't step away from. And this actually was a little bit of a self-medication for myself because when I ⁓ was actually getting ready to podcast the last time, I had a little bit of a breakdown.   And I just realized I was going at a pace that I wasn't able to sustain. And I felt very trapped. I felt like what happens as a CEO when you literally feel like you can't step away? Like you're in it. You bought the practice, you're in debt. I was actually just reading a book. It was a total fantasy book. And it was ⁓ about this little veterinarian who opened his practice to kind of prove a point to his parents, but also because he loved his craft and loved his work. And then he starts dating this girl and   she's on the other coast and long story short, they're like flying back and forth coast to coast. And he doesn't have money because he's got the practice. He's got the debt. He's got a team ⁓ and he wants to see his girlfriend. And so he's picking up ER shifts and moonlighting and so much so that he literally like drags his body into oblivion and gets so sick. And what was really crazy in the book is I feel like as I was reading it, I told Jason, I was like, this is my doctor's, this is me.   So many of us feel this way, right? You've got the debt, you've got this, you have a laundry list of reasons why you feel like you can't step away. And I will say like, if that's you, then it's time for you to step away. And I think in ownership, there are seasons where it's hard. And so today I kind of wanted to address like, what do you do and what are some tactical things when you're in this boat? And if you're in that boat today, hi, I'm Kiera. I'd love to be friends. Reach out, just even as a friend, if it's a pen pal, if you want to talk, if you want me give you tactical advice on your practice, reach out, I will happily help you.   If you're not in that boat, hi, I'm Kiera and I'm either preparing you or speaking to your future you because all of us will go through that. And I don't think it's a one and done. It's an ever flowing. It's an ebbing and flowing. And so there are seasons and ownership where it's freaking hard and it doesn't mean you're failing. It doesn't mean your practice is broken. It just means that we're growing and it's stretching our leadership. I remember thinking, I've talked about this on the podcast before. It's like throwback OG status or talk about like penguins, molting or snakes like sloughing off their skin.   And what happens is we actually grow bigger than what we're capable of. We grow bigger than what our skin is. grow, like our practice outgrows the leadership style that we are. There's a book called like, what got you here won't get you to where you want to go. And it's the same principle of like, we have to grow. And if you go back to being a child, growing pains don't feel good. I don't know if you guys remember like your legs hurt and your body hurts and like.   you, my little nephews and nieces, they wake up in the middle of the night with like leg aches because they're growing. Like it's painful. And I think we forget. And then as adults, we don't realize that like you get to go through it again. When you go through growth of leadership or your practice grows and you got to evolve into the next version of yourself to sustain that. And that's not comfortable either. you guys know, some of you been listening for a while. You know, I went to Antarctica, slight flex. ⁓ and it was amazing. It was honestly one of the most life-changing trips I've ever been on.   it was a place where I felt like I was navigating the most beautiful, serene scenery where no one's there and knowing that I could die. Like people die there. Like the Antarctic has nothing. It's freezing cold there. ⁓ I thought it would be covered in snow and it wasn't felt kind of like Utah-esque in the winter. ⁓ but like it was, I mean, that water is cold and you can see penguins like swimming through the water. It's so clean. It's so crisp. Nothing has touched that part of the world. It's very, very incredible. but I remember when I was there,   I was watching penguins and they were actually in molting season and they told us all like, don't get close to the penguins, just let them be. And they were like, they're in so much pain. And what these penguins were having to do is they sat there and like, you literally could see the like anger, sadness, pain in these little penguins. And they were sitting there. Cause what they have to do is they have to molt off all their feathers because their feathers are not the ones that they have on. They're not waterproof. And so they would actually drown when going into the water. So they have to molt all of those off.   get their like slippery ones and then they can go into the water and they just sit there and you see feathers flying everywhere. But I think like that image of a penguin is how I think a lot of CEOs feel and how a lot of office managers feel when we're going through this and we're being stretched and it's just annoying and you feel like, ⁓ I wanted this practice. I wanted this business, but I didn't want this. Well, I just want to remind you that success has two parts to it. There's suck and there's the success part. You can't have both sides of the coin without it. The word literally says it. And I think we sometimes forget, I think   For myself, I sometimes feel like I've already been through this. I should have to go through it again. But there's a call to a higher level. There's a call for us to be stronger leaders. And so what do you freaking do when it's hard and you feel like you can't escape? So I think that people believe that as you grow and evolve and get bigger and bigger, it gets easier. And I don't believe it actually does. Traction had a very strong quote at the end of it. And I'm not going to quote it exactly. I'll paraphrase it. But the book Traction by Gina Wickman, you guys know I'm obsessed with that model. I'm obsessed with running on EOS. I love helping practices.   be Dental A Team's version of it. We don't do true EOS. We do Dental A Team's version because I like to mix two things that I think actually work better for dental practices. But what I found is he said at the end, like a lot of people think getting bigger practices and bigger businesses actually equate to more profit and less headache and it doesn't. I remember him talking about like a $10 million practice versus $100 million practice. They both made the same amount of money, but there were way more headaches in the $100 million versus the $10 million. And   That has resonated with me for years. Now, if you're trying to sell to a DSO where you're trying to get multiples, of course you need to get it to a larger number. But if you're trying to do it for the long haul, sometimes having it smaller is actually easier. But again, this is your vision, your dream. For me, could I say small make my life easier? Theoretically, but my goal is to impact every single dental practice in this world to possibly reach you, influence you, work with you if it feels right. But my goal is to have the largest impact in dentistry I possibly can.   That's not going to be me playing small and I recognize that, but that also means that I can't sit here and complain because that's the choice I made. I can be frustrated and I can be annoyed and I can feel those feels, but I'm not allowed to sit here and have that. At least that's my opinion. So because I believe that it gets bigger and I'm called to swim in deeper water. And I also believe that I get stronger by carrying it. And you start to realize like, this is just part of business. And I'm sure it's how parents feel when you got one baby and it's so scary and then you get two and then you get three and then you get four. And it's like, yep, this is just how babies are. It's the same thing with business ownership. So   I think that when we feel pressure, it's often a sign of expansion, not failure. And so just a couple of things of tips and ideas of what to do. Number one, I will say, just go on a vacation if you can. I know sometimes it doesn't feel like it's the right thing to do. It feels very counterproductive. Myself, I was very much in the throes of it. Like I said, Dental A Team is going through such a fun ⁓ evolution. Like it is fun for me to sit as a visionary and to see where our team and our company are going and just to be freaking lit up.   with the clients we're serving and the team that we're building and like all of this is moving in motion. And then when I come into the weeds, I'm like, wow, this is really fun. This is a lot. And I think that it can get very heavy sometimes. And I was sitting in therapy and I was like, I just don't know what to do. And she's like, Kirit, it's just a season where it's hard and we accept it we just get through every day of whatever we can. We know this isn't forever. You've got a good perspective on that. And she's like, and if you can take a vacation. So I took a week off to Iceland.   And ⁓ it was great. was freezing cold. The Northern Lights were truly one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in my entire life. Like truly top five. And I have traveled to a lot of really cool places in my life. I've seen a lot of really amazing things. Seeing the Northern Lights dance across the sky when it's freezing cold and you are able to visibly see with your naked eye green and pink. I didn't have a strong to see some of the other colors, but I was able to see a very light pink and also bright vibrant green.   To see that whimsically like dance across the sky is amazing. So going on vacation can be such a relief, but you have to actually truly check out. So when I go on vacations and this has been Kiera's style, so take it if it's beneficial for you or not. And I think every team member should also do the same thing. ⁓ I delete Slack, I delete email, and I actually don't buy service international. Now you might have family, you might have friends that you got to, let them know.   But if there's a way I completely check out I become a very much princess passenger My husband has all the maps on his phone. He does all the things The only thing I have on my phone is I have Kindle and I have quite a few books that I tend to read Depending upon how stressed I've been I often try to curate a trip for me a lot of just like I need to bring it down So we actually stayed at a retreat in a lodge. It was very cold. So it was very cozy I watched a lot of trash TV like love is blind Lincoln lawyer, you name it like I had a decent amount of that   And it is truly just to bring my cortisol levels down, to bring that adrenaline down and to re-regulate my nervous system and to just chill. We went to a Blue Lagoon Retreat Spa. It was so lovely. I take as many naps as I want. Like it is a genuine disconnect. No team members, no clients, nothing. And I don't turn my phone back on. I have my team. They have a whole thing prepared for me. So when I get back, it's like, here are all the updates, here are all the things.   but they know unless it's like literally an emergency, which we've already gone through. Like if there's something, here's all the contact people for X, Y, Z. Like there truly shouldn't be anything that you need to contact me for. And if there is great, we're gonna fix it when I get back. I'm gone for a week. But I think you just being able to disconnect to check out, it's one of the greatest gifts. I had a client that I recommended they do this and they did, and they said, Kiera, we'll never like be the same. It was the best thing we ever did for ourselves because you genuinely go from high pressure,   down to like calm. And I've had it where I've gone other times and I like just say like, I'll just like check in on a few things. Well, when you're checking in, you're still like, there's this umbilical cord almost where you're still tethered to your practice and you can't ever fully like calm. So I will say like that is just one like off the wall tip for you if you can do it. And for me, I try to schedule a week trip at least once a quarter where I'm completely just disconnected. I don't always get that at least two per year.   ⁓ But I think it's also very important for me to do it. I also try to take like Fridays as just CEO mental days where I am disconnected, not there. Sometimes I need to do CEO laundry where I just got to catch up on a bunch of things. But if I can disconnect, not be in Slack, I show up as a better leader. And I think that these are subtle ways to get through the hard. ⁓ I also think when we look at hard, we often think of it as wrong. And so it's like, what's broken, what's wrong, how do I do this? And like growth is pressure. So more patience, more complexity, more team.   more leadership, more revenue, more decisions, like more, a bigger practice, more responsibility. Like it's just what it is, more opportunities, more legalities. Like it just is. And so pressure means that their practice is stretching into the next version. And so I just want you to know, I have coached and our team has coached hundreds of offices that have been going through this. Like this is what we go through. when you see it,   The practice isn't no, I tell people a lot of times I'm on the other side of the river. I've actually gone from where you are to where you want to be. And we know how to navigate as a guide across that river and do it in the least painful way, but it's still like, it's going to be painful. I've got a doctor and they're a startup and they're like, this sucks and it's hard. And like nothing feels right. And I'm on the verge of bankruptcy. And I'm like, guess what? You are a business owner. This is real life, but they're profitable. And even $500 a profit or a thousand dollars of profit doesn't feel great. Most off most businesses are not profitable for like three to four years when they first start out. And yet.   you are being profitable. So I also think like, don't see it as hard, see it as growth and also celebrate the freaking wins as you get them. I believe what we focus on we get and we attract more of. If I'm constantly saying like, they say race car drivers, like they're not looking at the next turn because they're gonna wreck. It's like they've got to look down the line and if you don't, you will literally wreck and hit it. And so I think for us, like if I'm constantly saying, I'm gonna go bankrupt or this is so hard or my team is terrible, you create more of it. literally.   turn your brain on to say, need more of this and I'm gonna look for it, I'm going to find it. Versus the other one of like, my team is doing great, we've got these good things, like there's momentum, I've got great patients, our cases are closing. And you're not lying to yourself, but we're celebrating those little wins and we're stringing more of those together. You're going to create more of that. And I think it can be so easy. As a consultant, I am literally wired to look for everything wrong. And I have to find it and figure out like, what's wrong is always available and so is what's right.   Both are gonna give me different outcomes and both are gonna give me different experiences. Which one do you choose to do more of? So I think like when you look at it, when I'm looking at this, is this a breakdown or is it a gross signal? What's going so well versus what's going so wrong? Maybe incorporating a gratitude journal, maybe having some like quiet times. It's not just like problem after problem after problem, maybe setting up meetings so like our problems get pinned to only once a week so you can handle it easier. That would be that.   Another tip when things like feel like you can't step away is like laser in on what you can actually focus on. I, it's funny, I'm looking around and if you're watching the video, you can see I have currently six, I used to have seven of those giant sticky pads sitting in my office on the other side of this camera. I have one of like our leadership structure. I've got one of an entire plan. I've got one of a future vision. I've got one of a CEO mantra. I've got one of Dental A Team's visions, my goals. And then I've got my like,   legit priorities and I've got four of them and I have them listed in order. And I think when things feel so chaotic, sometimes like bringing that leadership focus and scope in is like everything feels urgent and you try to fix it all. And honestly, if you've read the book, Essentialism, it has all the arrows and like you literally are spinning freaking top versus like what is number one priority? And I need to do that because if I try to do everything, this is how CEOs burnout. ⁓ And instead, like we need to train ourselves that there's bubbling pots constantly.   What's the biggest bubbling pot that's gonna move me forward the fastest and that's where I focus. And so it's like, what are the one or two things that protect operational like our practice stability right now and everything else is temporarily perfect. Temporarily perfect. Temporarily imperfect is perfect. And I want you to just have it like for me, there's so many things. If you want me to laundry list it all the way out, great. But I know that like, what are the one or two things right now that I need to go take care of and handle and everything else gets to be temporarily imperfect, which is perfect.   So when I have offices that do this, an example is they're trying to go and it's like, we need to hire an associate. We need to fix our hygiene department. We need to work on our scheduling. We need to fix our guarantees. We need to fix our case acceptance. We need to fix this. It can get exciting and overwhelming. And this is what I love of helping people get like an annual vision and a quarterly vision because it cuts the noise out. So when we focus in and we're like, okay, of all those things, what things need to happen now to get us to where we ultimately want to go? And if you know where your vision is of where you ultimately want to go,   It becomes so much easier for you to then filter through. And to me, that's a great filtering process. And I hope you actually like have this in place. And if not great, we're amazing at it. Reach out. I'd love to help you get there. You've got to have a vision. You got to figure out what's most important this quarter to get us there. You want to hire the associate, want to fix hygiene. You want to do all these things. But guess what? Us trying to do all those things is what causes the chaos, the burnout, the feeling like we're shackled to our companies and we can't leave versus recognizing. And this is like an ego dip, but it's freeing is not all that's going to get fixed today.   And these are the one or two things. My CEO mantra, would you guys like to hear it? Like, let me just help you guys out with this. Because I think it's really, really, really beneficial. My CEO mantra says saying no equals happiness. I started saying no a lot more and I realized like, wow, I am exponentially happier. The second one I have is I have more power than I think own it. I think a lot of times we feel like everybody else has the power and you are just kind of beholden to them. And this is not an ego power trip. It's more like, no.   I can make these decisions. can have some hard conversations. There is more power that I own rather than my team owning it or people are going to quit on me. Those are all what I've said, it might happen, but you have a lot more power than you think you do. ⁓ I said, don't be afraid of losing people. I've had some team changes and I remember I was so afraid, literally terrified. I'm squeezing my hands thinking back. was a ⁓ fractional team player and I was just super, super, super anxious about it.   And I sat on it and it was two days of pure health and then it was over. And I think a lot of times hard decisions of team members or decisions, usually it's like maybe two days of pain with a lot more freedom. So don't forget that. I said, focus on one thing a day, the rest works itself out. So every day I just pick one thing, this is my one thing I'm gonna work on and the rest truly does work itself out. ⁓ I said, I need to have two people in every position that knows it so that way I'm never feeling like trapped.   or beholden and I need to have systems written down. have like, pick your number and focus and cut fat regularly. So assess it, figure out like, where am I off to make sure that I'm keeping myself level headed and then take 10 minutes, like the calm or meditate whenever things are hard. So just a reminder, like I'm allowed to take a 10 minute timeout at any time. I know you feel like you got patience there, but if things feel like they're just bubbling and over you, that's kind of my CEO mantra. Like, hey, Kiera, when things are hard and it's literally like,   It's up here. I just read it to you. can see my eyes up there. I have them. And as other things come up, like I said, like take vacations regularly, showing up as my best self is the best thing I can do for my team. Those are a few other CEO mantras that maybe can help you out. And then I think the last one is like, when we look at it, we kind of like get rid of this emotional, like highs and lows for consistency. like, it's really easy as a CEO to want to like, whoo.   like whiplash and I've done this to my team a lot and when I'm in it, it's like you're trying to figure it out. You're trying to get there and you're trying to just like force the movement. So we got new rules, new priorities, new frustrations and instability is when it like is what teams feel. They don't feel the pressure. And so your job as a CEO and as an OM, as leaders of the practices to make sure that you're driving the stability. Like they know that there's problems. Like you don't need to be fearless. We just need to have predictability and sometimes slowing the innovations or the changes or the evolution.   I called my team out and I was like, Hey guys, we are been in a shaking snow globe. Every role is different. We've got people going out maternally. We've got new people coming in. We're growing. The company is really like a three month old company, even though we're in business for almost 10 years. And that's such a shift. And when I had that aha moment and we're like, cool, no new initiatives roll out. Let's just get everybody really, really, really solid in their new job descriptions. Cause like we had it where poor Shelbi was like being an EA and a marketer and a sales and like   every single position and we've had to untangle that ball of yarn and Britt was doing the same thing and Tip was doing the same thing and I was doing the same thing. So you got to like hire new people and have new people in there. Well, sometimes just recognizing that. So it's like, stop rolling new initiatives. We were trying to change our operating system and change this and change that. And finally we're like, whoa, this is the chaos. Our team needs to feel stable. They need to feel like they can move forward with stability and consistency rather than feeling like.   Holy cow, I don't know how to use anything here. And so I think when we help offices, so I'm thinking of an office right now and we were going through a pretty radical leadership shift change. We didn't do anything else. I've had a coach tell me you make one major like personnel change per quarter, whether it's in or out. If you get more than that, it feels chaotic. And so when you can actually like go through that chaotic quarter and instead of having it, it's like we keep as much as we can the same. So meetings stay the same so people can count on that.   our expectations are the same. So we've got our KPIs, everybody, if you just hit your one number, we're good. And then like communication style. So you as a CEO, I realize that I'm here to show up, like gotta start setting like, these are foundational pieces, these are core pieces, these are things that are true to our company that our team can count on. And then there will be more seasons of growth. But I think like staying focused, production stronger because we cut out the noise. I think essentialism is a really, really, really great book. Or the one thing, another great book.   I think during those times where you feel like leadership is hard and I'm trapped is because you got so much going on, which is not wrong. It's there. Like we're going through a pressure cooker. We're trying to get to the other side. But I think when you can minimize, less is more. Like I said, pick one thing every day and realize the rest works out. This is when stability comes and what teams can trust when pressure's rising. It's also what you can count on as a CEO and an OM. We got to have that stability. And I actually think that's what I love about being a consultant is we're able to provide that stability.   while you're going through the changes and having someone constant. Like I have leaned on my coaches more through these growth periods than I have, gosh, probably in the last like five years and to have them just stabilize me, steady me so that way I can show up as a steady leader. And that's why I love what we do for our coaching is we coach doctors and team members because doctors, need a different type of coaching than teams do. You need to, we get you as a business owner, like being a freaking CEO versus a manager, two different worlds. How do we help you? This is why we have in-person mastermind. So you realize you're not alone.   One of my favorite comments at our last mastermind, we have in-person masterminds that we do and they're amazing. I literally had a client have ruptured eardrums and like begged her auntie to give her a sign up so she could come. I'm like that much love for these is far beyond what I imagined them to be. ⁓ But I remember at one of the masterminds, someone raised their hand and they said, Kiera, it's so great to realize all these other offices here are dealing with the same thing I am. I realized, I thought I was alone. And I think that this is the pressure cooker.   We think we're the only one there. We feel like we can't reach out to anybody. This is you need a community around you too, to reach out to friends. I have a dear friend and I call him and I was like, this frigging sucks and it's hard. And like, I just feel like I can't get through it. As you heard, I talked to my therapist. I have friends that I go to. I have really, really, really trusted mentors who have gone through what I've gone through that can guide me through. I don't just do this alone when it's hard. I have my husband and I also have myself. And I think sometimes the noise I need to center in too much is too crazy.   Therapy is literally there for me to help regulate my emotions and make sure like I stay as a human being very centered. What do need to do for meditations? How do I keep my mind sharp? That's what my therapist job is. So to talk about the business, it's not to give me any business advice. Like that's not her world. Her job is literally to give me mental stamina and sanity to come through. My gym trainer literally make my body freaking strong and like make sure I stay like healthy and eating well as I go through this. My business coach. I have one business coach and she helps with a lot of like the number. Like that's her only lane and that's what I use her for.   I have a traction coach who actually helps us quarterly and he's helping me with our leadership team transitions and evolution because he's been there and he does this in multi-million dollar businesses much larger than ours and can see the foresight. That's it. That's all the noise. It's the only people that get to talk to me during these times. And then I have a financial advisor if I'm needing to make any of those decisions financially. Each person has their lane and like I lean on my business coach probably the hardest of all because I'm like, all right, work through this with me, work this one out with me, help me with my team on this, work with my team on that.   That one's the one I use the absolute most. Like that is the tool that's used the most, but I use the other ones for different pieces. And I think when you look at this, like it can be hard, but I think it's hard when we do it alone versus when we do it. And we realize like, it doesn't have to be this forever. as a couple things, number one, go on a vacation if you can. ⁓ Number two, change it. It's not broken. It's just like, we're growing and it's evolving. Number three, stabilize your practice as much as you can. Four,   make sure that we are reducing the noise and reducing our focus. So that way we're really focused on this one or two. then number five, think is what number I'm on. I think is where I'm at. Number five is the CEO mantra and having it pick one thing, realize that like saying no to more and stabilizing is going to create a lot of happiness. These things like these hard seasons don't define great CEOs. And what I found is CEOs and OMS that are going through it. I'm like, you asked for this, you were bored and now you're annoyed because you're having to mull and you're having to grow and it's annoying.   But like you ultimately wanted this and your soul was craving this. So like, let's also celebrate that. ⁓ I also think like how you lead through this sets the tone for your team. And I think for you as a leader and a CEO, for you to take care of yourself, there's some days it's okay to call a timeout. It's okay to take a 10 minute calm timeout. I've really found love with Taoism. It's not religion. It's more of just mindsets and flow. A lot of people love the calm app, whatever it is for you, but have a space for you to just call timeout, allow your brain to calm down.   For me, I shut off at five o'clock and I go home. I don't care if there's other stuff that goes on. Guess what? It's going to work itself out and it forces me to work during the day rather than at home. I go for a walk as soon as I'm done. I change up my energy. I change up my rhythm. You might be driving home. So that changes it up for you. Have like a start and stop. Do things that inspire you. Make sure I'm working out three times a week and eating really healthy because I know that's going to sustain my energy. think for this is I know we're not looking for easy, but we're trying to have it where we're building for being sustainable. And I think for you like   Realizing that if it's harder now, you're not off track. Maybe there are some ways, and I do think having a coach, guide that can give you quote unquote the shortcuts or help you even like clear the fog and navigate forward is what we're obsessed with doing. ⁓ Most practices will go through these stretches and they go through them multiple times. ⁓ And I think it's like, you don't need less growth. You need stronger structure to support it. And I'm watching offices that have been killing it. And now they're going to the next layer and it's like, that's hard again. So it's going to be.   but I also believe as souls, like happiness equals progress. That's why we crave it. That's why we want to do it. When we're on the other side of what we forget, just like moms keep having babies cause they forget how hard labor was and they're like, yeah, like let's have another one. Same thing with businesses. Yeah, let's grow it again. Let's involve it. because we have this goal and this drive, I believe to serve more, to love more, to experience more, to have more fulfillment. That doesn't mean your practice has to be larger. It can, if that's your dream. It can also be more intentional, but I believe that like,   This is what you were called to do. And if this is something we can help you with, if you still feel stuck, like I said, I've got my core people. And if we can be one of those core people that can be cutting out the noise, driving you, driving your team, helping you get the stability as you go through it, don't do this alone. You don't have to. And you don't, it's like not necessary. And so reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Like I said, we will be able to help you have levels of confidence. And we've done this through every single phase of growth. Like I said, from startups, clear to multi-million, multi-locations. ⁓ And there's different.   different systems, different leadership, different pieces needed for every stage of growth, just like with children. And I think for you to just remember you're doing better than you think you are, give yourself the time out. It's okay to call it sick one day. It's not okay to call it sick every day or to not see patients cause you're overwhelmed. We've got to re-regulate. You do still need to show up as a boss, as a dentist, as a CEO. And you need to be the leader of your practice. And I'd love to help you guys. So reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com or go on to our website, TheDentalATeam.com book a call, no pressure, just clarity, giving you a map, giving you guidance, giving you   I think just resources when it can feel noisy. And I want you to know that leadership is not proven on our easy days. It's truly revealed on the hard days. Who you show up as when it's hard is like really your leadership at a core and it's an evolution. So I want you to give yourself a freaking high five. I want you to look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you love yourself, that you're doing really, really well, that you're really proud of yourself. And then you're going to go make it a great day. And we do one thing as we move through these hard seasons and reach out if we can help you.   ⁓ The future of your practice is being built right now, whether you like it or not. And I want you to remember that and who you are and how you show up is going to make all the difference. And so if we can help you reach out, and as always, I'm so grateful for you. I'm grateful for every one of you listening. And I hope that you know that and I hope that you feel that. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

Vineyard Wind sues GE Renewables to block a walkout over $300M in withheld payments and defective blades. Plus Ørsted posts a $262M quarterly loss and shakes up its board. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Uptime316 Matthew Stead: [00:00:00] The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by Strike Tape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit strike tape.com And now your hosts. Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host Allen Hall, and I’m here with Matthew Stead and Rosemary Barnes who are in Australia. Before we get too far into this episode, I would like to mention that the UK US relationship has been very tense recently, as you have seen in the, in the news articles and on television. But there was one good news piece that just happened, which is the band Oasis just got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So that is trying to mend those relationships, bring the UK and US back together. In at least a musical sense. So I know Rosemary was watching that closely as the votes were counted. But, [00:01:00] uh, everybody in the UK is super thrilled about it as they should be. And all us Oasis fans can’t wait for the induction ceremony. In fact, we’re planning to go to Cleveland. They’ll go watch it if we can. We shall see now onto more important information this week. Vineyard, wind and GE are not getting along. And if you have been paying attention for the last two years, you would’ve noticed that there’s been a couple of tense moments. Well, uh, that wind project is a little bit up in the air because vineyard wind has filed suit against GE renewables to stop the turbine maker from walking away after GE sent a termination notice. Over a $300 million ish, uh, disagreement in unpaid bills. At the center of this dispute are defective blades, of course, that, uh, broke off in 2024 and caused a number of problems, uh, for GE and vineyard Wind is particularly a delay in the [00:02:00] project and ge having to fix pull blades off of turbines that were already installed and I think they ended up sending those back to France. Reading the lawsuit, it seems like GE did not repair those blades. They replaced those blades because, uh, they may not have been able to repair them or maybe is the amount of time it’s gonna take to repair them. You can repair almost anything made out of. Composite. Uh, but this is a big problem because, uh, if GE does walk away and they’re talking about walking away from this project at the end of April, vineyard, wind believes that the turbines are not ready to be operated, and they don’t have a way to operate those turbines. They don’t have the knowledge or the people because the people belong to GE that need to make some of these turbines operate. Even there’s even some question about if all the turbines are operating at the required [00:03:00]handover requirements. This is unique because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wind turbine manufacturer leave before a wind site is finished. It must have happened before, but. It does put both sides in quite a pinch. Right.  Rosemary Barnes: Can I just jump, jump back to, to something that you said, um, that you can repair almost anything when it comes to composites? I would say that that doesn’t necessarily apply if your design was insufficient in the first place. And I mean the design for manufacturing in this case, I think that the, like computer model design worked fine, but obviously it was not as easy to manufacture or as possible to manufacture. With the correct quality as what they expected. It can’t have been so simple to just, just repair. That’s, um, that’s what I want to say. Like it, it’s obvious to me that if it was possible to repair, that would’ve been much easier than what they’ve ended up with, which I think is pretty foreseeable. Or most [00:04:00] engineers would probably have foreseen that if you, you know, put blades out there that, um, don’t meet your. Standard, um, quality control acceptance criteria that, you know, the consequence of that would be that it would be more likely to fail. So yeah, I think you can repair nearly anything on a standard blade that is possible to make correctly. But if you’ve got big quality problems, then it’s not, it’s, it’s not easy and it’s possibly not possible to, you know, just get, um, just get onto that in repair.  Matthew Stead: I, I think you’re both right. Because it all comes down to economics. So I think Alan’s statement, you know, things can be repaired. It just comes back to economics, doesn’t it?  Rosemary Barnes: U usually, yes. And like for your average, like if you’ve got a wind farm and you’ve got a blade with a big, a big repair, or you know, like a big defect right on the main laminate, that’s gonna require, you know, like a huge repair, taking the blade down and keeping it down for, you know, like three months while you rebuild like 20 meters [00:05:00] of laminate. Yes, that would be technically possible, but you wouldn’t because it would be so expensive. So us usually, like in 99% of cases, that would be it. That it’s not actually impossible to repair. It’s just very hard. But, you know, in these really huge blades and, you know, um, bearing in mind that I don’t, I don’t know the specific quality problems that they face, but, you know, just from my knowledge of composites, you can say what the challenging areas would be, but you know, a really big blade is gonna have a really thick laminate and, um, composites don’t like to have really thick laminates. When they cure, it’s usually an, an exothermic reaction, puts off heat, you know, like the temperature is changing and um, it works fine for thin laminates, but when it’s really thick you can get hot spots and cold spots and maybe it’s hard to get the resin to go all the way through evenly. But you know, imagine if you’ve got a really thick laminate and there’s a chunk of it that just didn’t get any resin in it. How are you gonna repair that? Like, I wouldn’t say impossible. I’m sure if the fate of the human race depended on it, then you would, you would make it work. But it’s [00:06:00] certainly very close to impossible.  Matthew Stead: Economically, it does not make sense.  Rosemary Barnes: You would probably have to make a few inventions. Along the way to be able to make it work as well. I think,  Allen Hall: I think I should read part of, and I don’t like reading these lawsuits, but this is informative in a sense that it provides some relative background as to what Vineyard Wind is thinking in some of the contract details that are involved here. So in June 4th, 2021, this is directly from the lawsuit, uh, vineyard Wind entered into A TSA with GE renewables in which. GE Renewables agreed to design, manufacture supply, install commission, and test the wind turbine generators for the vineyard wind project at a contract price of more than $1.3 billion. There you go. On the same day as an integral part of the commercial agreement, the parties entered into an SMA, uh, by which GE renewables agreed to maintain and service that wind turbine [00:07:00]generators for the first five years. Of operations of the project and guarantee that all wind turbine generators will operate at a 97% of production availability. Uh, this guarantee is central, is a central component of the commercial viability of the Vineyard Wind Project. So I would say so, right. Uh, at present, all of the wind turbine generators on the project have been installed. However, the wind turbine generators are not yet fully operational and are. Able to reduce power at only levels well below those intended under the contracts fundamental to the project’s commitment to Massachusetts to achieve full commercial operation. The project requires repair, commissioning, and maintenance of GE renewables, 62 proprietary wind turbine generators, and their component parts work that only GE renewables knows how to perform. So it sounds like Vineyard Wind has a five-year contract that GE ISS gonna operate these [00:08:00] turbines, and if they leave in a couple of weeks, vineyard wind really doesn’t have a backup plan. They may have. Were planning on a plan five years down the road where they could operate ’em, but to operate those turbines immediately when they haven’t, at least as. Indicated here may not be fully commissioned to providing the right amount of availability. That’s a huge problem for Vineyard. Huge.  Rosemary Barnes: It’s interesting to me that they’ve decided to withhold some money that I think everyone agrees that they owe that money to ge. But then there’s a dispute because Vineyard when says that GE owes them money for some other stuff That sounds like GE disputes. Um, it’s like if you have a problem. With your landlord, they always tell you, don’t, don’t withhold rent, because then they can, you know, that’s, that’s their out of the contract. Right? So it seems weird, like it’s a relatively small amount compared to what vineyard wind is risking. So. It seems to me like, are they, is this a mistake from them? Are they giving ge an out from this contract that’s gonna be [00:09:00] really hard for them to meet? It might be that GE knows what it would cost to entirely fix the wind farm and have it producing the way that it should. But, you know, let’s say in a worst case scenario, that means remaking every single blade in the um, in the wind farm. At the, at the French factory, you know, like that could be your, your worst case scenario. GE knows that that’s gonna cost more than what they’re ever gonna pay over the five years of, um, you know, the, uh, of missing the availability guarantee. So then it is worth, for them, the cost effective thing to do is to just walk away and they’re kind of, the amount that they’ll have to pay is limited. If I’m thinking fairness, it’s so unfair that vineyard wind would be stuck with this wind farm that they can’t really get to do anything. But if I think about how I see these disputes work out in the smaller versions of them that I’ve seen, it seems like vineyard wind actually probably is the one more likely to come out with a bad outcome from the way that they’re [00:10:00] choosing to play this right. Uh, because they, they risk not being able to operate at all. And they have potentially, like, I’m not a lawyer, I don’t, I don’t know about, you know, how likely it is that the 300 million, that their withholding will be enough for GE to walk away with without having to pay anything for, um, you know, not operating, uh, correctly over the next five years. But, um, you know, it just seems like it’s not so much money compared to the billions that are at stake. To risk that they will be left unable to operate the wind farm at all. You know, it’s just, uh, I don’t know. It seems risky.  Allen Hall: Let’s start with the kickoff of what happened and what vineyard wind is alleging happened from these, their perspective on it. It does provide some insight into all the things we talked about on the podcast for the last two years. We, we saw bits and pieces of it. According to vineyard wind, uh, GE Renewable [00:11:00] claims that it is owed quote amounts due unquote for milestone payments is, is contrary in in language to the TSA, so the turbine supply agreement put simply vineyard wind owes nothing to GE renewables because the TSA turbine supply agreement allows vineyard wind to withhold amounts. The project engineer determines that GE Renewable owes vineyard wind from milestone payments otherwise due under the contract. So what they’re saying is GE owes is a bunch of money. Yes, we do owe GE renewables money, but it’s in Vineyard Wind’s favor. So why would they send GE money? Um, those set off amounts are substantial because GE renewables caused catastrophic injury to vineyard wind by installing 68 defective blades on 24. Wind turbine generators resulting in two years of delay and over a billion dollars of damages. In July, 2024, one of the GE renewable offshore blades collapsed and fell into the waters off Nantucket resuscitating a massive environmental cleanup and requiring a six month [00:12:00] construction hiatus during which GE Renewable performed a root cause analysis, concluding that 68 of the 72 GE renewable. Blades installed at the project, nearly all manufactured by GE Renewable in Gaspay Canada, and they say nearly all, not all, nearly all were also defected because they were inadequately bonded together, the original blades were so poorly made that they were beyond repair. Indeed, the federal government required GE renewable to remove all the blades and to replace all gas bay blades with others manufactured at a different facility in Sherbrook, France. So that’s really the kickoff to all of this disagreement was the quality issues from Gas Bay. Uh, vineyard Wind goes on to say that GE Renewables and, and their CEO, Scott Straza, basically admitted to, uh, a, a serious, um. Overlook or quality issue? Quality escape, something of the [00:13:00] sort, uh, in some of the statements, which I, I remember him talking about  Rosemary Barnes: allegedly, in your opinion. Allen Hall: Well, and Scott Streek did say it. In fact, here’s, here’s what Scott Streek did say. Streek, uh, acknowledged that the blade failure and said, quote, we have identified a material deviation or a manufacturing deviation. In one of our factories that through the inspection or quality assurance process we should have identified. Because of that, we’re going to use our existing data and reinspect all of the blades that we have made for offshore wind and for context in this factory in Gus Bay, Canada, where the material deviation existed. That’s a quote. What happens now,  Rosemary Barnes: obviously I’ve never worked on anything that’s, this is the biggest example of, um, a, you know, a blade quality problem, a serial issue probably that’s ever happened in the wind industry. I’ve never worked on something this big, but I have worked on probably half a dozen small, small versions that are quite similar. Um. To this, but just on a, you know, a much, much smaller scale. And I will say that it never [00:14:00] feels fair what the owner of the wind farm, like, what the outcome is, never feels fair to the owner of the wind farm. Like when you’ve got a serial defect in, um, in play it like, and everyone suffers. It costs, it’s gonna cost the, um, you know, the manufacturer a lot of money. But I think that proportionally it is. Affects the owners more in nearly every case. It’s just there are some contractual things that you don’t end up with outcomes that feel, feel fair to anybody that, um, you know, would take a casual look at it. So I don’t think that an outcome that feels fair is probably likely for, for vineyard wind. Um, and I guess it all just comes down to whether or not GE agree that they owe that 800 million or whatever the figure is. Um, or if a court finds that they owe it. Because surely the contract doesn’t say that Vineyard wins engineer at any time can just, or project manager can at any time decide [00:15:00] that, um, GE owes the money and so they don’t have to pay. That obviously wouldn’t be a very, um, nice contract for GE to sign. So there’s gotta be some more nuance to it other than. That our project manager says, you owe us money so we’re not paying. And then, you know, you have to continue. Like, I, it’s probably impossible for us to, without, um, you know, having access to all of, all of the documents and the legal degree to understand it. Probably, probably hard for us to Yeah. Come up with a, a reasonable conclusion.  Allen Hall: It does make you think, usually the progression is dispute. Whatever contractually is obligated in the beginning happens. And so if there’s someone who decides what pot of money goes where, that, that’s usually the first step. Second step is usually arbitration in the us. I’d be surprised if they haven’t gone through at least an attempt at arbitration. And then once arbitration breaks down, then you go into the courts, which is clearly where they’re at now you’re, you’re at the highest level that you can be in terms of legal proceedings to try to sort this matter out. And I’m sure both sides. Do not want to be in front of a [00:16:00] courtroom if they can avoid it. So there’s a much more to come about this. I, I think the other operators, uh, GEs this is, is this GEs only? Yeah. This is GEs only wind farm offshore in the us So this is it. But I would imagine that the other, uh, operators in offshore wind in the US or. Being very careful word through contracts and how this is proceeding.  Rosemary Barnes: That’s something else I think about this case is that it’s going to be like the GE are the ones who have more at stake in terms of reputational harm. I would’ve thought then. Um, so. Yeah, that’s obviously a consideration that they’ve, they’ve gotta have, it isn’t, regardless of where the facts are, it’s not a good look. Right. Um, to be seen, to be walking away from a wind farm. And it probably would make other people considering big expensive GE wind farms to be like, oh, you know, are we actually gonna get across the line with this? Or is there a risk that they just, you know, throw a tantrum towards the end and threaten to walk away and we have to renegotiate [00:17:00] everything. So, um, I guess that there’s a, yeah, there’s always just the perception. Is as important in a lot of ways to what the actual facts are.  Matthew Stead: The thing I find is, um, I mean this is largely a legal thing, isn’t it? You know, we, we’ve agreed that it’s, with the lawyers, it’s a largely a legal thing. The, the sort of topic that I’m interested in is, um, like the example of you buy a car, you know, you buy a Toyota, um, you expect to be able to maintain it. You expect to be able to run it and get a serviced by a Toyota, you don’t expect in the first year to take your Toyota to Ford and get them to fix it in the first year. The bigger issue is the turbine supplier agreement does not actually allow the turbine to be operated without the OEM, so no one knows. No one knows how to run it. So for me, it’s a massive industry challenge, access of data, access of how to run a turbine. If the OEM is no longer there, so I think hopefully [00:18:00] this can have rama bigger ramifications for the industry that operators and owners can actually run the assets they own.  Rosemary Barnes: Well, there are companies that will come in and pull out your control system of your, you know, your turbine. If it, you know, if you, um, if you don’t wanna work with them anymore or if the company went bankrupt, then there are companies that will rip it out and put a new one in. It’s not, not saying that that’s like an easy, cost effective thing to do and probably not gonna get the same, um, performance as, as you originally did. But that’s what happens if you are, um, you know, your turbine manufacturer goes bankrupt and they just don’t exist to support anymore. Sometimes people have to resort to literally pulling out the whole control system and starting again. Not easy. When it’s something as big and new as this one obviously  Matthew Stead: isn’t the better answer that when you buy something, you actually buy the information to actually run it. Rosemary Barnes: I don’t fully agree [00:19:00] though, because. It’s like, um, o often what you say, oh, you know, like this would be good. Like the one common thing is people say, oh, you know, like it’s planned obsolescence. People, engineers plan design things to fail so that you’ll need to replace them. And I think that that does, that does happen again in like consumer, consumer products. Like, um, yeah, like your, your battery isn’t really designed to last for 10 years in your, your phone the same way that it is in an electric car. Um, more than 10 years in the case of an electric car. Um. But it’s not. It’s not what happens in industrial scale equipment. You are mostly worried about getting the price point right. And if you want something to last longer, if you want something that anybody can come in and fix it easily, it costs more to engineer like that and usually like a a lot more. So it’s not just people like evil engineers or evil. Um. Evil management at these, at these companies.  Allen Hall: I already get to evil engineers. Rosemary Barnes: No, people think it is. People think it’s evil. Engineers like purposely designing bad products to [00:20:00] um, make money, which I actually do think that they do with consumer products. Some of the time. Um, but when it comes to like industrial equipment, I, I don’t think that that’s the main, the main thing that planned obsolescence is not, is not a major factor here. It’s about trying to get the price point competitive to make sales. And if you want to get better engineering, you, you will, you will pay for it.  Matthew Stead: I got a call with someone today that, which is on this topic. So, you know, we, we are a sensor company and, um, we pro we provide results, okay? So if we actually provided the raw data that we measure, it actually allows people, other people to reverse engineer our products. So we don’t generally provide the raw data, so we provide the end outcome. Because it means that people can’t copy what we do. It means we can actually charge a lower price. So actually there’s a lot of logic to, you know, having, you know, [00:21:00] all these ways of engineering a product to, you know, give a better outcome to the end customer. Allen Hall: I know Rosie doesn’t like Elon Musk, but this one of the things that Elon Musk did with Tesla at least, I don’t know about the other companies that he runs, but with Tesla, they went off and. Made patents, right? So they applied for a bunch of patents and received them and then just made them open use. And the reason they did that was so somebody couldn’t jump the patent line, create a patent about some car related electric thing, and prohibit Tesla from doing. And so Tesla has always had the need to create patents that cost them, I’m sure, a, a pretty penny, just so they can avoid. Patent conflicts and lawsuits going forward. And it’s sort of the same thing, right? That the evil engineer bit, that’s the evil engineer bit I, that I don’t like is that when you get these crazy patent things happening out there that are just there to collect money and not do any of the work,  Rosemary Barnes: and some of the patents are. Absolutely crazy. Like when you do a patent search and it’s like you’re [00:22:00] reading the language and like it sounds like they’ve just patented the concept of a wheel, you know? And then you’ve gotta try and figure out like what’s actually going on. Yeah. In  Matthew Stead: our world, someone has a patent around the Doppler shift. Allen Hall: How can you have a patent on Doppler shift? That’s crazy.  Matthew Stead: It’s fundamental physical. You know, there’s a shift in frequency of a sound, um,  Allen Hall: based on speed  Matthew Stead: and yes, sound comes from a blade and there’s a doppler shift.  Allen Hall: That’s real. I, I, I guess, uh, see, that’s, that’s, that’s the craziness of that. See, you should have thought about. The idiots that were gonna do that and then write a patent about Doppler shift.  Rosemary Barnes: It’s really annoying because it’s like, you know that it’s not gonna be, I mean, a lot of them you are like 99% sure it’s not gonna be possible for them to defend that if it gets challenged. But it’s like, to what extent do we trust that, you know? Um, so you still usually end up steering around it anyway, but it, it really gets in the way of elegant engineering solutions. All these. Bizaro patents that are out there like clogging up [00:23:00] the design landscape.  Allen Hall: That happened recently. Right? Rosa? You had and I were talking about a particular patent. I thought had it existed and it did at one point exist and I. Rosie said, I don’t, I don’t see it anymore. So I did some search on it. Yeah, it got pulled off. Uh, the list of valid patents. It was a lightning related thing.  Rosemary Barnes: And you were complaining that it was so obvious that they should never have been able to patent it, but yeah, and somebody obviously said, said something at some. I don’t think patents are not the best way to protect an idea anyway. Right? Like nobody, if you, if you’ve got a new technology idea and you’re relying on a patent to protect other people from copying it, it’s not the best idea. I do work with a lot of small inventors who are like, oh, I’ve got a patent application, and they think it means something, that it doesn’t. They think, oh, you know, patent was approved. That means it works. It means it’s a good idea. It doesn’t mean any of those things for like small, outside of big companies. I, I think it’s super rare that you would get more. You would get a positive return [00:24:00] on. On filing and maintaining a patent in all the countries that, um, are relevant  Allen Hall: as wind energy professionals, staying informed is crucial, and let’s face it difficult. That’s why the Uptime podcast recommends PES Wind Magazine. PES Wind offers a diverse range of in-depth articles and expert insights that dive into the most pressing issues facing our energy future. Whether you’re an industry veteran or new to wind, PES Wind has the high quality content you need. Don’t miss out. Visit PES wind.com today. Sted posted a net loss of 1.7 billion Danish groner, roughly $262 million for the third quarter, as the cost of battling us anti win policies continues to mount the CEO. Rasmus abo, uh, says the company is about. One year into a turnaround plan, uh, that’s set to [00:25:00] run through beginning of 2028, and that the medicine is starting to work. Uh, one major strategic change. Ted will enter partnerships on new projects far earlier, and so it will never again, uh, be forced into damaging late stage divestments The company maintained its full year EBITDA and, uh, guidance of, of, of. 24 to 27 billion Danish kroner. That’s a good bit of money. And the sale of a 50% stake in the horn, C3 to Apollo Global Management for a billion dollars is already under. Well, at least in progress, but there’s a lot more behind the scenes here. Sted had an basically an investor meeting and a shareholder meeting, and, uh, they have three new board members. They let go of, if I remember correctly, three board members that were [00:26:00] employees that they just, uh, had reductions in forces that happen to affect board members, which is very odd. Very, very odd in my. Humble opinion, having watched number of boards for a long time, usually don’t remove board members in that fashion, but there does seem to be a, a, a more emphasis on the board to help, uh, the CEO of stead get through some of these tumultuous times and maybe a little bit of concern about the, the, the way the board was constructed to get or sit back into profitability sooner rather than later. This is a big deal up in Denmark. Of course, stead is the power company for Denmark. This has implications worldwide, though, uh, what stead does everybody else follows. And the one thing that, uh, that was sort of in dispute before the shareholder meeting was EOR at one point, was. At least contemplating a board seat. And then right [00:27:00] before the meeting they backed off and said, no, it’s fine. We don’t want a board seat. Maybe they had some sense of what the changes were gonna be made to the board, so they felt better about it. But orsa is not out of the rough seas at the moment. There’s a couple more years of, of growing pains and learning some lessons that they wish they didn’t have to learn. I guess that’s the way I would look at it. What implications does this have on the greater offshore wind community? Is stead taking basically a step back and, and trying to focus. Herding offshore wind, or is it just other, another companies are gonna step into that, that space that Sted may have previously occupied? Matthew Stead: I think what you’re talking about, um, Alan, is, is all logical. I mean, you know, you can’t have everything. So, um, as in you can’t, you know, getting late to a project and expect it to go well, um, spreading risk is a good thing, you know, so the whole, you know, [00:28:00] doing it fast. Doing it cheap and doing it well. Um, you, you, you can’t have all of those things at once. So actually what they’re talking about, I think is entirely logical. Um, so yeah, I think if they can lead the way that way and, and you know, I’ve come from, um, some other industries like construction and they, they spread the risk across multiple. Organizations that know what they’re doing. So the idea of joint ventures where you get the best of both worlds makes complete sense to me. Allen Hall: Do they start making different decisions on projects based upon their financial stake at the moment? A And more importantly, when they start looking for offshore wind projects, are they likely to hook up with Vestas? Because I, I think that’s where this is all going.  Matthew Stead: Pick a horse.  Allen Hall: Yeah, they’re gonna pick a horse. I, I mean, that’s the best, best way to think about it. They’re gonna pick a horse and gonna stick with them. Instead of having, uh, a lot of options and playing one against the other, I could see alignment happening, uh, versus being the [00:29:00] one offshore, of course. And or instead being a big player. There is, is that the combo that’s gonna push the industry forward? Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, maybe. I mean, I think it’s more similar to what Chinese manufacturers are doing, a lot more vertical integration. You can, um, yeah, save, save a lot of money by doing that. It is. Uh, you know, not always ideal from other points of view. And it might be nice to have a, you know, a thriving technology ecosystem of, you know, different manufacturers competing with each other and, you know, making better products. So, um, yeah, I don’t know, uh, have sit on the fence on this one for what’s good. I do feel really bad for osted though, like in terms of the, the. Shocks that they’ve had over the last couple of years. I, I don’t think most people would’ve foreseen that it would be so risky to try and expand into the US like everybody. A few years ago, everybody thought that that was the next big profitable frontier in offshore wind. And [00:30:00] I don’t think that many people would’ve foreseen things going the way that they did.  Allen Hall: Is it the result of large industrial projects take time and that in that timeframe, five, 10 years, that the world changes so much? You can’t. Accurately predict what the outcome will be and or it just got caught up in it.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I think that’s actually one of the themes you guys have read, um, how big things get Done Right by Ben. Um, that’s one of the things that he mentions that the quicker that you can do the execution phase of your project, like spend plenty of time planning it, but when you’re actually committed, work super fast because the longer that you’re working, the more your chance of a, a black swan. Um, a Black Swan event be, you know, a government that turns out to, you know, want to, you know, tear up contracts and you know, do all these other unprecedented stuff. You know, if you’ve got projects that take 10 or more years to build, then there’s just like a lot more risk of something like that happening. And I think that, um, you know, like in some ways that’s just one of the inherent weaknesses of [00:31:00] wind energy in general, but offshore wind especially is that it does actually take a long time to get through all of the things that you need to do to. Um, to complete a project. And so it’s just, yeah, a lot more chance for, you know, the government will change two or three times probably in, um, you know, during a project. How many wars can start, how many, you know, pandemics. Can there be you? Like, the longer that you’re going, you might think none of those things could be predicted and that can’t, but you can predict that those sorts of big things happen. And the longer that you, um, are exposed and the more of them that you’re probably gonna face. And I think that, yeah, like something like a solar farm is much quicker to roll out. Um, battery projects are much quicker to roll out. So it’s just like that, those are benefits of those technologies compared to wind. You just have to kind of accept that that’s one of the weaknesses of this, this industry that we’re in. Allen Hall: Is it a benefit to have solar because it can deploy very quickly, or, or is it just [00:32:00] smarter to have. More wind turbines of smaller megawatt outputs because you can manufacture ’em at scale quicker, and so the economies of scale don’t really matter so much. This is an argument we’ve been making for months now, that when you start selecting a single turbine, which doesn’t have any history, and it’s a big one, and it takes a long time to produce, you are really setting up yourself to fall into that window where something can go wrong. Versus just stamping out two or three megawatt turbines and going like crazy. It just seems so much less risky.  Rosemary Barnes: I think that I definitely agree with you for onshore and then for offshore. Probably also, like I don’t think it’s necessarily go for a smaller turbine. It’s just don’t go for the brand new one. Like that’s why I don’t understand how many people are like so obsessed with this, you know, small, small amount of improvement that they get from the very biggest. Turbine, but I don’t think that they realize the amount of technical risk. And I think that it gets, it’s getting [00:33:00] more and more like the, um, technology increment is getting more and more the bigger that we go. It’s not that like, oh, we’re learning how to do this, this, well, it’s, it’s the opposite that, you know, like every, um, increment up in size as an exponentially more like larger number of problems, technical problems that have to be solved. And, um, I think that, yeah, that’s. That’s something people don’t factor in. Allen Hall: Is it the gold rush problem where the miners were trying to hit that pocket of gold and spending all their time trying to find this gold, find this gold. In the meantime, a lot of them obviously broke, and the people that made money in the gold rush or the stores that sold the pickaxes, if you, you making a pickaxes, you have a customer page, you can just sell those things in. Levi’s, be the other one, right? So they’re selling genes of pickaxes to the miners. Guess who won in that battle, right? Levi’s.  Rosemary Barnes: But what’s the analogy with win two of the pickax manufacturers,  Allen Hall: the people that make the two megawatt machines? In my opinion, that’s gonna be who the pickaxes are because you don’t have to think about it. If [00:34:00] you can talk to operators of the United States today and you say, what turbine would you like to buy over again? And they will almost all tell you, GE one point fives. Almost all of them. And you go, yeah. Oh, okay. I understand it because it’s a machine. It’s pretty simple. But it does work. And it is, it is a true warhorse turbine. And some of the vested ones are the same. Simpson Siemens turbines are very similar, right? Uh, but in today’s world, when we’re talking about 15, 20 megawatt turbines, I just think, man, you gotta be careful doing that just because of the time it takes to develop it and produce it, and. Work at all the kinks? Uh, Rosemary, I think you’re right about that.  Rosemary Barnes: I think the issue is that, um, when you’re deciding whether to develop a project or not, it really depends a lot on what the spreadsheet tells you your return is going to be. And, um, you know, a bigger turbine with, uh, you know, like larger output over its lifetime, longer lifetime. Those are all gonna give you really good. Spreadsheet numbers, but what’s not in the spreadsheet [00:35:00] is, oh, you know, you’ve actually increased your risk of having to wait two years while they replace every single blade in this, um, in this wind farm. Oh, by the way, yeah, you’re gonna be dealing with, um, you know, twice as many repairs and your, um, downtime is not gonna be 2%, it’s gonna be 3.5% or, or something. You know, those, those sorts of things, I don’t think, uh, adequately captured in the, the spreadsheets whe say when you, whether you should or shouldn’t develop a new project.  Matthew Stead: So, so the evil engineering should be making decisions, not the evil lawyers.  Allen Hall: The financial people always make the decisions, right? The insurance companies make the decisions.  Rosemary Barnes: Don’t think there’s a lot of engineering into, um, input in the, the very first stages. But I also think that if you put in the reality, like most engineers, I think are a little bit pessimistic because our job is to see what problems exist at, you know, and then solve them ideally. Um, but at least part of it, like our brains are wired to look for problems, right? That’s, um, that’s a necessary part of the job, in my opinion. But if you were, you know, like pessimistic in your assumptions in the [00:36:00] spreadsheet, you would probably the majority of the time say, don’t make this project. The return is not very good. Allen Hall: Well, that would be a smart move, right? Yeah.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. So I don’t actually think you probably should have too many engineers in in involved.  Matthew Stead: Yeah. But what is the CEO incentivized by is the, yeah, so it, it comes back to, you know, what, what, what drives the project And it’s not just engineering.  Allen Hall: That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe. So if you never miss an episode and if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps. For Rosie and Matthew, I am Allen Hall and we’ll see you next week on the Uptime Wind Energy [00:37:00] Podcast.

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestRoxxy HazeJordan Conley Kali ScottThis Week We DiscussPartner W/ Crazy Ex vs Partner W/ Bad ChildWatching with Subtitles vs. No Subtitles EverFlirtatious Partner vs Partner W/ No FriendsS/o To Our SponsorsFACTORHead to Factormeals.com/squadd50off and use code squadd50off to get 50 percent off and free daily greens per box, with new subscription only, while supplies last until 09/27/2026. (See website for more details).Blue ChewBlueChew.comRight now, when you buy two months of BlueChew Gold, you get the third for FREE with promo code SQUADD. That's promo code SQUADD. Visit BlueChew.com for more details and important safety information.

The LA Food Podcast is now on YouTube, and we're celebrating with a brand new segment: VERSUS. This week, Luca and Father Sal go head-to-head debating two of LA's most exciting modern Mexican restaurants—Echo Park favorite A Ti vs. the return of Ray Garcia at Broken Spanish Comedor—arguing which one is truly worth your next reservation. Plus, Chef's Kiss Big Miss is back with takes on the latest James Beard Awards controversy, a bizarre California Pizza Kitchen cease and desist, Food & Wine's controversial best food cities rankings, and the rise of the “restaurant relationship gap.” In Part 2, we sit down with Natalie Dial and Harry Posner of Tomat, the Westchester hotspot near LAX, to hear their incredible journey from meeting in The Gambia to leaving London behind to build one of LA's most unique all-day restaurants. If you haven't been yet, this conversation might change that.--Presented by mva.wine.

Lesley Logan and Brad Crowell dive into the highlights of Lesley's conversation with Billy Lahr, a Certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher with a background in education and behavior change. They explore his perspective on comfort zones, breaking down the difference between being comfortable and becoming complacent, and why growth doesn't have to come from constant discomfort. From the importance of healthcare directives to the permission gap that keeps women selfless to a fault, this episode challenges you to take a more intentional approach to how you live and show up.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co mailto:beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.In this episode you will learn about:Making healthcare decisions in advance using a free online resource.How to stretch one's comfort zone to avoid the complacency zone.The power of closing the permission gap to stop burnout.Why self-prioritization is the key to a grounded, centered life.How to leverage curiosity and consistency to build genuine passion.Episode References/Links:FreeWill - freewill.comOPC Spring Training (Virtual Event) - opc.me/events   2027 eLevate Mentorship Program - lesleylogan.co/elevatePilates Summer Tour - opc.me/tourFolding Pilates Mat - opc.me/foldingmatMindful Midlife Crisis - https://www.mindfulmidlifecrisis.comBilly Lahr Official Website - https://billylahr.comJump Start Conversation - https://mindfulmidlifecrisis.systeme.io/jumpstartconvoSubmit Your Questions - beitpod.com/questions If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Brad Crowell 0:00  He's saying we think that when we're selfless, we're quote, unquote correct or right, and then when we are selfish, we're wrong. And what he was saying is, like, those are both actual extremes. Yeah, you know, what if we were grounded or self-centered? Or what if we focus about centered self, not like, in a negative way, but like, how do we—Lesley Logan 0:23  I know so—Brad Crowell 0:24  How can we be both of those things instead of like, one or the other? Lesley Logan 0:28  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. Brad Crowell 1:10  Take it away there, Lesley.Lesley Logan 1:13  Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co-host in life, Brad, and I are going to dig into the thought-provoking convo I had with Billy Lhar in our last episode. Brad Crowell 1:21  Yeah, we are. Lesley Logan 1:22  If you haven't listened to that interview, you should, you could pause this now and hear what I sound like, not with a sinus infection. And then, if you're new, you'll be like, this girl's voice sucks. I can't stand it. And then you'll stick it out. Brad Crowell 1:33  Yeah. Lesley Logan 1:34  You'll stick it out. Brad Crowell 1:34  Stick it out. You will— Lesley Logan 1:35  I promise you—Brad Crowell 1:36  You'll do that we believe in you. Lesley Logan 1:38  I promise you, this is not this, too shall pass. What if someone's like, oh, my God, I loved her voice when she had the science affection, and now, when it's gone, like, ugh. Lesley Logan 1:50  Well, today is April 16, 2026 and it's National Healthcare Decisions Day. Huh? Interesting. Let's see where this goes.Brad Crowell 1:58  (Laughs)Lesley Logan 1:59  This day is observed every year on April 16, the day after tax day interesting as well. Are you aware that there are times you might need to make some decisions about your health care, but be incapacitated to make them? Oh, this is an interesting okay, I thought I felt like the health insurance companies, but this is about us—Brad Crowell 2:13  No. Lesley Logan 2:14  This is—Brad Crowell 2:14  This is about in personal health care decisions that we can make. Lesley Logan 2:17  This day is set aside to help you take care of those potential situations ahead of time is a day for patients or healthcare receivers to make known to health professionals the kind of adequate care they wish to receive and have those wishes respected and met. Well, whether they'll be respected and met, are different stories in the United States healthcare situation, but I do agree we Brad and I are supposed to have sat down his parents are going to annoy us until we do and actually, like, talk about our Do Not Resuscitate stuff and all that. Brad Crowell 2:44  Yeah. It's like, called advanced direction, or something—Lesley Logan 2:47  Directive?Brad Crowell 2:48  Direct, yeah, Advanced Directive. Maybe that's it. Yeah. So we've been on a healthcare tour, and we've been— Lesley Logan 2:53  We are using the insurance we pay for. Brad Crowell 2:57  We absolutely are—Lesley Logan 2:58  We are annoying the hell out of them. We are going to use every benefit they say we pay for. Brad Crowell 3:03  Well, it's also not like a fast, quick decision. We started doing this, like, I don't know, 18 months ago? Lesley Logan 3:09  Oh yeah, it says it's taken you 18 months to get the results you got today. Brad Crowell 3:13  I'm not even kidding, it's insane to me. Lesley Logan 3:15  (Laughs) There's nothing wrong with you. Brad Crowell 3:15  Yeah, they were like, hey, everything's good up there. Your brain. I'm like, well, that makes me feel good, but what the heck it took that long anyway? Yeah, it's been a it's been a whirlwind, and we've been learning a lot of things. Just like you have a last will and testament, you also need to have something called an, I'm looking up now to get the exact phrasing of it. But like, what the last will test—Lesley Logan 3:40  You have to do it when you, like, do surgeries and stuff like that. So you have to, you should talk with your partners and your families about your wishes. Brad Crowell 3:46  Yeah, it's called a living will, or an Advanced Directive. It's a legal document for healthcare that outlines your treatment preferences if you become incapacitated— Lesley Logan 3:56  Oh, I, let me just tell you, you guys want to go on a journey. Because I remember, I remember, oh, my God, what was her name? It's not in my head, because I'm on Dayquil, but when I grew up, I remember she was on the cover of every tabloid magazine, and her husband was made out to be this big villain because he wanted to pull the plug. Brad Crowell 4:14  Oh, in Florida, yeah. Lesley Logan 4:17  Oh, you guys want to, okay, you're listening to a podcast. Go to the You're Wrong About Series. Go all the way back to the beginning. They have what is that woman's Sherry? Sherry. It's coming. Tyvo. Sherry Tyvo. Sherry Livo? Sherry—Brad Crowell 4:33  Tyvan? Lesley Logan 4:33  No, Sherry Tyvo Brad Crowell 4:37  Coma case.Lesley Logan 4:38  In Florida in the 90s.Brad Crowell 4:43  Terry. T Y—Lesley Logan 4:44  Terri Schiavo! Brad Crowell 4:45  Schiavo. Lesley Logan 4:46  Not I had, oh my God!Brad Crowell 4:47  You did. You had it backwards. Lesley Logan 4:48  Woah! I had Sherry Tyvo. Brad Crowell 4:50  (Inaudible)Lesley Logan 4:50  And it's Terri Schiavo. You guys, the more Adderall I am, the more dislikes like I think I am. I think it's just showing that I am okay. So, Terri Schiavo, her, go listen to You're Wrong About. That husband was not the villain that the tabloids made him out to be, and her family made it out to be, and then the Bush Administration got involved, became this whole Supreme Court thing. And let me just tell you, they, people in this country will keep you on life support against your will. It happened to the black woman Atlanta who was forced to stay, this happened in the last year. Her family was forced to keep her on life support because she was six months pregnant. Then they made her stay on life support until the baby was viable, to live without her at the time we're recording this, that baby is still in the NICU cannot survive on its own. So we need laws that protect people, and then we need advanced directives, because what we don't want is the government getting involved. That's what you don't want. I mean that this is not a very uplifting conversation. So go (Laughs)Brad Crowell 5:52  Let's, let's, let's shift back to how we can take care of this for yourself, like today's about making a decision for yourself. So there's a couple different things that you can do. You can, you know, if you have been meaning to make that doctor's appointment, just do it today's the day do it. Set aside a little bit of time today to, like, actually get the ball rolling. Because the problem, like, I know what the problem is. The problem is that it never is fast. You call, it's freaking voicemail. Like, like, nothing seems to flow. And so you have to call back 10 times. I literally had to drive across the street to this doctor's office two times to schedule my fucking appointment. It's insane. So I understand how frustrating that can be, but if you don't start now, it will never happen. Lesley Logan 6:33  Well, you won't have you won't have the team in place when you need them. And I will say, like in our journey of making sure that we have a team of healthcare professionals that are local, I have been able to find doctors that actually give a fuck, like my my gynecologist, who does my my hormone treatment in Vegas. She gives such a fuck that I have a breast doctor. That breast doctor has me on an MRI next week, and then in six months, I'm mammogram, and that's where I'm at until and then she'll and then she's gonna get me to the plastic surgeon to talk about my options. Like they will help advocate for you if you really do advocate for yourself. Like I found, like, it's kind of amazing when you get into it. Now, do I have what I complained when I said, I hate this imaging place. She's like, just drive there and make the appointment. It's faster. And I was like, are you kidding me? But it is. She's like, it's just fast, it's just the way it has to go. I know in the year of our Lord 2026, but it is what it is. And here's another trick for your doctor's office. Call billing, billing. Billing always answers. Brad Crowell 7:32  Billing always answers. Lesley Logan 7:33  So my gynecologist, before I leave. I always say, when you want to see me again, because I'm just gonna book it on my way out, because that's the best thing. And she's like, it is the best thing. I said, oh, you want to what the other hack is, it's just like, is? And she's like, what I said, my assistant calls billing, they always answer. And she goes, oh my God. She's like, you are crazy, but she loves me. So what I highly recommend take the steps it becomes, it's like, part of your adulting life. Pick an hour every week to do adulting, and you'll be glad you did, because things will happen and you're not going to want to be up the creek without a paddle. Brad Crowell 8:02  Yeah, you're not going to be up the Advanced Health Care Directive without a paddle. I was just poking around, and there is a very interesting free service provider that will do Last Will and Testament, Revocable Living Trust, Advanced Health Care Directive, Power of Attorney, and it's called freewill.com. Lesley Logan 8:24  That's crazy. Brad Crowell 8:25  They do not sponsor us, but I think it's pretty amazing. And they actually have, I was just poking around, they actually have, like, a guided for last will and testament. They have a guided will maker that covers all 50 states. Lesley Logan 8:37  You know who I need to interview. I interview a will maker. How do we be it till we see it in this Advanced Directive? Like— Brad Crowell 8:43  That'll be cool. Lesley Logan 8:43  What is that like? What are all the things I need to know? What should be in my will? Who should not be in my will? You know all that stuff.Brad Crowell 8:50  And well. And then FreeWill also has for the advanced directive of healthcare stuff. They have a free one that's also guided through all the all the states. So they, they seem to have their shit together. They're actually funded by— Lesley Logan 9:00  If you're in a different country I have no idea how to help you there, but—Brad Crowell 9:02  They're funded by a nonprofit or a charity, so they're totally free, pretty crazy. Lesley Logan 9:06  Wow. Brad Crowell 9:06  Yeah. Lesley Logan 9:07  Okay. The skeptic in me is like, who is funding this? Brad Crowell 9:10  (Laughs) Lesley Logan 9:10  The Peter Thiel—Brad Crowell 9:11  Yeah, right? Lesley Logan 9:12  (Laughs)Brad Crowell 9:13  About FreeWill, who we are— Lesley Logan 9:15  This is really what they're interested in. They're like, dying to know. Brad Crowell 9:18  Yeah, right? Lesley Logan 9:18  But you have to look up these things, because there is a nonprofit organization that's about, like, like, it sounds like it's about keeping kids from being online too early, but really, it's actually owned by meta, and their whole thing is to get your kids information early, and so they can, I know, so you gotta, you gotta look at these things you don't know. Now, I sound like a tin hat person, but you gotta look. Brad Crowell 9:41  Yeah, so they have nonprofit partners. It doesn't. It's not really that clear, but—Lesley Logan 9:45  Use it your own risk. Brad Crowell 9:46  We'll figure that out. You know.Lesley Logan 9:47  You, you know, be thoughtful. All right. Well, that's that at least gives you an actual step to be it till you see it in your advanced directive. And I know it comes after tax day. And look, no one likes taxes. But the reality is, is, if you vote in your primaries for the people that you think will to put your tax dollars to work the way you want. You have a better chance of getting that in the major part in November. So go vote. Primaries are happening all over the place right now as we speak, and so please go take care of that. Okay. Brad Crowell 10:17  1,000% Lesley Logan 10:18  Yes! Lesley Logan 10:19  So important.Lesley Logan 10:19   I know. Brad Crowell 10:20  All right, let's shift gears here. So coming up next, we got spring training happening in May, May 12 through 17th. So if you want to do Pilates at home, we're going to be going upside down in a bunch of different ways, with some really fun classes led by all the OPC team. And if you want information about that, it's probably already available for you to jump into— Lesley Logan 10:39  Oh yeah, you can sign up right now.Brad Crowell 10:40  But go to opc.me/events, opc.me/events. Also eLevate 2027 we have only a few spots left. I think it's possible that they're already sold out. But if you were really interested in a deep dive of classical Pilates with Lesley, it's a nine month mentorship program for certified Pilates teachers. We're going to be kicking it off in January next year. Learn more about that at lesleylogan.co/elevate. Lesleylogan.co/elevate. And you and I can hop on a call. We'd love to explain more about it with you. And then finally, we have summer tour coming up. Lesley Logan 11:14  I know that's so crazy. It's going it's a fast. Brad Crowell 11:16  it's a bit ahead of schedule here. That's in August. Lesley Logan 11:19  If it's in August, we open the doors in May. Brad Crowell 11:21  So that's exciting. We can't wait. It's gonna be awesome this year. We have a different route. I was just reviewing it with the team. We're going to be going, like, directly across the country, straight across all the way to Tennessee and back. So we're doing, like, a big, long oval in the middle of the country, hitting—Lesley Logan 11:35  We're not going to go up into the Michigan?Brad Crowell 11:37  We're not I was, I was—Lesley Logan 11:39  We lied to everybody. Brad Crowell 11:40  We lied to everyone last week and the week and the week before. Yeah, 100% we are hitting Dallas, though we're gonna catch that on the way back. Lesley Logan 11:46  Okay, I feel like a little sad for our Chicago Michiganders, you know. Brad Crowell 11:52  Yeah, I definitely—Brad Crowell 11:53  All those people. Brad Crowell 11:54  Well, we were just there in September in Chicago.Lesley Logan 11:56  I know, but it's not. We weren't in Minneapolis. Brad Crowell 11:59  We will work it out. We'll work it out. But this tour is going across the country, and, yeah, but, but come join us if you're able to, you know, find out all the information at opc.me/tour. Lesley Logan 12:08  I'm really excited! I realize I didn't sound as excited as I am. I'm just, I like, I had it in my head that we were, like, doing the middle, and we're doing a different middle. Lesley Logan 12:18  We are doing the middle.Lesley Logan 12:19   It wasn't clear. I wasn't clear— Brad Crowell 12:20  Yeah it's a different middle—Lesley Logan 12:21  I manifested the wrong oval. Brad Crowell 12:23  (Laughs)Lesley Logan 12:23  Okay, noted for next time. Well, before we get into the episode, what is the question of the week? Lesley Logan 12:30  Yeah, so, okay, this is from advocate_pilates on Instagram. She asked, Hey, Lesley, what mat do you use? Does it have good grip, and do you use it for Mat Pilates? Yeah, yeah. So I don't I have a mat that's just for Pilates, and I have a mat that's for yoga, and that's intentional. They are two different practices. They require two different needs. So I use a contrology mat for Pilates. It has a firm density, which doesn't mean it's hard as a rock. It's actually quite great for when you roll on it, you don't have to worry about, like, touching the floor or anything like that, but it's firm enough to do plank so your wrists don't have any issues, and shoulders have any issues. And we have an incredible affiliate link that you can use to get a discount on that mat as handles. Brad Crowell 13:11  It's opc.me/foldingmat, foldingmat. Lesley Logan 13:16  And as far as, like, good grip, I'm imagining you mean on the floor. And so what I would say is, like, I you probably would put a pad down if you had hardwood floors, because there is, like, some metal on the bottom that you don't want to scratch your hardwood floors, and that would keep it from sliding around. Pretty much any mat. You should all be mindful of stepping on mats on hardwood floors, because a lot of mats will slip around. So even if they have good grip with your skin. They always have good grip on the hardwood floors. We have tile and we have a rug. So it doesn't slide around on our tile. It doesn't slide around our rugs. It is a heavy duty. Brad Crowell 13:49  I mean, it's, it weighs like, you know, 20 pounds. Brad Crowell 13:52  Oh, yeah. Brad Crowell 13:53  It's not light, yeah. It's not like a, it's not a, this is not a yoga mat.Lesley Logan 13:56  No, no, no. So Dan, so I it is an investment. But to me, your mat practice is something you're going to do forever, and it's something, well, this mat, you'll buy one, and you'll have it forever, and there's that. So that's what's really great. Versus my yoga mat.Brad Crowell 14:09  Buy one get that one forever,Lesley Logan 14:11  Get one forever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Versus my yoga mats that I inevitably have to replace even every 10 years because they start to just fall apart, Yep, yeah.Brad Crowell 14:21  Well, if you have a question, ping us. Let us know. Send us a text. 310-905-5534, or, you know, and easier is go to be it pod.com/questions we can leave us either a win or a question. We are looking forward to getting those from you so we can celebrate your wins on Fuck Yeah Friday, fuck yeah. Stick around. We'll be right back. We're gonna start chatting about Billy Lhar.Brad Crowell 14:46  All right, let's talk about Billy Lahr. Billy is the creator and host of the Mindful Midlife Crisis podcast and a Certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher with a background in education and behavior change. He spent over two decades working in education, including Leadership roles before stepping away in 2021 since then, Billy's focused on coaching and consulting while living and working internationally. Definitely describes himself as a nomad. He also facilitates the Jump Start, Jump Start Conversation Series, a free weekly conversation space that's relaxed and collaborative, where coaches often join to connect with peers and share perspectives without the pressure of performing. We're gonna put the link for that in the signup notes below. So if you're interested in that, if that's something that you know you want, like a support group kind of vibe or just a hangout community, sesh, you know, go check that out.Lesley Logan 15:31  Yeah, I think this is really fun. I love that. He said he's not a fan of getting out of your comfort zone to grow. I think that's great. It's like— Brad Crowell 15:40  He said, fuck that. I've been working hard to get into my comfort zone.Lesley Logan 15:42  Yeah, I resonate with that. Because, like, so many of us are, like, trying to figure out who we are. And so, like, it's kind of hard to, like, figure who you are and then get out of your comfort zone if you don't who you are. And but he said to be cautious when we get into the complacency zone. Brad Crowell 15:56  Yeah, I thought that was a cool term—Lesley Logan 15:57  I think that's, I think that that's really, we see that happen all the time with people who teach Pilates, like, sometimes they just get like, they're just like, going through the motions. And, you know, they it's not that they lost their zest for it, but something kind of happened along the way. Maybe they were restricted in too many ways, and they're just like, okay, I'm just gonna do this. But there's no it's okay to be in your comfort zone. Just notice, if you're in your complacency zone, what a great thing. He also suggested, like expanding your life from within, rather than forcing yourself into discomfort from the outside. And I mean, I think, look, here's the deal. We do understand that, like diamonds are made from pressure, and stressing your bones is how you make healthy bones, and stressing your muscles is how you make healthy muscles, like all that stuff is very, very true, but I do think that some people are constant, like, like, they're constantly putting themselves into experiences that maybe is too much, that they're going like, you're doing too much working out, or you're doing too much stress on the bones, and so you're never actually reaping the rewards and the benefits of those things. And so he actually likened it to you you stretch your comfort zone, like pizza dough from the inside. Brad Crowell 17:04  Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. I like the vision, he said. He said, Only heathens pull your pizza dough. You have to press it from the middle. You got to press it from the inside to expand your pizza dough.Lesley Logan 17:14  Yeah, that's why. But I think that just goes—Brad Crowell 17:16  Before we got talking with pizza zone. I want to just define complacency zone, because, you know, comfort zone versus complacency zone, Comfort, he's his argument is that it's okay to be in your comfort zone, but you can get complacent once you get there. And I look, I was just thinking about it, it's like a stagnant place. It's where you're stuck, you know, and you're you're also, it's not just that you're stuck, but you're also, like, unwilling to change. You are resisting change, right? And you're relying on familiar, outdated routines. So, you know, I think that there's definitely a difference between being in the comfort zone and being in a complacency zone. But I do like this the analogy of, like, stretching like a pizza dough, you know?Lesley Logan 17:54  Yeah, I do too. Pilate is all about moving from your center outward. And I also think, like, sometimes people are easy to just go, Well, I'm just gonna change the outside. I'm gonna change from the outside in versus the inside out. Brad Crowell 18:05  Yeah. Yeah.Lesley Logan 18:06  Because a lot of the things you get marketed to are, like, outside, exterior, like, you know, what do you call it? Like external things or physical things? It's not necessarily like getting to know who you are. And so I think that there's something about, you know, it's not, I don't think he's advocating that you just like, sit around in your comfy couch and just like, chill out. But I do think it goes back to like, how we coach studios, like, we want your business to be a little boring, not that you're complacent, but that it's predictable, right? That that it's okay to be in a comfortable place with your business, that it's predictable in its seasons, you'll still have to keep learning. There'll still be new tools to know. There's still going to be things out there that are going to stress you in a different way, but you don't have to find new ways to challenge yourself and get outside your comfort zone all the time. You can. You can actually have some predictability there, as long as you're not complacent. I like it.Brad Crowell 18:53  Yeah. So, you know, when he was talking about pushing back against negative, this idea of being selfish, I was laughing so hard, because we've been talking about this for a long time, that self-care isn't selfish, and I really loved that we're not the only one talking about it. He said, there's not necessarily something wrong with being selfish if you've been overly selfless, right? Like, because I think we get into this, you two are really digging in, you know? And he's saying, you know, we, we think that when we're selfless, we're quote, unquote correct or right, and then when we are selfish, we're wrong, right. And what he was saying is, like, those are both actual extremes. Yeah, you know, what if we were grounded or self centered? Or, what if we focus about centered self, not like, in a negative way, but like, how do we— Lesley Logan 19:49  I know, so—Brad Crowell 19:50  How can we be both of those things instead of like, one or the other?Lesley Logan 19:53  I know, I think, like, because self centered has such a negative connotation, but like, a centered self is, like, whelmed, right? Like—Lesley Logan 19:59  Yeah. Lesley Logan 20:00  So if, like, selfless and self-ish are overwhelmed and underwhelmed, right, then centered self would be whelmed, right?Brad Crowell 20:07  It'd be right in the middle and and that allows you to protect yourself, you know, to put yourself first in some situations and then in others still, of course, you know, serve others, and that's good. But—Lesley Logan 20:20  We have, we have a series coming out about like, giving yourself permission to become whatever it is that you want to be. And there's actually, like, this term called the permission gap that I get into in the episode series that I created. And it's actually all because the way society is is it raises women to feel that they are selfish if they prioritize themselves first, yeah, and so they must care for everyone else's needs ahead of their own, and then they can care for themselves. But there's no time after doing all that—Brad Crowell 20:49  That's, that's just illogical. It's not sustainable. Lesley Logan 20:52  Right. Brad Crowell 20:53  What, what ends up happening is, you're burnt out? Lesley Logan 20:55  Yeah. Brad Crowell 20:55  Yeah. Brad Crowell 20:55  There's a reason why. Like, speaking of Healthcare Advocacy Day, there is a reason why you can actually pay for some way that your health insurance pays someone to take care of you, because it is impossible for someone, or most people, in your life, to take off of work to care for you. There's a reason why we have home health aides, right? Because we—Brad Crowell 21:15  Yeah.Lesley Logan 21:15  We do live in a world where like you can't just like care for other people all the time at the expense of your own self?Brad Crowell 21:22  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the that's the key. That's true. Well, you know, anyway, I just thought they were great topics. So stick around. We'll be right back. We got some really fun BE IT action items from Billy Lhar as well. So we'll be right back.Brad Crowell 21:36  Alright, so finally, let's talk about those BE IT action items, what bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted action items can we take away from your conversation with Billy Lhar. He said he rejects the standard social question of, like, what do you do? And I found this really intriguing, because I love that what do you do is an open ended question, and I'm always interested, I asked that's exactly the question that I ask, what do you do? Because what people how they respond to that question tells me a lot, because when they turn around and say, what do I do? I say, I sleep a lot, or I play video games or, you know, but what they're implying with the question is, what do you do for work? So that's kind of interesting to me, but I loved that he like, he's like, no, screw that. Because people always answer with what do they do for work, which is, is boring. And I thought that was—Lesley Logan 22:22  Not what I do for work, but, you know, but other people are boring. (Laughs)Brad Crowell 22:26  No, but he. here's the thing, effectively, he doesn't want to talk about what he does for work, because he said, he said, I was an English teacher. That's boring, you know. So, you know, what he started doing instead was asking people different questions, and he said they often were like, like shocking or eye opening, or like, whoa, you're we don't even know each other, and you're asking me this kind of question. And he said he the question he likes to leave with is, what are 10 roles that you play in your life, 10 roles that you play in your life, right?Lesley Logan 22:56  Yeah, yeah. I think I would make it three. I feel like I don't want to sit there long enough (inaudible)—Brad Crowell 23:01  First five are always the same. What are your 10 roles? I'm a daughter, I'm a sister, I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm a husband. Whatever. He said, It's always that crap. But then once they get through that crap, then they have to tell you something interesting about themselves. What like because they run out of they run out of the obvious things. So then they think about it, and then they have to tell you something. So that's, I think that might be part of why it's 10. He argues that a person's value and interest lie in the various roles that they play outside of those standard things. Like, I'm a paddle boarder. I'm this, I'm a, you know, like, I'm a, I'm a long haul driver for when we go on tour. I'm a I sit behind a booth. I'm a boother. (Laughs)Lesley Logan 23:44  (Laughs)Brad Crowell 23:47  Just making shit up here. He said, he said, also, you know, it helps, because you're not just one thing in your life, and so it like battles complacency when you're when, when you're engaging people on these other things that they're excited about. So—Lesley Logan 24:02  Yeah, I think that's cool, I guess, I guess you're right. You have to go to 10. That's just a big question. If I don't know if I want to talk to that person for that long. Brad Crowell 24:10  Yeah, I feel like that makes sense.Lesley Logan 24:11  He's clearly interested in people, and I'm like, I you know, we can go. Brad Crowell 24:15  What about you? Lesley Logan 24:16  I, okay, so he said, follow your passion is complete and utter nonsense. Brad Crowell 24:21  (Laughs)Lesley Logan 24:21  I think this is so funny. Brad Crowell 24:23  I liked his logic here. I thought this was pretty awesome actually. Lesley Logan 24:26  He said, and I think this is helpful, because, like, people are always like, what am I passionate about? Like, what's my hobby? Like this—Brad Crowell 24:31  Yeah, what should I do? Lesley Logan 24:32  What should I do for like, passion is not a starting point. Passion is a byproduct of this formula. Step one, figure out what you are good at and your strengths. So we have had many a strength finder type coach on here. Oh yeah, so you can go talk to any of them. They are so many. From day one of this podcast, there's been so many. And then he said, jumps he has— Brad Crowell 24:54  He's got a workbook. Lesley Logan 24:54  He's a workhouse, workbook called Jump Start Your Midlife Workbook, and you could take that. So that's part of step one. Got to figure out what you're good at, what are your strengths? Step two, what are you curious about, and how can you leverage those skills and those strengths to learn more? So there's a Venn diagram I'm imagining. This is how I picture it, your skills, your strengths, and what you're curious about. And then dude in the middle, there's like you. And then you take that to find a community. So find people you can connect with, and they'll help you. That will help you identify your purpose. Because even if you don't like them, you'll go, I don't like that. That's not my purpose. And then in then, if you want to turn that purpose into a passion, you just multiply that by consistency, discipline, patience and self-compassion. So then you you put, you know, fuel to that fire.Brad Crowell 25:38  Yeah, and I think that he emphasized the last two and that the patience and self-compassion— Lesley Logan 25:45  Oh yeah. Brad Crowell 25:45  So like when you want to turn something that you're good at into your passion, he said, you need to multiply it by consistency, discipline, patience and self-compassion. And he said, most people, we've all heard you know consistency, persistent and consistent, be persistent and consistent, you know, which, which obviously also means discipline. But he said, we always skip the patience and self-compassion part of it. Lesley Logan 26:10  Yeah.Brad Crowell 26:11  Because you're gonna fail and it's also not gonna happen overnight, whatever it might be. Lesley Logan 26:15  Yep.Brad Crowell 26:15  You know.Lesley Logan 26:16  Yep. I agree. I think radical self-compassion is important.Brad Crowell 26:21  Radical self-compassion.Lesley Logan 26:22  Yes. Brad Crowell 26:23  I dig it.Lesley Logan 26:23  Yes. Just like radical responsibility. That's my right, my favorite phrase right now, I want more people to take it. Um, you guys, I'm Lesley Logan and I'm Brad Crowell. This sinus infection will pass and, but not on next week's episode. So just a heads up. We got one more and, but we're working on it. You know we are, and I appreciate your patience and the self-compassion I'm having for myself and the compassion you're having for me. Send his episode, or this one to a friend who needs to hear it. Send your be it pod wins and and your questions into beitpod.com What does it beitpod.com/questions Yeah. Send them there. And until next time, be it till you see it. Brad Crowell 26:56  Bye for now. Lesley Logan 26:58  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod. Brad Crowell 27:40  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell. Lesley Logan 27:45  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co. Brad Crowell 27:49  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi. Lesley Logan 27:57  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals. Brad Crowell 28:00  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.  Brad Crowell 28:13  All right, let's talk about Billy Lhar. Billy is the creator and host of the Mindfulness, Mindful Midknife (inaudible).Lesley Logan 28:18  (Laughs)Brad Crowell 28:18  (Inaudible). Starting over.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

For all those who missed out on London, see you in Miami next week!Notion, the knowledge work decacorn, has been building AI tooling since before ChatGPT, with many hits from Q&A in 2023 and unified AI in 2024 and Meeting Notes in 2025. At the end of their last Make user conference, Ryan Nystrom teased Notion 3.0's Custom Agents - and they are finally embracing the Agent Lab playbook!Sarah Sachs and Simon Last of Notion join us for a deep dive into how Notion built Custom Agents, why it took years and multiple rebuilds to get right, and what it means to turn a productivity tool into an agent-native system of record for enterprise work.We go inside the product, engineering, evals, pricing, and org design decisions behind one of the most ambitious AI product efforts in software today — from early failed tool-calling experiments in 2022 to agent harnesses, progressive tool disclosure, meeting notes as data capture, and the long-term vision for software factories and agentic work.We discuss:* Sarah and Simon's path to launching Notion Custom Agents, and why the feature was rebuilt four or five times before it was ready for production* Why early agent attempts failed: no tool-calling standard, short context windows, unreliable models, and too much complexity exposed to the model* The “Agent Lab” thesis: not just wrapping a model, but understanding how people collaborate and building the right product system around frontier capabilities* How Notion thinks about roadmap timing: not swimming upstream against model limitations, but also building early enough that the product is ready when the models are* Why coding agents feel like the kernel of AGI, and how Notion is thinking about “software factories” made up of agents that spec, code, test, debug, review, and maintain codebases together* How Sarah runs AI engineering at Notion (“notes from Token Town”): objective-setting over idea ownership, low-ego teams comfortable deleting their own work, and a culture designed to swarm around fast-changing opportunities* The “Simon Vortex,” company hackathons, and why security gets pulled in early rather than late* How Notion organizes AI: core AI capabilities and infrastructure, product packaging teams, and a broader company mandate that every product surface must increasingly work for both humans and agents* Why prototypes have become much easier to build internally, and how “demos over memos” changes product development inside a tool the whole company already uses every day* Notion's eval philosophy: regression tests, launch-quality evals, and “frontier/headroom” evals that intentionally only pass ~30% of the time so the company can see where model capabilities are going* What a “Model Behavior Engineer” is, and why Notion treats eval writing, failure analysis, and model understanding as a distinct function rather than just software engineering* The changing role of software engineers in the age of coding agents, and why the new job looks less like typing code and more like supervising a rigorous outer system of agents, PRs, and verification loops* How the “software factory” should work: specs, self-verification, bug flows, subagents, and minimizing human intervention while preserving the invariants that matter* A live walkthrough of a Notion Custom Agent handling coworking space tenant applications by triaging email, enriching applicants with web search, and writing structured data into a Notion database* How agents compose inside Notion: shared databases as primitives, agents invoking other agents, “manager agents” supervising dozens of specialized agents, and memory implemented simply as pages and databases* Notion's take on MCP vs CLI: why Simon is bullish on CLI's self-debugging nature, where MCP still makes sense, and how Sarah thinks about capability, determinism, permissioning, and pricing alignment* The evolution of Notion's internal agent harness: from early JavaScript coding agents, to custom XML, to Markdown and SQL-like abstractions, to tool definitions, progressive disclosure, and a much shorter system prompt* Why Notion cares about teaching “the top of the class,” building for sophisticated operators rather than abstracting away too much capability for everyone* How agent setup works today: agents that can configure themselves, inspect their own failures, and edit their own instructions — with guardrails around permissions* How Notion prices Custom Agents: credits as an abstraction over tokens, model type, serving tier, web search, and future sandbox costs; why usage-based pricing was necessary; and how “auto” tries to match the right model to the right task* Why Notion is not eager to train a foundation model, where they do fine-tune and optimize today, and why retrieval/ranking is one of the most important investment areas as more searches come from agents rather than humans* Why Meeting Notes became one of Notion's strongest growth loops: not just as transcription, but as high-signal data capture that powers search, custom agents, follow-up workflows, and the broader system of record for company collaboration* Why Notion is more interested in being the place where collaboration data lives than in building hardware themselves — and how wearables or other capture devices may eventually feed into that systemSarah SachsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmsachsX: https://x.com/sarahmsachsSimon LastLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-last-41404140X: https://x.com/simonlastFull Video EpisodeTimestamps* 00:00:00 Introduction and launching Notion Custom Agents* 00:01:17 Why Notion rebuilt agents four or five times* 00:03:35 Building for where models are going, not just where they are* 00:05:32 The Agent Lab thesis, wrappers, and product intuition* 00:08:07 User journeys, leadership, and low-ego AI teams* 00:13:16 The Simon Vortex, hackathons, and bringing security in early* 00:16:39 Team structure, demos over memos, and building for agents* 00:20:25 Evals, Notion's Last Exam, and the Model Behavior Engineer role* 00:27:37 Evals as an agent harness and the changing role of software engineers* 00:30:42 The software factory: specs, verification, and agent workflows* 00:32:18 Live demo: a custom agent for coworking space applications* 00:35:08 Composing agents, manager agents, and memory as pages* 00:38:15 Notion Mail, Gmail, native integrations, and tools* 00:39:43 MCP vs CLI and the cost of capability* 00:44:13 When Notion uses MCP vs building its own integrations* 00:47:43 The history of Notion's agent harness rebuilds* 00:55:35 Power users, public tools, and the setup agent* 00:58:01 Self-fixing agents, permissions, and “flippy”* 01:01:13 Pricing, credits, and choosing the right model automatically* 01:09:01 Why Notion isn't training its own frontier model* 01:14:07 Retrieval, ranking, and search built for agents* 01:17:27 Meeting Notes as data capture and workflow automation* 01:21:18 Wearables, hardware, and Notion as the system of record* 01:23:45 OutroTranscript[00:00:00] Alessio: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Latent Space podcast. This is Alessio founder of Kernel Labs and I'm joined by swyx, editor of the Latent Space.[00:00:11] swyx: Hello. Hello. We're back in the beautiful studio that, uh, Alessio has set up for us with Simon and Sarah from Notion. Welcome.[00:00:18] Sarah Sachs: Thanks for having us.[00:00:19] Alessio: Thanks for having us. Yeah.[00:00:20] swyx: Congrats on the launch recently the custom agents, finally it's here. How's it feel?[00:00:26] Sarah Sachs: We ship things slowly. So it had been in Alpha for a little bit and at the point at which is it's an alpha, um, there's a group of people that are making sure it's ready for prod, and then there's a group of people working on the next thing.So sometimes some of these launches are a bit delayed satisfaction, so it's quite nice to remind yourself all the work you did because we do have a habit of like. Being two or three milestones ahead. Uh, just ‘cause you have to be, you know, you can't get complacent. Um, but it's been great that people understood how this is helpful.And I think that's just easier in general building AI tools today than it was two, three years ago. People kind of get it and so that user education, um, there's just, it was our most successful launch in terms of free trials and converting people and things like that. It was really successful, so yeah.But there's a lot to build.[00:01:12] swyx: Making it free for three months helps.[00:01:16] Sarah Sachs: Yep.[00:01:17] Simon Last: It was definitely super exciting for me because it's probably the fourth or fifth time that we rebuilt that.[00:01:22] swyx: Yes.[00:01:23] Simon Last: And I mean,[00:01:24] swyx: you've been building this since like 20, 22.[00:01:26] Simon Last: Yeah, I mean, like, it was even right when we got access to like GPT four in late 20 22, 1 of the first ideas we had is like, oh, okay, let's make an agent that I, we used the word assistant at the time, there wasn't really the word, the word agent yet, but, oh, we'll give an access to all the tools the notion can do, and then it, we run in the background like, like do work for us.And then we just tried that many times and it just. Was too early. Um,[00:01:48] swyx: I need to force you to like double click on that. What is too early? What didn't work?[00:01:52] Sarah Sachs: We were fine to, like, before function calling came out. We were trying to fine tune with the Frontier Labs and with fireworks, like a function calling model on notion functions.This is right when I joined. I joined because, um, we needed a manager as Simon was needed to be able to go on vacation. So, uh, that's, that's around when I joined, so you can speak much more to it.[00:02:11] Simon Last: Yeah, we did partnerships with both philanthropic and open AI at different times, uh, to try to, at the time the, I mean, when we first tried, there wasn't even a constant of like tools yet.We, we sort of designed our own like, like tool calling framework and then we tried to fine tune the models to, uh, to use it over multiple turns. Um, and because it, it didn't work well out the box, I think. Yeah. The models are just too dumb and the context thing was also way too short.[00:02:37] Alsesio: Yeah.[00:02:37] Simon Last: Um, and yeah, we just kind of banged our head against it for a long time.Uh, unfortunately it was always like, there was always like sort of. Glimmers that it was working, but um, it never felt quite robust enough to be like a useful, delightful thing. Um, until I would say, uh, the big unlock was probably like Sonic 3.6 or seven, uh, early last year. And that's when we started working on our agent, which we shipped last year.Um, and then, and then uh, uh, custom agents, kinda a similar capability and that, that one just took longer because we, we just wanted to get the reliability up a lot higher. ‘cause it's actually running in the background.[00:03:14] Sarah Sachs: And the product interface of like permissions and understanding, you know, this custom agent is shared in a Slack channel with X group of people and has access to documents that are surfaced to Y group of people.And the intersect experts, Y might not be whole. And so how do you build the product around making sure administrators understand that permissioning took multiple swings.[00:03:35] Alsesio: Everything is hard back at the end of the day. Yeah. I'm curious, like when the models are not working, how do you inform the product roadmap of like, okay, we should probably build, expecting the models to be better at some reasonable pace, but at the same time we need to, you know, you had a lot of customers in 2022.It's not like you were a new company or like no user base.[00:03:54] Simon Last: Yeah, I mean I think there's always the balance of, you know, like you want to be a GI pilled and thinking ahead and building for where things are going. Uh, but also you wanna be like shipping useful things. And so we always try to like, like keep a balance there.You know, we. We try to take clear, like a portfolio approach. You know, we're always working on multiple projects and, and we're always trying to work on, you know, maintaining things where that have already shipped, like, like shipping new things that are like eminently working well and make them really good.And, and then we wanna always have a few projects that are a little bit crazy. Um,[00:04:23] Alsesio: and what are the a GI peel projects that you have today? I'm curious about, uh, you don't have to share exactly what you're working on, but I'm curious what are things today that maybe in 18 months people will be like, oh, obviously this was gonna work[00:04:35] Sarah Sachs: 18 months.[00:04:37] Alsesio: Yeah, 18 months is, you know,[00:04:37] Sarah Sachs: it's a long time and Yeah. Yeah.[00:04:39] Simon Last: I mean, there's a number of things happening. I think one thing that's becoming more clear is I think like, like, uh, coding agents are the kernel of EGI, sort of, everything is a coding agent. Mm-hmm. I think that's, that's sort of one, one direction.Um, and then, yeah, the exciting thing about that is sort of your agent can sort of bootstrap its own software and capabilities and actually debug and maintain them. And so yeah, we're, we're, we're thinking a lot about that. And then, yeah, like, like another category of things that I'm, I'm really excited about is like, uh, we call the software factory also.People are using this, uh, this, this sort of word. Um, basically it just means can you create sort of like a, as automated as possible, a workflow for developing debugging. Mm-hmm. Merging, reviewing, and maintaining a code base and a service where there's a bunch of agents working together inside, and like, like how does that work?[00:05:28] Sarah Sachs: If you think back to your initial question, like, why did this take so long? I think something,[00:05:32] swyx: I didn't say that, but Yes. Okay. Go ahead.[00:05:34] Sarah Sachs: Why, what, what changed over the three and half years of trying[00:05:37] swyx: it? Exactly. Right. Because most people always say like, it didn't work yet. Then reasoning models came, then it worked.I was like, okay, let's go a little[00:05:43] Sarah Sachs: bit. That's, I mean, that's part of it, but I think the other part of it that I actually think is really what will set notion apart for every new capability is we have like. Two skills that are crucial when it comes to frontier capabilities. One is not letting yourself swim upstream.So like quickly realizing if you're just pressing against model capabilities versus not exposing the model to the right information, not having the right infrastructure set up. That and of itself is the skill of intuition. And the second is to see, okay, you're not swimming upstream. Which direction is the river flowing and what is like, how do we think ahead about the product and start building it even if it's not great yet, so that when it is there, we're ready for it.Right? And like those can sometimes feel like counterintuitive things. Like we can be trying to fine tune a tool calling model when they don't exist yet. And that the trick is to not do that for too long, but realize that there was something there. And we've had a lot of things which like, um, we're just like not swimming in the right direction with the streams.I think we had multiple versions of transcription before we got meeting notes, right? Oh, I gotta talk[00:06:39] swyx: about that. Yeah.[00:06:40] Sarah Sachs: Yeah. Um, and so. I, I, I think that like we, we really closely partner with the Frontier Labs on capabilities and we also have to have strong conviction on, as those capabilities move.Notion is about being the best place for you to collaborate and do your work. And how does that narrative change if the way that we work changes?Yeah.[00:06:58] swyx: Yeah. You told me you were a fan of the Agent Lab thesis, and this is, this is kind of it, right?[00:07:02] Sarah Sachs: Right. I show that thesis to so many candidates. Like I have it as like micro chrome autofill.Um, at this point, like it's one of my most visitations[00:07:10] swyx: because like, is this the, here's why you should work in notion and not open, open eye. I, it's like,[00:07:14] Sarah Sachs: here's, here's what's different about it.[00:07:16] swyx: Yeah.[00:07:16] Sarah Sachs: And here's why. It's not just a rapper. I actually think more and more people understand it's not just a wrapper.[00:07:21] swyx: Yeah.[00:07:22] Sarah Sachs: Um, and by the way, like in the beginning, parts of what we build are wrappers on functionality. That works well, of course, but that's not really the most, um. I would say that's not the product that, that drives revenue. And that's not necessarily always what users need.[00:07:35] swyx: I mean, you know, notion is the AWS wrapper, but like the, the wrapper is very beautiful and like very, very well polished.So[00:07:40] Sarah Sachs: like the analogy,[00:07:41] swyx: like[00:07:42] Sarah Sachs: the analogy that I've been coming back to his Datadog in AWS[00:07:45] swyx: Yeah.[00:07:46] Sarah Sachs: So, uh, Datadog could not exist with, without cloud storage. Right. That it's kind of fundamental that that works. Um, and AWS has like a CloudWatch product, but Datadog is an expert on understanding how people want observability on the products they launch.And we're experts in understanding how people wanna collaborate, and that's really where our expertise lies.[00:08:04] swyx: Totally.[00:08:04] Sarah Sachs: Um, regardless of the tools that we use,[00:08:07] Alsesio: I'm kind of curious how you think about implicit versus explicit expertise. I feel like Datadog is half and half implicit and explicit. It's like they understand across markets and industries what engineering teams usually look for.With notion, it's almost like more of the expertise is at the edge because you as a platform, you're like so horizontal that the end user is not really the same. Mm-hmm. Like with Datadog, the end user is always like, yeah, an engineering lead, a kinda like SRE related person with notion. It can be anything.So I'm curious how you put that expertise into a product versus, you know, obviously it, WS cannot build notion. It's, that doesn't quite work in this case, but[00:08:44] Simon Last: it's, it's a little bit differently shaped. I think, you know, a classic vertical SaaS, like the data is kind of like that. They understand their individual customer very deeply.It's kinda a narrow slice, um, notion has always been super horizontal. And our, our task has always been to sort of balance these two somewhat opposing forces of like, we're listening to our customers and what they want us to build. It's a broad slice. And then also we're thinking about like, okay, how do we decompose what they want into, uh, nice primitives that are, that are really nice to use and we'll, we'll get us like as much bang for the buck as possible.And then, you know. Maintain the whole system, make it all like, like super clean and nice to use.[00:09:22] Sarah Sachs: We still have user journeys. I mean, we still focus on like core. I actually think the failure of our team is when we focus too much on what are cools that are, what are tools that are[00:09:31] Simon Last: mm-hmm.[00:09:31] Sarah Sachs: Cool tools. I actually think that's when we make have the least velocity because you still need some sort of focus on a user journey.So like for instance, we'll all sit down every Friday and look at the P 99 of like the most token exhaustive custom agent transcript and just look at why it didn't do well and cut a bunch of tasks. Like we still focus on like, this has, like this should work. Email triaging should work. Mm-hmm. Right. And similarly, like when we're talking about before building, um, chatting, um, before we started filming about, okay, how can I do PDF export?Well that's functionality that then merits. Maybe we should build a tool that has access to a computer sandbox in a file system and the ability to write code. Right? Right. Um, but it's because we're thinking about the fact that our users to do their, to do their daily work, need to export PDFs, not because we're like, Hmm, I think a computer tool could be cool.Like, let's just see what happens. Mm-hmm. Like we, we have to focus on some user journeys, otherwise we just don't have like, enough strategy to, to prioritize.[00:10:29] swyx: I think there's a lot of like really strong opinions that you've had. Do you have like sort of like a towel of Sarah Sachs? Like, you know, like what, how do you run your team?Like I feel like you just have accumulated all these strong opinions. Obviously part, part of this is your, your token town thing.[00:10:43] Sarah Sachs: I think the TAs working with Service X is, um, you'd have to, it depends who you ask. Um, I think it depends if you're on my team or a partner Right. Or a vendor.[00:10:54] swyx: Yeah. There other people want to run their teams the way that you're Yeah.You're like bringing these things. And then also similarly, uh, Simon, when you did the custom agents demo, you had like, well, we've been using custom agents and here's the super long list of everything that we do. No humans ever read it. Right? That's what you said. I was like,[00:11:07] Sarah Sachs: yeah. So I think for, for me, um, something that I learned very quickly and became very comfortable with was that my job was not to be the ideas per person or the technical expert.My job was to make it so that everybody understood the objective, had a resource to help prioritize what they should work on, and had an avenue to prioritize what they thought was important. And I think that's true with all, all leadership, but I think especially on the AI team. Almost all of our best ideas come from prototypes, from people that have a cool idea because they saw a user problem, and it's a huge disservice if all of those ideas have to pass, like the sniff test of what me and a product partner or Simon and Ivan decided were the direction, right?Because a lot of what we're doing is leaning into capabilities, so. I think that's the first thing is like, I don't really view like the role of engineering leadership as like, uh, hierarchical, nor has it ever been, but especially now, like very willing to change direction based on, um, like proof is in the pudding.Yeah. And like, and I think we have rebuilt our harness three or four times. And when you do that, then the second rule of engineering leadership is like you need to build a team that's comfortable deleting their own code and is very low ego and is driven by what's best for the company. And, um, doesn't write design docs because they think it's their promotion packet.Right. And that's a culture that notion had long before I joined, but like our willingness to just swarm on different problems and um, redo things that we've built before because something has changed. Like, there's a lot of friction that can happen at companies when you do that. And it doesn't happen at Notion.And because it doesn't happen when new people join. Like they don't wanna be the ones that are saying, we shouldn't do this. I wrote that code. So then it's, you know, you, you create a culture that everyone thoughts and that culture comes directly, I think from Simon and Ivan though, um, because they're very open-minded.[00:12:50] swyx: Anything that you,[00:12:50] Simon Last: you'd add? I'm not a manager, like, like, like Sarah is. Um, a lot of my role is really to try to think a little bit ahead, make sure that we're, we're building on the right capabilities and then like the prototyping stuff. And yeah, it's really, really critical to always just be starting again.It's like, okay, this is new thing. What does this mean? What if we just rethought everything or wrote everything? And so I, I'm, I'm basically just doing that in a loop every six months.[00:13:16] swyx: Yeah. Do you believe in internal hackathons for this stuff?[00:13:19] Sarah Sachs: I think there's like two different versions. So one is like, we just have a, a, a solid bench of senior engineers that come and go on what we call the Simon Vortex and Productionizing what we built, right?Because when you're in the Simon Vortex, the velocity is super high. The direction changes daily, and it's meant to be like the equivalent of a SC Works lab. We don't need to do hackathons for that. We need to have senior engineers that we trust to come in and out of those projects. For instance, like management boundaries are really loose.Like you report to him, but you work for her right now. Yeah. That's something that when we hire managers, it's important they don't care about because we tend to form more structures. Yeah. Don't be too[00:13:54] swyx: territorial.[00:13:55] Sarah Sachs: We form more. It's after we ship things, not not before, just historically. Um, the second thing is we do have companywide hackathons.Actually we just had our demos day for the hackathon we had last week this morning. That's more for people that aren't directly working on the project, feeling like they have the time to pause and learn how to make themselves more productive or how they would use notion custom agents to build something.Or part of the hackathon was actually encouraging everyone across the company to build their own agentic tool loop, calling from scratch. Follow like an every blog post on how to do what I think because we want[00:14:26] swyx: just with the compound engineering one. Yeah.[00:14:28] Sarah Sachs: We want everyone to use cloud code in the company or whatever the coding agent they please and understand that fundamental.So we set aside a day and a half. We're all leadership, encourage everyone on their teams across the company to do it. So we have hackathons like that. I would say like kind of facetiously, like everything we build is a little bit like a hackathon until it graduates and puts on big boy pants and as a product ops rollout leader and has a assigned data scientists and stuff like that,[00:14:54] swyx: security review enterprise stuff,[00:14:56] Sarah Sachs: actually security reviews one of the things that we bring in first because it just slows us down way more and, um, causes a lot of tension and they build better product if they're involved early.So, um, that is probably the first person to get involved in something that's the[00:15:09] swyx: right PR approved answer.[00:15:10] Sarah Sachs: No, but it's not just PR approved. It like, um, um, it's[00:15:13] swyx: actually real. It's actually real. It's like, um, I'm just saying scar[00:15:15] Sarah Sachs: tissue.[00:15:15] swyx: Yeah,[00:15:16] Sarah Sachs: because like, you know, my background's also, I worked at Robinhood for a number of years.Yes. So like, uh, compliance and things like that, um, are a little bit more, you learn the hard way when it doesn't come naturally.[00:15:26] Simon Last: Yeah. I think the. The hackathon is really important for uplifting the general population, but like, if that's the only way you can build new things, you're kind of toast. I mean, it, it has to be like the daily processes, like, you know, building these new things.Um, and it has to be about, I think like, I think in the AI era a lot more leverage accumulates to the most curious and excited people. And so it's like we're all about just like activating that energy. You know, like if someone's protesting something on the weekend that they're excited about and it's important, that should be the main thing that we're doing.Yeah. Um, it's not a hackathon that we schedule once a quarter, it's just like, yeah. Daily process. Part of the culture.[00:16:02] Sarah Sachs: I mean, that's how we shift image generation and notion now. It was always this thing that would be kind of nice to have, but it wasn't really clear where that was necessarily aligned in product priorities.It'd be a lot of work. And we had someone on the database collections team, Jimmy, who was like. I really wanna do image generation for cover photos and inside notion. And we're like, if you wanna build it, like it's, do it please. Like we encourage you. We gave ‘em all the resources of working directly with Gemini and being able to like track the token usage and it working through endpoints.We gave them eval, support, everything, and then became a, a full project.[00:16:34] Alsesio: Yeah.[00:16:35] Sarah Sachs: That's why you can't have like ego as a, a leader. Like that's, that's how we work.[00:16:39] Alsesio: What's the size of the team today, both engineering and overall?[00:16:43] Sarah Sachs: I manage, uh, the team. That's what we'll call it. Core AI capabilities and infrastructure.That's about 50 people. But then we have per i partner teams that do packaging. So how it shows up in the corner chat versus custom agents versus meeting notes, that's another 30, 40 people. And, and then every team that has a product service at Notion that a user can interface with owns the tool that the agent interfaces with the editor team.The team that did CRDT for offline mode is the same team that handles how two agents, um, edit competing blocks. Mm-hmm. Right? It's the same problem. The team that built the underlying SQL engine is the same team that owns how the agent asks it to run a SQL query, and it does it performantly. And so from that regard, anyone working on product engineering is tasked with making them work for customers that are humans and agents because over time the majority of our traffic will be coming from agencies using in our interface, not humans.And so. Our objective is to make it so that the whole product org is building for agents.[00:17:40] Alsesio: Yeah. How has it changed internally? The activation bar is kind of lowered a lot. Like anybody can kind of create a prototype very, somewhat easily, especially if you're like an existing code base. Have you raised the bar on like what type of prototype people need to bring forward to gonna be taken?Not like seriously, but like, you know what I[00:17:58] Simon Last: mean? Yeah. I think the bar is lowered in many ways. Be like, one thing our, uh, our team built that is really cool is our, uh, our, our design team made a whole separate GitHub repo, uh, called the, the design Playground. And it's basically just to create a bunch of like, like helper components and you, uh, for, for quickly a throwing together UIs.And it's become like actually quite sophisticated. Like it has like an agent in there and like, uh, that's pretty fun. So like, we pretty much, like, they don't do mocks, they just make like, like full, full prototypes.[00:18:27] swyx: Here it is. It works.[00:18:28] Simon Last: They give you like a u rl. They're like, okay, all right. So we have to make the, like the real production version of that.Um, and then for engineers. A prototype looks like just making it a feature flag that actually works. Like that's sort of the bar.[00:18:39] Sarah Sachs: Something to understand that's really unique about notion. One of the reasons I joined we're super lucky is no one uses Notion in their job as much as people that work at Notion.[00:18:46] Simon Last: Of course.[00:18:47] Sarah Sachs: So I think there's very few companies, maybe if you worked on Chrome I guess, but like everything that we ship, we ship internally first and get a lot of really quick feedback. And also sometimes our dev instance is totally borked and you have to change a bunch of flags to get things done. And that's kind of like, but everyone, so people that do it ticketing, people that do supply chain procurement, recruiting, everyone is using the same instance of notion with like a lot of flags on for these prototypes people build.Um, and so we have this, Brian Levin, one of the designers on our team, I think evangelize this concept of demos over memos.[00:19:18] swyx: Ooh, too[00:19:20] Sarah Sachs: good. Um, which has been, uh, very good for building demos, and I think it's put a big pressure point on us to have really strong product conviction, because if anything can be demoed, you really need a strong filter of making sure that if you know, you're doing X amount of work, you're making the, you're, you're focusing on one tower, you're not just building a really flat hill.Right. That's actually where I think there has to be more conviction from our PMs, um, and our designers and, and well, the company really to have conviction of what journey we're going on.[00:19:52] Simon Last: But overall, I feel like it works pretty well. Like people, almost all the engineers have good enough taste to realize that like, this prototype doesn't actually make sense in the product, or, or it does.So it's not that common that I would see a prototype. It's like, oh, this makes no sense. Mm-hmm. It's like, you know, people are doing reasonable things and, and, and then it's just a matter of. Which things we build first and then often just, just figuring out how to turn it on and off. There's our, in the, in our like experimental chat ui, there's this, there's probably like, like a hundred check boxes in there.[00:20:22] Sarah Sachs: Kills me[00:20:23] Simon Last: the things you could turn on and off.[00:20:25] Sarah Sachs: Uh, but I think that, okay, so that is kind of true, Simon, but like being the person that manages the evals team, like there is a level of intensity that it adds to the platform team. So, you know, if we're gonna do image generation and notion, all of a sudden the way that we do attachments and the way that we, um, our LLM completion like cortex talks and expects tokens back and now it's getting images back.Like there's a lot of platform work that we do need to, like solidify a little bit. So sometimes it'll be in dev for a couple weeks before it makes it to prod just because we still have to like, make it robust, make it HIPAA compliant, ZDR compliant, figure out the right contracting with the vendor, whatever it is.And we need to eval it because we want the team. To still maintain what they build. That's the one thing is like if we have a bunch of prototypes, it can't just be like a small group of people that then maintain whatever end prototypes. So we have invested a lot of people in an eval and model behavior understanding teams that, we call it agent dev velocity.So your dev velocity building agents can be faster if we invest in that platform. And so we have a whole org dedicated to Asian, um, platform velocity so that you can build your own eval and then maintain it once you ship it. So if a new model release comes out and we, every[00:21:38] swyx: team maintains their own eval,[00:21:40] Sarah Sachs: we maintain the eval framework.Every team owns their own evals and a lot of them we've integrated to Optin, to ci, or we run them nightly and we have a team, uh, a custom agent that triggers to a team to look at the major failures. That's really critical because if we have like all these different surfaces now, a lot of it's on the same agent harness, so it's easier to maintain.It's just packaging of different agent harnesses, but new functionality of the agent. Let's say that like we wanna update like. Uh, you know, they deprecated, sonnet, um, four or whatever it is and we need to auto update. Are[00:22:11] swyx: they already? That's so, okay. Yeah. Actually wasn't that long ago.[00:22:14] Alsesio: Theywere[00:22:14] Alsesio: just 3.5.[00:22:15] Sarah Sachs: 3.537. Just got deprecated.[00:22:18] swyx: 3 7, 5 0.2 or, yeah. No,[00:22:20] Sarah Sachs: it's not. 5.2 is five point. Five point no. Yeah, five four is 40% more expensive than five two. So if they deprecated five two, you would hear they can, you would hear from me about that one. Um, but, uh, another conversation to have.[00:22:35] swyx: I have a cheeky evals question for you.Have you noticed any secret degradation from any of the major model providers?[00:22:40] Sarah Sachs: Secret degradation,[00:22:42] swyx: like. During the War Bay, when it's high traffic, it suddenly gets dumber.[00:22:47] Sarah Sachs: Yeah. I mean, not just between the, I mean, we definitely notice flakiness, we've definitely noticed, particularly for some providers, that things are slower during working hours and[00:22:57] swyx: there's a latency argument.Yes. Not a quality argument.[00:22:59] Sarah Sachs: No. I think the quality difference that's interesting is, um, even though companies that say they're selling the same, a, it's really into like quanti quantization, but like companies that say they're selling the same model through different vendors, whether it be through first party or Bedrock, Azure, et cetera.We do see different qualities sometimes, and that's not necessarily what's advertised.[00:23:21] swyx: Yeah. Kidney went to the point of like, if we, they shipped like this, like eval across all the providers and it was like very obvious we were secret equalizing and it was very,[00:23:28] Sarah Sachs: yeah. But[00:23:29] swyx: that's very embarrassing.[00:23:30] Sarah Sachs: You know, um, we hire Subprocess to figure that out for us.So we just wanna understand where it's regressing or where it's optimized. And sometimes we're okay with regressions that optimize latency if they're the appropriate regressions. Our job is to make sure we have the evals to understand the changes that are important to us. And even like when we're partnering with labs on pre-releasees of models, they'll send us multiple snapshots.And this is less about quantization, but more just regressions. Like they have shipped models that were not the snapshots that we wanted, and they have changed the snapshots that they shipped based on the feedback that we give. Because our feedback tends to be more enterprise work focused and not coding agent focused.And definitely those can be bummers, like, you know, uh, we know that this wasn't the version you wanted, but we'll help you make it work. I mean, we always make it work, but that definitely happens.[00:24:16] Alsesio: Yeah. Do you have, um, failing evals that you're just hoping, oh, that will have success eventually when a good model comes out?[00:24:23] Sarah Sachs: Uh, I mean, yeah. So I think. I mean, I could talk about this for 60 minutes, so I will limit myself. I think it's a real issue when people say evals and it's just like, that's quality, that's like unit, I mean, it's like saying testing. It's not just unit tests, right? So. We have the equivalent of unit test.Regression test. Those live in ci, those have to pass a certain percent, you know, within some stochastic error rate. Then we have, as you're building a product, evals of these aren't passing right now, and this is launch quality. So we have a report card and we need to, on these categories, you know, be it 80 or 90% of all of these user journeys to launch, and then what we have what we call frontier or headroom evals, where we actively wanna be at 30% pass rate.And that's actually been a effort that we took in partnership with philanthropic and OpenAI in the past maybe two or three months, because we actually hit a point where our evals were saturated and we weren't able to really give insightful feedback other than it wasn't worse. And not only is that not helpful for our partners, it's not helpful for us to understand where the stream is going.You know, going back to that analogy. And so we spent a lot of time thinking about. What notions last exam looks like, right? Mm-hmm. Not just humanities, last exam. Ooh, notions last exam. Mm-hmm. And, um, there's a lot of, you know, dreams about what that would look like. I know we've talked a lot about benchmarking, um, swix, but, uh, yeah.Notions last exam is a big thing inside the company and we have people, full-time staff to it exclusively. Mm. We have a data scientist, a model behavior engineer, and an full-time, um, evals engineer just dedicated to the evals that we pass 30% of the time.[00:25:56] swyx: What you're hiring for[00:25:57] Sarah Sachs: MBEs? I am hiring[00:25:58] swyx: What is an MBEA[00:25:59] Sarah Sachs: model?Behavior Engineer Model. Behavior engineers started with a title data specialist before I joined when they were working with Simon on like, uh, Google Sheets and like Simon just needed someone to look through Google Sheets and say, yes, no, this looks bad. This looks good. Right? And so we hired people with kind of diverse linguistics background.We had like a linguistics PhD dropout. Mm-hmm. And a Stanford ate new grad. And they're amazing. And they formed a new function basically. And over time we've built a whole team, um, with a manager who's now kind of reinventing what that role is with coding agents. So they used to be kind of manually inspecting code.Now they're primarily building agents that can write evals for themselves or LLM judges. There's a really funny day I can send you the picture where Simon, about a year and a half ago, was teaching them how to use GitHub. Um, and they're on the whiteboard and it was like, okay, I think it would be so much faster if our data specialists learned how to use GitHub and like learned how to commit these things in Dakota.And, and that was then and now I think, you know, coding has been a lot more accessible. Um, but moving forward it's this mix of like data scientist PM and prompt engineer because there's craft in understanding like even like what models can and can't do things. How do we define like that headroom? How do we define like what a good journey is?Um, is this model better or not? Why is this failing? There's some qualitative work, but then there's also like a lot of instinct and taste to it, and that's not necessarily software engineering. And so we have like very firm conviction and we have had for a number of years now that that is its own career path and we have always welcomed the misfits, so to speak.So we really firmly believe that you don't need an engineering background to be the best at this job. And that's what's quite unique about this particular role.[00:27:37] Simon Last: Yeah, this is something that I've been pretty excited about recently is we made an effort basically to treat the eval system as like an agent harness.So if you think about it, like, you know, you should be able to have an agent end-to-end, download a dataset, run an eval, iterate on a failure, debug, and, and then implement a fix. And ultimately you should be able to, you know, drive the full time process with a human sort of observing the, you know, the outer uh, system.So yeah, we went, went pretty hard on that. And that's, that's worked extremely well so far. It's like basically just to turn it into a coding agent, uh, uh, problem.[00:28:11] swyx: Your coding agent or just whatever[00:28:13] Simon Last: harness No coding agent. Yeah, code, cloud code. It should be totally general. Yeah. I think if it would be a mistake to like, like fix it on any, any particular coding agent.At the end of the day, it's just like CLI tools.[00:28:21] Sarah Sachs: It's like the same way that you would've a coding agent write the unit test. You should have a coding agent write the eval.[00:28:26] swyx: Yeah.[00:28:26] Sarah Sachs: But there's a lot of supervision in that still. We just don't believe that supervision has to come from software engineers because a lot of it is like, um, kind of you XREE and whatever, and these are the people that also triage failures and tell us where we should be investing next.[00:28:40] swyx: Yeah. I'm gonna go ahead and ask a spicy question. Is there a data, there are no software engineers at Notion.[00:28:46] Simon Last: Um,[00:28:46] Sarah Sachs: what does it mean to be a software engineer?[00:28:47] swyx: Exactly.[00:28:48] Simon Last: I mean, I think the way things are going is like we're on some continuum where. If, if you look back three years ago, humans were typing all the code and then we had auto complete, you're typing list of the code.Then we had sort of like filling agents, filling lines, and now we're getting into like agents doing longer range tasks where you can debug and implement a fix and then verify it works and you know, get your, get your PR even like, like Merion deployed. I think we're sort of just moving up the abstraction ladder and then the human role becomes more about observing and maintaining the outer system.There's a string of agents flowing through, like me prs what's going off the rails. Like what do I need to approve? Is there like a learning or memory mechanism that that works? So it's kind of a hard engineering problem. There's a, you know, there's, there's a lot to do there. I think we're just sort of moving up stack[00:29:34] Sarah Sachs: the same transition machine learning engineers have made, right?Like I haven't looked at a PR curve in a while.[00:29:39] swyx: Yeah. You used to do this stuff and now, um, auto research can do it,[00:29:42] Sarah Sachs: right? Like I think it depends on what you define as a software engineer.[00:29:46] swyx: Yes. It's, that's changing for sure.[00:29:49] Sarah Sachs: I think every software engineer in notion this summer went through like this, um, sheer, um, one of our engineering leads of the company called it, like every software engineer is going through the, the, uh, identity crisis that every manager goes through, where all of a sudden they realize their ability to write code is less important than their ability to delegate in context switch.And I think that is a transition out of being a software engineer. But[00:30:12] Simon Last: yeah. Yeah, there's a critical difference to being a manager, which is that like, it is actually very deeply technical. The problem, you know, humans are very like, like, like fuzzy and you can't like treat a team of humans like a, like a rigorous system where like, you know, prs like, like flow through and can be in like a block status and then what happens when they're blocked, right.With a set of agents, you actually can do that. And, and, and I think it's actually, there's a lot of interesting technical rigor that that goes into that it's like it's a technical design problem. Ultimately.[00:30:42] Alsesio: What is the design of the software factory that you're building?[00:30:46] Simon Last: Yeah, I mean, I think we're. Trying a lot of different things.I mean, ultimately you want to design a system that requires as little human intervention as possible, but like still maintaining the in variance that, that you care about. So yeah, we're exploring a lot different ideas there. I mean, I think I could talk about a few things I think are important there.Like, one thing I think is really important is, um, having some kind of like specification layer you can just commit marked on files. Mm-hmm. That works pretty well, but[00:31:15] swyx: it's nice to be notion man. I'm just saying like the spec, like Yeah. The natural home for specs is notion.[00:31:21] Simon Last: Yeah. Right. It can be a database of pages.Yeah. I mean, it needs to be something that is, you know, human readable and I viewable and I think that's pretty key. Another really key component is like the, the self verification loop. Yes. You need really, really good testing layers, basically. And that's a really deep, uh, uh, problem. But by getting that right, you know, and then, and then it's kinda like the workflow of like.What happens when there's a bug? How does it flow into the system? Like, is it like a subagent working on it? How does it make a PR and how does that get reviewed? And me, and then, you know, so there's like the, the flow or process.[00:31:56] swyx: Yeah. Cool. Uh, you know, one thing we did work out before you guys came in was this demo or this[00:32:01] Simon Last: agents[00:32:02] swyx: agent demo.Uh,[00:32:03] Simon Last: so every,[00:32:04] Alsesio: every time we do an episode, we try the product. Right. I don't think there's ever been an episode that I haven't tried. Yeah. Um,[00:32:11] swyx: and we, we try, try is a, a big word. Like since day one lane space has been on Notion, but this is the, this is the net new thing. Yes.[00:32:18] Alsesio: So this is for Nel Labs, which is the space we're in.So next week we're opening applications for tenants. So there's a web form, let me, we got this form done here. Uh, so, uh, before. Uh, the workflow would be I get an email, then I look at the person. It was like, should I spend time talking to this person? Then I respond, they respond back. So I build this. So the name it came up for on its own.Can you maybe h how do, how does it come up with its own name?[00:32:43] Simon Last: Yeah, that's a pretty app name. It's, it, it is just a random, it's a random, a name generator.[00:32:47] Alsesio: Oh, that's funny. It just came,[00:32:49] Simon Last: the fact that it picked that is, is kind of hilarious. I'm pretty sure it's just determined,[00:32:54] Sarah Sachs: resilient collector. I, I think I've never looked at the code for that.I've never second guessed it. I think it's kind of like a madlib situation.[00:33:00] Simon Last: Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. It's, it's totally a, a deterministic. Oh, I thought it was great. Yes. Although, although when the, if you use the AI to set itself up, it can update its own name, so. Okay. Um,[00:33:11] Sarah Sachs: how did you create it? It, did you just do[00:33:12] Alsesio: classroom?I,[00:33:13] Sarah Sachs: okay.[00:33:13] Alsesio: I did, yeah. I'll say just check my inbox for applications for a coworking space. Keep a people, so it created the database for me. Which I have here. And I guess database is like an notion table because everything is notion. Um, and then whenever um, an email comes in, like here, it just creates a new role for the person.Mm-hmm. And then it uses web search to enrich the mm-hmm. The profile. So it kind of like searches the web and it's like, this is who this person is, this is when they say they wanna move in and kind of updates everything else. This is, I mean, it's not a GI, but to me, I don't wanna do this work. So it feels like, I mean, it took me maybe like 15 minutes to set up the whole thing.Um, and I really like that most of the information should live here. You know, it is not like some other tool asking me[00:34:01] Sarah Sachs: Yeah.[00:34:01] Alsesio: To like, bring my stuff there. It's like I would've probably already created an ocean thing.[00:34:06] Sarah Sachs: Mm-hmm.[00:34:06] Alsesio: So[00:34:07] Sarah Sachs: most of our biggest use cases and gains are from. That extra layer of human involvement in the process to make it so right.And so like one of our biggest use cases is bug triaging. So if someone posts something in Slack, can you just have a custom agent that lives there that has its own routing constitution of what team this belongs to, creates a task in your task database and then posts in that Slack channel, right? Like that's like one of the first things that we built internally, I think.And it's completely changed the way that notion functions as a company. Nothing falls through, well, most things don't fall through the crack. We don't know what we don't know. But it's not replacing people, it's replacing processes.[00:34:44] Alsesio: Yeah.[00:34:44] Sarah Sachs: Right.[00:34:45] Alsesio: And I'm curious how you think about composability of these things.So the other one I was working on is like a. These filler. So whenever somebody signs up as a tenant, kind of he'll sell the lease for them. There should probably some agent that is like office manager agent mm-hmm. That can handle the request, make the lease, and then, uh, give them a ADA access to the office and all of that.How do you think about that feature?[00:35:08] Simon Last: Yeah, so I mean, there's, there's two ways you can compose. One way is by using like the data primitives. So you can, you know, you, you could give, you have one agent, uh, be writing to the database and there's another agent that's walked in the database. So that's, that's one way that they, they can coordinate that's like a little bit more decoupled and mm-hmm.Works really well. Or you, you can couple them. So I, I think it's actually not released yet. Releasing it like next week is, uh, in the settings for an agent, you can give access to invoke any other agent.[00:35:34] swyx: Hmm.[00:35:34] Simon Last: So you can have them just. Just, uh, uh, talk directly. So[00:35:37] swyx: you, was there a limit on like, number of recursions or just,[00:35:40] Simon Last: um, probably,[00:35:42] swyx: you know what I mean?Like, you can just get an infinite loop that way there's[00:35:45] Simon Last: some kind of Yeah,[00:35:46] Sarah Sachs: I think it's, there is actually a number somewhere.[00:35:49] swyx: I believe I'm just, you know, like, you're, you're, someone's gonna screw up. You[00:35:51] Simon Last: should you try to see[00:35:53] swyx: Yeah. I mean, everything's gonna be paperclips.[00:35:55] Simon Last: Oh, yeah. Yeah. But, uh, but, but that's really useful.Yeah. So we, you know, like I just, I, I helped, uh, someone internally the other day, they had, they had built like over 30 custom agents for, uh, for our go to market team doing all kinds of different things. You know, for example, like researching, you know, like, like filling information about, about a customer or like, like triaging customer feedback or like, uh, something like that.Literally over 30 of them. And, and then he, and then he even made like a database of all the agents and then he is like, okay, and, and now I'm getting 70, over 70 notifications per day with just the agents are blocked on various things. Uh, and then I was like, oh, okay, cool. You know, the obvious thing to do there is to make a manager agent,[00:36:32] Sarah Sachs: right?[00:36:33] Simon Last: That's gonna sort of blocks be another abstraction layer in between your, your, uh, uh, 30 agents. Uh, so yeah, we, we send out with like a manager agent and then has access to invoke all the other agents and it's sort of like, like watching and observing them and then it sort of, it just creates a layer of abstraction.So instead of 70 notifications per day, it's like, like five. And then, and then the manager agent can help like, uh, debug and fix any problems with the,[00:36:54] swyx: does this is a concept of like an inbox or something like piece, you're basically saying that they can message each other?[00:37:00] Simon Last: Yeah.[00:37:01] Sarah Sachs: Well[00:37:01] swyx: they use the system of record, which, which is[00:37:02] Sarah Sachs: notion, so we[00:37:03] Simon Last: actually, yeah, we didn't make any special concepts at all.[00:37:06] swyx: They're interested to the motion notifications that I would've got,[00:37:09] Sarah Sachs: they can just like write a task to a database that the other agent's task to listening to, or they can actually call a web book to the agent, like they can just add the agent. Okay.[00:37:17] Simon Last: Yeah, I mean, this is something that, that we're still working on.I, I think we, you know, like, like generally, generally the way we do these things is, you know, you first make it possible, maybe like a sort of janky way. So I, I, I think the way I set ‘em up is like, you know, we created like a new database that was sort of like issues mm-hmm. That the custom agents were, were experiencing, and then gave them all access to file an issue and then the manager has access to, to read the issues.Um, and that works pretty well, essentially like, like give it its own like internal issue tracker just for the agents. And then, you know, if that becomes a, a concept that seems useful, generally maybe we will think of how to package it in. But I mean, generally we try to just keep it to composing the primitive if we can.You know, another example of this is we have no built-in memory concept. Memory is, is just pages and databases. And so if you wanna give a memory, just give it a page and give it. Edit access to that page and the[00:38:03] swyx: human can edit it. Agent can edit[00:38:04] Simon Last: it. Yeah. And so that works, that pattern works extremely well on it.And you know, depending this case, you can have it be just a page or it could be an entire database with, you know, or, you know, I can have sub pages is is pretty on what you can do with that.[00:38:15] Alsesio: So when I was setting this up, uh, I connected my inbox and it was like, do you wanna use Gmail or Notion Mail? And I'm like, I don't wanna use Eater, I just want you to do it.I'm curious how you think about, you know, notion, mail, notion, calendar, all of these kind of ui ux interfaces, full stack[00:38:29] Simon Last: notion.[00:38:30] Alsesio: Yeah. When like at the same time you have the agents abstracting them away from you in a way, you know, how do you spend like the product calories so to speak?[00:38:37] Simon Last: Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty important that you don't have to use, not your mail to connect to the mail capability.So we can just connect to Gmail or, or whatever you want, uh, to use. And we're thinking of the mail service as being really great to the extent that it's really agent built, right? So maybe the mail app is just sort of a prepackaged agent that helps you automate your, your inbox.[00:39:00] Alsesio: Yeah, the auto labeling is great.Think[00:39:03] Sarah Sachs: the, when we, um, integrate with Gmail for instance, we have a series of tools available that are available via MCP or API to Gmail. When we integrate with Notion Mail, we have the Notion Mail engineering team to build us the, um, exact right tools that optimize latency, optimize performance and quality.They own that quality. Um, there's product leads there. They're directly thinking about the user problems that happen in mail. So it tends to be when we build integrations and connections, we build natively first. Um, and then think about, um, extending them generally just because it's also easier. Mm-hmm. Um, um, to build natively first.Um, so that tends to be how we phase things out.[00:39:43] swyx: Talking about integrations, you prompted me, so I gotta ask. M-C-P-C-L-I. What's going on? What's the[00:39:48] Simon Last: Yeah. Opinion. I think, I mean, I'm, I'm definitely bullish and excited about cli. I think there's a few really cool things about cli. So one really cool thing is like, um, is that it's in the terminal environment, so it gets a bunch of extra power.So it, you know, for example, it can like, like paginating and cursor through like long outputs. Um, and it has a progressive disclosure inherently. Uh, so, you know, you don't see all the tools at once. It's just, you see the CLI wrapper and you can like use the, the help commands and, and, and read files. And then I think the most important thing that's, that's super cool is that there, it's also inherently a, a bootstrapped.So if there's an issue, uh, the agent can debug and fix itself within the same environment that it uses the tool.[00:40:30] swyx: Mm.[00:40:30] Simon Last: Right. Like, you know, I think I saw a tweet this morning. Someone said, you know, my agent didn't have a browser, so I asked it to make all a browser tool and within a hundred lines of code, it gave itself a little browser, like, like wrapping the, the, the chromium API, um.That's pretty incredible. And then if there was a bug, it would just immediately try to fix it. Mm-hmm. Right. On the other hand, if you use an, you know, if you use like of, of the Chrome dev tools, MCP, I've had this issue where like, like sometimes the transport gets like messed up. If it gets messed up, the agent has no way to fix itself.It, it no longer has a browser, it's, it's not broken. Right. I think that's, that's pretty fundamental, but I would say like a lot of the, the bad things about it can be fixed. Uh, so I think like, as a progressive disclosure, that can be fixed with, with right harness. Like, it, it obviously doesn't make sense to show it all the tools all the time.That's not really inherent to the MCP protocol. It's just like how you wrap it and use it.[00:41:16] swyx: There's many poorly built MCPs because we didn't know.[00:41:19] Simon Last: Yeah, yeah. I mean it was just early, like, like the obvious thing is, uh, you know, to start with is, is to just show it all the tools and it's like, okay, now we have a hundred tools.Yeah. And like the tool calling actually works. So let's of[00:41:28] swyx: your success[00:41:29] Simon Last: give it a way to like, like filter to source the tools. So yeah, I would say like broadly speaking, I'm really bullish on cli. I'm still bullish on CPS and in a certain environment. I think in, in particular, CP is really great for when you want sort of like a narrow, lightweight agent.I think there's, there's definitely a lot of use cases where, where you don't want like a full coding agent with a compute run time. And also you want it to be like more tightly permissioned. MCP inherently has a really strong permission model, like all you can do is call the tools. A CLI is a little bit murkier.It's like, can I access the, if PI token are you, like, properly sort of like re-encrypt the token so it can't like exfiltrate it, it introduce a lot of like, like new issues, which are. Real and hard to solve. And MCP is just like the dumb simple thing that works and it that it's pretty good.[00:42:12] Sarah Sachs: I'll add two more perspectives, not from it working well for Notion, but how notion like commits to both platforms.Notion is dedicated to being the best system of record for where people do their enterprise work. So we will always support our MCP and so far as other people are using cps, right? So regardless of our perspective, we've put a lot of effort into our MCP and we have a fantastic team that we're building, um, to do more there.And the second thing I'll say, I think, um, we all think a lot, but lately I've been thinking a lot about making sure there's a value alignment and pricing, um, with capability.[00:42:43] swyx: Literally our next question[00:42:44] Sarah Sachs: and. Needing language to execute deterministic tasks feels wasteful and requiring on a language model to interface with third party providers seems wasteful for tasks that don't require it.And particularly because our custom agents are using usage-based pricing. We think of pricing as like the barrier of entry for use of our product, and we're quite committed to making sure that it's not wasteful. Um, not just because it's a bad deal for our customers, but it's also bad business. We wanna have as many buyers, like there's a, there's an elasticity of demand and so if we can have our agents properly execute code that calls on CLI deterministically, it's a one-time cost, right?Versus constantly having a language model integrate with an MCP over and over and over and paying those like repeated token fees and it's happening outside the cash window, then you're paying for it over and over and over and it's just kind of unnecessary and less deterministic when it doesn't have to be.[00:43:36] Alessio: Yeah, the open-endedness I think is like, the main thing is like, well, if I go write code to just call an API, I would never use an MCP. But then you need an NCP sometimes when you know what to call, but you don't want it to restart versus like, I think the it built a browser from scratch is like, it's great when you're doing it on your own, but like if your customers were having your AI write a browser from scratch every time and you had to pay the token cost of that, yeah.You'd be like, no, no. The Chrome dev tools CP is actually pretty great. Just use that. I'm curious, how do you make that decision? Like should it be. Just straight API call very narrow. Should it be an MCP? Should it be super open-ended?[00:44:10] Sarah Sachs: Do you mean for when we ship notion capabilities or when we add capabilities to[00:44:13] Alessio: notion[00:44:14] Sarah Sachs: AI or,[00:44:14] Alessio: I mean, you might have a capability that the only way to do is an open-ended agent, like an agent with a coding sandbox.[00:44:21] Sarah Sachs: Yeah. In Notion ai they're not explicit, not We also ship an MCP.[00:44:24] Alsesio: Yeah. Yeah. In B,[00:44:25] Sarah Sachs: yeah.[00:44:26] Alsesio: Internally. Okay. Like is there ever a discussion of like, we're not gonna ship it because we're not able to tie it down? Or are you happy to just like,[00:44:33] Sarah Sachs: um, no. I mean, there are a lot of things where we choose not to use MCP because we wanna add more high touch to quality.I think search an agent to find is like the largest instance of that, where we have. Um, slack and linear and Jira search and notion that is not using necessarily the search MCP functionality that is provided by those companies. And that's because it's quite critical we think, to how our agent trajectories work is for us to have a little bit more control on the functionality of the search journey.And so it usually comes from quality and there's a long tail of things and that's why we built an MCP client or an MCP server, excuse me, so that people can connect whatever they want. There's that long tail, right. But we, for search particularly, I would say that's like the primary entry point, but there are other connections as well that it's a little bit of secret sauce a

Pour ce nouveau format Sans Filet, nos chroniqueurs notent les aptitudes des joueurs de tennis en les comparant. A l'occasion de cette troisième émission, Benoit Paire et Nick Kyrgios s'affrontent sur 10 thèmes, de la qualité du service au coup droit, en passant par le toucher de balle.Qui est le plus complet ? Qui avait le plus grand potentiel ? Qui est la définition même du trash-talker ? Qui avait le public sans sa poche ? Participez à VERSUS en notant les joueurs en live.Ce podcast est hébergé par Podcastics, la plateforme pour créer et diffuser votre podcast facilement.

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestDion LackDave HelemBrent TaylorThis Week We DiscussRoad Trip W/ Best Friend vs Flying W/ ExSplurge On Travel vs. Splurge On Clothes/ShoesPrivate Air Bnb vs Resort/HotelS/o To Our SponorsHimsReady to reach your goals? Visit https://hims.com/SQUADD to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you.GLDNew customers get 40% Off with code [SQUADD] at https://GLD.comPrizePicksDownload thePrizePicks app today and use code SQUADD to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup! That's code SQUADD to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup!SquareRight now, get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at https://square.com/go/squadd ! #squarepod

En este episodio a cargo de Sparrowolf y Gatonejo tenemos cntinuamos con el VERSUS de Tekken. Además, como de costumbre discutimos las noticias más relevantes, mencionamos los juegos a publicarse, y compartimos con ustedes lo que hemos estado haciendo, jugando, viendo, y/o leyendo. 

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Kiera is a guest on The Zero Balance Podcast with John Stamper! She and John discuss the advancement of software over the past few years, and why the current culmination — artificial intelligence — isn't something to be skittish around in your practice.  Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: The Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera. And today we are sharing a guest interview I did on another podcast. And it was too valuable not to bring you guys here.   this episode, you're gonna hear this host lead the conversation and then I'll wrap us up at the end. I cannot wait. It was truly one of my most   incredible episodes and I truly hope you enjoy.   John (00:19) What's going on everybody. Welcome to another episode here on The ZeroBalance podcast brought to you by the team at Quanta Suite. Very excited to keep this thing going. Uh, our last conversations and episodes crazy to think it's 2026 already were at the Dykma conference. And I had the privilege of spending time, not only with the Quanta Suite team, but also a lot of great individuals that came on the podcast and talked about what they were seeing in that case, it was in the DSO space. Uh, I'm very excited today to   be with Kiera Dent from the Dental A team. I've known Kiera for many years. We were actually just talking before we came on here live. ⁓ she is doing a lot along with her team to help dental practices, take things to the next level. she's been in dental for many, many years. And so we're going to have a conversation today, ⁓ kind of around all things AI and automation and love to have her, you know, kind of share with all of you what she's seeing, you know, her and her team are working with dental practices on a daily basis. And obviously, you know, the Qantas suite team is, is creating.   their software in an effort to be able to support practices in the RCM world. But Kiera, it's such great to have you here. How you doing?   Kiera (01:26) Oh my gosh, John, it's great to see you again. And I love chatting about all things dentistry. I love having the last name dent. I love dental. love AI. love, um, it's crazy. Dental A Team hits 10 years old this year, which is like absolutely wild. Uh, 2026, I was getting ready to, know, writing my goals out and I was like, Oh my gosh, I turned 40. My husband turns 40. We've been married for 15 years and Dental A Team hits 10 years this year. So   ⁓ and I bring that up only because like, it's like a trifecta of a cool year for me. ⁓ but I think as you were discussing, like being in dental consulting for 10 years, having worked in front office teams, having worked at a dental college, having owned dental practices, having bought and sold, having consulted like 300 plus offices physically, ⁓ watching the DSO emerge, watching AI come in. I just think it's really like such a fun time for us to be in dentistry and so many great advancements and, yeah.   In Dental A Team, we are obsessed with doctors and teams, like getting them aligned, getting them streamlined, helping dentists be like CEOs and owners of their practices. We love ⁓ Josh, we love what he's building in DCS and now in Qantas. We think that they're doing some really fun, incredible things. And Dental A Team, we're just really big on, I think, streamlining dental practices, helping them say yes to more things. So getting them in their vision, getting financially free and profitable.   and then getting systems and team development to support that. And AI is definitely being a big player. And I think dentistry is, it's so fun because it's been such a, like, I think slow roll on evolution in certain ways. Sometimes I think we are very archaic. My husband's in healthcare and medicine and he's like, wait, that's your guys' software. I'm like, don't judge. I know it's a little dated. He's like, they didn't even have that when I started my career 15 years ago. ⁓ But I think,   to watch dentistry evolve into AI and automations and different things. I think we are in such a special time. So yeah, we work with solo practices. We work with multi practices. We work with emerging DSOs. We work with DSOs. We've got consulting for kind of a broad spectrum and kind of our sweet side, like two to five to $10 million practice. ⁓ We definitely have built a lot of things that can help multi offices, but yeah, we really love those offices that are obsessed about team, about culture and about.   just positively impacting the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So John, super excited to talk about it. I feel like we just have like so much knowledge to bring to the table and just rift and discuss and give your listeners hopefully a fresh, fun, positive perspective on the world of AI dentistry and of course bringing team and doctor perspectives to the table for you today.   John (04:03) Well, thanks for sharing that. you can see, everybody, Kiera comes with a ton of energy, but it is rooted, as she mentioned, in years of experience in this industry. And here's where I wanted to start, Kiera. So I want to go back maybe like five or six years in dentistry when there was a lot of new software platforms that were coming to dentistry, patient engagement, right? It was like this big giant party and a lot of practices were excited. You may remember though, as someone that works directly with the dental practices with as much   excitement as there was there also was a little bit of overwhelm right because it's like where do we start like how do we build these in and it's funny that you talk about your husband because yes in dentistry these are all somewhat kind of new to the industry and so practices are figuring how to use them and I do feel like okay maybe a couple years ago with like firms like yourself that have really helped these practices figure out how to utilize them they got that under their belt and then   here comes AI, right? And here comes this whole new way for these practices to be able to communicate, you know, task orient and all that stuff. So that's kind of the first place I'd like to start is that when you look at the work that you do now with the dental practices and I say the word AI, where is everybody's heads?   Kiera (05:13) Yeah. and agreed. I think, I think that this is just evolution of business. Like if I were to like even simplify it down, I think dentistry has been so much like we drill teeth, we fill teeth, but I'm like, guys, we have evolved. We don't do wooden teeth anymore. we've evolved and now there's laser and there's PRF and there's more advancements to dentistry that we do. Like I have a practice, I call them my PRF powerhouse and they've added PRF to their practices and we've added multi-millions to their office.   But like, yes, financially, that's been amazing, but their patient care has gone up so much, like the amount of results we're seeing. so when people are like, software's AIs, I'm like, hold on. You have evolved in your dentistry and you've seen how much it's evolved and how much better it is. I mean, the way we used to do crowns compared to how we do crowns, we can do same day crowns. We look at how we do ortho. We look at the different like skill sets that we've been able to add in. I feel like AI is the same thing. And I think when we get a little skittish, that's actually where I feel like we're   at more danger of a society. as I don't want to use the word old John, but I'm like, Hey, if you're not going to innovate and like you're going to die. there's innovate or die. We've got to grow and evolve or we're going to be left behind. And I mean, I think we see that with certain practices who elected no, no, John, I'm not going to have online and online. No, they're going to see my sign. They're going to drive by. This is how I'm going to be. Well, if you don't have an online presence today,   you're pretty much not visible anywhere in the world. No, no, no, John, I'm not going to do Google reviews. I don't need to do Google reviews. Well, Google reviews are how people find you. And now it's becoming AEO where AI is actually now searching for offices. I mean, we just did a trip to Iceland and where did I go? Chat GPT. And where's my next place I go? I go to Instagram, TikTok. What are the best places to go? No, John, I don't need to be on social media. We don't need to have that presence. We have our marketing. We send postcards.   Well, if you're not on Instagram, people are going there now. They go check your Google reviews and then go check your online profile. So I think for dentists to maybe recognize that high five, like you actually have evolved over the last several years. You've evolved. You are morphing and as businesses, it is an innovation or it is a die. And so when we talk about AI, AI is going to be awesome. You guys, AI was created. Like I think so much of the reason it took off is because we had 2020, we shut down.   Then we went through 2021 of the great resignation. We could not find people. You want to talk about hygiene shortages? Well, great. Now we're able to bring in people and you're like, but AI is not going to replace hygiene. Correct. But AI is actually helping with perio charting and different pieces that we're able to utilize. It's cutting down our costs that we're able to have on some of the billing and the revenue cycle management that we actually have alleviated funds to be able to pay the higher costs of hygiene that's offsetting. So our businesses can still be profitable. So when I look at it from a business,   I think guys, welcome to 2026, welcome to AI and get excited about it. And rather than being afraid of it, let's start to embrace and you don't have to be the earliest adopter, but I will say similar to like, I'm not going to join the internet. I'm not going to have Google reviews. I'm not going to do Instagram. We have watched that those who wait too long, I'm not going to do online payments. John, that's my favorite. Like we still expect checks. I don't even know how to write a check guys. Like truly I'm like, who accepts checks? ⁓   But things like that are so dated and so cumbersome compared to how the world's evolving that you are niching yourself more and more, more to less and less and less of a patient base. And if that's your exit strategy, rock on, it's a great one. But if you're not on the exit strategy, you definitely need to get on board with AI. And I think like we have a practice in Maryland, she's a pediatric practice and she's like, we call it AI Amy. And well, yes, our team gets annoyed with ⁓ AI Amy. They've trained an AI bot to be able to schedule for these   DC parents that want to make appointments at all hours of the day and they want to talk to someone. AI Amy schedules and guess what? AI Amy schedules about 75 % correctly and the team's annoyed and the doctor's like, you never get to be mad at AI Amy because that was 75 % of patients that we didn't even have to schedule. 25 % were a miss. Perfect. But that was 25 % out of 75, like a hundred percent. We, that's a quarter. We've literally cut down our space. And so I think when it's looking at   scheduling tools, revenue cycle management, ⁓ looking at how we use it for hygiene. Doctors like using Pearl or ⁓ Overjet to help with diagnosis. Case acceptance is going up. And while it's not perfect today, I think getting in the language, getting in the familiarity so you don't accidentally get too dated, AI is going to take off faster than anything else. If you're not on chat GPT, if you're not utilizing it for things, it cuts down man hours and people are like, but I don't want people to lose jobs. And I'm like,   You're not, we're elevating, we're lifting up our practice and we're morphing into where the world and society is going and your practice and your patients will thrive because of it. So that's my take. And I know I kind of went on a soapbox for you, John, but I think doctors need to realize it's not as scary as I think maybe some of them are looking. ⁓ It's something we've always done. It just looks different today.   John (10:22) Well, I'm glad you shared all that because I've been talking with people a lot lately and I feel like in unknown times or times where many of us don't know kind of where things are going to be, it really calls for leadership. And I think that's what's important. I think that's what you shared. think that practices are looking for people like yourself and others that are living this. They've dove into it. They're embracing it. They're learning how to get the maximum out of it. And so I glad you shared that. All right. So that's the first piece, right? That's kind of like the overwhelming the tech.   you mentioned a little bit about revenue cycle management and I wanted to get your thoughts as well on this other thing that dental practices are facing which is patients now come in and are having the same type of expectation of the experience on the business side of the practice, their billing and their payments and all of that, that we have with other businesses that we work with.   And so now a dental practice is getting questions as you know so well, like, okay, like am I gonna be able to pay easy? Are we gonna be able to track all this easy? Because that's how we do it with other businesses. And now all of sudden the dental practices have had to wake up and they have to make sure that that part of their practice is also, you know, automated and where it needs to be. So love to have your thoughts on that part as well.   Kiera (11:37) Yeah, and John, just to piggyback of where you were talking about dentists getting on board, I will just plug, and this is why we built an in-person mastermind, is because I recognize dentists feel like they're on isolated islands. And when you can get around really smart, you are the equivalent, proximity is power. And so getting around dentists that are not afraid of this, being in groups, listening to podcasts like this, if we can serve on that, rock on, I'm happy to do that. I would just encourage you to...   surround yourself with smart people that are getting involved in this and people that push you out of your comfort zone. People that have voices that are maybe not the same of what you normally listen to. Like if you're always listening to Fox News, maybe listen to CNN or if you're listening to CNN, then go to Fox. Like you need to hear opposing opinions on this. And I would just really encourage people to be a part of innovation rather than being destroyed by innovation would be my recommendation. And then going into this patient payment.   John, it makes me laugh because dentistry and I did a podcast, I should go find it. was several years ago and I'm like, why is dentistry on payments? Like we're in the 1800s, like put it on my tab. I'm like, what is going on in dentistry? Like nowhere else do you go and you're like, got my groceries, but could you put that on my tab, John? Yeah. Yeah. But yet in dentistry, we're like, yeah, we'll bill insurance and then we'll charge you for that. What are we doing? And I just think like,   Our revenue cycle management in dentistry is so dated and archaic that I'm like, ladies and gents, it's an amazing way for you to make a lot more money with a lot less effort if you just update a little bit on your revenue cycle management. Like we are so archaic ⁓ and dental insurances are using AI. Like why do you think Pearl and Overjet exist? Well, you better believe that the insurance companies are ripping that too. They're using AI to see their claims.   ⁓ so with payments and patients, do think like patients are expecting us to have online scheduling. They're expecting us to have easy ways to pay. mean, I've even seen some dental offices that take payments in Bitcoin and I'm not here to say you need to go clear to Bitcoin or like some extremes, but I do think that there's this evolution of, I don't want to wait a long time. I don't want to have weird payment things. want to people like John, I think it used to be the society where we worked eight to five.   We left our work at home. didn't have computer or at work. We didn't have computers. Our phone was a landline. It would shut off and we were home. That does not exist anymore. So most of the time I feel like our eight to five is our quiet time at work. And then after hours we're like, ⁓ I need to pay for this and I need to take care of this appointment and I need to schedule the kids for this. And we do that while we're sitting in bed scrolling through Instagram and like, shoot, I need to make that payment.   I feel dental practices, they have such an amazing opportunity if they will update and use more modern, I would say, like it's not even AI guys. We're just talking about getting onto the playing field. If you would do that, I have watched practices that implement these processes, their AR, their collections, their profitability are exponentially more, I would say consistent and constant as much as...   as opposed to being like inconsistent and fluctuating like they were in the past, because patients can pay all the time. Patients can send things forward. And I do think like, yes, dentistry people want that good old home, like girl and dentists that like takes care of them. But I think a lot of times the way you've evolved with technology also helps people see how have you evolved in your dentistry as well. I do not want to go to somebody who's still paper charts. I get concerned about   Are we up to speed on our current things? That's so foreign to me. No one else does that anymore that I think we to be careful that we don't accidentally date our dentistry by not being up to speed on our payments as well.   John (15:27) So you just built the bridge to the next thing I was going to ask you, right? So we talked a little bit about technology and embracing it, the patient experience and what they expect. And then this final thing is the perception of the patient in looking at the practice and the technology that the practice invests in. And again, 10, 15 years ago, when maybe dentistry was not as proactive and patients were just going to the practice. Now practices are, it's more competitive. There's more practices in every city, many across the country.   And so with that becomes this image that you portray to the patient and your business that you are making those investments to stay up to speed to be able to provide those types of services. And so talk about that a little bit. And I think that   for many dental practices, like for many of us that are entrepreneurs, like we've lived in this ROI world, right? If you ever were someone that had to raise cash or capital, you get those questions. And from a dental practice perspective, right? It's like, okay, we're going to make this investment in technology and rightfully so. What's the ROI on this? And I do think, and I loved your thoughts on this, that companies are doing such a better job of being able to paint that picture of, okay, you're going to make this investment. You're going to put this technology in the practice. It's going to make your patient experience better. But here is going to be   the return on investment, you are going to unlock a lot of your AR that's out there, make things easier for your patients. So talk about that a little bit.   Kiera (16:50) Yeah. I'll just get like paint a story of a practice. So there's a practice in Texas and this practice is amazing. Like they truly have a castle of an office. am blown away at how stunning this practice is. They are up to par on all the latest technology. They do a lot of these items in their practice, but what they were doing was the patient came in. So the waiting room was beautiful and they would just walk the patient straight back to the back.   Now this is a practice who's been around multi-generations of dentistry. They do service in other places. They have a state of the art lab they do in-house. Like it is a practice that should be showcased and they were struggling and their revenue was down and we went in person with this office and we consulted their team and we taught them like, we're going to have you guys take them on a patient tour. like, this is a pretty large team. think there's about 35, 40 people and we like made them role play walking through this practice and showcasing.   this ROI items that they've put into it. I you guys are using this, but do your patients actually know that you're doing it? So we do this, we implement it, we track a few things with them. Fast forward two, three months post visit, their reviews exponentially went up, their new patient counts went up, their revenue, they had their highest revenue number they had ever had and their culture of their team was happier. And I was like, I don't think I can sit here and say it's a coincidence. So like the patients love the tour.   Like they love seeing this practice. They love seeing what's going on. And what is as is it just gives confidence. And I say, John, if you and I were to go to ⁓ a surgeon, right? I'm going to want to know that that surgeon is the best freaking surgeon and that I'm going to put my confidence in them because I only have one arm, one hand, one leg, one neck. We'll have one set of teeth too. And so helping patients get the perception of who you are as a dentist and showcasing, I have seen like I've worked in hundreds of practices.   And some of my best offices do not showcase like they're the best and perception is a lot. Now there's some practices who actually are not great dentists and they showcase like they're amazing. And so you've got to make sure that who you are is what you're doing. But the ROI, and I wanted to showcase that practice, they have invested in a lot of this technology. They have invested in advancing their practice and it shows and they're able to show their patients. And we had direct correlation of higher reviews, higher new patients and higher production. And so I think.   Just that example, and this was done just a couple of months ago. We were out there in September and in December they had their highest month. So it wasn't a long-term ROI churn. It was very quick. so I think in general, medicine has evolved. think across the board, we're talking healthcare as a whole has leveled up. They uptick higher. Patients are expecting more. I mean, we go anywhere and technology is higher. You go to the movie theater, you go to the restaurants.   everything has upleveled. And if you and your practice are not up leveling, and I don't think it's hard for dentistry, I'm like, you guys already have a 3d printer or you already have a scanner or you already are taking digital x-rays. Just tell your patients, you do this showcase it around because I think the, the fallacy that you might fall into is like, but patients are just loyal to me. I think I to be careful because there's so much online noise that while a patient might love you,   they're seeing other offices that might accidentally take away your patients and they're doing it. Like it annoys me, John. I have a patient sitting in my chair and like, yeah, I just went to Dr. Thompson down the street from my ortho. I'm like, so we do ortho here, but they didn't know we did it. And so don't accidentally not showcase your work and showcase how great you are and how up to par you are that you're accidentally losing patients that are silent levers of your practice. ⁓ because you didn't showcase how great you were and let your patients know what you actually do.   I think that's the trap and the opportunity if you take it to be able to keep your patients with you and keep them happier with you when there's still noise and chatter because they know they're at the best practice that's investing and elevating and giving them the best patient care they possibly can have.   John (20:52) Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot lately, just this kind of invisible credibility that comes with what you just talked about, which is when a business, in this case, a dental practice is making the investment in these newer technologies. A lot of times as patients, we don't say it, but we know, like you said, you walk into a practice and you see there's in your own life, you know what it took to remodel your house or to get a new car or whatever the case may be of the things that are important to you. And so I think more and more patients know   and understand what a dental practice or a business has to go through when they up their game. I believe that you get a lot of credibility out of that, right? Versus maybe the one that doesn't do that. Maybe the thought becomes whether it's real or not. Hey, why aren't they doing that? Like are things not good here? Like, do I have something to be concerned about? And in many cases, perception is reality. And again,   It's going to run through to patient care. We all know that. think the last thing I wanted to get your thoughts on, and you talked a little bit about earlier was AI in the sense of case acceptance because you know, you and I both have been in this industry for many years and have watched all the courses that dentists and hygienists and dental assistants have had to take on how to present good treatment and get case acceptance.   and we've watched them struggle for many years, Kiera, and then all of a sudden we have these newer technologies where you can show the patient where the work needs to be done in their mouth. And it's crazy, right? All of a sudden, I'm like, wow, that's me? That's where I have to get work done? the dentist is like, I've been telling you this for like, why didn't you just believe me? And in front of our eyes, this technology is now instilling confidence in the patients. And ultimately, it's a win for everybody.   Kiera (22:36) Yeah, think it's such a beautiful time for dentistry right now because we've been living in shades of gray for so many years. We advanced from like little tiny thumbnail ⁓ x-rays to on the screen x-rays that are still in gray to now having AI that can show patients exactly what's going on. And it's colored and it's showing them and it's giving measurements. And I think like what an amazing opportunity for you.   to use tools at your fingertips where you're not having to try to convince a patient of like, can you kind of see this like little gray box within this like other gray box that they truly cannot see? To now, this is what we're seeing. This is how it is. And to still give the doctors the liberty to be diagnosing. I know some have said that like AI is so aggressive on it. And I'm like, you don't have to diagnose that, but you now have a tool that's going to at least highlight. And I think dentists, you're so busy. You're running from exam to exam to exam. You have something.   that can look for all these things, prep it. You can train your eye. You can tee up all your associates that come in. Your hygiene team can learn collectively and your patient now has visible proof. It's like the, and I know dentists hate being compared to mechanics and I'm very sorry. I think it's just such a good like analogy. I go, you know, right? Like I go to the mechanic and like, here, you need new breaks. And I'm like, but do I really? Cause I've been scammed so many times patients like, do I really need a crown? John? Like, are you sure?   John (23:50) analogy I say because   Kiera (24:02) And we have taken that guesswork of, you sure? To being able to show them with black and white proof to where they're bought into it. They know they're not being scammed by you. They can see it with their own eyes and they're much more likely to accept treatment. I say, like confidence is what people are buying when they're saying yes to dentistry. Confidence is what increases your case acceptance. And this is a layer of confidence for you as the dentist, for your patients to see, for your team to all speak the same language.   care if AI is over diagnosing, don't over diagnose. You are still the doctor. Like this is just a tool in your tool belt. But I think it's something that hands down, I am so pro using it. I'm like, doctors also be so vigilant because insurances are denying claims based on the same software. Like they're using AI as well. So you might as well be in the game with them to see what they're seeing, to learn, to educate AI. So you're a part of it.   They use AI in medicine all the time. They use AI overlays on their x-rays that I'm like, yes, I get that it's not perfect. Yes, I get that it's clunky, but gosh, it's a freaking good tool that I would strongly advise you trying out, getting to know, using and learning. Even if it just helps you. I think about it. If I'm able to get 1 % more on case acceptance, go look at everything you're diagnosing. Usually that's a pretty good uptick, but not even just on your bottom line, but on the amount of patients you're able to help and serve. ⁓ why not?   Like what, what are you holding back on? I would just say, don't be afraid. Like just get in the game because you'll learn it's a lot better for you than it is scary. And there's a lot more good than there is harm.   John (25:39) Yeah, no question. Well, here's how I want to bring us home. You work with a lot of dental companies and I believe that this gap that I've seen for years between like the companies that are bringing the technologies to the dental practices and the practices themselves, it's exciting to kind of watch that gap close, right? Like I'm seeing more and more companies kind of listen and say, hey, what problems are you having? How can we utilize our resources to help you solve these problems? And you know,   We talked a little bit about at the onset, you know, the relationship that you have with Josh and DCS or whatever. And what's exciting is that you have companies that are starting, ⁓ and doing and solving one problem and then taking a lot of that feedback and then creating, you know, in this case, another technology platform and an effort to kind of elevate that problem. I mean, to be able to solve that problem with their solutions. What's that been like, right? Like talk a little bit about when you watch these companies evolve and continue to listen to the dental practice and bring these technologies to help these practices.   practices up their games.   Kiera (26:41) Oh, I think it's amazing. Actually. I am such a pro. Like I'm on a couple of different boards as well. And I think it's something where when I look at it, I'm like, why are these people doing it? And it's because we love dentistry. Like I look at Dental A Team team and what I used to consult versus what we consult now, like there's DSO, there's different needs than what a solo practitioner has. And so Dental A Team evolved and we became something of what are we going to do to serve the DSO thing and still be able to give back.   What is Josh with DCS? Like we heard this, we saw the need and we built something to help on that other avenue. To me, I think like, how awesome is it that you have people that are in the weeds, in the trenches have been here? I mean, I've got a decade of consulting, not to mention my like five years prior to that of assisting and all the other things prior to before that, like five more years. Like there's so much, like you have people that are so embedded in dentistry and they've seen the evolutions.   that they're willing to come forward. They're willing to execute. They're willing to stamp. They're willing to work hard to evolve these products and softwares to give back to you. And I think like people who are deeply rooted in dentistry, building these products, they're the best ones. Like I watched Modento, which I'll just give them. Like they were built by a hygienist and a dentist, and they were able to be one of the best softwares when they first started that I've ever seen. I'm like, I could tell this was built by people that got it. And so watching DCS like,   They get it. They're in the trenches. They've been watching this. They know what they're doing and they're moving it forward. We've been watching offices. We've been working with DSOs. We see what the nuances are and we build and create stuff to serve the dentist. Gosh, I just think it's magic and I think it's beautiful. And I think like, how lucky are we to be in these spaces to have people that have had enough time in the industry to know what the next layer is that you need before you even know. It feels like Henry Ford to me in a little bit like,   They said, if I give the people what they want, they'll want a faster horse. But if I give them what they need, it will be a car. And they don't even know that they need that yet. And I think that that's where we're evolving is being able to anticipate the needs of what offices need prior to them even realizing it's a need. And that to me is like just epic and incredible of a society and a community that really wants to give back and serve and make dentistry the best it can be.   John (28:55) Well, and who would have ever thought that a dental company would take the time to create a podcast like this, the zero bounce podcast, right? As a way to continue to add value and of course, invite amazing guests like yourself. I can tell everybody. I remember, I don't know how many podcast episodes Kiera has done, you know, in the past over many years. I remember the actual weekend that she was building and putting up those black panels behind her. ⁓ and so it's like, you know, you're, you're, you're definitely   listen to someone, you know, when you talk about someone that has rolled up their sleeves and dug in an effort to move dentistry forward, Kiera, you certainly have done that. And, ⁓ I know the DCS and Quanta Team really, really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to show your passion. And I think more importantly, help dental practices bridging a lot of these technologies and how to implement them. So any final thoughts as we wrap.   Kiera (29:47) Yeah, well, huge appreciation, John. And thank you for helping me with the background, because I definitely asked for you and your help and your insights. So appreciate that. I love it. Thank you. But I think, again, it's an evolution. And I would just say AI is going to be awesome. And there's going to be glitches, and there's going to be problems with anything. But I think the more we can embrace and we can innovate, we're either going to innovate or we're going to die. And we're going to be either on the path forward or we're going to be left behind.   John (29:55) So good.   Kiera (30:14) I think, Denissure, we have such a beautiful gift to give people confidence and clarity and smiles and health that no other profession is able to do. So I think it's just a moral charge for each of you to look to see where is maybe one area of AI or advancement that I'm willing to step into this year. So I commit to not getting dated. ⁓ And I think DCS and the Qantas team are a great place to start. think on our side, if there's anything we can do with team, with consulting, with...   like shoot, hate doing this. I don't want to go rally my team. Great. We love to do that. We do the part that no one likes to do just like DCS. They do the part of billing that no one likes to do. ⁓ I think we like do the dirty work of dentistry, but we love it we have a passion for it. So if we can help them serve in any way, TheDentalATeam.com Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. ⁓ huge partners of DCS and have referred many people to them over the years and just excited for what they're doing. So be excited guys. We live in the best times. We live in the most innovative times. And I think it's just.   a really amazing miracle that we get to be a part of dentistry and the changes. And I think everybody needs to realize what you do or don't do is going to have an impact on our future of dentistry. And I think that that's a moral charge each of us should take to be able to preserve the sanctity of our dentistry. That doesn't mean we stop it. That just means that we're able to positively impact. We're able to keep the integrity of our profession. And each of us, think, have a moral charge to do that. And so get on board, be a part of it, be a part of the noise, be a part of having your voice heard.   and I'm truly just excited and honored and happy to help in any way we can.   John (31:45) great way to wrap. And if you're watching this on YouTube, love to have you subscribe to The ZeroBalance podcast. If you are an audio podcast listener and you're listening to on Spotify or Apple as well, subscribe. And each time the Quanta team adds a new episode like this great one with Kiera, it'll come through on your listening device of choice. So Kiera, thanks so much. Best of luck as you continue to do great things. It's a big year for you, like you mentioned, 2026. So I'm excited to stay connected and watch all the great things that you and the Dental A Team are doing. So until next time, we'll see you everybody.   The Dental A Team (32:13) All right, Dental A Team listeners, that was the guest interview that I absolutely loved. And I hope that if there was one idea that stood out to you, don't just agree with it, but actually go implement it this week. And if you need help setting this up in your practice or you need help just navigating or need a friend, head on over to TheDentalATeam.com and I'll be able to help you guys out. Click on the book of call or any way that we can support and serve you. That's what we're here for. That's what we're obsessed with. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

Pour ce nouveau format Sans Filet, nos chroniqueurs notent les aptitudes des joueurs de tennis en les comparant. A l'occasion de cette deuxième émission, Yannick Noah et Jo-Wilfried Tsonga s'affrontent sur 10 thèmes, de la qualité du service au rapport au public, en passant par le coup droit et la volée. Qui est le plus complet ? Qui a le meilleur revers ? Qui a le meilleur style ? Participez à VERSUS en notant les joueurs en live.Ce podcast est hébergé par Podcastics, la plateforme pour créer et diffuser votre podcast facilement.

Master the $500B Cloud Marketplace Engine Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this compelling discussion, Vince Menzione sits down with Dexter Hardy, founder of Ntegral and the visionary behind Spark, to deconstruct the massive transformation happening within the cloud ecosystem. Dexter shares his journey of evolving from a traditional systems integrator to a marketplace powerhouse with over 300 solutions and customers in 100 countries, revealing the “Marketplace Operating System” that drives global sales without a massive headcount. They dive deep into the Spark GTM methodology, discussing how companies can bridge the gap between building a solution and actually driving “Get It Now” transactions while navigating the $500 billion committed cloud-spend landscape. From the nuances of multi-party private offers to the critical role of AI in becoming a “frontier firm,” this episode provides a high-level masterclass for any partner looking to turn the marketplace into their most effective revenue stream. https://youtu.be/VLkkuHPpYuk?si=x03Odt2UsCjhtVf4 Key Takeaways The cloud marketplace represents a potential $500 billion in committed spend that partners cannot access without MAC-eligible, transactable solutions. Marketplace as a Service (MaaS) helps traditional SIs pivot to becoming SDCs or ISVs by providing a strategic roadmap for IP conversion. Successful marketplace strategy requires a “Marketplace Operating System” that aligns digital sales with your internal operations and business goals. The “Get It Now” economy allows for 24-hour global sales and lead generation without the need for traditional manual email or phone chains. Becoming a “Frontier Firm” means combining human experience with AI to do things faster, better, and more efficiently than the competition. Co-selling is evolving beyond just the hyperscalers to include rich, multi-party private offers involving resellers and distributors. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags: Integral, Spark, Marketplace as a Service, MaaS, Marketplace Operating System, Marketplace Strategy, Transactable Offers, Get It Now button, SI to ISV pivot, SDC, Microsoft Marketplace, AWS Marketplace, Google Cloud Marketplace, IP Co-sell, MAC eligible, Multi-party private offers, REO, Reseller enabled offers, Cloud Committed Spend, Frontier Firm, AI agents, Spark GTM methodology, Marketplace Optimization, Digital Sales Flywheel. Transcript: Dexter Hardy Audio Episode [00:00:00] Dexter Hardy: AI in the hands of someone who has no idea what they’re doing is just a, it’s a faster way to failure, right? Yeah. ’cause they have, they [00:00:06] Vince Menzione: still don’t understand the concepts. [00:00:11] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Today I’m joined by Dexter Hardy, the founder of Integral for a compelling discussion. Dexter, welcome back to the podcast. Great to be here, Vince. It’s [00:00:29] Dexter Hardy: always a pleasure. [00:00:30] Vince Menzione: It is so good to have you back in Boca. [00:00:33] Vince Menzione: Uh, we just wrapped up our ultimate partner executive winter retreat. We call it the Winter Retreat now. [00:00:39] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:00:39] Vince Menzione: It’s still February when this airs. It’ll probably be March or April. [00:00:43] Dexter Hardy: Okay. [00:00:43] Vince Menzione: But, um, yeah, the weather in the north has been, they’ve had a tough winter. [00:00:49] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. It’s been brutal [00:00:50] Vince Menzione: for, it’s been brutal. Even, even Atlanta where you are. [00:00:53] Vince Menzione: Had a little bit of winter this year as well. [00:00:54] Dexter Hardy: I was happy to get on the flight. Yeah. It was like 29 degrees the day out, so, [00:00:59] Vince Menzione: so, um, this is your second time Yeah. On Ultimate Partner. And we’ve been friends for, we’re just talking about this. You’ve been to every single one of our Ultimate Partner events. [00:01:10] Vince Menzione: Nine events, [00:01:12] Dexter Hardy: yep. [00:01:12] Vince Menzione: Three times here in Boca and then in other cities like Dallas and Las Colinas. Seattle, Seattle and Reston. Oh my goodness. And we’re back in Seattle again in May. So, uh, we’ve been, we’ve been busy. We’ve been busy. Both of us have [00:01:27] Dexter Hardy: Scott Myer [00:01:28] Vince Menzione: up and we’ve been, and we were introduced. We’ve been friends and worked together. [00:01:31] Vince Menzione: And so I would love to get caught up on you and Integral. [00:01:35] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:01:36] Vince Menzione: Um, the first time we sat down, we talked about Integral as a marketplace. Uh, customer base or, or, or vendor supporting the marketplace. [00:01:45] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:01:46] Vince Menzione: And you were, you’ve been, uh, showcased at Microsoft with the Marketplace organization. You’ve done some astounding things in terms of driving business without like a big sales force, you know, and driving marketplace sales, uh, to very high levels. [00:02:02] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:02:03] Vince Menzione: And, uh, and now you, I’ll call it a little bit of a twist and turn, but now. You’ve taken all the great learnings, and I’m probably sharing some of your thunder here, but you’ve taken all the great learnings that you’ve had in marketplace and your business [00:02:16] Dexter Hardy: mm-hmm. [00:02:16] Vince Menzione: And now you’re like looking at all these other companies, they’re probably trying to do the same thing and finding ways to help them. [00:02:21] Vince Menzione: So let’s, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about where you’re going. [00:02:25] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. So, so thanks for that. And it’s always a pleasure to be, you know, in the room with you, especially on the podcast, uh, seeing it grow over the years. And, um, to kind of double click on. How did we get to where we are with, uh, spark Bi Integral? [00:02:40] Dexter Hardy: Um, it’s our marketplace as a service offering. Um, we [00:02:46] Vince Menzione: marketplace as a service. You get that? I just wanna make sure people are listening and watching. Get that. That’s a, that’s a new acronym for me. [00:02:53] Dexter Hardy: That’s a new one. But, but what we, how do we get there? So to your point, yes, we. We’re a, um, marketplace first organization looking at the digital sales leaned in heavily on marketplace. [00:03:08] Dexter Hardy: Um, and what we were doing internally was we created our marketplace operating system. Like literally, how do we run our business? How do we digitize, how do we get those, uh, how do we turn the marketplace into our 24 hour sales guy? Yeah. Taking all those lessons learned how you deal with the hyperscale or how do you understand, you know, the, the signals that’s happening in the market. [00:03:33] Dexter Hardy: Uh, coupling that with, because we’ve been a member of this wonderful organization and getting into the partner community ecosystem, we get asked a million times, I bet. What do you do? How do you do it? That’s help us understand marketplace and so what we. What we saw there was an opportunity to both lean into the challenges that other partners are facing. [00:04:00] Dexter Hardy: If you’re an SI that’s trying to pivot [00:04:02] Vince Menzione: yep, [00:04:03] Dexter Hardy: and be in the marketplace, you’re already established company, how do you create Transactable offers? How do we take the the marketplace opportunity and leverage AI and put our agents in the marketplace? Our aha moment was this is, this is an en enablement opportunity that we can get into and basically be the first ones in because we leaned into it, we understand it. [00:04:35] Dexter Hardy: What makes us different from the other companies is we actually use that methodology every day. [00:04:43] Vince Menzione: For those who maybe didn’t listen to the last podcast we did together, I know this story, but I want others to know the context of it. Tell us about your transformation to a marketplace firm. [00:04:54] Dexter Hardy: Okay, for sure. [00:04:56] Vince Menzione: Maybe the shorter version. [00:04:57] Dexter Hardy: The shorter version, [00:04:57] Vince Menzione: but I, I do know that there was some, you were in business for a long time before this became the business strategy. [00:05:03] Dexter Hardy: Yeah, so the shortened version business founded 2002, Microsoft partner for many years. Yep. 2020. Si. Si as an si. 2020 COVID. [00:05:16] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:05:16] Dexter Hardy: Consulting 2.0. [00:05:17] Dexter Hardy: How do you do what you do at scale for others? Taking your ip, converting it. We did that at 2020. Embraced the marketplace. We created our solutions, deploy them to the marketplace. The rest is history. We leaned in how [00:05:32] Vince Menzione: many solutions in the [00:05:33] Dexter Hardy: marketplace, over 300 solutions. I wanna [00:05:35] Vince Menzione: make sure people [00:05:35] Dexter Hardy: got that. [00:05:35] Dexter Hardy: Over a hundred, 300 [00:05:36] Vince Menzione: solutions. [00:05:37] Dexter Hardy: Over 300 solutions. Yeah. Uh, we have. Customers in over a hundred countries. I mean, and [00:05:42] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:05:43] Dexter Hardy: You know, continuing to build and expand our customer base on a daily basis. And so, [00:05:48] Vince Menzione: and they’re, and they’re buying when you, while you sleep. I mean, we, we’ve known each other pretty well for a number of years. [00:05:54] Vince Menzione: And [00:05:54] Dexter Hardy: yeah, [00:05:54] Vince Menzione: you have customers like, um, I’ll throw out a number, like 25,000 customers, probably, maybe beyond that. And these customers are buying your solutions. All hours of the day and night, [00:06:06] Dexter Hardy: right? Yeah. I I love the get it now button in the marketplace. Literally all they have to do to work with us or transact with us is click on, get It Now, and that’s the transactable offer that everyone, there’s this mystique around. [00:06:19] Dexter Hardy: People are like, well, we don’t have any leads. We can, you know, our, we have an offer in the marketplace and nobody’s clicking on it. And I’m like, Hmm, [00:06:27] Vince Menzione: yeah, [00:06:27] Dexter Hardy: we can help you with that. Right? And so, um, you know, that’s how we. Our, our story with that, our background with that was it’s our 24 hour sales guy. We drive our campaigns, we align with the solution plays. [00:06:41] Dexter Hardy: We’re getting those clicks with, to your point, without this huge army of people. Yeah. And so now we’re saying from a marketplace strategic advisory, a lot of people were saying it earlier, like, you know, marketplace isn’t this adjacent thing to business. How do you strategically think about it as. Um, part of your business all up. [00:07:03] Dexter Hardy: How do you add that as a revenue stream, uh, for your organization? And yeah, there may be some changes that you need to make, you know, how do you incorporate the channel? How do you add in all of the things that you’re currently doing, but create that as a flywheel for this. Get it now economy. [00:07:22] Vince Menzione: So all the, I’m, I’m thinking out loud, like there’s probably a lot of people watching you up on stage at these events talking about how you evolved your company and grew it. [00:07:31] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:07:32] Vince Menzione: Going, that’s me. [00:07:33] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:07:33] Vince Menzione: That’s me. The old, the old version of you absolutely is them. [00:07:37] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:07:38] Vince Menzione: And they all, they all want help. [00:07:39] Dexter Hardy: They all, [00:07:40] Vince Menzione: everybody wants help in marketplace. [00:07:41] Dexter Hardy: Right. And [00:07:43] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:07:43] Dexter Hardy: And, and to that end. Because I was them. I understand how their mind, it’s a mindset shift, right? You’re saying, okay, we have these traditional sales, we’re a systems integrator, we have all this ip, these, there are all these things that we can do. [00:07:57] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:07:58] Dexter Hardy: I don’t, how do we convert this to transact ability? How do we get our sales teams enabled to sell it? And I was, and my, my feedback and my response to that is, well, one, we have a service for that. It’s our marketplace advisor services. I’m sorry for the plug, but not sorry. [00:08:16] Vince Menzione: No, we’re, no, we’re gonna plug today as well. [00:08:18] Vince Menzione: Much as you want. [00:08:19] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:08:20] Vince Menzione: And then I think about this too, because a lot of these sis are developing, we’re just, uh, talking with Agua about MSPs, developing agents for their customers and then making ’em repeatable. [00:08:30] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:08:31] Vince Menzione: And so you have other sis that are creating AI tools and agents. Microsoft is created and the, and so has AWS and Google, they’ve created space in their marketplaces for agent AI tools. [00:08:44] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:08:45] Vince Menzione: And so now you’ve got all these companies that were traditional sis that are now becoming what we would call ISVs or, or SDCs. And they need help in getting these solutions to the marketplace. [00:08:57] Dexter Hardy: Absolutely. [00:08:58] Vince Menzione: So, so talk about what you’re doing with Spark. [00:09:00] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. So our concept with Spark is. When you look at enablement, so you’ll have platforms that are enablers and a lot of people will say, well, what makes Spark different? [00:09:12] Dexter Hardy: Why? Why you versus Tackle Or Sugar? [00:09:15] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:09:15] Dexter Hardy: Any of the other work span. Work span or any, they’re all friendlys to us because we’re meeting you where you are. Right. In order for you to use their platform, you gotta already have the solution together. [00:09:29] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:09:30] Dexter Hardy: Right. They can help you deploy. There’s Deploy. They are a deployment firm or [00:09:35] Vince Menzione: Right. [00:09:36] Dexter Hardy: Um, platforms We’re saying [00:09:38] Vince Menzione: they’re middleware in many respects. Correct. Between the, they’re, [00:09:41] Dexter Hardy: they’re integrated into the marketplace. They’re highly embedded into the systems behind it, and we’re saying what happens before that? I have no idea what solution to build. I have no idea how we’re gonna take advantage of Marketplace. [00:09:58] Dexter Hardy: How is Marketplace gonna change? Again, we had these conversations at dinner. Um, [00:10:04] Vince Menzione: yeah, [00:10:04] Dexter Hardy: all of the big players are saying, we have channel, we have our sales teams, we have all these things already. How does marketplace play into that for us? And so that Marketplace strategic advisory goes into it and says, here’s how. [00:10:19] Dexter Hardy: Right. We have a. Our Spark GTM methodology goes into how do those things play together? What are your KPIs or what are your business goals as an organization all up? And then we marry this, basically a Venn diagram of how we marry marketplace with your current objectives. Okay. To not just be this, uh, ubiquitous thing that’s kind of sitting over on the side, like, let’s just put it in marketplace because we need to, and nobody knows it’s there and nobody knows it’s there. [00:10:49] Dexter Hardy: It’s part of. Everything all up. Your messaging, your sales organization, your, um, documentation that you have for your organization. So now everyone understands, not just you as the, let’s say you’re an SI that you were, but you, the si with your agents and how that plays into your bigger value proposition. [00:11:10] Dexter Hardy: So take [00:11:10] Vince Menzione: us through the, go to the methodology you described the Spark methodology. [00:11:15] Dexter Hardy: Yep. So, um, a lot of people, when they think about. The methodology, you’ll say we’re a, we’re an si. I’m just going to use an example. You’re an si. How, how do I get somebody to click on my, my opportunity? How do I get somebody to understand what we have as a value proposition? [00:11:39] Dexter Hardy: And I’d say to people, well, there’s this, it’s part of the methodology. There’s product viability. Can you build something? Versus should you build something. Right. [00:11:50] Vince Menzione: Interesting. [00:11:51] Dexter Hardy: If you are, if you are out there today and you’re saying, I mean, everybody’s seeing Claude, the agents, you can, you can ask AI to build you pretty much anything. [00:12:00] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:12:00] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:12:01] Dexter Hardy: Now the question scary and that, that’s a, that, that introduces a new problem. But it’s, can you do it or should you do it? [00:12:08] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:12:09] Dexter Hardy: And and what I’ll tell people is part of our advisory, so the steps are. What is your North Star right now and what is the software that would enable you to get on that AI rocket ship to propel you even further with where you are? [00:12:27] Dexter Hardy: Those are the solutions that we would try to [00:12:29] Vince Menzione: Okay. [00:12:30] Dexter Hardy: That out, pull out of, uh, as part of that marketplace. Um, advisory Second, what partner or partner organizations are you a member of? Is it Microsoft? Is it the AWS? Is it, you know, Google Cloud? Google Cloud, what have you, and let’s say Microsoft. What are solution plays? [00:12:51] Dexter Hardy: What is Microsoft focused on? How does what you’re doing as an organization align with that go to market? Mm-hmm. Because now you have that jet power of what they’re, um, promoting along with your organization. [00:13:06] Vince Menzione: Nice. [00:13:07] Dexter Hardy: And then the final piece is, well, now that you’ve done that, how do I get it into market? [00:13:12] Dexter Hardy: How do I, uh, get people to click on it? And that’s where some of the secret sauce that I won’t divulge on this, [00:13:19] Vince Menzione: uh, [00:13:20] Dexter Hardy: but there is some secret sauce to getting the ICPs to lean in, getting the [00:13:25] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:13:25] Dexter Hardy: You know, you’re listing to light up inside of that. And so that’s. You know, that’s at a high level. That’s kind of how the marketplace, [00:13:32] Vince Menzione: I think what you’re alluding to, and I, I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but I do think you’ve done a very good job on what I would call maybe digital marketing, maybe. [00:13:41] Vince Menzione: Would that be the right terminology? Yeah. To make your solutions discoverable, to make people understand that they’re out there and to lean in and be able to purchase them. [00:13:51] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:13:52] Vince Menzione: Which I think I would say that’s probably part of the secret sauce, probably of Spark. That is what you’re saying because a lot of organizations struggle here. [00:13:59] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:14:00] Vince Menzione: They put something in the marketplace and nothing ever happens with it. Even even big companies do that. They don’t know how to do it. [00:14:06] Dexter Hardy: So, so yeah. Without divulging the secret sauce, I had a gentleman ask me yesterday, um, during the conference, so how is this different from SEO? I said, good question. [00:14:20] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. Is is SEOS? Is, is SEO involved? Sure, but that’s not the final answer. Because you could do SEO, that doesn’t mean anybody. That just gets you, doesn’t mean anything. Doesn’t mean anything. And so. That’s why I keep going back to this methodology of really aligning it with, uh, what it is you’re trying to accomplish, who it is you’re trying to get to lean in, and then what is the value proposition? [00:14:42] Dexter Hardy: Because at the end of the day, Vince, I think even with any service, like I said, we did our first offerings with our R zero offerings and now we’re doing this. It’s what is the value, right? Um, it’s a hard. Thing to do to really wrap your brain around how your, how your business is going to change from, if you’re doing direct sales and you got your bag and you’re out there selling to now, you mean I don’t have to pick up the phone and call you? [00:15:15] Dexter Hardy: There’s not an email chain that goes out. It’s literally people are just clicking on Get it now to get it [00:15:21] Vince Menzione: and getting it. [00:15:22] Dexter Hardy: That’s a, that’s a mind shift change and that’s. To your point, there is some market, there is some marketing expertise that is required. [00:15:29] Vince Menzione: And we’ve also talked about, I know you and I went down a journey on the co-sell business [00:15:34] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:15:34] Vince Menzione: And how difficult it can be to get a, a seller from a Microsoft or a Google and Amazon involved, unless it’s, you know, a $10 million transaction, they don’t want to get involved. [00:15:45] Dexter Hardy: Right. [00:15:46] Vince Menzione: Uh, you really wanna reach the customer. Because you know, the hyperscalers is great. If you’re driving a ServiceNow or an ADO a big solution, it’s gonna be tens of millions of dollars. [00:15:56] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:15:57] Vince Menzione: But if you are an SI and you’re selling this as part of maybe a services offering, or you’re selling it as, you know, you’re just selling as a standalone. [00:16:04] Dexter Hardy: Right? [00:16:05] Vince Menzione: Um, you want as much eyeballs and transactions as possible and you’re not gonna get that just going co-selling. [00:16:12] Dexter Hardy: Right. And, and the other part of that I will say about co-sell. [00:16:17] Dexter Hardy: I think co-sell has gotten like a dirty rap or bad rap around it. Co-sell is with the hyperscaler, but it’s with other partners too. [00:16:28] Vince Menzione: Sure, [00:16:28] Dexter Hardy: right? Oh yeah, absolutely. So, um, being in the marketplace gives you the option of co-selling would, not just the hyperscaler, but co-selling with other orgs. And so now anytime that you’ve give, you’ve given yourself that X factor on top of your existing ability to deliver. [00:16:44] Dexter Hardy: That’s where you’re seeing the true power of marketplace. [00:16:47] Vince Menzione: And yesterday you were on stage with Jason Rook. [00:16:50] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:16:51] Vince Menzione: And this was part of the conversation. It was you, Jason Rook and Amit Sinha at, at uh, work Span. [00:16:58] Dexter Hardy: Mm-hmm. [00:16:58] Vince Menzione: And part of the conversation was around the, uh, reseller enabled offers. And I think what that’s somewhat of what you’re alluding to is that you have other wait routes to market channels to market. [00:17:10] Dexter Hardy: Right [00:17:11] Vince Menzione: through building other partnerships for co-selling. Yeah. That what you, you were alluding to. Yeah. [00:17:15] Dexter Hardy: So, so yeah, there, there are a million ways to, once you’re in, once you have a transactable offer, that’s when you get the magic unlocks. Right. You, the barrier to entry is being in marketplace with a transactable offer. [00:17:31] Dexter Hardy: And if you’re outside of that loop, again, the REO. You’re not available. Guess who? Guess who can’t do that? [00:17:39] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:17:40] Dexter Hardy: If you’re not in the marketplace, you can’t do that. [00:17:41] Vince Menzione: Can’t do that. [00:17:43] Dexter Hardy: Multi-party private offers can’t do that. ’cause you’re not in the marketplace. [00:17:47] Vince Menzione: No. [00:17:48] Dexter Hardy: Right. And so what we’re saying is think about all up, how you’re missing out on. [00:17:56] Dexter Hardy: All of these wonderful opportunities to, I think, I think the number got thrown out a couple of times. Jason ran away from it when you said it’s like a $300 billion number on, he [00:18:07] Vince Menzione: didn’t want, he didn’t, he didn’t want me sharing or he wasn’t, he, he didn’t want to, uh, what, what did he say? Validate that that was the right number, but $300 billion in potential cloud budgets. [00:18:21] Vince Menzione: That you could have access to. We know the number across the three hyperscalers is north of 500 billion. [00:18:27] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:18:27] Vince Menzione: It’s just that Microsoft doesn’t break out their numbers and make them public, and so we, you know, [00:18:32] Dexter Hardy: and, and [00:18:33] Vince Menzione: estimates. [00:18:33] Dexter Hardy: What I would tell everyone that’s listening, I would invite you to consider [00:18:37] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:18:38] Dexter Hardy: the following. [00:18:39] Dexter Hardy: If you’re not in the marketplace with a IP, co-sale or MAC eligible solution, you’re not eligible for that. [00:18:49] Vince Menzione: That’s right. [00:18:50] Dexter Hardy: Spend. And so is that worth it for you as an organization to say, yes, we need to figure out this and get involved with that? [00:19:01] Vince Menzione: So I’m an SI and I raise my hand. I’m like, Dexter, help me. [00:19:06] Vince Menzione: What happens next? [00:19:08] Dexter Hardy: I would say. Let me introduce you to my team. [00:19:12] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it. [00:19:13] Dexter Hardy: Um, [00:19:14] Vince Menzione: and you’ve been building your team since, uh, we go back now four years, but like yeah. You, you’ve been growing your business, hired some incredible people in your [00:19:22] Dexter Hardy: team. Yeah, we have some rock stars on our team. I’m really, really happy with my team. [00:19:25] Dexter Hardy: Uh, you know, we’re still growing and it’s, it’s a wonderful thing to be in this economy and still growing. Yes. Um, and like I said, yes, we, I would introduce you to my team and my team would then help you, uh, through. The marketplace advisory. We can help you with the health check. We can do the strategic advisory, the alignment around, here’s what we’re doing. [00:19:47] Dexter Hardy: Another thing that I’ll go ahead and put in here, if you already have listings in the marketplace and people aren’t clicking on them, we have marketplace optimization as well. [00:19:58] Vince Menzione: I love that [00:19:59] Dexter Hardy: because we, again, that conversation comes up all the time. Yeah. We put, we, we invested in Marketplace and we have our listing out there. [00:20:08] Dexter Hardy: Nobody’s clicking on it. Well, we can help you with that too. [00:20:11] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:20:12] Dexter Hardy: Right, because to your point, it’s not just building an ar, arbitrarily writing something about it, putting it in marketplace. Right. That’s, that’s an arbitrary approach. We’re saying how do you turn those into a lead gen, revenue gen, um, operation arm of your business. [00:20:29] Vince Menzione: Nice. [00:20:29] Dexter Hardy: Which is what we call market marketplace operating system. [00:20:33] Vince Menzione: Marketplace operating. Okay. So we got another, I got another word I need to learn. Another acronym I need to learn. [00:20:38] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. You know, I [00:20:39] Vince Menzione: less, [00:20:40] Dexter Hardy: I’ve been around Microsoft too long, I guess. [00:20:42] Vince Menzione: Yes. I [00:20:42] Dexter Hardy: created all these, [00:20:45] Vince Menzione: so, um, just perspective could, because you’ve been in the marketplace since we talked about COVID. [00:20:50] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:20:51] Vince Menzione: Really. So that’s five years. Five [00:20:52] Dexter Hardy: years. Yeah. [00:20:54] Vince Menzione: Um, talk about how it’s changed from your perspective. I mean, I, we talk about it all. We talk, we have leaders like Jason and Cyril comes here and. Does, uh, speaks about some changes going on, but tell us your perspective on how it’s evolved. [00:21:08] Dexter Hardy: Um, so the marketplace is always evolving really. [00:21:12] Dexter Hardy: Um, from, from when we got in early in the marketplace. Uh, REO didn’t exist. Multi, multi-party. Private offers didn’t exist. The amount of committed spend on hyperscalers little was, wasn’t there. Um, the seller, the field sellers within the hyperscalers. Marketplace wasn’t part of their thing. So, um, you know, when that, when that frontier, not just that, not to confuse terms when that frontier opened up Yeah. [00:21:43] Dexter Hardy: Like there were, you know, it, it really wasn’t a clear path on how do you channel, how do you do sales, how do you integrate with the team? Um, and now there’s a lot more options, uh, for organizations that want to keep some of those motions together. Disti are now able to get involved with the conversation. [00:22:05] Dexter Hardy: They were kinda locked out for a while, but now with the s and the multi-party private offers and disti are in the conversation, [00:22:12] Vince Menzione: it’s lit up the disti like crazy. Yeah. In fact, we were, we just spent time with a few and some friends there and [00:22:19] Dexter Hardy: yeah. [00:22:19] Vince Menzione: Yeah, it’s been wild to watch this. [00:22:21] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:22:21] Vince Menzione: We haven’t talked about AI very much. [00:22:24] Vince Menzione: I mean, we talked about it from a solution and something you put in the, the market as an agent. But we haven’t talked about the change in a big way. Um, what’s your perspective for the partners out there and how they need to think about AI and embracing it and where they are in the journey? [00:22:41] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. Um, I really, AUL said something, uh, in his, in the panel discussion that he had the other day and it, it just really resonated with me. [00:22:53] Dexter Hardy: Uh, will AI take your job? Probably not. The person who’s using AI [00:23:00] Vince Menzione: will take [00:23:00] Dexter Hardy: the job. Will take you [00:23:01] Vince Menzione: job. Yes. [00:23:02] Dexter Hardy: Same thing. That’s really [00:23:04] Vince Menzione: so true. [00:23:05] Dexter Hardy: Same thing for, same thing for companies. Yeah. If you don’t have, and I, I’ll, I’m, I, I’m really gonna ask, I should have asked Jason this question. Why isn’t there a badge for frontier firms for SDCs? [00:23:21] Dexter Hardy: That’s a solution. Partner badge, not a frontier firm. [00:23:24] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:23:24] Dexter Hardy: but I’ll say if your company isn’t investing in combining people and ai, you’re missing the boat. [00:23:36] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So be a frontier firm. [00:23:37] Dexter Hardy: Be a frontier firm where it doesn’t matter if you’re an si, SDC, if you are not leveraging that superpower of how do we do things faster, better, quicker. [00:23:50] Dexter Hardy: Make that part of your go to market and your operating total operations, you’re going to get left behind. [00:23:57] Vince Menzione: Yeah. We’re hearing it loud and clear. I mean, all the sessions we had yesterday. [00:24:02] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:24:02] Vince Menzione: All the people like yourself that have been here are all frontier firms. They’re all companies that have leaned in, in a big way. [00:24:07] Dexter Hardy: Right. [00:24:08] Vince Menzione: Um, and in some respect, I mean, we we’re, I’m, I’m saying proceed with caution because I, I know by 2030 our world is gonna look very radically different than it looks today. [00:24:17] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:24:18] Vince Menzione: Uh, we just, I need to make sure we have the security and the governance and the data structure the right way so that we just don’t, things don’t just go crazy in some respects. [00:24:27] Vince Menzione: Right? [00:24:27] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. And I, I do think that, um, to your point, you have to, we still have to keep the human factor in everything that we’re doing. Um, there is, again, it’s AI plus your experience that makes you better. [00:24:46] Vince Menzione: Yeah, agreed. [00:24:47] Dexter Hardy: AI in the hands of someone who has no idea what they’re doing is just a, it’s a faster way to failure, right? [00:24:53] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. Because they have, they still don’t understand the concepts. And so I really want to make sure that, you know, when you think about ai, think about it from the context of experience, right? Yeah. [00:25:06] Vince Menzione: And yeah, we can go, we can go down a, a whole discussion point here about ethics and what I’ll call AI for good. [00:25:14] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Like I said, having the right approach, having an ethical approach. We talked about Microsoft on stage yesterday with people like Brad Smith, who, uh, there’s people that have this, this right philosophy and approach to ai. Right. That [00:25:29] Dexter Hardy: right. [00:25:29] Vince Menzione: It will do good for the world and not bad for the world. [00:25:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:25:33] Dexter Hardy: And I think that has to be, well, I’ll just speak for myself. Can you do something and should you do something [00:25:42] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:25:43] Dexter Hardy: You have to, that should be a question that you’re asking yourself. You should be evaluating and you have to have whatever your moral compass is that has to align with your moral compass. [00:25:53] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. Because they’re, you know, because with AI the can you do something becomes a lot bigger. Yeah. [00:26:02] Vince Menzione: Good point. Good point. [00:26:03] Dexter Hardy: Should you do it well, you know, greater good. I think as a, as a collective, one of the things that’s. If it hasn’t rained true. Uh, we all live on this planet. We all are part of the, we’re all in part of a connected ecosystem. [00:26:21] Dexter Hardy: Um, and so can we do it? Should we do it? Those are questions that we need to, you know, really think about as we continue to leverage AI and do the things that we’re doing. I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of opportunities. [00:26:36] Vince Menzione: Good points, good points. So for partners watching, listening today, um, two, couple things. [00:26:43] Vince Menzione: First of all, it’s changing fast. We need like, what would be, we’re at the beginning of 2026. We’re the first quarter, 2026, maybe the end of the first quarter at this point. [00:26:53] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:26:54] Vince Menzione: What is the one or two or three things that partners need to go do differently or better? And then, um, what would you say to them about marketplace and embracing marketplace? [00:27:09] Dexter Hardy: So I’m gonna answer the second question first. [00:27:12] Vince Menzione: Okay. Sounds good. [00:27:14] Dexter Hardy: Get in the marketplace. [00:27:15] Vince Menzione: Get in the marketplace, [00:27:17] Dexter Hardy: period. [00:27:17] Vince Menzione: Like why wouldn’t you be in the marketplace? [00:27:20] Dexter Hardy: Every hyperscaler has doubled down, tripled down. Yeah. On their marketplace. Microsoft had multiple marketplaces, now it’s just one. [00:27:28] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:27:29] Dexter Hardy: Writing should be all over the wall. Not that [00:27:31] Vince Menzione: one. There is, there is no market without marketplace. I mean, literally today, the old way, days of selling, the old days of co-selling are gone. [00:27:39] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:27:39] Vince Menzione: Like the days when we, we got pos and we, we sent a, an Excel spreadsheet to Microsoft to tell ’em about the deals that were co-sell. [00:27:47] Vince Menzione: Ready? Those days are gone. So you’re saying we’ve gotta be in the marketplace now and then, what would you say maybe the one thing that’s, let’s limit it to one for all of our amazing viewers, listeners, and ultimate partner guests, when when you, when I see you in Bellevue again, ’cause you’re gonna be in Bellevue, May 11th to the 13th again. [00:28:08] Vince Menzione: Absolutely. With us helping lead the marketplace conversation. What do they need to be doing now? Right now? Besides getting the marketplace? [00:28:18] Dexter Hardy: Besides getting the marketplace, I, I would, I would do a hard look at operations. [00:28:24] Vince Menzione: Operations. [00:28:25] Dexter Hardy: Like a lot of companies, they’re growing and they, what is it? How are we looking internally in our organizations to figure out again, can we do it? [00:28:34] Dexter Hardy: Should we do it? Companies need to focus on their superpower, even, even the big ones, right? Um, being. Not having the focus, not look, looking at or listening to your why as an organization can, can put you in a, in a really weird space. And so, uh, with everyone being able to grow and do what we’re doing, I would say lean into your why, [00:29:01] Vince Menzione: like into your why. [00:29:02] Dexter Hardy: Lean into your why. [00:29:03] Vince Menzione: I think too, I think what you, what you’re saying here, and I’m, my, my reaction to it too is that, uh, we’re, we’re so caught up in the moment right now. And things are changing, so it feels like they’re changing so fast, like coming back to philanthropic and [00:29:20] Dexter Hardy: yeah. [00:29:20] Vince Menzione: What’s evolved just in the last month or so that people are taking their eye off the why or the wall, so to speak and reacting? [00:29:29] Vince Menzione: Is that, is that your point? [00:29:31] Dexter Hardy: Yeah, that’s my point and, and I’ll give you an example. So AI is different from the following technology, but. And I both were around for the blockchain, blockchain, blockchain conversation. [00:29:45] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:29:45] Dexter Hardy: And if you weren’t doing blockchain, you weren’t part of the conversation. I invite you to consider how many conversations have you heard about blockchain do? [00:29:56] Dexter Hardy: Again, AI is a little bit different because it’s, it’s an enabler. It’s, it’s, it’s, it, it does a lot more than that. But I, I will say. AI is gonna become table stakes. And that’s why I say you have to, you have to embrace it as an organization. Yeah. And if you’re not, you’re gonna get left behind. [00:30:13] Vince Menzione: Okay. It’s a drop. [00:30:14] Vince Menzione: Drop the mic moment there. So drop the mic. I’m gonna ask you one more question, personal question. Yeah. I’d love to ask this of every single one of my guests. [00:30:22] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:30:23] Vince Menzione: I probably have asked this to you before, but I’m gonna ask it to you again. [00:30:26] Dexter Hardy: Yes. [00:30:28] Vince Menzione: You are hosting a dinner party. You can have this dinner party anywhere in the world. [00:30:32] Vince Menzione: We could talk about locations as well, and you can invite any three guests from the present or the past to this amazing dinner party. [00:30:41] Dexter Hardy: Mm-hmm. [00:30:42] Vince Menzione: Whom would you invite today and why? [00:30:48] Dexter Hardy: Wow. So the last time I answered that question, for those who didn’t hear the first podcast, it was Barack Obama. [00:30:56] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Nelson [00:30:57] Dexter Hardy: Mandela. [00:30:58] Dexter Hardy: And my great-grandparents. [00:30:59] Vince Menzione: Your great-grandparents. I remember your great-grandparents [00:31:02] Dexter Hardy: In this conversation, it’s gonna be more than three people. I’m sorry. [00:31:07] Vince Menzione: All right. But [00:31:07] Dexter Hardy: it make [00:31:08] Vince Menzione: some exceptions here. We’ll make them. [00:31:10] Dexter Hardy: It would be my great-grandparents. Still [00:31:13] Vince Menzione: nice. [00:31:14] Dexter Hardy: My parents and my children. [00:31:18] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:31:19] Dexter Hardy: Because I want to look back and let them see the same reason that I had them there before. [00:31:25] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:31:26] Dexter Hardy: Look at what you started. [00:31:27] Vince Menzione: Nice. I love that. [00:31:29] Dexter Hardy: Look at the continuation of your legacy in my parents. [00:31:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:31:32] Dexter Hardy: Look at what I have been able to build because of the investments and the things that you’ve poured into the love, the energy, the effort, the sacrifice, and then the sacrifices that I’m making to pass into that legacy. [00:31:46] Dexter Hardy: The next legacy. So this would be a. This is why I would say leaning to your why, like understand the importance of family. [00:31:54] Vince Menzione: Tell us about your great, your great grandparents. You told me about this on the last podcast for those who didn’t, didn’t listen in. [00:32:01] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:32:02] Vince Menzione: And don’t have the inclination to go back. [00:32:05] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:32:05] Vince Menzione: But I think it’s a great story. [00:32:06] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. So, you know, growing up in the south [00:32:10] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:32:10] Dexter Hardy: Alabama specifically, uh, my great grandparents were part of, you know, slavery era. [00:32:16] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:32:16] Dexter Hardy: Jim Crow. Jim Crow. Crow. Yeah. The whole. [00:32:21] Dexter Hardy: The history of the United States and what, how it was built, you know, [00:32:26] Vince Menzione: an important part of the history of the United States, by the way, that we all should never forget. [00:32:29] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. So again, some of those, some of the ceilings that are out there now, there wasn’t even an option for. [00:32:36] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:32:36] Dexter Hardy: And so that’s why I really wanted them to, I would really want them to be here to see something that they probably could never even conceive as an option of, of it being. [00:32:47] Dexter Hardy: Uh, to be able to see where things are and then to, you know, why my kids, if this is where we are right now, I want you to dream big. The same amount of energy it takes to think small is the same amount [00:33:04] Vince Menzione: of energy it takes to think big. Dream big. Dream big. Dream. [00:33:09] Dexter Hardy: Dream big. [00:33:10] Vince Menzione: I think we’re gonna leave on that message. [00:33:12] Dexter Hardy: Yeah, [00:33:12] Vince Menzione: that’s a great message. [00:33:13] Dexter Hardy: Awesome. [00:33:14] Vince Menzione: So great to see you, my friend. It’s [00:33:16] Dexter Hardy: always a pleasure [00:33:16] Vince Menzione: to be with you, so always a real pleasure for me as well. [00:33:19] Dexter Hardy: Yeah, [00:33:19] Vince Menzione: and I want to thank you for watching and listening and being part of Ultimate Partner and the Ultimate Partner YouTube channel and our great guest and friend, Dexter Hardy. [00:33:30] Vince Menzione: Great to see you again. [00:33:31] Dexter Hardy: Always a pleasure us. Thank you, [00:33:33] Vince Menzione: sir. [00:33:33] Dexter Hardy: All right. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks. [00:33:35] Vince Menzione: Don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestBrandon Broady Jasmine EllisThis Week We DiscussJordans vs AF 1'sGroup Chat/Text vs Talking On The PhoneGet A Section At The Club vs Go To A KickbackS/o To Our SponsorsBetter HelpGet 10% Off At Sign Uphttps://Betterhelp.com/SQUADDMint MobileIf you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at MINTMOBILE.com/squadd. DISCLAIMER: Upfront payment of $45 for 3-month 5 gigabyte planrequired (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customer offer for first 3 monthsonly, then full-price plan options available. Taxes & fees extra. See MINTMOBILE.com for details.

EP 304 CRASHING TIGER, HIDDEN PROBLEMS . This episode covers a wide range of topics including Tiger Woods' latest mishap, the state of the music industry, political issues, international conflicts, and celebrity news. The hosts share insights on the commercialization of music, the impact of social media, and the importance of community activism. . Chapters . 00:00 Introduction and Current Events 06:24 Concert Ticket Prices and Industry Practices 09:27 Political Commentary on Current Leadership 15:37 Discussion on War and International Relations 23:02 Reflections on Robert Mueller's Legacy 29:35 Cultural Commentary on Comedy and Representation 29:57 Tiger Woods' DUI Incident 34:52 The Need for Help: A Discussion on Addiction 37:36 Versus: A Shift in R&B Competition 42:48 The Future of Black Cinema 53:29 Celebrating Black Talent in Music and Film. . music industry, concert tickets, politics, international conflict, celebrity news, social media, activism, Versus, black movies, Tiger Woods . All Episodes At: https://www.castropolis.net/

Most hiring processes obsess over the wrong things. Do they know our project management software? Are they proficient in this specific tool? Meanwhile, the one capability that actually determines whether someone will make your life easier or harder—their ability to solve problems independently—gets a cursory “are you a good problem solver?” question that everyone answers with “yes.” In this episode, Chip and Gini break down why problem-solving ability should be the primary hiring criterion, especially as AI makes technical skills easier to acquire and offload. The conversation explores why this matters more now than ever: as AI handles tactical execution, the ability to define problems clearly, break them into components, and figure out solutions becomes the differentiator between humans who add value and humans who get replaced. Chip and Gini discuss how problem-solving cuts across every role, even ones you don’t typically think of as problem-solving positions. Designers facing impossible deadlines, account people navigating last-minute client demands, anyone dealing with the reality that things rarely go according to plan. They all need to be able to figure out how to move forward rather than escalating every obstacle upward. The episode tackles the mechanics of actually interviewing for this capability. You can’t just ask “are you a good problem solver?”—you need scenario-based questions that reveal how candidates think through challenges. But not hypothetical scenarios you make up; real situations that have happened in your agency. Ask them to walk through how they’ve handled compressed timelines, missing information, conflicting priorities, or last-minute changes in past roles. Gini shares how her daughter’s school explicitly focuses on humanities and emotional intelligence rather than technical skills, anticipating that AI will reshape what jobs exist. She connects this to Anthropic’s hiring practice of seeking people with humanities degrees who can absorb information, think critically, and demonstrate emotional intelligence rather than just technical proficiency. The episode concludes with an important reminder: if you hire problem solvers but then micromanage how they solve problems, you’ve wasted the hire. You need to let them solve things their way, even if it’s different from how you’d do it, or you’ll end up with everything back on your plate anyway. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “The very best hires are folks who are able to figure out how to look at a problem and come up with ideas on how to solve it in ways that are reasonable that they can execute upon to get it solved.” Gini Dietrich: “When you think about problem solving, that is one thing that it will be challenging for AI to do, but really important for a human to be able to do. If you can demonstrate that you can solve problems and you know how to hire for people who can solve problems, then all of a sudden you’ve got AI over here doing the tactical work, but you’re doing the high level thinking work.” Chip Griffin: “This isn’t about the specifics of the answer, it’s more making sure that they can think through the method and approach. That’s what signals to you that they’re able to break down the challenge into its component parts to make progress.” Gini Dietrich: “I don’t wanna hear problems, I wanna hear solutions. That’s training the problem solving mentality. I need you to come to me with the solutions. I’m not gonna be the one who comes up with the solutions. It’s not scalable, it’s exhausting.” Turn Ideas Into Action Rewrite your interview questions to focus on real scenarios. Pull up your current interview script and replace skill-testing questions with situation-based ones drawn from actual challenges your team has faced in the past six months. Instead of “Do you know Asana?” ask “Tell me about a time you got an urgent request at 4pm Friday with a Monday deadline. Walk me through your approach.” Spend 30 minutes creating 3-5 scenario questions specific to each role you hire for. Test whether you’re letting your problem solvers actually solve. Pick the last three times a team member brought you a problem this week. For each one, honestly assess: did you immediately jump in with the solution, or did you ask “how do you think we should handle this?” If you solved more than half yourself, you’re training your team to be dependent rather than autonomous. Next time someone brings you a problem, pause and ask them for proposed solutions before weighing in. Audit your hiring criteria for trainable vs. essential skills. List the requirements in your most recent job posting and mark each as either “can be trained in 2 weeks” or “fundamental to the role.” Tools, software, specific methodologies—all trainable. Problem-solving, critical thinking, ability to work under ambiguity—essential. If more than 30% of your listed requirements are trainable skills, you’re screening out good problem solvers who could learn your tools in a week. Related Hire for problem-solving ability first View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I have a problem. Gini Dietrich: You do? You have just one problem? Chip Griffin: Okay. I have many, many, but this isn’t Festivus, so we’re not gonna have an airing of grievances from you. Gini Dietrich: Would you like me to solve your problem for you? Chip Griffin: I, I, if, if you could solve some problems for me, that would be fantastic because then, I might even be inclined to hire you. Not that you would ever wanna work for me. That would just be disastrous. Gini Dietrich: That would not be good though. Yeah. Chip Griffin: We’re gonna talk about problem solving today, though not, not all of my problems. We’re not gonna solve any of them on this episode, I don’t think. Probably create some new ones. Problem solving. I wrote an article recently about the importance of focusing on problem solving as either the primary or one of the primary considerations when you are hiring new employees as an agency. And I, I feel quite strongly over the years that the very best hires or folks who are able to figure out how to, to look at a problem and come up with ideas on how to solve it and ways that are reasonable that they can execute upon to get it solved so that they’re not being dependent upon you or others to do that for them. And in my view, this is something that’s really hard to train for. Mm-hmm. And so therefore, something more important to focus on during the hiring process than things that you can send someone to a course or a training session or give them a book on, and problem solving just is not that for most people. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think, you know, as we’re thinking about what the future holds, especially with artificial intelligence. The things that we can do as human beings that AI cannot do are gonna be more important, right? So when you think about problem solving, that is one thing that it will be challenging for AI to do, but really important for a human to be able to do so. If you can demonstrate that you can solve problems and you know how to hire for people who can solve problems, and clients are hiring you to solve, help solve their problems, then all of a sudden you’ve got AI over here doing, you know, the tactical work, but you’re doing the high level like thinking work that I think is going to help set you apart. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and AI certainly makes it a lot easier to problem solve Gini Dietrich: Absolutely. Chip Griffin: Than it has been in the past. Right? Because it can help you with the basics, like research. But the other thing that you have to think about is in order to get the AI to help you, you have to do a good job of defining what the problem even is. Yep. And, and that is a key part of being a problem solver, is being able to look at a situation and say, okay, here’s what the real problem is. Yep. You’re not, you’re not focused on some symptom, but you figured out, you know, this is really where we need to zero in on, and AI can probably help you with that a little bit, but the more clear you can be about saying, Hey, here’s my problem. Here’s where I want to get, you still need to have that mindset for problem solving to get the AI to give you the best results possible without doing a lot of wandering in the wilderness. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know, one of the reasons I like, sort of, we’ve talked about this before, but the question process of the new business of the prospecting, you know, process is you ask a bunch of questions. And you do that so that you can educate yourself on the prospect’s organization and their goals and all those things. Of course. But when you dig deep into question after question after question, you start to uncover things that they didn’t tell you at first. Like you’re not gonna say, so what problem or pain do you want me to solve? Because they’re gonna go, I, I need an agency to do this and this. That’s not their problem. That’s not the pain that you’re solving for them. You can, you ask questions so that you dig deeper and eventually you’re going to get to that, but it’s the same thing, you know, with AI, you can’t just say like, I need a social media agency to be able to post five times a week. That’s not the problem. What is the problem? So AI can’t help you solve that. It can give you posts for five days a week, but it’s not gonna help you achieve the goals that you want. So really think about when you’re doing quarterly planning, when you’re talking to clients, when you’re talking to prospects, continuing to ask those questions so that you can figure out what problems or what pains you are trying to solve for them so that you can elevate yourself above what AI is gonna be able to do and even help you do. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, as you say, you know, clients are coming to us as agencies looking for us to solve their problems, which means that, that we need to have that mindset. And you, as the agency owner, you wanna be able to delegate more off of your plate. And the only way that you can do that is if you surround yourself with problem solvers. Yep. If you surround yourself with the people who know the questions to ask and who can look at it and say, ah, I’ve got an idea for how we can get from here to there. And it keeps you from having to be deeply involved in every single scenario. And that might be as simple as, you know, Hey, this, this report didn’t get done on time. You know, we need to do something quickly. Great, fine. You, you know what the challenge is. If you’re a problem solver, you’ll come up with that. If you don’t, you’re gonna go to the boss and say, oh my God, we didn’t get this report to the client on time. What do we do? You don’t want deal with that? No, no. It’s painful for everybody. Everyone. Yes. So you’ve gotta surround yourself with the people who have that problem solving mindset and, and the instincts to be able to, even when they’re confronted with something that they don’t know, right. ’cause a good problem solver doesn’t need to have all of the expertise in the world. Because they just need to be able to figure out, okay, how do we go about doing this? How do we break this down into its component parts and begin to address it and begin to make progress, and that’s really what the essence of problem solving is. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, it’s sort of like, you know, I’ll say to my team often, I don’t wanna hear problems, I wanna hear solutions. And it’s training them to come with that. Like, and I’m sure you work that way. I’m sure that people listening work that way. And if they’ve had bosses that have said, if you bring me a problem, I want solutions as well. That’s training the problem solving mentality, right? So it’s very much like, okay, I understand that things are not always going to go smoothly. I understand that we’re gonna have some failure, and I’m willing to take those risks, but I need you to come to me with the solutions. I’m not gonna be the one who, who comes up with the solutions. First of all, it’s not scalable, it’s exhausting. Clients will not ever stop trusting, being able to trust. They will never be able to trust anybody else on your team because you’re always the problem solver. So it’s really how do you bring your team along? And I think that’s one of the good things and it’s, you have to stay firm to it. Like, okay, it’s, and because in many cases your instinct is to solve the problem, but instead you have to take a step back and say, how do you think we should solve this? What are some solutions you propose? And really build that capability inside your team’s minds to be able to do that without you having to say, what are the solutions? Chip Griffin: Right. And I think that, that this matters more than almost anything else you can focus on during the hiring process. I mean, obviously you’ve gotta to make sure you got the right, you know, the right feel, the right chemistry and that sort of thing. Sure. Because it is, we’re ultimately humans and we all have to be able to engage well with the people that we’re working with. But, you know, I see so many of these interview processes that fixate on proficiency in various things. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Like writing tests. And Yeah. Chip Griffin: You know, writing tests. Yep. You know, back when I used to hire a lot of web developers and that sort of thing, you know, there was always a desire to test them on particular programming language just to see if they were proficient in it. You know, people are like, oh my God, you know, do you use Asana or a Clickup, or whatever we use in the, oh, you don’t, you don’t know how to use that? Oh. Oh. I don’t know if we can, ah, I don’t really want to have to teach how to use a different system. I, I’m, I’m gonna discount that. Like, that’s, none of that stuff matters. Right. Those things can all be trained. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And frankly, a lot of those things are being replaced by a lot of the other things we’re doing. Problem solving cuts across almost every single, and probably actually every single role that we have in an agency. And frankly, even far beyond an agency, even ones where you don’t necessarily think of it as a problem solving role. I mean, if you think about designers, for example. You sit there and say, well, you know, that’s, that’s really not pro That’s a creative thing. We need to know how creative they are and Sure. I mean, they’ve gotta have some, you know, basic design skills that, that meet the aesthetic that you’re trying to produce for your clients. But ultimately they are actually problem solvers. I’ve never met a designer who felt they were being given enough time for any project. I mean, you could give them a month and they would still be like, ah, you know, I really could use like six weeks to really Gini Dietrich: Yes, Uhhuh Chip Griffin: fine tune my vision. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: So, so there are already almost always starting from that problem solving standpoint of how do you get this done in the timeframe that I’m being allowed? And the reality is you’re never giving them a month. You’re giving them maybe half a day if they’re lucky. Right. You know, because they’re the last ones. Of the designers, I, I feel bad for all my design friends because they are the last people brought in in most agencies. And they’re brought in, we’ve got all the content ready, we’re getting ready to release this tomorrow. Can you make it look pretty? It’s like it’s three o’clock, you’re putting this out at 9:00 AM tomorrow. Gini Dietrich: Oh, sure. Chip Griffin: Right. I mean, that’s problem solving. You’ve gotta try to figure out how do you, how do you still get a good result? Mm-hmm. Even given all of those constraints. And so you need to think about every role that you’re hiring, problem solving. And so how do you go about doing that? Right? It’s not, you don’t just say, are you a good problem solver? Right. ’cause guess what, nobody’s gonna say no. And if they do great, it’s easy to just get rid of ’em at that point, because they don’t even know how to interview, let alone Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Right. Chip Griffin: How to solve a proper problem. So, you know, it’s sort of like a reference. I think it’s silly to check references because you know what? Nobody gives you a bad reference. Right. I mean, in all the years I’ve been checking references, I’ve gotten maybe one mediocre reference. It wasn’t even a negative, but you know, you kind of read between the lines and you’re like, eh. Yeah. But almost every one of them is positive. That’s the names you get. Nobody’s gonna tell you they’re bad problem solvers. How do you find out if they are or not? You’ve gotta try to either give them scenarios. And I’m a little, I don’t, I don’t love scenarios because we all have a tendency to come up with fairly unrealistic scenarios. Gini Dietrich: Fair. Chip Griffin: But I, I think you can say to somebody, look, you know, tell me about a time where you had a particular challenge and think about it in terms of the role. For that designer, ask. So, you know, you, you get presented to it at, the rough draft at 3:00 PM and you’re, you have to turn it into a pretty presentation by 9:00 AM the next morning. How do you begin to go about that process? Walk me through what you’ve done before when you had that same scenario confronting you. Because you can, you can learn a lot just from listening to them, and the actual answers don’t matter all that much. Don’t fixate on, well, I would’ve done this instead of that. It’s more making sure that they can think through the method and approach. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: That’s what signals to you that they’re able to break down the challenge into its component parts to make progress. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I really like the, I’m with you on the scenario based interviewing, but I really like the, all right, like these are things that have happened inside our organization because of like something that just happened the other day. Tell me about a time that you got something at four o’clock on Friday afternoon, you had tickets to the Cubs game, and you knew it was due on Monday morning. Like, what do you do? Chip Griffin: Well, they had tickets to a rare night game. Huh? Gini Dietrich: Actually, we have the Cubs play a lot of night games actually. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I know. I’m, I’m just so old, I, I remember when they didn’t play them at all, so. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. But like, what do you do about that? How do you solve that problem. And some people will say, I work all weekend, which I don’t love, but some people will say, I will give up the Cubs tickets Also, don’t love that. But are there other ways, other creative ways that you might get that work done so that you’re not working all weekend and you don’t have to give up your Cubs tickets? So those are the kinds of things that I like to listen for. You know, they, and they’ll give you answers they think you want to hear, which are, I won’t go to the game or I’ll work all weekend. Those are not the answers I wanna hear. I wanna hear like, creative, interesting. Maybe I can’t get it done before I go to the game, but I’m gonna, you know, buckle down and I’m gonna ask for help or, you know, those kinds of things are the things that I’m looking for. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, even if they do say, well, look, I’m gonna, you know, skip this or that because, you know, work would be my priority or whatever. I mean, that it, it’s still okay, that’s fine. But this isn’t, this is this. If your idea of solving a problem is just throwing more hours at it, that doesn’t work for me. Gini Dietrich: Right. That doesn’t work. Right. Chip Griffin: So, even if you do end up spending that time, tell me about, you know, what are the actual steps that you’re taking? Because you may be willing to pull an all-nighter, but what about the rest of the team? Right. And, you know, how do you go about getting the information that you need and getting it approved in the right way? And, you know, how do you think about, you know, frankly, which, which corners are okay to cut and which ones aren’t? You know, when you have to deal with a compressed timeframe, you have to be rational and say, okay. It’s not gonna be as perfect as I would like it to be. And, to continue on with the design example, are you okay with that? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, Chip Griffin: and I’ve, I’ve worked with some designers who just, you know, they’re like, I just will not give you something that doesn’t meet my standard. I appreciate that you have a high standard, I also have a deadline. Yep. So work with me on this and figure out what we can get done on this time. Yep. And that’s the, that’s the kind of answer that I’m looking for from them. If it’s, you know, someone who’s, you know, pitching a new outlet or industry that they’re not familiar with, what are the steps that you go through? How do you begin to think about it? And I, again, it’s not so much about the specifics of it, but just making sure that you’re seeing the logic at play. Yep. In a way that you’re like, yeah, okay, I can, I can see why you made that choice. But definitely don’t fixate Well, I don’t know why you would look at that. I would look at this instead. I mean, because you haven’t had a chance to imbue any of your own thinking to them to bring your own agency training. But if they can think about how they make those individual steps possible, that’s really what you need to know. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. You know, one of the things that, I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but when we were looking at schools for, at the time, our 4-year-old to go to, to kindergarten, and then on through school and we were interviewing schools and we were trying, Chicago’s a weird way of doing schools, but, so we were looking at, we were interviewing schools. And every single one of them, so this is eight years ago, said, we focus our curriculum on the humanities and social and emotional intelligence and learning because we don’t know what jobs are going to be available for these kids because of AI and because of how fast technology is changing. So we know that if we put kids out into the world, out into the community, that can solve problems that have high emotional intelligence, that can think logically, that have common sense, that they will be good stewards and can do the jobs that are available. Versus building kids that can do programming or math or science or STEM or whatever happens to be, right. We’re going to put good stewards of the community out there, and I think about that a lot. And I just read an article this morning that talks about how Anthropic is hiring people with humanities degrees because they have high emotional intelligence. They can think through things, they can read something and absorb it versus just skimming it. All of the things that, those that, that kind of degree teaches you are the things that companies are gonna be looking for. And it’s the same thing I think for agency owners is that’s exactly it is how do you find the people that can problem solve, that can take in information and use that to make decisions that, you know, are used to high emotional intelligence kinds of things. Versus I know how to logically solve a math problem. or I know how to program or I know how to write a news release. Because AI can do all of those things. So that’s what we really should be looking for and interviewing for is those problem solving skills. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And, and you’ll find if, if you get good problem solvers, they’ll be confronted with things that, that you never even dreamed up. So you wouldn’t think to ask in an interview. Right. To figure out if they could do it. But they’re good problem solvers. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: They can figure out how to get there. Absolutely. If they’re not good problem solvers, they’re just gonna sit there and stare at it, or they’re gonna make the radically wrong decision just because it’s the easy way out. I think of a plumber that I had in my house 20 years ago, and we were having an issue with water pressure. And so he came in and he’s looking and we, you know, we’re on a well system here ’cause I’m living rural and they’re trying to figure out, you know, all the tanks and this and that. And he’s like, well, the solution is you need to put in a larger tank. I’m like, really? That’s, that’s gonna solve my water pressure problem. He said, yeah, that’s, that’s definitely gonna solve it. I’m like, and so I just, I, it didn’t feel right to me. So I sat with him. I said, okay, well walk me through, you know. Yeah. What we’re doing here and, and so I, I had ’em tell me what all the pipes were and what they were doing, and we get to one and it turns out there’s one that was a filter. And I said, I said, well, what if we just tried changing out that filter and just make sure that it’s not clogged up? Yeah. We could try that. I guess. I mean, okay. Turned out it was a $10 filter that we needed to replace instead of, instead of like a $1500 water tank instead. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I was gonna say multi-thousand water. Chip Griffin: But he, you know, he was not of the mindset, you know, go through and diagnose it step by step and follow the path of the water and see where it might be being obstructed so that it’s not getting, because I mean the, the current water tank was showing that it had the right pressure. So it didn’t really make sense to me that if the tank was showing it had the right pressure, that a larger tank was gonna suddenly change, that it would still be at the same pressure setting, Gini Dietrich: right? Chip Griffin: So somewhere between the tank and where it came out of the faucet, it was where it was falling apart. And so you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta try to hire people that can think that way because it’ll keep things off of your plate. And we always talk here about the importance of not bogging yourself down. And so the other thing you need to keep in mind is if you’re gonna be hiring for problem solving ability, you actually need to let your team do the problem solving. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: You have to. You have to accept that they may not solve it in exactly the same way that you do, but because you’ve hired a team of problem solvers, they will get it done. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: If that happens, you don’t have a lot sitting on your plate, which is better for you. And frankly, it’s better for the employee because they don’t feel like you’re breathing down their shoulder and micromanaging them. So yes, problem solvers solve other problems other than the ones that they’re setting out to solve. Gini Dietrich: Yes, they do. Yes, they do. I think the article that you wrote was really good. It walks through some of these, some of these ideas. It also gives some other ideas on how to interview for problem solving, so I’m sure Jen will link to it. But it was a very good thought provoking article, so thank you. Chip Griffin: I am always grateful to be able to produce thought provoking pieces, and it’s a particular challenge. I’m always looking to try to figure out how I can make you think too, so. Because you’ve got probably all the same answers that I do on most things. So Gini Dietrich: sometimes we disagree on things, but yeah, Chip Griffin: occasionally. Occasionally we haven’t done it that much. But, but maybe, maybe on the next episode, Gini Dietrich: maybe. Chip Griffin: Who knows? We might Gini Dietrich: never know. Chip Griffin: Just teasing that next episode. ’cause the next one’s a milestone. Gini Dietrich: It is a milestone Chip Griffin: at least. At least if, if Jen’s math is correct. The next episode is episode 300, so, Gini Dietrich: woo hoo. Chip Griffin: Stay tuned for that one. Gini Dietrich: It’ll be a special one. Special one. Chip Griffin: As they like to say in YouTube land. Make sure you click the subscribe button. Gini Dietrich: So you don’t miss an episode. Chip Griffin: Nope. You would never wanna miss an episode of this. Gini Dietrich: Never. Mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: It’s the most fascinating podcast on the interwebs. Gini Dietrich: It is. Chip Griffin: So with that, that will draw that to an end this episode of the most amazing podcast ever. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends except about the quality of this podcast. Gini Dietrich: Right.

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestCamille WatersDion LackMike DamnThis Week We DiscussShoot Your Shot In Person vs DM1/2 Off Food For Life vs Free Drinks For LifeHost The Kickback vs Show Up Empty HandedS/o To Our SponorsFactor MelasFactormeals.com/SQUADD50offPromo: SQUADD50off For 50% Off & Free Breakfast For A YearBask & LeatherBaskandleather.comPromo: SQUADD For 20% Off

There's always something to yap about!00:00 Intro, New Studio, Working on Goals, Instagram Engagement 10:50 Teyana Taylor, Kehlani, Victoria Monet, Durand Bernarr Breakthrough Year15:16 7 Year Anniversary of Solange's When I Get Home Album16:43 Battling Anxiety, Taking Breaks18:40 Cardi B Concert, Stefon Diggs, GloRilla's Sister & Family Drama24:35 North West Dropping Music, Making Beats28:25 Hate Reading Books For Fun29:00 Michael B Jordan BAFTA Awards Incident, Prejudices 47:10 Bad Bunny Super Bowl Backlash, Kid Rock49:33 T.I vs 50 Cent, Versus, King, Domani01:02:06 Tyra Banks, America's Next Top Model Netflix Documentary01:15:40 New Music, TV, Don Tolliver, Juvenile, Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B01:40:20 Scream 7 Thoughts, New Movies, Dawson's Creek 01:51:30 Outro

The conversation covers local news, sewage spills, Netanyahu's visit to DC, the Tamika Goods squatter story, and the Epstein files update. It delves into the impact of sewage spills on public health, Netanyahu's influence, the legal implications of squatting, and the disturbing connections of the Epstein files. The conversation covers a range of topics including the Maxwell case, the Epstein files, the Super Bowl halftime show, and a fan's commitment to not cutting his hair until his team wins five games in a row. The discussion also touches on the state of various sports teams and the idea of a religious 'versus' event. The conversation covers a range of topics including music, artists, and potential versus matchups. It delves into the concept of 'versus' as a musical format and explores the idea of comparing artists based on their hits. The discussion also touches on the impact of songs, storytelling in music, and the significance of commercial success in the music industry.TakeawaysSewage spills pose a significant public health risk.Netanyahu's visit to DC raises concerns about his influence and political power.The Tamika Goods squatter story sheds light on the legal implications of squatting and the involvement of a 19-year-old neighbor.The Epstein files update reveals disturbing connections to the Life Touch company, highlighting the widespread impact of the scandal. Maxwell case and Epstein files continue to generate interest and discussionThe Super Bowl halftime show and fan commitment to not cutting hair are intriguing topicsThe state of various sports teams and the idea of a religious 'versus' event are points of interest Versus matchups are not just about the number of hits, but also about the impact and reach of the songs.The significance of storytelling in music and the impact of commercial success on an artist's legacy are important considerations in versus matchups.Chapters00:00 Local News and Sewage Spills07:21 Netanyahu's Visit to DC15:45 The Tamika Goods Squatter Story28:49 The Epstein Files Update53:28 Fan's Commitment and Sports Team State01:00:33 Religious 'Versus' Event Idea01:05:33 Unseen Versus Matchups and Potential Pairings01:10:35 The Legacy of Future and the Significance of Commercial Success in Music01:16:07 Drake vs. Kanye: A Potential Versus Matchup

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Description Stop experimenting with AI and start driving ROI. Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this keynote from the Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat, Nina Harding breaks down the massive shift happening in the AI landscape as customers move away from experimental pilots and demand concrete ROI and business outcomes. She emphasizes that the era of selling products and time-and-materials approaches is over, replaced by outcome-based, verticalized selling where vendors and partners share accountability. Through real-world examples in healthcare and retail, Harding outlines how partners can leverage Copilot Studio, Agent 365, and Microsoft’s incentive programs to build specific superpowers, differentiate themselves, and ultimately lead the AI mission alongside Microsoft. Key Takeaways Customers are no longer interested in AI experimentation and now expect immediate, concrete return on investment. Selling products is dead; the modern approach requires a consultative, signal-based strategy focused entirely on business outcomes. The traditional time-and-materials billing model is disappearing as clients demand shared accountability for project success. Rapid proliferation of AI agents has made security and governance top priorities for enterprise customers. Success in the Microsoft ecosystem now requires partners to highly verticalize their value propositions by industry. Defining and clearly articulating your unique “superpower” or niche is essential to stand out to the Microsoft field sales organization. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJJ4Zcf4tZc&t=1920s If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags Nina Harding, Microsoft AI, artificial intelligence ROI, AI agents, Agent 365, Copilot Studio, outcome-based selling, verticalization, healthcare AI, retail AI, Cognizant, Davos 2026, AI governance, AI security, technology transformation, Ultimate Partner Live, enterprise AI adoption, digital transformation, system integrators, AI pilots Transcript [00:00:00] Nina Harding: More importantly, we want to serve more and more people faster, and AI is coming in and having a very practical approach in healthcare alone. [00:00:14] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out [00:00:19] Vince Menzione: crowd. Come join me now for a compelling discussion on the impacts of the tectonic shifts we’re all seeing. [00:00:27] Vince Menzione: I feel incredibly fortunate, uh, to have this, this, this friend Nina who came into the studio here for the first time, actually earlier, well last year, geez, earlier this year. [00:00:38] Vince Menzione: It was last year, right after my accident I think. And, uh, we gotta spend some time together. And she was so good to, uh, make her time available and her team’s time available to come down here to be with us today. Ne I’m so thrilled to have you. I am going to turn over the stage to you. Uh, you’ve got some incredible learnings. [00:00:57] Vince Menzione: I know you’ve been on the AI tour with Microsoft. Yeah. And you’ve got some great learnings you’re gonna share about what’s happening. Absolutely. So it’s so great to have you. [00:01:05] Vince Menzione: It’s nice to see you. [00:01:06] Nina Harding: Nice to see you. [00:01:07] Nina Harding: Thank you. Well, thanks everyone. It’s great to see so many familiar faces and then some new faces as well. [00:01:15] Nina Harding: Um, because we’re in a little bit more of an intimate environment, I thought I would approach this a little bit differently. Give you some better insights into what we’re actually hearing at Microsoft with our customers, some of the things that are actually moving the needle that we’re seeing some of our partners do. [00:01:34] Nina Harding: So really to share some of the best practices out there, and hopefully you’ll leave with some more insight or tips and tricks, um, is really what I would love to do because our job. Collectively is really this transformation and to take a advantage of it out there in the market right now. [00:01:57] Nina Harding: Let’s see [00:01:57] Nina Harding: here. [00:01:59] Nina Harding: I can move slides. Well, this one isn’t moving. Any slides? [00:02:07] Nina Harding: No. Okay, great. So, um, some of you might. Uh, know that I’m a Floridian now, right? So I just live right up, up the way in Palm Beach. Um, so not too far, but I still wouldn’t miss this opportunity to be with all of you. Um, there is an energy that I think that we’re all feeling right now, and, uh, it’s, it’s palpable. [00:02:32] Nina Harding: We’re finding right now that our customers are really going from this landscape of experimenting with ai. Really to looking at the outcomes and having expectations around the momentum that they’re seeing. Right. That’s a big shift, right? We, and things are going pretty quickly, so I look at things almost quarterly now on what is that core message and what are, what is the difference in the tone from our customers of what they’re expecting? [00:03:06] Nina Harding: What we’re gonna talk a little bit about today is how all of you, our partners, are such a critical part of that journey. Actually, sometimes the most important part. You’re on the front lines with the customers. You’re the ones having those conversations. You’re the ones that are in there arm to arm with their teams, listening to what they’re experiencing, their challenges that they’re facing, and they’re really wanting now to go from this world of, Hey, we have lots of different pilots. [00:03:41] Nina Harding: Right? A lot of us know that right into, oh my gosh, it’s not about pilots anymore. They really want that ROI story. They want those outcomes and it’s looking very different for all of us. The way that we sell, the way that we go into our engagements, the way that we even price things, the way that we, meaning Microsoft partner and customer are locking arms is fundamentally very different. [00:04:15] Nina Harding: We have to go in collectively. We have to also be responsible for the outcomes and deliver on those. ROI is that headline that we’re all after. Right. It is the most important part of the puzzle right now because there isn’t a single boardroom that isn’t talking about AI and you guys are all experiencing it. [00:04:39] Nina Harding: It’s easier than ever to go in and have the conversation. The hardest part is how do we quickly get to an ROI study, so you or ROI case so that we can continue to build on that. And when you’re looking at this every. Customer is providing signals out there to help you grow that penetration into the account. [00:05:04] Nina Harding: And I’m gonna share some of the signals that I think that are really meaningful. But that’s the most important thing is we’re no longer, and I know you guys all know this, we’re no longer selling product at all anymore. We’re selling those outcomes. And I can tell you at Microsoft, we’re spending a tremendous amount of time retraining all of our sales reps. [00:05:25] Nina Harding: Really to be focused on how do you listen and do that consultative signal based sale. How do you actually go in and start selling, not selling, but I mean it is selling, but listening to the journey that they want to go through. What are the challenges that they’re facing and what’s the transformation that we’re able to kind of go and be a part of together with our partners? [00:05:54] Nina Harding: Notice it’s not about product. Product is just the tools in your tool chest to create those outcomes. So that’s gonna be really important as we go through this journey. [00:06:09] Nina Harding: Uh, so I saw the, the title of the session, uh, mentioned Davos and Davos was an interesting time. Uh, Microsoft has a very, actually, a very big presence at Davos and, uh, we had over 300 customer meetings there, uh, where we were meeting with some of the top companies around the globe. And it was very much affirmed that. [00:06:34] Nina Harding: Uh, the, the concept of AI we’re past, like curiosity stage, right? We’re way past that and we’re even past that. The art of the possible discussion, right? Uh, what the, the customers are almost at the point is, is come in and tell me, tell me what to do. Show me how to do it. It’s a very different position than, Hey, we’re presenting you with all these different possibilities. [00:07:08] Nina Harding: They’re They’re tired. They’re tired of all the possibilities. They wanna get to the brass tacks of how are you gonna change my customer service department? How are you gonna make it easier for my hr? How am I going to derive growth? What are some of the other things that you guys are experiencing out there? [00:07:23] Nina Harding: Like what are some of those other ROI drivers that people are asking, where am I gonna find the money? What for? For doing the project or out of the project? Other people? I Okay. To do the project. Okay. Resourcing. Okay. So what we’re seeing here is that, uh, the conversation is very much now focused on, okay, I need sec, I need security. [00:07:50] Nina Harding: That has been louder than ever before. So, Vince, the one thing I would say about that slide where you had those five different pillars, I’d put security on the bottom. Understanding your data, your data platform on the bottom, those are consistent across all those pillars. And then you can kind of hit at them. [00:08:10] Nina Harding: But, uh, there’s a lot of energy, there’s a lot of excitement, but it’s rooted in what are you materially going to do to change my business, and is your skin in the game to help me do it and I’ll pay you for that outcome? The concept of this time and materials approach gone. Gone. Even at Microsoft, we’re adjusting to the fact that the customers aren’t like, oh. [00:08:35] Nina Harding: Just hand it over to a system integrator and they’ll deliver on it. They’re like, oh no, we want you accountable too. You’re accountable for the outcomes as well, which is, oh gosh, okay. How do we do that in a partnery model that makes sense where we’re not tripping over each other, but we’re going in stronger together. [00:08:54] Nina Harding: We have one message together and we’re really focused on driving that. They’re also really concerned around the governance of all these agents, right? I see a lot of heads shaking on this. I mean, there’s a lot of proliferation right now. There’s a lot of excitement. I mean, I don’t know in your companies, but people are building agents faster and quicker, uh, than ever before, and some of them are really, really cool and they’re making huge point savings of times. [00:09:22] Nina Harding: Everything from. You know, some of you guys have probably heard me talk about everything from, uh, working on performance reviews to what are all of the incentives that we have for partners and making that easy to understand to, uh, to helping me understand patterns in our financials and what partners are really performing and growing. [00:09:45] Nina Harding: All of these agents are just popping up everywhere, but that creates a real governance issue and a real security issue for a lot of companies as well. So you take all of this and you hear this momentum and I think, uh, that together we’re really well poised. I think Microsoft is in a unique position together with you. [00:10:07] Nina Harding: On this frame, we have Agent 365, which helps you manage all these different agents, right? So that’s an exciting. How many of you’re familiar with agents? 365. Great. And I promise I’m not a product person. I’m not gonna do a lot of pitches, so don’t worry about that, um, at all. But, uh, we also have copilot studio and foundry, and so we have this whole, uh, set of capability, but that capability only comes to life if we’re able to connect with the customer, build the outcome, and making sure that the CEOs see all of us as their partners on that strategy and journey. [00:10:47] Nina Harding: So what does that look like? So I talked a little bit about signals, and signals, is that ability to listen to the, to the customers, what’s really, really me, uh, meaningful and frontier firms are doing this on a consistent basis all the time. Listening to the specific needs use cases, et cetera. So we at Microsoft have been trying to not only share all these different use cases that we have exposure to, but in addition. [00:11:17] Nina Harding: We turned on functionality, and I’ll talk about that in a little bit so that we can also share amongst each other as a community and understand those use cases. Uh, what’s really important is that, um, we’re moving from this world of all these like little one-off projects to a strategy and a platform that everyone wants to move to, but it’s all also getting powered by agents. [00:11:42] Nina Harding: That’s, that’s where we are today. So. [00:11:49] Nina Harding: Having a little trouble. I’m not gonna go through this too. Everyone’s familiar with this in, in here, the Frontier overview. If you’re not, let me know. Um, but basically one of the things that we find is really helpful is, is just sharing where we have seen proof behind having the conversation around the AI journey. [00:12:12] Nina Harding: Around the, the customer journey as you’re going out there. Um, there are really four different areas that we’ve talked about, and I’m not going to drain this ’cause there’s lots and you can, you can, uh, go onto the internet. You can see me talking about all these different areas. I don’t wanna spend too much time here, but these are four of the different. [00:12:33] Nina Harding: I would say categories where when you’re looking at different ways that you can make a material difference with the, the, the customer that we find the most momentum. So around enriching employee experiences, changing the way we, uh, engage with customers. Uh, changing processes as well. And then, uh, the outcomes, like really transforming the way we go about business. [00:12:59] Nina Harding: And we wanna do something about bringing it in to the flow of the work, everyday work. How many of you are finding that you’re actually using agents in your day-to-day workflow? Isn’t that cool? And then as you continue to use it, it becomes easier and easier and easier. And. I know from my team, I’m starting to look at what is the e everyday usage versus the monthly usage, right? [00:13:26] Nina Harding: It’s the every day. It’s become almost, uh, your second hand. And what’s important, uh, on this is that we’re giving, uh, listening to all these signals giving, um, the consistency, um, of the, the engagement with. With the clients, we’re able to all share the same stories and be able to scale at a much faster pace. [00:13:54] Nina Harding: So what does that look like? Here we go. Um, one of the things that we talk about at Microsoft, and the reason why I have this up here is that we’ve moved the conversation away from product into these customer outcomes, which really becomes about. Industry discussion. You have to speak their voice. You have to understand their business problems. [00:14:21] Nina Harding: You have to listen for what is materially different. So I’m actually sharing this, which you don’t normally see in a lot of presentations out to Microsoft about the structure of the organization, the takeaway. This is a sales organization in enterprise. The takeaway that I want you to have from that is look at the verticalization. [00:14:43] Nina Harding: We’ve done. It’s no longer by territory. The ball has moved, the conversation has moved entirely. So what does that say to all of you as well? Your value proposition as you’re working with our field has to be verticalized. The way you engage has to be verticalized. What you say, um, what the, the outcomes that you think differentiates yourself. [00:15:12] Nina Harding: Verticalized. So there isn’t the approach of like doing this like mask gorilla campaign across, for example, the Americas. And I’m just using this as an example on, um, the small and medium business side as well. Um, the, they’re a little bit more territory based still, but um, at least at the enterprise, everything has to be about customer value. [00:15:38] Nina Harding: Customer value. So, um, what this also suggests to me is the way we’re working and where we’ve seen a lot of success is when all of you are starting to tailor your messages and differentiate yourselves by customer success stories. Use cases where you’ve had premise, uh, penetration as a software partner, but you have to tie it back to the industry again. [00:16:05] Nina Harding: It’s just different. And so if I’m very transparent that that’s become, has gone from a nice to have to critical as the field is looking at, who are those go-to partners? It’s the go-to partners that speak retail. It’s the go-to partners that speak oil and gas and I don’t know, I, I, I see some nodding of heads. [00:16:27] Nina Harding: Some people know this, some people don’t. But I can see the shift tremendously over the last six months. So, um, hopefully that’s helpful in, in, in kind of sharing just how we’re walking the walk and talking the talk. So as I go back to industry, um, I thought what would be helpful is to take a few examples so you have a chance to see. [00:16:52] Nina Harding: In life, what are, what are we actually seeing at Microsoft? And if you guys are seeing something else, I would love to hear that too. But these, this is an example in healthcare and when we’re looking at, uh, a particular industry, we’re looking at what are some of the pain points? What are the top trends? [00:17:11] Nina Harding: What are some of the challenges folks are, are facing? And then what are the use cases that are really making traction here? This is a different way of taking that frontier vision and doing that click down by industry. And so what we’re also doing is we’re looking at who are partners that can help us in healthcare that can help answer some of these key challenges. [00:17:35] Nina Harding: Who are the ones that have the ability to have those material conversations in that trust? In healthcare, for example, there’s a ton of pressure. I mean. We all are consumers of healthcare. Hopefully we, all of us, have been lucky enough to have healthcare, um, in the, in this, uh, forum, but there’s a lot of clinician burnout, rising costs, right? [00:18:01] Nina Harding: The, the expense for, uh, medicines and so forth. But more importantly, we want to serve more and more people faster, and AI is coming in and having a very practical approach. Healthcare alone. So many of you, I talk about, um, the fact that at one point I was paralyzed, right? So I was paralyzed from T two down and, um, I go in every six months for an MRI, uh, to check, to check if everything’s still functioning. [00:18:32] Nina Harding: And the nervous system is going well. My doctor has had to manually look at that. Now he’s using AI to look at. History and the progression since 2008. That’s game changing. And on top of that, he is looking at me and having a conversation and looking in my eyes and observing me instead and using Dragon to have it feel epic to really think about how that’s changed my personal experience with the healthcare system and changed how a physician can show up. [00:19:09] Nina Harding: So there are many, many, um, many use cases around like patient access and, uh, innovation that we’re trying to do, surgeries, uh, being able to do clinical, clinical trials, but AI is everywhere and that’s what’s really important is that we’re figuring out for all of you what your software solution. Services offering, or even if you’re selling that, you have that value, value proposition down at that level. [00:19:43] Nina Harding: So let’s take a look at retail, for example. We have a short little video. Are we gonna be able to run that video? This is where we’re seeing a lot of shrinking. Margins, people wanting more, uh, intimacy with their customer. Here we go. [00:21:09] Nina Harding: Are we good? Well, that was a quite, uh, quite a nice, uh, uh, digital response to the end of the video. But what you’re seeing is people are using it in all different facets as we go into an example. I always love to do, use examples of partners that are hitting the mark ’cause we can all learn from ’em and myself included. [00:21:30] Nina Harding: We’re partners that are really successful. I chose to use Cognizant. Cognizant was actually our partner Si of the year, um, at the Americas level. And one of the things, and I won’t drain it on, um, the right hand side of this, uh, the slide, but they really are helping the customer’s move in a framework approach by industry, uh, to an AI landscape. [00:21:58] Nina Harding: Uh, they, they have secured an end-to-end solution and they’re focused on real business outcomes, and they have been growing at over 30% year over year. Huge. That’s great. Right? That’s what we all want for our businesses. And so what you’re seeing here is. They have a narrative around the frontier firms and they pull that through when they’re engaged in the clients and with our field. [00:22:27] Nina Harding: And then they’re using the incentives that we have. And don’t worry, I have a slide on some of the incentives we have, um, to actually make sure that they’re using those effectively in the pre-sales motion, but most importantly on the adoption and the change management after they’ve actually, uh, built out the solutions. [00:22:45] Nina Harding: And that’s really, really, really key here. So here’s an example of, um, of Cognizant at Coldwater Creek and Soft Surroundings. They had two different platforms and they brought it all together and then they brought Dynamics in as well. And what they have actually been able to do is improve a lot of the inventory management, the visualization, um, of all the inventory around. [00:23:14] Nina Harding: Around all of their stores and their warehouses, and they’ve been able to streamline the fulfillment and improved, uh, reduced back orders. What you’re seeing is those are all concrete examples of the outcomes that they were trying to drive for at the beginning, and those were all. Key pain points. And so they go in, cognizant will go in and understand with what are the material things that you are, that’s keeping you up at night, that is creating that drainage, uh, in your accounts or if you could transform, what does that look like? [00:23:52] Nina Harding: And so there, they spend the whole conversation together with Microsoft focused on doing that. And then we do the outcome based proposal. Very different, right? It creates for a much stronger vendor relationship, and the customer feels like they really have in the essence of the word partners, helping them to be successful. [00:24:15] Nina Harding: Right. [00:24:20] Nina Harding: Here we go. So I promised you some of the incentives, and I know you might just take a, a quick peek at some of these. These are, these are, um, some of the incentives that. Microsoft has put forward to help our partners on this journey. Uh, this is a slide that we’ve created from the America’s perspective to try and simplify it. [00:24:42] Nina Harding: Now there’s a lot behind it, right? But to try and help simplify, um, where are the incentives available? And I think this is one of the first times you’re actually saying what’s available for the sis. Versus for the software partners. And then we’re gonna hear more today about what’s also available for the channel partners as well. [00:25:03] Nina Harding: Um, it’s really thinking about what is your behavior as a partner? How are you showing up? How are, uh, you making a contribution to that customer? And then how can Microsoft best support you in that journey? So there’s all sorts of, uh, all sorts of incentives here, and it’s really, uh, designed to be flexible to what you need. [00:25:24] Nina Harding: But for the, I, I think it’s very focused on the value proposition as well that you bring to the table. So, um, I encourage you to take a look at this, make sure that you have this in your diary or your flipping of, of how are we maximizing, um, deals. And we can certainly go through a lot more of this. And we have webinars and so forth that will take you through all of that. [00:25:52] Nina Harding: Alright, so. I’ve talked a lot about this outcome-based selling, and that’s, it’s literally how Microsoft is starting to move forward on how do we go about engaging with the customers and with our partners. You’re gonna see, because our customers are asking more Microsoft involved and for us to go jointly into the opportunities. [00:26:16] Nina Harding: Not that we necessarily, we’re not building out a larger consulting force or anything like that, but. We want to make sure that the customer ask that Microsoft is engaged in working with our partners, is honored, um, and that we’re, we’re part of that, and that we’re also sharing our, our experiences and learning from all of you at the same time on who has the best, uh, approach, Beth best, best methodologies and best practices to light up our customers together. [00:26:51] Nina Harding: But the ROI doesn’t really show up just in dollars alone. We all know this, right? Um, it could be in, uh. Satisfaction it could be in care. So as you’re starting to look at this new evolution of how we’re really landing the value proposition of ai, we have to think outside of the box that it’s not just monetary and it’s not, I think you said savings or securing funds and so forth, but it’s really of how do I leapfrog into the modern world? [00:27:22] Nina Harding: How do I change that entire experience and think outside of the box? And, uh, make sure that the conversation is not just about how do we optimize certain practices, but how do we have this more executive level strategy conversation on the future of how we’re gonna engage with our clients, uh, their clients in a much more, um, I think transformative and personal [00:27:51] Nina Harding: way as we go forward. [00:27:54] Nina Harding: So we know that if the outcomes are the, what we’re looking to go drive, the next question is really how do we go do that? And that is gonna be through the agents on here. You’ll see just from from out in the market, what we see will light up the market. We think that, or I can’t even say we, IIDC says 81% of leaders are expecting agents. [00:28:24] Nina Harding: Full utilization in the next 12 to 18 months. And to be honest, I think this quote is probably even two months old. So we’re already, we’re probably down to like, you know, eight, eight to 12 months. And what I’m seeing that proliferation happening, it’s crazy. So understanding that value proposition, um, whether you’re from a software company or a services company or even some of our resellers, what’s that niche? [00:28:52] Nina Harding: What’s that industry or sub-industry? What is that? Horizontal. I go after customer service within, uh, the manufacturing vertical. Right. And then are you building out agents or do you have capability? And that’s what we’re doing internally at Microsoft as well, is to help make that really visible to the field so that you’re differentiated. [00:29:15] Nina Harding: Differentiation is gonna be really key right now because there’s so many people that say, oh, I do migration services, or I can help with data, or I can do security. But it’s the specificity around the industry and what you are truly known for within that space. So one of the things that we look to do is, is looking at all of the different areas where we see agents popping up. [00:29:44] Nina Harding: And this is a helpful slide. Sometimes I think, um, it starts to highlight, um, where we’re seeing some traction in financial services. Or in healthcare manufacturing. And then when I talk about the horizontals or the personas, you start to see some of the um, really repeatable, high return on investment type of things. [00:30:08] Nina Harding: Is this resonating with some of you guys? Yeah. I’m seeing a hit, a lot of head nods. This, if you’re on the services side, right? We’re in an intimate setting. This is where I encourage you to try and build an agent, right? Package that agent, put it on marketplace, make that available, and then make that known to our field sales organization. [00:30:27] Nina Harding: ’cause they are looking for quick wins along those lines. [00:30:31] Nina Harding: So on that, um, [00:30:36] Nina Harding: uh, one of the things that we’re along the journey for is the skilling. This is moving at such a fast pace, right? Um, so you’re looking at. Um, anthropic is really a big topic right now, right? Gemini, you’re looking at cloud, you’re, um, or Claude. [00:30:55] Nina Harding: Um, you’re looking at all of these different, uh, scenarios and one of the things at Microsoft is we really wanna be open to all of these different technologies because our customers are open. So we want to be part of taking you on that journey. And one of the things that we invest in white. [00:31:12] Nina Harding: Significantly is all of the training. Um, and I wanna encourage you guys to take advantage of it. Training is not a one-time thing. It is, it is a constant muscle that you must exercise. So as I come to my conclusion, I have a couple three key things, right? One is really understanding what your superpower is, right? [00:31:33] Nina Harding: The partners that I’m finding are really aligned well with the field are really winning. Those stories are the ones that have. Know and can articulate their superpowers. What am I known for? What are the use cases I can either build to or have agents against? And where have I done this consistently? And packaged really, really concretely, right? [00:31:55] Nina Harding: Um, this, this proliferate of like, I can do everything. Unfortunately, you get lost a little bit in the noise, right? So clear positioning, proof point’s, so critical right now, and reinforcing that credibility with the clients that have adopted. The second thing is that you’ve heard a little bit about this hopefully. [00:32:16] Nina Harding: How many of you have heard of the part partner success story? Okay, this is really, really key. We launched about maybe a month ago, and we already have over a hundred, uh, stories from partners, and the field is loving it. What it is is it brands the stories with your brand if you submit them. So what? Talk about credibility, um, with the field and with our marketers to have your name and that recognition picked up. [00:32:45] Nina Harding: It’s really, really fantastic. So I encourage you to do that. For those of you taking quick snaps, I did put a code on here, so if you wanna go straight to it, uh, you can take it. Um, and go explore with it. What’s nice about it is it’s AI based, so it will help you write these stories very, very quickly. [00:33:04] Nina Harding: There’s no reason why your sales reps can’t be writing these stories, and then yes, [00:33:11] Nina Harding: uh, yeah, you can do no meaning like from enterprise. No. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You can do it on any, on any, there is a different level of fidelity of if you have the customer’s permission. Right. Um, to pu to publish it or not. And that’s some functionality we’re working on. If there’s enough traction of, of this is to help you guys. [00:33:32] Nina Harding: Secure that with Microsoft. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it can be any customer there. But I encourage you to take a look at that. And I know I’m two minutes over here, so I’m just gonna leave you with this. Um, at the end of the day, as I, as I wrap up here, I just wanna make sure that what, where we’re going and we’re going together, that it’s simple and actionable between us and it’s easy for our field to understand. [00:34:00] Nina Harding: Where you play the value proposition you play so that we’re going into deals even more effectively together. Right? So you heard industry, sub-industry, persona level or horizontal. Put that in if, um. Figuring out what your superpower is, making sure that you’re trained, that there’s evidence around the success, and capturing that in ways, uh, that are critical to not only your business, but giving us the visibility of that success. [00:34:31] Nina Harding: Like scream from the rack rafters. Use these tools to make sure that we know just how transformational you’ve been in some of the customers and where you’re uniquely winning. So, so important. So keep investing in the skilling. You can see my kind of like five power plays, right? And the last one always being that superpowers. [00:34:56] Nina Harding: So with that, um, if we do all of these things consistently, you won’t just be keeping up with ai. I think we will all be leading on that AI mission. So thank you very much. I appreciate it. [00:35:14] Vince Menzione: Don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.

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In this episode of the Love Your Life Show, I teach one of the most important relationship skills we were never taught: emotional validation. If you often feel the urge to fix, explain, or make things better when someone you love is struggling, this episode is for you. I have found that in learning the skills of emotional validation and emotional intelligence, the people I love (my kids, my husband, my friends, etc) feel so much more love from me. Versus, when I didn't know these skills, our conversations and my efforts to support were wonky and they were left feeling disconnected, or worse, incompetent or shamed. Learning how to validate is how we support others without taking on their emotions or trying to change their experience, and it will change your parenting, marriage, and every close relationship you have. This episode builds directly on last week's conversation about emotional regulation. When you can stay calm inside yourself while someone else is having big feelings, validation becomes possible. I explain what emotional validation actually is, what it is not, and why validation does not mean agreement, approval, or fixing the problem. We talk about why emotions need soothing, not solving, how to stop minimizing or invalidating feelings without realizing it, and what to say when you want someone to feel seen, heard, and supported. I share practical phrases you can use with your kids, your partner, and the people you care about most, along with guidance on how to stay present without overfunctioning or taking responsibility for someone else's emotions. If you are a parent, partner, helper, or chronic fixer, this episode will help you build healthier emotional boundaries, deeper connection, and more emotionally safe relationships. Spoiler Alert: When they feel better in relationship with you, YOU feel better too!

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestKeyshawn E.Dion LackThis Week We DiscussAlways Throw Away Your Last Bite vs Only Be Able To Drink Half Your BeveragePersonal Chef That Cooks W/ Mystery Meat vs Eat Sardines For Every MealChange Genders Every Tone You Sneeze vs Have A Mariachi Band Play When You LieS/o To Our SponorsFactorHead to factormeals.com/squadd50off and use code squadd50off to get 50 percent off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with Factor. New subscribers only, varies by plan. 1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year while subscription is active

Pairwise: https://www.pairwise.com/FoA 412: 'Biological' Is Not A Category (it's the future of agriculture)I'm excited to share today's episode with you. I've wanted to get Tom Adams back on the show ever since I had the chance to interview him at World Agritech a couple of years ago. That interview was included on episode 412 of this podcast titled “Biological is not a Category”. The work Pairwise is doing is mind boggling to me. Using CRISPR and the latest in gene editing tools, they have built a platform to enable plant breeders to make very precise changes to the genome of a plant to give farmers and consumers more of what they want. Now this is different from genetic modification or GMOs because they are not inserting foreign genes into the plant. In fact, they are doing the exact same thing that plant breeders have done for over a century, they are just able to do it in an extremely precise way. On another podcast that I host, Agriscience Explained, Corteva's Reza Rasoulpour explained natural breeding as wanting to change one word in a book by just combining all of the pages of two different books and hoping that word changes. Versus gene editing just going in and changing that one word in the book. I thought that was a good comparison. So Tom and his team are bringing this technology to agriculture by working with seed companies and other partners in a variety of use cases, many of which we'll discuss today. A little background on Tom: Dr. Tom Adams co-founded Pairwise and serves as Chief Executive Officer. Tom has over 25 years of leadership experience heading up biotechnology for global companies, serving most recently as Vice President of Global Biotechnology at Monsanto where he led the team developing a broad range of innovative products. Tom wanted to realize the possibilities of CRISPR and gene editing in plants, and co-founded Pairwise to realize this potential in a mission-based environment. Formerly a faculty member at Texas A&M University, Tom holds a PhD in microbiology and plant science from Michigan State University and a BS in botany and plant pathology from Oregon State University. Tom and I talk about Pairwise's continued work in this area, some of the cool developments that are under way, some of their strategic decisions like going the partnership route rather than being the seed company themselves, a little bit more about how the technology works, how this changes the game and who captures the value.

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestLou Lou GonzalesCourtney HaynesThis Week We Discuss1 Artist for Life 50 Cent vs Mary J. BlidgeTalk Like Darth Vader vs Mike TysonShare A Cell With A Racist vs Serial KillerS/o To Our SponsorsGame TimeDownload Game Time TodayUse Code “SQUADD” For $20 Off!Blue ChewBlue chew.comGet 10% Off Blue Chew Gold When You Use Code “SQUADD”

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found.Special GuestJazmyn W.GiGi LaFlairThis Week We DiscussUnlimited Gift Card To Favorite Restaurant vs Clothing StoreDenzel Washington vs Leo DiCaprio/Will SmithFamous For Something Embarassing vs Something Everone HatesS/o To Our SponorsGLDGLD.comGet 50% Off With Our Promo CodePromo: SQUADDMint MobileGet 50% Off 3, 6, of 12 Months Of ServiceNew Customers Can Get New Plans For As Low As $15Mintmobile.com/SQUADDCash AppDownload Cash App TodayUse Code CASHAPP10 At Sign Up & Recieve $10 After You Send $5 To A FriendTerms Apply

In this episode, I talk with @SidneyPowell1 about hand counted paper ballots, her claims about Smartmatic and Venezuela, and what she says happened behind the scenes in the December 18 White House meeting. Sponsor: BlockTrustIRA — Smarter Crypto Investing for Your Retirement: https://metaxascrypto.com TIMESTAMPS(0:00) Intro(0:29) Sidney Powell Joins(6:22) What Happened In The Dec 18 Meeting?(13:38) Mike Pence And The Ten Day Option(16:13) 2024 Versus 2020 Claims(29:53) Did CIA And NSA Know?