00:00Melissa, this is about Main Street. This is about HVACs. This is about contractors coming in repairing. Why target that part of the market?
00:10Well, thank you for having me, Caroline. I think for us, it's very important that we're bringing frontier AI to the industries that are the backbone of American economy.
00:18I think a lot of startups are existing in Silicon Valley that backs maybe developers, but for us, we want to back these industries and large companies in these industries in HVAC, plumbing, electric, solar, consumer health, and bring the frontier AI for them and help them make more revenue.
00:38Why doesn't some of the enterprise offerings thus far be fit for purpose for these small and medium-sized enterprises?
00:45Yeah, I think these workflows are really deep. So I think Ed was telling me actually just yesterday about adding heat pump to his own home.
00:55That's correct. I did add a heat pump to my home.
00:58Yeah, hopefully it's working really well.
00:59It works, but it was a very difficult process.
01:02And it was delayed. You answered the question, but yes.
01:05Yeah, it's exactly like Ed's experience, right? Trying to reach out to a company that might help you and help you immediately because you have that need now.
01:14So what we help with these industries with, they all actually face seasonality and volatility and have to have deep workflows with their customers like Ed.
01:25So the other solutions that might give you point solutions or easy workflows will not work with these essential services that are serving millions of consumers out there in America.
01:37My small house in Northern California is one end of the scale.
01:41The other is data center build out.
01:43And Jensen Wang was speaking about this at GTC in DC.
01:46I'm going to read you some of his quote, but in order for us to win that, the market, we need mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, plumbers, construction skill, craft labor.
01:56We need mountains of them.
01:57We need mountains of them.
01:58And that's going to create lots of jobs.
02:01And it's going to be fantastic for the United States.
02:03But we need a lot more.
02:05He seems to be suggesting that that skilled labor that you want to work with, with contractors, isn't there.
02:11Is that your experience?
02:12There's definitely labor shortage in these markets.
02:15We need more people to go in and get trained in these industries for our country.
02:21And it's not just for data centers.
02:23It's actually, as we have access to more tools, the energy need is increasing from consumers and businesses, data centers across the board.
02:31And we're going to need this labor to be able to power it all.
02:35Talk to us about total addressable market here, Melissa, because it is such an obvious play to sort of make sure that Main Street is equipped here.
02:44But why haven't more tackled it?
02:45What are you seeing in terms of the need?
02:47I think when you're building a business in this area, the mission is the most important thing.
02:54All of us at NETIC truly care about bringing AI to the backbone of American economy and to the physical world.
03:02I think this is maybe not the sexiest area that the Silicon Valley companies are building in.
03:07One, it's very difficult.
03:09You have to get integrated with companies very closely.
03:12We partner with large private equity firms and large enterprises in these industries to really learn their workflow.
03:19I think that's the root of Caroline's question, though, right?
03:20I said small businesses earlier.
03:22Actually, you work with some bigger businesses as well.
03:24But, you know, the basic question is, can a contractor or a small firm of engineers, plumbers, whatever, afford to pay for your software?
03:33That's what it comes down to.
03:34Yeah, I think the question is about does that contractor, a solo contractor or maybe a few people, do they need AI today, right?
03:44I think in there, in that type of small business level, if anything, capacity and labor being able to go take on more jobs is the more problem than maybe investing the small capital you have to AI tools.
03:56This is why we actually started with more mid-market and large enterprises, because they're at a point that they can invest for more growth with AI tools versus not.
04:06Just real quick, if you and Jensen Huang are so much on the same page, have you actually met with him and talked about this?
04:12I did not, but I got to listen to him in D.C. when he was talking for the AI executive order.
04:19And I was front row and loved that he talked about this type of jobs, because I think we need to encourage the young people to go into skilled labor a lot more as AI does displace job in more computer-backed, maybe small, menial task areas.
04:36These are the jobs that are not replaced for the next hundred years.
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