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Essence Virtual Events
  • 1 week ago
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00:30Good evening, everybody. I'm Rich Lou Dennis and I'm the founder and chairman of Essence Ventures. I'm really looking forward to the conversation we're about to have this afternoon with our next guest because
00:59it's all about sharing what we've both learned and what we're still learning as successful entrepreneurs discussing how we can personally drive outcomes as business owners and illustrate how we can leverage our businesses to transform our communities.
01:14Joining me today is the founder and chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, Mr. Robert Smith. Founded in 2000, Vista is the fourth largest enterprise software company in the world. Currently manages equity capital commitments of over $52 billion and oversees a portfolio of more than 60 software companies with some 70,000 employees worldwide.
01:39In other words, he runs a big business. In 2017, Forbes named him one of the 100 greatest living business minds. He's a visionary philanthropist, chairman of Carnegie Hall, president of Funtu Foundation, and serves on the board of directors of the Business Roundtable.
01:59He's also a member of the Cornell Engineering College Council, board of overseers of Columbia Business School. And this man has done a lot. And he's come from very humble beginnings like the rest of us. And has built an incredible business over the past 30 plus years.
02:17And is also one of the biggest champions of small businesses, minority owned businesses, and the black community. And I'm proud to know him, proud to be able to talk with him today, and proud to be able to share this conversation with him, and have him share this knowledge of this incredible transformation that he's done from
02:46from where he started to where he is today, and how he's reached back in consistently to pull us all to pull us all up. I've learned a tremendous amount from him. And so looking forward to sharing him and some of that knowledge with you today. So let's jump right into it. Robert, you ready?
03:05I am ready. Hey, Rich, good to see you. And glad you are recovering well from that horrible COVID.
03:12I appreciate it, Robert. And I'm glad I'm recovering too, because it's been a journey, but it's also been a journey, you know, for all of us on the business front, and especially for us as entrepreneurs, and for our businesses, no matter what scale, right? No matter how big it is, and no matter how small it is.
03:34And so I just, I just wanted to jump right into it. You've been instrumental in working with the government, with the financial institutions, with civic leaders to get funding allocated for small businesses, and in particularly focused on how that funding can be accessed by black-owned businesses, and minority-owned businesses, and small businesses in the communities that are the least served, and that oftentimes get the least opportunity.
04:02And so would be, would be good to jump into sort of how you've been approaching that, what you've been doing there. I mean, I know you, you know, you've got Finastra, you've got HubServe, you've got QuickBase all involved. You're, you're providing these services to our community that people can access free of charge. You're connecting banks and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, black-owned banks and, and, and, and, and large, large banking institutions with, with funding.
04:28And so talk to us a little bit about that so people understand what sort of happens to make this happen.
04:33Yeah. Thanks. Um, and, and, and, and it's critically important, uh, for really all the small to medium businesses and particularly African American, uh, Latino, uh, small to medium businesses to focus in this time, um, to get relief that is being provided by, uh, the United States government in different forms.
04:56Um, you know, I've been focused principally on the small to medium business segment, uh, in this time, you know, we, as Vista have about 1.4 million small to medium business customers.
05:07Uh, but, you know, growing up in the neighborhood where I grew up, uh, with family members, uh, that I have in friends who are small to medium business owners, they are suffering, uh, and having a very difficult time as we all, uh, a, you know, mourn the fact that our community is being disproportionately affected from the
05:26the horrible disease of disease of COVID-19, uh, to health of the fact that many of our businesses are temporarily closed.
05:33And, you know, there's been many reports.
05:35I think the most recent I read was by JP Morgan last year, uh, where, you know, most small to medium businesses or small businesses have about two months of working capital to 90% of the African American and Latino businesses had 14 days of working capital.
05:51Um, and so to a great extent, uh, many of them on paper are out of business unless they are actually able to access the, uh, the support that the U S government is currently, uh, offering and providing.
06:05And many of you saw with, uh, in particular the PPP program, uh, how quickly those dollars, uh, actually were, were, were dispensed and distributed.
06:15Uh, and, um, from all I can tell, uh, disproportionately, uh, so, uh, not to our, our, our community.
06:24So I was really focused and concerned, uh, about how do we, we work, uh, and manage it.
06:30So started to dig in and found out, not surprisingly, you know, uh, that there are a fair number of African American banks, Latino banks that actually don't have, uh, what they call an enablement system on the E-Tran system, which ties into the SBA.
06:45And so if you think about how these processes, uh, unfold, uh, the government, um, and in this case, uh, um, through the PPP program says, here's the amount of capital you have to apply.
06:56You have to apply through our system.
06:57And often these are companies, our businesses are under banked.
07:02They aren't with banks that actually are on that system.
07:05And often, uh, the, the, the banks that they are banking with, um, uh, have some, some processing challenges.
07:12So, you know, answer part of the early part of your question there, you know, as we, as entrepreneurs and, and in my business as, as a technologist, uh, I put a call out really to my team, uh, of Vista.
07:26You know, we've got 70 plus thousand employees and 60, uh, eight or so, uh, software companies and said, how can we be helpful?
07:34Um, and one of our companies, Finastra is actually one of the third largest FinTech companies in the world actually has 4,200, uh, banks as customers in North America.
07:431,700 of which are these, yeah, already, um, 1,700 of which are what we call, uh, CDFIs or community, uh, development financial institutions.
07:53And I looked at the call and said, okay, what do we have that actually enables the engagement with, uh, with the SBA?
08:01Um, we had a system that did that already for many of our customers.
08:04We retooled the front end of that system, uh, and then rolled it out.
08:08Now we've over 775 banks, uh, CDFIs, credit unions that are on our platform that are actually actively processing these applications.
08:17Uh, I then contacted, uh, a good friend, uh, Reverend Al Sharpton and said, let's talk a little bit about what's going on with the African American bank and banking community.
08:26And in that context figured out there's about 24 or so African American banks.
08:30I remember the old, uh, Friedman bank story, uh, which still disturbs me on, on, on multiple levels.
08:37Um, and, and contacted, uh, what's called the NBA, which is national banking association, uh, and said, well, how many of these banks of your banks are processing these loans?
08:48And there were less than a handful.
08:50And when we dig a little deeper, we found out that they actually didn't have the system to process them.
08:54So we actually had Finastra install every one of those African American banks that wanted to do it.
08:59And we did it, you know, free of charge and train their people.
09:02Uh, so then now they have the processing capacity, uh, to, to bring these PPP loans through.
09:08Now, the next thing of course, is you need to start to figure out how undercapitalized they are and how they are limited by the amount of loans they can process because undercapitalization.
09:17So we've brought in a number of people, um, uh, to, to be helpful here.
09:22Uh, part of it is I've been on the phone with the chairman and CEO, the largest banks in the U S.
09:28Um, you know, uh, Michael Corbett at, at, at Citibank and Jamie Dimon over at JP Morgan and, and Brian Mornan at bank of America and, and, and have been pulling together with them and a few other folks like, uh, Charles Phillips and Tony Coles and saying, Hey, you know, how do we actually enable these banks to have access to this capital?
09:47Because of the way that the next, uh, group of, of, of, of funds are coming down is about 60 billion.
09:52That's allocated for banks under 50 billion in assets.
09:5730 of that is for banks under 10 billion of assets, but 90% of the banks of America under 10 billion in assets in these African American banks, none of them over 1 billion in assets.
10:08So I still worry, and we've been worried about how do we ensure that they get access and, uh, the right sort of, uh, um, ability to, to process the loans and get the capital for these small, uh, medium businesses in our communities that, that we all rely on.
10:24And so that created a whole separate, uh, set of dialogue and discussion with everyone from, uh, Senator Tim Scott, who's been very helpful, uh, Secretary, uh, Steve Mnuchin to, uh, uh, Chuck Schumer or, um, and Speaker Pelosi.
10:39Um, and, uh, uh, uh, last night I was actually on the phone again with, with Senator Warner to try to figure out, uh, an architect ways that we can now drive this capital into the banks and into the communities that we care about.
10:54I've been on the phone multiple times with the white house and their team.
10:57And it looks like we're getting the right sort of, I'll call it cooperation, although we haven't finished the process just yet.
11:02So again, it, it takes a whole dynamic of, of government and banking.
11:08And as you say, you realize I'm, I'm actually not in this business outside of providing software to the industry generally.
11:14Uh, but I realized the importance that if our community doesn't actually get access, I mean, we could go through decades of urban blight.
11:21And so when having conversations with a number of my friends, uh, who were, you know, influencers and, and, you know, people like, you know, uh, Jamie Foxx and Angela Rye and, and Van Jones and Dion Taylor and others, they said, well, why don't we, why don't we put together some form of a PSA, uh, to deliver messages to our business owners to say, make sure you go apply.
11:42And so we released that like two or three days ago, whenever it was.
11:45That's been, and that's a beautiful.
11:47Well, thanks man.
11:48I'm sorry.
11:49That's a beautiful piece.
11:50We've been running it all day.
11:52It's beautiful.
11:53Oh, great.
11:54We're appreciate it.
11:55And like all things I tell people, um, when you asked me to come on this, I said, you know, I hope at this point in the conversation, all the small business owners who haven't applied for their PPP actually put us on pause and go apply.
12:07Okay.
12:08Because when, when the dynamic occurs that that money gets distributed, uh, last time it got used up quickly and talking to some of the CEOs of the banks, one of them said, Robert, I got a million.
12:19I got a million business loans in the pipeline ready to go.
12:22Another one said, I've got 250 to 300,000 business loans ready to go for this PPP program.
12:27As soon as they open the E-Tran system, I'm going to push the button and try to process them.
12:31And that's, those are big banks and there's a smaller banks.
12:34We saw there's a small road bank in Nebraska that actually had the highest number of process loans because they had their teams working all night.
12:41So I've asked, um, the head of the NBA, I said, listen, make sure all the banks are ready to get their work done and work over the weekends.
12:48Cause we got to get our people to get some access to this, to this capital, to keep our, frankly, to keep our communities vibrant alive.
12:55And it is those small businesses, it's barbershops, it's florists, you know, it's real estate agents.
12:59It's, you know, all those things, small hair salons, all the grocery stores in the neighborhoods that, you know, you and I grew up in that basically make up the employment and the, and the, and the social dynamics.
13:10So, um, all that is, I call it an important part.
13:13And then I actually had the good fortune of two of my other companies stepped up and said, listen, uh, one of them is, is, is, is, is a company called quick base.
13:23And they built the front end system with one of the largest law firms, Kirkland and Alice to say, okay, how do we actually help people go in and use the, call it a wizard to actually prepare their documentation?
13:33They may not have a bank that's, that is part of the SBA system, but at least they can get the documentation prepared.
13:40Now they can go find a bank or take them as a customer.
13:42So there's multiple layers.
13:43And so they've, they've done that and they've been very effective in, in preparing that.
13:47And we found other folks who were taking new customers.
13:49And then of course, there's the whole dynamic.
13:51We learned about the restaurants, you know, many of our restaurants are closed.
13:54Yeah.
13:55And one of our companies up serve actually has a capacity to turn if they're an existing customer, a on premise.
14:02restaurant to take out delivery, uh, and, uh, curbside delivery.
14:07And you don't have to pay that delivery charges of like, you know, the, you know, the grub hubs and those sorts of folks.
14:12So we've been actively enabling African-American restaurants, all restaurants, frankly, to, to, to get onto that system.
14:18And, and some of our restaurants are now I'm hearing operating at 30, 40% of their total revenue at only 10, 12% of their cost.
14:25So, you know, there's a way for them to stay in business, keeping business, keep their employees.
14:30Uh, most of the employees, again, you don't need the waiters and bus boys and such, but you know, cooks in the, but at least those keeps those businesses vibrant because you know, this rich, if they go out of business, I mean, maybe they're, they're gone for decades.
14:43And they're gone creates a massive amount of blight in the community.
14:47So anyway, I'm just happy.
14:48I've got a great team working with me and a lot of people who are concerned about this and in the government and, and, uh, in the banking community.
14:56And like all things we're working hard to make this happen and been going to be just say, thank you to all those folks.
15:01And thank you to all of the influencers who understand, you know, Charlemagne and, and Terrence J and all these folks who said, Hey, listen, let's, let's, let's see how we can be very helpful in getting the word out.
15:11And getting the word out, you know, came back to, you know, into our, to our community so that they get there and get their, their, their documents process.
15:20Okay.
15:21Yeah, no, I mean, look, thank you, man.
15:23Because you know, one of the, one of the key things here is how we all spend the resources that we have to help us get through this period.
15:31Right.
15:32And, and, and reaching back, you know, we had markets, our good friend, Marcus was on earlier, Samuelson talking about, talking about how he's been engaged in the things that he's been doing and what the impact has been.
15:44And so to have, to have, um, resources like, um, uh, observe and, and, and then this quick base piece.
15:52So everybody, uh, after you hit pause and go make sure that you filled out your, your, your applications.
15:59Um, you can go to, um, whether it's new voices foundation or essence, we have a resource center that will have, um, all of these different resources that, that the Robert just spoke about, um, including a listing of all the African American banks.
16:14So if there's one in your community, you should know them, you should go introduce yourself to them and, and, and you should, uh, you should be able to apply there.
16:22And if not, all these systems, just so you know, you can actually, yeah, all those systems, uh, you can get on through a portal.
16:29So you actually don't have to physically go there.
16:31It's all digital portal enabled, um, for you to actually apply to the loans through those banks, which is, which is the whole point of this dynamic, you know, the digital economy that we live in.
16:40And you, you and I know this give it now, we all know it now that we're all sitting here, you know, and not all, but working, working, uh, less engaged, uh, in personally, but on the home.
16:51I mean, the digital infrastructure and backbone is ever more critical to, uh, the enablement of this economy point one.
16:59And for us to participate in the economy, you've got to be looking at it through, uh, I call it this digital, this digital lens.
17:05And that's a critical part of what we're able to provide.
17:08I think, I think, I think we should probably just jump right to that, right?
17:12Because there's very few people on the planet that can talk to our community about the importance of the digital economy, the digital infrastructure.
17:20Where we should be focusing our kids to learn, where we should be driving our kids to, to, to get their education.
17:27You know, it's, you know, there's nothing wrong with being a lawyer.
17:30There's nothing wrong with being, you know, any of these, any of these incredible professions that we have, that we have traditionally aspired to be in.
17:38Um, but I think today, as we think about what the future holds, where wealth is going to come from, where independence is going to come from.
17:46What's going to leak frog our communities out of these real dire economic conditions and into, and into more prosperous times.
17:54It is going to be around technology.
17:56It is going to be around sort of, uh, the fourth industrial revolution.
18:01And we've got nobody better on the planet to talk to us about it than you.
18:04So, so how do you see that?
18:05What are some of the things you think we should be paying attention to?
18:08What should we be telling our kids?
18:10What businesses should we be looking at?
18:12What, what, what do you think?
18:14Yeah, that, that's a, that's a great question.
18:16You kind of answered the, gave the answer with the question, which is, we can't say, in all honesty, we can't say it enough.
18:22Um, we are, and it's been interesting pre COVID, you know, I, I spent decades now, uh, talking to my investors about this fourth industrial revolution.
18:32And, and truly it is a digitization of everything, uh, short history lesson.
18:37The fact was, you know, computing power for a long period of time, uh, was actually controlled by entities, governments, large universities, large companies, et cetera.
18:45But then once we figured out the manufacturing dynamic to, to create, you know, microprocessors at a much lower cost and rate, uh, we were able to distribute this computing power, uh, pretty much globally.
18:56Um, and then, you know, we had wonderful, uh, connectivity agents, uh, companies that, that connected all that computing power.
19:04And then we had folks who actually created these little devices that we can now kind of connect to that computer power anywhere.
19:10So what has actually occurred is if you think about it is, you know, this, this, this whole dynamic of connectivity access to the computing power created a massive productivity swing globally in every single industry.
19:23And every single industry is actually becoming more reliant on, on this, this, uh, this digital, uh, capability as opposed to less.
19:32And as you've seen over the last 20 years, you know, the, the vast majority of the wealth that's been created has been in some form of technology.
19:41Uh, so we have to ensure as a people, uh, on, you know, this, this platform that we participate in this.
19:49And that is in, in essence, 20 years from now, you're going to see, you know, not only just a vast majority of wealth of any wealth of any size of consequence is likely going to be attributed to some form of digital, uh, dynamic.
20:01Even today, you know, the productivity of software is still, it is the most productive tool introduced in our business economy over the last 50 years and likely will be for the next 50.
20:11So it is critical that we, as a community drive as many on ramps as we can of our people, our children onto this, onto this platform in one way, shape, form or another.
20:23Um, it should be obviously everyone, uh, just, you know, looking around how your, how kids and young people interact, how we communicate, how we communicate as adults, you know, where we, where we find our entertainment, how we, how we engage in business.
20:35It is more digital, um, and will likely skew more to that direction than less.
20:40And now we're introducing a whole series of what I call digital accelerants, uh, that will, that will, uh, create a, you know, more exponential, uh, um, productivity.
20:52These are things called machine learning and artificial intelligence and robotic process automation.
20:56And those, those sort of dynamics, we have to not just be consumers of, but be producers of that productivity.
21:02So that's why I highly encourage, you know, I tell people, anybody in your family under the age of 25, you should, you should, you know, force them to, uh, uh, learn how to code, write code.
21:14And what's so interesting, Richard, you've got seven and a half, 8 billion people on the planet.
21:18There's only about 30 million of us who actually know how to write code.
21:21Now think about it.
21:22So there's going to be the folks who manage those folks.
21:25Yeah, I know.
21:26Right.
21:27But it's going to be that group of people who can capture the disproportionate economic benefit of the productivity that comes from this, this tool.
21:33So drive more of every one of your kids drive them to become programmers.
21:38And, you know, I, uh, a well-paid programmer makes more than LeBron James, honestly, over, over a career or an average NBA player.
21:44Um, if you think about it, thank you.
21:48Thank you for putting that perspective.
21:49Yeah.
21:50Thank you for putting in that perspective because it now gives people a measure as to say, oh, you can make as much as LeBron James go code.
21:56Yeah.
21:57Yeah.
21:58Right.
21:59Well, you may have to manage coders to make as much as him.
22:02Exactly.
22:03I mean, you know, but the average NBA player and an average, you know, player over a lifetime at, at Google or Apple or, you know, some of our great companies make more than those, those guys by multiples.
22:14So, yeah, again, and, and, and you don't have to worry about knee braces, but you know, pros and cons to everything.
22:23Right.
22:24But you know, this, this, so, so there's something, some more house, right?
22:29The world sort of heard that Saturday morning, um, what you did and the love and the outreach and the outpouring of disaffection and understanding of the impact that what you did was going to have on the lives of those students.
22:48I think was just, was just tremendous. And we've talked a lot about that, but some of the things that I haven't heard as much of, and that I know that, that, that you think about a lot is, is the impact, right?
22:59Right. And what it, what is the impact that you, that you expect, uh, to have that those kids will have on society, right? So you didn't just do this to make them debt free.
23:11Right. No, that, that, that, that's right. Um, you know, like, like all, uh, you know, things that I like to do, I like to, you know, make sure it's purposeful and intentional.
23:23And as I thought really about, um, Morehouse graduation, 2019, uh, you know, 400 years after 1619, you know, haven't been involved in, you know, 1619 project, et cetera.
23:37And thinking about, you know, what is it, um, that I could do. And the thing that I would say that I, I have learned that there's probably no more beautiful thing than, than I call it the, you know, the unleashing of the, of the human spirit. Right.
23:52And the liberation of the human spirit, you know, we talk this, our panel, I guess is the unleashing of the human spirit, but the liberation of the human spirit.
23:59And sometimes you see the human spirit liberated through music. You know, Harry Belafonte talked about, uh, Mahalia Jackson, right.
24:07And, and watching her and hearing her and how it, her unleashing her spirit, unleashed a spirit that really was a lot of the movement behind the civil rights movement.
24:17Okay. If you recall, it's her who spoke with Martin before, you know, he, he went through his riff on, I have a dream. He said, you know, speak to your heart and say what your heart says.
24:29And if you think about unleashing the human spirit comes in so many forms, and I was fortunate in growing up in a, in a household, uh, where my father loved music and my mom was a very talented district academic mission.
24:42And, and, and, you know, the dynamic, uh, helped me understand, uh, this whole thing of, you know, what it is to live, uh, and what it is to, to be your best self.
24:52Um, and when I thought about this, these young men, you know, these 400 young men being spoken to by this African American businessman that they probably never heard of.
25:02We never heard of maybe four of them heard of me. I thought about how can I, well, they've heard of you now.
25:08Well, they have now. Yeah. Uh, uh, their spirit and it's to unleash their spirit rich to be you, to be me, to go find the thing.
25:22That will change our community by their own hands. Um, and too many of us, of course, and we, we, you know, we were raised, got to go to school, got to go to college and, you know, all this.
25:35And then all of a sudden you, you have the burden of debt that inhibits your ability to actually, you know, in many cases, give to your communities in the most effective ways.
25:45And I thought if I were able to, to relieve that, that burden, uh, from them, these 400 students, 400 years later, and now 400 families, 400 years later, um, what might that lead to?
25:58And I have an expectation that they will do great things to uplift our community.
26:05Now, I can't point to exactly what it is. And I always tell people, I hope a quarter of them become chemical engineers.
26:11Cause you know, I think chemical engineers are just brilliant. I think a quarter of them, you know, I hope become entrepreneurs.
26:17I hope a quarter become teachers and go back in their neighborhoods and colleges and teach everything that they can.
26:26Hopefully focus a lot on, on STEM, uh, education, um, um, for our kids.
26:32And I think, I hope a quarter of them become politicians and actually think about how we could make our society a more just society in the context of capitalism.
26:44Cause I think capitalism actually by its very nature unleashes the human spirit.
26:48So look, you know, I, I, who knows, um, but we'll see.
26:54Uh, but I think that I, I did a good thing in, in doing my part in, in doing that.
26:59And I know you did an incredible unleashing.
27:01Well, thanks man.
27:02But you know, you're doing an incredible thing and helping unleash the human spirit of African American and, in, in women business owners.
27:09Okay.
27:10Because when you think about the creativity, the dynamic and, you know, some just need guidance, instruction, some need, you know, uh, uh, mentorship.
27:18Some just need a place that they can come together and feel safe and say, I'm in a community of people of like mind and we care about each other's success.
27:27And I think, look, I mean, we, we, we each have a role to play and do our part.
27:32You know, I don't know as much about the consumer businesses as you do.
27:36And I spend my time in business to business interactions cause you know, it's digital and I can understand digital.
27:43Uh, yeah.
27:44And so, you know, I think that's the dynamic that we all have to figure out what our role is.
27:48Yeah.
27:49I mean, I think, I think that's, uh, leads into a very important question, right?
27:54And a very important conversation is we all have our roles and we all, we all have those things that we're exceptional at and that we do.
28:01And we all have those things that we're not exceptional at, but one of the things that I think is, is critical.
28:07Um, and I'd like to get your take on this is the responsibility that we as a community have to invest in our businesses beyond sort of supporting a, you're doing a good thing.
28:19Congratulations.
28:20You know, I really, I really like what you're doing.
28:23I'm here for you.
28:24I'm in your corner and to become active participants in the success.
28:28And by that, I'd be spending your dollars intentionally, you know, from a consumer side, I walk in the store, I look at what's on the shelf.
28:36There may be a product from a black owned brand versus a product from a major corporation.
28:42Um, and I'm choosing that product from a black owned brand.
28:45Right.
28:46Um, or one that has supported my community like Shay.
28:49Right.
28:50Um, but what I really want us to focus on is what is the responsibility that we as individuals have to those businesses?
28:59And what, what's the responsibility that those businesses have back to the community?
29:03Yeah, that's, that's great question.
29:06Uh, every industry and business, uh, operates in some form of an ecosystem.
29:11Uh, and you have the responsibility to help build out that ecosystem of support.
29:16You know, my industry, private equity, there are very few people who look like me in the world of private equity, but those of us who are in that industry, we communicate with each other quite often.
29:25We enable each other through what I call our intellectual property of how to manage the business better, how to engage with this particular investor set, uh, affect more effectively.
29:35How do you think about creating value in the businesses, uh, effectively?
29:39I mean, beyond what I call the consumer purchase part of it, uh, what's important is building those sustainable ecosystems, which are, you know, consultants invest in my world, consultants, investors.
29:52Um, uh, uh, you know, uh, people who can actually help drive your businesses forward and then help translate those models to other industries that, that, that they can leverage.
30:03You know, I, I think about at least the world of private equity in some respects in, in technology, you know, massive amounts of capital are flowing into this space.
30:13And my job is to create the infrastructure by which that capital can be utilized effectively delivered back to the, you know, 50% of the, of the, of the retirees whose money I manage and ensure that the profits that come out of that, I can deliver back into the communities that I care about.
30:31So that's the virtuous cycle that I think we all have to think about.
30:34Now, your components are all different depending upon your ecosystem, but you have to think about the virtuous cycle, uh, and, and how you do that in a way that it aids your community.
30:44And you, you, you take your expertise, you deliver it to an organization that values that expertise.
30:49Uh, you take what I'll call the net benefit of that and drive that back into your community to build more people in your community.
30:57Like our intern X program, get them in the STEM education to get them back into technology and then create that virtuous cycle again.
31:03So that's how I really holistically think about, uh, my role and the, the ecosystem that, that I have to operate in.
31:11And frankly, I have a responsibility to build, uh, those parts of that ecosystem.
31:16Yeah.
31:17Yeah.
31:18Nah, man.
31:20They're telling me we got to wrap it up.
31:21We could go for another two hours here, Seth.
31:23I can't, I can't.
31:24I will look forward to our two hour discussion another time.
31:27I hope this is not the last time.
31:29Exactly.
31:30It was, no, no, we will, we will definitely continue to do this because I think not only are we enjoying it, but I think it's, it's been incredibly valuable to, to our community.
31:40And, and, and in wrapping up, one of the things that they, the principles that you just sort of espoused here is something that we, um, uh, in our, in our world and in our, our business calls community commerce.
31:53And that is the focus on bringing commerce into our community and investing the dollars that we make outside of our community back in our community.
32:03And I think, I think that's incredibly, that's incredibly valuable.
32:06And we should actually probably the next thing that we, next time we do something like it's, it's, it's focused on that is like, how do we invest back in our communities as we're building our businesses and, and helping other, helping other entrepreneurs in, in doing that.
32:20But Robert, thank you, my brother, I can't thank you enough, not just for being here, but for all that you do for us and, and, and, and sharing that today and, and, and making sure that our community knows more and more about the opportunities that we are all trying to provide to them and, and, and continue to do that.
32:37So thank you, my friend, appreciate you and love you and see you soon.
32:41Okay.
32:43All the best.
32:44Good joy.
32:45Take care.
32:46All the best.
33:07Good joy.
33:08Good joy.
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