Samir Kumar: Touring Capital

Joel Palathinkal welcomes Samir Kumar, who shares his journey from Microsoft and ROTC to Palm, webOS, and Samsung, highlighting mobile tech evolution and work-life balance. They delve into Samir's AI and deep learning focus at Qualcomm and his role in m12's deep tech investments. The discussion covers Turing's origins, trust with LPs, investment strategies, and venture capital professionalism. They also explore revenue to valuation multiples, board contributions, and offer advice for emerging managers and founders. The episode wraps up with insights on fund size, growth strategies, talent development, and transitioning to capital formation.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It was my responsibility to understandBlackBerry inside out.

(00:03):
Mhmm.
Now I was I have, you know, I was the one guyor maybe one of two guys at Microsoft walking
around with a a BlackBerry device, and thenlater on also iPhone because I, you know, felt
it was important to understand the competition.
But I I really focused on BlackBerry EnterpriseServer and what they were doing on the back end
and the network side and where were the gapsfor Windows Phone.
But I think your point is is spot on, which isit's not about work life balance.

(00:30):
To The Investor, a podcast where I, JoelPalafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.

(00:55):
Great.
So I'm super excited today.
Got a good friend of mine, Sameer Kumar.
He's at Touring Capital.
He has a long track record of investing, workedat some really top well known investment firms,
and has just a really strong, career intechnology and investing.
So, you know, I I believe one of the firms heworked at, you know, very prominent investing

(01:16):
firm, you know, m thirteen of Microsoft.
So, Samir, you know, excited to kinda go alittle deeper on your career, your background,
you know, why you decided to, you know, launchan investment business, you know, just kind of
want to hear, you know, what was going on inyour in your head, you know, through your just
entire career journey.
So excited to kinda just, go deep on maybestuff that you normally don't go deep on, you

(01:40):
know, just reflecting on your career, youreducation.
And, you know, sometimes it's important to dothat.
You know, just kinda take a step back and andthink about your journey and think about maybe
what your purpose is.
Like, what's what's the point of all this?
Right?
We're we're launching a fund.
We're launching a business.
You know, hopefully, do well.
But at the at the in the end, you know, what'swhat is the actual the vision and kinda what

(02:04):
what's the end game?
So let's let's start from the beginning.
You know, tell us about, maybe your family,your early career, you know, what did you
study?
What did you wanna, you know, aspire to be whenyou were younger?
And, you know, did that change, or did it justkind of stay on track to what you thought you
would do?
You know, for me, I thought I wanted to be anastronaut.
And I think at some point, I wanted to be afireman.

(02:26):
And, in some instances, there were somedirectional alignments with those things, you
know, working for the DOD, working in aviation.
But it's not about me.
It's about you.
So let's let's have you talk about your story.
Yeah.
Thanks, Joel.
Thanks for having me.
Excited to talk to you.
And and just one quick correction because I alot of people do make this confuse the two
funds.

(02:46):
So m thirteen is actually a separate fund.
I think they're based in San Diego.
And n twelve
M twelve.
Yep.
Was the fund that I was at, which is myMicrosoft's venture fund.
Thanks for the correction.
So, yeah, I just wanted to set the recordstraight on that.
But, you know, if I go back to my journey, youknow, like you, I wanted to be either a pilot

(03:06):
or an astronaut all the way through highschool, even, you know, even after high school.
So I went to Cornell to do my undergrad inmechanical and aerospace engineering.
But even there, was curious and keen on, youknow, hey.
Maybe the path to becoming a pilot is joiningthe Air Force.
So I did two years of ROTC.
I volunteered.
It wasn't something where they were giving me ascholarship, but I believe that that maybe that

(03:30):
was gonna be the path for me if I wanted to bean aviator.
Mhmm.
And and perhaps that's the path I shouldexplore.
I think at the end of my sophomore year,realized that the commitment that you're making
is much larger than just, hey.
I wanna be a pilot.
Sure.
I think I had to do some soul searching if thatwas the commitment that I was ready to make at
that point.
So I did step aside from ROTC but continued myengineering studies.

(03:54):
So I finished Cornell in February.
You know, career, frankly, has been a series ofexperiences versus having some kind of road map
that I know exactly where I wanna be from fiveyears from now, and I'm just working backward
from that and how I'm gonna get there.
You know, when I when I started my career, Ilanded at Microsoft completely by chance.

(04:18):
On campus interviews, I signed up.
I I was a mechanical engineer.
I was never expecting to go work for a largesoftware company.
But the interview was very interesting.
It, you know, definitely tickled my brain interms of the questions that they were asking.
And I think the interviewer felt the same waythat, hey, here's someone who's not a computer
science major, but has the ability to thinkdeeply about problems and think on their feet.

(04:43):
And so, you know, in reflecting back on that, Ithink Microsoft was interested in hiring smart
kids who could adapt, who could learn newthings and think on their feet.
And so I really admired and appreciated that.
And so I started my career at Microsoft back inFebruary in in Seattle, Washington.
Originally, was closer to the the sales side ofthe house.

(05:05):
So I was I cut my teeth on presales, you know,sales engineering, learning the kind of the
lingo as well as the lay of the land andworking with Microsoft's largest Fortune 500
customers.
You know, at the time, companies like PACCAR,Boeing, Weyerhaeuser that were the big accounts
in the Northwest Region.
I did that What products were

(05:26):
you selling?
Was it like office products?
No.
So it was Windows Server.
It was active directory.
It was SharePoint.
So it was, you know, Microsoft's kind of bigiron back end server products.
So really
was there?
Because Sofia really had a huge renaissancewith just the cloud and innovation and
connected devices and all that.
So were you able to see some of that stuff aswell that So

(05:48):
this is this is pre, Sofia.
So this is February.
Seed Balmer had just taken over as CEO ofMicrosoft from Bill Gates.
And so this is still the era of, you know,micro Microsoft Windows and Office were the the
the two most important products for thecompany.
Frankly, it was about shrink-wrap software.
You know, cloud was maybe a twinkle insomeone's eye at that point in the far future.

(06:11):
But for me at that time, the big revolutionthat was very at the beginning of starting was
mobile and smartphone computing.
Yeah.
And I still remember the first time I got myhands on a compact I pack, you know, the first
pocket PC back in February, this shiny thingthat frankly looked like a tricorder from Star
Trek.
And I was fascinated by it, and I I think veryearly decided that if I'm gonna go do anything

(06:34):
next in my career, I wanna be involved withthis particular technology and wave.
Mhmm.
And so the next step for me after starting insales engineering at Microsoft was figuring out
how do I get involved in the product side ofbuilding pocket PC and Windows Phone.
And so I I made my way to becoming anenterprise product manager in the Windows

(06:55):
Phone, the Pocket PC team at Microsoft.
And from there, I went on to collaborate withother product managers and engineering teams
and landed in a product planning role becausemy peers and colleagues say, hey, this is
probably the place that you will be the mostexcited, get the most satisfaction given your
interests, given where you like to lean in.

(07:18):
Went on to become a group product planner, hada small team planning different kinds of
enterprise mobility propositions at Microsoft.
Mhmm.
And then I would say it was probably startingin 02/2008, about a year after the iPhone had
come out.
It started to dawn on me that knowing theinternal road maps, the internal trajectory of
what Microsoft was doing in pocket PC and andand smartphones, that the likelihood of being

(07:44):
able to successfully be the largest player inthe market was dwindling very quickly.
Mhmm.
And the iPhone and iOS was an impressiveproduct, and I frankly wasn't convinced that we
were on a track to to be able to compete headon.
Around that time I got to see what Palm wasdoing with the pre offering and the company was

(08:05):
trying to reinvent itself.
John Rubenstein coming in as CEO, One of myformer managers at Microsoft had taken a senior
leadership role there as well and was asking ifI wanted to come and join.
And I was intrigued and I said, well, maybe thePalm three has a shot of beating the iPhone
because if not, pocket PC.
So I joined Palm.

(08:25):
I got to do enterprise product management onwebOS for a short while.
Amazing people that went on to become leadersin Android, in other device programs and mobile
OS companies, and amazing set of innovators andthought leaders.
But if you think about Microsoft as a companyand Palm as a company, I got to see firsthand

(08:49):
go from a company that has a huge diversity ofofferings across many different product lines a
company that's got all its eggs in one basket.
And if that product does not succeed, it'slights out for the company.
And unfortunately for Palm, the pre did notperform as expected in the sales side.
So I was only there for, I would say, about sixmonths and decided that maybe this is not for

(09:11):
me.
I joined Samsung to do partnerships on Android,and that was a great experience in terms of
builds, you know, kind of the first step inbuilding my network in Silicon Valley across
VC, meeting some great entrepreneurs.
You know, I still like to tell stories of thefirst time I met the founders of Siri before
they were all by Apple, having them present andpitch to senior executives at Samsung to see if

(09:34):
there was an opportunity to partner on the Siriside.
I got to meet the creator of an applicationcalled Word Lens, which got integrated into
Google Translate as an visual augmented realityfeature.
And I still remember the first time you seethat demo and think back to, like, 02/2010 and
seeing a real time AR demo of translation on aphone and how amazing it was.

(09:56):
I still remember I got to meet Daniel Grossback in when he was, like, 19 years old and
still working on his on device search startupbefore he'd sold it to Apple.
So great experience in terms of looking at theinnovation landscape in mobile in terms of what
was happening in the startup community.
Samir, what year was that?
So this was from 02/2009 to 2012.
Okay.

(10:16):
Yeah.
So that was actually a good time.
I have a few thoughts on mobile.
I had some mobile experience as well.
So like just a few thoughts on BlackBerry.
Right?
So I were know, I don't know if you saw theBlackBerry movie on Amazon.
Was actually really good.
Yeah.
I forgot the name of the movie, but it wasportrayed really well.
I mean, I didn't really know the completestory, so it was pretty helpful for me.

(10:38):
And then it was just really interesting to justsee how you can get comfortable and feel that
you have the entire market share.
And then Steve Jobs gave his presentation ofthe iPhone and design became important and kind
of the way that people interact with devicesbecame important too.
So for me at that time, you know, I thinkdefinitely like I was around when the, you

(11:01):
know, the first iPhone came out and you know,when that presentation happened, but, know,
professionally I was working in productmanagement, building a lot of mobile web iPad
apps that were kind of converging.
And I would say on the design side, you got toreally think through the information
architecture, right?
So like on a phone, you probably need more of ahigh level summary of information.

(11:23):
And, you know, some of those devices I rememberreally clearly, you know, some devices have a
back button where, like, some Android you know,some BlackBerrys are an actual Android device,
so they don't have the button and it's kindatouch screen.
So what do you do with that?
Right?
How do you integrate the back button?
How does the back button work with the appstore?

(11:43):
So definitely that was one thing withBlackberry, just kind of getting comfortable
and not realizing or embracing the innovation.
I think they tried to have a couple smartdevices or maybe just build on top of Android.
But I would say, you know, this is kind ofwhere I think slowly the edge of the resurgence
of continuity in work life is important, right?

(12:03):
So especially in the asset management industry,I used to build a lot of software for the buy
side.
And like a lot of times when you think about asa product person, you're thinking about the
user journey, right?
You're a buy side equity research analyst,maybe your coverage is oil and gas.
So they're looking at the news and then they'realso looking at their holdings.

(12:25):
And then, you know, they they go, you know,they go on travel, they're flying somewhere,
they wanna read, the the the the earningsreports and kinda read all the research about
what they're doing.
So, there there needs to be some continuityfrom maybe their Bloomberg terminal to their
iPad.
And then, you know, when they get up, they'reprobably like, you know, refreshing to see

(12:46):
what's happening in the news.
And then I think there is a I don't know whichdevice it was, but there was this one crazy
device where, like, you plug it in a holsterand then it kind of syncs with your screen.
I don't know if that was a Microsoft device aswell, but that was just one more point I had
where the continuity, where it's not reallyabout work life balance where you shut off at

(13:09):
5PM.
It's kind of like what Jeff Bezos was sayingwhere there's work life harmony, right?
We're like, maybe when your kids are going tobed and you know, it's 9PM, it may be okay to
pop in and see something and maybe not doanything that night but kind of make a mental
note to be like, oh, you know, maybe I shouldsend an email in the morning to kinda just make
sure you're more productive throughout youryour life, you know?

(13:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
You're you're hitting on some reallyinteresting points that I I I forgot to make,
which is when I was at Microsoft and working onPocket PC and Windows Mobile, I was the
BlackBerry rig compete guy at Microsoft.
Oh, wow.
So it was my responsibility to understandBlackBerry inside out.
Mhmm.
Now I was I had you know, I was the one guy ormaybe one of two guys at Microsoft walking

(13:52):
around with a a BlackBerry device and thenlater on also iPhone because I, you know, felt
it was important to understand the competition.
But I I really focused on BlackBerry enterpriseserver and what they were doing on the back end
and the network side and where were the gapsfor Windows Phone.
But I think your point is is spot on, which isit's not about work life balance.
It's understanding that you're one person.

(14:13):
Right?
You're doing work stuff on your phone.
You're doing personal stuff on your phone.
You don't wanna live a completely disjointedlife where these things have no connection
between them.
Of course, your IT department wants to reallyisolate all the data and the work related stuff
and protect that.
But how do you do that in such a way that theuser experience is consistent and something

(14:35):
that delights the user versus annoys them?
So if you think back to the early days, I mean,now we all take it for granted you have a PIN
on your device when you turn it on or youunlock it.
But I still remember having these conversationswith other Microsoft employees and engineers
when we were advocating for, hey.
At a minimum, we should have a device lock onPocket PC.
Right?
Mhmm.
People turn it on, they need to put in a PIN tobe and have some kind of enterprise policy that

(14:59):
can be managed centrally from IT.
This is part of the reason IT departments haveaccepted BlackBerry Enterprise servers because
of the controls it's giving them.
You know, I think there were, 600 knobs ordials that they could turn in terms of what you
could do to control someone's device, but thereality was that most most IT departments maybe
use kind of them.
But the fact that they had this console, theyhad this ability to say, yeah, we gave

(15:22):
BlackBerrys to all of our execs, but we canblow them away or wipe them out or we can lock
them, and we can do that remotely.
That was one of the reasons that IT departmentsactually were accepting of BlackBerry back then
despite other issues with the architecture.
But also, think, you know, when you go back tothat time, I still remember having these
conversations with senior folks at Microsoft.
We were advocating at that time.

(15:43):
So if you go back, this is like 02/2005, '2thousand '6, maybe 02/2007.
And, hey, the world is gonna move to a worldwhere it's not just push notifications for
email.
It's push notifications for everything, foryour line of business applications, your
consumer apps, and we need to start thinkingabout infrastructure for how you efficiently
push information to these devices that are onthese wide area networks that are not inside of

(16:08):
the enterprise and do that securely.
And frankly, at that time, that was not like,oh, yeah, that makes complete sense.
And, of course, we have to do this.
For a lot of very smart, very senior people,you had to spend a lot of time explaining to
them that this is where the world was headed.
Mhmm.
Now, Joel, you know this as well as I, timingis always the hardest thing to predict.
You know, you and I can say this is for suregonna happen.

(16:31):
We can say with less certainty if it's gonnatake two years or three or four or five.
And so maybe we're a bit early.
I think now if you think about where we arewith push infrastructure and services on any
platform that we use and, you know, you expectnotifications.
Mhmm.
It just took a while.
Right?
And so in 02/2005, '2 thousand '6, maybe itwasn't as obvious, but

(16:51):
Yeah.
It did you know, it it exploded onto the scene.
Mhmm.
So yeah.
So that was, you know, that was my journey atat Microsoft, at Palm, Samsung doing Android
partnerships, building a great network.
And and right around, you know, I would say itwas 2,012, I got connected with my partner at
Turing, Nagaraj Kasha, who was the head ofQualcomm Ventures, was also leading all of the

(17:17):
business end of Qualcomm research because bothof the organizations reported up to the CTO at
Qualcomm.
And there was an opportunity to come join histeam.
And, you know, I think the original impetus wassome some ideas around what they were doing in
augmented reality Mhmm.
At that time, but I think they were looking forsomething broader.

(17:38):
We had we were just on the cusp of AI one pointo, the big deep learning revolution that
happened with the ImageNet breakthrough.
Yeah.
So it was my time at Qualcomm where I went downthe rabbit hole of deep learning and neural
networks and AI, and frankly, have never comeout since.
You know, I've been interested in other areas,but this has been a consistent theme in my

(17:59):
career.
You know, whether it's on the operational sideand kind of business and product roles or it's
on the investing side, you know, QualcommVentures, m 12, it's been a theme now for over
a decade.
Mhmm.
Having seen kind of the waves of AI, AI onepoint o back in 2012, let's call it AI two
point o in 2016, '20 '17 when every company wasrebranding itself with dot a I, and then

(18:24):
obviously, you know, the the third wave thathappened once we saw these large foundation
models and and ChatGPT explode onto the stage.
So Qualcomm was, you know, five years, greatexperience working with the ventures team,
helping them form their thesis on AI investing,also working with the research side in Mhmm.
How do you utilize some of this research thatwe're doing and really amazing work in on

(18:48):
device machine learning, you know, indoorlocation services, you know, parallel and
heterogeneous compute architectures that run onphones, not just in the data center.
So a great portfolio of tech.
And I think I I got to experience, you know,the ins and outs of how easy or maybe not easy
it is to commercialize research in largecompanies and bring it to market, whether you

(19:10):
commercialize it through external partners likestartups or you bring it through your own
product and commercial organizations and bringit to market.
Whether it's Microsoft, whether it's Qualcomm,whether it's Google, it's never easy.
But I think you have to be thoughtful about theapproaches that you take and the push and pull
of where you lean on to be able to make thingshappen.

(19:33):
I think lots of learnings there.
And then in 2017, think about a year and a halfafter my partner Nagraj had left Holcom
Ventures, had been recruited by Satya to comeand start officially Microsoft's early stage
venture practice.
It was still called Microsoft Ventures backthen before we'd rebranded it ten twelve.
Mhmm.

(19:53):
So he gave me a call in 2017.
So, look, we're going through the second waveof AI.
You've been very deep in this area.
You know, why don't you come and join us andhelp us kind of figure out what our strategy is
here, separate the wheat from the shaft interms of who's a dot AI versus really has
something.
Mhmm.
So for me, that was a moment to say, Time to godeeper on the investing side.
I built a good amount of domain knowledge andexpertise in machine learning AI and deep

(20:16):
learning.
So maybe that's the next move in my career.
So I joined m twelve in 2017, originally with afocus on horizontal AI investing, you know,
core AI investments.
But I quickly kind of spread my wings to deeptech more broadly.
So taking on kind of an investment mandate for,you know, I would say early stage deep tech

(20:39):
investing across quantum computing, robotics,AI silicon, obviously, horizontally and
vertically, and other kind of deep tech areas.
In a fund that I would say was 80% SaaSoriented, I had kind of the I'd like to say I
had the best job in the world where I was doingprobably the most fun part of the portfolio.

(21:00):
The you know, we like to call them the the youknow, the the platform shifting bets, you know,
and as as you know with all things deep tech,if if something pans out, truly will be
transformational.
Yeah.
But a lot of times you don't know about it tillit's much more mature.
So that's what I got to do at M12 and it it wasa a great ride, a great experience.
You know, I really spent a lot more time withNagaraj there.

(21:22):
I met my other partner Priya there.
We had an opportunity to work on a bunch ofdeals together.
So I was there for five and a half years, andthen I think it was in early twenty two, and we
had seen a good amount of turnover in the team.
Nagaraj had gone on to SoftBank.
Priya had originally gone on to Mayfield andthen SoftBank after that.

(21:42):
And a lot of other folks had also moved on.
It felt like, hey, you know, perhaps it's it'san inflection point.
Maybe it's time for me to move on too.
Right?
Yeah.
Right.
Out what the next step is.
Yeah.
You know, we we built something great, veryproud of our track records, top decile fund in
terms of returns.
But, you know, as you may know in in corporateventure capital, you know, the tides shift.

(22:04):
Right?
So sometimes it can be very independentfinancially driven, other times more
strategically oriented.
Yeah.
I would say this current incarnation, you know,and where Microsoft is in terms of its
position, it I can understand why they're morestrategically oriented now than maybe we were
back in 2017.
Yeah.
So I got, you know, got the bug to say, hey.

(22:25):
Maybe it's time to kinda spin out and do my ownthing, originally thinking about maybe a deep
tech fund.
But I think, as you know, the fundraisingenvironment was quickly deteriorating in 2223.
Much stronger focus on DPI versus TBPI fromLPs.
And, of course, as I've learned myself, in a ina risk off or less risky environment, you know,

(22:49):
holding new teams and having to work togetherbefore or don't have a track record together
before becomes a much harder sell for LPs than,hey, this is a team that it's been in a
partnership.
They know how to challenge each other.
They know how to argue.
They know how to get along.
And so for me, the learning was, hey, there's abetter path here to reunite with some of my
former mTOL partners and end up, you know,doing Turing with Nagarajan Priya versus a

(23:15):
wholly new deep tech seed and a fund withpeople I admire and respect, but I don't have a
track record of co investing with.
And so that was the kind of the origin story ofTuring.
Well, tell me, you know, let's go a littledeeper in terms of because part of company
building and team building is convincing peopleto come on the ride with you.

(23:38):
Right?
So it sounds like the other two people hadpretty good gigs.
Right?
They're working at Mayfield and, you know, Iforgot where the other one was working at.
Okay.
Vision Fund two.
Yeah.
So, I mean, to convince somebody and, you know,the the everybody has different things going
on.
Right?
They've got mortgages.
They've got, you know, two kids in day care.
Right?
So to, to kind of take that leap to say, youknow what?

(24:01):
Like, I've been kind of working at thesefranchises for a long time.
There's a lot of equity that I've built, butthat equity hasn't come along with me.
Right?
That equity has, you know, been retained atthose franchises, and those franchises are
continuing to appreciate those benefits.
You know, it's time for me to build somethingand build equity in myself that, could evolve

(24:24):
over time and and become one of thosefranchises one day.
Right?
So how did you kind of decide in terms of thethree of you guys to build this together?
Was it, you know, one night getting Chinesefood together?
Was it, just kind of something that's beencompounding over time?
You know, how long has that has that beencompounding?

(24:45):
And then when when how did you guys tell me thestory of, like, when you guys decided to
actually do this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Great great question.
So I think that I'll I'll I'll answer thecompounding one first.
So that's really a long arc.
Right?
Because having seen how Nagaraj built QualcommVentures, what we built together at M12, the
culture, the approach, the team, I reallyrespect and admire that.

(25:08):
And so in the back of my mind, you know, thechanging of the guard happened at M12, part of
the thing that I was looking for is how do werecreate something like that?
And I really enjoyed that.
It was a work hard, play hard culture.
Is there an opportunity to recreate that?
Now separately, Nagaraj and Priya were both atSoftBank.

(25:30):
And I think Nagaraj had decided at one pointthat while, you know, the amount of capital
that SoftBank has access to is tremendous andyou can be a kingmaker, he also thrives at
somewhat of an earlier stage.
So not doing like true growth stage series cand d.
Yes, you can do that.
But his passion was a little bit earlier, wherethere's still some pattern matching that's

(25:52):
going on in how you evaluate founders.
There's still some information asymmetry.
There's still some gut and intuition aboutwhich teams you wanna place bets on versus not.
And so he wanted to get back to doing that.
I think both of them originally actuallypitched that to Masa and said, hey.
Could we do a smaller series b funds, writesmaller checks, and do that within the

(26:12):
construct of the Vision Fund, that opportunitydid not materialize.
So I think both of them at that point haddecided that, hey.
They they wanna go do that and do it outside ofSoftBank.
And, you know, I've been in I kept in touchwith Nagaraj even after he'd left, and I was
still at m 12.
So when he shared with me that was kind of hisplan that he was planning to leave and do his
own thing.
We said, okay.
Well, maybe there's an opportunity for us tojoin up.

(26:34):
And so I think we together were then able toidentify our anchor investor, which is Oakley
Capital, and bringing Nagaraj and the head ofOakley together and having a meeting of the
minds to say, this is perhaps somebody that cananchor us as we if we spin out and do our own
thing.
All of that came together in the fall of twentytwo.

(26:54):
But these conversations probably were startingto happen in some way shape or form even
earlier like late twenty one.
Yeah.
And then, you know, if you were to ask bothPriya and I why we're doing touring, a huge
part of this is just the respect, admiration,and mentorship we've gotten from Nagaraj over
the years.
And so the opportunity to join forces with himagain to build something that is kind of our

(27:15):
own smaller and independent was the big appeal.
So, you know, also, you know, you and I, whenwe first spoke, we talked about the name.
Right?
So, I mean, Turing, you know, when you thinkabout, like, Alexander Turing, that's t u r I n
g.
Yep.
And you guys are, touring.
Right?
So tell tell me a little bit more or justrefresh me and and share with the audience, you
know, what what was the the motivation behindthe name and the branding?

(27:39):
And how'd you also think through branding aswell?
Because I'm going through that exercise now.
Yeah.
And and branding is an ongoing thing.
It's one thing to have a logo.
It's another thing to have your, you know,brand pillars that are gonna be, you know, long
term and kind of how you represent yourself.
And that's an exercise we are continuouslyiterating on.
And I think you'll see in probably the nextmonth or so some refreshes and kind of the the

(28:01):
brand pillars for Turing.
But as far as, you know, the branding itself,you know, we early on knew we were gonna be a
global fund.
We're gonna be investing around the world.
We've done that at M12.
We've done that at Qualcomm.
My partners have done that at SoftBank.
And so, you know, part of the name is we'retouring the globe to find the best

(28:22):
entrepreneurs.
That's the core of
the I love that.
Now, obviously, if you look at the the the, youknow, the the logo itself or the name, you can
see the o is meant to represent the world orkind of a word art to describe, you know, going
around the world.
But then you can look at the rest of theletters and, you know, yes, there's a name in

(28:44):
there.
Right?
And it's it's Turing.
And so that's not necessarily the the the mainmessage.
But for those that are in the know or are inthe ecosystem, are involved in the field of AI,
it's a little tip of the hat.
It's a tip of the hat and an acknowledgmentthat a lot of this goes back to Alan Turing if
you're if you're talking about AI.

(29:04):
But the core of our brand, the first thing Iwant to talk about is we're touring the world
to find new entrepreneurs and the best And it'snot just in Silicon Valley where you'll find
those people.
Sure.
No, I totally agree.
I mean, I'm gonna have a guest on soon.
This person has been kind of known in thecommunity for helping some funds really

(29:26):
rebrand.
One of the funds that graduated from one of myprevious fund accelerators just noticeably had
a really beautiful website and just completelynoticeably different than, like, all the other
websites and collaterals.
I was like, wow.
This looks like pretty much like a luxurybrand.
You know?
The the website, super crisp, super clean,like, the the color scheme seemed to be really

(29:50):
well thought out.
So I was like, wow.
Who who designed this?
And and then I met that person's designer, and,it's been probably close to a year, you know,
in the process of, like, rebranding SuttonCapital, but and I'll and I'll share some
updates as we as we come along similar to likehow you're doing, but I had to go through this
whole exercise of mood boards.

(30:12):
So I had to kind of like think about when Ithink about something, you know, what do people
what do I want people to kind of understandabout it?
What do I understand about what the brand is?
So a lot of times, like, there's a differencebetween marketing and branding.
The brand is kind of like, look, you see theNike checkbox.
You see the Nike checkmark, how does thatreally make you feel?
What do you identify with?

(30:33):
And I think that's kind of a hard thing toreally figure out because a lot of times people
just need to see that color or like the markand that already feels some type of emotion.
So I think the touring branding, which you'retalking about, I do feel kind of like a
friendly presence, you're touring the world,you're going on trips.
I almost kind of think about, mean, sometimes Ithink about like bicyclists, they're doing

(30:59):
these long bicycle tours, but it's it itdefinitely is, a friendly kind of feeling that
I feel.
So, you know, kudos to you on
Thank you.
Then part of the messaging also is, you know, Imean, of course, many firms claim to be founder
friendly, but we really, you know pardon myFrench.
We have a no assholes policy in MPO Mhmm.
Yeah.
In in Turing, which is Mhmm.

(31:19):
You know, founder friendly and, you know,ultimately, of course, you want interest to be
aligned with the start ups that you'reinvesting in.
But ultimately, we take that very seriously andthen also the culture within the team in terms
of why are we doing this, who are we adding tothe team.
It truly is a no assholes policy.
So I think we take that to heart.

(31:39):
And, you know, it also reflects on our anchorinvestor.
They're a private equity firm, and they arealso known for being founder friendly in that
they don't come in and try to replace themanagement team.
They're betting on the founders
Yeah.
That they are buying the companies thecompanies that they're buying.
And that's also, you know, I think that was oneof the reasons we had a meeting of the minds.

(32:01):
Like, we're a VC fund.
It makes sense.
We're gonna be betting on founders.
But our biggest partner is also has the samemindset in terms of when they're acquiring
companies.
Yeah.
And I mean, what's important for everybody torealize is, you know, VCs and private equity
investors that are building something theirfounders too.
Right?
So your anger is essentially betting on you aswell.

(32:22):
And, you know, I think one of the things thatyou hit, which kinda helps to mitigate some of
the risk is obviously just the ability to dothe exact same thing that you did previously as
a repeatable playbook, and just kinda translatethat into a new structure.
Definitely helps to mitigate the risk whenpeople are underwriting, you know, anchor

(32:43):
investing or even just kinda being a one of theearly checks into a fund.
What are some of the other things that youthink has helped you and maybe your friends
kind of, you know, build that trust with theinitial LPs?
You know, what are some of the characteristics?
So and this has also been a journey.
Right?
Like, we we like to internally we think about,like, hey.

(33:03):
If you think about our pitch and our message ayear ago versus what it is today, it has been
an evolution.
Some of it is based on feedback that we receivefrom LPs.
Others are just the markets moving quickly,especially when you think about generative AI.
And I think the things that are resonating are,you know, while we are a fun one, I wouldn't or

(33:24):
people are not classifying us as emergingmanagers because we've done this at Qualcomm,
at SoftBank, at M12.
You know, it it it is a fun one, but we're notnew.
Mhmm.
So that definitely helps.
The team has been together.
I've known Nagaratch for twelve years.
I've known Priya since 2019 or sorry, 2017.
So we have a long history together.

(33:46):
That also makes a big difference.
Mhmm.
In the track record, there are some outlierreturns.
Right?
Like series a investors in Zoom, series binvestors in Waze, Series A investors in
Kahoot, which was a ed tech firm out of Oslo,Norway.
And all of the things that we're saying aboutwe're investing around the world, we we were

(34:08):
willing to do things maybe that were a littlebit contrarian at the time, but certainly
panned out to be, amazing outcomes.
We have the proof points, for this over thelast twenty years.
So that makes a big difference.
We've also have a more nuanced perspective ongenerative AI.
We're not like saying, hey, we're a generativeAI fund investing in startups that are building

(34:29):
with Gen AI, so that's why you should beinvited to us.
We're actually saying something very different,which is there is a lot of hype out there.
And frankly, in many cases, the hype issomewhat out of control.
And for us, we want to invest at the series bstage because it's the right combination of
there's some metrics, there's somedefensibility, there's some way to underwrite

(34:50):
an investment based on quantifiable metrics,but there's still enough pattern matching
intuition that has to go into that.
Sure.
This company hit $34,000,000 in ARR, but canthey get to 10 to 20 to 30 to 40?
That you still have to kind of put place somebets on that that's gonna be possible.
But ultimately, we are not gonna be investingin companies that are lighting capital on fire,

(35:14):
you know, buying tons and tons of GPUs anddoing, you know, frontier models to compete
with, you know, whether it's OpenAI or withAnthropic or or with big tech.
I think early on when this was happening, wewere saying this as in we're not gonna do this.
More and more now you're starting to see someof the cracks that are appearing in terms of

(35:35):
where has the hype gotten ahead of itself.
Yeah.
Whether it's adept, whether it's inflection,whether it's rumors about character, you're
starting to see signs that, hey, just spendingthis much money building very large clusters
and whether you're doing consumer or directlycompeting with the big guys, but you don't
necessarily have a path to like generatingmeaningful amounts of revenue, there's going to

(35:57):
be limited appetite at some point forinvestors.
And so what we've said is we are interested inseries b, more verticalized applications,
people that are building these task specificmodels, but really nail the UI and the user
experience for a particular b to b application,ideally have a data flywheel with proprietary
data that they can use to fine tune theirmodels or maybe even build sub 10,000,000,000

(36:21):
parameter models on their own.
Yeah.
But you don't compromise on the things that youultimately need, which is can you reach the
customers?
You have distribution.
Do you have attractive pricing?
And do you have some kind of right to be ableto say that you'll be able to defend and and
and be successful.
Your defend your turf and be successful.

(36:41):
And that tends to be more and more anchored inwhat kind of data advantage do do you have.
So that is starting to resonate.
I think the other thing that, you know, we'resaying is like, look, many of the LPs that we
talk to are LPs and some of the most well knownand established funds.
A lot of them have taken an approach toindexing the market.
Mhmm.
Right?
With every kind of layer of the Gen AI stack orevery sector, you know, we'll place a bet.

(37:06):
Sometimes we'll have multiple bets.
Our approach is, look, we're a series b fund.
It's gonna be a concentrated portfolio of 13 to15 bets.
We are not doing a power law return model.
We're not saying let's index the market.
We are literally writing individual deals to areturn outcome and with a risk tolerance in
terms of if it doesn't work out because it'sgonna be a concentrated portfolio.

(37:29):
So if you're an LP and you're an investor insome of these big established funds that are
indexed in the market, that's great.
You can also take a shot at a completelydifferent strategy for a new smaller fund like
ourselves that's taking a concentratedportfolio approach for these verticalized
applications where you have a data advantageand you have some right or privilege to be able

(37:51):
to play in that industry.
And it's not Gen AI is a hammer and everythingis a nail.
Yeah.
No.
I totally agree.
Updating as well.
I think the last thing I'll say is just pricingdiscipline.
You know, whether it was Qualcomm Ventures,whether it was m twelve, one of the things that
I'm proud of is that there has been pricingdiscipline in terms of entry point, how we

(38:11):
underwrite deals.
Not everything is a SPAC.
Not everything is an IPO.
All of the success we had in m twelve, frankly,was banked on m and a outcomes in kind of the
300 to 708 hundred million range.
So if you think about series b opportunities,we like to get in at no more than one fifty
post.
Two years ago, you would have said that'scrazy.

(38:32):
There's no good series b deals that are thatcheap.
But I think things are starting to kind of comeback to like you know a bunch of people raised
a lot of capital during the peak for their arounds and they have to come back to market and
they haven't grown into those valuations.
It doesn't mean they're not good companies, butit does allow for more rational pricing to
happen now than maybe a year ago or or twoyears ago.

(38:53):
And so
once What's revenue to valuation multiple thatyou kinda like to see as a benchmark?
Right?
So you said around one I think you said onefifty in valuation.
So what's the revenue that you're looking forat that valuation?
So we'll we'll anchor and say, look.
If you look at the best public market companiesMhmm.
Software companies, they they tend to get, a 10x multiple Yep.

(39:15):
In terms of where they're performing.
You could say, fine.
If you're a series b, obviously, there's morepotential for a lot more growth than a public
company, but that's maybe the anchor data pointyou start with.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
The best public market outcomes are 10 x, so Iwanna work backward from there as to what's
reasonable to give to you as a series bcompany.
We're not gonna give you a 50 x.
We're not gonna give you a 40 x.

(39:36):
You know?
And I'd certainly we're not gonna say, oh,you're at series b gonna get a 10 x.
It'll be more rational anchored on that 10 x interms of what the public are paying.
Yeah, got it.
So around like 10 to 12,000,000 something likethat.
Around there is typically what we like to pay.
Yeah, that makes sense.
What were some of the other disciplines?
Because I think that's really great.
I think that definitely helped me as aprofessional in the tech space because I mean

(40:00):
everybody comes from all walks of life, right?
Some people just kind of went straight intoventures, some people built a lot of
professional skills, some people were founders,right?
So I had, you know, kind of like you, I hadcorporate enterprise experience.
So what were some of the things that you think,helped build that discipline, beyond just kind

(40:22):
of like the, you know, the constraints of, youknow, the revenue and the multiple and the
valuation?
I think for me, and just to kind of tee tee itoff, I think for me, just kind of basic
interpersonal skills, right?
So email etiquette, best practices to BCCpeople at the right time.
Know it's super basic and it seems like commonsense, but we've probably both met people that

(40:47):
have not developed those maybe fifteen years intheir career.
Just some of the kind of professional things.
And one piece of feedback that I heard from anLP, which really stuck with me is, you know,
when you're building a firm, these LPs expectthe same level of professionalism that they get

(41:09):
if they're logging into their JPMorgan Chaseportal, you know, in terms of the the LP
portal, the the way that they're gettingupdates.
You know, there's almost like a customerservice representative.
It could be, you know, maybe it's an analyst,but maybe it's someone who's handling portfolio
ops.
But, know, the level of professionalism shouldbe the same expectation.

(41:29):
I I would say even no matter what level ofsophistication the LP is, if you're managing
money, should pretend like you're Goldman Sachsor JP Morgan because hopefully that's what you
want to build at some point.
Yeah.
No.
That's a great point.
So maybe I'll answer the first question aboutkind of what are the like, your point about
interpersonal skills.
So humility is absolutely key.

(41:50):
And I think we both know it's not you you can'ttake that for granted in venture capital.
There's a lot of big egos that are out there.
But showing up with humility, being humble,know, knowing there's things you don't know and
ultimately how that gets instantiated is, youknow, how you show up as a board member,
whether you're a board director or an observer.

(42:10):
And so I can, you know, I'm proud to say that,you know, even after leaving M12, two companies
in the M12 portfolio invited me to join as acommon director because they valued my
contributions at the board level, the boarddynamic that I was a part of.
And so I think that's probably the besttestament to saying, hey, Sameer as an investor

(42:32):
was not just with the logo M12 and Microsoftbehind the back.
It was Sameer as an individual.
M twelve was the franchise he was associatedwith, but Samir as an investor is not just
about that franchise that has longevity outsideof that particular brand.
So that's one.
I think if you think about how we source andwin deals today as a new fund, you know, that

(42:56):
is a critical piece.
Founders doing reference checks on us.
Founders getting comfortable around whetherit's Priya, Nagaraj, or Sameer, what kind of
board members are they.
In fact, that was critical for how we won ourfirst deal, Pyxis.
That was probably one of the big factors.
I think the other piece that is a goodtestament, we have now 30 of our former
founders as LPs in training.

(43:17):
And this includes, you know, Eric Wang fromZoom on, you know, as maybe the one that
everyone will know, but it includes a bunch ofother founder CEOs that we've invested in the
past.
So that's a great source of validation and helpfor us.
And then I think the last thing I'll say is aswe're fundraising and obviously LPs do their
diligence, we have consistently heard that whenLPs get to the point where they're doing

(43:39):
reference checks and they're going and speakingwith our portfolio companies and speaking with
other founders in the ecosystem, we haveconsistently referenced extremely well in terms
of how we've shown up.
Well, that's a baller move too when they'redoing references with investors in companies
that you invested in.
Those people like, oh, I invested myself.
So I think that's definitely a greatvalidation.

(44:04):
Think that's I mean, it's just a full circleecosystem, right?
This is what I've noticed from being on myninth cohort of fund managers, right?
So there's fund managers that eventually maybejust leave to maybe start a business.
They may come back and do well and be an LP.
There's LPs that are family offices that arealso raising a fund.

(44:26):
So what gets kind of confusing and sometimes itcould be a little hairy is there's two people
that meet each other and then they're bothpitching each other, right?
There's a family office that's actually raisinga fund.
There's a fund to fund that's meeting thefamily office.
The fund to fund is maybe thinking they'regoing to get it.
So it gets kind of confusing where people arepitching each other.
And I think that gets tough.

(44:46):
But in your example, it's great.
It's like, look, you know what?
We not only were they a value add investor, butwe just love what they're doing.
Samir is also a founder, right?
He's building something.
I back him as well.
And, you know, just like he's backed me, I'mgonna show up for him.
So I'm proud I'm a proud LP in Samir.
Right?
Yeah.
And and I think one just personal story.

(45:06):
One thing that I consistently heard from theCEOs that Mhmm.
I invested in is and I take this as a positive.
They're like, you're different than almost allother VCs that we talk to.
Mhmm.
So tell me more.
What is it?
He's like, you're deeply passionate about theparticular product or the space that we're in.
There's a level of intellectual curiosity aboutit that, yes, it's the foundation is, hey.

(45:31):
This is a an investment and we wanna see areturn, but there's a a deeper kind of passion
about what's being built and why it's beingbuilt.
Yeah.
I
think that's appreciated by the founders.
And I think it goes back to like, you know, I Ithink to your point, which is what do you bring
to a company besides capital?
What's the value that you're bringing?

(45:52):
Right?
And for me, it's always been in product, intech trends, in competitive simulation,
competitive analysis, like, hey, what's gonnahappen to this competitive because that's going
back to my own product planning, productmanagement roots.
And that's, you know, from an operationalstandpoint, that's where I think I probably
lean in the most is areas like that.

(46:14):
And I think, you know, my belief is for theboards that I currently serve on, that is
appreciated.
Mhmm.
Let's do a lightning round of some additionaladvice to help these emerging managers.
So I guess what is maybe a question thatmanagers should think about in fund one and
then you know, how do those questions change?

(46:36):
Obviously, fund two, right?
There's probably, more detailed DDQs and justmuch more rigorous diligence versus obviously
fun one.
But what are maybe some questions that maybethrew you off or kind of just you weren't
prepared for that that were helpful for you inin growing, but maybe just would be helpful to

(46:58):
to just be aware of.
Yeah.
So, I mean, there's a bunch of these.
So I think team dynamic is one you shouldalways be very prepared to answer.
So I can tell you one prospective LP put us onthe spot over lunch.
All three GPs sitting having lunch andbasically going from one to the next saying,
what are the strengths and weaknesses of yourother partners?

(47:18):
Wow.
So you can imagine doing that live on the spotwith all of your partners.
It's putting you on the spot.
Yeah.
But it's a test to see
But, hopefully, you guys are doing that anywaysall
the time.
Right?
It's like, You you know what?
Like, Samir, I'll be honest.
You're not you know, you're great at thisstuff, but this is stuff that, like, you're not
the expert on.
You're not the Excel whiz, but I am.

(47:38):
You know?
That's right.
That's right.
And I think it is a opportunity to basicallyrepresent maybe what you put in your pitch
decks and
the
story that you're telling.
But for someone to see that live interactionthat there is comfort in both you commending
and not criticizing, but also calling out Mhmm.
You know, the strengths are in the team andkind of where people are complement each other,

(48:04):
you know, what you lean on one person to doversus another.
I think that's something that managers shouldbe prepared to answer.
Another one that I think is important and I Ithis one's a little bit more subtle, fund size.
And this is more relevant to the fund two, fundthree conversation.
You should have a clear idea in your mind aboutwhat your strategy is gonna be.

(48:24):
Because a lot of times what you see is my fundsgetting bigger and bigger because I raised 50,
now I can raise 75, I can raise a hundred.
Now it's one thing when you're below kind of500,000,000, you can certainly make things
bigger.
So you know for Turing, our target's300,000,000, but we're never gonna be a
$500,000,000 fund, not fund two, not fundthree.
Maybe fund two is $3.50.

(48:46):
But we have a strong belief that a generally afund size of this amount and at the stage that
we're investing in, that's where we'recomfortable underwriting that we can return the
fund.
This is not about the Turing GPs living off ofmanagement fees and just, you know, trying to
figure out how to get wealthy off managementfees.
It's truly being focused on returning the fund.

(49:07):
And then you have a clear strategy on the sizeof fund that you wanna deploy that then you can
promise to return to your LPs.
Mhmm.
So that's something you should have a good end.
Not to say that, you know, if you're a seedinvestor that, okay, fund one was 50 and fund
two was 75.
There's nothing wrong with that, but you shouldbe very clear and intentional about what your
thoughts are on fund size increase or sidecarvehicles or opportunity funds you may wanna do.

(49:33):
And having a good answer on that is importantbecause as you and I both know, lot of LPs are
not looking at a one fund commitment.
They're thinking about, you know, hey, we'recommitting to maybe three funds or more.
So we wanna have a long view on how thesemanagers we're betting on will grow over time
or what their perspective is on what happens inthe n plus one and plus two fund.
Yeah.

(49:53):
No, I agree.
I mean, they say your fund size is yourstrategy and I got a couple of examples.
Right?
So there is I've I've seen both LPs, likeemerging LPs, and a few GPs that are now on
fund two.
And their fund size is exactly the same.
And they're solo GPs.
So they're like, look, I did well on fund oneand I'm just going to do the exact same thing.

(50:16):
That's what you're investing in because this iskind of something that maybe solves a problem
for, what you're looking for gives you accessin a certain way that's been repeatable.
And it's just it's worked and I'm going to dothe same thing.
And then I've seen other funds that arethinking about, you know, the next level of
institutional growth.
So if they're doing that, you know, there'sthings that could slip through the cracks,

(50:40):
right?
So maybe you've taken on or been able toachieve a larger, you know, size of AUM, but
then now you're spread too thin, You haven'tbeen able to find the right staff to help you
source and screen and deploy and handleportfolio support.
So I think it's really kind of when you'rethinking about growing, I'm assuming definitely
speaking to how you're hiring and retainingtalent, how you're developing talent, how

(51:05):
you're building, you know, how you're evolvingyour existing infrastructure because maybe
you're working with a specific type of fundadmin and you've grown out of them.
So, you know, are any insights on that in termsof like, not the boring stuff, but, the back
office, the infrastructure, and then how youguys are thinking about talent?
Like, you guys thinking about, like, a venturefellow program, a venture partner program?
Yeah.
Yeah.

(51:25):
Yeah.
No.
Great.
Great question.
So let me start again with the with the lastquestion about talent and hiring.
So one of the the recognitions that the Turingteam has had since we started to where we are
today is a much deeper appreciation for the IRfunction.
And, you know, obviously, if you're a solo GPdoing, you know, a small seed, pre seed fund,

(51:46):
it's a different lens that you put on IR.
If you're us, you're doing series b, you havesome large institutional investors, you
definitely have a different perspective on IR.
And I think my learning is IR is not about justwhen you're actively fundraising.
This is a continuous function Mhmm.
Around managing, growing, cultivating LPrelationships, including ones that are not
current investors in your fund.

(52:07):
And this happens continuously.
It's not just, of course there's a burst whenyou're actually fundraising, but I think as
important as what's happening when you're notfundraising in terms of managing those LPs.
You know if they didn't come in in fund one,maybe they'll come in in fund two and so
keeping those relationships warm and alive andbeing able to understand how to segment the LP
world and kind of the the approach you takewith certain kinds of family offices versus

(52:30):
institutionals versus high net worthindividuals.
You know, having someone dedicated to that roleMhmm.
Versus the GPs trying to do it themselves.
Yeah.
It's fine for fund one.
Probably, we will do it yourself, but, youknow, it's something you should pay attention
to in terms of adding
It's just like it's just like a startup.
Right?
You're you know, in the beginning, you're afounder.
You're doing founder led sales.
That's
right.

(52:50):
Then you hire then you hire a couple salesreps.
Right?
And you're you're sales manager, but then atsome point, you need to hire a sales manager to
listen to the call, support them, coach themand point them in the right direction.
I would say the same thing.
The final question I have for you, because Iknow we got two minutes, what are your thoughts
and where have you seen amongst your peers thatspecifically do growth equity?

(53:11):
Where do they transition when they're kind oflike looking at brokers that do cap raise,
retros versus hiring a capital formation personthat's done capital formation at TPG for the
last
several years.
Obviously, the salary is different and thenyou're probably going to hire like maybe an

(53:31):
executive search person.
But where should funds in terms of AUM ormaturity kind of think about like those two
kind of potential staff hires to just continuescaling the fund?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So on the kind of the broker or agents, I thinkour learning and I think some of us some folks

(53:52):
also gave us this advice.
It doesn't make sense to start a fundraise witha replacement agent broker.
It's more helpful when you made somesignificant progress and you can bring that
person in to either help you finish the raise
Mhmm.
Or make meaningfully, like, you know, yourthird done or half done that can get you to two
thirds versus out of the gate expecting them tokinda land you your anchor or your first set of

(54:18):
Sure.
I think that's gonna be based on relationships.
So similarly, if you think about, you know,hey.
If you have access to a very talented capitalformation person that has access to LPs and
pools of capital, do whatever it takes to getthat person because it will make your journey I
mean not easier but that much more likeefficient to have someone like that that's

(54:39):
Mhmm.
You know a part of the founding teamoriginally.
Yes, you have to figure out how to do thegymnastics to pay that person or you know if
they're a founding partner along with you thenhopefully there's a shared interest in the
upside and you
can Sure.
You don't have to anchor just on salary.
Mhmm.
But, yeah, I think that that, you know,depending on where you are, you know, you're
fund two, fund three, it's much easier tofigure out how to fund a function like that

(55:02):
than a fund one.
But if you definitely if you have access tosomeone that is a credible capital formation
individual with a network, highly highlyrecommend that, you know, do whatever it takes
to bring that person into the tent.
Yeah.
Well, hey, Sameer, this is amazing.
You know, the hour flew by, learned a lot, andthis is how I like doing it, man.

(55:23):
I just have a conversation with people and andjust go deep.
Appreciate your time.
Appreciate the friendship, and, we'll catch upsoon.
Sounds good, Joel.
Bye, man.
And, have a good one.
Yeah.
You too.
Take care.
Okay.
Bye.