Video: https://361.pub/A26d
Transcript: https://361.pub/a282025transcript
Podcast:

The 281st 361 Briefing started with the Meetup to introduce 20+ new members* and the transition to 361Firm.Digital on Sept. 1. We also covered Jonathan Pirelli's Distilled Intelligence event in October, Todd Ruppert's new film on wine expert Robert Parker, and real estate market data.

In the Briefing, Stephen Burke analyzed the economic impact of demographic changes, particularly in Japan, and the challenges faced by central banks. The discussion also touched on the potential of generative AI, the impact of US policies on international family offices, and the importance of targeted investment strategies. The meeting emphasized the need for a balanced approach to monetary policy and the potential for market melt-ups.

We finished with a discussion on 361's revenue-sharing model where members can receive 30-50% for referring in new members. He emphasized the importance of recognizing both originators and chaperones of relationships. Zerrin Aktuna shared her positive experience with referrals. Mark highlighted the importance of leveraging expertise within the community.

The meeting concluded with plans for further discussions and follow-ups, including potential events in Capetown and Toronto.

*New members who spke included Doug Cunnington, Larry Peterson, Michael Daley, Nicolas Desantis, Sameer Sirdeshpande, Will Hicks, Keith McCall, Troy Neuhaus (Bernstein), Sandy Walsh (Seattle Luxury Real Estate), Lucia Ordonez-Gamero, Nicholas White, Michael Silberberg, Steven Han, John Richmond (Bernstein), Rich Sobel, Susan Weingartner (Cambia Capital), Jonothan Perrelli (Fortify Ventures), Mirla Wade, Beth Servisa, Walter Benadof, Albin George, Jack Wyant, Leslie Bendig, Maleeha Bengali (MB Commodities), Zerrin Aktuna, Mark Sanor, Irina Meyer, Susanna Lindeque, Bill Deuchler, Scott Frohman (Odyseey Elixir), Todd Ruppert, Chris Mayo, Chandler Lewis (360 Social Impact Studios), Trevor Cobb (Avantia Family Office), Jim Sayer (angel investor, retired radiologist)

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Transcript: https://361.pub/j292025
Video: https://youtu.be/B0nNMwz6ALk
Podcasts on Apple (https://361.pub/podcast_apple), Spotify (https://361.pub/spotify), Simplecast (https://361.pub/pods)

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Distill Intelligence, startup Summit, Steve Case, Brad Feld, venture speakers, $1 million prize, Lansdowne Resort, 361 Firm, AI platform, family offices, philanthropy, investment memos, collective intelligence, digital platform, personalized dashboard., Generative AI, memory computing, proprietary data, portfolio companies, value creation, co-investment, network leverage, feedback, interpretation, training mechanism, legal docs, engagement, roadmap, decision making, cognitive psychologist.

SPEAKERS
Stephen Burke, Adam Blanco, Walter Benadof, Giovanni, Michael Hammer, Jason Sonner, Bill Deuchler, Depinder Grewal, Ella Huong, Andrew Fisch, Tim Gallabrant, MICHAEL CONNIFF, Jonothan Perrelli (Fortify Ventures), Austin Fowler, Lubna Dajani, Jose Kreidler, Adam Oestreich, Yasmin Shmuel, Mark Sanor, Sameer Sirdeshpande, Jonathan Clark, Shienne, Chas Walker

SUMMARY
The 361Firm Briefing and Meetup on July 29, 2025, featured updates on events of 361Firm, provided a Briefing on the US economy in focus and shared the launch of 361Firm.Digital.

On events, Mark Sanor introduced Jonothan Perrelli who is hosting his Distilled Intelligence Summit October 14-16 in Virginia, with speakers like Steve Case and Brad Feld. The event aims to bring together 500 attendees, with 100 startups pitching for a $1 million prize. Mark Sanor and Jonathan Perrelli discussed the summit's focus on startups, funders, and operators.
The meeting also highlighted the launch of 361Firm Digital, a new AI-powered platform designed to enhance collaboration and decision-making among members, featuring personalized AI assistants and access to relevant deals and content. The meeting discussed the implementation of a memory and governance system using generative AI to summarize and surface insights from past conversations. Yasmin Shmuel highlighted the importance of leveraging proprietary data to enhance decision-making and networking within the firm. Mark Sanor emphasized the need for user engagement and mentioned upcoming one-on-one meetings. Javier Sanchez, the co-founder and head of AI, was introduced. The team plans to refine the AI system based on user feedback to avoid subjective elements and improve accuracy.

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Parth Vakil 00:00
Parth Vakil with Saura Star Capital. Biggest takeaway, I guess it's interesting hearing everyone's perspective on, I guess the most timely topic there is right now of AI, hearing it from both the family office, LP, investor side of things, and also from GPS sponsors, managers, founders and really, I guess connecting the dots between all those perspectives was super interesting to me. I think sourcing, sourcing and screening are probably the the two biggest opportunities I see in the near term for family offices, with leveraging AI also, I think longer term, it'll allow family offices to diversify across more asset classes than they could otherwise, right? Because you have more information at your favorite tips. Anyone who has any interest in or has ever touched India in in any way, we kind of operate at the the intersection of the US and India. So anything indirectly related to that is in our wheelhouse. Reach me or reach out to me. Find me on LinkedIn. Parth-Vakil@saurastarcapital.com,

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Bruce Pollack 00:00
My name is Bruce Pollack. I'm the host at this event. I have lived in the Newport area for 20 years, and from the Boston area, I've had many different types of business ventures, starting from restaurants to cell phone technology to real estate, environmental products. So I've been involved in many different types of business, and you know, this was a great event today. Mark did a great job organizing the events and bringing together really a cohesive group of entrepreneurs and investors and interested parties, interested in many different types of investment, from energy to real estate to high tech to AI and so forth. So I found to be a very worthwhile and very positive experience. He's got a great network of people to draw from, and I look forward to working in the future to develop more contacts and networking. So I would say it was very positive events. It was a good use of In other words, a lot it takes. It takes a lot of work to cultivate relationships. So if in one meeting, if you can cultivate several, it's it's a good use of time. So I find it to be as a good use of time great. Some great relationships were made for foster and it was a good opportunity for some of my my fellow organizers that I work with, some some of the people on my team, to sort of meet more of the the audience that we're that we're dealing with, for them to get their name out there a little bit, and an opportunity to network as well. So So overall, I'm very pleased with it and look forward to more events. And it's a great it's a lot of work. I mean, I've, Mark's been here, I've seen the work. We've worked at it. And this was done, by the way, in very short time, because I wasn't supposed to be here. So basically, we did this in like four or five days. So thanks again. Good work. 361 team. And look forward to future endeavors, future networking events. And it's a great social event in terms, in addition to the business, it's a great, just great to talk to people that have similar, similar stories. You know, when you're when you're a visionary. Use that word bullet entrepreneur, because it says a different ring to it. But I find that, you know, you there, there. There aren't a lot of people that really understand that. So ups and downs you go through to get to get somewhere, to get something done, takes quite a bit, probably better sacrifice too, by the way. It's a lot, but, you know, I see, I see it just from this, from Mark's team as well. So we are working on a comprehensive development in Jamaica, a residential, comprehensive development Jamaica encompassing tourist and affordable housing projects as well as limestone export and use of limestone in the country. So we, we have strategic partners in the stone, and we have, we control many properties in Jamaica, and we're, this is, it's a five to seven year plan, which could yield in the vicinity of 5x or higher. 5x would be conservative. So my history is taking properties and getting into deals that people would say, you know, it's not it's not ready, or it's not real. I mean, so forth, so forth. But my belief is that when I see a VIG, when I see something that has the future, that has the potential, that's where I want to be. So LinkedIn or through our website. South Coast associates, SCA Jamaica, gmail.com, 857-222-8157, or LinkedIn. South Coast associates, Bruce Pollock, look forward to any contacts, and we'd be happy to provide any information or come down. Just come on down. Come on down. We'll take a tour. We'll take a ride. Easiest, that's the best way. My uncle told me years ago, you don't you don't talk about it. You You go there. You walk, you, you walk the streets. I grew up in the restaurant business, so um, bought and sold many restaurants in Boston, and you walk the ground, you actually see it for yourself. So thank you again. You.

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Okay. My name is Chris Lawes. I'm the founder and CEO of thedomes.com

I'm from Atlanta, Georgia originally. We're based in Austin, Texas now. And yeah, it's been a fantastic event, as usual, 361 we have a really good time meeting high caliber people from a very wide background of experiences. So specifically for us with the domes, they've always been these beautiful structures that allow you to take an audience into an immersive environment and transport them to other worlds, other worlds of imagination, of education, of knowledge, of entertainment. But content has kind of been the main bottleneck of experiences that are available in those kinds of really intense, large, high resolution environments. So now, with Gen AI, we're able to not only make content much less expensively, we can also make content in real time, so you can actually have an audience going to an immersive environment, and they can generate their own story, their own adventure with their own minds. And Gen AI unlocks that ability that never existed before. Well, what we're doing with the domes is we want to create a very large number of immersive event centers all over the world that will allow you to connect with your local community and also connect with the global community. So if you're into art, if you're into sports, if you're into innovation and technology, whatever it is that your interest is environmentalism, you have a local place you can come together people who are interested in that and learn and experience beautiful, immersive journeys around that subject matter, and you can also connect with the global community of the world that's also interested in that same thing. And so we'll bring the whole world together. We'll bring different cultures and communities together and countries together, and make the world a more prosperous, happy, healthy and uplifting place. Yeah. I mean, we're super happy to be a part of the community and to support all these kinds of events. The domes.com is our domain name. And so anyone that's interested in being either an artist, an investor, a developer, a technologist, someone that wants to create applications on these new layers, Metaverse integrations, you know, just bringing all these new forms of non traditional parts of life, like art and cultural experiences, to the technology world of the metaverse and these in person virtual dome environments just come to website, thedomes.com and there's a form at the bottom, and you can just reach out and say hello, and we'll be happy to know you.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
AI applications, climate tech, venture capital, Newport Conference, efficiencies, optimization, fundraising, deal flow, impact investing, LPs, family offices, institutional investors, ROI, technology, imagery.
SPEAKERS
Meir Rabkin - Blue Vision

Hello everyone. My name is Meir Rabkin. I am from Montreal. I am the founder of blue vision capital, which is a climate tech venture capital fund that I started a couple years ago. We are in Newport, Rhode Island, in some mansion somewhere off some beach. Can give you more details or not, but it's beautiful, and it's been great connecting with like-minded people. And it's been, it's been a fantastic crowd, and it was an afternoon of really interesting pals. The overall, I would say that what I thought was fascinating is learning about all the different types of applications you could do with AI, from sober dating to, you know, all sorts of various applications, from medicine to technology to imagery. So that was pretty I think at least for me, AI is gonna create a lot more efficiencies in optimization and in a lot of the things that we do, you know, I think as a venture fund, there are a lot of things that are not yet, let's say optimized or efficient. For example, fundraising is one example. I think, deal, flow, sharing, connectivity, which is, I think a lot, a lot of what we shared today. How do you come out of conferences with more connections, with more value, with become more of an ROI? I think that AI could play a really important role. And so pretty excited to see where this takes us. Yeah, we are looking for like minded individuals who are passionate about impact investing.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Renewable energy, solar energy, battery storage, AI use cases, energy generation, data centers, commercial solar, industrial solar, energy efficiency, grid stability, investment strategies, family office investors, business discussions, political discussions, energy partner.
SPEAKERS
Robert Niziol

All right, another fantastic event, organized by Mark Sanor and 361Firm. Congratulations, guys, guys, well done. And look at this. The value, absolutely beautiful. So congratulations. My name is Robert Niziol. I'm a CEO of Promittens Energy.. We do development, engineering, procurement and construction for commercial and industrial solar and best battery energy storage systems. Today, we talked a lot about AI use cases and different topics, but certainly we discuss in energy, it is estimated that by 2030 I think the AI and the data centers will probably use about 10% of all energy generated in us. That's a huge problem. So being in this sector, I'm very optimistic about the renewable energy because that generation has to happen somewhere. And I still believe that energy coming from solar is still the most affordable. And now, with the with the with the best of the batteries, absolutely great asset, not only provides stability for the grid, but if it's installed behind them, either for the client, it offers savings, but at the same time, also a lot of services for the grid. So yeah, that's what we do. Great conference, a lot of fantastic discussions about business, politics, AI, different investment strategies and things like that. So always great to be here. Absolutely great. Great crowd. Family office investors, happy to be here, and I look forward to attending the next event. Congratulations, guys. Our website is https://www.promittensenergy.com - you can certainly look me up at LinkedIn. Robert Niziol and we open for business. We will would love to be your energy partner for renewable energy.

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Kimberly Carney, I am from Seattle, Washington, and I am the founder and CEO of The Wires. I thought today was fantastic. What stood out to me the most was all the conversations on AI and how it's impacting several industries. It's an amazing place to meet new people, get new connections and get tied into different industries and learn more about what's happening with other industries across all sectors.

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I'm Rafiq Ahmed with Dipalo Ventures out of Chicago. We're an early stage hard tech investor in seed and a and this was an amazing place for the 361 gathering in Newport. Loved it and takeaways today. So a month ago, maybe a month and a half ago, I couldn't spell AI. Now I'm on all of Mark's AI panels speaking about manufacturing, the good and bad and the stuff that nobody wants to talk about. So yeah, that's us at Dipalo. And love this platform. I think that the depth of people is always interesting, because we have genuine allocators. We have people doing important projects, whether they're direct investments or funds. So just the tapestry, I think, always stands out. So this is my second one. I really think it's a great group. Well, AI impacts my portfolio because it is everywhere. It's really about data. It's about inference, it's about predictability. We have lots of portfolio companies. We don't start with AI, we start with hard tech. But where the use cases make sense, as well as in manufacturing, in the US, there's going to be so much that will start to move to more predictive analysis, etc. I think from a job standpoint, this could be a challenge. So as many you know, as many challenges there are. There's also a lot of innovation and speed because of it. Yeah, if you if you're interested in hard tech investing, if you like manufacturing, you like the arbitrage at the center of the country that really is the emerging market, then give me a call - rafiq@dipaloventures.com - or find us on all the socials

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Hello. My name is Avery Haskell. Originally from Houston, Texas. I live in East Village, New York City. Currently I'm with Catena partners, a single family office focused on mostly early stage frontier technology investments.

And I love 361 and the community. It's a super high value group, and all the events are really great and really excited with what we're doing around talking about how AI can be used to save time and therefore save money and maximize everyone's efforts in the family office world and beyond. Yeah. avery@catenapartners.com

feel free to reach out. We'd love to collaborate. We do a lot of stuff on early stage technology. So if that's something you're interested in looking into, please reach out and happy to share some of our deals from our network, which is, you know, younger generation, but a lot of cool stuff we're looking at and vice versa. Would love to collaborate and share with other people.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS 361 community, investment verticals, AI usage, health industry, infrastructure support, data usage, investment partners, different sectors.
SPEAKERS Eugenio Briales

My name is Eugenio Briales. I'm originally from Spain, and I am here representing the Revisa family office. And the 361 community has been very helpful to for us to have genuine interactions with peers and stakeholders in across the different investment verticals, and I would like say one of these verticals has been very interesting is the use of AI, both in the health industry as well as in the infrastructure of AI to support the large usage of data that is going to be required for that industry. It reads me out. I'll leave the comments my email right, and I would love to we're looking to invest, and also we're looking to have investment partners as well across different sectors.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS Snowden Lane Partners, wealth management, cross-border investing, trust and estate planning, family dynamics, 361 event, caliber of people, quality of information, diversity of ideas, education, email address, cell phone, New York City.
SPEAKERS Andrew Randak

Hi. My name is Andrew Randak. I'm a partner at Snowden Lane partners in New York City. We are a boutique wealth management firm, broker dealer, registered investment advisor. We work with families from around the world, specializing in highly complex cross border investing, trust in the state, and family dynamic planning today. Oh, my God, I took like, 20 pages of notes. I learned enormous amounts of information every time I come to a 361 event or attend a 361 call, I'm blown away by the caliber of people, the quality of the information, the diversity of ideas. And it's not only fun, but it's education, so thank you. Mark Sanor, Andrew Randak, it's R A N D A K. My email address is arandak@snowden lane.com or you can reach me on my cell phone if you need to at 646-246-5013. Thank you.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS Bahamas, family office, investing, AI, conference, ideas, connect, Canadian, Newport July 2025.
SPEAKERS Bobby Genovese

Good morning. My name is Bobby Genovese. I am a Canadian living and working out of the Bahamas. Our company is called both BG Capital Group and BG signature. The conference has been amazing. I've been a lot of like-minded people. I'm looking forward to investing some money with these people and sharing some of the ideas that our family office does. I don't know. I'm curious to know more about AI, I'm sort of a dinosaur in that world, but I'm fascinated to learn more about it as I'm sure it can help. Yeah, we'd love to connect with anybody who wants to reach out.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS. AI, sobriety, addiction mentor, sober dating, market share, addiction statistics, brand equity, sober shop, Loosid marketplace, non-alcoholic beverages, social impact, investment, relapse prediction, treatment centers, funding round.
SPEAKERS MJ Gottlieb

MJ Gottlieb 00:00
My name is MJ Gottlieb, co founder and CEO of Loosid App. So we are now in Newport, Rhode Island, at the 361 conference. Fantastic conference, very let's see. I thought it was a very powerful I've been to a lot of these. I think it was a particularly powerful discussion that we had around AI and AI ability to help AI's ability to also hurt, depending upon whose hands it's in, right? Another very interesting discussion, a lot of people are using AI to fluff up their valuations, and not really they're doing a disservice to the really the power of this next generation of machine learning, right? And so, like in our case, our newest technology, Sam, which stands for sobriety, addiction mentor is now layered with AI. AWS is now funding Sam AI and really showing how the more information you give it, the better and better it then can really be a predictive relapse agent for that individual. Basically the Sam has the ability, as it lays on 1% per user persona and another user persona, it starts building a predictive relapse agent that then can be modeled for government bodies, treatment centers, for outcomes and measures. And so it's very powerful when it comes to really the ability of AI in the right van sober dating. We are the number one company in the sober dating space. We do own that position right now, and so we're here at this conference just just secured an external funding round, and now looking to fund the next phase of our growth. But yeah, right now, as it stands from our sober dating community, which is about 180,000 members, we do have the top position with regard to you know that, however, that leading position only represents less than 1% of the market share. And so the question it becomes, how effectively and quickly can you scale and move into the full market share? Because if you look at the statistics of addiction, 300 million people suffering from an alcohol use disorder worldwide, 38% of adult Americans suffering from some illicit substance use disorder, and upwards of 30% of American adults are actually choosing not to drink. And so how can we put them together in a safe and supportive environment to really show them how to live a sober life? And so now, as we continue to build our brand equity, we find ourselves in now seven different verticals we recently we recently launched the Loosid sober shop as an LTV strategy where people can buy merch, whether it's a hoodie, a hat or whatever it may be to really have them take ownership of their sobriety. But from the investment lens, it adds about 135 to $140 lifetime value per the Loosid member in q4 we also launched the Loosid marketplace, where we partner with 37 brands in the sobriety and wellness space. Think of it as a sober group, con, if you will, where we pre negotiated those discounts to Loosid members that they wouldn't otherwise know about or be able to take advantage of. And so it acts as a retention strategy, because even if someone doesn't doesn't want to use Loosid dating anymore, they find the love of their life, they could simply toggle off dating and still take advantage of 1000s of dollars throughout the year in some of our partners, like better help, or brain tap, which is the top brain fitness app in the world, or various non alcoholic beverage brands. And it's really about showing people how to live a fun, safe and enjoyable life in sobriety. Yeah. Well, as we continue to build our brand equity, the goal is for Loosid to be synonymous with sobriety. So when you walk into a restaurant, we don't want people asking, you know, where the the non alcoholic beverage menu is. We want them asking where the Loosid menu is. When we are looking at stadiums, we want people not to have a sober section. We want them to have a Loosid section where, where even mothers can take their kids and know that that there, there won't be that crazy rowdiness, because you're in a Loosid section. And so as we look five and 10 years down the down the road, we're that's really where we're. Looking to go where Loosid is synonymous with sobriety. We now have five of our non alcoholic beverage brands that wants to make a Loosid drink, which we'll then use as a B to C and A B to B initiative and roll that out. The non alcoholic beverage market surpassed 12 150 $2 billion last year, and so as we put ourselves into new verticals, it gives us the ability to kind of leverage and accelerate our brand equity. And who knows, in the future, maybe we run the whole table and then take it public from it, from the standpoint of, if you're struggling and don't know, of a sober resource, we recommend downloading any one of the Loosid sober platforms, whether it be Loosid sober community, Loosid sober dating, but from an investment side, if you're interested in taking advantage of a social impact opportunity, where the more people we help, the better and better we increase shareholder value. And so we're very uniquely positioned in that regard, that the more people we help, the greater and greater you know our company value. So if you're someone that that's that's interested in that opportunity, we welcome to reach out to our office, and we're happy to talk.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS AI, healthcare, life sciences, precision medicine, venture studios, social impact, Think Head, Puerto Rico, Silicon Valley, investment, future of healthcare, cancer, next gen, transforming landscape, Denise Holzer.

SPEAKERS Denise Holzer

Denise Holzer 00:00
My name is Denise Holzer. I'm originally from New York, and I'm a next gen I've been in the AI space for a number of years, advising multiple companies in the venture funds and companies in the landscape. Yeah, I think one of the really exciting things about AI is healthcare and life sciences. So I'm an investor and advisor to a company called Think head venture studios, and we are really looking at the future of healthcare and life sciences by solving problems using AI in the precision medicine space. And I believe that in the next 10 years, we're going to extend our life by a decade. Because of that, I personally got involved with this company because I lost both my parents to cancer, and as a next gen I really believe that we have to be thinking about social, impactful investments when we move forward and look at companies that are really out there to make a difference in precision medicine, in the future of health care, in life sciences, and looking for ways to solve problems in the space I'm with think head venture studios headquartered in Puerto Rico and Silicon Valley, and we're transforming the landscape of precision medicine. You can reach out to me at denise.pulitzer@thinkcast.ai or find me on LinkedIn. Thank you.

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Transcript: https://361.pub/IndustriesNP25Transcript
Video: https://youtu.be/5sRBBKtt5b4
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The panel discussed the dual impact of AI on industries, with Brittany Riley highlighting AI's potential to optimize business operations while expressing concerns over its energy consumption. Nelson Stacks emphasized the lack of funding for university programs, which could hinder future innovation. Carl Pro voiced concerns about the power grid and the US education system. Kimberly Carney noted the importance of innovation in AI for brand strategies but warned of brands reluctant to adapt. Irina Meyer discussed AI's role in media, stressing the need for authentic content. The panel also touched on the potential of AI to replace research jobs and the challenges of private sector funding for basic research.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS: AI impact, energy consumption, funding shortage, university research, environmental technology, media AI, workplace trends, child care, remote work, community collaboration, AI-generated content, carbon capture, graduate students, private sector investment, educational system.

SPEAKERS: Susanna Lindeque, Speaker 6, Nelson Stacks (Waveguide), Irina Meyer, Kimberly Carney - TheWires.com, Andrew Randak, Mark Sanor, Carl Pro, Brittany Riley

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SUMMARY: The Philanthropy and NextGen Panel at 361Firm's 4th Newport Conference (July 2025) discussed bridging the gap between baby boomers and next gens in philanthropy, focusing on impactful investments, and addressing challenges in the sector. Key points included the need for targeted philanthropy to avoid diluting efforts, the importance of aligning financial returns with impact, and the significance of addressing root causes rather than just providing temporary relief. Examples of impactful investments were shared, such as AI-driven wildfire prevention and initiatives to empower women entrepreneurs. The panel also emphasized the role of next gens in driving transformative change and the potential of AI in enhancing philanthropic efforts.

Video: https://youtu.be/YU6yOhTZhfk
Transcript: https://361.pub/PhilanthropyNP25Transcript
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS: Philanthropy, NextGen, Impact Fund, Financial Returns, Emotional Disabilities, Education, Mental Health, Resilience Innovation Fund, Women's Entrepreneurship, AI Investments, Wildfire Prevention, Donor Advised Funds, Social Service, Transformational Change, Community Impact.

SPEAKERS: Stephen Burke, Tami Kesselman (NextGen Success), Meir Rabkin - Blue Vision, Rainer Busch, Iva Kaufman, Wendy Diamond, Susanna Lindeque, Mark Sanor, MJ Gottlieb, Dr. Anita McDowell, Anna Strohsahl

360 One Firm (361Firm) is an independent global platform to collaborate on investments & philanthropies by/for family offices, institutional investors, and thought leaders.

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Transcript: https://361.pub/GlobalRegionsNP25Transcript
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SUMMARY: The panel at the 361Firm Newport Conference discussed investment opportunities and challenges in various global regions. Areej Alturki highlighted Saudi Arabia's rapid transformation, with major investments from firms like BlackRock and projects like Neom. Parth Vakil noted India's growing middle class and demographic challenges, emphasizing the potential of AI and smartphones. Brittany McDonough from Launch Africa highlighted the continent's talent pool and integration with the GCC. Charles Beyrouthy discussed the US Chips Act's impact on geopolitics and chip manufacturing. Anna Cardona from Mississippi emphasized the region's strategic location and tax incentives for regenerative energy projects.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS: Saudi Arabia, GCC, investment opportunities, economic transformation, cultural change, India, middle class growth, demographic challenges, Africa, talent development, technology sovereignty, US Chips Act, grid reliability, AI, data centers.

SPEAKERS: Areej Alturki, Brittany McDonough - Launch Africa, Parth Vakil, Mark Sanor, Speaker 1, Charles Beyrouthy, Anna Cardona

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Transcript: https://361.pub/AIpanelNP25Transcript
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Summary: The panel discussed the dual nature of AI, highlighting its potential to both create opportunities and displace jobs. John Dvor emphasized the impact of AI on healthcare, noting the rise of surgical robots and cardiac sonography innovations that could eliminate mid-level jobs. MJ Gottlieb shared his experience in addiction recovery, where AI can be both beneficial and risky, depending on its implementation. Rafiq Ahmed discussed the disparity in AI understanding and the need for guardrails. Lubna Dajani stressed the importance of controlling data and ethical AI use. The conversation also touched on the potential of AI in manufacturing and emerging markets, and the need for responsible investment and collaboration.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS: AI opportunities, job displacement, healthcare innovation, cardiac sonography, sobriety and addiction, data protection, predictive maintenance, emerging markets, investment strategies, manufacturing jobs, empathetic avatars, cross-sectoral collaborations, economic models, data control, AI ethics.

SPEAKERS: John Dvor, Rafiq Ahmed, Lubna Dajani, Mark Sanor, MJ Gottlieb

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Transcript: https://361.pub/ZeitgeistN25Transcript
Video: https://youtu.be/GDKgEdCW_1Y
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Summary: The panel discussed the current global economic zeitgeist, highlighting four key issues: mistrust in institutions, high global debt levels, the Fed's independence, and the impact of politics on investor sentiment. Stephen Burke emphasized the mistrust in governance and the divisiveness in politics, affecting policy stability. Barbara Doran noted the significant impact of tariffs on consumer sentiment and market reactions, with GDP estimates revised downward. Greg Wilder discussed the shift in business owners' attitudes towards passing down businesses and the implications of the recent tax bill on US manufacturing and interest deductibility. The discussion also touched on the need for fiscal discipline and educational reform to address generational distrust and economic inequality.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS: Zeitgeist panel, global economy, mistrust institutions, debt levels, Fed independence, interest rates, tariffs impact, consumer sentiment, fiscal discipline, US manufacturing, tax policy, educational reform, generational distrust, economic growth.

SPEAKERS: Barbara Doran, Stephen Burke, Parth Vakil, Greg Wilder, Charles Beyrouthy, Mark Sanor

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SPEAKERS
Depinder Grewal, Michael Hammer, Glenn Vraniak, Greg Wilder, Anthony Gordon, Charles Beyrouthy, Bill Deuchler, Andrew Randak, Ben Narasin, Stephen Burke, Mark Sanor, Mark White, Sameer Sirdeshpande, Keith McCall, Walter Benadof, Wanda Lopuch

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Transcript: https://361.pub/july1briefing

SUMMARY
The meeting discussed the current state of the global economy and tech investing. Stephen Burke highlighted a 19% S&P 500 drop and the impact of de-escalation between Israel and Iran. He emphasized the importance of Fed independence and the potential for rate cuts. Rafiq Ahmed from Chicago Ventures discussed Midwest investment opportunities, noting a 65% valuation advantage over the West Coast. Julia Monfrini from Pace Healthcare emphasized the potential for outsized returns in healthcare tech, citing a 2.53x DPI for her fund. Nelson Stacks from Waveguide shared insights on out-licensing technology from universities. The panel also explored strategies for navigating the current venture capital environment. The meeting discussed the healthcare sector's shorter investment timelines compared to traditional tech ventures, with biotech funds completing phases in under five years. Rafiq Ahmed highlighted the growing use of DAFs in venture and PE investments. J.P. Keating shared a report on the US VC market, emphasizing Midwest trends. Spencer Walker noted MIT and Stanford's success in tech transfer. Parth Vakil praised Austin's tech innovation. The discussion also covered the challenges of secondary markets, IPO dynamics, and effective portfolio management. Upcoming events were planned in Newport, New York, Hamptons, London, and various international locations, with a focus on tax updates and manufacturing hubs.

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SUMMARY: The 361Firm's Menlo Park Secondaries Panel discussed the evolving venture secondary market, emphasizing its growth and challenges. Key points included the extended liquidity cycles, now averaging 14 years, and the structural issues preventing companies from going public earlier. Panelists highlighted the role of secondary funds in addressing liquidity needs, particularly for smaller funds and employees. They noted the importance of data science in identifying high-potential companies and the need for realistic valuations. The discussion also covered the complexities of secondary transactions, including the impact of SPACs and the potential for tax credits through donor-advised funds.

KEYWORDS
Venture secondary market, liquidity cycles, private asset classes, practical venture capital, AI impact, technology sector, secondary funds, LP distribution, exit strategies, valuation challenges, data science, late-stage investments, employee liquidity, secondary market growth, investment risks.

SPEAKERS
Anurag Chandra, Dave McClure (Practical VC, 500 Startups), Raj Gollamudi (One Prime Capital), Lara Druyan (SV Data Capital, Palo Alto), Paul Kang (SFO), Eli Tenenbaum (SFO), Mark Sanor (361Firm), Reg Athwal

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Transcript: https://361.pub/transcriptjune102025
Video: https://youtu.be/Hp7jX5tSCE8
Podcasts: Apple https://lnkd.in/eRh8iztB and Spotify https://361.pub/spotify

This 361Firm Meetup and Briefing on June 10, 2025, covered key economic and geopolitical issues. Stephen Burke discussed the US deficit, highlighting a proposal to boost productivity by 0.5% to raise GDP by 7% and reduce the deficit by 1.2% over a decade. Adam Blanco detailed Ukraine's strategic attacks on Russian airfields, noting the destruction of irreplaceable Soviet-era aircraft and the emergence of Ukraine's drone industry. The discussion also touched on the broader implications of these events, including potential shifts in global power dynamics and the need for strategic investment in defense and productivity. The meeting discussed the future of trade vocations, emphasizing their importance in education. Charles Beyrouthy highlighted the geopolitical implications of Russia and China's nuclear capabilities and the potential for coexistence. The conversation shifted to AI investment, noting a bubble and the need for infrastructure. Lucia Ordonez-Gamero and Anthony Gordon discussed AI's impact on jobs, with AI replacing entry-level roles. Khadija Mustafa predicted a potential AI market crash and emphasized the importance of small language models and machine learning. The discussion also touched on the ethical considerations of AI and the integration of AI with other technologies like quantum computing.

SPEAKERS: Lucia Ordonez-Gamero, Keith McCall, Rob Ricciardelli, Lubna Dajani, Sameer Sirdeshpande, Jason Ma, Maher Nasri, Jack Wyant, Erica Lill, Depinder Grewal, Michael Hammer, Mark Sanor, Khadija Mustafa, Giovanni, Glenn, Chloe Sun, Tim Gallabrant, Karolina, Bruce, Kate Lawrence (Bloccelerate), Carl Pro, Anthony Gordon, Mark Mueller-Eberstein (ex-Microsoft, now investor), Adam Blanco, Bill Deuchler, Eyad Kishawi, Jeff Zawadsky, Stephen Burke, Charles Beyrouthy, Robin Blackstone, Detlef Schrempf, Rafiq Ahmed, and many others.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS: US deficit, Russia war economy, Ukraine attacks, productivity improvements, immigration policy, military spending, AI advancements, global economy, national security, defense procurement, economic growth, social unrest, UBI, investment strategies, geopolitical issues., AI investment, trade vocations, supply chain, military operation, NATO expansion, economic warfare, AI bubble, job displacement, hard skills, soft skills, intellectual property, quantum computing, enterprise AI, global change, investment strategy.

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Transcript: https://361.pub/TranscriptBriefingMay27
Video: https://361.pub/vidMay27

The 361Firm Meetup and Briefing on May 27, 2025, covered various updates and introductions. Mark Sanor and others discussed the attendance of new members, including Nelson Stacks from Waltham, Massachusetts, and Fabian Cousteau, a third-generation ocean explorer. The meeting highlighted the upcoming events in San Francisco and Seattle, including visits to Microsoft in Redmond, Valve Gaming in Bellevue, and the Mayor joining us in Seattle. After Stepher Burke's presentation on markets in light of the US Budget negotiations, Moody's ratings change, Olga Loy shared her insights on changes to expect from the "Big Beautiful Bill" including the impact on private equity, venture capital, extension of opportunity zones.

The conversation also touched on the challenges and opportunities in the global economy, particularly in the context of AI and energy innovation. The meeting discussed energy policies, highlighting the shift towards oil and gas over renewables despite high production levels. Jeff Zawadsky noted the delay in SMR applications. Anthony Gordon mentioned VISTA Energy's 262% growth last year and future helium mining on the moon. Andrew Fisch emphasized the negligible impact of new U.S. drilling at $60/barrel oil. Sameer Sirdeshpande discussed sustainable hydrocarbon use.

The discussion also covered the potential for China to take over Taiwan by 2027 and the impact of the Ukraine war on global politics. Joe Azzaro stressed the importance of fiscal discipline and productivity improvements to address global debt issues.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
NMR company, multi-coast, Bitcoin, digital markets, Tate County, TIFF, secondary fund, venture capital, AI, tax plan, opportunity zones, clean energy tax credits, nuclear deduction, energy policy, renewable energy, nuclear power, hydrocarbons, tax incentives, drilling dynamics, natural gas, AI healthcare, longevity, helium mining, global debt, productivity growth, interest rates, inflation, geopolitical tensions

SPEAKERS
Contributors included Jeff Zawadsky, Sahir Ali (Modi Ventures), Greg Wilder, Kate Lawrence (Bloccelerate), Candice Beaumont, Andrew Fisch, Marc Rosenberg, Anna Cardona, Sameer Sirdeshpande, Marius Kreft, Anthony Gordon, Fabien Cousteau, Maher Nasri, Lara Druyan (SV Data Capital, Palo Alto), Carl Pro, Mark Sanor, Nelson Stacks, Ben Narasin, Joe Azzaro, Olga Loy, Günter Schmittberger, Roger Arjoon, and many others.

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The 10:30am meetup portion discussed logistics for the 361Firm West Coast Conferences, including now many new developments in the Seattle area such as a Microsoft tour focused on AI, visits to Amazon and gaming companies like Valve and Nintendo. AI will be a key theme in both cities for panels and breakouts. Here is the Program Deck for SF/Seattle 6/16-18: https://361.pub/wc25

For the 11am Briefing segment, Stephen Burke highlighted the US-China trade war de-escalation, the potential for a manufacturing renaissance, and yet the importance of the US as a safe haven. The discussion also covered the potential extension of opportunity zones and tax credits, and the impact of energy prices on the global market. The meeting discussed the impact of Saudi’s actions on oil prices, impact on Russia but also with rig counts and production in America declining (yet Michae Hammer noted more productivity per rig). Natural gas prices have risen, driven by international markets and major pipelines. Lifting costs in the Utica basin remain viable even at $2 gas. Top producers are breaking even at $40-$50 per barrel. The conversation shifted to the venture capital industry, highlighting overvaluation and the reluctance of VCs to let companies go public. The discussion also covered the potential impact of proposed tax changes on endowments and foundations, which could significantly alter their investment strategies.

Energy Market and Geopolitical Impact
•⁠ ⁠Leslie Bendig asks about the impact of energy prices on the global market.
•⁠ ⁠Stephen Burke and Michael Hammer discuss the geopolitical implications of the Saudi Arabia-OPEC production cuts.
•⁠ ⁠The group considers the impact of energy prices on the US economy and the potential for fluctuations in global markets.
•⁠ ⁠The discussion includes the role of natural gas exports and the potential for increased production in the US.

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Before the Briefing, as we were in Riyadh, we discussed the takeaways from our World With Purpose Summit co-hosted with Ghaya.

The Briefing itself discussed the impact of trade tariffs and geopolitical tensions on global markets. Stephen Burke highlighted that the S&P 500 saw a 10% drop in Trump's first 100 days, with Treasury yields and crude prices also affected. The Bloomberg economist survey predicts a 45% chance of a U.S. recession, 1.4% growth for 2026, and 3.3% core inflation. The discussion also covered the potential for a trade deal, with China considering lowering tariffs. The impact on shipping was noted, with a significant drop in U.S. imports and a rise in Vietnam's share. The meeting concluded with a focus on the need for clarity on trade policies to stabilize markets.

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This 361Firm Meetup and Briefing discussed the economic impact of the Trump administration's trade policies. Stephen Burke highlighted the IMF's revised global growth projections, down to 2.8% for 2025 and 3% for 2026, citing trade policy uncertainty as a major factor. Scott Slayton noted a 10.5% decline in the US dollar since January 2020, attributing it to trade tensions and a weaker dollar policy. The discussion also covered the potential for a recession in 2025, the impact of tariffs on exports and imports, and the long-term implications for the US dollar's reserve currency status. The meeting discussed the economic challenges faced by Russia, including high inflation and fiscal problems due to defense spending. The Chilean economy's past success was attributed to factors other than Milton Friedman's advice. The U.S. dollar's recent volatility was compared to past periods, with concerns about its future as a reserve currency. Upcoming bond auctions and their potential impact were highlighted, along with the unpredictability of tariff policies. The discussion also touched on the potential long-term effects of tariffs on manufacturing and the need for strategic investments to maintain U.S. competitiveness.

Outline
Meetup - Introductions and New Members, Saudi Event Logistics

Briefing Starts with Discussion on Trade Policy and Economic Impact (see summary above)
Stephen Burke discusses the IMF's revised growth projections, highlighting the impact of trade policy uncertainty on global growth.
Scott Slayton's Analysis on the US Dollar
Scott Slayton presents his report on the US dollar, highlighting the significant decline in the dollar since the Trump administration took office, the impact of high tariffs on growth, competitiveness, and the US dollar's role as a reserve currency, potential for a weaker dollar to support exports and the impact on American exceptionalism, need for investors to diversify into foreign stocks, bonds, and real assets.

Q&A and Further Discussion

Roger Arjoon questions the rationality of Trump's trade policies and the potential for a recession.
Stephen Burke and Scott Slayton discuss the potential outcomes of the trade negotiations and the impact on the US dollar.

Economic Situation in Russia and Chile
Simon Vine discusses the economic crisis in Russia, highlighting the depletion of their reserve fund and the high inflation due to defense spending.
He compares the current situation in Russia to the Chilean economy, noting that Chile's economic success was not due to Milton Friedman's advice but to other factors.
Vine mentions that the dollar's value has fluctuated significantly in the past, citing 1994
He expresses uncertainty about the future but hopes that the current drastic measures will be successful.

Bond Vigilante Front and Dollar Weakness
Leslie Bendig asks about the potential for another bond auction issue and the impact of a weak US dollar on Asia in 2026.
Stephen Burke explains that the bond auctions could be influenced by various factors, including Fed meetings and trade discussions. Burke discusses the mixed impact of a weaker dollar on Asia, considering both the benefits and the potential for higher inflation and slower growth.

Impact of Tariffs on Consumer Behavior
Michael Hammer shares a personal anecdote about the rising cost of sneakers at Walmart, attributing the increase to tariffs.
Stephen Burke acknowledges the potential for significant market distortions and volatility due to unusual policies.

Long-Term Investment Needs and Competitive Advantage
Sameer Sirdeshpande emphasizes the need for long-term investments in manufacturing, distribution, and innovation to remain competitive.
Mark Sanor mentions that the upcoming San Francisco event will address these issues, highlighting the importance of strategic investments.

Legal and Political Uncertainties
Parth Vakil questions the impact of successful trade renegotiations on the dollar's reserve currency status.
Stephen Burke believes that the US's scale and depth make it difficult for any alternative currency to replace the dollar.

Volatility and Investment Opportunities
Michael Hammer and Stephen Burke discuss the volatility in the market and its impact on investors.
Hammer argues that the overall trend will continue to be downward, while Burke sees opportunities for investors to upgrade their portfolios.

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You can subscribe to various 361 events and content at https://361firm.com/subs. For reference: 

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Issues & Risks
Uncertainty in global trade and tariffs
Potential for stagflation
Challenges in defense spending and program effectiveness
Increased energy demand and its impact
Infrastructure needs and funding gaps
Concerns about the U.S. upholding the rule of law
Potential impact on U.S. exceptionalism and global leadership

Next steps
Stephen Burke mentioned an upcoming Zoom call on April 22nd with Dr. Ed Yardeni to discuss Trump's first 90 days and economic outlook
Mark Sanor mentioned several upcoming events, including one in Vegas, a Palo Alto event with Eric Schmidt speaking, and events in Riyadh, DC, and Seattle

Questions discussed
"Have we reached max uncertainty?"
"What can the administration be doing that it's not doing to avert, avoid, slow down and decimate or extinguish rising costs?"
"Do you see any policies in this administration that is second Trump, big spending administration? Do you see any policies whatsoever that would lead to deficit reaction reduction?"
"What do you think about this idea that is the US, not opportunity for all?"

Timeline
April 22nd: Zoom call with Dr. Ed Yardeni to discuss Trump's first 90 days and economic outlook
June 16-18: Upcoming event mentioned by Mark Sanor, described as potentially one of their best events
2029: IMF projection for global GDP to reach 130-140 trillion dollars

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Issues & Risks

Europe's competitiveness challenges:

Lagging productivity compared to the US

Need to close the innovation gap

Dependency on foreign markets and energy sources

Risks associated with Trump's potential tariff policies

Concerns about China's economic transition and foreign investor confidence

Challenges in implementing European defense spending plans

Questions discussed

Question about the impact of a weaker dollar on US and European valuations

Question about the continued bullishness on defense stocks

Question about concrete changes in European competitiveness beyond discussions

Timeline

April 2nd was mentioned as the date for reciprocal tariff announcements by the US

3-4 years timeline for getting new defense programs up and running was mentioned, with European defense experts suggesting 5-10 years

The speaker suggested that the second half of the year might be better for both the US and the world economy

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You can subscribe to various 361 events and content at https://361firm.com/subs. For reference: 

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• Onboard as Investor: https://361.pub/shortdiag
• Onboard Deals 361: www.361firm.com/onb
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Global conflicts, economic uncertainty, UN resolution, Russia-Ukraine war, China-US rivalry, NATO modernization, Trump administration, defense spending, Middle East instability, South China Sea, energy independence, rare earth minerals, geopolitical instability, disruptive technologies, global governance.

SPEAKERS

Stephen Burke, Andrew Fisch, Adam Blanco, Hamlet Yousef, Speaker 1, Mark Sanor, Maxwell Nee, Bill Deuchler, Speaker 2, Michael Hammer, Anthony Gordon

Stephen Burke  00:00

Which Putin thought went in quite quickly. It's been about 16 months since you had the attacks in Gaza on October 7 of 23 and you've had a little over a month since President Trump has returned to the and nothing's been the same since any of those days in the world yesterday, we had a good sense of that with the UN resolution, which basically said Russia didn't start the war in Ukraine. So I'm going to basically ask hamly to join to put some clarity into where the conflicts are going, and are we getting close to an end or the start of something new? Last week on our calls, unless nobody raised this question, and we had the view that this started something new Hamlet and I that we're not as close to the end as everyone would hope, certainly as close the end as President Trump was kind of indicating what's going on right now has created a highly elevated economic uncertainty, but also policy uncertainty around the world. This report is takes a look at newspaper mentions of uncertainty. It looks at shifts in government policy. And it looks at surveys of Professional Forecasters, and you can see the economic uncertainty today is higher than it was when the pandemic was going on, and significantly higher was than it was when Russia invaded Ukraine back in 2020, 2022, and what you can see here, this is a survey from an armed conflict survey, which actually looks at the human impact, and they define it by the number of fatalities due to violent events in a specific country, number of refugees originating in a select country, and the number of internally displaced people. So you can see the hardship that the conflicts around the world are extracting. But it's not just Ukraine and Gaza, it's many other places around the world, and that is actually stress and government abilities to deal with is in a spot where they're paddling

02:20

free front

Stephen Burke  02:22

as we get here, I think this really comes down to a very simple fact that China has risen to a level that they are challenging the US for global leadership, and there's a conflict in how they resolve that shift. And I think we're also seeing the fact that United Nations, NATO and other post world war two institutions probably about live there, have outgrown what their original incentive was, and they need to be modernized to deal with a world that's very different than it was, not only post World War Two, but even 20 years ago, with China's rise and the rise of other nations as well. I think we've had a problem with bad leadership. I've talked about that in the past. It, to me, is one of the most scary issues we're facing is weak leaderships, making bad decisions that are short term oriented just about the next election cycle, and not dealing with the pain, the necessary pain that comes with making hard decisions, which has led to significant under investment in critical areas, then the last thing that led to what has us where we are today is really the Trump factor. And if you want to follow and understand what's ahead of us and what's going on right now. All you have to do is look at the 2024 Republican platform. And this is the play book that Trump follows. And whether you like him or hate him, one thing you should know about the Trump administration is he's going to try and do what he laid out in this platform, whether it's good policy or bad policy, in his mind, is good policy, and he's going to push forward with it. So even things that don't make sense, he's going to move forward with. He's also going to create a lot of conflicting statements that are going to be challenging for foreign leaders, for domestic CEOs, and for CEOs and business leaders around the world, and also for people investors trying to make strong investment decision. But understand these 20 points, because this is the play book that he is following right now. Global defense spending is on the rise, and we know that it's been carried over very heavily by the US, China and Russia, and purchasing power parity, you would see Russia and China spending over four $60 billion each last year. Europe combined spent a little less than a third of what the US has spent, and part of what the goal is is to get that increase accidentally. And ease some of the burden on the US, while a lot of people think it may be for them to redirect money to other areas, I think one of the challenges that the US has is there some modernization, rebuild, and to be able to be prepared for fighting on free front, where Russia is fighting on one right now in the Gaza, it's really Ukraine, and I'm sorry, Gaza, it's really Israel, and the US take on Iran and their proxies, and then you have what's going on in the South China Sea. The US cannot afford to fight China and three other than two other battles at once. And that's really what's weighing on the US, because number one on the US is mine, I believe is dealing with China, not dealing with Russia and the Middle East is more of a short term issue. The big longer term issue is the ascension of China, and how do we deal with that? But I think the other issue is because we're fighting in three fronts. Right now we're preparing to battle on three fronts. I think this quote from Finland foreign Prime Minister really is quite true. It's it's not reasonable right now for the US to be able to do this, whether it's not just financially, but practically, can we afford to do it? We don't have the military build up right now, and we've exhausted a lot of our military supplies being at work for most of the last 20 years. So European leaders are facing a very harsh reality right now. What you can see from this chart is defense spending as a proportion of GDP, and it shows how I balance it's been and those closes to the action either with migrants coming through or with being close supporters of Russia, or where the higher spend is, and the lower spend has been not coming through from the rest of Europe. And this is creating a big problem. As you can see, the demands for future spend are going to be much higher. They're talking about 3.7% or 5% and this is what additional spending would look like over the next decade. And this is coming at a time that most of these governments have massive demands from the domestic population that are go well beyond the defense spending that's going to help other parts of the world. But I think it was NATO had said the other day, if they don't get the 3.7% they better start learning Russia and Europe. I think that may be an extreme, but maybe not. This is a problem that chronic under investment has been going on for way too long, and the catch up is going to be the problem. And if we're doing better all along, this would be less of a burden, but it's coming at a particularly bad time, particularly moving up to the 4% level, and we don't have the benefits of free money that we had for the last 15 years. So we're in a tough spot in Europe. We're trying to figure out is, can trump force a settlement in on these people in different in different parts of the world? I'm skeptical of it. I don't think we're close to the end of a war. I mentioned that last week, but I asked Hamlet to join Hamlet, if you could just give a little bit of your background first, and then we'll jump into the Q and A,

Hamlet Yousef  08:23

yeah, that sounds good. Appreciate it. Looking forward to the conversation here so I could be there in person. My name is Hamlet. You said one of the managing partners at Iron Gate Capital Advisors. We're a defense tech focused venture fund. This thesis was built about six, seven years ago, when we thought that the world was going down a new direction, where the kind of the global war on terror was winding down. That's an issue that we're going to continue to have to deal with. But the near conflicts, or the issue that was going to face us, geo politically, was a re emergence of a second Cold War, or, if not, a much greater conflict. I think it was right after the Ukraine invasion. On one of the calls here with the folks at 360 I talked about how the world is going down, how the path of almost like a three act tragedy. Act one was going to be the invasion of Ukraine, and the destabilizing impact that was going to have in the region and globally. Act Two of this geo political tragedy was the emergence, or was going to be, the emergence, of a very belligerent Iran with a nuclear undertone, trying to destabilize the Middle East. And act three was the emergence that the kind of driving force behind this was a desire by xi and the Chinese Communist Party to become the only super power, not a super power, but the only super power, and supplant Western influence, job, which includes the US globally. Unfortunately, I think a lot of that has been happening just quick. Color again, on background. Prior to running Iron Gate, I had a long career in. In the federal government, in the national security, diplomacy and intelligence area. So this is an area that I've been pretty, pretty keen on and falling for a good chunk of my adult life. So I think Steven's earlier slide, or the opening slide, says very clearly I think this is the beginning of a much greater conflict. I do not think global peace is breaking out anytime in the near future. I think the three main hot wars, or the hot zones you see right now, Ukraine, the Israel, Gaza, Iran conflict, and the South China Sea and Southeast Asia. I think the tenor of those conflicts is going to change in the coming months and year. I think there is potentially, quote unquote, a a grand bargain that President Trump is going to try to strike to stabilize matters to a certain extent, but I think that's going to bring more of a kind of a calm before the eye of the storm, rather than ever lasting peace. So I'll start, I'll stop there. And then, Steve, I guess, let me know in what direction you want to take the Q, a

Mark Sanor  11:06

Can I ask a question. Steven, can you hear me? Yeah. Long day, Mark, did you see this veto coming and the and the the way the alignment is shifting with Trump and Putin.

Hamlet Yousef  11:21

Oh, the UN ve though, as far as negating the UN the resolution, yeah, no, I definitely do not see that coming. I think the one thing that is going to be probably very predictable for the next four years is unpredictability, loan or hate him. I think Trump style of governance and leadership is to completely upset the apple cart, create chaos and operate through it, whether that's through willful intent or just that's how he operates. So I'll leave that for another call. So I don't think anybody saw that coming. To be honest with

Mark Sanor  11:58

you, the questions from from others. Oh, Michael, you're you're on mute. Steve. Michael Hammer, sure,

Michael Hammer  12:12

more of a comment than a question. I mean, yesterday, I felt like I was in a bizarro world where the US voted with Russia and North Korea against allies of 80 years. This is crazy. So my comment on this is, and I've, I've been speaking with friends in Europe who are involved with government and the military, and some folks here in the States, everybody is in shock. And the sense that I get from the Europeans is we are going to see a schism between the US and Europe, and they're going to be going towards a war time economy. Most folks are denying it these days, but this is huge. And I think China is just sitting there, xi is just sitting there laughing at what's going on, because it all falls in their favor. And I'll stop with that. What do you think you said? That

Speaker 1  13:24

was actually a question I had. Do you think China wants any of these words to end as Trump

Hamlet Yousef  13:32

does? I honestly, I don't know. I don't know. I think, I think China benefits through continued destabilization. I think what China wants to do is, he wants to weaken all powers, so a prolongment of a conflict in Ukraine. Kind of help? Help helps. Help does that? It distracts the West and the US in Eastern Europe, and it continues to weaken Russia to a certain extent, which is, I think what G wants, I think Xi's ultimate goal is to expand his influence in southeast China and potentially in the Nepali step. So the weaker your adversaries become, the stronger you become. One dynamic to consider is a good chunk of the first Cold War. The West really try to keep the two communist powers apart in terms of China and Russia. What's happened over the last couple of years, obviously, is you have this formation of an access of authoritarianism between Xi Putin and the regime inside Iran. So almost the exact opposite is happening. But to me, I think this is where xi sees these nations as his quote, unquote, proxy allies in a longer term effort to destabilize the US and the West and to assert their dominance in the region. But I don't think that's going to end well for a whole host of reasons. I'm still, I think, very skeptical on how long. This, this g Putin romance remains, and I want to point to just a couple of anecdotal observations, kind of at the height of the explosion of the Ukraine war. This is going back to September 2023 Xi made a tour, I believe, throughout the the scans the former Soviet states and began courting these, these nations of which a large chunk of them are Asiatic in their in their ethnicity and makeup. I think this is an effort for him to pull those folks away from the Vlad and closer to his ring of influence, the Chinese have a very long memory, and I think they view things almost like you heard this before, in a centuries long optic, not an election cycle like we do in the West. I don't think they fully forgotten or or forgave what happened to them at the back end of the Opium Wars, and that was an effort that they blame squarely, obviously, on Europe. But in 1850 1860 when the war ended, out of Manchuria, better known as Siberia today, was annexed by the Russians away from China, and is now part of the Russian government, or Russia the entity. I don't think it's too far of a stretch to see to say that at some point, Xi doesn't want to look at the lands to his north that are grossly under populated, grossly under defended, and rich of natural resources as an area that he can eventually march into. So he hear the quote that I think McCain, Senator McCain first coined, that Russia is not nothing out of the big gas station for China. I think there's some truth and merit in there. So if this conflict continues, and I think it's going to China actually benefits, now, I do think there's a greater, an increasing probability that we have some sort of a grand bargain or an agreement between Putin in the west and potentially China, where you'll see a near term cease of the firing and the fighting in Ukraine. But that's that doesn't mean global peace is breaking out and the conflict is over. If anything, I think what you see happening is, if that does happen, Ukraine is not ready to give up that land. Russia is not going to retreat and give back Eastern Don Boston in Crimea. So I think what you have is potentially a formation of almost like an East Germany, West Germany that we had at the end of the Second World War. From there, we had a decades long Cold War where both sides are starting to destabilize the other. So if you play this out and Putin does get to hold on to the lands that he sold Eastern in eastern Ukraine, I think he then spends the next decade trying to destabilize Odessa, trying to destabilize Kyiv, trying to put his own proxy, or his own person in charge, and then continue with that Western influence that he wants, in terms of reforming, reconstructing that western border. He's doing the same thing in the caucuses. So that, I think, changes the 10 of the conflicts. It may end the near term direct conflict in Ukraine, but I don't think by any means that's going to be the beginning of the

18:17

end. Andrew fish, do you want to ask your question?

Andrew Fisch  18:20

Yeah, Hamlet, you're involved, obviously, in military acquisition technology, the push for getting Europe to spend more, you know, still kind of a slow, slow move, but, but one of the issues is spending it on what? So I'm just going to give you, like, an analogy, and then what you answer the question. So if you take Poland, Poland has ramped up their military acquisition, and they're not worried where it comes from. They're buying Korean tanks, they're buying American weapons, they're buying anything and get their hands on, I think Jack, I think even Japanese jets, whatever. The point is, they're doing it quickly. The other nations upping their expenditure. They didn't spend any money for so long, their military industrial infrastructure. And you comment on this is not ready to ramp up and and they don't want to just buy American so how much would they have to spend to do a Poland like catch up? And is that even possible?

Hamlet Yousef  19:32

Yeah, great question. Look, I think, I think you're starting to see the awakening of this defense tech initiative throughout Europe. It's something that I think shock the system in 2016 to 2020 under Trump's first term. I think the explosion of the conflicts on Europe's eastern flank is sending shock waves throughout the continent. You are starting to see all the countries. Us, for the most part, wake up and start allocating more and more dollars. I think there's a bit of a variance in terms of what that percentage of GDP needs to look like, is going up and exponentially for it was 456, years ago. But this is also something that the US wasn't necessarily all that worried about when we first started our fun thes just six, seven years ago, defense tech and defense investing was this kind of back water thesis that nobody cared about. It's all the rage right now here, inside the US, there's, every time you turn around, there's another venture fund or growth equity fund or a private capital source that has Defense Innovation dual use defense tech as part of their thesis. So it is becoming a key area of focus and spend for us here in the US. Well, you seen that same thing start happening in Europe over the last several years, where more and more countries are shifting focus on on the need to drive innovation and technology and and spend in their defense sector. Now, in terms of dollars. You gotta understand the economics of warfare have changed, and this is a thing so the people have not fully grasped and understood. What I mean by that is the wars of having to march columns of tanks and airplanes and ships into a theater to win. That's that's changing, if not, fully ended. And I think the world is starting to realize what does disrupt the technologies mean, and how is that reshaping the battlefield. So examples here, if you look at what happened at the at the beginning of the Ukraine war, you had a column of of arms and in tanks and in armored vehicles that was marching on Kyiv, and this is where everyone thought the key was going to fall within 40 hours and and the war is over, you had a couple billion or billion dollars of armament those, those heading down for Kyiv, and he had a handful of Ukrainian special forces bouncing around on ATVs drones and some explosive ordinances, couple million dollars worth of overhead and cost, and that was able to nullify billions of dollars worth of armaments. Look at what happens in or what's happening right now, in, in, in the Red Sea, you have the Houthis, who have no real economic base, and they're launching hundreds of in expensive drones towards global shipping, and they're shutting down global shipping to a certain extent, in that part of the country or in that part of the world, and they're spending a couple million dollars in the US. In return is deploying a couple of billion dollars worth of ships and airplanes and rockets and knock down a couple pieces of flying lawn mowers, is what it seems like. So that's not sustainable. Look what happened in Ukraine. About six months ago, you had a handful of Ukrainians with a couple million dollars of modified jet skis with explosives put onto them in a remote control device, literally sink and nullify half of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. So the economics of war are changing, and I think we're starting to grasp and understand what that means to control a battlefield in a conventional war. Two of the things you need to do is you need to control the skies, and ideally, you need to be able to control the seas. In order to do that, you need to field trillions of dollars, or deploy trillions of dollars to create and manage a comprehensive Air Force and a navy. But with where things are going in terms of drone warfare and the collapsing cost of drones, you're starting to get to the point now where nation states that traditionally could not field an Air Force or a Navy are able to basically replicate and recreate that same kind of effect for pennies on the dollar. So I wouldn't necessarily focus as much on on the spend in terms of percentage of GDP and how big that war chest needs to be, because you get to understand the technology and the tools and the platforms that are going to be needed to reshape and kind of win this, this concept of the 21st century is changing because the economics of war, sharing of warfare, completely changed.

24:13

Bill, the other question,

Bill Deuchler  24:16

here we go. Yeah. I was wondering if Hamlet, in particular, if, if you saw the interview with Marco Rubio and Cathryn herring, I think it was just the other day, it was on, I saw it rep posted on The Rubin Report that That, to me, was quite interesting. It seemed almost like not even real politic, but like real economic in terms of that's those are the terms of the deal that we're trying to push through, and at the same time, get peace between Ukraine and Russia. And any thoughts on that one? Well,

Speaker 2  24:57

I missed that interview or the specific term. They discuss, what so the the top levels that he discussed, yeah,

Bill Deuchler  25:03

it was, it was fascinating because it really centers pretty much all around the rare earths opportunity and negotiations. Essentially, the way that it boiled down for me is that if, if Ukraine is willing or to to give us a piece of that pie. We will come in, you know, with the full weight of everything that we have, and sort of demand a piece. But the price of that is, is absolutely an economic interest in their rare earth production.

Hamlet Yousef  25:39

Yeah, like, I mean, there isn't a single piece of modern technology that functions without some some critical minerals or rare earths in China for a better part of 20 plus years, has been slowly trying to monopolize that segment, in that sector. So it would make sense for us to say, Listen, if we come in and kind of help help moderate or help bring about peace, one of the things we want to return is access to those critical materials and minerals. So to strike that kind of a bargain, to me, doesn't, doesn't, doesn't. To me, seen out of the ordinary. But just think about it though. Let's just kind of play this out. If there is a grand bargain and there is, quote, unquote peace between Ukraine and Russia. In return, we get access to we the US and the West get access to rares and critical materials and minerals that basically make our function, or make our society function, not to mention play a key part in basically every piece of modern defense like that's out there. That's a good thing from a stabilization standpoint. But again, it does not mean the conflict is over. I don't think that that Xi broke up one day and decided up to upset the apple car. I don't think Putin woke up one day and decided to mark March westward and kind of light Eastern Europe on fire. I think both of these guys, to a certain extent, have been operating off the same sheet of music, which is expanding their influence in the region and replacing, not counter balancing, but replacing western US influence. So just because there is a cessation of or ceasing in the conflict, direct conflict of shooting each other in eastern Ukraine, I think the 10 minutes that conflict do not go away. That's why I think we are kind of in the beginnings of a much greater conflict. The difference is going to be, it's going to it's going to turn from being a a war where people are shooting each other to a more cognitive warfare campaign, more than a regular warfare campaign, which is exactly what we had in the Cold War. The role that technology is going to play in this is, I think, disruptive technologies. When you're talking about artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, counter, drone technologies, drone platforms, swarms, quantum cyber security, space based platforms and communications network all this, to me, is analogous to what nuclear was in the first Cold War. The West and Russia got to a point of detent because there was this massive arms race around nuclear, and each side began to realize that this thing ever went to war, nobody wins, because the Arsenal on both ends is so debilitating that conflict was not an issue. Conflict was not a solution. And I think what's going to happen now, where we're going right now is we're going through that same kind of disruptive, technology driven arms race, where it is going to be a foundation, where detent is going to be the focal area, where, okay, the US and the West is such an incredible arsenal of autonomous and robotics and swarms, as does Russia, as us as does China, then conflict is not an issue. So if that's the case, then I think what you need, you need to understand you have the foundations for each very sound, strong economic base. Because if you have a foundation for a strong sound economic base, you have a strong foundation for political base. If you have that, then you have a nation. You don't have those two, then you think you see the potential for an erosion of a nation to be able to function. And that's kind of what happened with the Soviet Union, is, is we did not get into a physical conflict. We prolong the cognitive warfare long enough to allow the constructive powers of Western democracy and Western society to prevail, and to allow for the corrosive powers and authoritarian regime, or communism, in this case, to collapse. And I think we're gonna see that same exact thing play out over the next 20 years,

Bill Deuchler  29:34

if I could follow up just real quick on a point, on a whole bunch of points that you made. You think that that the economics and the political points that you've brought up are driving us and or making it easier to become much more of a multi polar world, as opposed to a unipolar world, which is pretty much what we have now. Yeah.

Hamlet Yousef  30:00

Good question, if, like, if I became for the day, I think the future of global society is, is almost like an expansion of the original American model, where you have a network of independent states that have agency and authority to do to whatever they want at the local level, and they're working under a set of ground rules that basically puts us in the same sheet of music. That's what the foundation the US was supposed to be. And that's, I think, where we were heading for a good part of our history. And I think over the last probably couple election cycles, we're starting to VA slate of whether we want to go to a form of governance and government that is based on strong, centralized authority, or do we want to revert back to what we were, which is a bunch of Independent States? I think if you look at what's going to happen globally, I think globally, we're facing that same kind of decision, whether it's Europe or Asia. Countries are starting to have to decide what kind of future do they want? Do they want to have a future of independent agency and autonomy, or do they want to be under a bit of a centralized state authority? And this is where I think it comes back into play, which is what the CCP wants, and is desires is they want to be the leader of a movement or an effort where you have a couple of strong centralized states or entities that help drive global governance and all kind of report back into a central authority, or, in this case, Beijing, where I think the opposite is, what, where I would hope, and I would think the West wants to go to, is we can all be a bunch of independent nation states. Nationalism is perfectly okay. We're all going to operate off the same sheet of music. There's going to be some bit of of basic ground rules and norms. We're going to intertwine our economies and our societies to to extent that there's going to be a greater bit of self, a great bit of of a reliance upon each other, where conflict is not an issue, or conflict is not an option. So, and I use that to kind of articulate what it means here in the US. 2020 to 2020 24 is all the rage. All we're getting to a set and we get we're going down a path of civil war. No, we're not. Because, I mean, if you, if you, if you Canvas this room, if you Canvas any room in the US, depending on the part of the world you're on, anywhere from 5050, 6047, 30 people are on one side of the political aisle or the aisle. We may agree and disagree with a great ton of vitriol, but our society as a country, I think, so well intertwined that we're going to find our way to sort our issues out and resolve it and not get into conflict. My hope and my desire is to see the same thing happen globally, where you don't have a central authority that's dictating governance and dictating authority and rule, you have a bunch of independent nation states highly nationalistic doing whatever they want, as long as it doesn't encro on your neighbors, as long as it doesn't come at a level of conflict to get there, I think would require for us to to a certain extent, begin to intertwine our economies, inter society and culture, where there is going to be a reliance on each other, but without authority. Hopefully, that makes sense. Yeah,

33:14

no. Thank you. This

Mark Sanor  33:17

is fascinating. Wait, Bill, I like the art behind you. Three years ago, two days, our community gathered every single day, 7:30am because we came to Ukraine, Ukraine, I'm wondering, because we're just trying to also that was more of like help. I feel like we're adding a moment where a weekly meeting isn't good enough. This is so happening very fast. If you were to form a panel with diverse opinions, I'd like you to think about who would you invite to this next discussion? Definitely on Tuesday, we should be almost meeting twice a week. Steve is like going to prepare for No, no. I mean, we do this anyways, but I feel like we're this is happening very quick. Now you've got the 24 point playbook. We should just read that play book 20 points. But I feel like you're a great resource. I'd like to bring some others to the table in a 360 like style. And I know as a few people, they didn't want to be on record today, that's an issue, so maybe some private gatherings. But we're all here today to figure out how to we all agree on tech transformation, yeah, but geo political context, where do you do that? And but bigger picture, just like mechanically, of how our community should be? Nothing in

Hamlet Yousef  35:02

each other like I've been I've been tapped to speak to a couple of other groups like this, where it's a syndicate of thought leaders, business leaders and community leaders that began very US centric, but things very quickly morph into an international network of of vested capitalist Michael, better word, I think it's important for us to continue that conversation. I'll go on the record here in terms of my politics. I do not believe in a strong, centralized government. I think government is something that we elect to help kind of manage this enterprise. But I think society should be run in a bit of an open architecture, where industrialist, investors, people of influence, capitalists, are working together to create an open market of free and fair competition, and kind of let the let the winners go from there. So the more engagement, the more dialog we have with stakeholders in the US, but obviously in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. I think it's critical, because I wanted to make sure that this concept of We the People, which was the foundation of the US system, is something we export to the world. It's we, the people mindset of we're going to take agency and authority and control over our future and try to create a network of intertwined business, personal and social relationships that allow us all to benefit. If there's conflict, we'll sort our shit out. But sorting that out won't happen through direct conflict of warfare. It won't happen through through engagement and dialog.

36:45

We haven't touched on the Middle East.

36:49

Yeah, so look the Middle

Hamlet Yousef  36:52

East. The Middle East is an issue China, China and Russia, to me, represent some significant strategic challenges that we need to we need to fix full bias. I was born in Iran, came here to the US, and I lived through the Iranian revolution. So my comments here are 100% bias against the Iranian regime. I abhor them, but I also view the regime inside Iran as the single most grave threat near term to political, geo political stability and peace in the world, primarily because you have a regime right now that's being run by a very narrow group of people who not only view and want to run it as a theocratic state, but their specific SEC of ideology in Shia, Islam believes in the the ascendancy of the hidden Imam, or the return of the hidden Imam that happens on the region When the region is is under complete turmoil and chaos. That's not who you want to have becoming nuclear power. And I think the failure of the West over the last 20 years is a failure to understand that it is that is who is in charge of Iran. That's not who you want in charge of Iran when the country becomes a nuclear state. On the positive side. I think the Middle East, more than ever, is on the precipice of a significant Renaissance, Geo, politically and economically. I think if you look at the the Arabs, if you look at the folks inside Iran, not represented by the government, you look at Turkey, Israel, demographics are in their favor, and I think you have the potential for massive growth in the region. The issue there, obviously, is the Iran piece, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens over the next, next couple months. I think, no doubt, Trump did not agree with the the Obama approach to Iran, which was, I want to get his assets also recall. But I think he obviously put a max pressure campaign on Iran in 2016 and 2020 I would not be surprised to see obviously a return of that. Because I do think if you look at the regime inside Iran is it is on very thin ice, and actually it's very similar to Putin and Xi. All three are authoritarian regimes that don't have a thick foundation of stability below them, but with Iran, if you do get regime change inside Iran, you're not going to get exactly what we want. You might get more of a Russia style cryptocracy or oligopoly that's going to run the country. But what you do, and what you should get, hopefully, is a removal of of the shia sect that has almost like an End Times view of the world. Now you're stuck with a regime that is not, maybe not ideal when it comes. Of human rights, but is one. It's not hell bent on light in the Middle East on fire. That's the issue I think we're facing near term here with Iran.

Speaker 1  40:11

And can we shift gears to the South China Sea and your thoughts on where we are there? And what does it mean, given how the US spread sales and fighting these multiple conflict phase, these things resolving themselves over in South China Sea and Taiwan,

Hamlet Yousef  40:31

yeah. Well, depending who you listen to, the South China Sea is going to turn into a hot war as early as 2025 2026, 2030 the list is pretty wide in terms of where the one of the speculation is going to be. The one thing that gives me a little bit of hope is, is China and generally, is not a a country that likes to fight directly. Their view, I think, is more indirect. So, yes, there's a threat of them, one day, waking up tomorrow, invading Taiwan. It's a real, real threat that we need to be obviously concerned with. But I think one of the things that they've seen, and this has been a lesson learned for Xi, and it's probably why he wanted Putin to go first in terms of a in nation state land grab, is he wanted to see what global cancel culture was going to look like on a geopolitical stage. And he saw that, but he also saw is it's not easy to conquer another country, and this is a flat terrain where you got a bunch of embeds within eastern Ukraine to help you win that war. And Russia has had a pain, and there a lot of difficulty in doing that. Taiwan has been getting ready for this for decades, and it's a it's an island. So invading an island is a lot more difficult than invading a sovereign piece of territory that's flat. So I think what China is probably going to try to do is much more of a longer term campaign in terms of what they've done with Hong Kong, which is the slow as fixation of trying to bring the Taiwanese into their fold. So do I think the South China Sea is going to go hot. God, I hope not do. I think you have a potential for hot conflicts, whether it's with the Philippines or other, other, other, other fires. And the reason, I think that's that's a real concern, the dynamic that would change that, though, is if you have a rapid decline or ascension of challenge to xi, because xi is the Communist Party, is no longer what rules China. I think what Xi has done over the last several years is very quickly consolidate power. This is no longer a country that's run by a single party. It's a country that's run by a single individual. At some point, xi is going to have to deal with some part truths driven by collapsing demographics or collapsing real estate sector, migration of jobs out of China, and real pressures on their economic foundation. At some point, 1.3 billion Chinese people are going to wake up and realize that, though they were on the path to being part of the global economy in a in a major power house, they're facing some significant issues that have been mismanaged by one person in that g1, point 3 billion people. If you look at the Communist Party and the folks that are around g keep it in power. Estimate is estimate. Estimates range anywhere from a couple million to 20 to 30 million people. 30 million people. So if things get really bad at home, that's when I think you have a risk of xi doing something stupid, which is going after the South China Sea. In terms of the conflict, I think there's probably a greater chance that Xi actually marches north and starts constituting land back in his favor in Siberia than he does heading inside into the South China Sea. Hope I'm right on that one, but we'll see.

Speaker 1  43:47

So we have, we have a hard stop Mark told me at nine. So going to rapid fire some questions. So short questions and a quick answer. So Adam first. Michael, up.

Adam Blanco  44:05

Thank you. Steven Hamlet, always a pleasure listening to you always while reading your stuff, too. Thank you. My question to you is your thoughts on the negotiations with Putin Trump has literally given away a number of negotiating chips, such as having the discussions with Putin, giving him status as as legitimate leader, inviting him to the g7 How do you explain that? Can you do you have insight on

Hamlet Yousef  44:43

that? I do not. I'm not going to begin to try to figure out how Trump operates. Like I said, I think if you look at his style, to a certain extent, He probably likes to operate in a world of chaos, doing the unconventional. That's That's who he is. He's not. A refined political savan who's been a political operator for decades. He is what he is. He is a shrewd, hard, charging negotiator who cut his teeth in probably the most brutal fight there is, which is New York real estate. I think he's bringing, he's bringing his style and his 10 minutes to that if I was president, is that the approach I would take? Probably not. I'd probably take a different approach. But he's the guy who's in charge right now, and this is the the style he's taken. And I think to a certain extent, it's, it's, it's, it's unconventional, to put it mildly, is it going to work? Look, obviously, he's betting it is in that kind of a style, though, if you do like to operate through chaos and uncertainty, you can't look at every action and judge it in a vacuum. You got to understand that this is one movement many. So I would think, in his mind, this is a way of getting to some sort of near term physical piece, while allowing us to work on a much greater, grander piece, which is hopefully the removal of these authoritarian misfits in xi, in Putin and in the regime that's inside Iran. And this is, I think, the beginning steps of it. What that means, going back to Stephen's earlier slide, is geopolitical instability, I think, is just beginning. It's not ending anytime soon. Yeah,

46:25

I would agree with that.

Maxwell Nee  46:29

Max, yes. Hi everyone. Max will here from Singapore, really appreciate this earlier call. So you know, feels like Hamlet we've been in, you know, conflicts. I don't know ping pong for just forever, but I remember distinctly there was a period where this sort of stuff just wasn't happening over and over and over again. So I guess my question is like, what do you think you would take for all of this conflict, ping pong, to start to dissipate, and for the war to get back to what some of us might remember 10 years ago? You're

Hamlet Yousef  47:15

not going to like the answer, more conflict. And I don't more conflict in terms of more war, but I think a conflict in ideology. We're not going back to where we came from, if anything. I think within with the last couple years and the next couple of years represents is basically the end of the world war two era as we've known it. I think world is the world is about to change as we know it, between 1890 and 1950 the world changed. You had the rise and fall as you had, I'm sure. You had the fall the British Empire. You had the rise of the US, the US as a superpower. You had a complete balkanization and factoring of the Middle East and Eastern Europe. You had two world wars. You had a pandemic and you had a global market crash. The world went from the horse and buggy and oil power to lamp to the nuclear age and landing on the moon. All that happened in 60 years. Disruptive technologies were, I think, a key driver that had significant impact on geo politics and global governance. We're going through that same kind of innovation cycle and change right now, but it's not going to take 60 years for this to sort itself out. I think it's going to take probably the next 10 years, which means massive, massive, massive, massive amounts of geo political instability and uncertainty and change. I think we can come through this, but I think it's imperative for private capital and leaders within industry to be attached to hit so we can navigate this as allocators and as investors. If you do the kind of a long term buy and hold approach that had worked in in the prior 67 years, you're not going to do well if you're plugged in and if you're informed, and you're trying to develop information edge and advantage, and you can allocate in a very, very nimble, focused fashion, I think there's an opportunity for significant wealth creation in The next 10 minutes. Thank you. We're

49:22

going to, we have to

49:26

Anthony Oh, one part question, only one question.

Anthony Gordon  49:35

Oh, yeah. Well, first, there is no one question, because, as we know, it's extra inextricably linked, content, impetus wise, etc, so I'll ask it, and then just cut me off, etc. So basically, and forgive me if I didn't hear my memory short, I didn't hear talk about energy independence, us. And so I would say that there is a forward during the course of time that you. But you know you described. And so the question is, if I'm correct, does some form of us, energy independence, create a change into this forward mantra Trump as a headline is less or no war, right? And so what does that actually mean? And then how the fact that China has put down its roots into the rare earth minerals in Africa. And then how does that feed from that north up into the south? And then lastly, in that regard, Europe, which is part of the impetus for this, from whether it's Mid East or the gas prom cut off. How does that now play into it. I'm just trying to create these tangible things. Means. And then the other thing I didn't hear is that what I would say is not necessarily a 70 style resurgence, but there is clearly a lot of disruption.

50:58

Alright, I love you. I will answer that. I'm

Hamlet Yousef  51:04

reading lip sir, I think no, but great, great, multi part question. I think it actually answered back and tie a lot of these pieces together. First of all, I think China has some significant issues. I think what China has done over the last 20 years through their Belt and Road Initiative is they put out a lot of money and influence throughout the world to basically to colonize is exactly what they've done, physically and financially. They're taking over nations and resources. That's no different than being a predatory pay day loan provider. And I think what's starting to happen in the Global South and Latin America, particularly as well as Africa, I think you have nations are starting to wake up and read the finer details of the loan docs that they signed and realize that they're royally screwed. But what's starting to happen is, I think you're starting to see and I think you will see more of these nations begin to default and basically tell China to go pound sand. That opens up the opportunity for Western capital, both European and US, to come in and start partnering with local families, local industrials in the global south who want to rebuild and reshape their country and want to bring in that Western style capital. The issue there with China is, if all these countries begin to default, that is going to significantly accelerate the pressures that xi is going to have at home, which, going back to, I said earlier, could be a trigger for Xi becoming more desperate, more violent, if he faces him in a collapse at home. In terms of energy independence in the US, I think, under the under the current administration, and hopefully going forward, energy independence is gonna be a key foundation for the US. I am pretty bearish in terms of geo political instability in the near term, the next 1015, years. I think as a society, we can come out of this, but we gotta sort our own stuff out. If I look at near shore or kind of what's happening in the Western Hemisphere, I think there's a real opportunity for the creation of a super economic base or a super power in close collaboration between Canada, the US and Mexico, and I think eventually that movement can move out throughout the Americas. I don't say I don't care about what's happening, what's happening the rest of the world, or Europe or Asia. I do, but I think there's a real opportunity for there to be almost a bit of self reliance, at least in North America, if not throughout throughout South America. On the European front, I think Europe is going to have to go through their own kind of growing pains here. I think the European model of creating the EU and the EC thing worked on paper. I think it failed in execution. I think they're going to have some some serious issues. Again, they're going to sort through, not only economic but also geo political ly and from a demographic standpoint. So I think Europe is, I think they're probably entering, entering their quote, unquote lost decade, where they're going to have to find a way to soul search and fear or figure out what their form of of self self reliance and self governance is going to be, and what scares the shit out of them is you have a belligerent bear on the Eastern Front that wants to march westward. So Germany, I think, is is deflated. And I think who comes out very strong in this process is, is, I think Poland. I think Poland now is probably positioned to become one of the de facto leaders in Europe, because they're massively spending on their own self reliance and autonomy and defense, and they view themselves as kind of the guardians or the plug that's initially going to prevent that western expansion by by Putin. I think that that address all the questions you had or points you brought up.

Stephen Burke  54:47

Michael, I'm sorry at the nine o'clock mark, so next week, please, and Hamlet, thanks very much. Any closing thoughts for you, Hamlet,

Hamlet Yousef  54:59

I'm near term. Near term bearish, long term bullish. And I think the future is in our hands as leaders in capital industry. I think we need to work together and create this, this network of inter reliance of capital. I think the future is very bright. I think the amount of innovation that's going to happen is going to reach reshape the way we live our lives. As a technology investor, I just hope that we continue to invest in technology that liberates and integrates and does not give authority and power to the central agency or central authority to control us, because that's what you have in China, but the future is in our hands at this point.

Speaker 1  55:38

Thank you very much. Great, great session, and we appreciate your providing the insight. Steve, thank you everyone.

Speaker 2  55:47

Thanks for the opportunity. We'll see bye you shortly.

56:02

Simon, you on your way. Still live.

56:12

Very good. You.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Artificial Intelligence, generative AI, venture capital, seed funding, Hippocratic, LLM, job displacement, AI revolution, energy solutions, food security, humanoid robots, quantum computing, stakeholder model, economic impact, technological advancement.

SPEAKERS

Speaker 1, Alex Zhuk, Rashmi Joshi, Ben Narasin, Speaker 2, Maisy Ng, Mark Sanor, Zoe Cruz

Mark Sanor  00:00

Um, introduce yourself again, share an insight and what scares and excites you about AI, there you

Ben Narasin  00:06

go. What is this the one? All right, Hi, I'm Ben Naris, and I run tenacity venture capital. I spent of any a large venture firm about three years ago. I focus on seed. I've been doing that for about 18 years. Last year, I saw 2000 companies. I funded three. They were all generative. Ai related. It it is not because I have an explicit focus on AI. By the way, focused funds of under perform generalist funds for 40 years, find that data out there and think about how you invest. It's that the best and brightest always go to the shiniest, most exciting thing, and that is certainly generative AI right now, I even have I paid them personally, the most I've ever paid for company, $500 million for a company called Hippocratic, which is creating LLM based nurses. And what's fascinating about AI, I guess there's so many things, but one, we don't know how it works and how it thinks. These machines are thinking. And people that are in the business will acknowledge they don't actually understand how, two, it totally changes the value and reality of time. So let's use the example of Hippocratic they have an LLM that is trained on the nursing notes from major medical facilities. It calls in audio every person that leaves a hospital or doctor's office and checks in on them to make sure they are staying in tune with the things they need to do to get better. When in the past, would that ever have been possible? You know, 1000 people leaves a hospital in a day, there is zero chance you can afford to get the people to do it. But AI can spend infinite amounts of time and spin up infinite instances, and it will totally change things that we are able to do. I make one more example of that. I was listening on calls that the AI made to different patients. And it called a woman that had diabetes, and it, you know, did its check in. And then she said, Hey, can I eat, you know, beans? Yeah, beans are fine. Can I eat bread? Well, bread is bad at spikes. And then she listed off one by 156, foods to see if they were okay to eat. And the AI, very patiently, said, yes, no, yes, no, that would never happen. But not only can the AI allow infinite time to be utilized to do things in parallel, but the people on the other side can take advantage of it in ways they never would have with a traditional nurse in this instance. So I think there are going to be so many things that happen that we are not expecting. I am not worried about I am a little worried about the single purpose tool labor, the person that is not able to be retrained well, because that's not the culture they grew up in. They didn't value education there, you know? But hey, I walk down New York City streets today, a lot of people swing and sledge hammers and dig in dirt. There'll be plenty of things to be done. It's just if you have a single if you're that high or gal in the call center in Bangladesh. Woo. I hope you can find someone else.

Mark Sanor  02:45

Okay, so Maisie, also introduce yourself. And again, what scares, excites, insights.

Maisy Ng  02:53

Hi. My name is May Z. I'm founder, managing partner of the light capital. We're VC head quarter in Singapore. We're now doing our second fund, the first invest in Southeast Asia tech companies that celebrate the UN SDGs. The second fund will invest in AI companies across the AI tech stack. We're really excited about this opportunity because, I mean, AI is like a tech East dream, right? So, because it's so revolutionary, the same O, same o doesn't work anymore. We need a whole new class of semi conductors, data center technologies, new software that will empower new applications. So this is, we think it's like, I think the aircraft guy, this is once in 100 years as well. So, and what excites me, I think, well, the sort of paradigm shift that AI brings, it enables us humans to do things we never thought was possible. And initially, for example, when deep mine was started, it started by trying to play chess. And initially it basically took all the grand master strategies and train the software to play like a grand master. And so it played against grand masters, and they win some and they lose some, and then they decide, okay, fine, we just tell the computer, these are the rules, and you just go play. And because computers can basically, you know, like, work really fast, they could play, like, a million games overnight, and very soon they learn how to play. And then they did this go, which is a far more complex game than chess, and just by playing against itself, they found new strategies that Grand Masters would not think of like in the chess game. They be sacrificing pieces, left, right and Sanor, and then they win. And people just can't understand how they did that. And a couple of days ago, I read this article about scientists using AI to design basically micro wave circuits, and they said that the design that comes out looks really weird. It's not something that an engineer would design, because it's not something you've been taught in school. But so it looks really weird. Doesn't look like a circuit board, but apparently it worked better than any other circuit. So I think that is opportunity that we can have with AI. What? What scares me a bit to what Zoe said. I mean, someone once said that basically, software would eat the world. So guess what? Ai. Eat the software. And to Ben's point, people will lose jobs, and this is a major program shift. Some of the jobs aren't ever coming back, and so you gonna have, like, massive layoffs, and what people are gonna do so the consumption will drop, because people just don't have jobs they can spend. So I think the governments and the companies need to know and try to plan ahead, because the core, I guess, social compound we have capitalism is that if you make money as a capitalist, you are supposed to invest the money to create more jobs, build factories. But what we saw in the past decades is that people who made money from outsourcing globalization, they didn't build more factories. They did hire more workers. What did they do? They bought Yach, they bought art. And so all this rent seeking behavior didn't help the economy, and that is a problem. So if you take AI, that's going to be like compounded a train in times exponentially. So I think companies need to be aware of that. Governments need to be aware of that. It may be that we have to do either tax on robots or UBI just to what people picking up. Pitch Fox,

Mark Sanor  06:00

okay, let Alex go next.

Alex Zhuk  06:05

Thank you, Mark. Thank you for having me. Great to see all of you. I'm going to give you a very short introduction by myself, because I haven't met many of you. I'm a founder of an AI company that uses satellites to map the environmental footprint of every farm on the planet to help ensure food security through resilience, but also decarbonize agriculture, which is the second largest emitting sector in the world. I'm also on the side involved in critical mission asset development, primarily energy solutions and data centers, starting with building a digital twin of the electrical grid, because it's becoming very hard to connect to it, as many of now, in terms of an insight that I think hasn't been shared by these experts near me, I think we are under appreciating, or at least I did for a very long time, the way in which industries that have been established as part of humanity's operation for 1000s of years will be disrupted. So I work in agriculture. We've been farming in a mechanized, or at least structured manner for centuries, but you could argue 1000s of years we are actually for writing of climate reasons, but also just the way we've been farming since the 19th century, are on track to erode the size of arable land. It's about the size of Latin America, which puts in tricky position, especially with a growing global population, right? What do you mean by a road? So the way we farm, we've been farming for past 100 years is we've been blank to chemicals non stop on the soil, mechanically turning it over same crops. And what we found recently is that process over time kills us well. Now the question is, how do you deal with that? One way is to improve how we've been farming before. So precision agriculture, but you know, there's a completely different paradigm on hand, right? So, much like a century ago, in order to get a diamond, you would go down a mine shaft, you would dig it up, you would clean it, you process it, you ship it over. Now you can start with a kernel of carbon and grow it, right? Similarly, for example, with meat, we're getting to a point where we can grow real patties that are juicy, feel more or less the same taste and a real meat in a lab, what the consumption and the water and the energy needed to raise through animals at scale. So I think it's an opportunity in that AI can provide real resource abundance and a quality of life for each and one of us in terms of volume, that is fundamentally different from how we've been approaching it as humanity for hundreds of years. The question comes back to actually something you mentioned and several other panelists, which is, how do we tackle the social question, and how do we deal with the tension if the haves, if the gap between the haves and the have nots increases far greater than we've seen before.

Mark Sanor  09:17

So thank you, Alex, somewhat hopeful, maybe, maybe. Zoe, you're now on an AI panel. If you stick around, you could be on a health tech panel. What are your thoughts on on AI specifically scary and exciting. I

Zoe Cruz  09:35

mean, to me, this young man is Exhibit A why it all is going to be very good again. My concern is the transition. And right now, the way we allocate capital to wonderful things like AI is in at the traditional paradigm, which is, you know, stocks and bonds go up if x. Why, you see, there's a paradigm. I went and re read actually, and that's where AI is helpful. There is a book that was written in 1955 and it's basically the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. And it was the first time they talked about paradigm shifts. And in that they said scientists do a lot of work in a particular paradigm, and then Copernicus says, no, no, no, the sun doesn't go around the Earth. It's the other way around. That's a paradigm shift. So you do something different. So for me right now, as my 29 year old son says, technology exists to take the carbon out of the air to even get these meteorites to go off. The technology exists. How do you deal with the existing capitalist model, where you have existing capital allocated to things that will go to zero? So I do believe this is something spectacular and exciting, but I can't put the two and two together. That comes up with four in terms of regular transition. And you know, one of the things I said to my son, because the world is now run by HEPA gene octogenarians, never mind heptogenarians, why don't you guys get more involved? I mean, he's a brilliant young man. He started evolutionary biology. He plays the classical piano. He should get involved. And you know what he said? Talk about socio economic issues. What's the point? We have to wait until you guys die off. Now he didn't mean me, but hopefully, but

Mark Sanor  11:42

so we were in Germany at a round table, and apparently there's, there's legislation afoot to reduce or incentivize you to reduce voting at later ages. So you've sort of heard the panel, if you guys want to make some comments. But otherwise, I started opening

Ben Narasin  12:04

it up to comment on something I very much disagree with. Maisie. I don't think the evidence is that people are greedy, venal yacht buyers. I think it's quite the opposite look at so I look spend a lot of time in trucking space. Trucking is the number one job in the world by head count, although nobody wants to do it anymore, and there's an issue with aging out, etc, etc. But I was very concerned for a long time, because I was also looking at autonomous trucks and the massive displacement number one job in the world by head count, it should be done by machines. Okay, these people are out of work over time. So I started looking backwards. And one of the great example. See what the very one of the very first commercialized robots was the card scanner at the gas station. Now, if you're unfortunate enough to live in New Jersey and drive a car, you are in one of two states that unions which, by the way, I could not despise an entity more than I despise union. So please, no union leaders here have insisted that a human being pump your gas, an incredibly inefficient experience that drives me insane whenever I'm forced to deal with it. By the way, yesterday I was in a apartment. We were looking at buying an apartment here, and they have a man who pushes the button in the elevator like talk about it doesn't matter how much we do, the unions will make sure people have ridiculously stupid jobs and get paid. So anyway, what happened with all that great wealth that was created because now they didn't have to employ people to pump the gas in 48 states the United States, did people just stick with what they were doing? Absolutely not. They created what is now known as the convenience store when you go to a gas station, instead of just having gas pumps, which back then was all there was, maybe a counter with gum and candy, full fledged stores with all kinds of food and drinks and slushies, those stores ended up employing more people than the gas station attendant jobs represented same thing with the ATM everybody said, Oh my God, all these banks, the tellers ought to work more banks today than there Were with ATMs. I

Mark Sanor  13:59

think maisie's Point was different, because and Esther again, Esther Dyson asked, What billionaires, you know, have become better people in the last 1020, years, some have, but we, of

Ben Narasin  14:13

course, remind me, exaggerates you. It doesn't change you.

Rashmi Joshi  14:18

Hi. Thanks for that. I have actually three questions, so you might have to come back to me in a bit, but I'm curious, as an AI founder myself, what industries or new verticals Do you feel like are going to be established as a by factor or a consequence of us getting rid of all of these mundane tasks and grunt work type of jobs?

Alex Zhuk  14:42

Sure, happy to so the near term industry that has gone from, I would say, sort of in the shadows, a little bit boring, to very exciting. That was obviously energy. So we're realizing that if we're in a race at international level, we. Can't afford to lose, to concentrate now, as to how do we power these machines, both to train the models, but also humanoids, once automation is commercialized, which we're seeing happening very rapidly, that's exciting. How that will be solved, whether it's nuclear, whether it's other source of energy, is a guessing game, but that's a very exciting space. We haven't seen this growth infrastructure in decades. Personally. You know, I mentioned example of how we can similar to how we can synthesize proteins for medicine, create new foods, right? So, there is a company that was able to create cow free milk, and they tasked an AI to come up with ingredients that would when combined, taste, smell and feel like milk. And when you know, you might wonder what those ingredients were. Those were pineapple and strawberries, right? So ingredients are completely unintuitive to the human mind, that when combined, we're able to synthesize something that we want to consume. And I think we'll see that across food, I think we'll see that across health care.

Mark Sanor  16:03

But those are interesting vectors. But I think your question was the people, sort of your earlier point about job, you know, people who are going to be out of out of jobs, was your question like, Where will they be going? Where should they be where's the puck going for people? Is that it

Alex Zhuk  16:20

very difficult question for me to ask Mark, I would say the best bet would be for the verticals that are growing the fastest,

Mark Sanor  16:29

or maybe this goes back to Steven SPI about education. Anyone else want to answer that skill set

Speaker 1  16:38

would be, oh, I will cycle into something different, maybe more productive, just like, Well,

Ben Narasin  16:41

that was a great example. One of my one of my founders, made the point we brought a YPO group in, and he said, you know, you were talking about farming before the Civil War, 90% of the US population farmed. So we have seen a massive wipe out of an entire population of workers before it was all of America, but then they moved to cities. And guess what? When you're on a farm, you don't cut you cut your own hair. So all kinds of jobs were created that didn't exist when we had a mono culture of farming as the primary job, hair cutter, barber being one, and there were infinitely more. I think, by the way, if we could answer your question, we wouldn't tell you, because we'd be investing in at least two of us would be investing in it right now to get ahead of it. Yeah, well, yeah, I'm you must not have met many VCs, because we're very greedy in the first round to get all the ownership we can. That's the only chance we get. But it's, I think it's unpredictable, but I'm not worried that it won't happen. I think that, look, we have been through this before. The difference is that this is the first time software ever attacked the labor force instead of just process. But the labor force has been attacked many, many times. I mean, the Luddites are obviously the most commonly quoted example. But you know, it's like labor is lake water. It flows to the place it's needed. I do have material concern about, I'll just say, because I'm not gonna go too deep and dark here certain populations that might not have the historic advantage of or desire to reinvest in their own education. And I think that sometimes it's unrealistic for highly educated people to believe that everybody can be re educated, and that they'll even want to be and so where does that end up going? But here you want hope there's 100,000 unfilled jobs the United States right now in construction that are paying over $100,000 it's a good place to start. There's many places where jobs are unfilled. And lastly, a lot of the AI will augment people's ability and take over jobs that aren't filled, that are wanted and needed. As someone once said, You're not at threat of a of being your job being taken by AI. You're at threat of somebody that's better of using AI, taking your job.

Maisy Ng  19:01

I think I might have mis understood your question. So if you allow me, I'll give you a misunderstood answer. So I think there's, I mean, AI could be used also for, like robotics. So for example, I think, you know, we have really seen from Boston Dynamics that like dancing robots, but that isn't too useful for most of us. You don't buy a dancing robot. But a couple days ago, I saw this really interesting video. I think it's a US company that has basically built robots that can be used for domestic work. So can you imagine a robot that cleans your house? And this one was cool. So there's like two humanoid robots and standing side by side, and basically the owner comes in and gives them a bag of groceries, and the robot just look at them, and they sort it out. And if they took up a ketchup and they know its ketchup, they put at the top shelf of the fridge, they open it and they see there's eggs. And one robot picks up the eggs very gently, hands it to the other robot, who then puts it in the fridge. I mean, that's pretty cool, because you need computer vision. You also need an LL. Am, and you know, you can train a domestic robot for all scenarios, right? So the robot has to know that if it's an egg, you handle carefully, and this may be a quills egg, so he would know to the LLM that is a quills egg, it's an egg, so I handle it gently as well, so that, I think would bring tremendous, I mean, advantage for us, because nobody wants, you know, to do housework these days. Can I

Rashmi Joshi  20:20

just piggyback off that for a

Mark Sanor  20:24

second? One second, piggyback on the mic.

Rashmi Joshi  20:27

So as humanoid robots become more and more similar to us, let's say I can build you a robot that would be your perfect husband or partner, right? And it's indistinguishable from the real thing.

Maisy Ng  20:44

I think I can distinguish that

Rashmi Joshi  20:47

today, sure, but maybe five years from now, maybe not, right? So my question is, then, what is the value in being human?

Maisy Ng  20:57

I think we still have a soul, which I don't think that. I mean, we could probably train the robots at some point, but I don't know, it's a tough question to answer. So I think, I mean, that's something that we had discussed internally as well. I mean, so do we teach robots about, you know, like life after life and so forth? I mean, do do when you

Mark Sanor  21:17

say So internally? I mean, your fund internally discuss this friends

Maisy Ng  21:20

and within the partners and so what it means to be human, and basically, what do we need to teach, you know, the robots and so forth. So I don't know. I mean, it's an honest answer. I really don't know good to see how it goes,

Zoe Cruz  21:33

because I'm gonna leave after this. Are you gonna drop the mic and just go? What an amazing question, in the sense that, first of all, the idea that I'm going to have this made in my home, this robot that I can't control, that somebody else actually can control, I don't know that I'm going to get to that dysfunction. To me, we're not again, we don't need we can take off the table. How amazing AI is going to be. Let's take it. It's not. You don't need to argue it. It's going to be amazing. Okay, the land of plenty. This thing about human beings, my experience at Morgan Stanley was, if you in the ability of human beings to do amazing things if you inspired them, is mind boggling. If you inspired them, that's what humanity is. And so this idea that we're going to replace human beings, you're going to build me the perfect partner. No, thank you. What I want to ask again, of all of us, why is it that we talk in terms of the stakeholder? We're talking about is the shareholder of a company that's going to make a lot of money because they're going to fire employees, and therefore productivity is going to go up, and therefore you're going to be rich. That's basically the discussion. Yes. Now the old capitalist system that I started growing up in as a young, you know, graduate of a business school was you had three stakeholders as a company, shareholders at the head of the que, clearly, your employees and your community, those were the stakeholders. And I think how we got to the only stakeholder in any kind of for profit organization is your equity holders. Is what stops us from doing inspiring things. I'm not inspired to be rich or they say the shroud has no pockets, so when you're six feet under, it doesn't matter whether you are multi billionaire or sent a millionaire. Did your life make a difference? So with that, sorry.

23:53

Thank you.

Ben Narasin  23:54

Just one comment on humanoid robots. I mean, Japan has been trying to do humanoid robots for decades. It is not clear that human beings want them, and I'm looking think about your eggs, example. So what's better a humanoid with two hands and two feet, or an octopod, pod like creature that has eight you know, building for functionality will ultimately so you'll go back to one thing. You wanna know, it really scares me. So I was a writer for 10 years. I got a lot of freelance of freelance writing. I want to write a science fiction book on the following. Jump forward 10 years. Quantum works. Okay? I don't know how many of you spent time looking at Quantum. We have no flipping clue what it can do, right? It changes everything. And the only thing we worry about is end point, security. Well, how about literally everything else? It's things differently than human beings find ways to do things that we would never consider okay. So now we're 10 years forward. We're at chat GPT 10. Now someone express some optimism that China and the United States would get together for some positive Oh, hallelujah moment, which, yeah, good luck with. That I'll take 10 to one odds against it happening. China wants to replace us, not to be our buddy. So now you take chi and you take Putin. They, you know, probably two of the richest people on the planet, considering certainly how Putin has raped this country of its capital. And they each put a half a trillion dollars in a bucket, and they build out the largest data farm in the world that runs entirely quantum computing. And they bring in all the best people who, by the way, if they don't perform, get a bullet in their head and get buried in the back yard. And they get them to run the newest issues of chat, GPT, and they ask that system, that trillion dollar system, do just one thing, figure out how to destroy the United States. That's what I worry about. I hope we can stay strong enough that we have a really good chance. And while I'm not a political person and we, you know, the pendulum is a nightmare, we will spend well on defense. We will allow AI to flourish. And if we're not a leader, we have a very good chance of being a distant 12th 10 years from

Mark Sanor  25:57

now. And what's your last thought, Alex, actually, you're going to stick around because you do AG, so the panel you originally on, you'll stay, you'll stay for and rash me is going to come up along with Chris, and we're at two. This is why there's an AI for that. There's not an AI for my glasses. 229, so last, any last questions or thoughts for AI? Yes, sorry, David,

Speaker 2  26:27

so Alex, love what you doing. The thought is, you know, 50 years ago, there's probably people in a room, and they were talking about how spectacular we'd gotten at crop farming and the use of these fertilizers and this mechanization, all the stuff that's now proven problematic at that point seen ground breaking. What are your views on how we've grown in terms of thinking about the how of technology and being able to mitigate for all of because everything has trade off, so everything has unforeseen circumstances. Are we just plowing ahead, same as we did 6070, years ago, expecting perfect results, when actually we've seen that. That doesn't often happen. That's

Alex Zhuk  27:06

a fantastic point. And to give context to that comment, you know that process, which is the HP process, which allowed us to manufacture these chemicals for farm and very cheap and scalable, did prevent famines, and, you know, solved a lot of issues at the time were post World War Two, especially, really pressing. I think today, there's a component of that, which is, there are problems we can see in the near term, and it's extremely appealing to solve those at the expense of, you know, something we will have to figure out later down the line. And I will also compound on the comment I've heard earlier I can remember who mentioned it, which is that both great powers Today, China and America, realize that in particular, the AI race is the new nuclear race, and it's a race neither one of them can totally afford to lose, and the importance of which supersedes profits. So you combine that dynamic with where we today, and I don't see not only any one of us stopping, but how we could, even in the in national interest, slow down our progress given the dynamic internationally. Hope that answers your question, do you

Mark Sanor  28:22

want to hit that or you good. There's one other thing that I think you all should know. You all know open ai, llms, just give, give 3060, seconds on, on pricing model,

Maisy Ng  28:34

right? Yeah, we are investing in a new company that does the world's first large pricing model. So basically, there's lot of content in the world, but there's no price on it. So this company has figured out a way how to price different content. So just like you train an LLM with text input, I mean, with lots of text, so that you can figure out, using transformer model, what's the probability of the next word, and therefore, in doing so, be a performance sentence and reply to a query. So basically, LM has been trained on copious amounts of text to give you an answer when you input a tax query. So what these guys have done is, again, they've trained the large pricing model on a huge amount of content. And instead of figuring out a tax output, what it does is, when then confronted with a content input, it can then spit out the monetary value of that content. And so the use is immense. Because right now, if imagine, if I go to farmers market that was sharing this angle, we don't have time for the farmers market, but they can price any content.

Mark Sanor  29:31

But the point is this, this is, yeah, this is another new frontier that I think, is talk to talk. We'll be having round tables very soon. So thank you to this panel. We appreciate it. Alex, stay I'm joined our 361 firm community of investors and thought leaders. We have a lot of events created by the community as we collaborate on investments and philanthropic interests. Join us. You.

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Energy and Industrials Tech Pa...s NY Tech Summit Feb25, 2025

Sat, Mar 01, 2025 10:53PM • 26:59

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Automotive industry, automation, manufacturing jobs, human error, North American trade, energy transition, clean tech, renewable energy, low carbon gasoline, sustainable aviation fuel, methanol, nuclear power, electrical grid, AI in education, family offices.

SPEAKERS

Alex Zhuk, Eddy van der Paardt, Carl Pro, Matthew Friedman, Brian Neirby, Mark Sanor, Greg Licciardi

Mark Sanor  00:00

Now we're gonna second to last. Matthew's already on. He's transforming in the automotive industry. I've asked Eddie someone find Eddie Carl, so Industrial Tech, energy tech, Eddie ready. Always, always. I love that. We're gonna play ping pong. We're gonna put on a demo right now. Eddie was amazing. And I have to, like, say i We've yet to lose a match, and last night was just but like in life us, most important thing you can do is choose your partner. And I got Eddie. So why? Since you're on Zoom, Matthew, tell us how technology is transforming the automotive industry, if you could. And then we'll go on to the others,

Matthew Friedman  01:02

yeah, so, I mean, I'm a living, breathing example. With the work force becoming increasingly transient and particularly easy in manufacturing jobs, it's becoming very difficult to offer a very reasonable hourly wage and good benefit to get people that come in and want to establish a career in manufacturing. So automation is becoming all that much more important, not just from the you know, operational side, but from a quality and in Section side of things. So the visual in session component is critical. We are being not just asked, but effectively mandated, to invest more and more in capital so that there's as little human interaction with our process as possible, because as much individual human interaction as there is that still needs whatever minuscule percent of human error in place. And all you're doing is putting in 100% 200% 300% inspection to assure that bad parts are not getting out. It really doesn't make a difference, because especially with the important and huge critical parts that we're manufacturing, if there's one part that gets out, even if it's one part in a million, it creates a heck of a stir. So what I would say technology for us is finding a way to not just better design and engineer parts up front, but it's more derived at the process themselves. How can we eliminate as much of the human element out of the process?

Mark Sanor  02:39

So that begs lots of questions, but one of which, what about your competitors? What are you seeing on the competitive landscape and

Matthew Friedman  02:45

technology? So it's pretty much all the same. I mean, every time we go to a company to help provide us with a potential automation solution, we find out that our competitors on the same programs have already contacted us. So it's all the same. I mean, you know, the other thing that bears mentioning is that with what's going on, kind of, within the North American trade supply chain, is that other companies had gone down to Mexico to try and rely a little bit more upon the labor side of things, both from a pricing and you know, your standard hourly worker in Mexico tended to have a much better work ethic, tended to care a lot more about their job and take pride in their job and be more careful with with the, you know, the actions that are being contemplated by the current administration that bringing a big pressure in a lot of those companies that have moved down to next door are now looking to be short back

Mark Sanor  03:44

to the US. So who's providing the technology for you? You're talking about?

Matthew Friedman  03:49

We've got probably, you know, 10 to 15 different vendors in the Midwest. We're based here in Cleveland, Ohio. There's a number of companies here in Ohio. They're doing that. We have a number of companies in Michigan that are critical for that. The big impact on us we feel in very sophisticated, you know, heavy gage, very highly engineered products. When you see the Super Bowl commercial GM pick up that's pulling a space shut all up a rocky cliff, those are our parts that are very carefully designed to do that. But really, right now, the only company that's capable of doing that is a Canadian coup bill, and as a result of the contemplated tariffs that are going on right now, we're looking for alternative sources in the US to be able to provide that capability. We get to find it even, by the way, for this company's US based and Ohio based operations, just that are not equipped to do the same level of process.

Mark Sanor  04:48

Gotcha, maybe I'll turn it over to you. Ed, bigger picture, because you've been looking at this whole landscape. So yeah,

Eddy van der Paardt  04:57

maybe the own button. First of all, congratulations to Matt So, so just full circle, we visited his plant, I think, four years ago, and at the time, it was half the size and double the trouble. So, so you've come a long way, my friend and I wish you all the best. Is really interesting to see the company at the time, and it's really amazing to see how you've grown, how you've managed to escape all the problems and come out much better at agile and now on the way to become a massive success.

Mark Sanor  05:31

But unlike you, Eddie, he was my partner in pick up ball, and we couldn't beat Barbara, right? She's our champion over there, pickleball, silent

Eddy van der Paardt  05:39

kill her.

Mark Sanor  05:41

She did not cheat. She picked a better partner, apparently, better athlete.

Eddy van der Paardt  05:45

I think, I think she's a life long athlete, and we just pretend to

Mark Sanor  05:49

be one. That's over to you. Eddie,

Eddy van der Paardt  05:54

so what do you want me to talk about? Mark,

Mark Sanor  05:58

this is energy and Industrial Tech. This is what you live for, yeah. So I want an instance, an insight, or what scares it excites you, or both? Yeah.

Eddy van der Paardt  06:07

So, so here there's a couple what scares me in terms of, and let me first do, to do a two second background thing. So I'm sort of aware two hats with one hat I'm investing across the across the value chain, across the asset classes for a family office. And we're sort of agnostic the other hat, which is more relevant hat, is the the hat where we invest in, essentially clean tech, agri tech, and energy transition. And so in that space, we invest, typically in early stage break through technologies that could meaningfully contribute to the decarbonization of the world. And that's a super exciting arena for a number of reasons. One this will, this is not a one and done problem. This, unfortunately will for the next several decades at a minimum, before the so called AI solves all our problems, we we will have to sort of cope with the consequences of climate change, whether we believe it or not, and and have to mitigate and adapt. And in terms of energy, we have to create significantly more energy rather than less, because the way we set up, our world increasingly demands more energy and and that more energy, hopefully can be drawn from mostly renewable resources. We've come a long way, and that's the part where stuff excites me. There's a very significant percentage of that energy already in wind and solar who are now mature, respected, sort of EBITDA positive technologies. But as a venture investor, I'm not investing in these because they deliver sort of, you know, mid, low digit return. So that's not very interesting to me. So we, we are particularly interested in investing in sort of local carbon alternatives for technologies that are up and coming. So for example, low carbon gasoline, we know EVs are eventually, hopefully, what's, what saves our transport needs. But only 3% of the world is, is EV and over the next 25 years, it's a massive curve to climb, and therefore, there always be need for, you know, internal combustible engine cars. Luckily, otherwise, Matt will be out of a business park.

Mark Sanor  08:39

He he can, he can build

Eddy van der Paardt  08:43

for so, so low

Mark Sanor  08:46

carb fuel company going,

Eddy van der Paardt  08:50

yeah, so So with 361 or as a result of an introduction from 361 we invested in a company called Naro, which had two massive pivots, one, from low carbon gasoline to soft sustainable aviation fuel, and then from soft to methanol. Methanol is going to be preferred fuel for shipping. Going forward, there's massive amounts of CO two emissions by shippers, and they need particularly driven by European regulations, look for new alternatives that are lower emissions. And those are, you know, either LNG or methanol. Methanol is very big up and coming sort of fuel, transport fuel, and they're going to be the first large one point M, 1.9 M ton ethanol plant in the states that deliver sort of the CI score that you want.

Mark Sanor  09:53

When does it come online?

Eddy van der Paardt  09:57

There's, there's so. So what I'm excited about this if. Investing in those technologies. And the interesting thing in that space is that there's very few sort of, let's say, you know, Silicon Valley type venture firms investing in this, because it's all real assets, cap, ex, intensive stuff. And people, a lot of people, a lot of venture has to shy away from that

Mark Sanor  10:20

well, that segue to Carl. And I know you've also looked at paralysis,

Eddy van der Paardt  10:24

we have an investment in a paralysis company as well. Over to

Carl Pro  10:30

you, yeah, I'm probably the only non financial person around here. I'm a nuclear engineer, so I'm familiar with everything from new plants, from the Navy side, the small, what I call the Corvette plants, to the big, 1200 megawatt plants that we built. Also did the combustion turbines, wind mills, solar panels, and did a little stint as a power broker bought and sold electricity in California. And what scares me is the fact that everybody looks at power generation, and if you're looking at data centers, there's they're looking for a place to find some power, and now you're seeing they're starting up Three Mile Island. They're starting up another nuclear plant that was in Michigan, that was called that was closed down, and those are 600 mega watt plants. I mean, you're pulling a lot of power, and they're locating them there because they can't move it. When I was in California, I couldn't move power from the north of California to the south of California, because when you look at those transmission lines, you got to go through switch charts, and you got to buy space in that switch chart, and there is no space. So California can't move power from up north, where it's real cheap, down south, where it's real expensive. So that's the other thing is, you know, and then solar and wind. I didn't buy any solar wind power, because the risk mitigation of that is you have to back that up. If you have a sunny day and it's real hot and your windmill doesn't turn and you're supposed to put 100 megawatts on the grid, you got to go buy it on the spot market. You'll probably go bankrupt unless you've bought a contract. So everything that you buy in renewable energies, you have another back up power contract, a tape contract to cover that. So nobody is looking at the US transmission system really hard. The voltages are all different. Some interconnects don't work. Cross state lines. There are breakers that never have

Mark Sanor  12:49

all right. Carl, I'm giving you as much money as you want. You're, you're the equivalent of Doge, you can, you can, you can make this change. What will you do?

Carl Pro  12:58

I think there needs to be a national effort similar to the Federal Highway plans, where they did the interstates, that they go out and do that same thing with electrical distribution grid, standardize it around the country and upgrade it. So the one, it's EMP design, so you know, you don't get shut down by somebody putting off a small, inexpensive EMP weapon in the back of a van. The other thing I worry about is the gene pool, and I use this because we built a plant in Mississippi. In Mississippi, the smart kids go to the oil field who you have left are not the sharpest tools in the shed. So I always said this, this gene pool is very shallow. Our schools really suck, and we've got to lift those all up by their bootstraps and get them all better. Don't know how you do it. Yep. My wife was a school teacher. She retired, and she worked in a school where it was the school of last resort. Those kids had been thrown out of every public school in the Pittsburgh area and every private school, and they had, they were taking them on there.

Brian Neirby  14:14

Brian, so I appreciate the background on this. I been doing quite a bit of research in this space, and just recently invested in a direct to chip water cooled, containerized data, you know, mobile data center unit out of Vienna, Austria, and bringing it to North America and other parts of the world. I'm curious, in this research, you mentioned nuclear power, and in doing that work, I read a study that you're 19 years out before that really becomes life. I don't know if that's fact or fiction. You mentioned 600 megawatts, and from what I've understand, it takes 20 million in capital stand up one megawatt, and then two years of dealing with cities and. Land and blah, blah, blah, then you got hydro power. So you've got these huge demands on AI, got huge demands on the grid, like, how do we how do we account for all this with all these different delivery models to provide data center capacity to these technologies?

Carl Pro  15:19

I can tell you, the strategy that I looking at, because I'm trying to protect what we're doing, is that I'm looking at every coal mine and every steel mill that is shut down, and every coal fired power plant, because when they demolish them, they leave the switch yards there. Those properties are worth 10s of millions of dollars, and they're just sitting there, and I'm looking to pick up a couple of them just to hold on to.

Alex Zhuk  15:47

I have a lot of questions. So Ed, you have a question for you, but you just be so I'm gonna ask you first, with regards to the brown fields, which I'm assuming we refer to, I totally agree. I think that's the relatively low hanging fruit. Do you, from your experience, think that's already sat shrewd, meaning that's a strategy already. Of the big ones have gone out and bought up all the steel mills, coal plants, factories, etc.

Carl Pro  16:14

No, there's still a lot available. If you focus in on on the coal mine areas. That's why there's so many battery plants being built in the southern Panhandle of Ohio, in West Virginia, because the power is there. But in my neighborhood of Pittsburgh, there's four really sweet sites that had power plants on them that

Alex Zhuk  16:37

yeah, so completely. Thank you. And then Adi, so to give you just two minute context, the company I may have introduced previously as an a tech company, but we raise capital from Microsoft because we are turning agricultural soils into a carbon sink. And I completely agree with you, actually everything you said, including the capital stack and what many term as the value of death, which, for those who aren't aware, is essentially when a company has raised venture for equity, has de risk completely the technology, but needs to build a factory, or, first of a kind, physical facility, and it's very expensive to do so, and the two options they're left with is either raise so much venture capital that there's nothing left of the company or go to a bank, but not bankable yet, because it's the first of the client facility. And so what you seeing is many companies dying, even though they are building solutions that are needed for the world and also have been de risked. I've been also advising family offices on the climate side, because I believe families can play a very pivot role in this, because they're structurally more flexible. I'm just curious how you're thinking about this, and if you you know generally, what are your thoughts

Eddy van der Paardt  17:53

on this? Well, it's interesting you te this up, and we didn't, we didn't play ping pong yesterday, or did we compare notes? So we're actually looking at probably raising some type of platform or fund to from family office to provide that capital, because it's not coming from a venture world, and for the right reasons, it's not coming from the infrastructure world yet either, because it's, it's, it is bankable, but only if you have enough equity. And the equity is not coming from that piece of equity is not coming from the infrastructure guys, although

Mark Sanor  18:23

they they could cross over a little bit, they are. They

Eddy van der Paardt  18:25

can cross over a little bit for fid capital Right, right before you make the decision to put a billion dollars of steel into the into the ground. And we're looking at a number of investments where we invested in that are looking for either hundreds of millions of a bill or a billion plus more, and it's not coming from the IRA anymore, because that's not killed as well. So where do you go? Well, well, that little piece of capital, which is, no, it's not a little maybe 10 million, 40 million, something like that, right? Is a perfect sort of play for family officers who like to have the risk. Sort of risk sort of risk reward structure is very significant that can come in the form from of a convertible which we did, which we did number of times, where you basically, as a downside protection, have the ownership of the technology and the assets that are there as a collateral, and that can be a digital twin of the plant, etc, etc, etc. And a technology as down side protection, as upside you have, sort of a convertible into the equity round the moment infrastructure partner will invest, which comes with a significant upscaling of the value, plus a, you know, I would say market is now mid teen to high teen return on your on your money, and it's also short term duration, so it's typically 12 to 18 months time in between. Sort of a you have the value of death starting, and your fid starting, and there. And there are a number of of companies to your point, that are stuck in this position. Great technology. Good team raised a bunch of capital from well known investors and cannot move forward, which is obviously also from, like, an A from like, you know, a global perspective, a shame, right? Because these technologies are working, and they've been proven to work yet they just, you need capital to scale up. And so, so I think there's, a lot of work to be done. There's a lot of work to be done by by sort of somehow syndicating, even 361 can play a significant role there. Syndicating this with family offices. Number of them take the lead, fed it out, write the memo, and others join. And I think family office type capital, which is relatively more flexible always, than institutional capital, in many ways, can play a lead role there.

Greg Licciardi  20:53

I would just add that the your comments on education and the need for improving. I think AI will actually help that and is helping that greatly. I teach at Fordham and Seton Hall, and we're taking all types of master classes on how to elevate our teaching using AI, and it's pretty cool stuff, and it's making education more accessible and tutoring more accessible to more students. And Mike, my kids have tutors, but a lot of families can afford tutors. But now with AI, they can. It's it's pretty cool.

Mark Sanor  21:31

And we have another company blueprint for kids, which is doing this very

Carl Pro  21:34

interesting project years ago, and in this kind of dates myself, but it's probably 20 years ago. We did a AI training platform for the Air Force, and you basically put this little ball cap on your head, and it presented material to you, and when you understood it, your brain waves did a shift. And if you didn't understand it, it kept presenting it in a different manner. So it was,

Mark Sanor  21:58

why don't we bring that to our children? That's pretty cool. Seriously, why? I mean, I know that in war time and in defense, which is going to be the next panel, we come up with lots of innovations. But why is that not trickling down?

Carl Pro  22:14

It just cuts that on the shelf, and the Air Force now uses it. Well, why

Mark Sanor  22:19

don't you and I go find that? Let's get that too. Yeah, no, let's, let's buy it first, and then we'll figure out to do Matthew TED talk on that. Matthew Friedman, do any, any, any wrap up thoughts on your, your, your part of the world?

Matthew Friedman  22:39

Yeah? So sure. I mean, like, what I was saying is, there's great opportunity, there's great unknown. The opportunity excited. There's a lot of people that are going to, not going to make it through this shake out. I would say, you know, a testament to my staff and I that, as any graciously mentioned, we've, we've made it through the very interesting roller coaster ride over the last six, seven years of, you know, strikes and COVID and tariffs and whatever, and so it's going to remain to be seen with the shake of it, but I think companies like myself that are nibble and are able to adapt to the changing environment is going to be critical. I think automation, as we discussed earlier, is also going to be critical, the more we can do to rely less upon

Mark Sanor  23:34

the ele

Brian Neirby  23:36

no drink it over

Mark Sanor  23:41

there you can get now.

Matthew Friedman  23:43

Point, but you know that's gonna cook you a lot of jobs, but it was necessary in the current automation environment for auto mode.

Mark Sanor  23:54

Excellent. Any last comments from the crowd or panel? You know it's not about technology, but I know you've got plants in Canada, Mexico. We got tariffs going in, going out, turn on, turn off. How you managing that?

Matthew Friedman  24:18

Well, I mean, the answer is, we were looking at it both as a whole additional because we're looking can move production from one place to the other, we're doing it. The key is, you know, we're only in Canada. We're only in Mexico, not because we're bringing in parts from other places.

Alex Zhuk  24:40

I Hi, Don. So that's so what

24:49

happens in between on the slide then Austin morning?

Mark Sanor  25:14

Go, Yeah, how's it been going?

Matthew Friedman  25:22

All as definitely, line production, contact the US. It will adapt accordingly. Well, position new things on the tariff side of things. Again, what we're seeing is with the delays, right? Originally was supposed to be, you know, February, then it was going to be March, and now sometime in April that they're going to take effect. And it's definitely caused the leaders of both Canada and Mexico to respond and do things accordingly, mostly in the fight against alleged drug trafficking and importation in the US. So if those companies, I think rice occasion like that, while they shined them and done in particular Mexico, then I think they will see a little bit less of aggression on the terror front.

Mark Sanor  26:10

Fair enough. All right. Well, for a moment I didn't think we'd have our panelists for the last panel, but they suddenly appeared. Gator has invested in Dan's company, so it's a good they didn't even know that each other would be here today. So that's great. Sara, I don't think is going to make it, but I know the ELA has a a dual use fund as well. So let's just first. Thank Eddie, thank Carl. Thank Matthew, I'm joined our 361 firm community of investors and thought leaders. We have a lot of events created by the community as we collaborate on investments and philanthropic interests. Join us. You.

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Health, Ag and Ed Tech Panel -...ech Summit (Feb. 25, 2025) (1)

Sat, Mar 01, 2025 10:54PM • 19:43

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Healthcare innovation, AI solutions, value-based care, healthcare institutions, national emergency, AI convenience, agriculture technology, carbon credits, nutritional content, small-scale farming, food security, vertical farming, healthcare incentives, virtual drug trials, surgical bots.

SPEAKERS

Rich Sobel, Speaker 5, Mark Sanor, Speaker 3, Robin Blackstone, Rashmi Joshi, Alex Zhuk, Kris Wood

Mark Sanor  00:00

Roshni, Chris, come up quickly, introductions and insights, and then we go to what scares it excites you. Thank you guys. So why don't you start? Actually, Chris hasn't spoken yet. Surprisingly.

Kris Wood  00:20

Okay, Hi, I'm Chris Wood. Very quickly, I am with a company called Three BP partners. We are investors, technologists and operators that effectively now in health care, rather than sell products and services, rather than sell solutions, we're selling what we think the health care system really needs, which are outcomes and cash so we can you're selling cash. We're selling cash. Okay, we're selling cash. How you doing that? We are we are basically partnering with the health care institutions, taking risks with them, operating the business, businesses we're creating with them and sharing the financial and outcome rewards with them. So we're not a traditional vendor saying, Let us sell you something. It's let us invest in something. You give us your data, you give us your brand, you give us your distribution. We will create products that are incremental to you, to bridge you to value based care and outcome based care. What scares me is, look, I don't need to go into how messed up our health care system is, right? We all know that this country is investing twice as much as anyone else per person in health care, and we're getting the least value for our money. That that is also trend or coming down to our health care institutions. McKinsey has published reports saying our health care institutions are two to 300 basis points under water in terms of the difference between what returns they're getting from payers, the growth in that versus the growth in inflation and and they're $500 million behind in the last three years in terms of the discrepancy in payments, right? So their margins are single digits. They're getting lower. Our health care systems are in trouble. And, you know, we're still fatter and less healthy than everyone else. I think this is a national emergency. I think we can wind up, or we don't, certainly don't want to end up as a nation of wall es, right? If you remember the movie where, you know, we're just a bunch of puffy, non thinking individuals who, you know we're living on machines, basically because we can't take care of ourselves. I think this is a national emergency. What excites me is that always within massive problems becomes massive opportunities, right? The technology is here. AI is here. Solutions exist. Solutions themselves are not the answer. They're part of the solution. Technology is not the answer, they're part of the solution. But how the entire business model of health care really needs to be rethought. The incentives need to be rethought. But if you can help figure that out, I think that's a massive opportunity. Who wants to go? I think she should. Ladies. Ladies second,

Rashmi Joshi  03:16

thank you. First of all, Mark, nice to be here with all of you. My name is rash me, Joshi. I'm the founder and CEO of Asha AI, and I'm a serial entrepreneur. So I've been building businesses since I was 16 years old, working currently on company five. My third is founder, CEO. Been very fortunate to have had a couple of exits along the way, and I also advise a small number of family offices and funds on specifically health care, AI and impact investments, which I personally believe should be every investment that we make, especially in this room.

Mark Sanor  03:49

What was the 16 year old business when you were 16? It

Rashmi Joshi  03:52

was a dance company. So I grew up singing, dancing, acting and modeling. So I performed all over the place, and had a great time doing it. What scares me most is that a lot of the innovation that's happening now, thanks to AI, is all based on making our lives more comfortable and more convenient, and there hasn't been a tremendous, tremendous amount of thought going into figuring out what happens when we make our lives too convenient. What do we actually do when we're not forced to innovate? And that scares me, because it could mean the breakdown of our innovation fabric as a society. I think most of us as innovators on this panel too. We build things out of necessity, and so when we don't have that neces necessity driving us to ask questions, then how do we actually create new innovations that are leaps and bounds ahead of the way that we live now? And what inspires us? Because very easily we could say, you know, most people who are. Are retired, experience a huge decline in terms of their health, in terms of their well being, in terms of their mental health, they're less likely to reach out to their communities and connect with people. So we could go in that direction if we're not careful about how we decide to respond to this influx of AI tech, but we could also go in the opposite direction and say, Hey, we're going to take this as an opportunity to focus our energies, our efforts, our time, on building something that's truly leaps and bounds forward. So that scares me, but I'm also optimistic, as we probably all are in this room, and I hope that it inspires more of us to build more community, to have more conversations like this, and to start building more innovative solutions to bigger problems than the ones we're experiencing now.

Mark Sanor  05:56

So I guess you've already answered that question, Alex in a different way, or unless you have any additional thoughts. I mean, do

Alex Zhuk  06:03

you want me to give instruction of the company and how it relates to agriculture? Yeah, sure, yeah. I mean, very quickly. Once again, Alex, great to be here, founder of a company that use satellites and AI models to map the footprint that farmers are having on the environment. Fundamentally, it has two purposes. One is to measure the agriculture sector's contribution to climate change and how we can solve it. But two and where we see the world heading is actually being able to measure the carbon the farmers are sequestering by adopting climate positive practices in the form of carbon credits, and that is important, especially when you zoom out and consider all farmers.

Mark Sanor  06:49

So in doing this, what surprised you the most in your journey? Sure,

Speaker 3  06:54

agriculture specifically, but I imagine there are other sectors, and

Mark Sanor  06:59

by the way, you raise like $18 million yeah, so Bloomberg and

Alex Zhuk  07:04

Bloomberg Microsoft, and then the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore for various teach reasons, and the world operation on multiple continents. What surprised me about agriculture is one the tradition inherent in the industry. You know, these farmers have been doing things their own way for generations. It's family business. You know, you need to come in humble and not just, you know, be with typical Silicon Valley, you know, shaker and disrupt her, because this is, you know, not just their livelihood, but their land and their legacy. And that has consequences, both in terms of how you work with the farmer community, but also fundamentally speed of scale, you can just come in and expect to grow like a hockey stick, because cycles are quite literally annual. You plant, you try, you come back in Europe, you reassess. So I would say not to bore anybody else more, I would say the biggest surprise was the Jux disposition between the Silicon Valley philosophy of building a start up and the reality of how the agriculture sector operates.

Mark Sanor  08:14

Makes sense. So anyone else have any questions in the health, AG, education sectors for our panel, can

Robin Blackstone  08:30

you use your tech? Thanks. Hi, Rob and Blackstone. Can you use your technology to determine nutritional value in the foods that you're evaluating? Because, you know, right now, there's a big discussion around Ultra process, foods and and the actual value, to your point that we're getting out of it, if you could somehow pair that, that might be actually extremely valuable to people. So

Alex Zhuk  08:52

you mentioned that because we actually started out doing that. So the you know, when you look at satellites all around us, the data can be used for whatever purpose you want, because ultimately, we're doing is we're understanding the chemical composition of the soil and the plants that cover it. So we originally started out by with the idea of understanding the nutritional complexity the soil and the plants, and then using that to understand where exactly do you want to spare your nitrogen, or exactly do you want to apply your other fertilizer? The challenge came in terms in terms of commercialization, when, because we weren't bringing new money to farmers, whereas of carbon credits, you're laying a new income stream on top of what they're already getting, which is yield. And unfortunately, the system today pays farmers only for the yield, nothing into account the health aspect of the food or the soil, and they operate on very similar margins, so they're very risk averse to try and compute new things. But to answer your question In short, you know, as we see the trends in terms. Us becoming much more interested in what goes into our bodies. Yes, technology can support us being able to provide more nutritionally Whole Foods. I actually

Speaker 5  10:09

have a question about that as well. You always have the hard questions.

Rashmi Joshi  10:15

So I actually agree with you that we're living in one of the biggest genocides of our time right now, and we don't really even know it. Most of us in this room are consuming on a daily basis 1000s of ingredients that are illegal in most European countries, and there's no way to avoid them. So to follow up on what you just said is it, are you actually able to determine the nutritional content of the actual produce that's being grown, not the soil, but the produce. And the question to follow up on that is, when you have companies like Monsanto that have IP on specific seeds, and you have neighboring farms that are not using those seeds, but as we all know, seeds disperse naturally. So if you are a farmer that's not using that specific type of crop and Monsanto seeds gets into your lot, they can actually sue you for using their products without explicitly paying for them, which is how they've squashed millions of small scale farmers to date. So what are you doing to protect small scale farming, and are you actually able to detect nutritional content of produce? I

Alex Zhuk  11:22

produce. Great questions. Great questions. I'll start with the first one, which is, can we quantify and measure the nutritional content produce? We measure the application and the growth of the plants, so not just oil, but also the leaf canopy, but a lot of the nutritional content actually is downstream. How you process it? What do you mix it with, etc, etc. So we can help with that, but we're not going to be the entire answer in terms of helping small hoard farmers, this is something that I'm particularly passionate about, but it is a harder technical challenge, and what I mean by that is, using satellites. One of the magical things about it is that if you can measure carbon in a big farm in Iowa or Australia, you can measure carbon on a farm in Ethiopia, for example. And given that a lot of the countries in the Global South as we term it, have skipped over the land lines and are all digitized with cell phones. There's a digital path to where you can measure the amount of footprint of somebody's small quarter farm and then pay them for that impact, if the proper system is to centralize that. Do we see that a skill today? No, but my hope is that we're going to get there soon, around the winter.

Rich Sobel  12:43

Okay, I have a question. So we're looking at this today, and maybe just over the hill, maybe looking back a little bit. But you know, there's so much technology that's going on, and there's so many problems in food security, we're familiar Eddie and I with vertical farming and indoor farming, and now we're going to have a problem with people coming in and being seasonal workers. Just one small example of what might be resolved if you could figure out other models using technology to feed the planet and to do it with less microbes and plastics, if you can do it in a controlled environment. This maybe applies to health tech as well. Where do you think we are in the percentage utilization of technology compared to the technology that's reasonably available? And how long do you think it's going to take before we see that sort of tipping point where these problems are really being solved, not just on the margin, but in a material way.

Kris Wood  13:50

Well, look, I'll speak to at least the health tech side of that, and I think a lot of things you were saying about food and, AG, it's very similar, which is, there's a misalignment right now between incentives and outcomes, right? Whether, whether it's are you incentive for the amount of food you make or for the nutritional quality of the food you make? Are you incented for keeping people healthy or you incented by the amount of procedures that you do on sick people? We all say we want one thing, right, but people are paid by the other, right? And I had a mentor decades ago who used to tell me, lead, lead somebody by their w2 and their hearts and minds follow, right? So, and that's that's fair. So until you align those incentives, it is going to be difficult. I look, I can speak to health, I can't speak to AG, there is a lot of technology there. I think one of the challenges, at least in health care, is you have entrenched institutions who are motivated economic ly by certain. Regulatory frameworks and and they're slow to act. And so getting those things done at scale right now, until you change the business model, is very difficult, right? That's why we said we're trying to change the business model. We're selling outcomes and we're selling cash. We're not we're not trying to just sell you technology, because guess what? Mr. Hospital, you don the money to pay for it anyway, right? So I think you really have to look fundamentally at the incentive structure and the business structure to really make until that change becomes really prevalent. I

Rashmi Joshi  15:34

think it's going to take too fucking long to change our policy. So I've given up on that. And as an innovator, I focus on, what can I change, and how can I actually spearhead innovation in such a fashion that it forces the health care system to change, and we're experiencing that as we speak. So with ASHA, my company not to go on too much and give you guys a pitch, but I built Asha after my grandma went through cancer as a tool that would help elderly folks, those with disabilities, people who are bed ridden or going through cognitive decline, to have a tool that they can just chat with that's going to help them to stay on top of care. And since then, it's evolved into a platform where now different kinds of health care organizations are approaching us, asking to leverage our technology in ways that we had never conceived of. One example of that is the head of clinical innovation at memorial stone Kettering approached me and said, rash me, have you thought about using Asha to help us run virtual drug trials? Because we've been looking for a tool like this for the last 10 to 15 years. We've tried building it ourselves, and it hasn't worked. And imagine if you are, you know, stage four pancreatic cancer. You're sitting at home and you're thinking yourself, well, I've just been through this intense treatment. There's no way I can participate in this amazing research study that I found on the opposite side of the world, in New York, when I'm based in India and afford flying there, in and out and staying there every few weeks, every few months, to report my outcomes. Well now actually, you can do that through Asha without getting off your couch, so having the ability to participate in potentially life saving clinical research from any part of the world, no matter who you are, what kind of state you have in terms of your health, is such a massive leap forward, and it's something that is actually very aligned with incentives across the board, with the clinicians who are responsible for managing your care with the pharma company, who is looking for greater insights on how patients are responding to their medications, and it's also much easier for family care givers and patients. So I think if you're driving any kind of a systemic change, you have to be bullish about it, and you have to find ways to align incentives, rather than waiting for the policy to catch up to you. And I also think that no one's asked this question yet, but I think it's an important and valid one, which is, how is AI going to change health care? I think eventually we'll start seeing care being delivered at home again, we'll start having things like even routine surgeries being done at home, because you'll have surgical bots that could easily come to your home. You have a greater chance of recovery. Because I think it's crazy that we send all sick people into this great little place called a hospital or clinic where you're already immunocompromised and you're spending time with other sick people, your likelihood of getting sick from just going to the hospital is actually much higher, right? Or

Mark Sanor  18:49

sometimes you're like my father, you don't even want the care that he needs because he doesn't want to go there exactly, exactly speaking of cared self care. I'm going to make an audible. You may not like sure that we're going to take a break right now. I put the raw I put, I stack this up with lots of panels and didn't put a break in. So I'm going to take some time from this panel and the next one, a little bit. Just get some movement and have continue this discussion and your break and come back at 305, movement is good. All right, take a break. I'm joined our 361 firm community of investors and thought leaders. We have a lot of events created by the community as we collaborate on investments and philanthropic interests. Join us. 

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

immersive entertainment, community building, AI potential, mental health, social isolation, technology impact, addiction treatment, digital media, fintech innovations, therapeutic applications, virtual reality, oxytocin release, social cohesion, AI-powered platforms, community healing

SPEAKERS Chris Lawes, Peter Rafelson, Mark Sanor, Marcos Isaac, MJ Gottlieb, Speaker 1, Jeff Zawadsky

Mark Sanor  00:00

We're going to have a little more fun. We're going to talk about media as it enters the tech world travel. We're going to talk about immersive entertainment, growing communities with MJ community. That's enough. That's I mean, to kick us off. I just do want to show that 361 is actually finally getting with the times. You don't, you won't, you will soon, at some point, access this of how you hopefully you still need me as a human at some point or my teams. But we're going to get mark out of the way in 2025, with that. That's the That's the theme. So you'll see, actually, this is a good example. This is the domes. You can see. You can when you come on here, you will see what it is we're talking about, or you can see what kind of deal it is, what they're solving for here we pitched in Miami. You can ask questions of it. You can provide insights and all these things. So I say that to that's where we're heading our own. We're trying to move with the zeitgeist. But let's is there you got it. So since you've got it, why don't you share an insight as technology? That's a great picture, right there? Really exciting, how technology is scaring and exciting your worlds?

MJ Gottlieb  01:43

Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that scares the hell out of me is the ability for technology. So technology has the ability to make the world a better place, or it has the ability to destroy and so it depends upon, you know, whose hands you put it in, you know, and what you're doing, you know, I have a community of about 300,000 members in sobriety and addiction, and with the whole goal of bringing people together and healing, right? And we had some amazing conversations on AI and how AI is making the world a better place. And my first question is, okay, in the wrong hands, how can AI hurt? So it's the same conversation here. So that's what scares me. What excites me is text ability to bring communities together. I don't know if you guys remember, there's this great documentary, I think it's called Blue Zones, and they talked about how people could live Centurions past 100 years old. And what is it about, you know, and you looked and in a lot of the they're eating worse and all this. And it's community. And so what excites me is that, the fact that when you bring affinity groups together and can create community, people live longer. And so if the community is the answer to so many problems, from health to healing, then we need to start leaning in to more community and affinity based tech. So that's what scares me. That's what excites me.

Chris Lawes  03:17

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I'm definitely on the double edge sword side of this. So my world is very much immersive technology and media and the domes, but also holograms and, you know, these different kind of virtual reality experiences. And the end result of all that is basically making making content experiences and gaming experiences that trick the brain more and more effectively into being realistic and into being real, which is very powerful and very positive for teaching and training or for social cohesion and building, you know, trust and intimacy relationships and can be very powerful for for therapeutic applications, but also obviously it could be used to, you know, we joke around in the immersive industry about like horror films that you know you really don't want to make, like the ring or these kinds of, like classic, you know, mall horror movies for like VR headsets and domes, because it the technology is to the point where you can actually, like, Scar someone You know, and truly traumatize them, which, you know, shows the power of the medium, but obviously shows how, you know, dangerous it is. And same thing with AI, you can make, you know, all these new technologies can make it so realistic and so convincing and so engaging that you know, you have to really keep track of your mind, and, you know, pay attention to what you're doing. So unfortunately, I think that that's going to happen for better or for worse. And so companies that come in need to be good stewards of that technology, and we make sure we use it for good purpose.

Mark Sanor  04:53

So we have a Zoomer and Peter, do you want to introduce yourself?

Peter Rafelson  05:05

Thanks, guys, yeah, so I spent my entire career at the cross roads of media and tech and finance. I come from three generations of Hollywood entertainment, but I got deeply into copyright and production. I've written 30 number one songs, including open your heart from Madonna. But what happened was I started managing all of my own copyrights and rights, and eventually I had to learn how to administrate and my sense and do all the legal work. Well, technology really helped me to create a platform which allows the more stringent corporations to accept the proof of title, all of the regulations and restrictions that large companies have, and really fin tech innovations that have driven so much advancement. What does this matter to investors? It's crucial to understand that for the first time, the scaling of digital media is is everywhere, right? Whether it's just on a brand or raising money, it offers an opportunity to invest in ways that never existed before. I'll give you a great example in in creating large scale projects like films and television IP, it was hard for people to invest in in smaller participation. Now with tokens and NFT and funding and group funding and crowd sourcing of crypto, those fractionalized ownerships of these of these titles can really include many more cross border, international, global investments and the early adopters, the ones who get in earliest, are going to really benefit them. I'm

Mark Sanor  07:17

going to call another audible. I'm going to bring music community together. This is to this was the you can see the screen. This was our mental health. Oh, I

MJ Gottlieb  07:34

don't think there's anybody that I've met who hasn't had a friend a family member

Mark Sanor  07:39

who just we have shape. I'll just show this real quick. I believe it. I'm not as adept at this. Need to be. But this was the lead singer of corn, right? The guitarist, yeah, who basically went into places. People that were that were just drugs couldn't help. Therapists couldn't help. You know what helped music, use

Speaker 1  08:04

and treatment has grown and changed, as you can imagine the early days of a a you might see in them. So

Mark Sanor  08:10

immersive entertainment, community and what you do this is these are just some common themes. Now, if we could just all this, do this on an airplane. Now, tell us what you're doing with technology.

Marcos Isaac  08:24

Well, if you want to get that technical on the health side, I would say that there are two things that are great for you that make your life better. One is having more serotonin in your body and more oxytocin. If you want to get a little bit technical, as opposed to dopamine,

Mark Sanor  08:43

play more bracket sports, ping pong? Yeah,

Marcos Isaac  08:46

absolutely. That's why I decided to do more tennis than golf, because it's great for your brains and for your body. But the reason I'm trying what I'm trying to say when I relate this to travel, for example, people are spending a lot of time having these experiences. Instead of traveling on social media and learning everything about everything, my son was traveling with me. He wanted to go to Rome once last year, and I took him, and he was I've seen it all. I knew it all. There was no excitement anymore, because he had seen everything in with the social media. However, that's on one side, and what the way I look at is that you're getting a lot of dopamine, if you want to call it that way, from the social media looking at it, you're getting a kick out of out of that he enjoyed, for example, talking to kids about what he was experiencing. But at the same time, the thing that worries me is that we lose the passion for travel, to get curious and to get to experience things, and that is what helps mental health. Among other things, it's really positive to for you to have that curiosity on that side. That's what scares me the most. What

Mark Sanor  09:53

that was pretty elegant. Well done there.

Marcos Isaac  09:58

What? What I be Well, I think it could be great if we have aI with us in every day. We will have less time to work, but hopefully we will have more time to travel. So that could be a positive. So that's my hope.

MJ Gottlieb  10:14

Yeah, I was gonna say, and that Wes was talking about oxytocin and the release of the chemicals and one of the brands we're working with, because we partner with a number of sobriety and wellness brands. We were talking at this company called Brain tap, which is the top brain fitness app in the world. And I was talking to the founder, guess what we're trying to do, and what people are trying to do is, how do we how do we actually trigger the very chemicals that were that we needed when we were addicted to drugs, right? And just to be clear, 300 million people suffering from alcohol use disorder and 38% of adult Americans, so we're not talking about a small amount of people, and it's getting much worse. And so if we could figure out ways to trigger those same chemicals that oxytocin or trigger the parasympathetic nervous system,

Mark Sanor  11:07

then we could literally on what's that? How's that going? Unbelievable. So

MJ Gottlieb  11:10

this, this company brain tap, and these anxiety wearables and all these companies that we're bringing into the lucid marketplace is showing how we can literally hack and get in to fire those same com think about when you go and exercise and you don't want to exercise, and you're you're crawling into the gym, and you feel horrible, and then after you're out of there, you feel like a million dollars. Peter,

Mark Sanor  11:33

I just saw Peter's hand up, Peter, you want to make a comment.

Peter Rafelson  11:36

You know? I agree with what everybody is saying. I think that the other aspect to art, entertainment, technology, music, is the fact that this is a great and very common way to build bridges and community. And God knows that the mental health isolation is is, you know, the enemy. So I found that I build the platform Digi ramp, which is the digital rights and asset management platform. However, the greatest benefit that it offers to so many people that are being more and more isolated through technology is the ability to connect, communicate and collaborate, and that too, I think, also really supports the health and the benefits of what you speak.

Mark Sanor  12:30

Well, maybe I'm going to bring it back to you, Chris. Now we're going to have 100 cities with your domes right the way. We can connect in ways. You one of your first investors who just wired you money on Friday or Thursday, part of his vision of what you're doing, right? Can you speak to that aspect?

Chris Lawes  12:48

Yeah, I'm just distracted thinking about a company I met when I was at abundance 360 called Apollo, where they make Sano acoustic frequency transmitters. You can either wear them or even put them into the floor panels of a room, and they create a subtle frequency that is almost like a drug or alcohol, like on a very subtle level, but it puts you into a more social kind of a state. And obviously, with the dome, we want to do a similar thing, get everyone out of their houses where they're addicted to their socially isolating devices, and get them into a communal, physical environment with their fellow man, and have a good time and use music and visuals and other kinds of vibrations to, you know, support the brain and support the body, to have therapeutic positive experiences, but also to have, just on a heart level, on a you know, greater than frequency level, social level, human intimacy and connections.

Mark Sanor  13:42

Do you need an Do you need an airline to take you to all those dumps? I

MJ Gottlieb  13:45

was gonna say, what this gentleman said is 100% correct. Peter. Peter, the opposite of addiction is connection. And so when you you know that in my space, someone comes in and they're like, You don't understand, you don't understand how I'm feeling. And then you come into a community and understands, and you're like, Wow, you get it. And that's everything. And so if we can bring communities together, like everybody here on this panel is doing, that's it said that there's this saying those amongs us, no explanation is necessary. Those not amongst us, no explanation is possible. And so when you bring these affinity groups together and people who share this common bond, magic happens well, and

Mark Sanor  14:27

I think, and by the way, that's the magic that happens in the round tables at the end of this conference. Sorry,

Chris Lawes  14:36

yes, I love this event, and I've had some wonderful times meeting more of this community. And you know, there's, like, the pickle ball stuff and the networking and dinners and things, but not everyone actually has those experiences in their life. And you know, fortunately and unfortunately, COVID created, like a huge global experiment on the effect of social isolation and. But a lot of people hypothesize that we would be able to, you know, stop driving our cars and commuting so much and just work from our homes. And, you know, go to virtual concerts from our homes, and like a virtual, you know, concert venue, wearing headsets and all these things. And this would all be sort of the way of the future. And we, you know, we gave that the college try, so to speak, during during COVID, and the results were quite demonstrably bad. And I think a lot of interesting data came out of that, actually, that especially certain types of people really require community and social interaction for their mental health. And I'm glad to see that on all levels, that's being really embraced as like, not just a sort of fun bonus part of life, but really an essential part.

Mark Sanor  15:44

Yeah, I don't know if that brings me back. I don't know if Jeff reson, because during COVID, I experience Jeff. Can you? Can you speak to this? Because my, my pre teen sons, and I don't know if you like, we were moving around 10, like, an hour ago, so important for boys to move around. You know what they did during COVID? To all these boys? They were stuck in front of a computer, and it really just destroyed kids at that age. But that's what Jeff you want to speak to, what you you you do? Jeff zawatsky, that you that's you do

16:24

you want to do the little Yeah? Comment

Mark Sanor  16:26

quickly, yep, please.

Jeff Zawadsky  16:30

I mean, we were Hello to everyone, so I can't be there. I've been Bay area, but we basically, we're building the AI power platform for families with struggling young people, teen and, you know, as the panel was talking about, I mean, how our community, he will tremendous. And to your point, I mean, since COVID, you've had a 6% increase in mental health issues for young people. Get a lot of feedback. Yeah, of

Mark Sanor  17:03

feedback. We hear you. It's probably my, my fault. I was had my mic on. Keep going.

Jeff Zawadsky  17:09

I mean, it's kind of the point where 37 kids see they're not sure if they have a single friend, right? And that isolation is tremendously costly. And right now. You know our mental health system is basically broken. I mean, you know, we haven't really added any modalities. Tele therapy has been helpful in some cases, but you really haven't added any scope. We've got a tremendous provider yet, depending on whose numbers you believe, you know, we need a million to 5 million more therapists. Our approach actually, to doing this, having those experience of having child has gone through this part of the fall, done that clinical partners to work in the field is really about community, and we're using AI to power that community so that we actually have, we partner with section AI founder of LinkedIn, three hop and AI company, it was designed specifically for EQ, not just IQ, so it was trained by therapists and psychiatrists, and we had one of the first API is more than 12,000 organizations waiting on the list, But the CEO is one of my advisor board members, so we've got first access to them. And what we're doing is the basic finding, and the premise of what we found is the way we can attack and fix the mental health crisis in this country is really through the lived experience of other families, not through and we just soft launched last summer, and we were doing it through really going communities. But what we've done in partnering with inflection is we can actually use the AI agent to capture and leverage all the experiences and all of all the families that are out there to really create the sort of career health agent, particularly we're starting with family systems. There's other loads of other applications, from care giving to, you know, we have relationships with the VA and everything else and addiction, but that's where we're starting. That's power with experience. So we're really creating something that sort of, you know, turn the problem on the head, and you get, you know, at any given time, 25 million American families struggling with a young person. So, and the big hidden asset that went out there, because all the parents who are silent dealing with this, you know, reinventing the wheel of care, as I like to say all the time. So using our AI platform, AI power platform, I'll say, we can capture that information and create better treatments, earlier identifications, fewer Eli cost, kind of the whole thing. So in a nutshell, I absolutely agree with what's being said here. In fact, the folks talk about music got some friends who are doing music therapy at that actually is incredibly impactful, but to that point where, so we're sort of building the community. For nobody wants to talk about the team struggling stigma, no, no

Mark Sanor  20:03

one wants, no one wants to talk about addictions either, right?

MJ Gottlieb  20:07

I mean, if you look at So, if you look at the cost of addiction, it's $1.45 trillion it actually surpassed it, right? And that's in lost productivity and societal harm. And so what can we do on the preventative side? And so like we created technology called Sam inside of lucid, which stands for sobriety addiction mentor, which gives a little daily check in each day, and walks that person with 365 assignments throughout the year, which we're now laying heavily AI on top of it, because it's one thing to get sober and it's another thing to stay sober. And so there's these sickness of addiction. Yeah, well,

Mark Sanor  20:48

but maybe this is what I love about our global community. You guys need to connect your communities. Because as my son, who went to a wilderness you know, lot of those kids, the older ones, all facing had that addictions. This was their part of their detox,

MJ Gottlieb  21:06

absolutely, absolutely and like equine therapy and all the so if you think about everybody that's talked about here, from music and community and all different types of communities, right, and how we're able to get together. I mean, I think that the only answer is to be inclusive and combine, as you say, because in this case, we're a strength of numbers, because we're being outnumbered now.

Mark Sanor  21:33

So I think, I think that's

Jeff Zawadsky  21:35

exactly right. I mean, you know, we, we've partnered with, you know, some of the telethermal Health System Georgetown. And because you need to get those numbers, the cold start issues with any community, and it gives you impactful and powerful answers, right?

Mark Sanor  21:57

So what I like, what I like is this was the first of our is having, you know, fall out community. This was the first event. This is the first event that's okay. This is the first it

Peter Rafelson  22:14

was the Hollywood ambassador to Korea. I went over and visited them in the early hours to influence the innovation of k pop, if we follow the best Example of congregation and community, which is church.

Mark Sanor  22:39

Hello, you and I, you want to

Peter Rafelson  22:47

mute churches that were were created early on, pull together millions and millions of members, cross border, cross country, real time they were they honest technology and to see the power of creating that audience and that community. I mean, that's why I'm thinking exactly what you said, Mark, which is even the super the dome technology, the AI technology, the mental health, creating communities, creates congregation, creates commerce.

Mark Sanor  23:25

You know what we need, Peter. Peter. Can you hear me? Yeah, I need a song. I need you to write a song that unites this initiative. Can you do that? You can get okay. We may not get Gaga or Madonna to sing it, but we'll, we will sing it all together.

MJ Gottlieb  23:53

There you go. Good. Well, I will say something. So addiction doesn't discriminate, but access to care does. So what's happening in this conversation with regard to community is, you take these 300 million people that I'm talking about, and the other 38 you know, percent, you know, in aggregate, over 500 million people struggling. You get them to you build a platform, you get them together in one place to heal. It doesn't cost any money, right? And so if you can really see the power of community and our ability to join those communities and get people to heal. You flip that whole model of waiting for people to blow up and get sick and then try to treat them, and that's where that 1.4 5 trillion comes in. And so this is why the importance of this conversation with everyone on this panel, you know how communities heal.

Mark Sanor  24:39

So we're going to transition. That's so

Jeff Zawadsky  24:42

correct. I mean, more than 50% of all US counties don't have a single therapist. Only 3% of therapists in our country are African American. Less than 5% of American therapists speak Spanish, right? And with our you know, health care system, whole community. Things are shut out from camp, so being able to leverage community, get to families after that knowledge, share, that knowledge can have an impact identified situations earlier is really the only way we have fixed this, given the structural problems going

Mark Sanor  25:16

forward. So we have to leave it at that for this panel. And thank you everyone. We'll be doing a break out soon with all of you, I'm joined our 361 firm community of investors and thought leaders. We have a lot of events created by the community as we collaborate on investments and philanthropic interests. Join us. You.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Dual use technology, space tech, ocean tech, cyber security, AI disinformation, Elon Musk, Ukrainian defense, naval drones, autonomous weapons, national security, public-private partnerships, ocean habitats, acoustic technology, geopolitical tensions, investment opportunities.

SPEAKERS

Elena Anfimova, Gator Greenwill, Tony Cruz, Lisa Marrocchino, Speaker 5, Jaha Cummings, Carl Pro, Robin Blackstone, Speaker 4, Andrew Fisch, Mark Sanor, Dan Brahmy

Mark Sanor  00:00

So Gator is with a family office investing in this space for a long time, with natural resources and minerals heritage. And Dan I met with Josette Sheeran at her office, otherwise known as the Carlisle hotel, who said, "You got to meet Dan", and now here you are on one of our panels. Thank you. So I think it's better, if you might share the "Harry Met Sally" story of how you met Dan

Gator Greenwill  00:49

That's a pretty good story. So Dan literally sent me a cold LinkedIn request. Yeah, there was a cut. Yeah, there were a couple of them. 

Mark Sanor  Wait, let's go back further. How did you identify him for that LinkedIn request? Or is it random? Or is it random? Give them the mic

Dan Brahmy  01:15

again, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So as part of being a founder who has lived in Israel for the last 19 years, I've learned to be a relentless a**hole. And so it's kind of this skill set that you need to have in order to get to a certain point in life. And I saw I heard about Gator, and then I was like, you know, maybe I'll just try and find his email address, and then I've had a lot of success is just reaching out to people on LinkedIn, you'd be surprised, like former head of Senate Intel Committee, folks like guys that you would never dream of even talking to. And I was like, hello, I'm Dan, can we talk? And they're like, Okay, whatever. So it just worked out in that

Mark Sanor  01:57

In that same spirit, how did you How did you land Elon Musk as a client.

Dan Brahmy  02:04

Well, that's a long story. So, so I'll let you go into the things you wanted to

Mark Sanor  02:10

say. Oh, he doesn't want that question.

Gator Greenwill  02:15

So anyhow, Dan, Dan did a cold LinkedIn email. It was persistent, but the area that he was exploring was of already significant interest to the investment fund that I was working for. We had long had the thesis that one of the fundamental risks of AI before we even make it to anything like artificial general or artificial super intelligence was the risk of an explosion in disinformation, an explosion in cognitive biases being worsened by tribalism on the internet. And so Dan had obviously been building the company for a couple of years when he reached out to us, he was beginning to do a raise for series, a had, you know, a very reputable Israeli VC fund that was looking for an American co investor, and we negotiated term sheet, and the the rest is history. Now we are sitting here before you today. So that's the the one minute version. There's obviously more twists and turns along along the way, we've ended up supplying probably 20 to 30, like 20% of your capital stack, maybe something like, something like that. So ended up being a significant portion of, you know, raise capital for for si Amber, before the the pre IPO and the IPO. So

Mark Sanor  03:39

now just want I'm getting, I want to ask more unfair questions, but, but as you look at the landscape, right? That's this is a one, just one example. What do you what excites and scares you in this? Well,

Gator Greenwill  03:52

a lot of things scare me. A lot of things also excite me. So the rising geo political tensions between the US and the EU certainly scare me, as well as you know, the US and at least a few members of the of the five eyes, given how important that's been to the defense posture of the United States historically, by the same token, it is causing a much needed re evaluation in Europe of spend by the government sector in the defense space, there has already been a number of very promising start ups actually being founded, even in Ukraine, but also in Estonia, Germany, France, that have been started for funding due To the government just under investing in the sector. So I'm excited about the prospects for investing in Euro zone companies. Aside from Israel, we've also invested in several Euro zone companies. So one thing that distinguished us from early on was we looked at dual use as being not just about American innovation, but American and partners innovation, including. Between Israel and the Euro zone especially.

Mark Sanor  05:04

And so, I guess from your perspective, Dan, maybe tell a little bit of your some interesting stories. I do want to hear this Elon Musk story, if you don't mind.

Dan Brahmy  05:18

So just to give a quick background, I'm Dan. I'm one of the co founders and the CEO of a company called Sara, which is cyber security in abracadabra, which kind of reveals what we do. But the truth is, we've been out there for seven years. Raised money from from gators Firm A couple times, and the value has been actually much more than just the capital. Usually, we've raised money from Founders Fund a couple times, which is Peter thiel's fund as well in the valley. So the guy who created PayPal and Palantir and all these other names out there, and for four years, we've actually done the typical mistake of the tech very geeky founders, which is building, building, building, building, and not getting enough feedback from the market. And so for a very long time, we were at that stage where we were trying to prove to the world by building the best possible tech. And I think we had, we still have, actually, it gave us a crazy advantage, but not within that four years time period, because we were just building that technology, which is in a nutshell, able to distinguish between real bad and fake for the online realm, social media and traditional media outlets, right? We want to be that, that sort of stamp of trustworthiness for the conversations that we all witness on a daily basis, on a minute basis, maybe at this point. And then, because of the Peter Thiel relationship, and because we were a tiny Israeli start up with no presence whatsoever, you know, two years ago, two and a half years ago, and we landed an article in the Wall Street Journal and forms, because we made so much noise about the stuff that we were solving. Some day, we received a call from a lawyer who was like, the pit bull is pit bull I've ever seen in my life. Scaries guy I've ever talked to sends me an email like, we need to talk now my client. I'm like, who's your client? It's like, sign this 19,000 pages. NDA, that if you say anything, you'll die tomorrow. I'm like, All right, well, we'll try, you know, we'll just sign it and and then he it's true. I mean, he told me about this story, and so he's like, this is Elon. I'm like, oh, okay, that's interesting. What does he want? It's like, well, you know what he wants? He wants to buy Twitter, right? He wants to take the price lower, and he feels like there's a gap between what Twitter is claiming about the bots and the sock puppets and trolls and the fake accounts and their impact. And so what's what they are stating about themselves as a company, what is truly happening? They're claiming that it's less than 5% has no impact over the conversations that we see over Twitter X, and he feels like it's more and he wants to use your tech. So I'm thinking this might be the first little star on our shoulder as a tech company, right? You want to start building credibility. It's kind of a deep, deep tech, a dual use technology, serving, you know, defense organizations and national security. So I said, interesting. So I mean, obviously I would do it for for a penny, right? But we didn't ask for a penny. We asked for much more, and he paid. And at the very end, I think we did a very good job. And, you know, same pit bull at the end was, I was like, Hey, can I be honest? You know, it would be great if you'd allow us to, you know, we're small company, maybe, maybe, maybe you'd allow me to go to the press, because we did such a great job. And, you know, I think his thought process was, what would a 15 people team from Israel could probably do in the press. What are the odds of these folks making noise? Wrong assumption. We very wrong assumption. So within two weeks, I received another call, after we published 1000 articles in the press, it's just like CNN, all that stuff. And he was, like, a so my client is not happy, because now he's the owner of Twitter. I'm like, okay, and well, now it reflects really badly on him, because now he's the owner of Twitter, and you're bashing the head of Twitter itself. He's the owner my Yeah, but I mean, I, you know, I saved him a billion dollars. So should be happy like, Yeah, I think you should stop now with the press. You know, it's enough and say, Well, you know, we also lined up like the BBC and stuff like that. But it will stop at 1000 articles from that moment onward. So it was November 2022 as a small company, literally, with almost no revenue at that. Point, I think we were like 300,000 in annual revenue. In two years, we ramped up to 6,000,006 point 1 million. So we blew up, and today we serve I'm not saying it's all about the musk story, but I think that a lot of startups are just completely, completely disregarding that credibility and that and that brand recognition, because, though, because we not that we we're all about the tech and the tech and the tech and and eventually, and I'm saying this as a as a tech company in the field of AI combating bad AI with good AI. And I'm going to be shooting myself in the foot as a soon to be CEO of a publicly traded company. Don't hate me when I say that. But I think people don't buy technologies. I think people by people, and people by trust, and we, I guess we prove that with time, and this equation proves to be the worthy one. That's the route we're going to be taking. And two thirds of the companies, like R and D people, I don't understand half of the shit that they're saying to me, and I'm like, Oh, very interesting. And we just move on to other stuff. But the truth is this, what we see, it's, it's, it's incredible technology being leveraged by people who want to trust you, like, that's pretty much that. So that's the story about which

Mark Sanor  11:13

has, which has lots of use cases, right? Not just dual use, not just forensics, but we,

Dan Brahmy  11:20

serve. I mean, we're on a, this is a do use technology panel. Is this a panel? If it's two people, yeah,

Mark Sanor  11:28

it says it's a duo, duo, dual use, the finalist

Dan Brahmy  11:33

of the panelists. Yeah, we work a lot with national security folks.

Mark Sanor  11:38

So why do you want to go public? Why? Because he wants you to go public. Do you

Gator Greenwill  11:46

sure I'll so I think what we found, and I've been discussing the IPO option with Dan, actually from fairly soon after he invested, after I invested, sorry, when he began discussing with different bankers about that option, and our conclusion, based on conversations with a number of VCs, was that even with a relatively depressed IPO market, the cost of money for a compelling company in the public markets is significantly cheaper than what you were seeing from VCs, post SVB bank collapse, term sheets got especially outside, if you were not a kind of golden circle Silicon Valley, you kind of Blessed from above. You know, start up. You know, no offense against, you know, friends of mine that run companies like that. You know, the types of term sheets that you get, you know, from VCs, you know, are typically fairly onerous. And so that was where, you know, we said, hey, you know, this is going to give a, you know, a multi year pipeline to the company, you know, add a, add a valuation that is has lots of room to grow, but is not overly dilutive to the existence. And I know

Mark Sanor  12:59

we're not pitching, but I think there's an opportunity for us to get it before the IPO. Right? All right, we'll come back to that, all right, other than his space,

13:12

not a technical

Mark Sanor  13:14

one, a personal one, what kind of answer?

Dan Brahmy  13:16

I was born in France, so I'm romantic by default. Okay, I've lived there. I've no, it's true. I Yeah, so this is the beginning of the story. So 50, I live 15 years in France, right? And everything's about, like cheese love and Eiffel Tower and whatever people like about France. But there's something true about it. And I mean, I could be talking about the VC and the term sheets and the limitation preference and all the stuff that everybody knows about that probably more than I do, as a matter of fact. But the truth is, I think that we're solving one of the most complex and interesting challenges that we're facing at least nowadays, maybe in seven years will be different. But for sure, for the last two, three years and for the next couple of years ahead of us, we are in really deep, muddy waters, and the way that I want one of our, one of our board members is Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state and head of CIA Jos about to be coming in as a post listing board member. You already know that one of the one of my ways to pitch it to them was not telling them about the technicalities of becoming a NASDAQ publicly traded company, because they know everything about complexities. While I was running in diapers, the guy run the CIA, so obviously he knows more than everything that I would do in life. But I told him, I think people need to perceive that opportunity at being a shareholder at Sara some point in time, in the next couple of years, as maybe I should invest in Batman, like if we are Batman.

Mark Sanor  15:01

It, and you guys are running this, the French, the French coming out, and you the romantic

Dan Brahmy  15:08

stuff, very geeky. But the truth is, like, if we're Batman and Batman has technologies, all I'm saying is, I think people should see this as the opportunity to potentially invest and help us build the technology that can be the arsenal to bring back a little bit of more transparency for this democracy. Because right now, Gotham City is running on fumes and is looking really bad, and the and and it feels like people are losing trust, slowly losing trust. And I got, I got two children, the two boys, four and two years old. And I'm saying, Damn, by the time they became they become teenagers. What are they going to be trusting? What they'll never trust the media. They'll never trust social media. They'll never trust things that they see online. Because

Mark Sanor  15:49

every single No, their dad is Batman,

Dan Brahmy  15:53

right? So that's Batman, exactly. I don't know who's Batman son in the show, but, but that's, that's the way I that I sold it to Mike Pompeo, like I want people to invest in Batman's also

Mark Sanor  16:04

so questions for Batman, yes,

Tony Cruz  16:13

as Iron Gate Capital Advisors looked at you. Have you talked

16:15

to Hamlet you save? Or

Gator Greenwill  16:20

I know Hamlet, I'm not sure if he's under in this specific deal. I mean, some of the, you know, some of the companies that, some of the funds that, Iron Gate is an investor, and I'm almost, like 99.9% they have evaluated. Now, obviously it's a different, you know, it's about to be a different deal than it was, you know, before an IPO. So always could be worth revising that discussion with Ty and Hannah,

Mark Sanor  16:48

I've got two more panelists for you. So their space is up there as well. And there's ocean space and ocean we're talking about explain, and then ELA as a fund that focuses on dual use technologies as well. So just introduce yourself. Let me start with Elena.

Elena Anfimova  17:14

Thank you, Mark. Hello everybody. My name is Elena, and I do Ukrainian defense technology. You probably know that Ukrainian defense Tech is a world class innovation, and the gap the capital requirement for it is massive, and the challenge, in addition to capital, is how this startups access global markets. So this is what my team is working on, how to integrate the start ups in the domestic defense ecosystem,

Mark Sanor  17:52

which some are calling like the new Israel of sorts. And we were just having, oh, Patrick's here. We were having lunch, and I said, Do you know who Jacques Cousteau is? And he goes, Well, yes, I've been and I invested in his films. So his grandson, Fabian, has been with us, the CEO of his company. We've invested a lot in space, but we can gain a lot more cheaply and investing in ocean based research. So maybe it's explain. Hello.

Lisa Marrocchino  18:27

I'm Lisa March, you know, thank you for having me join. I was just in Davos, in Ukraine, cyber tech, and technology was a big topic there, so that was super interesting for me to be there was an AI cyber conference that I attended, but what we're doing at Fabien Cousteau was the first grandson of Jacques co he. His grandfather was an ocean pioneer. I'm missing the word ocean tech from this conference. However, we need to change that. I also do believe that ocean tech is going dual use because of, well, lots of geo political reasons. So we are focusing on national security as well, and I'll explain a little bit of that. But Jacques Cousteau developed some of the first technologies to spend more time in the ocean and habitat. So he built some of what are called Ocean habitats, or really ocean research stations. And we have one in space, but we don't have any in the ocean, because the space race took off and got and left ocean behind. And as Mark mentioned, in the last 10 years, you have invested $270 billion in space and private creating a private space industry, and created, really 1700 new companies. So we really are poised to create that same kind of phenomenon in ocean tech. It reminds me I was at Goldman Sachs in technology research, and this really reminds me of, kind of the early days of technology. So his grandson kind of picked up the torch, and in 2014 lived under water for. For 31 days with five scientists did not come up to the surface because of what's called saturation technology. So he was fully saturated and lived at 20 meters or 60 feet, and did not come up to the surface for 31 days. So what happened were some phenomenal things under water. There were science experiments and kind of an acceleration of that, because you were able to dive 10 to 12 hours a day. So what we can't get back is time. We know we're at the precipice. I mean, someone mentioned a meteor here that almost hit us. I think we should be much more worried about climate change and some cataclysmic issues that are we're on the precipice of then, uh, then the media are hitting us. So I, I do believe that we we're not focused on climate change and maybe this administration and where we are today. We won't be so we will use acoustic technology, sensor technologies we've evolved from just, not just a habitat, but really thinking about an ocean technology platform where acoustics and all of those national security issues do come into play, so I'll stop there.

Mark Sanor  21:08

Excellent. All right, so you got a cornucopia now, space slash ocean tech we'll use and let's open up for questions. I

Andrew Fisch  21:24

Yes, Lisa, this is completely anecdotal, so you'll have to answer the question, and in for me, a lot of call them drums. You know, a lot of devices are being now, roaming the oceans, gathering data of all types. Is this advancing what you do as opposed to having literally people in one place? Is it complimentary? Is replace anything?

Lisa Marrocchino  21:53

That's a great question. We really believe that you can't just do it alone with robots, but robots are essential to amplifying and extending the reach of humans. So and this, and NASA is really studying this a lot as well, kind of this human robotic interface, if human interface, and we really, if it were true that robots could do it all, they would be the only thing on them, you know, in space. So I do believe that you really need that human interaction with robots, and we can really amplify so yes, we'll be looking at robotics, a U V S, R V s, all of those in surrounding the habitat. If you think about the habitat, is almost like the smartest node on this kind of technology ecosystem platform. So that's how we're really looking at it. There's some super cool technology that can be, that's not even out there yet, right? That can Yes, absolutely. Then they have to come back, right? And then you have to interpret the data and AI, you know, one i We heard a lot about AI, and that's one thing I'm really optimistic about. AI in ocean, there is a flood gate of so if you send out all those robots and all those sensors, are going to come back with a flood gate, even with hydro acoustic modems, there's so much information to be processed, and we know nothing about our ocean. You know, 5% has been explored. So how can we gather all that data to do to make better decisions? And that's where robotics and AI, I think, is going to make play a major role in so we're looking at all of that technology.

23:24

Thank you. Other questions,

Robin Blackstone  23:28

yes, you know, it occurred to me that one of the factors in the ocean as well as space, is that a lot of it's not own by anybody, and so it's essentially available to be used by anyone. And it's kind of an interesting advantage. Planets would be another space like that. So in a world that's carved up already on land, there's these vast spaces which are not carved up. I was just wondering what advantage that might confer on the work that you guys are doing.

Lisa Marrocchino  24:06

Yeah, that's also a really good question. So we work with governments and create public private partnerships. So right now we're working in Curacao, Portugal, cap of ver very talking to people in the Middle East as well. And it is interesting. And I don't know if anyone saw there was recently an article about China having a habitat. So there is an interesting phenomenon happening, going back to dual use and national security. All of a sudden, China is interested in creating habitats at very deep levels and to do all kinds of things. So it is an open space, and I think legal will probably play a big role in this. But right now, we haven't had any issues with putting a habitat in waters outside of Curacao, Cabo Verde, Portugal and the Red Sea even there's no been no issues with like, you can't go there or you can go here, but it is a. Question, the ocean is even bigger than lots of spaces, and it's right in our back yard. So as long as we all play nice, I think, for a while, and if China accelerates what they're doing in the ocean, I hope and pray that that will help the US come to terms with investing more and the ocean,

25:27

just

Jaha Cummings  25:32

on the question of, I guess, areas for American city research, if you consider micro Nisa, I lived there for 20 years, and the whole northern Pacific we have our contact agreement, which pretty much denies rite of passage to anyone else, right?

Lisa Marrocchino  25:45

I love that. Yeah, all areas are open, or we're open to any area really that would that where we need to study the ocean, and really that's almost everywhere, because we haven't studied it at

Gator Greenwill  26:00

all. On the question of geo politics and the ocean, one I think still under sung aspect is that right now, an enormous amount of the world internet traffic travels underneath the sea, and we've already started to see Russian and Chinese vessels in the Baltic and the South China Seas, you know, imping upon Japan, or in some cases, it seems, even sabotage cables running into various countries that they have issues with, so that, you know, that's a live area, and sort of, you know, the oceans have Been a commons for the transmission of data and information for a long time that now seems to be more and more contested in the current moment of power competition,

Mark Sanor  26:53

one second, and you could just say, What? What? What's the technology or company in Ukraine or related to Ukraine, because you're not all investing in Ukrainian companies that you think is most exciting we should be aware of. Well,

27:10

naval drones.

Elena Anfimova  27:21

Oh, yeah, they're Ukraine is the first country in the world to sort of create effective naval drones. And on December 31 actually, Ukrainian naval drones. Magura down two Russian helicopters, the first presidents in the world. Hard to say it's a record. It's still loss of life, and it's still horrible, but technologically speaking, a very cheap drone, comparatively to any missile destroys a helicopter to helicopter, and the third was damaged, but made it be back to the base. Another case, one Ukrainian drones destroyed $130 million missile system. So the mind boggling phenomenon about these drones and the drone warfare is that this very cheap, again, comparatively speaking, devices destroy multi, sometimes 100 million dollar systems I just came back from the Emirates, I went to this I deck, if you guys know, it's like the largest defense exhibition. And there were all these massive, shiny toys. And I was walking, walking by and thinking, you know, like a 10,000 drone can destroy it. So I guess what we're still grasping is how war far has changed, and dominating military stockpiles are still kind of the World War Two, slash Cold War technology, and what needs to happen right now is restocking in pivoting to defense technology right now in Ukraine, the war that's happening is a war of drones. It's not even people anymore. I had a like innovative aim in system for guns, you know, for actual soldiers to do something with. And I had to drop it because there were no soldiers anymore fighting, you know, each other. It's drones and swarms of drones. So. Boom, and there is a Ukrainian company called swam. I did not invest in it, but that that's a really break through technology. Then another, and pretty much like the group of tech that's really promising, is autonomous weapons. So it's autonomous remote control weapons that you can control from 1000s of miles, and they help to save lives and pretty much like it's equipment destroying equipment. Given how horrendous the concept of physical warfare is in 21st century, it's still better than you know this mince meat attacks, I think it's called that Russia really prefers and practices to this day in Ukraine, we do not have the human resources to sort of mimic this strategy. And we value human life, so we really prefer robots to fight. So it's autonomous weapons, autonomous drones, and also electronic warfare, because what's happening is that when you face a technologically advanced enemy is that there is this jam in spoofing and GPS de night environments, so the navigation systems become very prominent anti drone electronic warfare. So how do you protect your drone from being jammed and spoofed so that it completes its mission. The interesting part is that American drones did not do well in Ukraine at all. They were expensive and glitchy because they could not perform with that kind of electronic warfare that Russia has, and let's say, out of 10, Mission only two mission are complete, whereas Ukrainian drones can complete eight out of 10. There is one.

Mark Sanor  32:14

Compare that to the US technology today. How far are we? Because we haven't done this every day, every hour, like you

Elena Anfimova  32:21

are well. So this is what I'm saying, and a lot of feedback is kind of just like a second hand information, right? Because it's not published anywhere. The only sort of public media account of this that I found is a Wall Street Journal article about that, how glitchy and how ineffective American drones were tested in Ukraine on the battlefield. Because you see, the thing is, is even for AI to function well, it needs to be fed lots of data. Ukraine is pretty much the only place where you can get the data, and that pretty much accounts for why Ukrainian drones are so much more efficient than any other drones unless they are tested on the battle field in Ukraine. So for any drone company right now to be you know, anything, they have to be there, there. So is

33:21

this something you're looking

Gator Greenwill  33:22

at? Absolutely. We're active investors in the conference system space, happy to discuss more especially

Speaker 5  33:32

so we are almost ready for breakouts and refreshments.

Carl Pro  33:37

But I had a quick question on the what I call your misinformation or BS software, I spent my lunch time reading through like 25 or 30 websites to try to pick out the same story and read them and all to find out where the truth is. Your system would probably be great to have some independent calculation of current events, without the biases.

Dan Brahmy  34:10

We have been, not we've been we've been dreaming of eventually creating that stamp of trust within us that we that we spoke about. So the short answer, what you said is, this is exactly what we're aiming at, which is being able to understand whether the source, so the actor who's pushing and propagating a certain narrative or a certain angle, whether it can be a trusted source. So is it a is it a real person? Is it a real journalist? Is it a fake journalist? Is it a but a sock puppet patrol, a spam account, you name it. There's another 10,000 we don't need to get into all the categories, but, but I think that that gives you know one portion of the answer that you're looking for, and and then we explain, just to give you slightly longer answer, we we sort of decipher what we call the behavioral patterns. So. So think about an MRI that says, how, how powerful and how fast does a piece of information fly out over social media? Is it only within the social media realm, or is it flying from social media, from Twitter to The Wall Street Journal and then back to Facebook, and then going back to tick tock. And then what kind of formats, right? So the speed and the strength, and then the third part of your question would be about the authenticity and the nature of the content itself. So not just the similarity, and is it copy paste, but actually, is it? Is it a deep fake? Is it is, you know, is a computer generating the pictures and the videos that we're looking at right now, and then you aggregate all this sort of answer into, should you ignore what you're seeing, watching, reading? Should you track it closely, because it might become a threat, slash an opportunity, depending which side you're on the scale, or the last point, which is, should you be so worried that you need to mitigate against that immediately? We you know you spoke about the drones, and we spoke about the the the Navy and how we could potentially leverage the unexplored territories. We've talked to three and four star generals, and we've talked to Secretaries of Navy, and we've talked to all these incredibly smart and powerful people that have the almighty power to shift territories and shift decision making process. And the funny thing is, they have made very costly decisions based on misinformation. They shifted entire armies, not small military operations. They have shifted dozens of planes, dozens of naval ships and 1000s of soldiers. What

Mark Sanor  37:01

so the first, so the first saner. His name was Sanor, who was Prussian. You know, we had a lot of hessian troops. So Michael Sanor was the aide de camp. Eventually, he was known as the Flying Dutchman. He stole the white horse. But for the battle of York title, it led to the victory, partly, where the French, because they were in New Jersey, where I live, their ovens kept baking the bread, and that was that deception to the troops. They fell. They're clearly still still up there. They're still eating when instead they they moved around and caught them by surprise. So we love the French information. And it was interesting that Macron came over to see Trump. But they will talk about these things, the breakouts. This is how we do breakouts. This comes this is a slide from 2011 12, when I would do these breakouts for Dennison. Anybody from Denison? You're close enough Denison people here, usually there's always one Michigan room makes little sister Council. But we would get together in round tables and then, and it would be the round table for fashion in New York, or for finance. And then we eventually get 300 people. And there were segments that we now have a round table for each of these panels. And like one physically is over there. It's probably a popular one next to the bar. Another one's over here, and we have the ones out there, out first, mingle, you know, stretch, move around again, and then I'll put on the screen where the round tables will be. And they will the format is basically no one dominates the conversation. There's no like alpha that just takes over. It's a round table. Everybody should introduce themselves what they're doing so that everybody knows and we all try to help each other. It's the same thing we did for the alumni. No one's asking for money. The school isn't asking for money. We're here to help each other. The same spirit here and for our family office world. So if someone's got some insights, you want some questions, let's ask the panel a little more information. You know, Alyssa, like you're in the ocean world, right? You should be a guest in this, well, deep tech, ocean tech world. And, you know, everybody should know each other. And and then we come back and we say two things, what did you learn? What are your takeaways? We'll come back here one more time, and one or two people will speak about it. And one of those takeaways is like, or is like, is there something we should do? Should we do a deep dive on ocean tech? Should we do a deep dive on, you

Speaker 4  39:50

know, may I say one more thing, just to give plug the ocean short time you don't

Mark Sanor  39:55

have a chance to do that. Okay? This is just the principles of it. Okay? And you want to know more about ocean Tech, I think Lisa will be near that bar over there. And so let's let's break. I'll come back to Mike 10 minutes or so. Let you know where the breakouts will be. Do the breakouts meet the people who are relevant to you. And that's that magic for what we do. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Panel. I'm joined our 361 firm community of investors and thought leaders. We have a lot of events created by the community as we collaborate on investments and philanthropic interests. Join us. You.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

FinTech, digital assets, blockchain, stable coins, tokenization, payments, regulatory policy, venture capital, AI, decentralized finance, financial infrastructure, crypto winter, institutional investors, innovation, emerging markets.

SPEAKERS

Mark Sanor, Brian Neirby, Speaker 6, Bill Deuchler, Ben Narasin, Rich Sobel, Speaker 4, Margaret Butler of BakerHostetler, Stephen Burke, Speaker 2, Will Wolf

Mark Sanor  00:00

But we're very I'll come see in a second. We're very lucky to be here. Baker, host, teller, I once practiced law in Cleveland, Ohio. Baker, we love Cleveland, and that's Baker's head quarters, and we are here at their home. And I'd like Margaret to say a few words.

Margaret Butler of BakerHostetler  00:21

Mark, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. It's really a very few words, because all I want to say is thank you to Olga. I hope she's here for connecting me with Mark. And thank you, Mark, for bringing all these amazing people here. I have had such an amazing day listening to all of you, and I Well, thank you. I love all of you. I'm Margaret Butler. I am the head of the financial services industry team here at Baker, Hostetler. And so I want to thank my team, definitely. Joe Matteo, who's been putting everything together, Cynthia, Kevin e who is here, my Managing Partner, George Sam bollitus, who was also around for making this possible for all of us and for me. Because, like I said, I really just enjoy this so much. Thank you all for being here and get to the good stuff. I don't know if you need this one. I

01:18

don't know how he has it set up, probably. So

01:22

thank you for having us,

Bill Deuchler  01:27

I guess so. So this is Mark style. He just leaves the room and lets the panelists take over. Okay, so we can go ahead and do introductions when you talking about digital assets and fin tech and well, no, hey, I'm buying you time.

Mark Sanor  01:47

Get mark out of the way.

01:51

Go ahead. Okay,

Mark Sanor  01:55

that was your 2024, go ahead. Sorry. Go right.

Bill Deuchler  01:59

So I'll introduce myself, and then hand the mic over to my colleagues up here. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Bill D clear. Currently, I serve as trustee for our municipal police pension fund. I've been on the board there for eight years. We have more of a traditional portfolio, but more recently, we've we have an active conversation, and actually an allocation for private equity that we've yet to fund, private credit, which has been funded and specialty real estate, which is another asset class. Previously, I was CIO for two two family offices, and have been around the institutional world quite a bit, and also currently advise a venture capital fund in the fin tech and AI space that has some very interesting characteristics, and I'll talk a little bit about that generally, as far as what an allocator looks for. But I will hand the mic over to my esteemed friend and colleague, Rich Sobel,

Rich Sobel  02:55

thanks. It's nice to be here. Nice to see everybody I am kind of wearing multiple hats. The hat that brings me up here is I'm a founder partner in a $50 million early stage fund that invests in blockchain and web three fin tech fund was set up three years ago, four years ago, I knew relatively little about this, and it's been a tough couple of years in the digital asset space. We went through what some people would call crypto winter. That's over, and I think we're coming into a period that could arguably be called a tipping point, kind of a renaissance, in the penetration of these technologies and tools and business models that are going to disrupt major markets, and we'll talk a little bit more about that catalyst. One of the catalysts is the change in regulatory policy. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that. So I'm quite excited about the changes that come but it's clearly a risky area. So it's not some place you put the majority of your of your assets, but it's something that I'm quite excited about, and I'm happy to share my perspectives.

Will Wolf  04:18

Yeah, thanks. Thanks everyone for being here and for having me. I This is me and my partner, Vanessa's first time here. My name is Will. I'm a managing partner and co founder of arc capital, which is an early stage Digital Asset Fund we just got off the ground last year, and I met Mark, I think, last week or two weeks ago, and we joined and so this is our first time here. So Thanks for welcoming us. We we are basically inter I am also a fin tech co founder. Back in 2012 I co founded a company in the fin tech space. We went through Y Combinator and ended up getting acquired into Airbnb, and I manage some of their back end payments infrastructure. So I know a bit about the the payment rails, Rails, at least in the West, and sort of the fin tech ecosystem. Them, but we're very excited at arch capital to be investing in what we think is the future of financial infrastructure globally, which is web three, and what's being built there, all

Mark Sanor  05:11

right, this is what happens when I don't lead off. So this is good. It's good. But what I want are insights. What are you seeing that we don't know? Or what scares or excites, hopefully both.

Rich Sobel  05:25

I know in some of the areas that we're focused, there's tremendous change going on under the surface that's starting to come out of the ground. And one of those areas is payments, and payments using Blockchain and stable coins, is a 1,000% improvement on the old, incumbent way of making payments. It's particularly impactful when payments are going across border to emerging markets, which is reducing, or, in fact, sometimes eliminating, the volatility and risk in emerging markets currencies, which is making the world closer, so incumbents are being disrupted, and we're invested in a company I spoke about, I think, back in December, that is making remittances to Africa, and they're using the data on the chain to help those people who are making payments improve their credit scores, which opens up all kinds of new financial products to the UN banked folks right here in America. And so there are growing number of companies that are doing that. Some of the incumbents, like Visa and others, are coming around and looking to partner in this space. And the second area I'll mention, and then I'll leave, there's many areas, so I'm clearly leaving some out of respect for my esteemed colleagues. Here is tokenization of assets. So there is a better model for holding and trading securities, funds and real assets, and the tokenization model now works, and so it's been held up by the US SEC and the litigation and impediments that they had established. But those litigations, last week, they dropped the litigation against coin base, which is really like the red light, and they're also changing policy. So there's an executive order going on that Trump signed in his first week. Within 180 days, he expects a whole new set of policies to be proposed, and that's going to make major financial institutions see a green light to move more actively into this space, on bringing assets on chain, democratizing access, improving liquidity. I mean, it's like the frog in the frying pan that if you know people don't see it on a day to day, week to week, basis, but I assure you that within five years, there's going to be dramatic changes. And this year, 2024 there was one and a half billion, one and a half trillion, of tokenized assets. Conservative estimates put it at 16 trillion by 2030 so it's really going to change the way we deal with financial assets, and eventually all assets. I

Mark Sanor  08:10

like everything. Just didn't quite understand the frog and the frying plan. You don't see it

08:15

on a day to day basis, the frog in the well, you're not from

Will Wolf  08:17

Ohio, the boiling pot of water. Yeah, there you go. No, I agree with that completely. I think, I definitely do think that stable coins in this ecosystem, people sort of outside the ecosystem, don't appreciate maybe what's going on there. You know, we're very close with the teams at both Master Card and visa that have very intelligent blockchain web, three teams building very interesting things. A lot of people don't know. Visa has been settling actual, real payments on both Ethereum and Solana for almost two years, and they're growing that volume, and they, you know, that gets you to on Solana, 400 millisecond settlement times on global payments for visa. So that's pretty powerful for them, and that this is stuff that's really happening. And I also think in terms of the new administration in the US, I think they may not fully understand this yet, but I think the stable coin market right now, the is a couple 100 billion dollars, but the rate that it's been growing is, I mean, I think a couple years ago it was 10s of billions or less. And this is a new source of global demand for dollars, which is important with what's going on in sort of our treasury markets right now. You know, circle whole, which is one of the stable coin providers, holds 100 $50 billion of treasuries. And if that gets to a trillion or 2 trillion, that makes them pretty important. And people all over the world want dollar stable coins instead of their African currency or their South East Asian currency, and they can get it because it's just, you just need an internet connection. And so I think this is very powerful for the dollar, for the US system. I think the administration is going to realize that. And I think even broader, what the technology means is, over time, getting rid of middle men everywhere, globally in the financial system. I. Them because we don't need them anymore, and so this is going to take multiple decades, but I think that's the inevitable end game.

Bill Deuchler  10:10

One of the central themes, from an allocator standpoint, is investing in innovation. And you know, both ourselves and some of my colleagues from a much larger pension system were quite interested. You know, back actually around 18 or so in the blockchain space. Back then, it was much more nascent. Not much was going on, except people knew that Bitcoin was used by drug dealers and other nefarious schemes. But none the less, the idea of investing in innovation and seeing the kind of radical transformation to fundamental systems, to our economy was, was the attraction. And I think that things somewhat got put on pause with the FTX debacle and the crypto winter, but now things have matured considerably. And so you see, you know, the tremendous growth of the stable coin market and the ability to transact much more efficiently there, it's a great opportunity to participate in something that it's truly going to change the fundamental systems of how we interact. And I think also from an investor standpoint, both on the fin tech side, as well as the blockchain side, you can see various companies that have good ideas and who can master the go to market exercise. Well, all of a sudden, at very, very early stages of their growth, they are actually revenue positive. And if you can find companies that are revenue positive, and you can still get in at the seed and pre seed stage, that is a tremendous advantage, because then you can track them in a way that you can't track companies that are still pre revenue and and that's the whole venture capital exercise is either an exercise in the law of large numbers or just spray and pray, which is how it turns out. And there are very few who do it, but I think that this space facilitates a much more disciplined way to attack venture capital. And again, as an allocator, I've seen just two firms who have been able to master that. One is a master at understanding the law of large numbers and how to put the statistics in your favor. The other one goes after these types of companies, as I say, that are revenue producing and being able to act more like incubators or not. So I think that that again, you know, for an allocator perspective, the idea to be able to participate in significant innovation and then also seeing unique circumstances of the individual companies that you can then use to your advantage and build out your portfolios in a more robust way. There's two really great opportunities associated with this space,

Rich Sobel  13:02

I think it's probably clear to everybody here, but you know, what we do is not pure and simple crypto, and what we're doing is not trading currencies and trading staking or tokens on the secondary market. That's a different business. There are people who are good at it. We don't think that that's nearly as compelling as investing in companies and protocols that are building applications and tools that leverage the infrastructure that's been built. And so those are what we're looking at. Are more application, asset, light businesses that don't require a lot of money until until you figure out if it's going to work. So the risk return on those types of venture early stage investments is much more interesting. Again, I'm not speaking just for us, but I'm speaking for a class of investors. There are relatively few early stage GPS doing this, and most of them don't have a three fund track record. So it's an emerging market. I spent 20 plus years of my life working in another emerging market. That's how I ended up here. I have kind of an appetite for risk and comfort working in new environments where the model is you really have to underwrite the people and understand their business model. If they can't succinctly tell you what their business model they probably haven't figured it out yet, and they might, but it's a much higher risk. So we're investing in what I call my partners. Don't really like this, but because I'm kind of an older guy in this team, I call it the App Store for web three. So you're basically thinking about the phone comes out, the infrastructure is in place. Now you want the tools that solve real problems, and those are coming. And just to put a little icing on the cake, if you look at the NVCA data in 2021 a lot of money was raised. It was a. Hyped market, and in the last couple of years, relatively little capital has been raised for what they broadly call crypto and digital asset venture. So on top of all the other things that have been putting pressure on companies and funds, the lack of new capital flowing in creates a very interesting dynamic for capital that becomes available. So I fundamentally think there's a combination of reasons going to make it quite interesting. But as Tim Draper said to a group here, when people say, How's it going with your early stage deals? He said it's like raising kids. It's going to take a long time till you really know. But we're proud about the way things are going. We like talking about the portfolio. That's the way of giving people a tangible idea about the kinds of things that are coming out of the ground that will change our lives and our kids lives before you really know it.

Will Wolf  15:54

Yeah, I like that last part you talked about. One of the things we think about is, or a phrase I like to use is, every fin tech startup today is a crypto company. Some of them just don't know it yet, because I think that is what the new features that we'll be able to push the envelope and provide new functionality are going to be built on, like we've already got the stripes, and these guys that have, like, milked everything out of the current like legacy financial system with t plus one settlement and stuff like that. And so to push the envelope, I think they're going to have to offer crypto services underneath. And that's what I'm excited about, is to see, you know, PayPal now is another example. They have their own stable coin, and they're trying to integrate more utility into their consumer app, which I think is a little more interesting than, like the visa Master Card stuff, because they're not really targeting consumers, but we're seeing it with PayPal. Stripe, you know, I mentioned earlier, just did a billion dollar cash acquisition of a stable Coin Company, and stripe is arguably the, you know, the expert of the traditional credit card and payment rails, and they understood the value of this new ecosystem that they were willing to pay up for it. So I think that speaks a lot. But I think we're going to see a lot of even just traditional fin techs offering new products that wouldn't be possible without crypto rails, and I don't think a lot of their users are going to need to know or care that they're using stable coins or blockchains underneath. It will just be transparent, and we'll be able to do much more than we can today.

Mark Sanor  17:13

So questions to this group as we talked about fin tech 2019 we were in Detroit, and the guy runs a swimming school, and he said, even swimming school, everybody's a fin tech company, because, yeah, you interact with a customer. So I guess there's so by definition, every company is a crypto company. Potentially. Vince got a question. It's

Ben Narasin  17:41

going to push back a little, I think, stable coins and powering and amazing things. Basically, it's an alternative rail with no real cost associated, compared to the existing stuff and remittances. But I've always bridled at the term web three. The web changed everything for everybody. I'd love any of you didn't tell me anything that web three has changed in a material way. There's speculative currencies, there's meme coins, also speculative. There's an enormous amount of speculative products. Stable coin, though, to me, feels like a totally separate thing, and fractionalized ownership of assets is interesting, but I could just as easily do that in Oracle server. You have to trust me, if you're going to buy a 16 of the Mona Lisa from me. So I'm still questing for I did one blockchain related investment in 2014 I've never done any sense. I just can't find the the there. There other than stable coin transfers.

Mark Sanor  18:36

I love it when we don't all agree.

Rich Sobel  18:39

First of all, since 2017 the kind of power of the technology of blockchain has improved about 1,000% so the things that you could do in 2014 is kind of very, very insignificant compared to what the technology can do today. Second of all is, everybody talks about this boom on AI and how great AI is, and how much capital is flowing in, how many new businesses are having an AI component to them. But for AI to really work, you need to have smart contracts and blockchain based tools to help these agents interact with each other, for agents to make payments to each other for these automatic things to work. Software driven by blockchain is a key determinant to a big part of its pulling it along. And actually, interestingly, William and Vanessa and my partners and I are invested in a company together, nap the AI, that sort of services that space social is another one of the spaces that is allowing decentralized use of content and information to give users more control and allow users to essentially retain more of the economic value. So in. Say 10 years models like Facebook will not be monopolizing, that those tools will be decentralized. So it's

20:09

been 1,000% better since 2017 we're 10 years past that. Again, eight. Only where?

Rich Sobel  20:17

Okay, okay, listen, in the United States. I'm sorry, in the United States, the regulatory policy has been so hostile that they have essentially litigated and driven money and entrepreneurship away from this. So I think we're when you build a building, first you go down, and then it comes out of the ground. When you have a plant, first it goes down, you build the infrastructure, and then it comes out of the ground. So if we meet in a year or three, I think you'll be buying me lunch.

Will Wolf  20:47

So first off, I think it's a very good, good criticism. Oh, can I answer this one? Yeah, I think, I think it's a good criticism that that we get a lot, I think from a Western centric view, I think it's, it's fairly valid. Because I think, you know, for all the bad things I said earlier. Our financial systems work, you know, but I think there are those in, say, Venezuela or almost any African country, where they are just devouring stable coins us, dollar denominated stable coins, because their currencies are devaluing by 15% to the dollar, they can hold a stable coin just on their phone with internet connection, the government can't stop them from doing it, and they can get 8% yield in US dollar terms, while their currency goes down 15% a year. And that's literally saving people's lives. For a more anecdotal example, you know, there have been people. There was one, one girl, specifically that I know, did an interview, and she was able to escape Afghanistan with her family's wealth because she put it into Bitcoin and wrote down her 12 seed words where, you know, they couldn't find it when she left. So she could actually bring her wealth and, like, have a family somewhere else. So I think these things are happening, and it's, it's not Western centric, mainly the stable coin, which is that one was Bitcoin with the Afghanistan girl, but, yeah, sort

Ben Narasin  21:59

of like Charlie Munger argument the dollar is freely available all over the world, and there are many ways to hold it, but this is a pH I do like stable coin, as I led with, yeah, I think that's rational. I don't I think the dollar is not available

22:13

to

Speaker 6  22:16

Zimbabwe. And my thing is, I'm with him to where I'm going to push back as well, especially on the decentralization aspect of it, because you have large institutional players who are who see it as a threat to their to existing business models, right, and are innovating in that space in order to maintain some type of central control over what happens in this area. So I'm kind of also hesitant on saying, oh, that's going to decentralize everything, and you're going to completely eliminate middle men. I think they're just going to transform into something where they have some some grasp over the transactions.

Will Wolf  23:01

I also think it's a valid point. I don't know specifically, if you're talking about banks,

Mark Sanor  23:05

can you disagree with somebody not joking?

Will Wolf  23:07

Well, that doesn't that doesn't mean that I agree with it. I think it's a valid point. It's true. That's true. But I think, you know, part of me, I like that, maybe the Trojan horse analogy. But if you've been following, like with the new administration, a bunch has come out. I don't know if you've heard the term operation choke point 2.0 you know, we had silver gate bank go under, and it's become clear, and basically factual, that it didn't really fail. The Fed forced them to shut down by stopping them from doing crypto business. And I think we've seen now that there are over 47 banks in the last two years in the US that wanted to offer crypto products proactively, but the FDIC, and the FDIC shut them down and didn't let them do that. So I think to say that they don't want these things, you know, I think maybe some of them don't understand that it may ultimately destroy their businesses very far down the road. And maybe I'm wrong and they won't. So that's where I get the Trojan horse example. But I think a lot of these businesses want to offer these, whether it's a Bitcoin product or a stable coin product, to their customers getting involved, because there is

Speaker 6  24:06

a risk to the existing

Speaker 4  24:10

business model, right? So they're hedging Exactly. So that kind of makes my

Brian Neirby  24:13

point slightly different, pivot on the conversation. So we have what the state of Utah, Wisconsin, I know there's another one in there that's Louisiana, or this their treasury secretaries, you know, backing a crypto reserve, right? So those are three. We know that Don Junior loves crypto. We know that senior loves crypto. We know that Bobby loves crypto. So we have some tail winds coming out of this new administration. You. So I'm a nerd. I love the blockchain from a tech standpoint, I love the utilization and elasticity of Bitcoin. In particular, I believe all roads lead to Bitcoin. You walk around Istanbul, you see i. Are tickers everywhere of what's happening within all the coins. What's it going to take for the US to get to that point?

Bill Deuchler  25:12

You raise an excellent point, because since, since we are the world reserve currency, and because our economy, arguably, is the most robust in the world. A lot of the advantages of digital don't aren't readily apparent to us, but I think it's, as will has pointed out, if you're at all outside the US, if you are definitely in in a third world country, the advantage of the decentralized currency is huge. It is the litter, literally, night and day. And so I, I hate to say that it would be a crisis that would cause that, you know, to all of a sudden the light bulb go on. But it could very well be, but we're in a very enviable situation. I think the opportunity for the US is to be able to take advantage of all the features that digital offers and be able to build it into the system. The one thing that I'll say, that I've been saying for a real long time, is that one does have to be careful about Central Bank digital currencies, because digital currencies are programmable money, and if a central bank issues it, number one, it's tied to the monetary policy of that central bank and the state authority that oversees it. The other thing is that they can, for better or for worse, direct or Yeah, or imp, thank you. How the currency is used, and it is so easy. You know, everybody says, oh, micro monetary policy. Wouldn't that be just terrific, because then we can target like certain areas of the economy where it needs to be spent, things like that. Think about your bank account. All of a sudden you have digital currency in there. The next morning, you wake up and you don't so digital central bank digital currencies, will compromise freedom. They will compromise privacy in ways that we have no idea other than that. So I think kind of that's great. It's the decentralization aspect of it that is so critical for a real successful

Mark Sanor  27:21

so look, before you know, it's 330 just

Stephen Burke  27:23

on that bill. Isn't the bank financial settlements pushing for such beneficial currencies? Yeah,

Speaker 2  27:33

yeah. Certainly the the operational characteristics you know, are good, but one

Mark Sanor  27:38

so every, every quarter we revisit this subject. So it's time to revisit it. I

Will Wolf  27:44

think, I think they are and I think they will happen elsewhere. I think they're very unlikely to happen in the United States, at the Federal Reserve. Because what people usually mean, I think, by a central bank digital currency is the retail, the end user, you and I would have accounts directly at the Fed on this system. It would get rid of the banks entirely, like JP Morgan Chase would be gone, right? Like, we don't need them anymore. You would just have accounts directly with the Fed, because, because, other than that, the dollar is a central bank digital currency already. I mean, 98% of the dollars are digital. They just have to flow through the retail bank. But only the only the banks can have accounts with the Fed, not you or I, and so the banks own the Fed, so they're not going to let the Fed do a central bank digital currency, because they don't want to kill themselves. So that's that's my take.

Mark Sanor  28:28

Okay, so there will be a break out soon, and you can hammer this these questions, and we'll come back and have a de brief, and we'll have a I'll be here again, but let's thank this panel for kicking off the fin tech, digital. Now I'm joined our 361 firm community of investors and thought leaders. We have a lot of events created by the community as we collaborate on investments and philanthropic interests. Join us. You.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

AI innovation, venture capital, early-stage companies, technology revolution, market uncertainty, geopolitical shifts, consumer spending, debt management, leadership challenges, educational access, technological race, global alliances, investment strategies, productivity increases, existential risks.

SPEAKERS

Zoe Cruz, Mark Sanor, Barbara Doran, Christopher Birne, Stephen Burke, Joe Mancini

Mark Sanor  00:00

I'm going to make a prediction if Eddy will give me his attention. Eddie and Maisy are doing a deal right now. That's the whole point, yeah. My prediction is that this might be one of the most educational five to six hours of your life. There are so many interesting things happening in the world. Again, we were talking this morning. It really is like a new world order. And what gives us hope is always technology, productivity and all those things, those great things. So we're going to talk about these aspects, and hopefully these are the things that we in this room can control, but we all don't know how to navigate, so we have specialists who that's what they focus on, you know, whether it's health tech or dual use. So let's all learn together. So I asked the panels a classic question, what scares and excites you, and share some insights. And I like to to do the following, and sometimes the what scares and excites you, of course, can be insightful. But by way of very quick introduction, introduce yourself, and then you'll be you about clean up. David, you'd like to clean up. Share it, you know, introduce yourself and share. Share an insight with the view of, we're in this, this very, you know, rapidly transforming world, and the rapidity is only increasing. So with that, I'm gonna, you know, I always like fund the funds, so I raise money. So a lot of people don't want to raise money for fund the funds, because you're like, you know, you don't get paid much. You have to long term journey, but the intelligence that you get from fund to fund. So I let Joe kick off, Barbara, we all, you all know from pickle ball or or CNBC, or the like. Zoe is new to us, maybe not to some of you, but she was the president of Morgan Stanley. Who else has been president of Morgan Stanley here? Not too many of us have been your perch, right? Your view, your vantage point. So and you're on to new frontiers, you'll share some of that. And everyone should know Stephen. Who does not know? Stephen Burke, has anyone has not been to our Tuesday briefing? It okay if you haven't, Olga, you haven't made it. Have you a Tuesday briefing of 361 firm? Has anyone not made it to one of them? You probably made it to 100 but it's 256 next Tuesday, our anchor man. So you'll anchor the panel. So I'm going to pass it off to you, Joe, and truly be inside tell us something we don't know.

Joe Mancini  03:22

Well, I'll start by just telling you what you don't know, which is who I am. My name is Joe Mancini. I'm one of the founding partners of a hybrid venture fund called front porch Venture Partners. About half our capital goes into early stage venture capital on the fund side, via kind of a classic Fund of Funds approach, and about half directly into companies at the early stage. Companies at the early stage. Super excited to be here this community as I've started to engage with it more and more. It's just a really authentic and interesting group of people. So I think it's going to be an amazing day. Is this the scares and excites? Part? Mark, or no?

Mark Sanor  03:54

Well, insights and or scares Excite? Yeah. I like an insightful perspective.

Joe Mancini  04:01

Yeah, insightful. I would say, you know, I mean, it's, obviously, it's a more dynamic world, I think, right now, than we've lived in in a very long time. It feels like every other day there's some new piece of news that's throwing us all for a loop. I focus on early stage venture. I would say I when we get to the scared and excited part, I both worry as well as I'm excited about the state of venture as an asset class and the state of early stage innovation. It's been a primary driver of the US economy for a very long period of time, and American ingenuity and innovation has put us, you know, at the top of the heap globally for a long period of time. And there's an interesting where, an interesting intersection in the asset class right now, where, you know, LPs are frustrated about liquidity, assets are being concentrated among some of the biggest managers. And meanwhile, innovation is happening globally. That's starting to put, I think, American innovation on its on its heels a little bit. So I can talk about. A more inspiring version of where I think we go from here, but that's where I sit today.

Barbara Doran  05:11

Hello, yeah, hi. Besides playing pickleball, and there were two women who won, by the way, will be defending next year. Anyway, I'm Barb Duran. I wear two hats. I'm here, really, on the investment Council of Penn State. I'm not staff member, volunteer. I've been on the board of Penn State for nine years, the Board of Trustees just after the Sandusky scandal was elected by the alumni, and have been on the Finance Committee ever since. So on the investment Council. And so I want to talk a little bit about the things that we do there. But also, excuse me, my other hat is I have my own firm, wealth advisory, asset management, and so I invest in public traded equities, and that's really my specialty as an independent professional, the things that excite me most really goes along with what Dan was saying are Bill Joe. Oh, jeez. Anyway, David. David anyway is really about technology. I don't think that should come as any surprise. There's lots of talk all the time about AI and what that means. We had a market sell off about three weeks ago because of deep seek. You know this Chinese competitor, potential competitor, to Nvidia and lots of other semiconductor players, but there's so much going on, and we're already starting to see the productivity increases that will come from businesses adopted it. And so far, in terms of businesses adopted, probably, you know, not even you know, only maybe 10% have really adopted, and we're not talking about the service now. So the salesforce.com but the businesses will actually implement to make their businesses run more efficiently, their sales, all that sort of thing. So that's just beginning, because everybody's looking at, how do we use it, working with consultants, etc. But there's going to be a lot more to come, and more new companies that we don't even know about yet, and that's why, like, for instance, at Penn State, we're doing we don't invest directly and anything, we're just not big enough. Our end down is maybe six to 7 billion, if you include our operating cash. So we have a great staff, but we invest in funds, you know. So that's the fund of funds who really have the expertise to dive deep. And we've been investing in in different venture capital funds that have different areas of expertise in technology. Some of them are AI. Others are other areas of technology, but AI has been a big one recently, and we're continuing to look in that space. And the publicly traded side at Penn State, we just do index is which I'm always the one speaking up like, why we should do some active managers. But for my own clients, I do a lot in technology. Like, for instance, I've own Nvidia since 2019 which had no idea it would happen as it has. But I looked up at that time, like, why did I buy it then? And it was really because they were one of the first actually using AI to help their clients run their business. And so that was, this was the beginning of and this is just the beginning, still, even despite everything that's happening on So, and I know I'm getting the look, but the things that I worry about really have to do with the current administration and the uncertainty being created by not knowing what's happening with tariffs. Is it more bark than bite? We don't know. We just had a pronouncement today about Canada and Mexico, or maybe it was late yesterday. Who knows? And also about the deportations. We don't know. Even company managements are worried about what that could mean in terms of labor shortage and the inflationary pressures there. So there's a lot we don't know. And right now, what's happened? Sure you've noticed, the last three days, we've had a market sell off, including today, in the equity market. 10 year yield has come down, and I think it's we're now having a growth scare, which we haven't seen for a while, and we'll see how that plays out. My view it's probably a buying opportunity somewhere in there, because the economy is still strong. It's consumer driven, and it's the mid to high income consumer that's driving it. And people have made trillions in the stock market. Their home prices are high, and they're employed. So despite all the noise in the frights of the last few days, I'm still, you know, optimistic on the market. Thank you.

Zoe Cruz  09:09

Thank you. My name is Zoe Cruz. It's actually Zoe Papa vimitrio Cruz. I was born and raised in Greece. I am what you call the American dream. Three years before I went to Harvard on a full scholarship, I didn't speak a word of English, and if it weren't a public school teacher that took an interest as to why I wasn't applying to Harvard, I probably wouldn't be here. And I joined Morgan Stanley right out of business school. It was a small investment banking boutique with 1800 people in three offices, Tokyo, London, New York. When I left in 07 it was 65,000 people. They had offices everywhere. That's a revolution. Finance was globalizing. Overnight, rates were 21% on their way to zero 30. Interest rates, the risk free rate of return for treasuries were 15% on their way to 1% as I say to people, a monkey could do what we did at Morgan Stanley, and we were not monkeys. So you have to recognize paradigm shifts. And I actually think right now we're in a massive paradigm shift. There is way too much in being spilled. Whether the Fed is going to use 25 basis points. Who cares? The world is de globalizing, fragmenting. The biggest assumption the markets are making is that we beat inflation. It's going to go back down to 2% I could be wrong, but I believe we're not going to save 2% in my lifetime. We should worry more about hyper inflation than deflation. The US government has $36 trillion worth of debt, and so for me, what I worry about is there is not enough talk about, how do you hedge your portfolio if it is a paradigm shift, and interest rates actually, the cost of capital keeps on going up, and availability of it keeps on going down. If I'm right about that assumption. A lot of your portfolio is in deep trouble, because that's the assumption most people are making. So what scares me at the moment, I'm an optimist by nature. I love you know, we are the lucky sperm club here, actually, most of us. What scares me is we are in the middle of an amazing technological revolution. But unlike what so it is amazing in the sense that when I look at the power of that thing, I downloaded all four perplexity, Gemini, grok, chat, GPT, all four of them, and I asked them the same question, all four. And by the way, they have their own biases. Just excellent. I don't need 12 research people. It's just in a second, I get the most complex answers to a question that's exciting. I mean, I can get a PhD basically, just, you know, asking that's exciting. Unlike other revolutions, you don't get the extreme risk of Elon, a brilliant man, whatever you want to think about his character. This is a brilliant man who has changed the world. Now everybody's talking the game, but he, I remember, if you look at his interviews only a few years back, he said there's a non zero possibility humanity ceases to exist. Well, that's kind of a big risk. So, so the mirror image of that exciting, exciting revolution is more of us should think about humanity is a wonderful thing, and how do you preserve us being masters of this revolution, as opposed to the other way around?

Stephen Burke  13:14

I'm done. First of all, I agree with most of what you said, and the stuff I don't agree with, I don't understand. So thank you, Zoe for that crash course. I worry about debt too, and I worry about debt being the current consumption of our future earnings, and we've gone way over our skis on that all over the world, and how we get that back is going to be a real problem. And the other thing I worry about is the lack of leadership that will make the hard decisions that we have to make to put the pain on the system that we have to go through to get the excesses out that we built up over the years. I also share the view that the move down in rates is going to be much more challenging the market is hoping for as investors, if we don't get our mind around that change that the last 15 years are done and we're back to a normal interest rate level on the low end of what we've historically seen, you're going to have problems valuing all your assets if we don't get that right. So I think we have to change the mindset there. I do think there's elements of this administration that are not getting credit for the positive outcomes because of the delivery on it, but if we can get digitize a lot of our government expenses, you only raise the level of trust in how our taxes are being spent, they can give you a whole different mindset towards government and deliver much better outcomes for our country, but I think it will be the same for other countries. Europe has a massive fiscal problem where their needs are far greater than their ability to spend to meet those needs, and that's not just on defense, it's on their regular day to day living. So I think the transformations that are going. On. I do think this is one of those periods where we've slowly walked into, over the last decade, big, secular, mega trends, whether it's demographics, whether it's the tech boom. You can go through the list. There's several other areas where we're seeing these mega trends. I think the anti immigration bias that we're starting to say is another worry, we're going to have a brain drain problem. We've already seen it in a lot of countries. The US cannot afford to lose the opportunity the edge that we've had in immigration, and we're on our way to doing that. So I think we're going too far in the pendulum all the time. I think we have to get back to a more moderate way of seeing how we deal with all the problems that we have. So I'll stop there more.

Mark Sanor  15:42

What do you think about the risk of of humanity? So arm and Sir keys on. He did this conference. He how long wasn the question of existence? Do we can, you know, sort of existential, the ultimate existential question. I'm surprised

Stephen Burke  15:58

they made it this far, so that's not a priority for me, but I do have four kids that it is a priority for. And I would say that I worry about our kids. I worry about the we called sending the bill to the kids table with the debt and the strains on the system, but I also worry what we've done to their future. I think their their ability to have hope is not the same that we had when we were growing up. And I think that's a real problem, because without hope and hope in our leaders, it's very hard to get out of the problems and deal with the problems

Mark Sanor  16:32

that we have fair enough. Well, I want to open up because I asked insights and scares and excitements, you sort of answered those questions, but did you hold back a scares and excites? Answer? I held back and excites. Okay, let's Yeah, and that

Joe Mancini  16:46

was really interesting. I appreciate this is a really smart crew up here. You know, like I said, I play in the early stage venture world, primarily in the US. I spend all day, every day, with fund managers and founders. I would say something that excites me with as concerned as I am about certain things, is how many founders are starting businesses right now in an AI native way. And what I mean by that is, you know that they're building these businesses now with AI tools in their pocket that are going to dramatically, I think, decrease the amount of capital needed to build a great company, right? Which means that, as an investor, there's an opportunity for great returns. Peter Walker, at carta has a great stat around the average series A employee count. Two years ago was 18. Last year was 13. It's ready to be under 10 within the next 12 months. So in terms of productivity, kind of carrying us out of this, I think there's a huge opportunity with this next set of tools, not just as a system layer for a lot of things that we do, but for founders and people who are creating and building things, and for our kids as they're creating and building things. So Mark, that's the more optimistic. So

Mark Sanor  17:51

do you know Esther Dyson? Does anyone know Mr. So she was we had this discussion about this time last year about companies that are the founders being an AI and the board members potentially being a is you guys have thought through that scenario, but it's they would Love to replace you too. So so it goes both ways.

Joe Mancini  18:23

I mean, some might as well be AI in certain cases, right? I mean, particularly at the board level, we work with a lot of boards as well, and, you know, there's some sleepy boards that might be better served being AI, right? We try to avoid those types of situations.

Mark Sanor  18:39

So, let's, let's open it up. Will

Speaker 4  18:46

First off, this was awesome. So far, I really enjoyed what you guys all said, a lot of brain power up there. We've talked a lot about, you know, uncertainty of geo politics, Global War, where interest rates are going. I'm curious, you know, from an investment perspective, it's sometimes easier to think about, what are the things that are not going to change amidst all this, and what will continue to just make sense. And I'd love to hear what you guys think about, what's not going to change, and how we could invest in slow, boring things that aren't going to change.

Mark Sanor  19:18

Who wants it?

Zoe Cruz  19:22

Great question. Sorry, yeah, it's a

Mark Sanor  19:27

girl he was being coached by the Pender, right?

Zoe Cruz  19:30

It's a great question. I'm not sure I have the answer that to the question you're asking. One thing will never change is basically, if you have short term clarity on what's going to produce cash, you know, even if inflation takes 5% of it, who cares? That's never I mean arithmetic, simple arithmetic is so good businesses, but I. Say what's also not going to change. Some of the best money I've made is after the crash, one of the best trades I've made, because I know how to read bank balance sheets in oh eight after the war fell apart, you could have bought if you had enough cash saved aside and not prematurely invested all of your portfolio and things you could have bought bill based stock at 50 cents of its book value. This is a company that was still making billions with an S every quarter. So what's not going to change is we know after major and I think we are in a paradigm shift. You don't need to be a great investor. You're going to pick up great companies. You're going to make me investments that give you a symmetry of risk reward. Most Great Investors basically have, so yes, you can lose half of your money, or you can make 100x that's a symmetry of risk reward. You should do the trade every day. I think right now, the asymmetry of risk reward is against the traditional portfolio, stocks and bonds. You know, when you can actually save there is inflation, the huge debt that the market, sovereign in particular, the US of A everyone is actually printing money, including even Germany. Basically, when there is huge debt, as I say many times, people forget there is only two ways of big debt, repudiation or inflation, we're choosing the latter, so that should guide your portfolio. Now the Argentinians don't have a reserve currency. So if you choose inflation, your currency goes down 98% Turkey 60% we are in a wonderful world of America with the reserve currency. The question is, we better be careful. I

Barbara Doran  22:06

just want to make a quick comment on that. We better be careful about the reserve currency, because when 22 when we used we froze central bank in Russia. You know, it suddenly woke up a lot of other central bankers to say, hey, maybe the treasuries aren't so safe after all. So it will be a long term process, but we can't take for granted. I mean, the near term, yes, will be the world's reserve currency, but over many years, and depending how it accelerated or not, by various administrative policies, current or future presidents, that is something to watch. And I share the concern over the deficit, which looks like it's going to be even higher, but what will not change? I mean, there's so many ways to answer that. One is about consumer spending. You know that Americans love to spend through thick and thin and and also market psychology, which we addressed in which Zoe said, back in it was oh nine in February, I remember looking at those bank stocks because a friend said, bar, what can I invest in, and I don't give friends ideas. But I said, if you really want to invest, because she knew nothing. I said it with Hank was bank America and city, which were like $2 stocks. I said, I don't know. The only thing I know is they're not going out of business when will return. It wasn't one, whatever it was. It was crazy. But the only thing I knew they weren't going out of business. So,

Mark Sanor  23:23

all right, yeah, what's

Joe Mancini  23:24

playing in my head, as you all are describing these situations, which I think are really good examples, is just, I mean, supply and demand, as far as I can tell, is always going to, you know, rule quite you know, rule every market and just about every transaction. So knowing where you sit in terms of, you know, where is demand, where is supply, and ultimately, where is price, right, can help you make really good decisions. Simple, but I think we go back to it all the time,

Mark Sanor  23:52

by the way, I'm gonna is amazing here. Of course, you stepped up. But we'll talk about pricing perfect timing, because we're gonna talk about talk about large pricing models. That's the next open AI that we've been looking at. Lots of hands were going up because you guys have asked lots of questions. I'm going to let

Speaker 5  24:16

Dave Thanks. So regarding rare and critical minerals, we're sort of hearing now that if you haven't already got any, gone into them, you're late, that they're not going to be very rare in a very short period of time. Do you guys have views on that?

Mark Sanor  24:31

I mean, Greenland and Ukraine? No views from the panel on that

Speaker 2  24:40

one? No, I don't know enough either. Don't forget the ocean too. Oh,

Mark Sanor  24:44

the ocean. We have two people in Alyssa. Where's Alyssa and Lisa on ocean research. We know so much. We spend so much more in space, not in the ocean. Chris,

Christopher Birne  24:58

thank you guys for your time. I guess. First, I would say, both my dad and I went to Penn State for our undergrad. So we are and I'm Greek. So CI do elada Go Blue? Yeah, oh, wow. So, I guess a lot of discussions I've had with other family offices, and I think Stephen You had mentioned this idea of, you know, a lack of leadership and its effect on making crucial decisions. You know, I think that the Obama administration was the last two year term we had for a president. And, you know, I guess you could argue that Trump is a two term president one time, separately, this political climate that we're in now and this shit, this paradigm shift politically, I think, where, you know, every four years to different president with a completely different outlook. What effect does that have? Like, kind of, some of the things you guys are discussing about the deficit and being able to make crucial decisions,

Mark Sanor  25:48

we do have elections every two years too, that impact

Stephen Burke  25:52

this. I'll start I think the I think the ping pong match of the party's policies is a terrible waste of money for the US, consumer and taxpayer. And I think we need to separate the budget out to a maintenance budget and investment budget the same way you would in a corporation, and then you would evaluate the return on your investment for like the infrastructure plan that was absolutely necessary. But you do that in a way that you actually look for an ROI the way you would in the business, and I think if we did that, the people would have a lot better response to the government spending and new government projects. So I think that's the kind of leadership that you need. You also need people to step up and say, I'm going to be a one term. Er, because what we need to do is the stuff that is the hard stuff, we're going to have to have to raise taxes and we're going to have to cut spending. You can't avoid the deficit problem that we have. You can't grow out of it. We tried that for the last 15 years, and all we did was make the debt worse. We avoided a financial crisis, but we just might have prolonged it instead of completely avoid it.

Zoe Cruz  26:56

I would say that we're focusing on the wrong the politics, the Democrats, Republicans. I think the Democrats pretend they care. The Republicans say they're going to do the right thing for the economy, but neither one, neither of the major parties, really focus on the one thing, the economy is no longer working for large swaths of the population. And if you read history, they pick up the pitch forks at some point. That's what's happening to me. Donald is the pitch fork saying he's a disrupter. We're going to throw a bomb. Tabula rasa. Let's start all over again. So the again, the amount of ink that's being spilled on Obama versus Donald versus at the end of the day, the reason Donald won is he had a great story line. I care. I listen to you. We've globalization eviscerated your town, your middle class America, your poor. I'm listening to you. That resonated now. What's going to happen if two years from now, he's not listening? Is what I worry society is fraying, not because Republicans did the wrong thing, or Democrats did the wrong thing. We're not focusing on fundamentally, when you have I think I read a statistic that's, again, I believe in capitalism, but we're not practicing it any longer. When you have three guys, bez, I think Zuckerberg and Elon, the three are worth more than the bottom 50% of us of a think of that statistic that's crazy. Yeah. So I think, you know, I talked to a couple of you, I think the caucuses we should have is, What is the purpose of leadership, but to actually get to our children, leave our children. I have three amazing children. I'm ashamed of the future I'm leaving them. My generation is the most self est generation of them all my dad fought in World War Two. They were starving, and here we are, my generation. I need, I want, I have to have. So I think that's what has to change, not Obama versus whatever.

Barbara Doran  29:24

Well, all very interesting. But I think your question was, was, really, how does it affect your investing, and how to think about it? So in a more granular, granular level, it does affect, I mean, you had leading up the election, you had the Kamala plays in the stock market. You had the Trump plays, you know, and after Trump won, then you had, you know, all his the areas, whether it was financials, materials, everything running. And so you do have to be cognizant. And of course, now, as I mentioned earlier, there's all this policy uncertainty, which certainly is, you know, impactful, because the Fed is on hold, and probably may hold a little longer to there more clarity, because they are. Worried, you know, if you deport too many people, you know could hurt labor, inflationary and tariffs and so we don't know yet. So there is uncertainty that you have to build in. Now, interestingly, there just was out yesterday, the second Consumer Confidence Report from the Conference Board, and last week with senior University of Michigan, a big drops in consumer confidence in terms of inflation expectations. But interestingly, there was quite a disparity, as we've seen in other surveys, between the Republicans and the Democrats. Democrats were much more pessimistic about it all, and Republicans, even though that number went up, they were not so very interesting. How either they're hearing separate facts or they're interpreting or focusing on different things. So this politicization that Zoe is talking about, you know, is real and is is harmful, you know, in terms of making informed decisions.

Mark Sanor  30:47

Question Tony, hold on one second,

Speaker 7  30:55

Zoe, I want to go back to something you said. I think you touched on concentration, concentration of wealth. Most people are focused on chasing the return based on what's happening in the market, and a lot of that has to do with technology. How do you, how do you properly address that concentration?

Speaker 3  31:14

You know, I hope this time around, it will be different. When you look at the history, when you look at, you know, this time, it's different. When you look at the history of capitalism again, the best system, on a relative basis, you have huge growth plateau, collapse, start all over again. That's how it so you look at, you know, the 1920s I'm rereading the great crash in 1929 you look at the parallels of what we constant, robber barons, concentration of wealth, gold, Gilded Age. I mean, so you look at the pattern. And my hope again is that we don't have this collapse, if people say, if you put your money in equities, you'll make money, yes, over the long decades, if you put your money in equities, right before the crash in 1929 it took you 40 years to make your money back. Let's pick or 30. So to me, I would say, right now, there's not enough, really, risk management these. How do you change the concentration of wealth? I hope it's not by, you know, I hope that those guys that there are worth trillions, don't figure out how they go to Miami to save taxes. They figure out how you actually use technology, you know. And again, Elon, to be fair, even though I think he's a deeply flawed human being, but I have enormous respect for his IQ, he started talking about again, years ago, when you listen to what he was saying, is, and that's why, by the way, they had this, you should have open AI, why he supported it. He said we should have the minimum income. I don't know if that's the right answer. But he thought about if 65% of the US economy is consumption, which means people have a job, they make money, and then they consume. That's America. So when you have all of them now say productivity, you are going to need to fire millions of people. We don't need them, and this time, it's not the machinists. It's actually the lawyers, the accountants. How does so? Again, we're not thinking about the paradigm shift. I am hugely positive about what will happen if we survive at the other the land of plenty, but I hope the transition, which was World War One, World War Two, is what transitions were this time. Hopefully it's different.

Stephen Burke  34:13

I would just add mark. I think the thing that's going to help the inequality is, can we use technology to make the access to education better than it is right now for the low end, because 49% of the spending in the US is done by the top 10% of earners, so they the others don't have a shot. They just don't have a shot right now. And the way our educational system works in many states, it's driven by tax revenues, particularly real estate revenues, and that is the definition of inequality. So I think we have to fix the educational access to allow them to have a shot to compete, because we're not giving them the shot to they're not starting on an even playing field to begin with.

Mark Sanor  34:59

So. What we haven't talked about is the global, the geopolitical Democrats and Republicans. But we're in a world, a shifting world. You talked about the dollar and in our debt loads. But how do you see, I guess, what scares and excites you on the geopolitical fronts? I I'll

Stephen Burke  35:20

start just the same thing inequality. You have a couple countries that are dominating all the discussions and all the influence right now, and it's the US and China, primarily, that are sucking the wind out of the air, out of the room, and they're not leaving much for the rest. And as we're carving up the world, we're creating a real problem with that. I think you have inequality on three levels. I think you have it on a country level, you have it on a corporate level, and you have it on the individual level, and we have to deal with all three of them to for this, to get it right.

Zoe Cruz  35:59

What I'm excited about is that it's possible to have the Chinese leadership and the US leadership meet to say, if actually humanity is what we're trying to save, maybe we work together, as opposed to because the nuclear arms race is now the technology race that the Chinese and the Americans are actually fighting so they don't lose on a technological revolution that they recognize they can lose control of. So my hope is those two guys meet and then we get to the land of plenty fast. Do

Mark Sanor  36:35

we have like this new, enlightened, mutual, assured technological destruction? Yeah, and that we should be enlightened,

Zoe Cruz  36:43

yeah? Because, I mean, I'm sure there are, there are people that are telling both Donald and she that there is a scenario we all die. I mean, there is, we all know that. And so right now, externally, at least what we are hearing and reading is what they want us to hear and read. Those two are the super powers, the unilateral whatever you call it, the world where America was the only one. Yeah, so those two guys, I think there must be at least initiating discussions Russia and all that. It's a human, horrible toll. The two leaders that need to get together, the two that count, that can change the trajectory of the world, is the Chinese and the Americans.

Speaker 2  37:41

Okay? And I worry long term about shifting alliances. You know, the US, it may not be seen as a reliable partner. And certainly Europe, basic leaders in the last week or so have said we've got to go it alone. And that will shift alliances all over the world. You've got Canada, Mexico, and we'll see where that shakes out. And, you know, I think longer term, it could weaken us and our ability, you know, to withstand all sorts of global pressures, the fact that we've done so well the last few years, economically, all these things, again, this is longer term. This will take time to shift, but that's what I'm concerned about. What's being set in motion now. So what? What that may lead to, and it may not be good for us.

Joe Mancini  38:24

I'll tell you a thing that I probably shouldn't say, that I actually wish had been a little less certain for a period of time, which is, I don't know if folks noticed the news story about a week ago that there was a 3% chance in 2032 that a meteor was gonna strike the Earth, right? And then we got a better look at the media, and we're like, Ah, it's one and a half percent. And then we started look back in history, and we're like, Oh, something hit, you know, the northern part of Russia in 1908, it wasn't that big of a deal. And now we're saying, yeah, it's probably not gonna hit. No big deal. I wish that that had stuck at three to 5% for a little while longer, right? And just tried to bring the world a little bit together around, okay, this is madness, but we have an existential threat. We can see it through a big, giant telescope. Let's get the best minds together to try to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, now it's like point 1% and we'll probably be fine.

Mark Sanor  39:17

All right with that. Thank you to our kick off panel. Zoe Can I ask you to stick around? Can you stick around? We're going to talk about AI and two of my panelists are not here, and I thought you might keep sharing some. There you go. It's a half an hour panel. All right. So if Thank you. Thank you so Ben and Maisie Jack is on on an airplane. Watch her. Please come up. We're going to talk about AI, and if you, if you, and maybe. Be Ben, you'll go first, introduce yourself again. Sheri, come join our 361 firm community of investors and thought leaders. We have a lot of events created by the community as we collaborate on investments and philanthropic interests. Join us. Ben.

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Issues & Risks

-Deep Seek: Concerns about its impact on the AI landscape and potential security implications.

-AI Energy Consumption: Conflicting views on whether AI will require more or less energy in the future.

-AI Investment: Concerns about concentration of wealth in large AI companies and the need for more funding for smaller, innovative startups.

-AI Safety and Control: Discussions about the challenges of controlling and regulating AI development.

-Data Privacy and Bias: Concerns about AI systems manipulating information and introducing biases.

Next steps

-Bill and Mark to discuss AI-related questions for an upcoming survey.

-Participants encouraged to fill out a form for the Riyadh event if interested in attending.

-De Kai invited participants to follow his substack for more detailed follow-up on AI developments.

Questions discussed

-"How is it that for the likes of the perception and reality and public expression of dislike from the US administration and the like towards China and China security as it relates to tech?"

-"What is the rate presently, right now, in sort of computer processing efficiency, and was deep seek a far more efficient sort of processing, or computer quantitative process, moving thing?"

-"What about the children? What should our children be studying?"

---

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 💼 Corporate CapEx Surge: Major companies are significantly increasing their capital expenditures, which is seen as a positive indicator for future earnings and economic growth. 

🌐 Demographic Headwinds: Declining birth rates and aging populations globally pose challenges for sustained economic expansion, requiring policymakers to address these demographic shifts. 

🔀 M&A Reshuffling: Expectations of heightened merger and acquisition activity across industries could lead to significant restructuring and reshuffling, creating both opportunities and risks for investors. 

🏦 Fed's Balancing Act: The Federal Reserve's monetary policy decisions will be crucial in navigating the balance between supporting economic growth and managing inflationary pressures, with significant implications for market dynamics. 
 

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💼 Corporate CapEx Surge: Major companies are significantly increasing their capital expenditures, which is seen as a positive indicator for future earnings and economic growth. 

🌐 Demographic Headwinds: Declining birth rates and aging populations globally pose challenges for sustained economic expansion, requiring policymakers to address these demographic shifts. 

🏢 M&A Reshaping Industries: Expectations of heightened merger and acquisition activity across industries could lead to significant restructuring and reshuffling, potentially creating new opportunities and risks. 

🚀 Fed Policy Impact: The Federal Reserve's monetary policy decisions will be a crucial factor in shaping market dynamics and investor sentiment in the coming years. 

🌍 U.S. as a Safe Haven: Despite global uncertainties, the U.S. is viewed as the most stable and attractive investment destination compared to other major economies, offering a relative safe haven for investors. 

📉 Corporate Debt Risks: Elevated corporate debt levels raise concerns about potential defaults, which could introduce volatility and disrupt market stability.

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🔒 Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities: The potential for a large-scale cyber attack, estimated to be bigger than the global illegal drug trade, highlights the significant risks to critical infrastructure and global systems.

💥 Nuclear Threats: Concerns about nuclear capabilities in countries like Iran, North Korea, and Russia underscore the ongoing geopolitical tensions and the risk of escalation.

🌍 Climate Change Impacts: The fact that 9 out of 10 Americans are affected by extreme weather and climate change suggests the growing urgency to address these challenges.

⚡ Power Grid Fragility: The vulnerability of the U.S. power grid and other critical infrastructure to attacks emphasizes the need for robust security measures and resilience planning.

🇺🇦 Ukraine-Russia Conflict: The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, involving advanced technologies like drones and electronic warfare, provides insights into the evolving nature of modern warfare.

🇮🇱 Middle East Dynamics: The aftermath of the October 7 attack on Israel and the implications for the broader region showcase the complexity and volatility of the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East.

🇮🇷 Iran's Relationships: Iran's nuclear program and its relationships with Russia and China highlight the intricate web of alliances and rivalries that shape global security dynamics.

🤝 Unexpected Alliances: The possibility of unexpected global alliances and realignments, such as between Trump and Xi, suggests the potential for significant shifts in the international order.

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00:00 Introduction to the wealth disparity issue. 

0:23 The significant increase in US household net worth. 

1:03 The role of quantitative easing in asset value stimulation. 

1:28 Distribution of net worth among different wealth percentiles. 

3:00 Asset allocation differences between wealth groups. 

3:23 Evolution of household balance sheets over seven decades. 

4:01 The decline in liability ratio from 2010 to 2019. 

4:45 The misleading nature of aggregate net worth data. 

6:03 The disparity in asset growth between younger and older generations. 

8:02 The changing attitudes of younger generations towards equity ownership. 

10:01 The potential return to defined benefit pension plans. 

12:07 The impact of AI on productivity and wealth concentration. 

16:57 The shift in asset allocation preferences among younger generations. 

20:03 - The potential political implications of AI-driven job displacement.

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