• 5 months ago
The Disruptors: From Moonshots to the Next Big Thing with moderator: Alex Konrad, Senior Editor, Forbes and panelists: Shardul Shah, Partner, Index Ventures, Latif Peracha, General Partner, M13, and Nihal Mehta, Cofounder & General Partner, Eniac Ventures


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Transcript
00:00For the next conversation, the disruptors, from moonshots to the next big thing,
00:06please welcome moderator Alex Conrad, Senior Editor, Forbes,
00:11and panelist Shardul Shah, Partner, Index Ventures,
00:16Latif Peracha, General Partner, M13,
00:21and Nihal Mehta, Co-Founder and General Partner, ENIAC Ventures.
00:27I feel sorry for Shardul. He did so well on our Midas list this year,
00:32and yet we gave him a new firm name, so we're going to update that.
00:35News today.
00:36Yeah, you're the top-ranked investor at Index Ventures.
00:39Ventures, the one and only.
00:41Well, thank you so much for joining us.
00:43We have three awesome investors here from very different, I think, style VC firms,
00:49but all pretty established firms at this point.
00:53I promise we're going to have this be an organic conversation,
00:56but maybe we can just start with the two sentences on your stage of investing,
01:03kind of your focus area, because it'll just give people context.
01:06So, Nihal, I'll start with you.
01:07Can you just tell everyone what your focus is at ENIAC?
01:10Sure. Thanks, Alex, for having us.
01:12Good afternoon, everybody.
01:14Co-founder of ENIAC Ventures. We're here in New York City.
01:17We lead pre-seed and seed rounds in generalist tech startups.
01:24So, these days, AI is a part of everything,
01:27but we've been investing in machine learning since the beginning of the firm,
01:32which was 2009.
01:34Hi, everyone. Lateef Paratra.
01:36I'm a partner at M13.
01:38We're a Series 8 fund based between Los Angeles and New York.
01:42We invest in software companies.
01:44Historically, we've focused on FinTech, healthcare, commerce, and the future of work.
01:49We'll also go into where our curiosities take us,
01:52but really also focus on adding a tremendous amount of operational support to our companies.
01:59Shardul Index Ventures. We're a global, multistage firm.
02:04Presence in San Francisco, London, and now New York.
02:07I moved here about two years ago.
02:09I focus on B2B enterprise companies,
02:12mostly infrastructure and security,
02:14but our firm invests across all domains, all geographies, at all stages.
02:19So, aren't you guys all lying, and you're really just AI investors at this point?
02:23I mean, what is or isn't AI?
02:26And it's been a big topic already today, whether it was the CEO of Carlyle, it was Vinod Khosla.
02:32Where is AI relevant to your firm, Nahal, or not?
02:37Yeah, I mean, I think even if it's not a native AI startup,
02:41meaning AI is the actual business,
02:44every startup we look at essentially uses AI for some sort of efficiency.
02:50So, even if it's a consumer brand,
02:53they're using AI to make their customer service teams a lot more efficient.
03:00And so, at the end of the day, we look at it as an incredible efficiency multiplier,
03:05cost reducer, so that these teams have a lot more incredible leverage,
03:10and they're a lot more capital efficient.
03:13Matthew, please say you're not an AI investor.
03:16Well, we certainly are an AI investor, but not only an AI investor.
03:21I mean, I think if you look at AI, it's a bit like saying you're a mobile investor back in 2009, 10, 11.
03:27Like, yes, that was true when it started, but clearly it permeated everything.
03:31But we not only focus on AI.
03:33So, we actually have a big thesis on crypto and blockchains,
03:38and believe despite the ups and downs and some of the polarization of that industry,
03:44there's tremendous innovation.
03:46And given so many VCs are focused on AI only,
03:51we do think there's going to be tremendous opportunities for returns,
03:54but also for real significant technical innovation around crypto and blockchains.
04:00Chotul, obviously, we put Wiz on the cover of Forbes last year, one of your investments.
04:08You also made the Midas list for Datadog.
04:10Are those also kind of AI companies at this point?
04:13Are you an AI investor, too?
04:15We're not AI investors.
04:16All right.
04:17We focus on people, and it turns out at different moments in different cycles,
04:23people might gravitate towards certain themes.
04:26But this year, maybe not like 2021, has been super active for us.
04:31And if I look at the number of decisions we've made at the investment committee level,
04:35half are outside of what I think each of us would describe as AI.
04:40FinTech, gaming, health care, all have been interesting and thriving areas for entrepreneurs.
04:48And so, when I think back to Wiz, you know, when we invested,
04:51it was on my birthday before the team had a PowerPoint presentation.
04:55When we invested in Datadog and led the Series A, it was $10,000 in revenue.
04:59Like, it's not really a thematic investment as much as it is a diagnosis of entrepreneurs
05:06that might go on to build a really compelling business.
05:09Interesting.
05:10But before we keep going, I'm just curious.
05:11By a show of hands, how many people in the audience work in venture capital?
05:14Raise your hand if you work in VC.
05:16All right.
05:17So, it's a smattering, but I'd say most people do not work in VC.
05:20So, let's zoom out a little.
05:21Like, how much is this AI conversation dominating or creating an outlier around the VC conversation?
05:29Like, if we were to strip out AI, is this a good venture environment?
05:34Is the money flowing, Nahal, in your view?
05:38Yeah, we think it's an absolutely amazing environment, I think.
05:42Largely because there hasn't been, you know, significant liquidity events since 2021.
05:49I think a lot of managers have not been able to raise new funds.
05:54And so, there's a lot less, at least we feel like, at the seed stage, there's a lot less supply of early stage capital.
06:03And so, that leads to a lot less competition.
06:06So, it's a good environment because it's a worse environment?
06:10It's, like, better for you?
06:12It's a better environment because it's a shittier environment.
06:15Okay.
06:16That's correct.
06:17Right, okay.
06:18Do you agree, Lateef?
06:19Yeah, I mean, I don't think you can, like, say, without AI, that's sort of, like, so hypothetical and not really grounded in what's happening.
06:26Like, the whole point of venture capital is to invest in, like, breakthrough emerging technologies.
06:30Well, what I mean by that is, you know, we see numbers like investment dollars by city.
06:35And there could be a billion dollar funding around for one AI company in the city.
06:39And the city says, we had $1.1 billion go into startups this quarter.
06:44But that really means $100 million for everyone else and then a billion for this one outlier company.
06:49Does that mean that ecosystem is doing well?
06:52So, I was just wondering if the conversation is being skewed by the exuberance in that one area.
06:57Yeah, it is.
06:58But I would say that's actually a good thing.
07:00I mean, if you look at the macro environment and you look at, I know there's a lot of probably macro people in the room.
07:05And so, I don't want to speak out of turn, but where rates are and everything else.
07:10I actually think AI has a trend, has huge implications, can really be the actual reducer of inflation in a way that isn't, like, I'm going on a bit of a tangent here.
07:22But, like, it's not Drew and Powell, it's actually through technology.
07:24So, I think that's a massive trend that is very optimistic and one that we should embrace.
07:30So, there's probably some noise in the data city by city.
07:33But overall, I think what AI is enabling both at macro level, you know, top down and then bottoms up in the things that we're investing in is incredibly important.
07:43Yeah, I disagree with respect.
07:46Outside of AI, we're seeing extreme competition.
07:49Again, in gaming, in fintech, from Israel to Seattle to Germany, France, like, name your geography, name your stage.
07:58We're seeing extreme competition.
08:00Outside of AI, Wiz, which you alluded to, just announced a billion dollar fundraising a couple months ago.
08:05And so, there's an enormous amount of capital available for the best companies in large categories.
08:11And I think in difficult periods like the one we're in from a macroeconomic and geopolitical standpoint, you know, you find entrepreneurs who are really on a mission, who are put on earth to solve a problem.
08:25So, I think it's a wonderful time for entrepreneurs and it's a beautiful time to be an investor despite what we see as extreme competition.
08:32Yeah, I'm going to agree with Shardula on the point of I think right now the best founders know it's almost like one of the best times to build, maybe since the early 2000s, in the sense of all of the different platform shifts that are happening, the access to capital, the capital efficiencies.
08:53And we're seeing a growing number of, we call them human unicorn founders, but serial founders who have built multi-billion dollar market caps that are all of a sudden, you know, building again right now.
09:06Lateef, is there an industry outside of AI that you see just really ripping or there's just a ton of momentum among a bunch of companies, maybe not just one or two companies, or is there an area that excites you the most?
09:21I'll double down on my crypto comment earlier. I think we're seeing tremendous innovation around actually gaming is a huge area of focus where you're seeing actually the ability for end users to actually own their gaming assets and move them between games.
09:39And there's a lot of activity we're seeing and that's both here in the US, a lot of it is also in Europe. So, you know, crypto gaming and then also I think payments is a huge area of focus.
09:50There's this kind of narrative of, well, what has crypto done? And if you actually look at the history, you know, stable coins, which, you know, if you take a very ethnocentric approach and you say here in America, like, yeah, we don't need to use stable coins.
10:05But if you're in a high inflation environment, like a Turkey or Venezuela or Lebanon, pick your place. They're incredibly important.
10:13And so payments is just, you know, what makes the world go round. And I think crypto has a huge role to play there. I saw some data that showed that in Turkey, 5% of their GDP is transacted in stable coins.
10:25You just think about how long they've been around. That's a tremendous, I think, tremendous data point that there's something here that's really working. So we look at payments where we're investors in a company called Code from a very prominent founder who is trying to finally solve macro payments.
10:41You know, why should you have to pay whatever to Forbes on a daily or monthly basis when I can pay for Alex's, you know, article on a one-off basis and pay you instantly? Like, there's all these things that should happen that just don't happen in the world that I think crypto can solve.
10:56So we're spending a lot of time there. And as a generalist fund, you know, there's these crypto focus funds and they've done great. But as a generalist fund, we think it has a huge role to play within a portfolio of companies that also focus on AI and other areas.
11:11That's interesting. I mean, so, Shardul, like, when you have a big company like a Datadog or a Wiz in, you know, data observability and cybersecurity, does that mean that sector is, like, covered for you? You know, because you see this company break out years after you studied the category, you made the investment. Or do you try to double down where, you know, where you look for then more companies in an area where you've had success?
11:36Yeah, look, I'll answer it in two ways. So Datadog, for those of you that don't know, it's a public company. It's $40 billion plus market cap. I've served on the board for over a decade. And so I think my challenge with Datadog is very human. I formed a lot of bias, right? The opinions I hold around the product that's required to serve a set of enterprises is really challenging to unwind when I meet a net new entrepreneur.
12:04I've tried to leverage that learning and that bias as I approach a new company like Wiz, which is only four years old. It's the fastest growing software company of all time. But I've tried to be really open-minded about what else can exist in different ways to serve the needs of customers.
12:22So security, in my view, is an approximation to crypto in terms of a rising tide that has facilitated a lot of value and value exchange in our industry. If you kind of rewind the clock 10 years ago, there were probably four public security companies of any relevant scale. At that time, Palo Alto Networks had $5 billion of total market cap.
12:47Today, they have $5 billion of gross profit. And in February, they touched $100 billion of market cap. CrowdStrike is a $70 billion company. Zscaler, CloudFlare, Checkpoint are all $15 billion plus businesses. So security has exploded. And I think it would be really naive and limiting as an investor to view that Wiz has conquered them all.
13:09I think within cloud itself, there are opportunities around identity and data outside of products. I think there's a huge opportunity for insurance. I serve on the board of a company called Coalition, which serves a different segment of the market, as well as outsourced services. And I serve on the board of a company called Expel in that area, too.
13:27I think you make an interesting point on pattern recognition. So you had an investment that obviously was very successful. If you've done enough deals, you have enough pattern recognition. And actually, I think that's a fairly dangerous framework to fall into because things that were successful in the past are maybe not going to be successful in the future in terms of the type of profile of person or industry.
13:52So I think to your point, I think it's tough to do, but you have to basically unwind that and try to get the entrepreneur to show you a vision of the future and then just really kind of back that vision, kind of get an insight that gets you excited.
14:05It's true. It's so hard to listen. That's basically the job.
14:10Nihal, you were saying backstage that, correct me if I'm wrong, you were looking at ad tech again, which I find interesting because there are some investors out there and founders who were in sort of the big ad tech boom of maybe, at this point, what, 15 to 10 years ago? And they, at least for a while, said never again. Like, it's played out. It's miserable. I don't want to do it. Why go back? Is that a contrarian take?
14:34Yeah, I think their recovery took many years. They had to go through their own kind of personal journeys to want to build ad tech again. But I think we're definitely really excited about ad tech. I was mentioning kind of three platform shifts that we look at right now. One is obviously driven by AI. The other is in streaming and connected TV. And the third is in mixed reality.
14:58Whether or not the Apple Vision Pro was a flop or not, there was significant investment both from Apple and Meta into that entire medium as a future of human-machine interaction. And so with all these platform shifts, they're going to require and mandate monetization layers.
15:18And so what's interesting, at least what we've seen in a few cycles, it's always kind of in and around the same founders. You know, the founders that built the Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 great ad tech companies or the mobile 1.0 great ad tech companies are now building again. And so actually, I'd say three of my last kind of five investments have been these ad tech founders that are now running towards these new platforms.
15:49It's interesting. I feel like venture is supposed to be kind of a contrarian business where you want to back the companies before the category becomes obvious. But we have seen sort of a collapse of time cycles where we can have like micro cycles of hype or mini-hypes.
16:08Like maybe we're back into a crypto more optimistic cycle now after what, like a couple of years of negativity. So if all of that shrinks, where becomes the alpha for you guys or the place where you can maybe get a leg up on other smart people trying to back similar companies? Is it mostly an access game for you guys? Is it mostly a conviction game, a discovery game? Maybe each of you can answer that. Lateef, we could start with you.
16:37Well, on hype cycles, we spend a lot of time at the firm talking about them in our annual meetings. We put them up and we kind of show where various trends are. Crypto is a unique hype cycle because it basically, I can't explain why, but it does this thing where it actually repeats over and over. So you go through the peak of inflated expectations, the trough of disillusionment, and then you come back to the other side. And usually it happens once in a wave for technology. But in crypto, it just kind of does one of these, which as an investor,
17:06actually makes it interesting because you can kind of see where we are in a cycle and invest in that cycle. But I think each of these technologies have that and they play a huge role in capital formation and talent formation. And so it's pretty critical.
17:21To your point on how we think about the edge or where to go, I'm increasingly of the view that we used to debate TAM, the total adjustable market at the firm, and I really just moved away from that. I think it's a bit of a dangerous framework. So I'm actually looking for net new markets or net new breakthroughs that can create a market.
17:43So for example, we invested in a company in the beginning of 21 called Form, which is a healthcare company in the obesity management space. This was long before, you know, GLP-1s were a thing, but the founder put up a slide and he said, hey, look, half of America is obese. And 10 years ago, the Medical Association basically classified it as a disease. So it's going to spawn innovation in pharma, it's going to spawn innovation in medical schools.
18:12And because of that, if you look at chronic diseases, they go from, typically they kind of asymptote and they scale at like 65% treatment rates. In obesity, it was sub 1%. So you had this massive kind of new market that was going to be created. And I saw that, I saw the founder's background, and you quickly cut the check. And so that's, we think, a $500 billion new market. And we hope, we expect our company to be one of the market leaders there.
18:39So that example is just to show, I think, if you can find a new market and ride that wave, ride that tailwind, that's what we're looking for.
18:46But then is it finding the deal, winning the deal, or having the guts to do the deal that your peers are passing on? Like, which is the most important?
18:58Well, kind of sequential. You can't win it if you can't find it. But to the point of, wow, this deal no one else is looking at, I think the market is very competitive. And so it's very hard for that to be the case. I think it's a combination of those things.
19:12And then, you know, if you're on the Midas list, you can, that clearly, or if you've got great, great companies, that clearly, like, is a, it's a point that founders really will look to. Or whatever your track record is, that's important. What your firm value add is, is very important.
19:27So we spent a lot of time with our propulsion model, which my partner, Christine, is here who runs brand for us. And we have other partners who really come hands on and really focus on, you know, supporting the company. So I think it's a combination of those things. And in the case of Form, I got on a plane on a Sunday in COVID with my mask on and sat in a very depressing room at Logan and gave the guy a term sheet. And I can promise you there was no one else doing that. So it's all those things that I think add up to hopefully finding the right companies.
19:54Yeah, I think founders want brand, value add, speed, and price. Like, that's the menu. I'm very grateful to be on the Midas list. But I think what's cooler is Index. There's no firm that has more partners than Index on the list, which I think speaks to the effort we've put in over 20 years to build our brand.
20:15From my perspective, when I'm meeting an entrepreneur, I'm looking for, and it's a craft, so this is evolving. But I'm looking for imagination, operational excellence, and high quality decision making. And I spend an enormous amount of time trying to get to the essence of an entrepreneur in those three dimensions. And it turns out it's rare for me to find, which maybe means I have to like hunt where I'm not competing with you or collaborating with you on. But when I find that, I can move extremely fast and aggressively.
20:45I guess another way to think about it is like Nahal at ENIAC, are you guys most, are you more upset when you saw a deal that turned out to maybe be a big win and you guys just decided not to do it? Or would it be worse if you didn't see the deal at all? Like, what would be the area where you would always want to improve there?
21:05Yeah, it would definitely be worse if you didn't see the deal at all. You know, I think this game is, you have to be at the table. And it's okay to pass. I mean, you're going to miss some good ones and you're going to get some good ones. You know, we're fortunate to have a very large shadow portfolio. But we're also fortunate to have led seed in great companies like Attentive and Alloy and Brightwheel and Ghost.
21:30To your previous question, you know, Shardul, you mentioned kind of a menu of things. I think the founder is really most excited about one, which is conviction and almost the earliest conviction.
21:45And I think when an investor, you know, looks in their eyes and says, I totally believe in you. And I know the market's going to change and your product's going to change, but I'm with you 110%. That actual, like, emotional engagement goes all the way up. We say our most important KPI is being at the IPO party. And at the IPO party, that's the one thing that the founder remembers is that, you know, you were the first person that believed in me.
22:12And by the way, that business since that first pre-seed check has changed a dozen times. But that founder hasn't. And that memory hasn't changed. So I think it's that conviction is probably one of the most important things.
22:27Speaking of the IPO party, we would see a lot more fresh faces on the Midas list if more of these companies were going public and exiting. Especially here in New York, I would love to see another Datadog. I'd love to see more companies like MongoDB go public.
22:45Are you guys optimistic that the sort of pace will pick up? We saw Reddit and a couple sort of smaller relatively IPOs happen, but it hasn't noticeably led to a stampede of public exits. And that's ultimately what the game is often about, right? I assume your LPs would love to see liquidity or more. What's kind of your sense on the state of play there, Shardul?
23:10Yeah. It's a super important question. So one, in terms of New York, I'm extremely optimistic. One, there's a next generation of talent that's creating companies because they've witnessed what great success looks like because of companies like Datadog and Mongo.
23:27Second, New York, unlike the Bay Area, about 25, 30% of series A's in New York are healthcare. There's a lot of institutions. There's proximity to payers. Obviously a huge patient population on the East Coast that facilitates a really interesting ecosystem. And we're seeing some tremendous companies that are getting to real scale in New York.
23:52And third, we think New York is the destination for any European entrepreneur building a B2B business. So in the past, I would say, again, just five years ago, it was more standard for French, German, Israeli entrepreneurs to move to San Francisco as they built out the commercial part of their business. Today, 90% move to New York.
24:14And so that combination, to me, gives a lot of optimism as to why we're going to see a great crop of companies go public ultimately in New York.
24:23But anyone else want to take a stab at is that happening soon? Because I feel like we've been playing a wait and see game for some time now.
24:32I think there's probably greater experts in the room, but tech multiples are directly correlated to interest rates, inversely correlated to interest rates. And so I think as soon as we start that coming down, multiples should expand. And that should hopefully provide an opening window for IPOs. I mean, we have a bunch that are ready to go. I'm sure everybody here does.
24:58So I think as soon as that window is open, knock on wood, early next year, let's see, it'll be good liquidity and good for tech. The IPO window should be wide open.
25:14Also, given, I mean, given the regulators kind of strong chokehold on M&A, you know, for all of us to return capital to our investors, the IPO market is almost increasingly important as a tool.
25:28And maybe like the small mid cap as well is going to be really exciting, right? Reddit is like kind of showed that these valuations can sustain in the retail environment. And I feel like there's dozens of these companies ready to go in New York that are kind of like 3 to 10 billion market cap.
25:46But, you know, obviously, you guys wouldn't be on the stage if you weren't at firms where your LPs are most likely pretty, pretty content, pretty, pretty happy to wait things out and sort of reap these big benefits later.
26:01When you're talking to your peers more broadly, is the venture industry under pressure to be delivering more liquidity soon to these LPs? Like if they're endowments or family offices here in the audience, and maybe they're in a portfolio that isn't just, you know, you guys.
26:18Should they be impatient? Should they be saying, OK, we need the asset class to start delivering returns or what's kind of the temperature among your cohort right now?
26:28The feeling I have is we were really disciplined in creating liquidity in 2020, 2021. And I think our LPs really appreciate and respect that discipline. And so we have really patient capital that supports us that we don't take for granted at all.
26:46I think when I think about our LPs and their position, when there is free money, right, they invested more in high risk asset classes. And what happened was basically the proportion of their portfolios changed in a couple of years.
27:02And one element is fixed, the other element is not. And so I think you have to just revisit what your capital allocation is across different asset classes versus what ought to have been kind of a view on the length and horizon you usually appreciate with, you know, private capital like ourselves.
27:20We put out a paper recently called the CIO Approach to Venture, which I think there is an opportunity given these cycles are so long and where we are with liquidity. Our LPs certainly would like it.
27:34I think, you know, you got to get creative in the later stages of even in the private markets to understand like how can you potentially return some capital while maintaining a healthy position for that ultimate exit.
27:44And we've given a lot of thought to that. But I think there is an opportunity there to do something like that.
27:49We were also fortunate at ENIAC in 2021 to take some chips off the table. I think as a seed investor, it's a little bit easier to do. We're no longer a director on the board. It's not a negative signal.
28:00It's almost understood that at the series C or D at the billion dollar market cap, we will, you know, sell some of our shares in a secondary environment. But we're also fortunate our LPs are very patient. The majority of our LPs we just launched fund six are nonprofit mission driven.
28:19So they're in it for the long haul at seed. It's a very long haul. We say there's a minimum seven year feedback loop. So our decision at our IC today will know if it was a good decision in seven years.
28:34I asked my editors to give me a seven year feedback.
28:39It's a unique asset class. Basically, you tell someone I got 10, I'm gonna invest in 10 things, seven are gonna go to zero. And the other you're gonna work out. Trust me. That's kind of what we talk to my boss. Yeah.
28:51So as a way to kind of bring this back to the beginning, to sort of put a bow on this, when you're thinking about those companies that will be the big fund returner, the big, you know, moonshot winner, is there a skill or a trait in the founders or the CEOs that you guys are really looking for right now?
29:13We're encouraging founders to invest in, you know, for anyone in the audience who's like thinking about what it takes to be the next great company. What's the first thing that comes to mind in the hall?
29:23You know, going back to AI, I think, you know, a lot of the startups we look at today have 50, 60% plus AI generated code. Many of them don't have a co founding CTO. And these will be the next billion dollar, I think, unicorns of our industry. And so what's really important there is that the founder has a really good sense of domain and go to market. I think more than more than more than before.
29:47Would you agree?
29:48Yeah, I would agree. I spent a lot of time thinking about like the profile of the person. And I just think like, pure obsession with that, like, problem or that product, I think is the most important thing. Like, if you're going to map out, you're like a consultant, I'm going to map out the market and say, there's an opportunity here. I'm gonna go after that. I won't invest in that. I think that's just, it's too hard.
30:10So we were on the, I was on the board of ring. And I would say Jamie Siminoff was obsessed with home security in a way that was very unique. And that was what got me there.
30:21Are you still looking for like technical background founders? Or does that evolve? Or what's the trait that you look for the most to find the next, you know, a soft from Wiz or Olivier from Datadog?
30:31Yeah, so AI in the enterprise, one of the top three use cases is code generation. So basically co-pilots or different approaches to automate software development. This has become a very competitive market because Microsoft has raced to 100 million of recurring revenue in in less than 18 months.
30:52Almost every single week for the big through the beginning of this year, a new company has been formed or funded in the area. And so we had a global effort in order to take a view on the market. And to your point, we started with a view of what is the makeup of the team.
31:06Part of it was the go to market muscle to go against Microsoft, which is obviously a 10 ton gorilla or maybe even bigger. Second was a sense of pragmatism, or I think what you described as domain expertise.
31:21I think you don't just need AI researchers who are doing kind of science projects, but you need a pragmatic approach to AI to utilize the best in class software and take advantage of that with a research lens in mind.
31:36And third, I was looking for specific product acumen that could deliver value to individuals, developers, teams, as well as an organization, which is a much more sophisticated approach to bringing a product to bear.
31:50And so in studying, again, this market opportunity that had dozens of startups, there's one team, which is Augment Computing. There's one team that we found that made up the mix.
32:02And to Alex's point, kind of backstage, every other company has raised a billion or two billion every week, like the number goes up, because there's so much enthusiasm for the market opportunity.
32:16And I think when you have conviction in a market opportunity, conviction in a team, you can actually pay some outrageous prices.
32:24Well, the conviction has paid off for you guys so far. So we look forward to seeing what you back next. Thank you so much for the insights, everyone.
32:32Thank you.

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