So Randy our fourth panelist here, so hopefully he'll show up and we'll have him in the panel as whenever he shows up. But yeah, let's get started, informally we have already started a few minutes ago. My name is Hitesh, I am an EIR at a relatively new venture partnership based out of San Francisco Silicon Valley Growth Syndicate. We have invested in around 60 different startups over the last year and a half. My background and here is Randy. So round of applause for Randy. Thanks. So yeah, so my background before that, I started as a developer 20 years ago. And over the last few years, went through the cycle a couple of times myself to start a company and been on the early days of being a founder. And now, you know, as I'm a part of this fund, one of my jobs is to create these PCs around what's working, what's not, and within the open stack ecosystem, just wanted to see what has happened over the last three, four years. And I will just run through a couple of slides real quick and then we'll jump into introduction and then questions and then I want to leave enough room towards the end so that all of you can ask questions too, okay? So yeah, so as I was preparing for this last night, I saw this on my feed and this is Sean.   It was the MetaCloud party last night. So. Star Trek theme. Doing all right. Doing all right. Yeah. I just had four shots. I wish I could claim something so mundane. You don't want to know why it was late. No problem. Thanks. Thanks for every, every one of you has showed up here, you know, 9 a.m. Thursday. Great. Thank you very much. Now just wanted to, you know, quickly see what the landscape looks like. And this is some data from Q4 of last year. A lot of startups. These are just the startups, you know, where funding has gone in. This is from your slide yesterday, Randy, from your state of the stack, P4, 502 companies, more than 500 companies in the ecosystem. It's certainly getting bigger. And where we are now, if you see, we are headed to some really interesting times as you mentioned. That's right. But what's really interesting is what comes beyond that, that age where, you know, there's stability and there are some real nice businesses still to be made, right? Absolutely. Yeah. I think the first generation of startups had a bunch of challenges, including mine. And I think there's, you know, a lot of times people haven't seen it. I don't know if you've seen it before, but in certain technology venues there tends to be first, second, third, fourth generations of startups actually doing stuff. So I think there is a good opening for the Gen 2, Gen 3 open stack startups. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. So from here, if you see where, who are the people who are investing? So these are some of the investors who have done two or more deals. And as you can see, there is a lot of money that has gone in. And now what has happened towards the end of the cycle, these are some of the companies that were acquired recently. And we have, so when I was looking at building this thesis, what better way to actually bring some of these companies here and hear from them, what worked for them, what are the patterns? Is there a formula or a set of things that you guys did right, right? And you went here. So we have MetaCloud, we have Cloud Scaling, and Joe, I've heard some rumors there. So we have, I don't know if you will deny or, you know. No, I mean, no, we're out to build a business and that's the path we're on. Perfect. So you go around that path and you provide that unique perspective to this panel. Yeah, why did you invite me? I have a lot of work. No, it was not just based on the rumor.  So yeah, so this is a fantastic panel. And I'll go through some of my questions. But towards the end, I want to leave enough time for all of you. If you have questions, you can just line up here in front of this mic and we'll take those. So to just kick it off, if you can maybe quickly go through your background, just a quick introduction. Joe, you can start. Sure. Yeah, my name is Joe Arnold, and I'm one of the co-founders of Swiftstack. And we build a product around OpenStack Swift. You know, my background is an engineer. And so I come at it from that perspective. And back in the day, building network management, cloud management, and saw an opportunity to launch a startup. And it was something I always wanted to do, and have all the bruises of going through that process, coming from the engineering side, product side, and having to learn all about starting a business through this journey. So I'm looking forward to sharing it with you all. Hi, I'm Randy Baez, formerly the CEO of Cloud Scaling. I'm still getting used to saying I'm at EMC. It's already been six months. It just rolls off the tongue, CEO of Cloud Scaling. Cloud Scaling was one of the earliest proponents of OpenStack. We were part of the launch in summer of 2010. A lot of the other startups you heard of, you know, weren't even aware of OpenStack at that time. And then we built some of the first clouds, built the first Swift cloud outside of Rackspace, which actually Joe led while he was working as a cloud scaler. Everything I owe to this guy. And he did a kick-ass job, and, you know, that was like six months after OpenStack was launched.  And so I've been in this thing from the very beginning, and I've been on the OpenStack Foundation Board of Directors since it was formed. And then my personal history is pre-dates OpenStack. I was one of the big cloud bloggers and pundits, and I personally have been a hands-on infrastructure engineer, network system storage, information security for 25 years now, for better or worse. Great. Sean Lynch. Let's see. Got my start in the 90s at City Search, about places, a small ideal lab-based company at the time, pre-start-up, or pre-IPO, and got into infrastructure engineering there.   So that's how I got into infrastructure engineering. And then City Search and Ticketmaster merged. I ultimately moved to Ticketmaster, rebuilt that platform with a small team, and grew the systems engineering team, infrastructure engineering team there. Ultimately headed up global operations as SVP there. And in 2008, we embarked on a private cloud project there. At the time, we didn't have open stacks, so we built our own orchestration system, and we were using, I think, the open source version of Zen server. But built something that was able to support the third largest e-commerce engine in the world. We were transacting about $9 billion a year on that platform. A ton of tenants learned a tremendous amount. So took that experience and founded, co-founded MetaCloud. And by the name of Steve Curry, who ran global storage operations at Yahoo. And the core cloud engineering team from Ticketmaster ultimately joined me. And so that was the basis for the technical team at MetaCloud. You know, one of the things when we get into business model, and I'm sure we'll talk about things like minimum viable product, it's kind of interesting we were seed funded in August of 2011. And we had Disney up and in full scale production by April. So it was super accelerated, super minimum viable product. And we'd be happy to talk about that more. Austin, yeah, that's perfect. So just wanted to kick it off with those early days. Joe, you talked about those dimly lit rooms and what was the life like? And how did people take you seriously at that time? How did you hire those initial few? I mean, I think it goes back to those first early customers that you want to go out and get. You have to work really hard to convince them that they should work with you. And honestly, the type of customers early on could do it themselves. And it's almost a barometer. And then there's customers that I think that we're all consuming. We worked with a few telcos early on, or service providers early on. And man, they just consume so much of our team. And those weren't necessarily the good ones to start out with. For us, it was working with some of the web scale guys early on because they really didn't have any other options out there to get a product from. And we just applied people. Maybe it's kind of similar to what you guys did. Or you just kind of showed up on site. And yeah, we had an idea and a structure of the product. And we had the early version, the minimum viable product early on. And then we just worked with them to make it work. And we were lucky enough in the early days to find a customer who's willing to pay us a license plus pay for engineering work. And that was almost a funding event in and of itself. And obviously it was hard to find. But that's kind of what you need in order to kickstart and get the company off the ground. Yeah, I think overselling or over-servicing over-servicing is super important. Absolutely. We were basically Disney's cloud operations team. And they had to, like, whenever they wanted, you're there. And it was good. It made the product much better. It was all, yeah. Randy, what about you? I don't even know where to start. I remember in 2010, spending most of our time at 10 engineers in a room, small, dingy room. You were talking about poorly lit rooms in the middle of Seoul, Korea, where, I mean, look, the air conditioning wasn't very good. The building was an old central office that hadn't been used in 10, 15 years. There were abandoned floors. And we were in Makdong, which is in the middle of nowhere. And even before that, it was really crazy because we had inked $2 multimillion deals with internet and Korea Telecom simultaneously. And we only had three employees. So I was using my personal network to basically shotgun everybody together and whipping up employment contracts while getting on planes to fly to Korea. I get to Korea. And they told me within three days I got to present to the entire Korea Telecom executive team. So 20 people are supposed to be there. 75 show up. And I'm basically having an interpreter. And I'm going through and walking them through the early stuff on what is cloud? 2010, right? Summer or late spring 2010. So there's a lot of crazy stuff like that. In terms of customer learnings, I don't know what to say. I mean, it was good to bend over backwards for those early customers that were in our professional services era. But it was also really bad. I mean, we chewed up an entire team in Korea. I mean, we just lost the team because it was a year of basically sitting in those hot boxes. And it was tough. And Joe is running another team in the US for the other project. And with the product customers, it was actually easier when we made the transition to being a product company. We would lose the customer, but we went to up the teams because it wasn't the meat cloud to keep it all going, right? So you can kind of do that a little bit. But the thing that we found personally really tough is that we were funded as a software company. And we were taken on the mission of really delivering almost more like a hardware experience. And the problem was that customers all wanted white boxes from SuperMicro and Quanta and all that. They wanted to reduce their cost. But those things actually don't maintain themselves. It's not like from Dell when you get a particular model of box, all the boxes are the same or pretty close. And there's a lot more variability in the white box supply chain. And so we took on kind of managing that. And so our kind of cost structure as a business was more like a hardware appliance business, even though we were funded like a software company. You're bringing up a good point. And I hope you don't mind. I'm going to diverge a little bit from the actual question. Because I think the most interesting thing with this panel in the space is the variety of business models. I think that's the really interesting piece here. And I think if you look at the OpenStack space amongst this group and the others, that differentiation of business model I think was key. Because realistically, we all had great teams. We all had fantastic engineers. We all had great technology. And we were all using OpenStack. So there wasn't that much differentiation there. I mean, really. So I think if you look at where the differentiation actually existed, it was delivering OpenStack in an appliance like Nebula, or delivering OpenStack as software, like maybe a piston cloud, or delivering OpenStack as software in a highly opinionated manner. I know Randy said a lot about making your private cloud look and feel like the public cloud. So that's a very kind of opinionated play. And I think you're obviously delivering software. So we were delivering OpenStack as a service in a very SaaS-like way. And honestly, we didn't start with OpenStack. I mean, these guys got into the OpenStack space before we did. We set out to build a IaaS as a service business. We looked at Amazon, namely EC2. We sort of broke it up into components and said, well, what are they doing well? And what are they not doing well? They're selling cloud as a service. And that's really differentiated. And there's a lot of value there. But they're also selling access to x86 equipment, which isn't special at all. And so we thought, gosh, can you just take the cloud as a service piece and just deliver that anywhere? Behind the corporate firewall, co-located on the public side, on the private side, drop the public private monitors and just deliver cloud as a service somewhere. And that's really where we actually started with CloudStack for two weeks and realized that it was just an awful, awful, awful stack and moved OpenStack pretty quickly. But I think that's the interesting point. I'd love to talk about we had a reoccurring revenue stream, we have that kind of annuity effect with a SaaS-like business. And I think that's what amazed me most. I don't know what you guys think, but the differentiation in business models, I thought, was fascinating with the early guys. Because we were very different. We were. And I think we could take on a product-oriented approach because we didn't try to do everything. We were focused on one project in the OpenStack ecosystem. We could take that independent of the rest of OpenStack. And so it was storage. And we could go and deliver just the storage stack. And for that, a product worked really well because we didn't have to deal with as many integrations. And then the integrations we did run up into, we could bolt on directly to our own product, which we could have a lot of control over. And so that's why I think it worked for us. Because it was more self-contained. Maybe not necessarily less complex, but more self-contained. And we could have more control over it. But when we talk about fundraising, one thing to realize is fundraising is wildly different. You can all be OpenStack companies. But when you're delivering a capital-intensive business, like an appliance or pure software or SaaS, the makeup of your investors are dramatically different. What we as investors look at, your revenue mix from services or from product, the kind of multiples that you will put on services is much lower. And the kind of investors you can attract and will actually fit really well with what you are doing are different. So what did you do so early on? And then those initial to sort of mid-stage, that initial round of funding with Jerry and others. And later on, what kind of things did you do? How did you, what were the challenges like OpenStack? At that time, the perception was very different. Today, it's a very different conversation. But what did you go through there? Early on we made a lot of mistakes. So when we first went out to do fundraising, I mean, it took a lot of guidance from folks to that we trusted who had gone through this experience lots of times to set us straight. When we first started, we were trying to raise way too much money, way too complex of a structure when we went out. And we just couldn't get that done. Once we got maybe a little bit more realistic with our fundraising approach, then found investors who had the same belief in where the market was going as we do. Sean and I both share an investor named Ryan Floyd. He's actually be in the next session here. So stick around and listen to him. But getting that investor on board who believed in us and the market and the team was great. We had a lot of things wrong in the beginning.  Or your delivery mechanism is not something I understand. And they're like, by the way, they were right. And we changed our model. And we changed our pricing structure in the form factor of our product. So it's not like they're wrong. But it was important to find that investor who believed in us. I would just add to that. It's so critical to get the right investor at the right phase. So Ryan Floyd is probably the best early stage investor that I know of in the valley. Hands down. Hands down, like full stop. Even if he doesn't invest in you, he's going to. He will roll up his sleeves and do a tremendous amount of work, but stay out of your way and give you autonomy. But then, I don't know if you guys know. Mahaa Ibrahim, she was a series B investor. That's a great series B investor. Yeah, Mahaa is an example of someone who looked at us. And she was critiquing our business in the early stages. And she was exactly right on where we ended up. But because we weren't doing it that way, she's like, no. Not right now. It's really important. Yeah, it's really important to have the right investor type at the right stage. And even when you're going out and pitching different investors, being able to pitch to those types of people who are going to give you that feedback is great. And don't worry about logo with the VCs. I mean, don't look out to go be Sequoia funded. It's about the partner.  That's the most important thing, really. So what was the point where you knew you were ready to go to Ryan? And what was that transition point? We had some revenue, some customer attraction. And that was enough of a proof point.  And that's when Ryan stepped up. Perfect. Yeah, let's talk about during that phase when you were growing, at that point, how you were, for all of you, how were you competing with where you are now? These big guys, how are you getting that business? And what kind of things were you doing during that growth phase there? Well, I don't think we were competing with each other, I mean, at all. The market's so big. I mean, it was very, very. Our number one competition was DIY all the time. I lost half my deals to DIY. I think we encountered each other once, that I know of, pissed in three times, nebula no times. What about Cisco's and EMCs? None of them were in the market at the time. Yeah, I mean, we were the only guys in the market. It was basically us and VMware. Yeah, I mean, I didn't start to see Red Hat and Marantis until last year. And then they showed pretty heavily. But up until then, it was just startups. And I saw them very rarely. Most of the deals I lost were, like I said, DIY. People were convinced that OpenStack was easy. And they thought that they would just download it and sprinkle it in their data center. And then poof, they'd have a magical cloud. I got to tell you, I saw that a million times. I know both of you guys did, too. I loved it, too. Everyone thinks OpenStack is a product. And I can't believe people still think that. I mean, it's not a product. It's a series of raw bits to build a product. Part of it is mistakes on the part of the foundation and the community. In the early days, you'd have, you know, the website would say cloud operating system. Of course, it's non-operating system. And the evangelist would be out talking about, just download it and get it up and running your data center. And it's like, no, it's not a product. We loved it, right?  We did both. We didn't, we were not a services company, but what we did was, look, if you want to roll it up and do it yourself, that's actually demonstrating our value to us.  I agree with you. It was also really easy when you follow a DIY because you could show a model, right? You could say, look, I know you tried DIY. All right, you know it takes two or three people to curate upstream, to look at what's coming. The best customers were the people who had done DIY. But the problem is that that takes 18 months, which is a, for a start of trying to get traction, it's a little bit of a death now. You guys, I don't know about you, but you definitely started a way after me and I started early and it was effing hard to close customers. I remember I lost Symantec and they're a big, big open sector point now. And I told VJ at the time, the architect, I said, you're gonna run into all these problems and I just laid them all out for him. He's like, yeah, yeah, it'll be no problem. I'm like, you're gonna have to hire 50 engineers to get it to where you want it to be. And he said, I don't think it'll be any. I'm a fish, I'm a fish, I'm a fish. And then nine months later, I go back and he's like, Randy, you were right. You were right about everything. I had to do all this stuff and I'm listening to him. Tell me how he rebuilt my product inside his business. I'm looking at him and I'm going, you're like an anti-virus and security company.  It blows my mind still. Yeah, and I would just say that, how much of our time did we spend educating people about OpenStack? All of it? Yeah, and so now the sales cycle, it used to be probably a 10 month sales cycle for all of us and I saw it compressed to six months, three months, two months. Now it's pretty immediate. Yes, definitely. A lot of that was just training around, this is why OpenStack. Just really quick, for all of you, if you have questions, if you can start lining up here and then we'll start taking those questions. Yeah, for me, for us, the sales cycle was shortened not by more education on OpenStack. It was about more focus on use cases. And if one thing that I wish we had done sooner, it was figure out what those very, very specific use cases are and go after them sooner. So, okay, storage, let's be a backup target. How about that? You go into these OpenStack environments and people are doing this POC, they're having to get their engineers, their developers, they're having to get so many people on board to start using the system that it just takes a long while for the adoption to occur. But it's much better to go to those guys and go, hey, you're in charge of this particular workflow. Why don't you connect the dots yourself? That's been a huge shortening for the sales cycle for us. Right. Any questions from the audience? If not, I'll go to the next one. So, from that stage of growth, what sort of things, as they say, it's never too early to start thinking about the end game. I know there's always this goal to build an independent big enough business. You don't think about the end game. You can't spend time on it. You're building the business, like Joe said.  Most of you, if you ever are in the midst of it and you start thinking about whether you're gonna score the goal, what happens? You lose it, right? You can't think about that. You just don't. You're like, it's day to day. You're like, what am I gonna do today that is gonna move the business forward? Then the next day, what am I gonna do today to move the business forward? You're not. I wouldn't plan out longer than like a week. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Seriously. I think my board would have an issue with that. No, I'm not talking about the long-range vision and the strategy of the business. I'm talking about the tactical stuff because one day the emergency is that customer. Next day, there's a person who's problematic on the engineering team. The next day, there's something happening with the customer in production, so you can't... So you have milestones for the stage that you are in the funding, right? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Of course you have milestones. But you're not marching towards an exit event. So I kind of agree with both of you guys. I think if you focus on running a business really well, by the time you're approached by a serious suitor with a serious opportunity, chances are you're gonna have many millions of dollars in the bank. You're gonna have really meaningful revenue, really meaningful margins, a really meaningful portfolio. And if that's the point where you're at the table talking about a potential sell, you have all the leverage in the world and you know you can walk away and have a sustainable business or you can go raise another round really easily. But if you're on fumes, you're in trouble. So that's the difference between an exit at X versus an exit times X times 10 is having some cash in the bank. I think we had, I think we had about 15 million bucks in the bank and meaningful revenues and a relatively small team with a relatively low burn rate when we started talking to Cisco. And so it was a good position to be in. That's great. So what were the things that drove you to EMC and Cisco at that point? Why those were there? That was the right thing to do at that time. So I will kind of agree a little bit with Joe in that. You can never think about selling your company. You don't wanna be there from a mindset point of view but you always have to be willing to do it. You have to realize why you're there. You're not there for any self promotional. I think a lot of founders get caught up in their own egos but you're there to maximize the return for your board and your investors and that's why you're there. So anytime you approach, you have to take it incredibly seriously. We were approached by multiple large cap companies at the same time. And I think from our point of view, Cisco has a tremendous amount of vision. I think if you look at what they're doing with InterCloud, the InterCloud Alliance, their open stack support thus far, our vision was really well aligned. So I think it was a good fit for us. Great. Perfect. How's the post acquisition? How's life now? It's really great for me.  My team's seated, they're all happy. They're working on a new product and I'm kind of out in a CTO role. The way EMC is structured is you've got the core technologies division which has all the old school stuff and then you've got the emerging technologies division which has all the new scale out software that's meant to disrupt the existing business. And then my job is to come in and disrupt that ETD, Emerging Technologies Division so to call something grief. And so it's like the perfect job for me so far. Great, great. Sean? It's been great. Cisco's been super supportive. I mean, if you look at even just the event here, we've never had this type of budget to put it on an event here, so super supportive. We have a ton of autonomy. I will say that anytime you're acquired, if you think about it, you were acquired because you were out executing the company that bought you most likely. And so, as a small team. So typically, you were thinking one way, you were executing one way and you're likely going to be purchased by someone who was thinking differently or executing differently. So by definition, that means when you get inside, you're going against the grain a little bit, right? And you have to kind of realize you and your team are going to be a catalyst for change. That's what you were purchased to do. So that's not an easy job. I mean, that takes a lot of endurance. And I'm sure you're experiencing that too at EMC. I mean, it's just, yeah. I don't know, they really want the change. It hasn't been too bad. Yeah, no, they wanted it at Cisco too, but it's work. You have to roll your sleeves. Do they really want it, Sean? They do, yeah, absolutely. I mean, look at Lou Tucker. I mean, how invested is Lou in the business in OpenStack? Lou's awesome. There are other parts of Cisco, though. Yeah. We haven't encountered the other parts yet. Good. We can start with the questions. Go ahead. So my question is on the seed funding. Your opinion on getting the seed funding from a traditional VC versus going to firms like VMware and Brookhead or Cisco to get the funding? What's your opinion? Disadvantage, advantages, if I have options. If I would say one thing, I would say try to avoid seed funding if you can. I mean, the thing that I learned the hard way is that customers are king. If you have customers, even if it's a small amount and a little bit of traction, they will extrapolate the value of that for you. And as far as the strategic investors go, it's different money than VCs. It's very different money. The way they think about the world is different. Sometimes they want to attach strings to it. If you're doing seed funding from them, which I actually don't know that they do seed funding very often, but if they were do seed funding, you've got little or no leverage. So I would say do it on start the thing basically from your garage, essentially, until you've got some customers before you do any funding. I did funding. So we were doing $7 million in trailing 12 months revenue as a professional services business when I took $4 million in funding to be a product company and shut the tap off. And that was really, really hard. And we did it with no customers. So I think it's different based on the type of company. You're starting B2B versus B2C, what space you're in, technology, et cetera. I will say, and I suspect I haven't talked to Joe about this, but I bet he'll agree, that for us having a very sophisticated investor day one was incredibly helpful. I mean, it was someone that, again, I can't say enough good things about Ryan, but having him in day one was super helpful. And also, if he seeds invest, they're going to do your A round, right? So I mean, that's sort of a known. And so they're with you. They have some skin in the game. And that's super important. And the other thing about if you get strategic investor, just understand what you're that company. And they have an agenda that they're trying to pursue. And they want information about different markets. And if that's in a space that you're in, they're going to have access to the financials. And hey, is this a hot category or not hot category? And so they're not necessarily, they're doing it for other reasons than just a financial return. So just make sure you consider that. And always think about with these strategic investors, there could be some doors that you're closing in the future from market perspective.  So just keep that in mind. And you're going to have to see other people say that even opposite stories to everything we just said too, right? Which getting a strategic investment from somebody has opened up channels into that company. But I don't know. That's not necessarily what I would beg. I would go as far as to say, don't ever start with a strategic. I mean, honestly, I think you want an institutional investor early on. It gives you credibility for your subsequent rounds. Absolutely. It's a tremendous amount of credibility. Yeah. I think it's more important to just have the right lawyers. Yeah, that sounds like all. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you. This has been extremely invaluable. So my question is on MVP, the minimum viable product. What should we actually have as an MVP before we either go to a customer or go for funding? Because it's kind of a chicken and egg approach. Normally, I've seen that you start building something and you go to a customer, I want A, B, and C more. Then you go back. And by then, you have so many competitors. So should we just go with an idea? Is that better, or should we start building a product? There's an idea. And then there's something in between an idea and an MVP. Some people I know, they consider the MVP to be a slide deck that explains how the product will work. And they'll go out and they'll run that by dozens of hundreds of customers first, incorporate the feedback you're talking about until they actually have something that's material. And they may not write in code then. They'll try to go get that funded. That's legitimate. But I can guarantee you that whatever idea that you have for your business, by the time you get done, you'll be doing something else. You'll almost never see how many people know where Twitter came from. Twitter came out of a podcasting company called Podio, which died because iTunes started delivering podcasts. And these guys had this little app that they used to coordinate lunch in San Francisco. That's where Twitter came from. I mean, that's just the norm in start of that. You're going to move left and right and zig and zap. Did you guys pivot? We pivoted. Not really. I mean, we started out with a product concept. And the verse version wasn't very sophisticated. But it was the. What if you look at it from the point of view that you were cloud scaling version 2.0 when you basically figured out that Randy had his head up his arse and wouldn't like focus on Swift and peeled out? Why did it take until 2.0? But we had, when we first were talking to customers, we had something that at least got Swift up and running. And that was our minimum product that we could show customers. And then we just iterated on that from there. But just as a rule, just earlier is better.  It would be kind of the general recommend. I would agree. And don't keep your day job while you're working on your startup. No, don't. That's an awful idea. I've seen so many people do that where they're working part-time on their day job while they're trying to get their startup off the ground. You'll never be successful. You need the gun to your head of that being your only job to make it successful. Yeah, I'm going to temper that a little bit. I think that's generally true. But what I did in the first go-around, the startup before Cloud Scaling is I was doing consulting. And I had set up the consulting structure in such a way that it was more like half-time, but I was able to put the bacon on table. So that way I would have like three full days per week, plus the weekend to actually work on the startup stuff. You can do other things if you need to if you really have to bootstrap it. But you can't be working a full-time regular job, for sure. Because that's just none of those takes. Nobody here works 40 hours a week, right? So I would say raise enough before your MVP to at least focus on your startup 100%. One quick question. I know that we'll go into what sort of opportunities exists next for OpenSec in our next panel. But just wanted to ask you guys, if you were starting today with your jobs that you have now, that other thing, what are those exciting areas if you were starting today around OpenStack? What will those companies be? If I was going to start over now, I'd do kind of what Joe did. I'd focus on components. We tried to deliver the distribution. And we eventually did, right? I mean, we were very successful at Walmart, but that's just very hard to do as a startup. You really need a lot of money. So I think it's better to go peel off a piece, whether it's in storage or computer networking and policy management or whatever. I think it's better to peel off a piece. Cool. I'll be a little controversial. I think the trains left the station as far as starting an OpenStack company. I think you're racing dollar for dollar with many, many companies with many, many, many billions of dollars in the bank. So that wasn't the case when we all started. So I'd probably go up stack. I think there's interesting, I guess maybe I have a bias toward, as a service, SaaS-type businesses. I think data analytics is a service, that type of business. Cassandra as a service or that type of thing. Sort of cloud agnostic. I think that area of the market hasn't really been as penetrated as it could be. I think there's a ton of opportunity there. I'd plant myself in a vertical. And I would take whatever industry that I knew really well. And I would see how I could deliver that with this delivering whatever it is as software on commodity equipment using OpenStack to power that. That's where I think you'd have to figure it out. Because I think just doing technology is very, very difficult right now. Because there's so many players out there that are trying to do it just from the pure component. You're doing awesome within Biopharma, for example. Yeah, Biopharma. We're trying to take on Biopharma media entertainment right now. And that's working because we're putting a lot of energy and focus to it. Go ahead, please. OK, just one quick update. So everybody talk about this. And we need to cut you. So I think we are out of time, unfortunately. But I think we'll be here for some time. And thank you very much, all of you. Thanks for coming. This was awesome. Please, a round of applause for our panelists here. Thank you.


welcome to my small workshop this is Paul Carlson the small workshop guy so today we're going to do another review of three new videos and a one old classic video and then one shop technique so the first video that we have for this week WOBY this guy works out of a shipping container and he's organized reorganize his workshop now he's got table saws in there he's got jointers he's got CNC machines he's got thickness planers he's got all sorts of stuff in there so obviously in a space the size of a container he's a magician at organizing his work so enjoy that one I like the guy's enthusiasm I like the way he stops and yells he's just very entertaining to watch and there's one scene that's really really good where his wife comes down to see how he's reorganized his workshop and wait till you see her question and his reaction the next one and I'll see if I can look up the camera once in a while I'm looking at my laptop so it's hard to do things run the computer I don't have a production guy to help me out so it's all me so anyway you just if I don't look at you here I'm looking at you so if I don't look at you the rest of time at least you saw me look at you once now here's one from a fellow named Dorian Brock and this is episode number 58 out of a what he calls the joint venture so I bring up number 58 because it was released this week but my main priority is to introduce you to the fact that he's got 57 other Japanese joints joinery that he discusses so this one's good but maybe you want to go back to number one in the beginning and kind of pick which joints you might want to deal with or keep this in mind is something that you can go refer to when you want to do certain kind of joinery or so very very good not so much a lot of voiceover educational factors I don't think he has any he just shows what he does but it really shows a lot of nice hand work and creating these joints so look at his entire go to this one then click on the Dorian Brock channel name and then click on playlist and then one of the playlists are these joint ventures and you can see all 58 joints that he's done highly recommend it for educational next one is and I have seemed to select this guy often but he's keeps doing a lot of really good videos that novices or beginners need to watch because they're teaching us things I learned quite a few things by just watching this one he talked a lot about back saws saws that have a stabilizing back on them and which ones you might want to pick that is very good very educational and then because of that that led me to watch to some of his how do you sharpen a back saw and so he's got a good educational video showing you how to sharpen your saw as a result of that I've ordered some new little files because I don't think I've ever sharpened my saws with my Japanese saws I tend to just buy a replacement blade but you're not going to do that with a hundred and fifty two hundred dollars saw you got to keep them sharp so recommend that all right tip of the day workshop organization idea tip things of that nature what I'm going to talk about is this automated vacuum switch when it comes to a workshop organization it's one of the best things I've done in my workshop I actually bought two of these one's over on my table saw dust collection device and then one is for everything else whether it be my thickness planer my bandsaw my drill press my mortising machine whatever and so now you see it over the top of that thickness planer I got a new DeWalt what do they call it 735 dw735x thickness planer to replace my win all right so here's the device here's the way it works I have a shop back down here underneath and then my shop back is actually connected to a little dust stopper cyclone top from Home Depot you plug in your shop back into this upper left hand thing this thing is about oh four inches by four inches so you plug the device itself into a close by electrical outlet obviously plug your vacuum cleaner into that there's a little thing that you kind of plug it into itself which I don't quite understand but doesn't work without it being plugged in and then there's one more opening which is for your power tool so if I then take my thickness planer and plug it into that tool now I can I can just turn on my shop back by itself by hitting there's a three-way switch here off in the middle and then on to the right if I turn that on you'll get the the shop back by itself I'm not always trying to run a power tool when I'm running my shop back particularly when I'm cleaning up but then there's another position called off is it automatically shop back plugged in so let me demonstrate that the thing you should notice is the power tool will come on and then a few seconds later the shop back will come on or if it's your dust collection system that will come on and then when you turn this off the vacuum runs for a while in order to give it time to clear the holes it's just really cool and and I like that because then when I'm done running this it the vacuum cleaner turns off I don't get some dang noisy in here and I realize I've left the shop back running so I'm going to go ahead let me make sure I don't have anything you know any tools anywhere in it or anything you'll hear the shop back come off well you probably won't hear it because then a saw stop table saw and it's a cabinet saw PCS 30 is it all works fine when I plug the table saw into the device like I have my thickness liner here when I've got my regular blade on there data was stacked on the saw stop and then started up it will trip my device the device will only support about or 12 amps and the table saw grows about 14 so we're close to tripping most of the time when you start it up tripping is no big deal you can get as quickly reset it but what you've tripped it was and learn and so take take your table saw out of this device and put it in a plug by itself and at least then you can start your dust collection by not having to get to the dust collection system and not having to plug it in or plug it out but just push a switch and that will come on it just won't come on and go off automatically but that's the only one I'm running my data stack I guess the heavier data stack is drawing more ampers well anyway that's my tip of the day have a good fourth of July stay safe enjoy your workshop small workshop guy signing off


Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. So we're doing a special series of podcasts which I'm recording over Google Hangouts. So we're doing audio and video because for some unknown reason people don't want to come see me face to face right now. But there's always opportunity and the cool thing is I'm able to now podcast with people from all over the world. So we're going to get an amazing eclectic mix of people from different industries, different perspectives to share their story and tell us their thoughts and feelings on what's going on right now and all of that cool stuff. I hope you enjoy it. Please subscribe in all the usual places and enjoy. Awesome, and we're live. Folks, thank you so much for joining me. Today it's great to have Raul Barla, CEO from Imara, with us. Raul, welcome to the podcast. Lewis, pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Pleasure, pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I had a lot of messages and conversations around sickle cell. The context is it was it's Black History Month over here in the UK. And as some people know, sickle cell adversely affects people from an African and Caribbean descent. And so I was really keen to find someone like you to have a chat with just to kind of give it some context and really find out about it. So thank you so much for coming in. What's maybe to start with? What is sickle cell and what is the history? Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for having me. This is really an important thing in terms of the field because messaging about the complexity of sickle cell and the fact that it has been an interesting disease in the sense of who it affects, why it affects those people. And certainly, to the extent possible, the challenges around treating the disease, these kinds of podcasts and different messaging help a lot. So thanks. Sickle cell is an inherited blood disorder as you noted earlier. It's monogenic in nature. And specifically what that means is there's a mutation in the single part of the gene, specifically the hemoglobin gene, and specifically the beta-globin subunit that creates the disease. And that disease is autosomal recessive, which means that a parent has two copies. Another parent has two copies. You have to get both copies of the sickle gene to actually have sickle cell disease, commonly known as HBSS, which is the most severe form of sickle cell disease. There is also sickle cell trait, which is HBSC. The fundamental basis for the disease, which was discovered in 1910, but really in the 40s and 50s, started to gain greater understanding is that the red blood cell, which carries oxygen from the lungs to the different tissues, has a mutation in it. And that mutation really surfaces when the blood deposits oxygen to the tissue and returns back, returns back to the lungs to actually pick up more oxygen. In that process, a circular red blood cell, which commonly dispenses oxygen, goes back to the lungs to get more oxygen and does that millions of times. In sickle cell disease, that red blood cell changes shape and a polymerization event occurs where the mutated hemoglobin is not able to keep its circular spherical form and turns into what's commonly known as a sickled red blood cell. In doing so, it presents a number of challenges for the patient. The first challenge, of course, is that it does not carry oxygen well because of its sickling effect. Number two, because it's not circular in nature and now is a curved crescent shape, it gets stuck on the way back in capillaries. And that process of being stuck oftenly referred to as a vaso-occlusive crisis or pain crisis, where the blood vessel is actually blocked, causes a number of debilitating effects that compound over time. And those include things such as pain and organ damage, different cardiac problems, something called acute chest syndrome, and most importantly, reduced the lifespan of the sickle cell patient by a number of years, much shorter than a normal healthy adult. Wow. Okay. So it's interesting. So your parents both have to be carriers to ultimately get it. Okay. And then how would you know if you have it? Like what are the actual symptoms? Yeah, that's a great question. So it's an inherited blood disorder, as I said, so you're born with it. And therein lies some of the complexity. It's not something you can get from someone else. It's not contagious. It's not something you contract from being around people who have sickle cell. And importantly, because it's an inherited blood disorder, there's often in developed worlds, including the UK and the US, screening for sickle cell.  But in developing countries, and this is where I think the sickle cell disease has a bunch of nuances that differentiate itself from other diseases. In the developed world, sickle cells are rare disease in the UK, in the US, and Europe. There's approximately 100,000 people in the US with sickle cell disease, approximately 65 to 75,000 in Europe. But if you look across the Africans of continent, as you noted earlier, there's almost 4 million people with sickle cell disease. To answer your question about how are they diagnosed? Well, oftentimes if there's that newborn screening, they present with things such as fatigue, anemia, things that would indicate to the physician that that child is not growing well, and or is not able to thrive. And those are symptoms that persist throughout their childhood, and of course, manifest in different ways as an adult, including some of the issues that we talked about. Right. So why is it so common in people from African and Caribbean backgrounds? Yeah, so it's an interesting, very interesting question. There is some literature that suggests, or at least implies, that part of the reason from an evolutionary perspective that sickle cell disease is more endemic in those countries, is that it was and is continues to be at least a mechanism to lower the risk of death due to malaria. And so some of those, at least, evolutionary trends suggest, because I think things are changing, that patients with sickle cell disease tend to be protected from diseases like malaria for a number of different reasons. Now, I think the reality is, if you look at some of the more recent data, specifically the REACH trial, which was a trial conducted with hydroxyurea in Africa with patients, specifically kids with sickle cell disease, they did not see patients with sickle cell disease contract malaria any less than patients who didn't have. So I think some of those evolutionary trends, which again, evolution is such a long span, may have at least implied that there is a rationale for why sickle cell is more endemic in those countries versus in developed countries. But there again lies a complexity around the literature that's not exactly well understood, and certainly evolution is not that well delineated as you know. Fine. So we're still working on really understanding why? I think so. Do we see it in other ethnic groups and backgrounds? Not as much. No, I think you kind of nailed it in the beginning to suggest that it's mostly African-American, Caribbean people from Trinidad. There is really a more specific set of patients that suffer this unfortunate disease. I would say that in the beta thalassemia, closely related disease to sickle cell, you do see a difference with a number of patients really being driven by Asian subcontinents as opposed to African subcontinents. And so beta thalassemia certainly overlaps with sickle cell to some extent, but you can see population and geographic differences between those two diseases versus within the sickle cell paradigm. Right, right. What about treatment? Obviously, you're developing treatments at the moment, which should be great to hear about, but if you do have sickle cell, is that for life or can it get treated effectively now? Yeah. So there are a number of different treatment options available for patients. I'll say that the first one for patients with more moderate to potentially severe disease is hydroxyurea. Hydroxyurea is a chemotherapeutic actually that's been refashioned for use in sickle cell because it increases something called fetal hemoglobin. And fetal hemoglobin is beneficial to a sickle cell patient because it thwarts the ability for that polymerization event to happen and more specifically increases the affinity of hemoglobin and oxygen, which enables it to carry oxygen better than that mutated beta unit, beta globin subunit that we talked about earlier. And hydroxyurea works. It's actually a generic drug, has been deployed in a number of different areas, including Africa. The challenge is, of course, it has a blackbox warning and so there are a number of different safety concerns associated with hydroxyurea. In terms of more recent approvals, there have been two. And is that, so just on that, is that widely available? It is. It's not widely used for reasons that are both real in terms of its potential toxicity and also because of some perceived toxicity that it may or may not have. And so it is really, I would say, useful but not well-adopted therapy. Right. But at the end of 2019, so approximately a year ago, there were two new approvals in the space, one from Global Blood in Oxbreda that increased his hemoglobin, so not a different mechanism than hydroxyurea and one from Novartis called chrysalisumab, which is a infusion therapy that addresses a different aspect of sickle cell disease, which goes into kind of the basis for the disease, one being the one we talked about around the red blood cell and the polymerization, and two being around bad actors that surround the red blood cell, white blood cells, platelets, the endothelial cell wall, who also contribute to those occlusive crises that we talked about. And chrysalisumab, which was recently approved, is a P-selectin antibody that inhibits P-selectin. And P-selectin, higher levels of P-selectin make the white blood cell more sticky and adhere to the side of the endothelial cell wall, contributing to those phase occlusive crises. So in an interesting way, to answer your question, from the oral therapy side and infusion therapy side, there hasn't been a lot since hydroxyurea. But most recently, 2019, there's been some really interesting and new drugs being approved. And I think those are really important. And maybe the last point I'll just make is bone marrow transplants and a number of different more invasive therapies are available and are potentially curative, but are quite risky related to some of the potential side effects. And those fall in line earlier therapies that are being developed in the gene therapy, gene editing category, which again have a lot of promise and are innovative, but have potential risk associated with being given that therapy. Okay. And what are you guys doing? Yeah, so well, thanks for the opportunity. So we are kind of taking what we think is the best best in class approach by both having a drug that induces fetal hemoglobin, which is what hydroxyurea does, without the toxicity and potentially has the impact on reducing the adhesion aspects of the white blood cell in the P selected. So I'm our 687 is a multimodal drug. And we fundamentally felt as you asked earlier that designing a drug that could be given on a global basis mandates that it's oral, that it can withstand high temperature, that it can withstand high humidity, even if the bottle is left open, can be transported without a cold chain or refrigerated transport needed. And so this drug really I think is really built for a global opportunity that addresses both the rare patients in the developed world, as well as the developing world patients, which are numerous. How close is it to being available? So, you know, we're in development, we're in phase two B. And so while we've had some new approvals, I think what our goal is to get to this to market as soon as possible. But in order to do that, as you know, you have to run the appropriate clinical trials that both demonstrate a benefit of the drug and hopefully minimal risk to taking the drug. So we're in the process of doing that recruiting insights that include Europe and the UK as well as the US. Great. Great. Good luck with all of that. I look forward to a look forward to hearing a further update. One thing we spoke about or fair last time, which I had no idea about and which was fascinating, which was the discriminatory practices in certainly the US. I'd love to hear a bit more about that. Yeah. So, you know, great question. And obviously not an easy topic to talk about for a lot of people, but let me try to kind of convey my perspective on this across a number of different issues. Number one, I think African Americans, at least in the US, have been mistreated vis-a-vis medical therapies. There is a legacy of testing on African Americans that goes back to the 20s and 30s, some of the issues with the Tuskegee experiment. And so there's a legacy of mistreatment and medical, I would say, not malfeasance, but at least medical malpractice on behalf of African Americans in the US. So you mean there was like kind of illegal testing on Africa? Yeah. I wouldn't use the term illegal, but I just use the term as maybe unfair or not well-controlled and or questionable design. Okay. And so that legacy of issues, which are numerous, has translated into medical skepticism by the African American community in the US and probably to some extent in Europe as well. And so those two forces at play create a nervous and I would say patient population that's very skeptical of new therapies for all the reasons we just mentioned. So that therein lies one problem, historical precedence driving current activity. Number two, the challenge with sickle cell disease, unlike cancer or other therapies, is that patients are in very severe pain as a result of those pain crises that we talked about earlier. And that pain often needs to be addressed by strong medication, including opioids at times. And a lot of patients in the US, and when I mean a lot, I mean the substantial number are on Medicaid. And so a lot of the places that they have to go to seek treatment are unfortunately not always a primary care physician, but the emergency room. And so why is it why the emergency room? Surely if they have this disease, which in the US is known from birth, presumably in all cases, why do they have to go to the emergency room to get the drugs that they need? Yeah, I think, and again, it's not all patients, but a sizable number need to go to the emergency room for a number of different reasons. One of them, of course, they're in pain and they need immediate treatment. The emergency rooms place to go if you're in pain at five in the morning or two a.m. you have to go to the ER. Number two, I think going back to that medical skepticism point and kind of institutional bias, a lot of these patients as they get older and leave the pediatric hospitals, do take their care into their own hands and certainly may not seek regular treatment and regular checkups as we all do, not just specific to that community. The challenge, of course, is for those patients to continue to see either their primary care physician, potentially hematologist, a specialist. And unfortunately, again, for reasons that are not specific and necessarily clear, those patients are not getting the type of regular care that they otherwise may if they were not African-American. That could be part of the medical establishment. It could be institutional bias. It could be racist. It also just could be somewhat relying on the patient to follow up and those patients don't seem to want to follow up. And of course, they have a chronic disease that's continuingly to produce comorbidities and pathology. And it's just, it's not easy for them on a day-to-day basis. Yeah. Being in the U.S. and obviously, in the U.K. and we have the National Health Service, which is free, is there also a kind of a cost issue involved as well? Well, I'm not an expert in that, but I can say that certainly seeking treatment in the ER or emergency room has its own set of challenges from a cost basis. And certainly to kind of follow that analogy, I do think that physicians are very thoughtful, but in a very busy emergency room department where they're dealing with trauma and lots of different things, I think the challenge is, of course, a patient coming in that's seeking opioids because they're in substantial and debilitating pain and that happening on a regular basis may create undue or unfair skepticism related to sickle cell disease. And so, taking a step back, as you think about therapies for sickle cell disease, I think you have to address a number of different issues. Making sure the community understands that the goal for this disease, the goal for this therapy is ultimately to help. And that's not just done in a quick fashion. It's to really build relationships. And that's what Tamara's been doing for a number of years, not even related to the clinical trial but just related to establishing that we care about the community. The community also really drives the ability for patients to seek treatment. Number two, to really think about the patient in terms of how frequently they have to come in, the type of medication they may want to be on, the types of challenges that they're dealing with specifically related to COVID-19. So thinking about the patient is the other thing that we've really focused on. So community, patient. And then we have really started thinking about education and removing some of these institutional biases that we talked about, which can only be done as a therapeutics community and obviously give credit to Tamara for doing the real impact grants, give credit to GVT for doing their own grant system and the number of other companies building out not just the therapeutics vantage point, but the opportunity to really help the community as part of treating the disease. Great. So in the U.S. then, and you seem to hear about your thoughts on Africa, as you touched on earlier. So if you have sickle cell disease, you need the treatment, are there clinics then that adults can go to if they've taken ownership of their own treatment that they have presumably be able to go to a clinic and someone manages their care? Yeah. And it's a great question. And I think there's a number of innovative physicians and physician groups and hospitals working with this specific issue. And just to highlight one out of UConn, there's actually a sickle cell center where patients would be triaged in the ER and actually ultimately go receive treatment in that specific sickle cell center and the PI free and Miriam has done a fabulous job of helping bridge those issues that we talked about vis-a-vis coming into the ED, having a pain crisis, needing opioids, needing care, and then getting that specialized care in kind of a separate part of the hospital. And so those clinics are actually popping up in part due to federal funding, in part due to some of the community funding. And frankly, in the never too late recognition that this is really a debilitating disease and needs a specialized approach for treatment. Yeah. In the US, and you touched on earlier, the cynicism towards, say, the establishment, are you finding that people don't want treatment? They'd rather opt not for no treatment than to trust? Yeah, I think it's a little bit, my view on that is they are, I think maybe skeptical of new treatments, but open to be educated. You will find that the patient population here really cares a lot about future generations and helping future generations. And they know that clinical trials are component in that. I think what companies need to keep working on, as I said, is you're not just treating the patient, you're treating that skepticism that you noted, you're treating the community that's dealt with some of these issues that have been unfair. And I think it takes time. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. What about in Africa? And you mentioned one of the goals of your treatment is to be available globally. What are the roots for people to be able to get it ultimately? Excuse me, what are the... So in Africa, in the US, it's well established that there's sickle cell sensors, there's a good healthcare system, although people need to pay. In Africa, how can people get the medicine that they need? So for example, for your root, once you've developed and all of your stuff's been approved, what's the root for distribution for your medicine? It's a great question. I think you'd have, at least we believe and we haven't quite worked this out yet, and I'm sure other companies are thinking this too, that the route would probably be a combination of working with philanthropic organizations such as Bill and Melinda Gates, working with the WHO, finding a set group that can help us dispense this medicine in an affordable, low-cost, broad way that allows us not only to fulfill the obligation that we've set out for ourselves in terms of treating the world, but to do it in a way that is somewhat controlled and somewhat managed as opposed to a small company like us trying to do it for safe discussion. Interesting. How far are we from an actual cure? There are, bone marrow transplants are risky, but there is technically a cure for sickle cell disease, but the risks are pretty high. I would say that we are on the way with gene editing and gene therapy. I think those have the promise for cures. I think oral therapies have the promise for disease modification, but not necessarily a cure. I'd say what's great about this field is it was pretty quiet from 1945 to 2005. Now I think you're starting to see the fruits of investment by companies, biotechs, and larger and new innovative approaches like CRISPR and gene therapy. I can't say there'll be a cure for everyone in the next five to 10 years, but there will be hopefully cures for several, and hopefully oral drugs, which we believe remain the mainstay of therapy, will help patients along the way. Awesome. Raoul, thank you so much. Really informative. Really appreciate you taking the time to come on the podcast, and good luck. Good luck with all of your activities. Thanks for this. Appreciate your time, and good luck as well. Stay healthy. Thank you, Ani. Bye-bye.


Since we have Koby on and since like we said he is a Lions fan, we are going to play a game of this or that. We're basically going to see who he's going to take Jared Goff over. We're starting off with the Dak Prescott or Jared Goff.  I'm going to go Jared Goff. Lamar Jackson, Jared Goff. I would prefer Jared Goff in this system over Lamar Jackson if that makes sense. Jared Goff or Josh Allen. I want to say Jared Goff. Josh Allen is talented and he does make boneheaded decisions. I would probably take Josh Allen over. Oh no way! Jared Goff, Trevor Lawrence. A lot of the things that I see in Trevor Lawrence are a lot of the things that I see in Jared Goff. I would take Jared Goff for now though. Jared Goff or Matthew Stafford. Give me Jared Goff. Jared Goff, Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow. Jared Goff, Caleb Williams. I'll give you Jared Goff.


Good morning everyone. Thank you all for being here today and thanks of course to Ralph He gets me to come back to Saskatchewan every chance he gets and I'm always happy to spend time here every chance I get so thank you for having me and thank you as always for an incredibly warm welcome I also want to highlight that it's a real pleasure to be here today with Lawrence Macaulay our Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food who was very helpful as as we were talking through the uses and and impacts of various challenges on a farm Lawrence was a seed potato and dairy farmer before he entered politics He really understands and deeply gets both the challenges and the opportunities That our farmers are facing every single day and week Earlier this morning. I had a chance to meet with the Lewis family three generations of Saskatchewan farmers Fourth one coming along growing and harvesting a bunch of different crops. Yeah, Brendan wasn't mentioned in my speech So I have to have to shout out to that fourth generation Growing and harvesting a bunch of different crops including canola on about 11,000 acres just down the road from here I wanted to get a sense of how big 11,000 acres were and someone told me it was equivalent to about a third of the city of Regina So that's a Significant chunk of land at the Lewis's farm Don Todd Rod and Brendan showed me around their operation It was fascinating to see the kind of equipment and the new technology they use every day The constant drive to experiment to try new things is something that we recognized just last month in our budget We're investing in agriculture and agri agri food because we know it has a real potential to grow if you'll pardon the pun And create more good well-paying jobs for Canadian farmers We know at what point the farmers work hard That's why we're convinced that here in 2025 we'll be able to reach the ambitious goal of export Annually 65 billion dollars of excellent product that we grow here at home These exportations are important because a greater access to the global market will give Canadian farmers more chance to succeed more chance to build a better life for their family and to strengthen agricultural communities everywhere in Canada and Canola as I saw first-hand today is one of the export crops that deserves our support It already accounts for more than 10 billion dollars in exports and the world can't get enough of this made in Canada crop As one example last year as as Ralph mentioned Government and industry worked together to ensure that Canada's canola farmers can continue to export to China That's a market worth two billion dollars in canola exports every year And I want to take a moment to tell you just how that deal came together Our former minister of trade current foreign minister Christia Freeland is the daughter of a canola farmer And she took some of the canola that her dad had grown out of his farm in Peace River, Alberta She took it with her in a little baggie to China to show the quality of what Canadian farmers produced I was there at the dinner when she whipped it out in front of in front of the Premier and said you know This is really good stuff and She underscored the fact that Canada stands behind Its farmers and the world-class crops we grow and harvest and working together industry and government We reached an agreement with China That gives one that gives our canola farmers the kind of stable predictable access to the Chinese market that they'll need To be able to plant next year's crop and maybe even think about how they'll hand off their farms to their own kids some day The work that our government is doing the investments that we're making and the trade deals we're negotiating They do make a difference in the lives of farming families like the Louis's and the other hard-working women and men who are here with us today We make these investments in Canada's farmers because every day You make an investment in us and making sure that we have good healthy food to eat and giving us food that we can trust Food that's nutritious and safe to share with the people we love In building strong and resilient communities communities like gray That are the heart and soul of this country People like Todd Lewis and all the farmers he represents through the agricultural producers Association of Saskatchewan They're up with the Sun.


Okay, so what we're doing right now, we're coming up to our ship to board it and everything. Depending on the size of the vessel, the free board, the height of it, it could be up to a 20 foot climb that they're going up with the ladder. When you've got the seas out there going up and down, boats moving back and forth, you're having to look up to make sure nobody's coming out of the woodworks trying to find you. These guys are coming up to the ship right now to make sure the ladder's safe to go. I'm going to have my initial climber go up and do a peak, check around the area that nobody's hiding around waiting for them that we don't know about, and then he's going to secure the ladder. After that, the rest of the team is going to come up, they're going to create a security bubble, and they're going to wait for further instructions when we get up there to go to their designated areas, the pilot house, security around the ship, and engineering spaces. So, I mean, right now the ship is stable and everything's out, but in the high seas, waves are going up and down, everything, both vessels are moving, nothing is stationary. So, it's a scary job, people have fallen off the ladder before, so it's not taken lightly at all. The guy in black is my star swimmer, and he's going up there too as well, he's part of the team that we sit there and we set out, everybody.


Good morning, John. I just find myself in this situation of having so much good news. I don't really know what to do about it. I don't even really know where to begin, usually the beginning, so I guess this week you made a video about how there's a drug for multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis called Vedakulin. It's been around for 20 years. Its patent is expiring. It looked like Johnson & Johnson, the owner of that drug, was going to figure out a way to extend that patent for another four years, during which time a lot of people wouldn't have access to it. And you are mad about that. And you're not the only person mad about that, but you were the only person with a fairly large internet audience who'd spent the last year establishing themselves as a person who's very passionate about tuberculosis who knew about it. And I have to be honest with you, John, there were times in the last year when I'm like, maybe this guy is a little bit over-investing in his dedication to tuberculosis. A sensation I no longer have, because of course, as you get deeper and deeper and deeper into something, you start to see that there are people working really hard on solutions and that those solutions really do exist and that there are things that we can do now that will make the world better. So you made this video. And then Nerdfighters went nuts on Reddit and on Twitter and on other social media platforms that I don't use as often probably. There were letters. There were phone calls. I hope that everyone was polite. And then Johnson & Johnson put up this statement, classic first line. It is false to suggest, as some recently have, that our patents are being used to prevent access to search euro but equity in our medicine for multi-drug resistant TB. It is false to suggest, as some recently have, that I misplaced my normal lens for Vlogbrothers and that's why this video looks a little weird because I'm shooting on a 50 millimeter. You're very far away right now. And look, here's one thing I know. There are people at Johnson & Johnson who have worked way harder on multi-drug resistant TB than I ever have in my life. And so I don't want to be mad at the entire institution of Johnson & Johnson. People who work on infectious disease research do that when they could be working on stuff that probably would make them a lot more money. Like cures for baldness or cancer research, which is very profitable. And so like writing off an entire company is the wrong thing to do but this statement was bad and it was misleading and I didn't like it. And then this morning, as I'm recording this, so yesterday morning and this happened in a week, John, you made a video on Tuesday. It's Friday right now. The Stop TB partnership released a statement that said, Following lengthy negotiations, Johnson & Johnson has granted Stop PB partnerships global drug facility a license that enable GDF to tender, procure, and supply generic versions of the daqueline for the majority of low and middle income countries, including countries where patents remain in effect. So they aren't canceling the patent but they're allowing generics to be used in places with a high burden of TB. Everybody agrees that there should be less tuberculosis in the world. Now we don't all agree on how exactly they get there or what the right things to do are. But John, you got into the rooms where the people are right now talking about how to deal with drug-resistant tuberculosis and you found out that there was a barrier that didn't need to be there and we then as a community asked whether or not that barrier could be eliminated. And in the course of a few days, it was. That's very weird and it's not something that can happen every day. It's not something that I don't think will ever achieve anything of that magnitude again. It was a particular circumstance that was only possible to take on because you have been focusing on one of the world's greatest problems that a lot of people don't focus on or think about very much for a year more than a year now. You've been a little hyper obsessed. But in the right thing, I'm really proud to be a part of this community. I'm really proud to be your brother and I'm really proud of all the amazing memes that I saw over the last few days, both the ones that were critical and the ones that were celebrating the actions that Johnson & Johnson has taken to make sure that we can live in a world with less TB as fast as possible, maybe someday a world with no tuberculosis. So that's the first piece of good news and that's enough for like one of the best vlogbrothers videos of all time. But I have more good news. So completely shifting gears. I feel like this should be a whole other video, but completely shifting gears since I only do one a week. I don't want to like not say. The situation with my lymphoma is that we started out. It looked pretty good. It's Hodgkin's lymphoma. It's a treatable disease in the majority of cases. It responded well to treatment. Mine did. And so I have had my last chemo of my treatment plan. So I only had to do four sessions of chemotherapy. The result, I'm actually going to show you pictures of scans now. If you don't want to see those, you can listen to my voice. So here's me before. So obviously the dark is areas of high glucose uptake in a PET scan. Cancer cells use a lot of glucose and they use it bizarrely. So they use it way more than normal tissue. And so that looks very dark. Those are my lymph nodes super swollen with cancer cells. And then here is now, which looks like nothing. Now it's not nothing. If you look at it, some of the more high resolution PET scans that the doctors look at, there's a little bit of glucose uptake in two of my lymph nodes still, not all of them. Most of them have shrunk back to normal size. Two of them are still swollen. This is very common. It's normal. And this is exactly what they want to see at this point in treatment. Now we do radiation because the idea is there's probably some cancer cells still in there, which my immune system might take care of on its own, but it might not. And so you do radiation. So in a couple of weeks, I'm going to start radiation. I have a meeting with my doctor next week to sort of plan that out. After that, unless something goes very weird, I will be in remission.  And if it happens, then they've got things that they can do to take it on. Now those things suck. They're like worse than what I've been through so far, but there are still things I can do, even if the worst case scenario, I relapse and have lymphoma again. But for now, clearly my particular cancer is responsive to the chemotherapy.   It's so not fun.  I hate it. But it is also amazing. It is so powerful. And I feel so lucky to live in a world where I get to have access to this, where the hospital is not far away from my house, where there have been decades of people working to refine these treatment plans. So you can get the best result with the cancer with the least potential long term side effects, which is also something that I will continue to have to monitor for because the chemo drugs I was on can give you other diseases that aren't cancer. It's always a trade off. Every medication is a trade off with side effects. But with chemotherapy, there's a particular understanding of the need to maintain a balance between the long term side effects of the treatment and the long term side effects of the disease. In short, it's very good news. And barring something very weird, I will officially be in remission in maybe two months. So that's where we're at with everything. It's the best news video of all 15 plus years of Vlogbrother. What a moment. I'm feeling good. And also I'm just so grateful that I don't have to get chemo today. The day would be the day when I would be getting chemo if I was still on chemo. And I would absolutely do it. But I don't have to, which is exciting because I didn't like it. Don, I'll see you on Tuesday.


40 years being told there is no alternative. Four years of the pundit class being wrong for a living. We the media, the pundits, the experts know nothing. We're old, we're young, we're black, white, Asian and funny tinge. We're students, we're workers and it takes a cabinet of millionaires to hold us back. Polls move when people do and today we've got the chance to move the only poll that matters. So get yourself down to a marginal, knock on some doors and take the opportunity to kick the Tories out of government. It's time to put the people in power.


Remember a Hallmark card when you carry enough to send the very best. Hallmark reading cards bring you Jeff Chandler and Ben Hurr on the Hallmark Playhouse. Week Hallmark brings you Hollywood's greatest stars in outstanding stories chosen by one of the world's best known authors. They distinguish novelist Mr. James Hilton. This is James Hilton. Tonight on our Hallmark Playhouse we dramatize a story which is not only one of the classics to fiction and especially appropriate to Easter week, but was written by a man who, unlike most novelists, would have been quite famous even apart from his writings. Trained for the law he switched to the army, served in the Mexican War of 1846, served again in the Civil War where he became a major general, fought at the Battle of Shiloh, and could probably be said to have saved the city of Washington from capture by the Confederates. Later he was a member of the court which tried the alleged conspirators against President Lincoln. Later still he became governor of New Mexico and American minister to Turkey. All of this you would think made up a pretty considerable career, but when we add authorship of a world famous novel, we know we are dealing with a very remarkable man indeed. His name was Louis Wallace, and he lived until 1905. And our story tonight is his unforgettable Ben Hur. To star in it we are fortunate indeed to have that notable actor and one of our old Hallmark friends, Jeff Chandler. And now here is Frank Goss from the makers of Hallmark cards. When you want to remember your friends there is one way to be sure the card you send receives an extra welcome. Look for that identifying Hallmark on the back when you select it. For words to express your feelings and designs to express your good taste, that Hallmark on the back is your guide. Like the sterling on silver it's a mark of distinction that all quickly recognized. And it tells your friends you cared enough to send the very best. And now Hallmark Playhouse presenting Louis Wallace's Ben Hur starring Jeff Chandler. Three figures climbed the hillside in the land of Judea. One was an old woman, a grandmother, staring through the half-dark toward the summit of the hill. Another was a man, his head raised, looking eagerly toward the east, waiting for the first thin line of gold in the sky. And the third was a boy, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Why did we get up so early, grandmother? Well, it's still dark. Your father will tell you that, David. As soon as we reach the top of the hill, son. In a little while the sun will rise over the walls of Jerusalem, the holy city. This hilltop will be radiantly golden, David. You will see. How the wind seems to sing. You are old enough now, David, to understand what we wish to tell you. Your grandmother and I will try to tell you the whole story just as it happened. Hold my hand, David. Yes, grandmother. We saw him, David. Your grandmother and I. He walked the earth in our lifetimes. He touched our lives. He touched our lives, David. You will read about him, my son, and hear about him in sermons. But we saw him, David. We saw him. What we say here, you can tell your children someday. And they will tell theirs. We will go back many years before I first saw him. My best friend, my boyhood companion, was returning to Judea after five years in Rome. I remember I ran down the street to meet him toward the Roman garrison. How I ran that day. Miss Salah! Miss Salah! Who calls me? Oh, welcome home, Miss Salah. Ah, it's Judah Benher. How's the student? I'm well. It's been a very long time, five years. Yes, so it has.  This is a special parade uniform designed by the best artisans of Rome. We march today with a new procurator. Valerius Gratis? Yes, he arrives today. And there's a man who will teach the weaklings of Judea real Roman discipline. Miss Salah. How do you stand there gaping like a child? For you, you're so changed. Changed? Miss soldier? I'll never forget the day you left for Rome. You were my closest friend. Now you've come back almost like a prince and yet... Yes. Yet I wish you were the Miss Salah who went away. Oh, how provincial you are. I pity you, Judah. You have the weakness and sentimentality of a scholarly man which makes you a typical Judean. I... Yours is a life with no opportunities. But I? The world lies before me. I bid you goodbye, Miss Salah. I wish I had not come. I sought a friend and I find a... Roman. Goodbye, Miss Salah. Well, he has changed, mother. Very changed. You mean he has come back a Roman? Yes. Is sentiment a sin? Is reading a sign of weakness? Do you remember the glory that is ours? Against brutalism, our father's erected... Yes, dead sir. The soldiers... But be careful, the tiles on the roof may be slippery. If my brother's strong right, I'm the homie, I could never... Yes. Who? Procurator of Judea. You must have slipped off the roof. I've killed the Roman governor. This is mother, this is sister. You have the whole family. It was an act. It was a life in the gallows. Oh, father. I tied a thong around my wrists and fastened it to a chariot. Just flying up in my... Gently, like a caress or a face I have never forgotten. It was a young man about my own age. His face was lighted by dark blue eyes. So good, so full of loving kindness. All my thoughts, my dreams had been of revenge, only revenge. I looked at him and my heart became as a child. He placed a pitcher of cool water to my lips and I drank. He spoke not a word, but placed a tender hand on my forehead and his lips moved in a silent, wonderful blessing. Years in the gallows, there was gentleness in the world, there was kindness. There was a man who had holiness, tenderness and compassion. I knew that if one man could be like that, someday many men, perhaps all men. Well, now your children can enjoy this traditional Maytime custom because Maybaskets are back. Yes, this year at fine stores that feature hallmark cards, you'll find the new Hallmark Maybaskets. Here's all the charm of the old time Maybaskets brought to you in a modern way. You see, Hallmark Maybaskets are all cut out and ready for small fingers to put together. No scissors, no paste needed. And they're so inexpensive that children can give one to everyone they like. Since the Hallmark Maybasket package costs only 50 cents and contains five different baskets. Children enjoy giving Maybaskets they made themselves, love to fill them with wild flowers, pieces of candy, popcorn. And with the new Hallmark Maybaskets, you'll find it's easy to teach children thoughtfulness, to teach them the real customs and traditions of Mayday, that day of flowers and friends and fun. So tomorrow, stop in at the store where you buy all your Hallmark cards and ask to see the new Hallmark Maybaskets. Remember, a package of five baskets is only 50 cents. You'll know it by that famous Hallmark and Crown on the outside of the package. The same familiar Hallmark you always look for on the back of a card when you carry enough to send the very best. Now back to James Hilton and the second actor, Ben Hur starring Jeff Chandler. I'd overlooking the holy city of Jerusalem 1900 years ago in the century of Caesar Augustus. A child of ten looks up into the faces of his father and his grandmother as they wait for the sun to fire the distant horizon with gold. Father, the sky is getting grey. Yes, David. Grandmother, what did they do to you and to Anteertha? They were quite a man nowadays, and you may know. Hold my hand very tightly. Yes, grandmother. For eight years, we sat as dead ones in a black dungeon. They threw us a crust of bread, a cup of water. All that kept us alive was the love we had in our hearts. And love is God, David. In the darkness, we reached for the light on some distant sea today, on some island of the seas tomorrow. But he is alive. I know this.  My hand! The shadow of death. Of the shadow of death. You know, I made room for his own prisoners. I was wandering a sea battle. And I started back on the long journey to Judea. And on the way I met a pilgrim, an old Egyptian whose name was Balthazar. Peace to you, my friend. And God be with you on your journey. And with you, good stranger. Can you tell me how far it is to Judea? I come from there. It is two days' journey. You come from Judea? Tell me, do you know of a family named Herb? Those of them knows. A great tragedy. Tragedy? No women were set free. But in the vileness of the dungeon, they became lepers. Oh, no. They are friends of yours. My mother and my sister. I am Judea Benher. Do not despise vengeance. I shall hurt with wolves if need be. I shall grind every Roman into the dust, to the flames everything Roman, to the sword every Roman born. My boy, listen to me and believe what I say. December Eve, 27 years ago, two companions and I walked across a desert, following a bright star. I do not wish to hear your story. Go to Judea. I urge you to listen. On that night we found a child, new born, in a manger in Bethlehem. We saw and worshiped him and gave him gifts. Melchior gave him gold, Gaspar frankincense, and I gave him myrrh. Why do you tell me this? I alone of the three whom they called wives. I alone have lived to know that this child has grown to a man, and the message he has brought the world fills the air of Judea. Love, he says, is greater than force. Love thy neighbor as thyself. And where is this man who preaches such hopeless optimism? In the hamlets and villages, on the slopes of the mountains of Judea and Galilee, only this evening he saw the sun set one day nearer the time when he himself shall become the light of the world. Look, my son, I did not believe because of the bitterness in my heart. An Antioch, the Circus Maximus. He was a hero, a chariot racer. If I could defeat Rossella, justice would be done. For months I trained a team of horses, and then the day of the contest arrived. My chariot was white, his scarlet and gold. I managed to get into position just to the right of him. He stood in his chariot, proud, defiant, beaming at the spectators, and then he turned and looked at me. I have heard that someone known charioteer is dead challenged me today. I have heard that... been heard. Yes, Miss Ella, you did not expect an old friend. But you are... Dead? No. Very alive, thank you. Sir, a wiggling from Judea dares to challenge me. Miss Ella, look to your horses, Roman. You have given me strong arms and a back of steel in your Roman galleys. The horses singing in the wind. The rains were taut in my hands. The arena, a sea of faces faded, blurry.  Side-by-side his chariot mind. A mighty pull on the rain and the iron-shot point of my axel caught Miss Ella's wheel and crushed it, etched headlong into the yellow dust. Like a dead dog. It was the revenge I had prayed for. The Lord God had delivered my enemy into my hands. But there was no joy in my victory. My soul was empty. I came back to Judea and everywhere I heard whisperings on the wind. A voice they said of one who was called the son of man. And everywhere his words. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Suddenly I remembered. And they were familiar to me, the voice, the face, the tender hand in the village called Nazareth. I searched everywhere for my mother and my sister and I finally found them, cringing in the darkness of a cave. Mother, dear sir.  I've come back. Judea, for the love of God, come no closer. Go away and forget you ever saw us. Think of us as you think of the dead. Mother. Judea, touch me, no, no, no. Mother. Oh, my poor Judea. Now you are one of us who must live in darkness. There is a wonderful man who has the power to cure you. He speaks a word and a second made well. Evil and the dead come to life again. I have come to take you to him. My poor Judea. No, no, as the Lord lives I speak the truth. This morning he will pass by here on his way to the city. Come, take my hand. Dear sir, my sister, I give you my other hand. He looked by the road and he stopped and touched all of us. Lightly on the foreheads. We believe, David. And we were made well again. We saw him, David. He walked the earth in our lifetimes. And on this day ten years ago the stone was rolled away from the sepulchre. And we heard as if it was sung on the wind. I am the resurrection and the life. It's the new day, David. A new day. When there is faith in your heart, my son, and kindness toward your fellow man, then every sunrise brings us renewal. And we live again. We are resurrected as he was. Remember this, David. Where there is love there, you will find God. Some beautiful sunrise, father. Now I know what it means. Good morning. Good morning, father. Good morning, my son. And James Hilton will return in a moment. Ards for all the folks you want to remember, you still have time to do so between now and Sunday. At the finest stores across the country, you'll find hallmark Easter cards that say what you want to say, the way you want to say it. Cards with words so expressive of your feelings your friends will imagine have had a personal chat with you. Cards with colors and designs as fresh as springtime itself. Cards that express the deep spiritual joy of Easter. Ones that tell your friends and loved ones you remembered and wanted to share the happiness of Easter Sunday with them. Tomorrow when you're looking for Easter cards, remember to look for that distinctive hallmark on the back of the cards you select. Because on Easter, as always, you'll want your friends to know you cared enough to send the very best. Here again is James Hilton. It was a pleasure to have you with us on the hallmark playhouse tonight, Jeff Chandler. Thanks for a first-rate performance. Thank you for inviting me, Mr. Hilton. You know, I have a very warm spot in my heart for the hallmark playhouse. And we all have the same for you, Jeff. You know, ladies and gentlemen, back a few years ago, Jeff was one of our most regular and valued actors on the hallmark playhouse. We have watched his success with pleasure and pride, and tonight we welcome him back as our star. I'm particularly glad it was tonight, Mr. Hilton, because, well, I've been so busy, I'd forgotten that Easter's right here. So when Frank Goss reminded us of hallmark Easter cards, I said to myself, that's for me. Fine, and here's another reminder for you and all our listeners from the makers of hallmark cards. Your cards, in fact, all of your mail look even better when you use Easter seals. We know that by buying Easter seals, you help to support crippled and physically handicapped children. I think that's a grand idea, Mr. Hilton. And what are you having on the hallmark playhouse next week? Next week we shall present our adaptation of an adventure story of this great southwest called Doubtful Valley by George Garland. And our star will be Richard Widmark. Our hallmark playhouse is every Thursday. Our producer-director is Bill Gay. Our music is composed and conducted by David Rose, and our story tonight was dramatized by Lawrence and Lee. Until next Thursday then, this is James Hilton saying, good night. Have been carefully selected to give you expert and friendly service. Remember a hallmark card when you will carry enough to send the very best. Jeff Chandler can currently be seen in Battle at Apache Pass, a universal international technicolor picture also starring John Lund. The role of then-her's mother was played by Virginia Gregg and tips her was Lorraine Tuttle. Bill Conrad was Missala, Herbert Butterfield Balthauser and Dick Beals-David. You are invited to the Hallmark Hall of Fame every Sunday afternoon on television. Consult your paper for time and station. This is Frank Goss saying good night to you all until next week at this same time. When Hallmark Playhouse returns to present Richard Widmark in George Garland's Doubtful Valley. And the week following, Charlotte Bronte is the professor starring Joan Fontaine. And the week after that, R.D. Blackmore's Lorna Dew on the Hallmark Playhouse.