So keep your place in Luke chapter 16, bookmark that and head over to Matthew chapter 5 if you would. That will be the basis of our sermon in Matthew chapter 5 and then we're going to go through one of these stories in Luke chapter 16 to make a couple of my points. But the title of the sermon tonight is Keeping Your Word and the importance of keeping your word and what the Bible says about that. Look at Matthew chapter 5 when Jesus actually addresses this very thing. Look at Matthew chapter 5. Jesus when he talked about things in the law many times every time the Pharisees misunderstood the things that he was saying like he was changing the law or like he was negating the law. When really Jesus was just fulfilling the law he was many times correcting what the Pharisees had twisted the law into. And Matthew chapter 5 is a perfect example of this. Richard remember the title of the sermon is Keeping Your Word because that phrase is used a lot today and I'm going to show you how that phrase is actually part of the problem and when it comes to how we think about the things that we say, the things that we tell people we will do what we will not do and how important it is it's much more important than just keeping our word. Look down at Matthew chapter 5 and look at what Jesus says in verse 33. The Bible says, again, you have heard that it had been said of them of old time that thou shalt not forswear thyself but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you swear not at all neither by heaven for it is God's throne nor by the earth for it is his footstool neither by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great king.  But let your communication be ye ye nay nay for whatever is more than these cometh of evil. So a lot of people say, you know, okay Jesus is just saying, a lot of people just like surface read what Jesus is saying here. Jesus, a lot of people will say, well Jesus is just, he's preaching against oaths or vows as the Old Testament of old time, the people of old time will call vows in the Bible. But Jesus here is saying, he's like don't swear by all these things. He's like don't swear by heaven, don't swear by, you know, Jerusalem, the city of the great king. He's like these things aren't even yours. He's like why would you be swearing by things that aren't even yours.     Really show somebody that you are going to be credible when it comes to what you're saying. You know, I, you know, all these different things people say, he's like Jesus is just like just do what you say you were going to do in the first place. It's much simpler than just that, all right? So look, none of these things swearing by heaven, it's even worse to swear by heaven, swear by God, swear by, you know, spiritual things, you know, things like this. It's even worse to do that. Look, Jesus is just saying your word, the words that you say you will do should be good enough, all right? Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 23. He's not negating Deuteronomy chapter 23 or anywhere else that the Bible talks about vows. He's just saying like look, there should be not this necessary, you know, overly swearing by all these crazy things in order to do things. Look at verse 21 of Deuteronomy chapter 23. Deuteronomy chapter 23, look at verse 21. Deuteronomy 23 verse 21, the Bible says, talking about just the seriousness of vowing, you know, saying or, you know, vowing, taking an oath, promising that you're going to do something, the Bible says, when thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it, for the Lord thy God shall surely require it of thee, and it would not, and it would be sin in thee. If you underline things in your Bible, just underline to pay, and then I'm going to get to that in a few minutes, but the Bible says, but if thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee. So the Bible here is saying like, if you promise something to God, if you take a vow to God, it's serious that you do that thing. It's like, but if you don't make that promise, then there's no sin there. All right, look at verse 23. That which has gone out of thy lips, thou shalt keep and perform. Even a free will offering according as thou has vowed unto the Lord thy God, which thou has promised with thy mouth. I find it interesting, I'm going to show you that in Luke chapter 16, that he ties taking a vow to, you know, offering things to the Lord, offering material things, whether that be, you know, money or an animal or any kind of, you know, offering of a personal possession to the Lord. I'll tie that in, in a little bit, but it's interesting because if you look at Proverbs chapter 20, you turn to Matthew chapter 26. It's interesting because people will do this to you too. They will require, the Bible actually says in Proverbs chapter 20 in verse number 25 that, so Jesus is warning against like swearing against heaven and swearing against all these things. Jesus is saying this should not be necessary for you to do this is what Jesus is saying. But the Bible also says that people that will require you to do this are evil people. In Proverbs 20 in verse 25, you're going to Matthew chapter 26, and I'm going to show you some evil people that did that to Jesus, actually, but look at in Proverbs chapter 20 and 25 I'll read to you. The Bible says this, it says, it is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy and after vows to make inquiry. So it's saying, look, it's somebody's trying to devour things that make holy, somebody that is trying to get you to take vows to tell the truth. They're interrogating you and they're saying swear by heaven or swear by God. You're saying what kind of wicked people would do something like that? Well, look at Matthew chapter 26. Matthew chapter 26, look at verse number 63 saying that evil people, look, you should not do this and it's an evil person that will require you to do this as well. Look at verse number 63, but Jesus held his peace. Jesus is at this trial. If you want to call it a trial before his crucifixion, he's been arrested and he's being interrogated here and Jesus held his peace and the high priest, he's not speaking to these people and they're trying to get him to talk and the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God.  He basically puts this, you know, this vow statement on Jesus.  Are you the Christ? And then Jesus answered, Jesus said unto him, thou hath said, so much for Jesus never claiming to be Christ. I mean, you just said it right there. All right, thou hath said, nevertheless, I say unto you here after shall you see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. So the point is, don't let anyone do that to you either. You know, don't let anyone say like, you know, swear by God or I charge you to swear by God this and this and this because just let your yes be yes and let your no be no. And Jesus is saying, swear not at all. What he's saying is, look, you really have three choices when it comes to, you know, committing to something or not, the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 23. Look, if you don't commit to anything, it's like whatever. Hey, so you got three choices.  And you just got three choices, you can be silent, swear not at all. Or you could say yes and mean yes, or you could say no and mean no. That's what Jesus is getting at in Matthew chapter five. Jesus was not changing the law. He was fixing what man twisted it into being.  Like they got themselves into such a pickle. You know, I ever play pickle in baseball where you get a guy stuck between the two bases. You know, you're in a pickle there. You're gonna get out either way unless somebody makes a mistake.  So what do you do? Well, if you have the doctrine of all sin is equal, you're in real trouble here. What the point is, Jephthah got himself into trouble in judges. He swore a vow that he would sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house. If God, and he swore this vow by God. He swore this vow. The first thing that comes out of his house is his daughter. So if he breaks that vow, yeah, that's a sin. Because he shouldn't have swore the vow as a dumb vow. But or he could commit murder, which is what he did.  All right? I mean, the point is, is that vows are serious. You could see how serious they took it.  All right? Even to the point of, you know, horrible, you know, horrible sin that people went into because of it. Go to Numbers chapter 30. Go to Numbers chapter 30. So Jesus is not changing the law. He's just like quit doing all this stuff. Quit, I mean, I don't think God was very happy that somebody swore by God or swore by heaven and then committed murder, you know, in the name of keeping a vow to God. God is not happy about that. Go to Numbers chapter 30 and look at verse number two.  The Bible says, if a man in verse two, if a man vows a vow unto the Lord or swearing oath to bind his soul with a bond, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that preceded it out of his mouth. In Numbers chapter 30, it talks about, it gives incredible detail about vows. It says of a daughter, you know, vows a vow and she doesn't talk to her father about it who is in charge of his daughter that the father can nullify that vow. The same thing goes for the wife. If the wife swears a vow and, you know, the husband was not aware of that vow. It's very interesting though because it says the husband must nullify it that same day. So the husband can't be like, now I thought it was a good vow last week but now I don't think, no, because now it's on the charge of the husband at that point. It comes upon him, all right? So look, I almost did this to my wife one time.  That's lame, I'm just kidding. I didn't nullify the vow, but the point is the point is that husbands had the ability to nullify the vow but that same day and it could nullify over their daughters as well. But the point is that God put serious rules in place and vows are to be taken seriously. Your word is what I'm trying to convince you tonight. I'm gonna give you two points tonight. I'm gonna give you two points that will benefit you for keeping your word. And if you're just gonna be like, I'm gonna be the person to keep my word, these are two things that will benefit you tonight. That's the whole point of the sermon. The first one is this, okay? So I'm trying to convince you to be the type of person that their yay is yay and their nay is nay tonight, all right? Or even a person that just is silent at times, all right? So two things, point number one is this. And this is where we're gonna go to Luke chapter 16. But point number one is this. If you don't keep your word and you're not somebody that keeps your word in, I'm talking about even small things.  The smallest things, here's the thing, the first point is this, no one will rely on you if you are not somebody that can keep your word.  The credibility loss is still the same is what you need to understand. And credibility loss, it happens quickly. Credibility building takes a long time but credibility loss happens very quickly. So it doesn't take too many of these times for people to just peg you is the type of person that's just like, oh yeah, he just says stuff. Look, they may not be mad at you, they may not be like, you know, so I mean, because look, they're probably just gonna suffer themselves to be defrauded and be a good Christian brother to you when we're talking about people within the church. But the point is, the credibility loss will be the same and it doesn't take too many of these times to just take you to zero basically or people realize, yeah, he just says stuff. That's just who he is. And here's the thing that will really hurt you and that people will not see that are like this. Opportunities will be missed by you that you didn't even know were there. This is the problem. No one will be able to rely on you. People are always, because look, these are opportunities that many people just don't see. Because guess what? People are always looking for people to rely on because there's just not that many of those people because many people, they just can't do everything themselves. They just can't, you know, they don't wanna do everything themselves. So they need people that they can rely on.  Too many people think like, man, that guy over there, he just gets all the breaks. The reason people don't get the breaks is because these opportunities are going by them every single day and they don't even know that these opportunities are going by them. Now turn to Luke chapter 16. You know, whether that be promotions or just, you know, opportunities to help out or become more of a profit in your Christian life. People, I mean, this is what I see. People, they don't see the opportunities that could be right there for them. They're passing them by and they don't even realize it. All right, look at Luke chapter 16. This is a really interesting story in Luke chapter 16. Maybe one of the most confusing, maybe misunderstood stories that Jesus tells in the Bible and we're gonna look at the story of the unjust steward. I'm gonna explain the whole story first and then I'll apply it. So don't wonder like, hey, where's he going with this? But I'll explain the whole story first because there's a lot of lessons in this story. All right, and a lot of people are a little confused at this story and the way Jesus puts it forth. It's not the same type of story where you kind of have a good guy and a bad guy, you know, in the Bible. It's a little bit unorthodox when it comes to the types of stories that Jesus tells and the parables that Jesus tells. But let's take a look at it and let's see what we can take from this.  We're talking about having people rely on you and we're talking about missed opportunities that you will have in your life if people, you know, don't feel like they can rely on you. And these are opportunities, folks, that it's not like you're gonna see the opportunity coming and be like, yeah, I don't really want that opportunity. It's, you're not even gonna know the opportunity was there. It's like an invisible opportunity that you're missing. And you have no idea, if you're not somebody that keeps your word, you're not somebody that people can rely on, you have no idea how many of these opportunities you're missing. But I'm telling you, in this day and age, it's a lot. It's a lot. Look at Luke chapter 16, verse number one. Let's look at the story of the unjust steward. And he said, first of all, who's he talking to? He's talking to the disciples. That's important. Okay, so he's talking to the disciples. He said unto his disciples, there was a certain rich man which had a steward and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him and he said, how is it that I hear this of thee, given account of thy stewardship? For thou mayest no longer be steward. So this is his accountant, the person that's taking care of his money. And he's like, hey, he heard a rumor or whatever. He doesn't know if it's credible or not, but he heard a rumor that this guy was, you know, wasting his money, stealing his money, not being a good steward of his money. He's like, hey, show me the books, buddy. Is what he says to this steward. Look at verse three. Then the steward said within himself. I mean, obviously he was not doing a good job because this guy's like, right away, he's like, I gotta find a way out. The steward said within himself, what shall I do? So he was clearly being an unjust steward, whether he was stealing or just wasting or whatever it was. He says, what shall I do? For my Lord take away from me the stewardship. I cannot dig to beg, I am ashamed. So he's like, I'm busted basically is what he says. He's like, I'm busted. And like what he does next shows that he was guilty of being an unjust steward all together. But he's like, I can't work for a living.  And then he's like, I'm not going to beg. That's embarrassing. Cause he's obviously living a pretty decent lifestyle. Off this other guy's money. So he's going to come up with a plan to get himself out of this. All right. And it's, you know, it's a fairly brilliant plan. Look at verse number four. I am resolved what to do. That when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So you should underline into their houses. If you write in your Bible and I'll explain that later. So he's got a plan. He's figured this out. I know what I'm going to do. He's like, I'm about to get canned. I got this thing figured out. So he must like have a two weeks period here where he's got some time. So he called every one of his Lord's debtors onto him and said unto the first, how much owe us thou unto my Lord? And he said, a hundred measures of oil. And he said, take the bill and sit down quickly and write 50. Then he said to another, how much I was thou? And he said, a hundred measures of wheat. And he said, take thy bill and write four score, meaning 80. This is a modern day politician right here.  So when he gets fired, he will be in good favor with them. This is politics right here. This, let me just tell you something without going off for 45 minutes. This happens everywhere. Everywhere. Every business this happens in. This happens all over the place. People grease in the palms of people here and there.  Politicians do it all the time. They get lobbied by big companies.  How does that work? How do you think politicians that make $200,000 a year end up multi-billionaires, some of them? This is exactly what's happening. What Jesus is saying here. OK, now that's not really the point of the sermon. But just you understand, the brilliant is God speaking here. God's like, this is how men work. This is what this unjust steward is doing. This happens everywhere. Today, I've seen it for 23 years. It just happens all the time. Go to verse number eight. Now it gets a little confusing. So that's easy to understand. Why he's doing that, right? So far, everything's easy to understand. He's trying to make a nice, soft landing for himself. And he gets fired from this job because he knows he's guilty. And he's obviously a dirtbag. He's just stealing this guy's money. He doesn't care. Look at verse eight. This is the first confusing statement right here. Verse number eight that people get a little tripped up on. And the Lord commended the unjust steward. You're like, what? Because he had done wisely. For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. So look, neither of these guys are really decent people here. The Lord, this is the guy whose money he's given away. He's like, hey, that was brilliant what you did there. Even though he took his own money to do it, he's just like, hey, that was kind of a brilliant thing. And then it says this statement that some people get a little confused about, where it says, the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. Who are the children of light? It's us. We're the children of light. We're the saved. We're the people that are following Jesus Christ. The children of this world, it's just the unsaved people. The people that aren't saved. So look, it's not saying that they're reprobates. It's just saying they're the children of the world. That's it. The children of the world. But it says, notice these three words where it says, in their generation. So it's talking about the children of this world. And then Jesus is really going to explain this in detail in the next coming verses. But it's just talking about, they aren't eternally wise. It doesn't say they're eternally wise. It says, in this world, they're wise. This is why. This is why. And I used to think about this when I was younger.  But you ever wonder why? Man, why can't there just be a saved Christian billionaire?  I mean, just why? First of all, that's just wrong thinking in general, because we don't need resources. We need people. We need harvesters, right? We need manpower is what we need. We don't need money. And Jesus actually explains that in the coming verses. But he's saying, this is just an explanation for us. Why the Christian is really just gonna never, it's almost never Christians. I don't wanna say never, but it's almost never Christians that you're gonna see at those top echelons of the world. Because we don't really care about the money or we're not supposed to anyway. It's not our main goal. And like people like that, people like this unjust steward, his main goal was just to, how am I gonna keep myself in this money? How am I gonna keep myself in this lifestyle? So he goes out and he does a good job of doing that. So look, in his generation, he's wiser. Because the Christian just isn't gonna think of something like that, because they just don't care about the money. That's not even the main point. Look at verse number nine. So it's talking about the children of this world are just gonna be more wise in the things of this world. Because we're not of this world. We shouldn't care about the things of this world. But this is a second confusing point right here where Jesus says this, now the story's done. The story's done and now Jesus is talking. Jesus is talking to the disciples. Look what he says. And I say unto you, remember at the beginning of the chapter, he's talking to the disciples. He says I say unto you, and this is where you need to know, like the yeas and the yourselves and the days in this verse is super important right here. Who Jesus is saying what to? Look what he says. He says, and I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. You're like, what in the world? What's that all about? Jesus here is saying to the disciples, he's saying, hey, why don't you go out and do a similar thing? First of all, who's he talking to? He's talking to the disciples. That's the ye, that's the yourselves. Right, he's talking to a group of people, plural, ye yourselves, the why words are plural. These and those are singular. He's saying, why don't you use your money to make friends too? Is what he's saying. But look what he says. He says, use the mammon of unrighteousness. The same, it's not mammon that came from unrighteousness. He's just saying like this mammon of unrighteousness, just this money. This money in this world. Why don't you take the money that you have in this world and you make friends too. But there's a difference with your friends. There's a difference with your friends. Because I told you to underline those verses, right? There are those words. In verse number four, what verses did I, where was this guy making, where was this guy hoping to be brought in? In verse number four. He was hoping to be brought in into their houses. I mean, that's not everlasting. He's talking about just taking care of himself in this world, is what he's talking about. But your friends that will receive you will be with you in eternity. The Bible is saying here. It says they will receive you into everlasting. It's like they're gonna, your friends, you should take your money and make friends. They're gonna bring you into everlasting homes. Is there any home on this earth that's everlasting? So think about this for a second. You gotta really crank this one through. What kind of friends are these that you're making?  And instead of putting it in stocks and bonds, this is somebody who saves up his money and goes on a mission trip. This is what Jesus is talking about. These are the everlasting habitations that you are going to make for yourself with that money. And you know what you're gonna do?  It's gonna shrink. So, but guess what?  This is what Jesus is talking about when he talks about turn to Matthew chapter six. Look, mission trips aren't cheap. Think about this. Mission trips aren't cheap.  You're growing that big pile. This is the opposite. This is an opposites lesson. This unjust steward for us Christians. This is an opposites lesson. This is the opposite of what the unjust steward was doing. Jesus is saying, you shouldn't care about your money. Instead, use your money that you don't care about to make everlasting friends. He was hearing about the money and making friends now is what this guy was doing. So you'd have a house to go to now. Instead of using this mammon, this money to further God's kingdom, which is what Jesus is telling the disciples to do.  That's what Jesus said, when ye fail, it'll look like financial failure to the world. But in reality, look at Matthew chapter six. In reality, it's not failure at all. Because Jesus explains it. He decodes it in Matthew chapter six because you're still laying up treasures. Jesus says in Matthew chapter six, verse 19, He says, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moss and rust doth corrupt or where thieves break through and steal. He's like, hey, don't pile up money down here. He's like, don't pile up things that can just be stolen. We were out soul-winning today and we walked by this yard and I told the guys we were walking by. I was like, man, if I was a billionaire, they had this dog in this yard. You should have seen this dog.  And it was just like, it's drooling. It was making noises I can't even try to explain to make. This dog was just, I was like, man, if I was a billionaire, I'd take all my money out in $20 bills. I'd stack it in that backyard right there and I just have that dog and I never have a problem. But look, all your money can be stolen. Everything can be stolen from you. All the things that you're storing up on this earth, that story had nothing to do with the sermon. It could all be stolen from you. He says instead, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt nor what thieves do break through and steal. And then he matches this up to the lesson in the unjustity where your treasure is, your heart will be also. So Jesus is saying, look, you spend all your money on the mission trips, you spend all your money to just further the kingdom of God, you spend all your money to make eternal friends, to just like, hey, my goal in my life is to get people saved. So all the resources that God gives me, I'm gonna use that to get people saved. Look, you're not gonna be broke if you do that. I'm gonna explain that to you in just a few minutes. You're not gonna be broke if you do that, but here's the thing Jesus is saying is that's what you should be doing with that unrighteous man. Right, it means, look, he's talking about trading in, trading in, think about this. Jesus is talking about the deal of a lifetime. Trade in, Federal Reserve notes for souls. It's like, that's the biggest deal ever is what Jesus is explaining here. Go back to Luke chapter 16.  He didn't care about it. But you shouldn't care about yours either. So Jesus caps it right here in verse number 10. Verse number 10. Verse number 10 and verse number 11 are really the key here. Look what he says in verse number 10. It says, he that is faithful in that, which is least, is faithful also in much. And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. And here's the opposite's verse right here for us. He says, therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon who will commit to your trust the true riches. So this guy, this guy that's unjust here was not faithful in his boss's money, but for the Christian the test on whether or not we are faithful in the unrighteous mammon is whether we don't care about it. It's the opposite. This guy didn't care about it and he was supposed to care about it. We're not supposed to care about it because the true riches are the gospel. And Jesus is saying, here's the test for you Christian. The test for you Christian is if you care about this money I'm not gonna entrust you with the gospel. Where instead this guy, you know, he cared about the unrighteous mammon and nobody would put him in charge with more. But with us, you just flip it on his head and the test for us is, hey, you gotta not care about it. And then I'll trust you with the gospel is what Jesus says.   People see people saving up, can't wait to go to another mission trip, can't wait to do this, can't wait to help out here.  Like that's the whole point is what Jesus is saying. It's the opposite. That's the test for us is not caring about the money. Now here's the main point back to the sermon's point. Jesus says, look at verse 12. If you have not been faithful in that, which is another man's who shall give you that which is your own. In the unjust Stuart's case, it was mammon versus more mammon. That's the application there. If he would have been trustworthy with his boss's mammon, he would have gotten more mammon. But with us, it's mammon versus the gospel. We have to not care about the mammon. It'll be entrusted with the gospel. That's what Jesus is saying. All right, now look, now we can apply this to keeping your word. Now we can apply this to getting more responsibility from people because if people can't trust in you, they can't rely on you. You see where I'm going with this? They can't rely on you for anything. But just take it from money to things that you say. It's the same application. It is a matter of fact, the way Jesus talks, the way God talks about vows and the things that you say, it's a direct correlation with money and debt. If you don't take your vows or your words seriously, no one is going to trust you with more anything. God, people, all the same. Look back to, go back to verse 13 of Luke 16. And here's the thing. These things, as I said before, you will never know these things. I've had so much hope for people. Over the years, I've had so much hope for people. I just see, you see so much potential in people, but it just turned out to be people you just can't rely on. And it's really sad to see because you see that hope that you want to have for people. Look at verse 13. No servant, now this comes right back around to Matthew chapter six. No servant can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, love the other, he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. You see how that just kinda, it's just an opposites lesson for us in the unjust steward. But the unjust steward loved the mammon. Just using money as an example here, that was the small thing. Look, our word is no different than this. If we are not trustworthy, God will never give us more. That's the first point. And look, men operate the same way. If you're not trustworthy, you're saying to yourself, everybody else gets breaks all the time. And I just don't seem to get these breaks.  Anybody you know in authority is looking for anyone.  So when you think about, I'll be there, I'll do that. Things that you say. Just remember Jesus is three choices. You can be silent. Silence is an option, folks. You don't know what to say, don't say anything. That's just a good rule for life right there. You don't have any idea what to say. Don't be this guy's like, ah, I gotta say something right now. I gotta say something, I'll do that. Or whatever. Silence is an option, all right? I didn't always used to be like that. I had a hard time shutting my mouth when I was in my 20s. But I mean, you get to a certain point where you realize, like, if you don't know exactly what to say, don't say anything. And then if you say yes, it better mean yes. And if you say no, it better mean no. Or opportunities will pass you by. That's point number one. Here's the second one. Here's the second one. Benefits of keeping your word. Benefits to you. I'm trying to convince you to help yourself tonight. Here's the thing. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter seven. If you can't keep your word, covenants will not be possible with you. Say, what do you mean? What's that mean? Covenants, what do I mean? Covenants are deals. Covenants are agreements between two parties.  You know, God had covenants, many covenants with the nation of Israel. He was making a deal with them.  Look at Deuteronomy chapter seven, in verse number nine. The only way covenants are possible is if both people keep both sides.  Look at Deuteronomy chapter seven, in verse number nine. Here's the thing with God, though. We really need to understand how God operates. And then this will help us keep our word. And I think we'll change that phrase before the sermon's over. Because look at what God says in Deuteronomy chapter seven, in verse number nine. We really need to understand how God operates in covenants. Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the what kind of God? The faithful God, which keepeth the covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. So when will God renege on his side of the deal? Never. He will never renege on his side of the deal. You look at the nation of Israel.  Have you ever read the Bible? It is a covenant. It was a deal. It was a deal. If you keep my commandments, if you don't go after other God's, if you do these things, I will keep you in the land. Over and over and over in the Bible. It was a covenant. A covenant is a deal. And God is faithful. He didn't break his part of the deal. God is faithful. He will never break his part of the deal. Covenants with God are our problem. Totally one-sided. So then, you know, they just completely reject the Messiah. They completely reject Christ. And you're like, oh, God's chosen people, Israel, what in the world is happening here? It was a covenant, a deal, and deals with God are never broken on the God side is what God is saying in Deuteronomy chapter seven. It is always the other side that makes a deal. But look, if you're not somebody that keeps your word, a covenant cannot be successfully made with you. Is what the Bible is saying. Go to Psalm, chapter 76. You know, this is a common saying, keep your word. That's a man that keeps his word. That man, when he says something, he keeps what he says. But that's not what the Bible says about keeping a vow. That is not the language that the Bible uses when it talks about keeping a vow. It doesn't even say keeping a vow. Look what it says in Psalm, chapter 76 and verse number 11. Psalm, chapter 76 and verse number 11. Psalm, chapter 76 and verse number 11. The Bible says, vow and keep what you say unto the Lord. It says, vow and pay unto the Lord, your God. Let all that be around him bring presence unto him that be feared. It's actually, look at Job 22. Actually just go to Ecclesiastes chapter five. I'll read for you Job 22. You're going to Ecclesiastes chapter five. Job chapter 22 and verse number 27 says, thou shalt make thy prayer unto him and he shall hear thee and thou shalt pay thy vows. Ecclesiastes chapter five and verse number four. I could read you verse after verse after verse, saying the same thing. Ecclesiastes five and verse number four says, when thou vowest a vow unto God and defer not to what, to pay it. For he had no pleasure in fools, pay that which thou hath vowed. You see what the Bible is saying here that a vow is? A vow is something you owe. When you say, yeah, I'll do that. Yeah, I'll be there. Yeah, I'll help you with that.  When you say that you will do things, you ever made a promise to God? Now you're all thinking.  The Bible is comparing it to a debt. The Bible is comparing this to debt. Book of Psalms says that the wicked borrow with and payeth not again. It's a wicked thing to not pay. Especially you owe a debt. You tell God, as soon as you promise something, you're in debt. You think about things a little different now?  He's like, stop.  They're just like, I'll take everything. Cause look, you can borrow anything now. You can take a loan out on anything. Couches, TVs, I got my taxes done. I got my taxes done last week and they want to give me a loan on my tax return. I'm like, are you, I like short circuit in my brain and my ear started smoking. I'm like, you're gonna give me a loan. You're offering, so I'm getting this return back in seven days and you're offering to give me a loan and charge me to get my own money that the government. She's like, yeah. Isn't it great? You can take a loan out on anything. But what happens to you? Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. What happens if you're the type of person? Cause what does the Bible say about the borrower owns the lender, right? Something like that. The borrower is serving to the lender.  Like it goes to nothing, right? Like nobody's gonna break your knees in the United States. But your credit, well maybe some places, I don't know.  This is why it's a direct application to the unjust steward. This is why money is a perfect example. This is why God when he says a vow, he's like, no, you owe.  See? You're like, we don't understand. It's cause you're not faithful. I'm not faithful. We don't think this way. But we need to understand how serious it is to keep our word or pay our vows when we think in the mindset of God. When God's like, every time you say something, you owe debt. Every time, and Jesus is like, just quit taking out credit cards. Matthew chapter five. We've all made promises to God. I'm writing this sermon and I'm just like, have I said something that I, do I have an outstanding credit card with the Lord? I'd be a good one to first John 1-9. Just kind of blanket statement first John 1-9, that one confess that one. Lord, if I've ever made a promise to you that I haven't kept, Lord, please forgive me. Please help me shut my mouth. Please help me just do what I say I'm gonna do. Please help me just be someone that just tries to just not say as much and be a person that pays my word.  A debt, a thief, right?   It makes perfect sense how God operates. Turn to John 14 and verse number 15. See, you gotta understand that God operates on action. God doesn't, look, here's the thing. There's a reason that it doesn't say keep your word in the Bible over the place. It's because God doesn't operate on words. God operates on action. God operates on action. Love is a perfect example of this.  If you would ask them, if we would change the questions that we asked and just ask every people that we, let's go out soul winning Wednesday, we're not gonna do this, but, and just ask people one question, do you love God? I bet you 90% of people would say yes. In this area, anyway. But look at John 14, 15. Does God care about words though? Look what Jesus says, or look what Jesus said, he says, if you love me, if ye love me, keep my commandments. Did he say, if ye say you love me? You know, he said, if ye love me, this is what you'll do. He's, you know what he's doing? He's defining what love means here. He's defining what love is. He's not saying, like, you know, he's saying these words, love, this is what Jesus is saying. Love is this action. That's what it means. That's what that verse means. People misuse that so much. It's ridiculous. But the love is action. Without action, without action, the word is not the definition of the word. You see what I'm saying? Without action, it doesn't mean what God says it means. Without action, look, I mean, did God say, I love ya, love ya, down there, kiddos? No, God took action. That's how we know God loved us, because he sent Jesus. Because he didn't just say, like, hey, love ya, sorry about that hell thing, that's gonna be rough for you. He's like, no, I love you, here's how I'm getting out of it. And you know I love you, why? Why do I know God loves me? Because he sent Jesus, that's how I know. This is the problem with today. This is why it's the same thing, why there's so many failed marriages, why husbands and wives are having so many problems. Marriage is just falling apart, because love is words, love is just feelings. You know, love is feelings. Oh, I feel like I love you.  That's how love turns into lust, which turns into all kinds of whatever you wanna define it as. And they're kind of sick, weird stuff that they define it as today. Love is action. It is sacrificial action, or it is not love. A zebra is not an elephant. A nut is not a bolt, a tire is not an engine. I mean, it just, we can say that these things are, but it's not what God says. It's like, you love me? Do it, that's what love is. So we can't just redefine where. So look, keeping, you know, every promise to God, you owe debt, remember that. Because that's how God rolls. God is a God of action.  You say something, you owe debt on that. I mean, you think about it a little bit different when you look at it that way, don't you? When I just, when I say, when I'm standing in a group of guys and somebody's talking about, oh, I gotta move or whatever, do something, and I'm just like, oh yeah, I'll help you out, cause maybe you get a lot of people there just like they like to be the first one to blur it out that they'll do something or whatever. And then you just, you know, it's a 50-50 coin flip, whether they can do it or not. Look, the point is, when you throw that word out there, that's debt to God. That's debt to that person. You think about it much different if you think about that it literally puts you in debt. Now you also understand how there's no small thing. Like anything that you say puts you in this type of debt. A good name is better to be chosen than riches and loving favor, you know, rather than silver and gold. And that's what you'll do to yourself. So Jesus says it would be better to change, it would be better to say nothing than to do this kind of damage to yourself.  Hey, just commit to yourself these two things.  If you have a problem with this, we all do to some degree. If you have a problem with this, just commit to this. What Jesus said, doing these three things, silence, yes or no, and yes and no being what? Being action. That's all Jesus said. He's like the yes is action, the no is action.  And then you owe no debt. But do that and look, you'll be surprised, I'm telling you, you'll be surprised at what opportunity comes floating by you. If you start to be that kind of person. And then number two is what Jesus said at the end.  That's all you have to do. And guess what? I had a car payment one time 20 years ago that was $700 a month for five years and I will never do that again. And that is what Jesus said. That's what Jesus is saying. He's like look, if your yes is yes and your no is no, and you operate that way. Meaning your yes really means yes. You're really helping that guy move. You're really going and making those commitments. You're really going and digging those holes. You're really making those promises to God that you were in a really tight spot and you promised God that you would do this thing and you're really following those things through.  So it's super important that we are these type of people. Listen to what Jesus said. It's three simple options. Just pick one. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.


in today's lecture we will be discussing on closures of a relation now suppose I have a set A and a relation R on the set A that is R is a subset of A x A now we have already seen that relations satisfy certain properties like reflexivity symmetry transitivity antisymmetry and so on so we will be particularly discussing on three properties reflexive symmetric and transitive so reflexive symmetric and transitive properties however to start with we will just take a general property let us say P that is let us denote the property by P suppose P is a property of a relation in particular P can be as I said reflexive symmetric or transitive property now a general relation R may or may not have P so that is our starting point so suppose a relay we are considering a relation we which does not have a prop which does not have the property P then we may ask that I would like to extend the relation to a relation and this extension should be minimal such that the extended relation has the property P for example if the property is reflexivity or let us say reflexive property and suppose R is my relation which is not reflexive I would like to extend it extend R to a relation let us say R sub P such that that R sub P is reflexive and it is the smallest reflexive relation containing R now in general let us let us give a definition with respect to the general property P and a general relation R the closure of a relation R on a set A the closure of a relation R on a set A with respect to a property P say is the smallest relation denoted by R P such that R is a subset of RP which in turn of course is a subset of A cross A now here there are certain issues that needs clarification first of all the point which is more or less clear that what we mean by a relation containing another relation because after all we have defined a relation to be a subset of A cross A on which it is defined and then if I say that the relation RP is contained in R that means R is a subset of RP as a set but a more a more critical point is that this RP has to be minimal with respect to the property the question is what do we mean by that we are coming to it shortly but let us write again the same thing a more explicitly so suppose RP is the closure of R with respect to P then what what are the properties that RP must have in other words suppose RP is the closure of R with respect to the property P then one the first thing is that RP must have the property P then second R must be a subset of RP which in turn is a subset of A cross A and third if we consider a relation S with property P containing R then and contained in RP then S must be equal to RP if S is a subset of A cross A having property P and R is a subset of S which in turn is a subset of RP which in turn is a subset of A cross A of course then S must be equal to RP and the third point specifically say what we mean by the minimal extension it means that we have a relation R here and then we have A cross A and RP is somewhere in between such that R is a subset of RP and RP is a subset of A cross A it is to be remembered that RP satisfies the property P now suppose we have some S which also satisfies the property P and which is a superset of R as I have drawn here and subset of RP then this will force S to be equal to RP so that means that we have R the relation R over here and RP on the top of it and which satisfies P but there is no and there is no relation in between R and RP satisfying P and properly contained in RP so RP in that sense is the minimal extension of R having property P now we will start looking at closures of specific relations that is closures of relations with specific properties the first property and probably the easiest property that we have in hand is reflexivity so we consider now reflexive closure of a relation suppose is a relation on a the reflexive closure of R is a relation RC say such that RC is reflexive suppose S is any reflexive relation such that R is a subset of S which in turn is a subset of RC which in turn is a subset of A cross A then S equal to RC thus we see that this is exact translation of the general case that we have discussed just sometime back considering a general property now the property is no more general this is the reflexivity property and we have said what we mean by reflexive closure of a relation now we ask the question how to find how to find the reflexive closure of a relation the reflexive closure of a relation R on a so let us be very specific that we have said suppose a is the relay is the set on which relation R is defined and we would like to know the reflexive closure now of course if R is reflexive the reflexive closure of R is R itself but we do not know that therefore we define a relation which we denote by capital delta and which is essentially the equality relation so capital delta consists of all points a a such that a belongs to a or in other words I can write it contains all pairs a b such that a, b belongs to a and a equal to b all right so this is a equality relation now what we do is that we simply augment if at all necessary these a a type of elements to R and we call that that is RC that is a reflexive closure of a relay of the reflexive closure of R and I do not think I need to explain anything more because it is very straightforward RC is equal to R union capital delta the equality relation now suppose we are given R in terms of a matrix that is instead of R we are given the matrix corresponding to R that is MR and then it is very direct that the equality relation is nothing but the identity matrix all right so only the diagonal elements will be one and rest will be a zeros so we are assuming here assuming that a is of size n all right so delta is this thing the identity matrix and MR of course is a matrix the matrix corresponding to R and if you want to know the matrix corresponding to RC so that is MRC we can just write this is equal to MR union delta because we have already told that RC is R union delta and we know that from our previous lecture that this is equal to MR or M delta and M delta essentially is the identity matrix therefore this is MR or IN where IN is equal to the N by N identity matrix all right so this is easy but well this somehow captures the basic basic idea of closure that we just add new new elements to the relation original relation R to maximally extended to its closure with respect to certain property and we have also seen here that if we write in terms of matrices sometimes it is possible to write the whole computation very neatly because we just know now that we have to just take the R of the identity matrix to the original matrix of the relation and the matrix that we get is the matrix corresponding to the closure now let us look at an example right now let us consider A to be the set 1 2 3 and 4 and we consider a relation R equal to say 1 1 then 1 2 2 3 and 3 4 not linking this one is the link this is a link I am doing it but now it will so I have to press here it was not happening actually when I press there but it was not happening but anyway all right so this is 3 4 okay now suppose we want to find out the reflexive closure of R well then we have to write down the equality relation which is very straightforward because it is 1 1 2 2 then 3 3 and then 4 4 4 4 all right now we take R union delta this gives us 1 1 and then 1 2 and then 2 2 then 2 3 then 3 3 3 4 and lastly we have 4 4 of course this is the reflexive closure if we now look at the graph corresponding to this relation then we will see that we have another way of looking into the reflexive closure so let us look at the graph corresponding to R defined on a so we have got four vertices we label them by 1 2 3 and 4 and here we notice that 1 1 is there 1 1 means there is a self loop from 1 to 1 and then we have a we have an edge from 1 to 2 and then we have an edge from 2 to 3 and then we have 3 to 4 this is the original relation given by the given by R and finding out its reflexive reflexive closure is just putting self loops at each vertex that makes each of the vertex related to itself and where there is already a self loop that is in this case 1 we do not have to do anything so this is the reflexive closure of the relation and a relation R and the graph corresponding to it again we start with R suppose R is a relation on a set A the symmetric closure RS of R is a symmetric relation containing R is a symmetric relation containing R such that S is another symmetric relation satisfying R subset of S subset of RS subset of A cross A then S equal to RS we come to the question of how to find the symmetric closure of R in order to do that we will first start by defining another relation corresponding to R which is called the inverse of R we denote it by R inverse and define as a R inverse B if and only if B R A now at this point we must not confuse R inverse with complement of R since R is a subset of A cross A there is a set theoretic complement of R which we usually denote by R over line which is essentially A cross A set minus R now when we translate it in the language of relations this will mean that A R complement B if and only if A is not related to B this is our complement but we are not here defining complement of R we are defining R inverse where we say that A is related to B if B by R inverse B is related to A by R now what we claim over here is that the symmetric closure of a relation R that we are denoting at R sub S is nothing but R union R inverse we have to see why it is true so first we have to show that R sub S is symmetric for that let A R sub S B now this implies that A R union R inverse B which implies that A R B or A R inverse B which in turn implies that B R inverse A well that is the definition of R inverse we have said that A R B if and only if A R B R inverse A so since here we have got A R B here therefore I can write B R inverse A since A R inverse B if and only if B R A now or B R A therefore we see that this is B R A or B R inverse A but that means that B is R union R inverse A which in turn means B RS A because RS is R union R inverse therefore we see that A R sub S B implies B R sub S A but that is the property that RS to have if it is symmetric and so RS is symmetric the next property that we have to show is that R is a subset of RS but that is extremely straightforward over here because RS is union of R and R inverse and therefore we can write that R is a subset of R union R inverse which is equal to RS now we come to the third property which is the minimality so now let us suppose that we have a relation let us call it T which is symmetric and which is sandwiched between R and T so suppose T is a symmetric relation on A that R is a subset of T which in turn is a subset of RS which of course is a subset of A cross A now let us start let us start from let us let us try to prove that T is equal to RS we already know that T is a subset of RS clearly T is a subset of RS we have to prove the other way round so we start it in a fresh page right so let us write again so we have R is a subset of T which in turn is a subset of RS of course T is a subset of RS it is already known now I will start from RS side so suppose that A is related to B by RS now this implies that A is related to B by R or A is related to B by R inverse this is because RS is a subset of R union R inverse now this implies that A is related to B that is all right or B is related to a okay because that is by the definition of R inverse we know that A R inverse B both the implies B R A so therefore we can write that ASB or BSA why since R is a subset of T so just let me correct this is not S but this is T so instead of S there I must write this is T because since R is a subset of T A RB means ATB B R A means BTA therefore we have come to a scenario where A is related to B or B is related to A so therefore through through R therefore since R is a subset of T I can say that A is related to B by T because it is related to B by R and R is a subset of T and or B is related to A by T now we started with the assumption that T is symmetric starting assumption is that T is symmetric okay so therefore ATB or ATB here this thing PTA is ATB because T is symmetric and therefore we have the same thing we have ATB or ATB therefore this implies that ATB now this means if we now notice from the beginning that is this to the end we have proved that AR sub ST implies ATB this implies that RS is a subset of T but already we knew that T is a subset of RS now we have got RS is a subset of T therefore we have T is equal to RS so this is what we wanted to show to prove the minimality of RS and this is what we have shown now we will consider the matrix corresponding to RS so in general we will consider matrix corresponding to a so what we want to consider now is how to construct the matrix corresponding to RS so first we have to know how to construct the matrix corresponding to R inverse now if you see that a matrix MR which corresponds to the relation R defined on a is given by Mij n x n where the number of elements in a is n on which R is defined and further to specify the matrix we need to write the elements of a in a in some order which we fix afterwards so suppose when we write in that order the elements of a is a 1 up to a n then Mij is equal to 1 if ai is related to aj is 0 if ai is not related to aj now suppose we consider the matrix corresponding to MR inverse now suppose we denote this matrix by Mij bar sorry Mij prime now Mij prime is defined in this way Mij prime is equal to 1 if ai is R inverse aj that implies aj R ai and 0 if ai is not R inverse aj which implies both ways if aj is not in not related to ai that means that M prime sub ij equal to Mji because when aj is related to ai then M sub ji is equal to 1 well then M prime sub ij is 1 therefore this relation holds and when j is aj is not related to ai then Mji is 0 and same as M prime sub ij therefore this is same thus it is clear from this that M sub R inverse that is the matrix corresponding to R inverse is equal to the transpose of the matrix corresponding to R because in the new matrix the ij is switched that means rows and columns are switched therefore we have this and now since we know that RS is equal to R union R inverse the matrix corresponding to RS is the matrix corresponding to R union R inverse which is equal to the matrix corresponding to R or the matrix corresponding to R inverse which in turn is equal to the matrix corresponding to R or the matrix corresponding to R transpose this gives a particularly straightforward method to construct the matrix corresponding to the symmetric closure of any relation and then of course from that we can write the relation or the digraph corresponding to the relation very quickly next we come to the question of finding the transitive closure of a relation the transitive closure of a relation is a relation which is transitive and which admits no transitive relation between itself and the relation under consideration so transitive transitive closure of R on a is a relation we usually define transitive closure as R superscript plus we I will read it as R plus is a relation R plus such that R plus is transitive any relation T on a which is transitive subset T subset R plus of course all subset of a Cartesian product A is equal to R plus that is T is equal to R plus so again we have the problem of finding out the transitive closure of a relation to do that we have to recall few things that we have studied in previous lectures so if we have a relation R then we can take we can compose this relation R to with itself several times for example by R square we mean the relation R composition R now when we say that a that an element a is R square B this means that there exists an intermediate element C1 let us say in the set a on which R is defined such that a R C1 and C1 R B now suppose we raise R to the power 3 then a R cube B will mean that there are elements C1 and C2 belonging to a such that a R C1 C1 R C2 and C2 R B if we go forward like this then we can define the general case that is let us say a R to the power k B all right this means that there exists C1 C2 so on up to Ck-1 belonging to a such that a R C1, C1 R C2 so on Ck-2 R Ck-1 then Ck-1 R B so we see that we can have sequence of powers of R defined in this way that is R R square R cube so on Rk and so on we can construct a relation by taking the union of all these relations so we consider the relation that we get by taking R union R square union R cube union moving in this way Rk union so on in a compact way we can write this as i equal to 1 to 8 R raise to the power i and what can be proved is that this is same as R plus that is the transitive closure of R we will stop here in today's lecture and we will continue discussions on closure of relations particularly closures particularly the closure of transitive relations in the next lecture thank you


I guess the mic is on.  Shall we start with some intros? Post what was said here. I think it'd be great to add to the intros already made just to go a little bit into how you really differentiate yourselves and bring out a little bit of individuality in terms of what each of you is interested in, in terms of sectors or areas. So Sakshi? Sure. So I've been at SoftBank for almost three years now. As you know, SoftBank Vision Fund is the largest technology venture fund. We are excited by technology breaking and then changing large markets and making them more intelligent. What I've done so far and what excites me are markets like healthcare. So within healthcare we've got genomic cost curves that are creating whole new markets, making healthcare very intelligent. I've done logistics and I think that's gonna be an exciting space to watch all around the world on a global scale. I think education is very interesting. So I suppose high impact large markets where tech can play a big role. Great. So at Atomico, I think our genesis is clearly a place from early stage. So as my friends here come from a much more growth oriented thought process, the beginnings of Atomico have always been to support entrepreneurs at Series A and help build companies. And parallel to that, I think our organization reflects that in that we have entrepreneurs, operators and investors who are collaborating within the organization of Atomico to help build companies at A but then beyond. So I think the capital that we have is much more from a venture roots but the ability to follow our investments to a place where my colleagues might look at these investments is where we live and our genesis are. We have a vast array of interest because my partners have come from very diverse backgrounds. But I would say generally speaking, I'm probably not to surprise of anyone. There's a group of us that are looking at consumer. There's a group of us that are looking at enterprise. And of course, deep tech is a big part of our strategy. But then I think we layer on a fourth which cuts through all of those which is kind of the Series B and C elements. And then wrapping all that up, Europe is our core focus. We really feel that Europe has a lot of potential up to now and then going forward, we're super bullish on that. Yeah, no, and we'll get into Europe a little bit more. And I mean, you guys are not afraid to do sort of early, big early investments in very tough industries, graph core, Lilian. Yeah. I think that there's also within the group and as an organization, I think there's also longer term thinking. You know, my partners like Nicholas and Siraj are both very well versed in those areas. And I think they have the mindset to think super long which I think is a good component of our portfolio and it gives us diversity in terms of the lineup as well. Yeah, no, cool. And Teddy?  And what software for us means mainly B2B and how we differentiate in that is our operational focus. So we have our kind of operational army structure of the software company itself. So we have everything from talent to customer success, to sales, product, so forth. And the professionals working on a team can go really deep into the problems of go to market and other areas in software companies as they don't have to cover like loads of different industries. So working with that team is a key way of untangling growth problems in our companies. We invest a lot in Europe. I would say a significant proportion of investment in Europe. Stages range from kind of series B, large series B all the way to buy out. So one of the differentiations inside has that we can be very flexible with the deal structure from small high growth minority deals to all the way to kind of take privates. Right, okay. Actually, we'll speed into Europe already then since you both mentioned it. I guess partly you guys don't have a team in Europe. So maybe cover that a little bit how you guys cover Europe from the US. And I think talk a little bit about what makes European companies you see special, whether it's certain sectors or qualities or metrics, that'd be quite interesting. So how we cover Europe is essentially we have a very bottom up sourcing model. So we have lots of people just calling every company and emailing everyone. I mean, there's probably every startup, the FNA scale that has received and contact from inside.  So we kind of take in the positive side of like being everyone being in the same office and to kind of accepting the downsides that of course we have to travel more than having a local team. And so does that work? I mean, because I know my companies get calls from your analysts. Does that actually go flow through the system? Because we're often like maybe you should just ignore that and you have other things to do. I mean, you can ignore it.  And we will show up eventually. So the team is very persistent. And that's the way we kind of surface things bottoms up. But of course, we get engagement from companies from different ways. We get introductions from co-investors and kind of the usual. To your question about Europe, at least in the enterprise segment, I feel like these companies can come from anywhere. Whereas consumer companies are more focused on that kind of key tech hubs of London, Berlin, Stockholm, so forth. Whereas BDB companies can come from tier three cities and it's more countries. And that's also how we feel like you can't cover this ground with the local office anyway. So for us, it's being in New York and traveling across the world is a way that works. And I mean, you guys obviously do this report every year on the state of European tech. And particularly it's been a banner year for Europe. We've seen successes in fintech. Fashion e-commerce has always been strong sectors as well. It's been a better market in terms of Europe, in terms of returns versus US. I guess what's happening or what's special and what are you guys looking at? Well, to the extent that just touch on one of Teddy's points, I think over the last five years, the stats speak for themselves in terms of the seed capital 4X, series A4X. So basically what all that suggests or actually probably is fact as per our report is that the ecosystem is super rich and which means that there's a lot more data points to cover. And so for us, because I think as an organization, we're really relying on the network of the angel program, which Sophia Benz was up in this stage talking about, our network of friends, of people who are seed funds themselves. Those are all feeding into our series A core strategy. And from that, I think what I'm trying to understand better is surfacing those that are of global caliber. I think all of the entrepreneurs. Dig into that because I think, obviously, there's so much noise. And you look at the top 20 companies, US or Chinese, right? So talk about that global in terms of how do these work. I mean, the banner year that you talk about this year has been the North Star of what a company can be, say in the consumer space, from Europe has just kind of almost 10X with Spotify. And I think the expectation of, I guess, the expectation of people who are in the ecosystem of the possibilities that these enterprise values can be so big has been defined at another level. And I think that's what is totally driving my motivation, at least to dig into the companies, both enterprise and consumer, that are trying to, most of our companies are trying to tackle bigger problems that are global and be global category leaders and then maybe winners. But within that journey, we are looking for signals, right? We are all looking for signals. And I think I'm trying to really try to understand and spend time within our portfolio, but also through the network of the ecosystem. What are those signals? And I don't have all the right answers, but I think that's where I'm really hopeful that the next three to five years we'll see a lot more companies that both softback and insight will want to invest into. And I'm a big believer that that will happen. And I mean, Sakshi, you guys are based in London. Does that give you a special perspective, obviously on Europe, but perhaps globally as well, because you are covering that vast arena, right? So we've got three offices, one's in London, one's in San Carlos in California and one's in Tokyo. We've got investment teams in all three offices. Pretty good-sized investment teams. We invest globally. We look at all sectors. We see ourselves as long-term capital. And we are very interested in Europe because going back to the US-China effect that you referenced, obviously these countries have seen escape velocities. People have seen zero to billion dollars. People have made a lot of money. Some people missed out. So there's a bit of FOMO, which creates a lot of risk appetite, which I think Europe doesn't have as much of. So I think there is a gap on the series B on the side and we hope to solve that. In fact, we think that valuations-wise, I think Europe is very attractive, probably one of the most attractive regions on a global scale. So we hope to find more things here. Great, great. And we'll get to some of that too a little bit later on. I guess I wanted to, for those in the audience that are looking at their growth rounds, sort of BC onwards, maybe digging into a little bit into metrics. I know at SEED, we think of sort of, do you have traction at A, as a B2B business, especially, have you hit 100, 150K MRR? We can help you pitch into the series A investors. I guess for each of you, what are different metrics? Are they growth metrics? Are they numbers? Are they just NPS? Are they market sentiment? What are the metrics you look at across different stages of what you invest, maybe, Teddy? I mean, I think in B2B, it's a little bit easier because B2B companies scale a little bit more linearly than some of the consumer businesses, and there's more standardized metrics and benchmarks. But your question, I would say, it's like all of those. So you can't just look at the ARR growth metrics if you don't look at the NPS of the product, if you don't look at the retention. So it's a composite. I think what we're seeing in the market is that series A's are raised really on conviction on product. And then series C's are really raised fully on metrics and execution. And series B's kind of end up in this halfway world where some larger series B's are maybe purely momentum-driven on revenue growth and the kind of usual metrics. And some companies are raising series B's more as series A's, just on conviction. And then they have to really prove and grow those metrics in series C. And I'm sure you guys see this as well. Yeah, I mean, just stepping back, I think maybe you can both, I feel it because I think you're doing it. But to the extent that there's this series B land that is becoming much more complex and that people with big pools of capital are coming upstream and going earlier, there's a murky B there that perhaps the ARRs that you would have looked at before, Teddy. And I don't know what they may be, but you would know. Probably have come, they're much more nascent or whatever percentage of what you would have expected five years ago. So there's definitely some sort of like collision of different characters there. And it's probably a very good thing because if you think from an entrepreneur's perspective, as long as you're kind of locating the right type of capital at that inflection point, let's just focus on that, the B's and C's for that matter, I think you can get to, still get to the right investor, a good investor that fits your profile. We have this like high, when I go high resolution fundraising that you have like, it's no longer series A, B, so you have like A plus, B minus kind of things.  And so it's, I think it's great for founders because you have just more capital and more investors available for exactly the stage and situation your company is in. And a slightly different take on that. I mean, definitely talk about metrics and things, but with the announcement of your fund, there's obviously a lot of startups going, that's what I want. I want that 100 million check. I want that sort of billion dollar check.  And what do you, what are the metrics you look at or? So I think that there are two questions here, right? So the first one around metrics, I, you know, I echo what these guys said. If it's a, you know, if it's a commercial product, numbers matter, right? So numbers speak for itself or a business model and how sturdy it is. If it's not commercial, if it's a deep tech company, a deep science company, we look for, you know, some sort of a technology superiority. And I think for us, the entrepreneur himself, his vision, what he's built, what he wants to build is extremely important. So I think the mix of these three things, usually always is something we look for. And your second question around...  Yeah, yeah.  I think there's a lot of people who can write checks, you know, sure we can write very large checks, but I think the good entrepreneurs are looking for something more and I think what makes us quite unique is we feel that we've made our own kind of network effects. In 18 months, we have close to 70 companies and Massa's whole vision is around creating portfolio synergies. And each of these companies are run by brilliant entrepreneurs who may or may not have met each other, but today, besides meeting each other, they're cross-selling their products into each other's companies. And you see that actually happening. Absolutely, absolutely. We have a lot of JVs going around all over the world and, you know, these companies are all very large companies, right? So the impact you can have, the scale you can get is very large. So I think that's very unique about us, this kind of network of portfolio synergies that we've built. And so getting into that a little more, I guess we were talking backstage too, you know, at Seed, we're definitely telling our companies, especially we'll talk about markets now, is that we're telling our companies cash is king, you know, raise as much as you can, plan for 18 months. It used to be more kind of nine to 12, especially at Seed, but now it's more 18, maybe even 24 months. I'm hearing that in the VC circles at A as well. I guess, you know, do you believe, and I think some of your investments indicate cash is a moat and cash is defensibility and how are you advising your portfolio on that when they're seeing a competitor, you know, get in that massive check into whatever competitive round it is? I can start. I think that, you know, if you, there's game changing quantums, right? So, you know, it's actually like the soft bank capital discussion becomes like, like a meaningful one always because does that just kind of create a category killer? Which it can, I think we would agree that you have to take that into consideration, but that's maybe not a tomorrow thing, that could be maybe a next year thing. So this is more dialogue and understanding what other players in the ecosystem are thinking about and doing. I think to your point about general kind of, you know, a more heightened interest to raise capital now before the year end, I think I agree with you that that's something that maybe is some foreshadowing of anxiety of 2019 and things that are happening, which I'm not the first person to be able to kind of tell you at death what will or won't happen, but I do see that as a, you know, general trend of people trying to load up a bit more now and think about longer term and you see that in kind of, I think the quantum that are being raised in A's and subsequent B's, which is, you know, where we live. Teddy, what would you say? I mean, I fully agree with that.  The problem with raising a lot of money, putting a lot of cash in the balance sheet is that you also will spend it. And I think sometimes founders really underestimate what it means to raise a really large round, maybe like kind of raising the next year's round today kind of thing, because it does set the expectation of an exit and liquidation preference and all these things that then you kind of really committed on building a 3X larger company that you would have been happy with prior to the round. So I think it's important for founders to also think about what it means to raise that large check and what do you need to actually deliver to justify that? Yeah, any? I mean, to be very honest, with or without SoftBank, cash is always a moat, right? I mean, especially in industries like consumer, you know, you need to build a war chest, or even in like industries, deep science, deep tech, it involves you to actually educate the key opinion leaders, so you need cash for that. But I do think that, you know, having a big fund like SoftBank, I think we've had some of that effect where we've helped kind of, or at least we hope to believe that we're helping moving that ecosystem where companies can raise more capital from other funds. No, and I think down, you know, upstream, downstream, whatever we are at, I think we see that, right? And I think there is sort of that momentum and a push to act, which especially in Europe helps because I think kind of, you know, previous to the last five years, it's been a slower growth and now there is that real momentum. So I think it's been, you know, mostly positive for sure. But maybe one last bit into that is, so when companies are raising this much cash, I mean, how do you ensure they're spending it wisely and what are some mistakes you've seen made and, you know, you're trying to kind of, as advisors to your businesses, ensure some of those mistakes aren't repeated? I mean, on the B2B side, I think you can definitely, you know, scale prematurely. You can spend money if you don't really have poor market fit. You can end up in a spend war with a close competitor where the only winner is the customer. So I mean, I'm sure we've all seen these examples in our portfolios and that's why I just feel like that you have to fundamentally build a good business and cash is a means to an end. And personally, I'm slightly averse of investments where cash is the only key mode. I'd rather try to use cash to kind of get the advantages of some other defensibility aspects that a business has. I mean, I completely agree. I think that maybe the additive part is, you know, organic versus marketing. If you think about some of the more consumer-leaning companies, just making sure that the discipline or at least everyone, including founders and investors, are huddled around the table thinking about, like, is this driving, you know, will this help drive more organic growth because, you know, a leaky bucket doesn't help anybody. And I think those, maybe just adding to Teddy's point, I think that's what I would maybe think about for some of our companies. And our founders are conscious of that too. I think they're all trying to figure that blend out. Yeah. Yeah, so I think we're quite focused on understanding the use of funds because we understand we write a large check and, you know, we don't want to distract the company from getting to where it wants to get to. And we also have this operating group, like I mentioned before, who works very closely with the companies along with the investment side to make sure that each of those problems that they wanted to address with the cash, you know, are getting addressed in the right way. So you have good governance. Yeah. Good governance, yeah. Cool. So talking about the markets a little more, you know, I was at a conference recently and I saw some very happy investment bankers because it's been a great 2018, but they seemed even more excited by 2019 and kind of these, you know, pipeline of IPOs that they're really excited about. You guys are closest to that. What are your views on the market on the one hand and then the market receptivity for IPOs and can we have, you know, 15 IPOs next year and they're not going to cannibalize each other, I guess. What's, you're all smiling, so you clearly have some idea. I mean, some are closer to it than others. Yeah. I mean, I think we're probably of the three the furthest away from kind of the IPO market in general. I mean, some portfolio companies are closer to others, but I would defer to... I mean, it's hard to say on a macro side, but what we do see that there's an incredible pipeline of fundamentally very, very good companies that are still private that probably need to go public at some point. Timing-wise, it's so hard to say.  Like the IPO window can really open and close, you know, depending on a certain president tweeting out. So like, it's really hard to say where we will be six to 12 months from now, but I do know that there's really great companies and the great companies do have options of delaying the IPO or looking at, you know, large strategic M&A. We see a lot of dual-track things. We were going to IPO one of our portfolio companies, Qualtrics, which then ended up being bought by SAP for $8 billion at the very last moments before their pricing. So you see a lot of M&A interest today, but, you know, if I knew where the market's gonna be in 12 months, I'd be running a hedge fund instead of working venture. Yeah. But how are you advising your companies?  Yeah, I mean, look, we're seeing a massive bull run, right? Like no one knows what the peak is, when the peak is, or if there is even a peak, right? So it's all about timing. I think we have a bunch of, you know, we do late-stage investments.  So I think when the timing is right, we're completely supportive of that stuff and we're excited. Cool. So I'm gonna ask one more question and then we'll open it up. So I only see one question here. So please, you know, please do input if you want something answered. So yeah, so the last kind of question is what are some of the, you know, sectors you think are ready for growth funding in Europe? Gaming, you know, obviously has been a very active sector in the Nordics. At least we talked about the other ones, FinTech, et cetera. Is there more in FinTech? What's the future? What's the next couple of years of? You know, this year 23 billion plus in terms of, you know, funding into the sector. I think if you just think about the cohorts of the last 10 years of talent, because you're talking about capital, but the other very important component is talent with experience. I think what you will definitely see next year is this talent recycling of people who have been part of like high growth, high impact startups that have, you know, broken through many different barriers of unicorn, Deca-corn, whatever you want to call it. And those people will start more companies. There's funding for that clearly. And so I think the paradigm shift for Europe has happened. I think now we're going to see, you know, the expectation level for next, for every year is higher, right?  So it's becoming much more of a global benchmark to hit. And I think that will definitely be something that I would be encouraging, you know, people that I work with and founders that I work with to think about. And they're that caliber now. So like it's super exciting, right? Like they're even coming back from the US after having either sold their businesses that they grew to, you know, and had M&A activity, they're coming back. So I think it's going to be exciting. That's a great point on talent. I'd love for either of you to, you know, sort of put a stake in the ground on some sectors that we haven't seen maybe to date as much capital going into, but that you're really looking, no one's mentioned AI yet, but. I mean, from my perspective, at the B2B side, we see that, you know, great AI and machine learning-powered software companies like in the workflow software, application software can come from Europe because you can build a talent everywhere. I mean, it's not necessarily a new sector that's clearly been happening now for last year or two, but what we definitely do see that the talent there kind of benchmarks very well globally, whereas I think where the lack on the talent side is on the kind of business-like senior operators just because we don't have that many success stories that say in B2B in Europe where you can like hire your VPs from, whereas in the US, do you have that? But I think that's also getting better as we get more and more exits and successful outcomes. Saxie, there's actually a question, which is perfect, really good one, because you mentioned education, and so what are the opportunities you see in education? You mentioned that particular vertical, and a really good point made about do you see examples of public sector getting involved in terms of policy? Because we've definitely seen policy has had huge impact on financial services and opening that up, having impact in health availability, et cetera. So do you see a policy in education link and what are the opportunities you're seeing there? Yeah, I think education has been one of the oldest industries to catch on to tech, so I think there's huge opportunities there. The idea would be, let's take India for example, right? Having grown up in India, having read those textbooks, even if there was a topic that was super interesting, the textbooks are written in such a boring fashion that I would fall asleep. So you're not preparing your younger generation to be ready for the workforce, because you're forcing them just to mug up everything in the textbooks and just vomit it out in exams. So this is where I think tech can play a big role, right? If you can create content that's engaging in the form of games or anything else, it could change outcomes. I think in terms of policy, this is going to be similar to healthcare, right? Where healthcare started off slow, but now you're seeing FDA approve all kinds of digital applications of healthcare. I think you're going to see that in education, right? Cool, no great, good note to end on. Thanks so much for your time, guys, and thanks all for listening. Okay. Thanks. After you.


Hello everybody, my name is Evan from jaspyscasebreaks.com coming to you live right now from Hermosa Beach, California with encased football 2021 4 box picture team. This is a random number block for the Cowboys the Eagles commanders and the Cardinals So let's see how many dice we're gonna roll here Two for six and two with another eight seems like the number of the evening. We got Ryan down to Dusty Good luck everybody eight times here on the names one two three four five six Seven and one more time for eight. Good luck everybody got eight times there. We got Patrick down to Patrick Put that into a column a Now let's do eight times on the numbers. Good luck everybody again zero gets any redemptions that are even one of ones two three four Five. Oh my goodness six Seven and one more time for eight. Sorry. That was the king's giving up another goal eight times here. So we got three down to seven To the break There we go. So we got Patrick with three Dusty with one Dusty with four Ryan with six Justin with eight Dusty with zero Sean with two Dusty with nine Adam with five and Patrick with seven alright Thank you everybody for getting in on the random number block We will be coming up with the break right after this. Thank you so much