So people I am back with another outriders video and I've not long ended my stream it's literally 3am here in the UK right now I ended my stream absolutely puzzled 700 people watching as well absolutely puzzled okay so this started earlier on today before I started streaming I um my character levels at level 30 my gear tops out at about about you know I couldn't have a higher level gear it's not the highest 48 level armors the same 48s so I was helping my pals as they just got to the expedition stages I was helping them out and I realized when playing unlike a challenge tier 4 it seemed as though my armor and weapons just dropped in that scale which is understandable to try and balance out they don't want people of a higher level going back and carrying the players simple as that yeah all right fair enough I understand that um so I farmed expeditions all night on stream didn't get no legendaries you know seven hours straight got no legendaries whatsoever game hates me fair enough so I decided to go and farm a a farm I put on youtube of these names the warlord you get him from within the dunes you kill him you die minutes and repeats pretty simple I wanted a few materials want to get that titanium this and the other so I got here this is a world tier 10 by the way as you can see world tier 10 top of the screen and I'm using my super powerful weapon well it's not super powerful it's 24k damage firepower 62.9k armor piercing close range damage status power all this and the other I'm built for shotgunning that's basically what my classes built around and I go and farm this boss and watch this I want to this is what well this is where I first figured out so I use all my okay I forgot about the cutscene excuse me people I'm really tired I'm really tired and this is just puzzled me I wanted to help me out I think my stream couldn't figure it out I couldn't figure it out well um okay so look I'm doing that bad damage here the 35k damage okay I'll take it it's not bad I mean there's a bit of scaling here I probably won't kill him okay so yeah I won't kill him oh I will just about let's see okay I'll kill him he drops me loot fair enough okay so I let the other adds kill me okay so that's with my powerful shotgun it's a level 48 there's 20 plus k damage firepower is 50 odd k 60 odd k whatever it was so what happens if I switch to this one here which is a level 37 11 below only does a thousand damage you can see there in red 12.5 k firepower damage so what happens if I do the exact same thing and run it with this same abilities same build same everything so what do you think it's going to happen people okay now it confused absolute heck out of me I couldn't figure out what was going on I just couldn't figure out what was going on these adds are going to kill themselves because I've got a ricochet mud on my armor which is just hilarious let's take that off quickly um okay so don't kill yourselves now and kill me so I couldn't figure out what's going on so when I got a blue shotgun which matches my other shotgun as best I could get bone strap no clip roller okay I got it so we got bone strap no 24 k damage 16 2.9 k damage uh firepower damage this one here 5.1 k firepower damage bone strap no put out on there myself same sort of thing same kind of weapon same kind of pump action shotgun as we do it 5k damage so what do you think the difference was will be so let's run it again with the purple I've reset my game I wiped my skill tree I've done everything guys I've tested this all kind of shit okay so this is the purple I mean it's not bad damage I mean I understand it the scale me down but we'll tear 10 people we'll tear 10 it's fair enough okay scales me down so I'll die I'll die and then I'll switch to the the lower level one so the lower level blue let's do the exact same thing same mud same everything ready how is it I can two shot him with a blue which is 11 levels below almost 20 000 damage below fire powers what 50 k below what is actually happening here what is going on here the damage scale in this game is utterly broken okay so let's try it with a assault rifle that's 61 that's my high assault rifle in the game that's what I'm doing my expeditions with what we've got we've got another one here that's lower okay we've got one there I mean I've got different perks hot blood a grave diggers frenzy and we've got in this one singularity and shrieker or sugar whatever that says who cares that one 64.9k 5k damage this one is 27k with 2.1k damage this one's got quick damage close range and skill life leech this one's got armor piercing status power and healing received we'll first go with a big boy we'll first go with a big boy I'll pop all my abilities let's see what you do then yeah not bad not bad well for a weapon this powerful not bad I will say as well these powerful weapons people um these ones here the ones that level 48 obviously from the expedition higher tier levels so we'll try it now with a blue we'll try it now with this bad boy and see what happens let's see the differences again nothing's changed nothing's changed whatsoever what happens it's doing more or less the same probably a bit better we run that again oh you know what people I'm an idiot again I apologize I'm so sleepy I was using the higher powered one I was using the higher powered one so this should be fun I was gonna say it was more or less the same a little bit better well it was actually the same weapon they switched it let's switch to the lower level one let's try that again again I'm tired I apologize man I apologize so let's see okay so you can see it clearly see the difference it's just way way way I mean it's just way better the lower level weapons what is going on what is actually going on here I just do not get it how is it how is it that lower firepower lower leveled lower damage weapons are dealing way more damage in this game and the real tears that alone I mean it's a real tier 10 I just do not get it guys I just do not get it guys I mean my mate my brain is just it's tried I can't really understand okay so let's try it let's try it with this one here the shotgun I haven't used this is at level 37 6k damage um and if we pull it against this one we can see 62.9k 14.7 24,000 damage here at the bottom 6,000 damage I mean we've even got blue ones you know we'll try a blue we'll try one of these after these are blue weapons let's see what this does let's see what this does I'm too shot I'm up I'm almost too shotting him I am almost too shotting him now I can I can understand the game scales you down so what does it penalize you for having higher powered loot more powerful armor I think the scaling is broke I think there's definitely something broke here there's definitely something broke here what are you are you are you a 10 I don't like the 10s the 10s it's for the 20 okay so here we'll go back with the what is here the difference is here is on but that's a 1.2k damage people with a 13.7k firepower I honestly just don't understand to a point of to a point of it feels like I'm missing something it feels like there's something I'm missing you know let me kill myself and go down another tier and see if the same thing happens I want to see if the weapons I've got here now on this world tier 10 are more powerful or as powerful on a world tier one change it down to a world tier one and then we'll compare the weapons I probably will have to uh okay so I'll probably have to kill myself to reset this tier I don't know I don't know how it works let's see let's see okay I guess not that's just stupid okay so what are these these are blues we need more we need more loot here we need more loot we need to get a lower level shotgun but it seems as though okay so what do I just get then I got these two did I not I got these two I really need a shotgun for this to work on the end these ads ain't gonna be able to kill me these ads ain't gonna be able to kill me but world tier 10 loot on a world tier one you can obviously see it's just as powerful and if I switch to this bad boy this is powerful too I mean the scaling obviously it's so it's so the enemies are so weak now I don't forget matters what I use I don't forget no matter what I use let's go up to a a world tier nine a world tier eight even I thought it could be the armor-facing rounds I thought it could be um I've tried it all I've tried it all and I just cannot figure out what's happening here how can it be that my highest loot I've ever got is weaker when playing back through the campaign then what's this this is basically a world tier 10 weapon I can will I can challenge tier 13 weapons be weaker in world tier 10 weapons someone please explain this to me because I honestly don't know what's going on and it's bogging my mind it's bogging my mind folks it really is oh shit I'm getting much of the other hey I got a green jacket there nice that's what we like to see people that loot that lucky loot okay so let me try my purple shotgun on this my world tier eight flipping now that's not bad luck though is it that's not bad luck though is it people okay so now we're trying blue we're trying the we're trying out a world tier 10 shotgun which has dropped on a different scale it's dropped on a different tier and will this be scaled back we'll find out I think the scaling's just broke yeah I think the scaling's just broke honestly but yeah um it's something to think about I don't know where to go from here I don't know what to say the video's been going on for 15 minutes and I'm still just absolutely mind-blown so yeah uh what guys help me out help me out what am I what am I doing wrong what am I doing wrong what am I doing wrong I just don't know I'm trying I've compared these weapons over everything about them everything about them I've compared it over and I've come to there's no conclusion I've come to there's nothing I've come to there's nothing guys there's nothing the only thing I can think of is world tier 10 weapons are just better for world tier 10 but if that was the case well what about when we just go down to world tier eight there and they're still better the world tier 10 is still better than the the challenge tier 13 in a world tier eight yeah it's just it's something to do with the scaling guys it's something to do with scaling I don't know what it is I don't know how they've tried to balance it and broke something but it's definitely not right in my opinion but let me know your thoughts on this down below in that comment section I mean if you know what this is if you know what's happening here please explain it to me hit me up on Twitter my discord whatever I haven't got a clue guys I haven't got a clue but something's definitely broke something's definitely broke and I mean I just can't I just I just I mean even if like people have said it could be something to do with the like a crit damage or the the armor piercing but again I mean I tried all that and let's get the scaling between these two weapons I don't think then they would make that much of a difference I don't think it would be the case when this can two shot a boss and this can take two clips and I just don't I don't get it guys I don't get it but yes let me know your thoughts on this down below in that comment section again I apologize for ranting on rambling on dragging the video out whatever I apologize for all that but yes tell me your thoughts if you've got a explanation for this let me know down below hit me up on Twitter discord whatever but I'm tired I'm getting off it's like 20 past three I'll see you guys soon on a stream later today hope to see you there peace out peace out peace out peace out


If you follow Glaibre Torres on Instagram, you know that this past week he had his first ever hot dog in New York City Straight off the cart. What's that cart? The dirty water dog. Yeah My old man used to bring me down to the St. Patrick's Day Parade Fifth Avenue in a big tree He'd say we're gonna get some dirty water dog. Glaibre, why did it take you so long to get in there? Those things are delicious. All right, so here's the question People debate this all the time. Hot dog debate 101. That's your third class at Fordham Can you put ketchup on a hot dog? You can Jack Curry would not I like chili dogs. I just like going with the chili. I would not put ketchup on it But I think you can I assume that's a Fine Condiment for a hot dog you going down that route some people don't like it though They think it's inappropriate. I have no idea why you know what? I'd love to disagree with Michael K about everything that he says, but I have to agree with him about no Condiments when I have my dirty water dog. It's plain and delicious. Nothing on them go right for it Wow, so I mean I would do ketchup mustard raw onion chili. That's not chili. I would do chili with cheese sourcrout The gamut now I have to ask this next question It's on the rundown our beloved producer Mike Medvin put this in because he says if you Google hot dogs One of the questions that comes up is a hot dog a sandwich. What do you think? I can't believe we're even talking It's not a sandwich. Yeah, no way Jack I'm going to say no, and I'm also going to sneak in a tasty baseball nugget. There was a Speculation out of Chicago that there might be trade possibilities with Glaibre Torres to the White Sox for crochet the reliever and A minor leaguer. I don't envision that happening. You look at what Glaibre Torres was for the Yankees last year There's a guy who had a war of over four. He's an everyday player Probably gonna make about ten million dollars this year The Yankees are not going to part with Glaibre Torres for a reliever and a prospect and and a hot dog cart thrown in We got off the rails and Jack got us right back on the tracks He gave us a little bite of a rumor sandwich Then we just threw it aside


The Phelps Hornets and second year head coach David Jones have been in the weight room and working hard in the off-season tonight we preview the Hornets in the huddle. The Phelps Hornets are continuing to build their tradition to become a top contender in the mountains. Head Coach David Jones is entering his second season with the Hornets as they look to turn heads this year. The most important thing that we needed to improve on was getting in the weight room and you know just getting and getting everybody committed to and it's kind of hard you know being at a single-way school and you know and we encourage everybody to play all sports so you know when one sport is in we make sure they concentrate on that sport but at the same time we make sure that they're in the weight room too so they've been doing a little bit of mixed and both but you know the most important thing that we seen that we needed to work on was getting in the weight room. Just trying to stay positive, do the hard practices, we're gonna have some hard games this year you might not always come out on top but you just gotta stay positive and keep moving forward. Last season Phelps put up four wins on the board but dropped six. Coach Jones and the Hornets are looking to turn things around and make this season one to remember. I want to be able to you know us beat the teams we're not supposed to be you know and you know we beat the teams we was supposed to be quote unquote last year the teams that you know we're not supposed to be and all that you know just just being able to beat them and playing them and you know just see we're in and taking it one day at a time one game at a time because last year you know I'm a I can say I was one of the ones that looked ahead you know but this year's is one game at a time and the first game is Eastridge and that's the only thing we're ever gonna talk about into that next game. I expect to win at least eight games if not more because I mean we're gonna be a really good team especially if we keep working at it like we are right now we're definitely gonna turn some heads. Phelps football means to me a lot especially it's my senior year and I'm dedicating this season to my dad and I hope we come out and have a good season. Reporting for KB Sports, I'm Chris Atkins.


So welcome to my talk. So the title is somewhat scary. The paper is about using layer systems for proving confluence of first order term rewriting systems. So let me provide some context. So as I said, the context is first order term rewrites systems. And I am lucky that the previous talk was about grant tree rewrites systems, where we had an example which used different letters but looked something like this. We had some F of A and B. And this could be rewritten to F of A prime of some C and B using a rule that said that A can be rewritten to A prime of C. I should say that we talk about term rewrites systems, where we consider these trees as terms. So this left-hand side would be F of A and B. And similarly, the right-hand side would be F of A prime of C and B. And the first order aspect is that we allow variables and rules. That is, we could have a rule that rewrites F of X and Y, where X and Y are placeholders for arbitrary subtrees. And that could be rewritten to F of A prime of X and Y. And this left-hand side has an instance where we replace X by A and Y by B, which results in this term. And using the same substitution for the right-hand side, we obtain this term. So that's what first order term rewriting is. And that's what we are talking about. The origin of this is actually equational reasoning, where, for example, F could be, I don't know, could be addition.  That wouldn't look like this, but we will actually see an example later. The next concept that we use is conference. Conference is useful for us because it actually describes that when we consider a term we write systems as a model for computation, that the results are well-defined. Conference will be introduced on the next slide. And conference is actually useful without termination. I mean, we can ask whether these sequences are always finite. That's the problem of termination. But even when the rewrite system is not terminating, it could be a program that keeps running forever. We are still interested in whether the computations path diverged or are essentially still can always produce the same intermediate results. Skimmed over the general model of computation part of it, the idea here is actually that functional programming languages can be considered as definitions of term rewrite systems, which are not first-order but higher-order, but that's not so important. And actually, combinatorial logic, which is universal, is an instance of a first-order term rewrite system. So in our group, we are actually interested in automating that is deriving decision procedures for subclasses of term rewrite system originally for termination. But there is also interest in automating this for conference. Of course, the underlying problem is almost all interesting problems in computer science is undecidable and the interest lies in finding powerful methods that decide as many problems as possible in practice. So let's move on. What is conference? Well, conference just says, well, if we have a starting term as and some rewrite sequences applying those rules that result in different subterms, t and u, then we can find a common reduct that is a term v such that we can find rewrite sequences from both t and u to v. So the origin for this was equation of reasoning. And there are methods to decide the equation of systems that start with a set of equations and try to orient them and complete them. That's Knut-Bennick's contribution. And underlying this criterion for conference, namely that if a rewrite system is terminating and locally confluent, that it's confluent of the rewrite sequences from s to t and s to u are restricted to one rewrite step, then it's also confluent in general. And another important criterion is also conality, which is essentially of the justification for functional programming, where we say, OK, in a local context, rules are always unambiguous and then the system will be confluent. This is just a wake. This is not a form of definition. I'm going to have an example later. But it's not so important for this talk. And of course, there are many other techniques, which I will not explain now. Today, we are interested in modularity, many sorted persistence, and other sorted persistence. To explain what this means, we need some definitions. So we now introduce term rewrite systems formally. So what is a term rewrite system? Well, we have a signature that consists of a set of function symbols and of a set of variables, where each function symbol has a given arity. And then we can construct terms over this signature inductively in pretty much the obvious way that each variable is a term and F applied to a number of terms given by its arity is, again, a term. And then we can define term rewrite systems as a set of rules that have a left-hand side and a right-hand side, each of which is a term. And we require that the variables that occur on the right-hand side also occur on the left-hand side and that the left-hand side is not a variable. Because if the left-hand side is a variable, we could replace any sub-tree or sub-term of a given term by the right-hand side. And that's fairly degenerate case. So that's in the ordinary TRS. To explain persistence, we will use many sorted TRSes, where in addition to the signature, we have a set of sorts that is, well, every term, every sub-term of our terms has a sort. Sorts could be natural numbers, integers, or lists, et cetera. That's the intuition. Furthermore, we have variables for each sort, which are distinct. And instead of an arity, we have for each function and a signature, which is the types of its arguments and the result type of a function. And the definition of terms is then changed accordingly. We have terms for each given sort, alpha, that is, terms of that sort, which can be constructed from either variables of that sort or by applying a function with the right result type to terms of the correct argument types. So that's where the signature comes in. And I abbreviate the notation by saying that this f of that signature alpha 1 to alpha of the arity to alpha is included enough. And while rules are essentially defined in the same way as before with the restriction that the types of the left-hand side and the right-hand side must be equal. And one further tweak to this definition results in order sorted TRSs, where sorts are actually ordered by some subtype relations. So for example, N is a subtype. Natural numbers is a subtype of the integers. With the intuition that wherever we require an integer, we can also use a natural number. And accordingly, for the terms, we then allow at argument positions not only terms of the precise type of that argument terms, but of any subtype as well. And for rewrite rules, we require that the right-hand side is of the same type as the left-hand side or of a more specific type. One final technical definition. In this case, for order sorted TRSs, we say that a variable in a term is strictly bound if it exactly matches the required argument type of the function that where it occurs. So these are known results. The first result is a result about ordinary TRSs. If R1 and R2 are TRSs over disjoint signatures, then there is a result by Toyama from 1987 that says that both these TRSs are confluent. Then the union of the two TRSs is confluent and vice versa. Then for many sorted TRSs, there is the result that when we have a many sorted TRS that is confluent as a many sorted TRS, then when we forget about types, the resulting ordinary TRS is also confluent. And vice versa, this result is by Toyama and Aoto from 1996. And in the same year, they published a technical report where they claim that this extends to the order sorted case as well if we require that all variables are bound strictly everywhere. So why is this interesting? Well, consider this TRS where we define the difference of two numbers by saying that the difference of the successes of two numbers is the difference of the two numbers. And the difference of x and 0 is x. And over there, the difference of 0 and x is 0. And if we take the difference of two equal numbers, then that is also 0. And assume that this is extended with a rule on lists that says, well, we can replicate elements infinitely. So we repeat x as an infinite list consisting of elements x. And the problem with this TRS as well, the classical conditions do not apply. The TRS is not terminating, so we cannot use Knudbenniks. And the TRS is not left linear. There is a left hand side on the right hand side of the slide where a variable occurs more than once. Therefore, we cannot use these criteria to conclude a conference. And it turns out that a lot of more advanced criteria also don't work. However, using modularity, where we notice that the last rule actually does not use any function symbols that occur in the other rules, we can decompose this TRS into two TRSes, namely the first four rules and the last one. And we can prove confluence for each of these individually and use modularity to conclude that the whole TRS is confluent. So the claim is that this is actually useful and interesting. On the other hand, for this claim on order sorted TRSes, we have a counter example. So here we have a huge term rewrite system. And there's some symmetry in the rules here. For each rule in the left column, the rule in the right column is obtained by replacing f by g and g by f. And while it turns out that all requirements are satisfied, in fact, except for the last rule, this is a many sorted TRS. And in the last rule, if we take the left-hand side, then it has sort 1. That is the result type of c. And if we take the right-hand side, then it has sort 0. That is the sort of x. And why is this a counter example? Well, there are some boring parts in the rewrite graph. But this is the interesting part. So we have two components which look very similar. But, well, the f of x comma o can be rewritten to a and in a cycle. And g of x comma o can be rewritten in a similar way and to b. But the point is that in the sorted setting, we cannot replace these x's by o. Because o has sort 1. But the context where the x's of q have a sort 0 and 1 is not a subtype of 0. In fact, the relation is in the opposite way. However, when we change to the ordinary TRS, then, of course, we can replace x by o. And then the two components here collapse. And we have some term that rewrites to both a and b. And then we cannot join a and b because these are normal forms. So this result of modularity, this sums up the first part, has been proven several times. And most important of these proofs is the so-called simplified proof that's a part of the paper title by Klopp and others. And there are a number of derived results like persistence that we've just seen that are based on the simplified proof. And the technical report was also based on those proofs but turned out to be wrong. So we thought it would be interesting to look at the common core of these proofs and find where the actual mistake is and try to find the common ground so that we can prove the similar set generalized results more easily. I should speed up, I guess. So what is common in these proofs? Well, consider this example for modularity where we have two disjoint signatures. And the first TRS is not important. The second TRS has a rule that c of x goes to x. And while how does do these proofs deal with the fact that there are two disjoint signatures, what they do is that when they take a term and look at the points where a subterm doesn't fit, that is where the signature changes. So in this case for f of c of f of x, these breaks in the signature happen between f and c and then again between c and f. So we have split terms. That's one common concept. In the many sorted case, this would happen when the argument type of function does not match the type of the actual parameter. And we can, in this example, we could rewrite f of c of f of x to f of f of x. This can be done on the split term as well. Then we would have f, then a break, because there was a break previously, then f of x. But it turns out that actually these have the same signature, so there shouldn't be a break there. And in a further step called a fusion step where layers are merged, this would result in f of f of x with no splits at all, or no breaks at all. And the second common concept here is that these parts of the term can be broken into, in this case, f applied to a whole that can be replaced by other parts and so on. Occurring all these proofs, and we call them layers. Rewriting, that's also common, acts on layers pretty much independently. And as I've already shown, layers can fuse. So a layer system is essentially a set of terms over an extended signature where we add a placeholder for common subterms, for subterms where the signature, that didn't really fit. So f of some whole. So that's what a layer system is. That's half of the title of the paper. And we have the following results. I should say that this is not the complete definition that we use in some conditions are missing. So what are our results? Well, if R is a left linear TRS, that is of variables on the left-hand side, do not occur more than once. Then the layer system is weakly consistent, which I will define on the next slide. Then if the TRS is confined on the layer system, restricted to the actual terms without holds, then this TRS is also confined on all terms as an ordinary TRS. Then we have the same result for non-duplicating TRSs. The reason that it is a separate theorem is that the proof is wholly different, or completely different. And for general TRSs, we have additional constraints that have to be satisfied. So this slide I will not explain, but this is what these conditions look like. There's a lot of notation here that I haven't introduced. But let's look at how these conditions translate in the order-sorted modularity case. Well, what is the layer system in this case? The layer system is just the set of well-sorted terms. And after we've constructed that, we also add the terms that are obtained by replacing variables by holds, that is, these square sum modes. It turns out that the first, third, fifth, and eighth condition are trivially satisfied. In the second condition essentially means that we need infinitely many variables of each sort, which is a standard assumption. And the fourth and sixth conditions are satisfied if we require that, sorry, the fourth condition is satisfied if we require just that left-hand side. But in the left-hand side of rules, variables are bound strictly. Same for the sixth rules and the seventh rules. I have the seventh condition is a bit more complicated. But interesting in that is the reason that the counter example was actually a counter example. If we look at this again, in the split terms, we have a rewrite like this. Well, we have f of a left argument and o in one layer, then the left argument is o in the next layer, that rewrites as displayed here. And from there, using the first rule there, that is we have f of x, y goes to f, capital f of x, c of x and y. And from there, we can apply the second rule. And after that, we would have, instead of this o, a separate layer in the second argument. But it turns out that we actually the type fits and we can refuse these layers. And that is we had applied a rewrite step at the top of the term. And this resulted in some fusion to happen. And it turns out that the proof fails if this is allowed. And the correct condition that we derive here, can derive here is that variables in the right-hand side of rules have to be strictly bound. This was also required before. And for so-called collapsing rules, where the right-hand side is a variable, the sort of x must be maximum with respect to the given order. So this is the result for order sorted TRSs. Many sorted persistence and modularity are easy consequences of this. We have some further results that also fit this framework of layer systems. And to conclude, we have seen modularity and layer systems and persistence. We've introduced layer systems as a common concept used in all these proofs. And have presented a counter example and the correct result for order sorted persistence. I have omitted all proof details because they are really very, very technical. And I think without context wouldn't make sense to present. Future work would be to simplify this proof a bit and formalize it in interactive theorem prove. And find more applications for this framework. Thank you.


Founded in 1969, Mirand Precision Engineering designs and manufactures special-purpose equipment, parts and automated production systems. The company currently exports world-leading equipment and tooling solutions throughout North America, Europe, the UK and Asia. Mirand has experienced significant growth and diversification since its establishment in 1969 and has recently branched out to manufacture wind turbines as part of a new global supply chain partnership. Mirand's engagement with global supply chains continues to be a key focus and contributor to success.


We are going to get started. So thank you everyone for joining us today. And on behalf of Kate Shaddock, Cornfairy and me, Gloria Mirione, we would like to welcome our panelists to today's discussion Impact Investing and ESG, the evolving talent pool and the future of work. So welcome everyone. And what I'll do is a quick introduction starting with, from my left on the screen, Shane Varamalli. So Shane an experienced, I'm sorry, an advisor and investor, scaling businesses really focused on economic, social and environmental themes. Shane Varamalli welcome CEO of Corbin. I'll move on to Annalisa. Annalisa, welcome, an experienced non-profit leader focused on building equitable economies. Annalisa, executive director for newly formed and we launched ownership works. Lisa Ellis, welcome, an organizational people leader and COO and president of an impact investment firm and family office. Lisa Ellis president of New Island Capital Management. And then lastly, Justin Kula, a private equity and impact investor focused on education, financial inclusion, education. Justin Kula, partner Impact Investing and ESG for TZP Group. Welcome. And then of course our very own Kate Shaddock, senior client partner and co-leader Impact Investing. Welcome everyone. I will now hand off to Kate to start the conversation, but welcome everyone. Hi everyone, my SOCAP community. We're really excited to be here, of course. We wish that we were in San Francisco with everyone, but at some time for sure in the future. Well, from our seat at Corn Ferry, we are hearing a lot from leaders how the market place for ESG talent and just talent in general is really evolving. And we are trying to, we're learning about specifics on the ESG talent marketplace from these leaders today. And then we want to really talk about the future of work again, really broadly, and then specifically through your investment lens or through your organization's operations. And so to this group of thought leaders, we want to say thank you and thank you all the SOCAP community for spending time with us. So to focus first on ESG talent and the space for talent within Impact and ESG, I'd like to start with Lisa. Lisa, we're hearing that leaders are adapting to this new normal, post-COVID return to work. How are you seeing the talent marketplace evolving, maybe even from the global economy to your local economy and as your organization grows and develops? Thank you, Kate. Happy to share what we've been seeing in the marketplace. As I was mentioning to the panelists a little bit earlier, we are actually one of the few companies in the San Francisco Bay Area who are actually back in our offices full-time and working from the office. It's important, I think, to create that sense of community that we lost during the pandemic. One of the things that we do believe strongly is that great ideas and generation for creative investing opportunities happens when we can be in the space together and when we can brainstorm across the table from each other. And that certainly became much more difficult during the pandemic. I actually think as a company, we increase the level of communication and contact just because we couldn't bump into each other in the kitchen or walk down the hall. Even while people are working remotely, doing conferences like this one virtually, having some sort of in-person engagement continues to be important. I think that it's important for the talent pool that's out there to understand we've got to use all of our tools. It's not substituting one for the other. Both are equally important. Specifically with respect to impact investing, I think one of the things that is really important at New Island Capital Management and probably at other impact investing firms as well is that you have to have the technical skill. The foundational skills need to be there. And one of the things that's different than when we started 15 years ago is we can actually ask and look for people who have impact experience. It was much more difficult 15 years ago. So being able to speak to investment that you have made that have an impact lens, whether it's touching on inclusive finance, education, health and wellness, these are some of our areas of interest. But I think it's really important to be able to talk about one's investment and technical experience with an impact lens and how the impact was created through the investment. And one of the things that I see with people who are interested in getting into impact investing is thinking that impact investment has to be concessionary and that profit isn't as important as the impact that it makes. For us at New Island, they are of equal importance. We are looking to do good in the world and to make money while we're doing good. And so I think it's important to understand that not all impact investing is concessionary. I think I'll stop there, Kate. I could go on forever, but I know that I want to hear from other people. That's great. And we're going to come back to culture because I think culture in and how you've seen that evolve and how you really match that with talent I would like to keep learning about. But Shane, I hear there's a great quote about carbon and I wonder if you might share a little bit about that and what are you seeing in the talent marketplace with your companies that we can carbon copy? Sure. So thanks for the invite here. But one thing with carbon that this was started with was a level of impatience and angst, I would say. So when I created this, it was really out of frustration of seeing so much capital going into things that actually don't matter. And so I've always had this kind of high level of impatience and always never understood why people say no, it can't be done. So this whole thesis that we have this quote on our website from one of my favorite bands, Rage Against the Machine, it says it has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now? And so the whole thesis about what we go about with is it only takes a single drop to start a waterfall. So we say be that drop. We have everything else in the world we need to solve these massive problems around basic human rights, but also just real opportunities to decentralize utilities or really empower the masses, which is why in our name carbon, the R has flipped backwards because in Cyrillic it means I or we. So we started out with this empowerment directly of the household or the community to that individual level. And so in terms of carbon copy, I mean, I literally believe any company on earth can be an impact enterprise is that it chooses to.  So we actually take those things that already work and combine them together and create carbon copies of these businesses, but make something somewhat new by stitching them together. And when it comes down to workforces, you know, in terms of carbon copying, it's really finding what I like to call is kind of almost like that immigrant pride or that, that fire in the belly, that immigrant spirit or you'll finding those people that aren't, you know, born out of abundance, but rather out of necessity because I actually find them to be the most innovative. And so anywhere you travel, whether it's here in our own country in the US or abroad, those that typically don't have a lot to lean on to start with usually have to find very creative ways to make do. And so we're betting on that drive and that spirit, but really finding things that already work and working with that original company, that original solution provider to be that kind of impact arm is what we become for them, but also scaling out that business through these people that are born more out of necessity that are almost obligated to perform and feel pride in ownership from having something that leapfrogs decades of innovation right now that they can actually take action on. And so it's bringing them opportunity essentially is I'd say our number one product that we sell is opportunity for not only existing companies to do something more meaningful with their products or their services, but also opportunities and those that we affect on the ground to bring business because we believe that if you redefine capitalism by equally valing economic sustainability, coupled with environmental and social principles, you can actually create a whole new basis for life and also business going forward. Is there anything that your companies are doing on the people side that you believe really encapsulates that boldness or innovation?  So it's directly empowering those that have the abilities to actually start this business. And if we believe in this concept, we can do it many times over from the grounds up rather than pushing from the top down. That's just one example, but also give you something we're doing directly just within carbon. So I grew up in middle of America in Indiana, and I didn't have any clue about network. I didn't grow up around any industries that I work in today. And so when we look at the face of investment professionals today, a lot of them do not look like the top people on this panel, right? They're usually that kind of that typical Ivy League, white male demographic. And so not only that was like, I decided to actually create a fellowship program where students can actually become our associate base. Rather than hiring one or two individuals or bringing them on early, I've now processed 50 plus individuals and gotten 20 of them their dream job coming out of college because they have this experience that they would nowhere have until in their late 20s. So just by giving them the opportunity to step up and giving them the story to tell, they're getting these skill sets they would never have coming into Wall Street, even early private equity, but they're getting it day one here and their students in high schools that are getting the best colleges because of this working experience. So those are just some examples of how the workforce is being done. And then how do you fractionalize that on the ground and creating opportunities where people can actually own and operate real businesses that have huge economic upside to create generational wealth? Yeah. I mean, Shane, what you're doing is you're creating, first of all, you're diversifying the talent pipeline and you're providing new access to experience. I mean, it's sort of the old classic of you need how many years of job experience to go to a new job and folks say, how can I even get a start? So that's a pretty bold innovation within your own practices, which I do think will be a nice segue into Annalisa's ownership works here in a little bit. But before we do, I want to make sure if Annalisa or Justin, anything that sparks an element of excitement about what's new and different in this, in our new normal? Yeah, sure. I think, you know, Ownership Works is a new organization. So we're starting from scratch and we're building, you know, our team and we're based in New York City and we are looking to build primarily a local team and really be able to benefit from in-person collaboration. But I think what we've learned from the pandemic is how well we can get things done when we're not all in the same room. And so I'm really looking forward to building a culture where, you know, we can get the best out of being together and collaborating in that way, but then also leverage all the new skills and tools that we have to create a culture that allows for flexibility, allows for us to have families and full lives and all of the things that, you know, we've learned that we can make work without having to be in-person all the day, all the time. So I found this term, it's an office-centric hybrid workplace. And I thought that's a cool way of seeing things where we want to be together, but embrace that flexibility and ways of doing things differently. That's great. Thank you. Justin, anything to add? Yeah, I think that there's a lot that's different.  But I think that there is a massive amount of capital and enthusiasm moving into reimagining how we experience education, the talent marketplace, and then financially inclusive lives. That's why at TZP, our focus has really been on what we call the Arc of Human Opportunity Education, Employment, and Financial Inclusion because they interrelate so deeply and closely to one another. But the pandemic didn't really change things, but it certainly accelerated what was already at play and put it into hyperdrive. Dislocations happened, and I think that the fissures that became obvious because of the pandemic have really put into focus for us in impact investing a lot of market opportunities. And so you're seeing companies really fill gaps in needs for re-educating adults for helping move from credentials to skills for the ability to open up the aperture and really create diverse workforces, but then also putting a focus on inclusion, which is equally as important to diversity, making sure that workplaces are great places for everybody who decide to join those cultures. This is a macro trend, and it's enabled by a variety of forces, enabling technology, consumer sensibilities, established frameworks, groups like this. I don't think it's a moment in time, so I think it will only continue to grow, and it is a global phenomenon. The US is experiencing it in different ways, and particularities across the world will be different, but this is a secular trend that we're experiencing. And so I think for smart organizations, they're going to think about how to reimagine giving themselves advantage by pulling in talent that is different than they would have historically looked at. And for some companies, they will imagine a world that operates differently, and they will outcompete legacy companies who didn't provide broad apertures, didn't really understand the full person, because they were might be focused on credentials or other dimensions that actually didn't inform ability to succeed in a job, and the current market conditions of the reality of 10.9 million job openings, and what is necessary for fixing that supply demand and balance. So I do think that we're living through a pretty big change, although it doesn't feel as happening as quickly as we'd like it to be happening. I think we're in the midst of it. So we are seeing this, the theme that's coming out from each of your comments, I have written down the culture, skills, being really Lisa, what you shared on being unapologetic about not looking for concessionary returns. And that is truly bold, but there is an impatient and innovative organization happening and a Lisa in opportunity works. And so when I think about accelerating the movement of what organizations can do really creatively, I'm not sure there's a better lead in to opportunity works. And so when we talk about the future of work and what employers could do, what best in class employers could do, let's begin with you when we talk about the future of work. What are you seeing as you help companies build and launch equity programs? And maybe it would because opportunity works is a little bit newer, maybe just a minute on opportunity works and then share with us what you're seeing as companies launch these programs. Sure. Thanks, Kate. Yeah, and we're so new, we just changed the name and its ownership works. Ownership works, thank you. No problem. Yeah, so we're a new nonprofit and we're focused on building a more equitable and inclusive and prosperous economy by making every worker and employee and owner at their place of work. So we partner with companies, with investors, with financial institutions to, you know, raise awareness of shared ownership and its benefits to guide companies through the process of becoming employee owned and to really advance it towards the being the new norm in how equity programs are set up. We really see this as being the kind of hallmark of inclusive capitalism. It's really putting workers and labor in the position of having access to capital so they can benefit from the wealth building opportunities that come from being an owner.  I mean, the traditional wealth building pathways have become so distant for so many families. And we know just from looking at the gender and racial wealth gaps that they weren't always available to anyone, to everyone to begin with. So we're really here carving out a new pathway to building wealth through work and have some really incredible partners by our side to do this within some of the, you know, largest companies in the country, both in the private sector on the public sector. So I'll pause there and can answer any more questions. Annalisa, I would just like to add that we love looking at investment opportunities where there is an employee ownership component to it. And those are things that we consider impactful as well. And there aren't enough companies who are taking that under consideration. It's absolutely one of our areas of interest for investing. That's really wonderful to hear. And that's one of our main goals is that when investors are looking at social impact strategies that shared ownership, broad based employee ownership is up there at the top of the list in terms of what a meaningful social impact metric can be for workers and companies. I really think about this last, our COVID time and some people have even shared within ESG that 2020 was the year of the S. And Annalisa, I see what you're doing at ownership works. I'm going to say it now like three times really, you know, in succession at ownership works. That this is a trend that is going just in some of your language is going to revolutionize how organizations and how companies behave. What do you see are and as you get up rolling and started, what are, do you think the common, you know, even misconceptions or barriers and any early successes that you've seen in employee ownership? Yeah, sure. So, and I think there's barriers that have existed for a while, misconceptions that have existed for a while. And in truth, I think it's just been difficult for companies to find a pathway to doing this, right?  After that, you have to register as a public registrant. So I think companies, you know, with larger workforces have wrestled with just how even if we want to do this, how can we do this? ESOPs are the most common form of employee ownership, but they're not a great fit for every company. So I think the options have been do we do an ESOP or, you know, this just isn't an option for us. And our founder at ownership works, Pete Stavros at KKR has been experimenting and implementing shared ownership within KKR's portfolio for the last 10 years, and has really come figured out the model for how to share ownership broadly with every worker. And at the nonprofit, we are, you know, working companies through literally, how do you do this? How do you structure and size equity grants? And then also pairing broad based equity grants with efforts to build a more engaged work put workforce where people, you know, workers have an opportunity to bring their voice and their ideas to the table. I think what we're seeing, you know, in this kind of year of the s and how, you know, folks have reacted to the changing times is that people want meaning at work and they want to feel seen and they want to feel appreciated for who they are. And I think that pairing broad based equity grants with efforts to, you know, engage workers and then also build a more financially resilient workforce, not just through sharing ownership broadly, but also financial education for workers on what does it mean to be an owner? What is equity? And then also personal financial education so that when you receive a distribution, you know how to make wise choices to kind of invest in your personal financial future and your family's financial future. So it's really, I think, the model hasn't been there. The roadmap hasn't been there. And because of that, you know, I think folks have looked to models that maybe haven't felt like a great fit. And that has led to misconceptions that this just isn't a strategy that can work for large businesses, for global businesses. We've done this with businesses where the global workforce is with public companies, Harley Davidson, we helped with implementing broad based ownership. And so it really is a matter of just figuring out the how, but you know, we can help you do that and then unleashing its benefits for the workers in the company. That's great. Because Justin's organization, Justin, you're doing a lot of research as I understand now about what are the elements of a good job. So could you share a little bit about how that ties in? Again, to the S and even in the in the chat, I saw a question about the G also of ESG investing. Yeah. I'm happy to. So just to take a step back, TZP group is a lower mid-market private equity firm.  I joined it a year and a half ago to launch our impact investing practice and lead ESG. For us, those are distinct practices. ESG is a toolkit that any business can utilize as a way to view risk and a lot of value taking into account the full range of stakeholders that affect the business, management employees, partner suppliers, customers, community environment and investors. An impact is where the world positive value is delivered via product or service aligned to a UNSG standard and with measurable outcomes attached. So pretty simply ESG is how businesses act and impact is what they give to the world. And so we've spent a lot of time trying to be specific and clear about our terminology because oftentimes, as we all know, impact terminology is muddled and differently defined. And so we wanted to be clear about how we defined it. We also wanted to be able to pretty simply have a vocabulary for saying what does sustainability mean in our context? What does a good job mean in our context? And so we built out frameworks so that we could start to develop that vocabulary. From a jobs perspective, we think about it in a couple of dimensions. One is from an ESG perspective, every company that we look at has employees and we try to evaluate how those employees, how we should think about the kind of jobs that those companies the kind of jobs that the companies offer. And so we built what we call the good jobs framework and the good jobs framework has seven different dimensions, pay, benefits, upward mobility, portability, longevity, accessibility, which really relates to diversity, and then health and safety. And putting in that context, you can understand really the difference between a real nurse job and being an Uber driver. And I don't want to pick on Uber, but we can talk about, you know, some of the benefits and strengths of both and why one might be preferential versus another. The second is for some companies, their primary partner service is delivering jobs or facilitating jobs or creating jobs or creating education that will ladder into jobs. And so we want to use that framework to help understand what kind of jobs might this company help inspire or create or facilitate. For TZP Group and our impact fund, we're focused on three specific areas, education, employment, financial inclusion, what we call the arc of human opportunity. And it's a pretty simple idea. People get an education so they can get a good job and they get a good job so they can have a financially secure and stable future. And so the ability to be able to be precise about what represents a good job is really fundamental to being able to answer that question. And it really is aligned to how we define impact, which is measurable outcomes of tax. We want to be able to measure what is defined as a good job so we know if we're actually accomplishing something that we're seeking to. I find this fascinating and I was trying to write down as fast as I could the components of that good job framework. So Justin and actually all of you, I hope to post and Gloria and I will post some items on our LinkedIn after our talk today just to share some of this wisdom because I think it's pretty incredible. So just one follow-up question, Justin. Then we might go to some questions in the chat. Any big surprises for you as you've done this research and as you've done some more work on what is a good job and what innovative companies are doing? Yeah, I mean I'm constantly surprised. The market is pretty complex and so we try to be pretty specific when we look at different job categories. What I will say is that for organizations and this should be until we music to everyone's ears who's attending this conference, if you are able to create a company that in itself either creates education for good jobs or facilitates good jobs themselves, what we're really seeing is massive market premiums for assets. In the investing world, I've always had the experience in my career that valuations feel high. That feels truer today than it's ever ever felt, but it feels particularly true and I think there are super premium values being attributed to companies that are creating high quality jobs, good jobs.  So there really is an awareness that these assets are at a premium and are scarce. And so for aspiring entrepreneurs who are looking to build companies in these spaces, I encourage you to do that. It will be, I think, in your financial interest, but it also serves a real public purpose. Again, we have 10.9 million job openings and we see secular changes at play, just one interesting data point. I'm going to be a little bit wrong on the number, but it'll be sort of directionally true, that one of the biggest employers, especially for people who have had a criminal background, is in the trucking industry. And there are a variety of reasons for that. And what we know is that that industry is going to go through some massive changes over the coming years driven by self-driving cars. And so the question is what to do with workers who would have otherwise chosen that profession, but no longer have that option. And so it takes a little bit of imagination to imagine how to provide opportunities to people who are looking for second chances. But it should be entirely obvious that this is a good thing for our society and it should be everyone's economic interest to do that. There's government funding that's supportive of this, there's market demand for the end learners. And we all want full employment for everybody, especially if you're looking for a second chance, so that we know that one of the at least correlated statistics is if you are unemployed after incarceration, your chances of being re-incarcerated is higher. And so this is sort of a win-win-win-win-win if we can calibrate directly. And so there's a lot of opportunities in the private market sector to create good job-focused companies. Speaking of language. That's really helpful. We have some questions from the chat, so these are going to come rapid fire. And Lisa, I might wonder if you can answer this question from the venerable Kathy Clark, who's asking about the MBAs, the questions that she's getting from some of her MBA students, that they're concerned with the best impact in ESG jobs, go to people who have more experience in the industry, but less experience in actual impact management. Could you speak to that a little bit about what you're seeing for when you're looking for someone for their various aspects of their background? Yeah, thank you for their question. Definitely industry experience is valuable and important, but I think I touched on this a little bit earlier. We really value creativity around impact investing. And so having experience, understanding how to create, design, maintain an impactful investment is very important to us. One of the questions I often get is, how do you measure the impact of your investment? And what I explained to many people is that we do our best to design impact upfront, particularly for direct investments that we make. And I think there was a question about direct versus funded investments. And I know for us, about 60, 65% of our portfolio are direct investments. So we have a lot of control over both creating, designing, and continually building impact into our investments. With the 35% of the investments that are in funds, we look for funds that are aligned in thinking. So if we're investing in forestry and conservation funds, we're going to look for groups of people who think similarly to us in terms of creating that impact and helping on it. So I don't think MBA should be discouraged. I think that understanding how to create and manage impact is just as important as investment. That's great. And next question, Shane, I'm going to ask this to you. We really talked a lot about the S, clearly in the people business, but the G is also really closely related to people. And can you speak a little bit about governance? How you look at good governance for social entrepreneurs, maybe disadvantaged social entrepreneurs and anything that you've seen in your career and a maturation of that G for social entrepreneurs. And Mark asked a question about them in overseas markets or areas where there might be some words not as mature public sector governance. So if you can comment even broadly. Yeah, sure. I think what's interesting, I'd say one word solves this a lot is starting with a framework and having a set of desired outcomes that are measurable, but also achievable, right? And so I think having a plan up front, I like what Lisa said about designing for impact, because I kind of view that's what you have to do. It's something else you have to take into consideration as you're trying to holistically solve problems. So from a governance standpoint, if you don't know what the framework looks like and what you're trying to actually achieve, how can you actually govern and measure it? And how can you actually have standards for that? But I think also then creating either incentive structures that then align with that framework, right? To make sure that people are adhering to that structure. So how do you do that? Is it through a set of equity based incentives? Is it through cash? Is it through also, I think the culture is a big part of this. I mean, we talked about like what makes a good job and nobody talked about the psychological piece of this. 70% of the people are miserable with their jobs and are already looking for the next one, right? But if you consider a good job, just being able to hold your head high and having dignity and being proud of what you do at the end of day, regardless of how you make it, that's something else to take into consideration. And I think there's that cultural piece to this that should be equally weighed along with the compensation component, because that longevity of having something that you actually want to do when you get up is almost irreplaceable. And there's just another gear that people get when they have that type of spirit in them. Otherwise, it just becomes work and it becomes a job. It's not a way of life. And there's a big difference. And I think as part of that governance, if you can kind of create that atmosphere and that opportunity that allows people to speak and have a voice, but have a voice in something they actually care about. A lot of people have the opportunity to speak up, but I've been in those situations where I couldn't care less about what the overall company's mission is because I hated it, right? I wanted to find a way out, but it's great. I got the upside. But making sure you can incentivize, you can measure, and you can help deliver the outcomes and have people have a sense of success in doing so. I think that's a strong tie in to what Lisa started with at the beginning around culture. And we are seeing that one of the biggest challenges for CEOs, presidents, leaders across the board is how has your culture shifted? How has it evolved over the crisis, the racial justice reckoning, whether it was COVID, whether it was the year of the S. And it's been interesting to see, and really thankful to partner with leaders like Lisa, who are purposefully thinking about culture. One of the other questions, and maybe this ties us through before I turn it over to Gloria to close us, because we have another question about trends in terms of ESG and impact jobs. I mean, we have never seen a market like this where our candidates have maybe two or three offers on the table.  What we're seeing is that companies now are, so whether it's a Fortune 500 company or a private company, I think I'm seeing more of having an ahead of either ESG impact and sustainability and to Justin's point, words matter. So they're being very purposeful about which words they use and why, and they have a real thought process grounded in their culture around that. And funds, specific investment funds now used to be, it was ESG or impact or even measurement was a part-time job of sort of the crunchiest or the greenest environmental, environmentalist on the investment team. That is, that is totally unpended.  And I do want to conclude with an overall passion for the market. So I think what we heard in these leaders is a pretty palpable passion for the people that they serve, the people in their companies, the people in their organizations, and that's pretty impressive. It is, to me, I would say before I turn it over to Gloria, I think the X factor in any candidate, whether you're a brand new employee, whether you're returning to work after a hiatus, whether you have had great things in your background or some challenges, I do think that passion is the real X factor. And Gloria would be curious what your thoughts are and wonder if you would take us home. Sure, absolutely. The discussion was fantastic and thank you everyone for sending in your questions via the chat. I mean, it was hard for me to keep myself on mute because there were so many points I wanted to just underscore or accentuate, but really thank you everyone. This was just a fantastic discussion. I will say on top of thanking the panel, I think on behalf of Kate and I, I'd also like to thank the SoCAP community because we really appreciate the fact that they put this all together for us or helped us put this together. And just on behalf of Kate and I, we are actually looking forward to participating with not only the rest of the conference and this topic specifically as it relates to talent, but in a few weeks we will offer a workshop on hiring, which I believe we're scheduling that for November, but that will be specifically on best practices, hiring and talent management in the ESG and impact investing community. So we are really looking forward to that. We'll try to provide an overview of hiring practices, including some tips and techniques that we've picked up along the way that hopefully everyone can implement right away and hopefully use to support the communities that you either provide talent for or the strategies that you support. But anyway, really want to thank Lisa and Anna Lisa and Shane and Justin. It was really such a pleasure. I'm so excited that you're all were able to join today. So again, thank you. And I guess I'll leave us there to be continued. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Bye.