I want to thank TechMunch for having the antithesis of tech to come and talk to you on tech. So it's very interesting for me to come here and exchange ideas and hopefully get your participation as well on a subject that should be exercising the minds of all of us and that's really the future. What is the future going to be like? What is the role of technology going to be like? What are consumers going to be doing? And in all this, there is a fair amount of crystal ball gazing, there is a lot of looking at trends which I will share with you. At the end of it all, maybe none of this comes true and that's also the hard reality of our lives that what we propose somebody else's whim or fancy disposes. So in this conversation, hopefully for the next 30-35 minutes, I'll take you on a journey which I do hope is interesting. Now one of the things that we have to remember, that good old Shakespeare said very wisely, if you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not speak then unto me, so this is the treacherous path. This is a path of looking into the future that well and truly is unknown and yet at the same time we have to find the dots, connect the dots and hopefully make some sense of it. And unless we discover the future or unless we are able to program ourselves to think about the future, I believe that we will become like the dinosaurs which have been long extinct. And therefore, I would like to introduce Mr. Shakespeare to Mr. Walter, the French philosopher. And the French philosopher Walter in the Portable Walter said, it is said that the present is pregnant with the future. So it gives us hope that there is an element in the present that defines the future for all of us. In fact, I won't stop at these two. Good old Kabir, the famous Bard of India and probably a lot more relevant today than he has ever been, said once he said, jinn doondarthin paayya, gayre paani peeti, may budi doobandari rahi kinare breti. The one who goes to the bottom of the sea finds the pearl. The one who sits by the banks just lies in wait. That indeed is a challenge of our times. So whether your brand market is here, whether you are technology experts, whether you are startups or you are already started up, whether you are part of organizations which are happening or which have happened, the fact of the matter is you need to be cognizant of the fact that you need to prepare yourself for the future and at least have the capability to be able to look at the facets that will determine the future. So what is it that I am going to be talking about? I am going to be talking about the trends in terms of statistics, in terms of behaviors, in terms of overall trends. What is really happening and what are some of the face heads and features that is going to become important in understanding who is our consumer, where does he or she shop? What does he or she see? What does he or she buy and what are going to be the determinants of business models as we look forward. So there is a bit of crystal gazing here, it is not all stuff that is necessarily fully tractable to all of us and yet it is important for us to understand that unless we understand some of these essential behaviors, some of which are anecdotally extremely true, we will not be preparing ourselves as companies, as business models and as people who are vested with the responsibility of generating either revenue or return or a combination of both. Now if you look at a step further, what are some of the trends that are making the world a different place? If you look at the statistics, we are becoming increasingly a digital economy and increasingly we are finding that consumer behaviors are being determined by the digital world. In every sense of the term, shopping habits, media habits, understanding of the future, understanding of the present, all of these are becoming extremely important to us to understand as to how the consumer is going to evolve and how the consumer in fact has evolved. So in this digital age, the way in which we make, the way in which we sell because we look at organizations, making, selling and hiring are the three essential elements that come in. I am not saying that other functions are not important.  How is making likely to change dramatically? Remember Amazon Dash, what it seeks to do for you is to be able to load on your essentials at a press of a button and to be able to replenish almost automatically.  It is no longer determinate to say that look, I am going to build my brand over a period of time and in the next 25, 50 years I am going to have a situation where my brand is going to be salient. You had better be salient today and Amazon Dash will make that happen and if that happens that means that it is not just mass manufacturing but the consumers can also look at it from the point of customization. How do I customize these products? What dash of spice do I need? When in Maggie I look at making recipes, that is exactly what we are trying to do is how do we try and ensure that we are able to give a personalized tweak to it. So you are going to be having the challenge of trying to have two conflicting ideas and still be harmonious. That is the sign they say of an agile mind, of a mind that is capable of absorbing the present and also about undertaking the task of the future. So which means that water can not only nourish, water can also destroy, which means both the thoughts of water being a source of nourishment and destruction has to be put in your head. So making itself is going to involve enormous amounts of changes that take place. Selling yet again is going to be very, very different, different in terms of channels, different in terms of capabilities. Companies who are today looking at a single retail model will have to look at splicing different models. Business to consumer, B to C to C, C to B, different combinatorials are happening in the world of business modeling. That means that you have to have the capability to be able to work with different business models and that is always a challenge for many, many organizations. And because of the digital connectivity that is taking place today and then we all know it by 2030 77 percent of the population in India would be those who are either millennials or generation Z, which means that the habits that they have are going to completely determine whether you are going to be a brand or whether you are going to perish. In 2016, YouTube had 20 channels in India with a subscription of more than 1 million. In 2018 it is 600, it is exploding, what are we going to do about it? India today consumes more data than China. The cost of a gigabyte of information in India is 26 cents. It is 75 dollars in Zimbabwe, it is 15 dollars in the US, we are consuming more and more and more and more. In the old days, the viewing of videos was rare, we never had it, right? We saw movies and documentaries. Today video viewing and the convergence of aspirations is becoming the reality of consumer behaviors. Earlier, TikTok was what the grandfather clock did. Today, it is goofy stuff that people put to each other to make themselves famous. So all of this is going to become extremely important for companies, not just startups but also mature organizations to be capable of absorbing because if you do not do it, you are going to be history. So either you are part of the core brand list that matters, that gets put on the Amazon Dash or you become a niche specialized brand.  IKEA, I believe is also encouraging growing your own food. So both these trends are going to be an important facet at least of companies and organizations which are into making stuff for people or providing service for people. Hiring is going to be a very, very different world. The economy of the future is more likely to be a gig economy. Steady jobs and incomes are going to be a thing of the past. Vlogging will make more money than flogging in a company. That is the reality. It is probably going to be employee to consumer or employee to company E2C might be the new model that we are talking about. So all these are trends and changes that will take place and that are happening. September 2018 is a very important date in the history of the world and why is it important? It is important that from the agrarian times of 10,000 years in September 2018 just over half the population of the world, 3.9 billion people joined the ranks of the middle class. Today we are more a middle class world than a poor world. India alone 57% of our population would technically be classifiable as a middle class population, 15% is a level of acute poverty. That means that this is a time my friends, all CXOs in this room should be delighting because this is the kind of opportunity that you need in order to seed your ideas, your products, your services and your thoughts for the future. This is becoming a significant point and incidentally 2018 is also the year that marked half the global population being on the internet. Half the global population has today gone on to the internet. In the next 10, 15 years it is estimated that 710 million people across the world will join the ranks of the digital, most of it from Asia and Africa. Most of it therefore will be those who would be watching the stuff that we want to watch. And I think that is the kind of overall trend and revolution that is likely to take over us as we move forward. So the rise of the great Indian middle class is not only a question of urbanization. And today anywhere between 31, 32% is likely to be about 40% by 2030. What's more important is to understand and this is data published by Oxford Economics that says that in the top 10 cities in the world in growth of GDP, many of the cities will come from India. And the city mentioned as number one and that should be a great pride to those who belong to that city is the city of Surat. Surat is seen to be the city that is likely to be the fastest growing in terms of its GDP. That's interesting for us. We talked about the young. The young population of India today is likely to become even more resilient as we move forward. The median age in 2030 for India is going to be 31, yes 31. It's going to be 42 for China and roughly the same for the United States. That clearly means that the class that is going to be exhibiting the behaviors that I talked about are going to be the people who are going to decide what to buy and when to buy. Connectivity therefore has become an essential element of the strategies that you formulate and that you form. You all know it. There's nothing new about it. There was a time when in my days as a brand manager or as a marketing person, digital was a tick in the box, right? We ticked it at the end of the whole calendar because somebody, some senior guy would say by digital koh kia ke nahi kia. We said digital, digital, yes. We had digital agencies. We invited agencies to come and talk to us stuff that we never understood and we said how clever, right? And we allocated our budgets generously and handsomely to them without having an iota of an idea of what the return on investment would be but that's what it is today. Today this is an essential element of who we are and what we are and therefore connectivity and connectedness is probably going to be the single most important determinant of whether you are going to be a successful business proposition or has been. This is not to take out the importance of operational effectiveness and cost effectiveness and value effectiveness and value proposition and all that, those are all taken as given. But what will be at the cutting edge even in India would be the capability of organizations to leverage technology and connectivity in order to enhance the offering and the experience because today we are no longer talking about brands, we are talking about experiences. What experience does a brand give me? When I put out as a company Ask Nestle, it is not done in order to promote all the brands of the company. It is in order to promote a single truth that if you are looking for valid scientifically correct information on nutrition, Ask Nestle being the world's biggest food beverage and nutrition company, scientific facts are available to us easily digestible in a consumer form. That then becomes the credibility platform for the organization. That then becomes the platform on which consumers engage in order to make their choices. Some of which could be brands of my company, a lot of which could be other propositions, other brands and other materials that they choose to use. So this is therefore ladies and gentlemen for me an important cusp in the journey that we take forward. The changes are veritable, the changes are discernible, the changes are not just anecdotal but from the data and statistics that we see it is likely to be secular and I think this is the kind of issues that should be exercising us. So in a sense, India is enjoying the kamadhenu of its demographic dividend. Liberalization is playing a very, very important part. Brand choices are becoming manifold. There was a time when if you had your product on the shelf, you were guaranteed an off take. Many of us have made our careers in shortage economies, right. We had a few brands, a few SKUs, you put it on the shelf and everything worked. Today the proclivity to consume different brands, to consume different products, the proclivity for premiumization is huge. In 2015 about 16 percent of the total consumer expense was on premium products. Today it is close to a fourth. As which we thought would not be important as far as this country were concerned have become important. Whoever talked about veganism, whoever talked about organic, whoever talked about nutrition that was specialized, all this was considered to be western phenomenon.  The natives, we talked about it. I think one of the biggest trends that I am observing in the market and since I travel a fair bit is the convergence of aspirations. Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns are no longer lesser brothers and sisters. They have the same aspirations. When we launched Nescafe E, which is our coffee machine on Amazon. I was hoping that maybe Mumbai and Delhi and Bangalore and a few other cities would be interested in a product of this kind, 600 towns ordered, 600 towns. It cost 6,500 bucks a piece, 600 towns ordered this product. So I said wow, that is what the consumption class of India is. Now you have to make that happen. It does not happen automatically. Maybe it happens in one, it does not happen in the other. But that is the sheer opportunity. The reason why I believe startups are successful, some of them are successful in this country is because they have found those spaces which can be occupied extremely well to create sustainable business models and which can be continued for a long period of time before any big guy in the industry realizes that there is an opportunity there. So it is both digital and discerning. Discerning has also become an important facet of what we buy when we buy. Personalization is no longer just a word. Discerning has now become the synchwonon of companies seeking the path of the consumers wallet not only on products which are high end but also in products which are not necessarily that expensive. So as I mentioned before, the dash buttons are one categories of products that you need to be on. There are a lot of other product categories where there are opportunities which are very clear. It is therefore ladies and gentlemen that I speak as an optimist on the Kamudhenu effect that is taking over this country. It is one thing to keep looking at economic statistics and saying look this is not working that is not working you know there is no end to it, we can look at it from different dimensions and skin the cat. What is essentially happening today is if there is a consumer revolution that is taking place in terms of channel, in terms of behavior, in terms of aspirations, in terms of price points, in terms of premium, in terms of the role of digital, role of society whatever you have I think this is becoming very clearly the mix that looks like it will go forward for the future. The convergence is all about not just buying the same but buying more and buying better. No one is today talking about the same kind of products, the same kind of product categories and the same kind of uniformities across the realm of this country. The length and breadth of this country is becoming a lot richer and that is where the role of analytics, the role of data mining, the role of understanding each of these elements is becoming more and more important. So if I were to look at it, I have given you my piece. I have said what I think is likely to be the important issues that are overtaking the country. The rise of the great Indian middle class, the Kamudhenu of demographic dividend and consuming convergence that is taking place across a broad spectrum of this country. These are important trends that are already taking place. There is nothing new in what I have said. Now if you were to be the person to hold two conflicting thoughts in your head and still be harmonious, what is the future going to look like? And if indeed Walter and what Walter said is true that the future is already there in the present and that the present is pregnant with the future, what could be some of the characteristics that we can look for? So I am going to be talking about three broad trends, maximum lifestyle and I will come to it, individualized reality and exponential intelligence. But ladies and gentlemen, this is Tech Munch, right? We are here to be interactive, we are here not just to listen to my views but I believe that crowd sourcing of ideas is extremely important if we are all to coalesce to a future that we agree is going to be important for all of us. So therefore, I would request you all that there is a voting mechanism that has been put if you could just put down the side, this is what you have to log on to and I would request you at the end of this piece to vote on which trend do you think is likely to be the most manifest as we move forward. Now all of this is crystal ball gazing, all of this is what you think is important in the context of your business and here is a guy who is primarily being a consumer goods fellow, I mean I do not know any other industry except for consumer goods and the way I see it is the way that I will explain to you about it. Can you move on? Have you all done your bit to scan it? Okay, so let me move, seems that you guys have already made up your minds on it, right?  And why not? That is the generation that is sitting in this room, it is all about individual behaviors that is likely to impact us in 2030. So let us move on what really I mean by maximum lifestyle, reflect on your own capabilities of reading a book versus watching a video, look at your own attention span that has come to pass ever since you have had this telephone instrument called the iPhone or Samsung or whatever else in the palm of your hand, your attention spans have become much shorter. Your ability today to read through long text and to watch for information over extended periods of time is slowly but steadily vanishing. You are in a sense trying to maximize the return on your energy.  Many of us are extremely happy if somebody has spent 26 seconds on our site, wow, look at the amount of time that somebody has spent but that is the reality. Increasingly, I do not call it sensationalism, increasingly with lowered attention spans you need enormous amount of content to make things happen. The quality of the content is more important than the length of the content and therefore in everything maximizing the return on your energy, your ROI on energy is today becoming the harsh reality and this is only going to exacerbate into the future.  If I do not make sense in ten seconds, I am gone. It is a bit like a job interview, you know, in the old days when I got interviewed for a job half an hour, 45 minutes let us have sandwich together, let us have a cup of coffee now it is in and out, right? What are you doing? What are you going to do? If you want my job, you do not want my job. What is your salary? What do you want to do? What is your purpose? What is your value? This, that and the other out, right? Next, that is how it is but this is only going to exacerbate. This month, I believe the 325 million searches have happened on the word lifestyle hacking on Google. Lifestyle hacking is today becoming one of the most important trends and this is only going to increase.  Now, all these are clearly becoming very, very important. Are you part of that hack or not? That is going to be the question. Are you going to be sought for what you stand for rather than what you stood for? So, many of us work with brands that are heritage brands, right. If I talk about a brand like Maggie for example, it is a 100 year old brand. I cannot keep telling you guys that this is a 100 year old brand and therefore, you know, we should be, we should be talking about its heritage. This heritage is only relevant in terms of its relevance for the future. That is it. So, if I do not contemporize it, I am going to have a lot of problems in making this work for the future. So, whether it is new recipe led, we just launched something called fusion, right, which is all about the Asian taste that you can get, you know, we looked at Ata, we looked at different combinations, different products, different categories, getting into nutrition for toddlers, etc. etc. All of these are in these realm of trying to include yourself on to that select list where consumers say, I will not exercise much discretion, I will buy it because I trust it. So, that is the question of hacking lifestyles. Shared economies are becoming more and more important. Digital behaviors and Generation Z behaviors while they are different are still consonant with one single element, which is that people are very comfortable with the sharing economy. They are not in the acquisitive mode for everything that you can think for. In 2015, I believe in San Francisco, 20 percent of the visa cards, 20 percent of the visa cards were used on sharing economy platform during demonetization in India. In Bengaluru was one of the cities that joined the 80 cities across the world that beat this record. So, today we have in our own country, we have increasingly greater relevance being played as far as the sharing economy is concerned. So, in terms of lifestyle, these would be some of the important kind of indicators of change that we are going to have, maximizing your energy and the returns, hacking lifestyles, finding personalized solutions and not just global solutions and also elements of your brands, elements of your propositions, elements of your platforms that are going to hook on to the sharing economy, we can call it whatever you want to, but this is an essential element of the journey that is likely to take place. Individualized realities, we talked about routine purchase being automated, this is the Amazon dash that is happening. We choose a few brands, we put them on the replenishment list, it happens. Today we are looking at refrigerators being replenished as well. All of this with the power of artificial intelligence, all of this with the power of machine learning, all of this with the power of transformative technologies that are being used worldwide. Now, we can all slumber and say, yeah, it is 25 years away in India, it is going to be 50 years away in India. A fact of the matter is guys, we have grown from being nowhere on the digital usage, on the data usage list in the world to becoming number one in the short span of three to four years. Today, when we talk about transformative technologies that are coming into this country, these are real and this will only become much bigger. This then gets into the second area, bespoke solutions, we talked about it, personalization is going to become a very, very important facet of what we seek to do as marketers. Find a personalization element in the service or the brand or the proposition that you are seeking. If you are going to be plain Jane, it is nice to be plain Jane, but you are not going to be picked up by very many people because the fact of the matter is they do not see differentiation. Very differentiation is meaning not just in terms of the physical attributes of whatever you make or sell, it is in terms of the differentiated attributes on service, on offerings, on sustainability, on various other things. Brands like Patagonia do not exist simply because they make nice jackets, they stand for something. How is this going to become part of your brand is a question that you need to have. The service economy, this is becoming bigger and bigger and bigger and in the service economy more and more and greater elements of differentiation is going to come in. Disruptive strategies are happening in the service economy that we need to be cognizant of. So, in individualized reality, automation of routine, seeking personalization and bespoke solutions and a service economy orientation is going to be strong features of what we are talking about. The third trend is on exponential intelligence, automation. AI may be something that we all fear, but AI is probably going to simplify a lot of the routineized complicated procedures that we have today. And I strongly believe that in industry AI will create a new genre of jobs and that is what we need to be focused on. Not just on the destructive elements that is going to be, that is going to take as far as our economy or our society is concerned. There was a time, there is a time when we seek degrees, MBAs and PhDs and DSCs and God knows what are BTECs and stuff like that, right. So, simple masters of arts in economics like me are no longer very meaningful people. The world of tomorrow is going to be a world where skills are going to be more important than books. Coursera and massive online courses are going to be far more relevant than the degrees and the diplomas that youngsters pick up along the way. Today you are seeing that happening, today you are seeing that happening. The unemployment in India amongst the highly educated is higher than the unemployment amongst the lesser skilled people. I am not saying that you know we should all be less skilled people, but I am saying that you are already seeing the reverse factor happening that if skill, if knowledge does not translate into skill, there is no hope, there is no hope. And increasingly the way in which economies operate are becoming more and more democratized. There is a lot more of seeking out, a lot more of I would say at one level equalization that is taking place and I think that is an important element of who we are. So, I talked about maximum lifestyle, individualized reality and exponential intelligence and you guys have already made up your mind, so therefore it is relatively easy for me to say that you all think that clearly the individualized reality is going to be something that is going to be a lot more important. I would only say that you need to watch out for all of these trends because some of these are likely to swamp your industry faster than you think and I think that is a challenge that all of us need to be watchful of. So what do we need? All these are prognostications of trends. What do organizations need in order to combat and to cope with a new reality, a new future that is likely to happen? The first and most important characteristic is what I call neuroplasticity. This is the capability of organizations to adapt, to change. This is the capability of the organizational brain to not only change its position, but also change its size. It is difficult to conceptualize because our own heads unfortunately do not give us haunts that we can put in an extra bit of brain in, so we do not have backups to brains unfortunately. But the fact of the matter is that neuroplasticity in organizations is probably going to be the single most important scale. A neuroplasticity of organizations are often affected by two things, perversely by leadership to allow no plasticity but conformity and number two is incapacity to see the reality as it emerges because the capability to see reality in the eyes is a very very difficult composition it is very uncomfortable to me and I think that is a characteristic that organizations need to build. Brain collaboration and co-ownership and as I will come to corporate with the conscience. So we talk about neuroplasticity, where does it come in production? You are being producing, so you are a company that is both in the standard Amazon Dash fixture and also in the personalization.  Everybody up and down the line will say oh yeah but that is not possible, this is small scale return on investment is low, etcetera, etcetera shareholders will be unhappy, blah blah blah everything will start that is your reality. Business models, I am a direct business to customer model that is it, I am not interested in having e-commerce, I am not interested in having other special models, I am not interested in having you know like for example dollar shape clubs that is not part of my business model. Fact of the matter is if you do not face it you are going to perish. This is a hard reality of being capable of working with different business models in the context of where you are. Flexi employment, this is what I talked about in some sense, employee to company E to see. I do not want to be working 9 to 5 in your job and logging in and logging out and you know attending sundry meetings, I want to work 6 hours from home in a quiet corner sipping my latte, having my cat next to me and the husband very far away and having the kids at school and nobody is bothered about it, right, I want to work in that economy. The gig economy is a reality, people are preferring it, people are choosing it and this is probably going to mean that your whole HR department would need to be disbanded. What are you going to be recruiting? I want to work for 3 hours with you, sorry.  This is a reality that all of us have to take especially the big ones have to swallow it even harder, so hopefully by that time people like me would have happily retired right and that is a different thing altogether but these are some of the things that are going to hit us. Co-creation, consumers today want to co-create with you, how many examples of co-creation are you seeing happening? We ourselves do it, in our brands we co-create with consumers, we have panels where they decide on what recipes they want to eat and some of it filters through and comes out as products. Consumers want a steak in whatever you are doing right, reason example you got Detol which has created something with consumers, partnerships are becoming more and more important and of course employees are also seeking co-ownership in what they do. Stakeholding is not a question of just shareholders and suppliers today employees are also becoming and they will increasingly become greater people who ask for co-ownership of initiatives that are happening within organizations. So here again there is going to be a transformative change that takes place and last but not the least, today purpose is becoming more important than price point. Consumers are increasingly wanting to know the history, the geography, the muscles, the bones, the fiber, the intention, the brain, the brawn everything about your brand. The more we are able to crystallize it in terms of clarity of thought of transparency and building trust the better off we are. Sustainability also means the responsibility of corporates to take on the task of doing the things that they are expecting till yesterday the government to do i.e. water, i.e. plastics, i.e. pollution. How are we going to get involved as corporates each one of you here is not just a responsible proud citizen of this country but you are also part of a corporate. So when I go out and pick up garbage and transjamuna with my people I feel it is one way in which I can do my little act I am not going to clean the whole planet. But if I do this over a period of time maybe I inspire others to be able to do the same thing and maybe we are able to have cleaner neighborhoods and maybe we are able to have less filth on the streets the way we see it. Look at the back flow that happened on you a few days back all that plastic came dazzling out of the sea skill building again skill building involves a lot more than just having formalized training programs. It is a continuous process that organizations need to invest in for the future and the future is going to be more important why because remember it is going to be skills and not books if that is going to be true then you better have a stronger program of skill development and not have these variable training budgets which get cut out every time you have a business downturn. Most corporates if there is a downturn 90 percent of the training budget gets out of it our TKR let him go next time for a training program we do not understand that skill development is an important part of whatever we are doing. The ecosystem view is completely changing in the future organizations would be measured on the purpose on the values on their adherence to keeping the ecosystem intact in the space in which they are operating nobody is going to be happy with somebody who is producing a huge amount of returns and polluting like hell or doing things that are going to be non-transparent or that are going to infringe upon the rights of societies and communities all of us have to be cognizant of it maybe we were not we need to be. So corporate with the conscience neuro plasticity co-creation collaboration and co-ownership are going to be important elements of where the world and where we need to be in order to be able to cope with the trends that we talked about. I believe that you need also to participate on those three trends because I would like to hear from you as to what do you think in terms of these three elements that we talked about in terms of neuro plasticity in terms of conscience what do you think in overall terms you would need to make the largest transformation shifting everything is important at TechMunch every aspect of organization and technology is critical but what is going to make it even more relevant in the context of where you operate interesting that co-creations collaboration and co-ownership is what you see and possibly so possibly so because if you do not have these essential elements you probably do not have a business so where is the conscience and where is the neuro plasticity going to be if there is no body to house the brain. So you see the critical trends that are happening and I want to leave you with this thought by this wonderful author and I am sure you have read the book sapiens history is going to be made by people who are capable of connecting the dots who are capable of making the transitions who are capable of doing what Kabir said getting down to the bottom of the sea to mine the pearl and as Hariri rightly says history is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was plowing fields and carrying water buckets. So ladies and gentlemen I thank you very much for your time for your attention in listening to me these are views that I hold these are views based on my own experience of whatever I have seen whatever I am seeing and whatever I either look forward to with trepidation or with hope to see but I would only want to wish you all the very best in capability to transform technology into core propositions that sustain whichever business model whichever business and whichever product you are in the process of either marketing or looking at for the future. Thank you all very much. Ladies and gentlemen a huge round of applause for none other than Suresh Narayanan. Thank you so much so for that great session may be requested to kindly join us on the center stage and if I may request Mr. Nava Lahooja co-founder and director exchange for media group to join us. Ladies and gentlemen a huge round of applause for both the honorary gentlemen out there .


There is one character you know, even if you know nothing else about GI Joe. He has been a Hollywood star, a comic book hero, and immortalized in plastic more than any other action figure. He is the man in black. Snake Eyes. Hello everybody, HoodedCoverCommander788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage GI Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. This is a review I wanted to get to for a long time. I have reviewed version 1 Snake Eyes before, twice actually, but those were early videos on this channel and they weren't very good. I want to take another crack at it. Snake Eyes is popular. So popular he has been overexposed. There have been way too many Snake Eyes figures. At times he has overshadowed the GI Joe team. That wasn't always the case. In the beginning he was just a guy. He was one among the 13 original Joes. What made him special? Snake Eyes may be silent, but we are going to talk a lot about him. HCC788 presents Snake Eyes. This is Snake Eyes, GI Joe's commando from 1982. As you can see we have two action figures here, so we will be looking at the 1983 release as well. Version 1 was released in 1982 as part of the first wave of GI Joe action figures when the line was relaunched that year. It was only available in 1982. In 1983 it was replaced with Version 1.5. All the 1982 Version 1 figures were reissued in 1983 with updated articulation. The Version 1.5 figure was also available in 1984 and was discontinued for 1985. At some point Snake Eyes was available through Hasbro Direct. This figure was designed by Ron Rudat for Hasbro. The all black color was a cost cutting choice. There are zero paint applications on this figure. The money saved on paint sprays could be applied to other figures such as 1982's stalker with his camouflage. The characterization of Snake Eyes was done by Larry Hama, the writer of the Marvel comic book. There were six versions of Snake Eyes in the vintage era and dozens of post-vintage versions in every scale. Snake Eyes is the most popular GI Joe character. Version 2 was released in 1985. This is the most recognized and replicated design. This version has the visor, a sword, and the wolf companion Timber. No later vintage versions of Snake Eyes included the wolf. Version 3 was released in 1989. This is lesser known but still a classic with the black and silver. A very good looking figure. Version 4 was issued in 1991. This is a departure from the classic black, adding blue and gray. This version has a lot of fans but I am not one of them. This doesn't look like Snake Eyes to me. Version 5 was released in 1993 as part of the Ninja Force subset. It was still mostly black with blue highlights. It also had an action feature which limited the articulation. Version 6 was issued in 1994 which was the final year of the vintage GI Joe toy line before it was canceled. It was part of the Shadow Ninja's subset. It was a reissue of version 5 with a color change gimmick. 1982 Snake Eyes is listed as a commando. Actually, the first four versions are all listed as commando. In the GI Joe comic book series it is revealed that Snake Eyes is a ninja. Is he a commando or a ninja? I don't know why he has to be one or the other. He is both and both are important to the character. Commando is a person or unit that specializes in raids in enemy territory. Originally commando was used to denote a specialized unit, not individuals in that unit. The usage of the word in military parlance originated with the Boer Mounted Infantry in the 1st and 2nd Boer Wars. A ninja would bring a lot of relevant skills to the role of commando. Snake Eyes is the strong silent type. In fact, he doesn't speak. An injury on an early GI Joe mission disfigured his face and destroyed his vocal cords so he is unable to speak. He only spoke one word in the comic book. We will get to that later. Snake Eyes is closely associated with the Cobra Ninja Storm Shadow. These action figures are obviously intended to be enemies with the black vs white, but their connection was deeper than that. They are members of the same ninja clan, the Arashakage. I'll cover that in-depth when we talk about Snake Eyes' media appearances. The comic book also portrayed Scarlet as a love interest for Snake Eyes. In the animated series, Scarlet was paired with Duke. I am definitely on Team Snake Eyes. The origin of Snake Eyes starts before the creation of GI Joe. Larry Hama was developing a special forces unit for Marvel Comics called Fury Force. It was supposed to be led by Nick Fury's son. The comic book was never produced, but some of the ideas were implemented in GI Joe. The character, Spook, evolved into Snake Eyes. Snake Eyes wears a mask, but that wasn't always so. Larry has said he based the look of young Snake Eyes on Bob Light, someone he knew in Vietnam. The name Snake Eyes refers to a pair of dice both landing on one. It is the lowest possible role and is considered bad luck. Snake Eyes has lived up to his name. Snake Eyes' name is metaphorical. It doesn't have anything to do with snakes or dice. Don't take his name too literally. I'm looking at you, writers of the Snake Eyes GI Joe Origins movie. Oops, too late. There were many, many post-vintage versions of Snake Eyes released and I have one modern era version of the figure here. This is version 28 from 2007. It was in the GI Joe battle pack with Duke, Scarlet, Roadblock and Gung Ho. The first thing I notice about this figure is it is gray, not black. That's an odd choice, but the design is clearly meant to evoke that version 1 Commando look. For accessories, he includes an Uzi, which is appropriate for Snake Eyes, and a callback to the version 1 accessory. Not a bad Uzi too. It looks okay. A little bit modified, just changed a little bit. There's no rear sight and there's also this folding stock on it, but still looks pretty good. It also includes an explosives pack with a strap that goes around the figure, and this is another callback to the version 1 accessory. It's well sculpted with texture and buckles. It even says explosives on it and there's some paint application. That's nice. We rarely got paint on vintage accessories. These modern era figures were able to have more working sheaths for knives and holsters for pistols. This one has a removable knife on the right leg and a removable pistol on the left side of the belt. The final accessory that's intended to be removed is this figure stand. These modern era figures had figure stands with the name printed on them. These modern era figures are slightly taller than vintage figures, averaging closer to four inches rather than three and three-quarter inches. He also has updated articulations.  The arms have comparable articulation to the vintage figure, but added wrist articulation. So you have a wrist swivel. You have the chest cut, so there's articulation at the torso, and on the legs you have double jointed knees, and you also have ankle articulation. The vintage figures did not have that. The sculpting is also updated. In some ways it's more detailed. In some ways it's less detailed. The top half of the figure depends on this strap and belt piece for most of the details. That is removable. You can remove it. It is on the figure in the package, so you're not really intended to remove it. And if you do remove it, you will lose most of the detail on the top half of the figure. Standing next to the vintage figure, the vintage figure is simpler, but more elegant, and it's actually black instead of gray, so it's easy to pick the vintage figure over this modern version. Snake Eyes jumps into the six-inch scale. There have been many Snake Eyes figures in the six-inch GI Joe classified series. This one is most inspired by the version one figure. It also includes the wolf timber, and the head of a second wolf that he has murdered. This is actually an alternate head for timber, so you can pop on his mean face. I've already done a full review on this figure, so I won't go too much into it. The accessories are pretty good. He has an Uzi, or a submachine gun that's like an Uzi, close enough. He also has a removable pistol and a holster on the right side, and a suppressor that will fit either on the pistol or on the Uzi. He has a removable knife on the left side. He does not have the explosives pack, but he has a couple other submachine guns. He has this one that has a removable magazine, looks a little bit like an MP5. Then he has this one looking kind of like a Nerf gun. It also has a removable magazine, and that's nice. No removable magazine on the Uzi, but the only way they could have done that is to make the grip thicker and that would not fit in his hand. Now, these are fine, there's nothing wrong with these accessories, but he cannot hold all of his accessories at the same time. There's just too many weapons for him to hold, and that is a pet peeve of mine. I would have preferred the explosives pack and leave off one of these submachine guns. This figure has classified series articulation, which is generally pretty good, somewhat limited at the torso because of this vest and belt piece. But like the 2007 figure, it needs this extra piece for most of the detail on the top half of the figure. The head articulation also seems kind of weird. I mean, he can look around and he can look up pretty well, but this is as far as he can look down. It just seems like it's obstructed a little bit, and it seems like he should be able to look down more than that, but that's as far as it goes. The rest of the articulation is mostly similar to the 2007 figure, but we have a couple extra points. We have double jointed elbows. We have swivels at the wrists and hinges at the wrist. On the legs, we additionally have a swivel at the thigh cut. We have the double jointed knees. We have a swivel at the boot cut, and we still have the ankle articulation. The design of this figure is obviously inspired by that version one figure. On his head, he has what almost looks like a hockey mask with goggles. There's a lot of detail added here, and that is necessary for the scale. This scale must have additional detail and articulation, which it does. There are also a few reused parts from other action figures, and that is also reminiscent of the version one figure. This is a pretty good-looking figure. This is not my favorite classified snake eyes, but it's a pretty good one. Let's get back to the vintage figure and look at Snake Eyes' accessories. He didn't come with many. In fact, he only had two, but let's start with the most important one, that is the Uzi. It is in dark gray plastic. It is based on the real Israeli submachine gun. There's a variation on this accessory. Some of them have thin sights at the front and the back, and others have thick sights at the front and the back. It's a very small difference, and you may not even notice. This same accessory came with 1982 and 1983 Steeler, the driver of the MOBAT tank. There is another variation of this accessory in a lighter gray that came in a Battle Gear accessory pack in 1983, along with a lot of reissues of other 1982 accessories. You can see it right there, and compared with the one that came with the figure, it is in a lighter gray. Version two of Snake Eyes from 1985 also included an Uzi accessory that is very similar to the one from the 1982 and 1983 figure. One way to tell the difference is the 1985 accessory has a thicker barrel. The only other accessory is the Explosives pack. It's a very simple accessory. It's a pack. It looks like it has three segments and blasting caps and a strap to go over the figure's shoulder or around his body. As with the Uzi, there is a variation on this Explosives pack that came with the Battle Gear accessories pack, and it is also in a lighter gray. That's it for accessories on version one and 1.5 Snake Eyes. He has no backpack. Snake Eyes travels light. He only has what he needs to infiltrate enemy territory and do his job. He doesn't need anything else weighing him down. Let's take a look at the articulation on version one and 1.5 Snake Eyes. And the articulation is the main point of difference between these two figures. Version one had the articulation that was standard for a GI Joe figure in 1982.  He could turn his head from left to right. He could lift his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow so he could bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. No other articulation points at the arm. This is where version 1.5 was different in the articulation department. 1983 figures had what they called swivel arm battle grip. In addition to the 90 degree bend at the elbow, he also had a swivel at the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. Articulation for both figures otherwise was the same. They were O-ring figures, meaning they were held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside. That allowed them to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of Snake Eyes. Like most other 1982 figures, Snake Eyes shared parts from other figures. He had more unique parts than most of his 1982 counterparts. Let's start with his head.   He has a headband on the back. This is a unique head. Some 1982 figures did not even have unique heads. The chest is all black. There is no paint. There is an elastic collar. Straps on the front and the back. Pouches on the top part of the front straps. A grenade on the right strap and a knife on the left. This chest is shared by 1982 Grunt. Breaker. Stalker. And Hawk. And their 1983 re-releases. The arms are all black. They feature long sleeves, square pockets on the outside upper arms, elastic band cuffs and black gloves. This is all unpainted. These arms are shared by Grunt. By Short Fuse. By Hawk. By Stalker. And by Zap. Here's another difference between the 1982 and 1983 figures. In addition to swivel arm battle grips, the 1983 figure has the pockets moved from the side of the arm to the front of the arm and it has added detail. These updated arms are shared by versions 1.5 of Grunt, Short Fuse, Stalker, Zap and Hawk. The waist piece is entirely black. It has a single pocket on the back. It has a wide unpainted belt with an H-shaped belt buckle. The belt buckle is probably a Hasbro brand stamp. The 1983 figure has an updated waist piece. It is slimmer with a more detailed belt and the belt buckle now looks like the old Hasbro logo. The 1983 figure still has the single pocket in the back. The version one date stamp says copyright 1982. On version 1.5 it says copyright 82-83. They're using a two digit year. In 1983 they didn't know about the Y2K bug. That's why on January 1st, 2000 this waist piece rebooted. The waist piece was used on all the 1982 male Joe figures. It was standard. The legs on version 1 and 1.5 are the same so we'll just take a look at one of them. They are of course all black and unpainted. On the right upper leg there are two pockets. On the left upper leg there is what appears to be a dynamite bomb with a timer. The legs have stirrup boot covers with straps around the calf and of course he has black boots. The upper legs are unique. The lower legs are reused from flash and grand slam. This figure has a lot of reused parts and a lot of unpainted details but this is the rare instance when it is an asset rather than a problem. Making this figure all black is inspired. It is monochrome but it still looks right. The black plays into his specialty and makes him mysterious. It's the perfect blank canvas to create a great character. Let's take a look at Snake Eyes' file card. The file card has his faction as GI Joe. It has a portrait of Snake Eyes. Excellent artwork that really brings the character to life. His specialty is Commando. His codename is Snake Eyes. Hasbro can't seem to decide if Snake Eyes should be hyphenated or not. There's no hyphen in this name but on the version 2 file card there is. Then the hyphen disappears again on the version 3 and version 4 file card. And then on version 5 and on version 6, the hyphen is back. Current hyphen status is no hyphen. His filename is classified. His primary military specialty is infantry. His secondary military specialty is hand-to-hand combat instructor. His birthplace is classified and his grade is E5. So his filename and birthplace are classified. All the information about him before he joined the army is a mystery. This paragraph says Snake Eyes is proficient in 12 different unarmed fighting systems in parentheses karate kung fu jiu jitsu and is highly skilled in the use of edged weapons. To get to the number 12 different unarmed fighting systems he had to include slap fighting, P-knuckle and rock paper scissors. By that standard I'm proficient in five different unarmed fighting systems. Has received extensive training in mountaineering, underwater demolitions, jungle, desert and arctic survival and some form of holistic medicine, qualified expert all NATO and Warsaw packed small arms. This bottom paragraph has a quote. It says that the man is a total mystery but he's real good at his job. Heck, he's the best. There's no mention here of his inability to speak. Nothing about this says he's a ninja but it hints at it. The ninja backstory is filled in later mostly in the comic book. The file card was written by Larry Hama, the writer of the comic book series. His 1985 version two file card had his Vietnam and Ninja backstory fleshed out and it closely follows the comic book continuity. Looking at how Snake Eyes was used in G.I. Joe Media he was used a lot less frequently in the animated series than in the comic book probably because he is silent. He had more appearances than you probably remember but he was less frequently the focus of the episodes. He first appeared in the first mini series in 1983 in the first episode. In that series, he sacrificed himself to save his teammates on a mission to retrieve radioactive crystals. He was able to escape the crystal mine but the radiation was sure to kill him. He was cured by a blind woodsman. That's also where he picked up his wolf, Timber. In the follow-up series, Revenge of Cobra Snake Eyes and Duke Get Captured that gave Snake Eyes a little more screen time. A little more. Snake Eyes is forced to fight Duke but I suspect they didn't have to force him too much. His role in the next mini series, Pyramid of Darkness was even bigger. He was paired with Shipwreck probably because they both had animal companions. They infiltrated a Cobra base. Escaping was more of a challenge. Snake Eyes had to break dance and dress in drag. In the animated series, there is no connection between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. Instead, Storm Shadow's rival was Spirit. This was again because Spirit is a character that could speak and exchange dialogue with Storm Shadow. His most screen time was in the episode The Invaders. A battle between G.I. Joe, Cobra, and the October Guard is interrupted by flying saucers. A purple alien, not that one, takes Tomax and Zemot for examination and you know they're talking about butt stuff. The Joes fire themselves out of cannons to get an October Guard headquarters. Snake Eyes and Wong from the October Guard get captured and the Dreadlocks tell them the entire evil plan. Snake Eyes takes over one flying saucer and shoots down the other. Snake Eyes figured out the plot because the alien had a carton of milk next to him. I didn't make any of that up except for the butt stuff. Snake Eyes was briefly in the 1987 movie. He was captured by Cobra Law, escaped and was captured again. He didn't do much. He continued into the Deak era of the series. He was featured in the episode The Sword which also included Storm Shadow in his Ninja Force year. Snake Eyes was wearing his version 4 uniform. In the comic book series published by Marvel Comics, Snake Eyes was much more prominent. He was one of the main characters in this series. At one point in the 90s, he got top billing on the cover. To say he was a popular character is an understatement. He appeared in the first issue in 1982. He wasn't the most prominent character in that story. He was paired with Scarlet on a mission to rescue Dr. Burkhart. He was in most issues after that. The Cult of Snake Eyes didn't start right away. He became a fan favorite character so more stories were written for him. He was in a story arc with Quinn and Dr. Venom which ended with the death of both of those side characters. Issue number 21 is famous because it includes no dialogue. Silent Interlude has Scarlet captured by Cobra and Snake Eyes infiltrates a Cobra castle to rescue her. She is resourceful and manages to escape and fly away with Snake Eyes on a Cobra claw. That issue also introduced the Cobra ninja Storm Shadow. On the final page, it is revealed that Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow have the same hexagram tattoo on their right forearms. A two part origin of Snake Eyes was published in issues number 26 and 27. It revealed his history in Vietnam on a long range recon patrol team with future GI Joe teammate Stalker and future enemy Storm Shadow. He lost his family in a tragic auto accident. After the war, he joined Storm Shadow's ninja clan, the Arashakage, only to see the leader of the clan, the hard master, assassinated. The assassin had ties to Cobra. After that, he retreated to the mountains and befriended a wolf. When the GI Joe team was formed, Stalker recruited his old war buddy Snake Eyes. On one of GI Joe's first missions, a helicopter crash burned Snake Eyes' face and made him unable to speak. After that, he always wore a mask. Storm Shadow joined Cobra to find out who killed the hard master and get his revenge. When he learned that Zartan was the man he was looking for, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes infiltrated Cobra Island on a mission to kill him. That mission failed and it left Storm Shadow apparently dead. He was still alive, but that's a story for another time. Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Stalker and Scarlet formed a tight circle of friends. When Stalker, Quick Kick, and Snowjob were imprisoned in the fictional country of Borovia, Snake Eyes and Scarlet went on a secret mission to rescue them. There was no way Snake Eyes and Scarlet would leave their friend, Stalker, in that prison. In issue number 93, Snake Eyes' face is revealed for the first time. He wants to get surgery to restore his face. The Baroness mistakenly believes Snake Eyes is responsible for killing her brother, so she leads an assault on the hospital where Snake Eyes is under the knife. She takes Snake Eyes captive and shoots Scarlet in the head. Snake Eyes is brought back to the Cobra Consulate Building in New York to be tortured. He escapes with some help from his buddies Stalker and Storm Shadow, but his face is burned again. Destro informs the Baroness that Snake Eyes did not kill her brother. Scarlet is in a coma, so maybe she has more in common with Duke after all. While Scarlet was in her coma, Snake Eyes spoke his only word, Scarlet. Well, that is her codename. Her real name is Shanna, but I guess they're not on a first name basis. There are many other stories focused on Snake Eyes far too many to list in one video. In the continuation of the Marvel continuity written by Larry Hama for IDW, Snake Eyes was killed off and replaced by a new character, Throwdown. The death of Snake Eyes was covered by codename New 2 Vero 2 in my review of Snake Eyes Version 3. Snake Eyes is a tragic figure, but he is also honorable and loyal. That is the key to his character. He's someone we want to root for and we feel his pain when something bad happens to him. I normally only cover media in the vintage era. Snake Eyes has appeared in nearly every iteration of G.I. Joe, so I could be here for days talking about post-vintage media. In this case, though, I think it's appropriate to look at Snake Eyes' movie appearances. Snake Eyes has been portrayed in three live-action movies. The first was G.I. Joe, Rise of Cobra in 2009. He was played by Ray Park, the same actor that played Darth Maul. As you would expect, Snake Eyes didn't speak and wore a mask. Even so, Ray Park was able to imbue him with some personality. The second movie was G.I. Joe Retaliation in 2013. Snake Eyes had an even more significant role and Ray Park did a good job of letting us feel his emotions without seeing his face. The most recent had Snake Eyes as the star. Snake Eyes G.I. Joe Origins had Henry Golding playing the title role. This movie focused on the time before Snake Eyes was silent and masked, so he spends quite a lot of time unmasked and speaking. That's okay as long as they got Snake Eyes' character right, tragic, honorable, and loyal. He spent most of the movie lying, betraying the Arashikage, working for Cobra, and seeking revenge.  Looking at Snake Eyes overall, this is a very simple figure. It has everything wrong with it.  It has zero paint applications. It's entirely monochromatic. It works because it uses minimal resources in the best possible way. If you're gonna go with only one color, black is the right choice. If he can have no paint, then he has to be masked. Being masked makes him mysterious. If you can't see his face, maybe you can't hear his voice either. He is masked and silent. You can do anything with a character. You can make him a ninja. You can give him a tragic backstory. Snake Eyes' design may have been a cost-cutting measure, but it is genius. It gives G.I. Joe a layer deeper than just the good guys versus the bad guys. With Snake Eyes, you have secrets to uncover. The accessories are good for 1982. This is still my favorite iteration of the Uzi for G.I. Joe. The explosives pack is superfluous, but also unobtrusive. The Uzi is the star of the show. It is Snake Eyes' signature weapon. As Snake Eyes without an Uzi just doesn't feel right. If Snake Eyes were just a mysterious bad ass, that would sell a lot of action figures. He's more than that, though. Larry Hama made something special out of him. He is dangerous, but he's a good guy. He's not just on the side of the good guys. He's a good guy. He is honorable, loyal, and cares deeply about his friends. When he hurts, we feel his pain. Snake Eyes has been hurt a lot. He lost his family. He lost his face. He lost his voice. He hasn't lost everything, though. He still has his friends and his teammates. Is Snake Eyes a commando or a ninja? I have never bought into that dichotomy. For me, he has always been both, and both are integral to his personality. His experience in the army was formative. His training with the ninjas completed his development. Snake Eyes is not my favorite G.I. Joe character, but he's part of why I love G.I. Joe. Snake Eyes, Stalker, Scarlet, and Storm Shadow represent what G.I. Joe is all about. With them, you get the fighter with the heart, disciplined leadership, intelligence combined with strength, and an enemy who got a chance at redemption. If G.I. Joe only had those four, it would still have a lot. That was my review of Snake Eyes, and this is my definitive review of Snake Eyes Version 1 and 1.5. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give this video a thumbs up on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel so you don't miss more G.I. Joe toy reviews, and share this video with your friends. That's what helps this channel grow. You can find me on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, HCC788.com. If you'd like to support the channel, Patreon is a great way to do it. You can get some early access and get your name in videos, like the names you see scrolling on the screen right now. I'll be back soon with another vintage G.I. Joe toy review, and for the next one, you might need some batteries. I'll see you then. And until then, remember only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe.


Hello dad. What would you like me to sit? Good to sit right there. Good morning, John. We were having dinner the other night with this, our dad, and I found out about a habit of yours when you were, what? How old? It wasn't a habit. I couldn't stop any time. I wanted to. It was a after-school ritual when I was eight or nine or ten. No long day on the school bus, come into the kitchen, get out some white bread, and put two or three teaspoons of sugar on the bread, and then just eat it, crunch, crunch. It's been a long time since you've done that. Well, yeah. Do you think that it's going to be familiar if we do this again? Oh, I can feel the crunch right now, but I don't know that it's going to be a good thing. Well, I really want to try it. We've got some classic white bread. This is pretty doughy, gooey stuff. So make it for me, dad. Other people do this where you just like take the sugar and put it in your mouth. As a kid, you do it because you can. No, because kids now have actual candy in it. I don't know how I did this. I'm sure I didn't do, like, tap my finger. So that's one spoonful. I did it alone. Okay, my mother wasn't there. My brothers weren't there. Did you think you were getting away with something? No, it was a snack. I don't remember drinking a lot of sodas in there. Right, sure. Like a third sugar. It's soda bread. That's different. And then you sort of balance the sugar on the bread carefully. It's not nearly as thick as what I used to eat. Well, then we ought to be authentic. We should put more on that. Oh, wow. That's a lot. I've got to shake it so it gets in the nooks and crannies. Yeah. Are you going to do this? Yeah. Three, two, one. Mmm. There's that crunch. There's that crunch. I remember it. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. It does not bad at all. Oh, my God. Do I have to eat the whole thing? Do you want to eat the whole thing? I could. You already ate a lot of it. Look how much he's already eating. Do I have to eat the whole thing? He's like 90% done? Okay, okay, let's put it down. I also have another segment of the video.   Led by an earnestly flawed bisexual heroine with direction and commitment issues. Sounds like all the young people I know coupled with an abundant generosity of spirit. This read is timely and sorely needed. Highly recommended. Funny, thrilling, and absolute blast to read. I knew Hank would be good at this, but I didn't know he would be this good on his first try. I think I will be less good on my second try if that's any consolation. This is the book my teen self would have loved and my adult self immediately obsessed over. By turns joyful, devastating, personal, zeitgeisty, modern, classic, fast-paced, and thoughtful. An absolutely remarkable thing blew me away. I read it. It's a good book. That's a good blurb. I'll put that in there.  We're also going on tour. All the new tour information is up now at HankGreen.com. They're apparently selling pretty fast already. And then lastly, PodCon is happening again. You were at PodCon. I was. Gonna come again? What was your review of PodCon? I went to PodCon. It was a good PodCon. It was a good PodCon. PodCon was great. Mama Green is coming, and Mama Green doesn't like to go to big conferences. Well, Mrs. Green Catherine is coming too. Yeah. All the Mrs. Greens will be there. And if you want to learn more about PodCon, you can go to PodCon.com. Our crowdfunding campaign is live now, and we need people to sign up. So if you're not going to see me on tour, maybe you can see me at PodCon, which will be January 19th and 20th in Seattle, Washington.  I was, man. I am with that crunch. You know, I was making so much fun of you, but this isn't bad. It tastes like a friggin' Danish. Yeah, it makes you think, maybe I should eat fewer Danishes. Exactly. John, I'll see you on Tuesday. I don't know how that's going to end. I don't know how that's going to end together, but not into four minutes. My mentor said to me, the more you cut, the better it gets. True. That's the whole thesis of vlog, brothers. Did you finish yours? Hell, yes.


My role as a CEO has obviously changed a bit since I was the CEO to a CEO. The difference is that we have got to the table as a thinking process. So we were thinking strategic in any case, I think, but the science that we put together, the analytics that we put together has increased many folds in the last couple of years. In terms of, you know, the integration that we see which is happening across offline and offline has increased considerably which enables our planners to actually do a lot more integrated planning. So we always want an integrated structure. Now we have been training the teams to do a lot more integrated offline and online. And of course the outcome has been awards and I think awards has been great as usual. It's gone worse for our industry. I'm not seeing work-life balance improving anytime now. And let me say it's not just for the women, it's for the men too. So if you see Sachi and me as our life or, you know, different both men and women, I think we are working anywhere from 12 to 18 hours which is really, really long hours. I think for women it's even worse, but at least men have stayed in the workforce despite these 12 or 18 hours. They haven't dropped out. I think a lot of women have just dropped out. And if you see the statistics in even media, so while media may have a certain set of women and I believe is there are more women because 20 years back when we started work, media was not seen as the, you know, hot and happening place to be in. Now after 20 years, because of the change in dynamics, it has become hot and happening. So by default women have been there. But if you also see statistically the number of women who are married and have kids and have stayed in the, and stayed married and stayed in the workforce are really, really few and far between. And while I've been, you know, I'm one of the examples of, you know, being married, got kids, stayed in the workforce. I know it's not easy. And I think we owe it to everybody who's of, you know, who are working to try seeing how to making it difficult. So I've been now pushing, you know, my organization, my teams to do a couple of things, which I'm not sure whether it's okay at the global stage, what I'm trying to push. So for example, I'm trying to figure out a common time and say 11 to 4 is your common time. The rest of the time you can either take two, three hours before that, two, three hours after that choice is yours. I'm almost making it okay to say after 7 o'clock put on your mail saying I've gone home and I'll be back in the office tomorrow morning. Because what happens is a lot of people correspond even at 7 and 8 and 9 in the night and they expect to reply. And that's not fair. I mean, you must appreciate if you expect dedicated people at work. They should be dedicated to their families in the, you know, when they go home. It's not just a different location and you have to start continue working. And we will just burn out our people because anyone who works 18 hours is going to be burnt out. And, you know, they're going to fall, they're going to get out of the workforce much earlier than, which is why you see a lot of people saying by 40 or 50, oh, I'm tired. I'm going to get out. I don't want to do this anymore. So if we want people to be in the workforce, we have to make it easier. And we have to learn now that to deal with technology and connectivity in a manner which is okay. So, you know, if I as a CEO make it acceptable to say to everyone and reply back to saying it's 7 o'clock and I'm at home. I guess people slowly will start understanding that next 12 hours somebody is not at work. So, you know, I think we just hold it to ourselves over to the teams and over to our families and for, you know, health of people. I mean, you hear so many stories of somebody falling, you know, getting an heart attack at age of 20 and 30 and 40. It's really scary. So if the position that I am in, if I'm not going to be able to drive that bit of change, I mean, you know, I'm not doing a good job and I will definitely work hard to keep and push people to changing their methods. Also, I think it's important to understand that, you know, when we are talking of women in the workforce and to, you know, diversity inclusion, diversity to me is a critical word and I'm not looking at women becoming clones of men.  I can't take a family call. I can't do things. So I don't see ourselves becoming clones of men. I think we have to just realize we're equal, but we're different. And you have to be able to manage, you know, for men and women and not become clones of each other. So, you know, you know, it's acceptable to say that, you know, you're at home, you're taking calls of the office, right? So women who are so afraid to turn on and say, oh, I can't take a call of home because it will look bad and it's okay. You're taking calls. The office calls at home. It's okay to take one. If there's some emergency house, please don't think that I have to show that I don't have a family. You know, and yeah, I've seen women literally afraid to take their kids' call because they will, she won't be seen as professional. And I don't see why because it's okay. You know, you need to do this. A family exists. If the family is not happy and cheerful and you're not taking care of it anyway, I'm going to lose you. So, you know, we need to change some part of our perspectives. I don't think to me an high point is anything to do with necessarily business awards or wins or anything. I think the high point is I've had fun. I've enjoyed myself. I like coming into the office. I like the people and we are friends more than anything else. And to me, that's a big high point. Of course, the projection of India to the global world and India is clearly seen as one of the best operations in the U.M. system and the FCP system in the IPG system, whichever system you see. I think there is we are clearly seen as a top three, you know, organizations among all the U.M. or FCP or whatever. So that's a matter of pride to me that we acknowledge as the best.