Hello everyone, we were just waiting for a couple of minutes to allow more people to join, but I think they are joining as we speak. So I would like to kick off now, but that's okay. So welcome everybody to this really exciting talk. Our camp on fire, which is a really exciting title for today's discussion area, which is around the climate crisis, and its effect on refugees and the people who suffer most really. I would like to start with some introductions. Firstly introduce myself. I am a Palestinian writer and director. He grew up in the Gaza Strip in Palestine and currently living in London. I've moved here back in 2002 and I've been living here since then. I like very often because all my family are in Gaza. I've got today with me an exciting list of panelists who will speak to you about their experience and about their knowledge and research on the effect of climate crisis on refugees. These are Zayna, who is a Palestinian Iraqi poet and he has done a lot of work and research has got a massive bio by the way. A really exciting work that she's done before, including being a honor of Shabbat and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, amongst many others. I've also got with me here today, Hamza Hamouchi, who is a Nigerian researcher based in London. He's currently in North Africa and he's speaking to us from there and he's done numerous work on research on Africa and established the African, what is it Hamza with the African food program. He's the coordinator for the North Africa Food Sovereignty Network, which he will talk to us a little bit more about it. And last but not least, we have another presenter who is not with us today, but we will play his presentation as a video in a bit. His name is Mohammed Suleyman Labbat, who is an artist based in Samara refugee camp in Algeria. And unfortunately, he can't be with us in person because of power outage. He currently doesn't have any electricity at the moment, but we've recorded his talk and we'll play it to you later on. So what I'd like to do is just to start with a bit of an introduction kick off the conversation. This is a really relaxed kind of session in here and discussion point. And I would like to thank the Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival for putting it on in collaboration with creative discussions as well. Again, I'm sharing this event because it's really kind of close to my heart. When I was approached and asked to do it, I thought, wow, what a wonderful subject because I've been thinking about this subject for a long time. And I've had many conversations with people about the effect of the crisis on our community, on our society, and what is happening to our world right now. However, most of those discussions and conversations have always been kind of focused and concentrated on the kind of Western discourse of this crisis. Very often the climate crisis discourse is Western dominated somehow it's about what's happening in the UK or France or Europe or the US, etc. There is very little talk about what is happening to people in parts of the world where they're really suffering as a result of the climate crisis. And on top of that they're going through very difficult circumstances because of conflict because of political unrest because of difficult economies, etc. So it's really exciting to be able to engage with this conversation right now. One of the things that sort of struck me maybe a couple of years when the kind of debate on climate change and the climate crisis was kind of happening was a meme that was kind of circulated on social media of Greta Thunberg on a train somewhere in Africa. Somebody obviously Photoshopped it and edited it and as you look through the window while she's sitting on the train there are a couple of kids from Africa running trying to catch up with that train with kind of two vessels of water they're trying to fill the water in there. And it touched my heart to be honest with you because I thought, actually we should be talking about them more than Greta, for example, I'm not undermining all of her work I think it's been incredible and amazing. I've had this debate a lot with people about that that we don't talk enough about those communities that are affected enough. I am from Gaza, as I said, and from Palestine and the situation there is really pretty bad from a climate change perspective. And on top of that we have the occupation, the Israeli occupation where a lot of the time olive trees are being cut and uprooted across the West Bank, which is really disastrous for the environment in general. Cutting trees generally is seen as a kind of direct cause of climate change. We do this around the world because of economies because of industry because of capitalism whatever you want to call it, but to do it because of occupation and colonialism it's just something really disheartening to be honest with you and no one talks about that. Very often in the Gaza Strip as well the Israelis just open sewage water and flood the farmland and many natural habitats just die as a result of this act of just opening sewage water in there. The sea itself in Gaza is really ruined with sewage water as well that kind of opens up from the Israeli side, but also from the Palestinian side because there's nowhere else for that sewage water to go. So that's just an example of really the dire situation that many communities suffer under this important issue that we need to talk about. But I think this is enough from me around my introduction. I would like to start by handing over to our presenters. And I'd like Zayna first to just introduce herself and talk to you a little bit for about five minutes about her work, particularly in reference to the subject. Over to you Zayna. Well thank you Ahmed and thanks everyone for being here. I should open just by saying that I'm slightly worried I have internet issues so if for whatever reason I do please just flag it and I'll do some lateral thinking about how to resolve it. So, yes, as Ahmed said, I'm a writer and policy analyst and poet. And I've looked at the issue of climate change and discriminatory climate practices and limitations to adaptive capabilities in the Palestine context. So I've been always very interested in the way in which, you know, climate change or climate breakdown needs to displacement needs to immigration and then leads to the societal issues which, you know, drive so much of contemporary discourse and contemporary politics. So what I would actually might be nice or helpful, I don't know, is to read a poem out, and then perhaps answering the questions, more perhaps practical questions around climate change, which I've spent more of my academic side looking at. In the chat, you know, after these short presentations, but I'm going to open with a poem called Borderland, which I wrote the first time I went through. I went to Bengaluru on airport as a Palestinian. And, yeah, name, father's name, grandfather's name. You have curly hair. If I had a sister, I think she could look something like you. Where are you from. Tiberias. Oh, you're from here. No, sister, if I were from here, I would not be interrogated by you. If I were from here, I would not be a security threat. If I am from here, why were we moved from here. If I am from here, why can't I live here and if I am from here, why has it taken me 23 years to get back. Your colleague, my cousin asks me where I was going. The territories. I look through my phone, reads my emails, checks my contacts. She takes my cousin's name and his number. He is a rocky, and so is his area code, but he is a refugee in fortress Europe now he wrestled the purple seat and sit silent. She's also pretty long hair, a blue jumper behind her baby sits proud, half smiling at my homecoming and the flag clumsily large and my celebratory cell hangs limp and flaccid. I'm not interrogated in any protests. Do you know anyone here, their name, numbers. Have you been to Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan. When did you delete your Facebook, what are you studying what courses are you taking do you speak Arabic, why do you have an Arabic keyboard, because my mother wanted me to learn the language of my ancestors, and that we taught me that land is inherited like language, and my sister says I'm from here so please excuse my literacy. Can you keep any blogs. Can you show it to me. No, it's gone. She has pretty eyes to dark like mine I mirror her in my head. Why did you want to interrogate travelers. What was the army like. Have you ever been in love. Where's your grandfather from, is he from here. Have you ever been to Tiberias. Is it nice, although I am from here I cannot answer. Show me your blog. It's gone. You've been sincere with me right now. I had cocked sideways and I paused. What a weird word sincerity implies authenticity honesty and respectability. No, and neither are you. This is a game and we are well matched you can send me back home to my gray sky and imperial island but my sister said I'm from here and your questions degrade my home coming so please be reasonable. Be sincere. Winning is not entry and losing is not denial. Winning is staying free staying beloved. You cannot intimidate me scare me. You can detain me search me question me but my skull is made of stronger stuff. And if you'd ask my grandmother. I'd have told you Chesna. It means my skull is her treasury have had a knee edge. You cannot win against us. Or it said I poor slightly. I'm just going to pick up again. Hopefully that'll be fine. So I suppose I am your security threat. Sorry for that.  Yes, I have a very vulnerable identity negate your falsity and my family blasts to a rewritten history. I exist. And as long as I breathe your air this soil will not you. My sister said, I'll leave it there and I'd love to talk more about the technicalities of climate change in Palestine in the Q&A, but I just thought I'd open with that. Thank you. Thank you so much. Sorry about the connections. I think yet something technical is happening over there. But it's a beautiful poem. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. It really kind of goes to the heart of what we're talking about around the issue of displacement, which I will ask you about in a minute but before I do that, I want to hand over to Hamza. And I want to apologize to him because I mispronounced his name earlier. I said Hamushi, but it's Hamushin. I'm so sorry Hamza for this mistake. But yeah, over to you please tell us more about your research and your work in this area please. Thank you. Thank you for the introductions. I'm happy to be here to be sharing the panel with you and with Zayna. It's a shame that our Saharawee brother couldn't make it today, but hopefully we'll we'll watch his video later on. So my name is Hamza Hamushin. Actually not Hamushin. That's fine. I'm Algerian. Actually I'm talking to you from London right now. I'm a researcher and activist. I founded an organization called Environmental Justice North Africa. And I was a co-founder as well for the North African Network for Food Sovereignty. Currently I work as the North Africa program coordinator for the Transnational Institute that is based in Amsterdam. My areas of work vary, but I'll try to focus on the question of climate climate change or climate justice overall and try to share some reflections around this. My reflections would be less creative than those of Zayna. Thanks Zayna for sharing this strong forum with us and hopefully we can go to the nitty gritty of displacement and refugees later on. But the thing that I want to share with all of you is I started thinking about those questions when I was working with a London based NGO called Platform. I worked with them around specifically the oil and gas industry. Especially around my home country, Algeria. So we were looking at Britain's attempts to grab more gas from Algeria.  Especially around the environmental and human rights abuses of the oil and gas industry in the global south. So a few years later I co-edited a book around climate justice that was presented in Tunis at the World Social Forum. And that piece of work helped me to connect the dots between various issues. So I started doing conducting field research in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco around environmental struggles. And that led me to realize something very important, that we cannot just talk about climate justice or climate change without connecting it to social justice, without connecting it to economic justice, without connecting it to questions of sovereignty, over economic systems, over natural resources, and that would touch on questions of colonialism, as Ahmed mentioned at the start. So for me, I started reformulating or kind of reframing the questions of climate change or climate justice, at least in the North African context, in terms of just development, moving away from reliance or dependency on extractive sectors that have been imposed on those countries since colonial times. So it's very important the way we talk about climate change and how do we address it, like the narratives around the words, the concepts we use, because climate justice in Arabic, sometimes it's confusing, people do not get it when you say climate justice, what do you mean. But the principles, the ideas of climate justice are very important, because we are talking about how do we repair the systems that generated those inequalities, that generated the climate catastrophes that people are living through right now. We are talking about the historical responsibility of the industrialized West in generating this crisis. We are talking about the differential vulnerabilities of dealing with climate change. So it happens that most of the impacts right now are taking place in the global south, where vulnerable communities are facing those impacts. So climate justice is a way to say we need to deal with these impacts in a just way. So the industrialized West must pay the climate debt for these communities, for these countries. Climate change is already a reality. It's not in the future. It is happening right now. The catastrophe is happening right now. And it is taking place in regions like North Africa or the Arab world in general. So just recently in July, Algeria, my home country suffered from catastrophic wildfires that caused economic damage and fatalities. Around 100 people died from those wildfires. And these are a consequence of climate change. But how do we deal with this kind of stuff? This is the questions that we need to put at the heart of climate justice. And in here we need to decolonize the systems we live through. We need to democratize the system we live through. And we need to listen to the communities. In relation to the questions of displacement and refugees, a lot of discussions have been made around the question of climate refugees. I don't like that term specifically because it's really hard to say that refugees are just migrating or moving because of climate change. It is much more complex than that. I think it's multiple factors. It's economic factors, political factors, and also environmental and climate factors. But how do we deal with that climate crisis? People will be on the moon. There was a report lately by the World Bank talking about climate displacement, and they said that most displaced people from climate change impacts would happen within countries or within regions. Rather than people flooding Europe as some climate fascists, because there is this discourse right now in the North saying, okay, climate change is happening. So now they recognize that climate change is happening after decades of denialism, and now they are using that narrative to say, okay, we need to militarize our borders. So our response needs to be, like they are saying, we need to securitize. We need to not let those people come to fortress Europe, and we need to challenge that discourse. Climate justice means not militarization. It means not securitization. It means letting people to move. This should be a right, letting people to move to stay and to go back. So these are the final words of my introduction. So I'm looking forward to more discussion. Thank you, Hamza. I mean, there are lots of important points in here that I would love to pick up on. I think it will take us a couple of hours really to discuss all of those rather than just this hour. But really, I think the point around militarizing borders, I think we're seeing it happening right now is so much so that it's becoming very hard for people to move across. Again, as you said, not just because of the climate change, but for so many other reasons. But climate change for me, the way I see it, is at the heart of it all the time. But we will come back to that, and thank you so much for this talk. I'm going to move on now to play a video by Mohammed LeMandebat, who, as I said earlier, couldn't be with us because of the power outage in the Samara refugee camp where he is right now. I'm just going to give a little bit of an introduction about Mohammed and his work so you know him a little bit better before we put on the video. So Mohammed is a Sahrawi artist, a Sahrawi, the Arabic word for somebody from the desert based in the Samara refugee camp in southwest Algeria. And he runs an art studio, which is a very creative, small studio called Motif Art Studio, which is a space for creation and experimentation. And the interesting bit is that he built that out of discarded materials collected from the Samara camp. So really exciting space, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it. He's been doing a lot of collaborative work across the world. Mohammed LeMandebat, and more recently he's been doing a research, artistic research project in Helensky in Finland called FOS FETI with Finnish artist Pek Niskerman. So a lot of exciting stuff that he's been doing, but also really looking at the refugees and their work and really trying to introduce sustainability within a very, very harsh environment, which is kind of really what we're looking at in this subject. So I think without further ado, I'm just going to play the video now, just so for him to talk to you directly. My name is Mohammed Sleiman. I'm an artist from the Sahrawi refugee camps. I was born here in these camps. These camps have been established over 40 years ago in Algeria following a war that broke out in western Sahara between the Sahrawi and Morocco in the 70s. And I was born in these refugee camps when my parents met here. And life in the refugee camps is a day-to-day challenge, a series of challenges of living here, finding food and learning and connecting, but there's a strong social community here. And as an artist, I would like to explore ways and means to respond to the situation here in my camps and raise awareness about the story of my people. And I think for us as people of the desert, the Sahrawi are people of the desert, literally. I think the desert is largely misrepresented. The international narrative is that the desert is largely an empty space. There's nothing happening there. There's no life. There's no value. And that's a huge misunderstanding to begin with, because the desert plays such an important role in the world ecosystem. And recent data from NASA showed that scans of dusts arriving from the desert and traveling across the Atlantic Ocean into the Amazon carry in phosphorus particles. And it's fertilizing the Amazon rainforest. So the rainforest actually depends on the desert for its survival. And I think not many people understand the crucial position and role the desert plays in our lives. So it's not just empty place. And also, there is life and there is culture, and there is a huge community spread across the desert. And the Sahrawi are just one of those communities. But the Sahrawi have been displaced from their homeland in Western Sahara and into refugee camps in Algeria because of their political conflict there, because Morocco took over Western Sahara. And the Sahrawi are now living in this area and disconnected from their land and disconnected from their nomadic lifestyle and practices. And as an artist, I think it's very important that I address these issues, but also try to research and revive some of the practices and understanding that come from these indigenous practices and indigenous understanding of the Sahrawi, of the nomadic lifestyle. And what we can learn from that, the people who live here, we are the Sahrawi, we are people of the desert, and we think it's getting extremely hot for us here. So if the people of the desert are saying it's extremely hot, the rest of the world should be alerted. Everybody should be prepared, because we think we know a little bit about the heat. We know a little bit how the desert can be hot, but it's becoming even too hot for us. Climate change is reaching far places here in the desert with negative impacts. There is less water, less rains every year. The past four, five years we didn't have any rain at all in the desert, but coupled with some unexpected weather changes. And 60 years ago we had huge floods and heard of in the middle of the desert. And I think these issues are becoming really, really important in our lives. And some of the practices and some of the solutions that we're trying to develop to combat such challenges and respond to them is this amazing community of small scale family gardens starting in refugee camps to grow food in a small scale. And the solutions and the knowledge that develop with these practices in order to create food in this inhospitable area. It's very hot, there is no water, and there's absolutely no soil because it's just sand. But there's a team of amazing engineers, gardeners, farmers, artists, creative people who are thinking and these small movements put in together these views in some sort of interdisciplinary approach in order to come up with creative solutions. There's a mix of scientific understanding, there's a mix of creative approach to it, recycling materials to provide solutions for these gardens. And these gardens are growing slowly but trying to raise food here in the middle of the desert. And I think this is an amazing example that as an artist that should look at, I'm a visual artist and a photographer and a sculptor, but I think I'm less interested nowadays in creating object arts and more interested in joining this movement of responding to pressing issues, raising, creating food for our communities, responding to the challenges, the climate challenges around us, responding to, you know, pandemic problems and challenges. This is what artists should be looking at. I think it's past time that visual and traditional aesthetics have been done for a long time, but now we need to step up, we need to push our minds and our souls and our hearts in order to think and feel and prepare ourselves for something bigger. The world from now on is more challenging and we need to prepare ourselves for it. And so I think it's very important that for us as artists that we communicate with the child that we respond to the challenges around us and then build up on those experiences and share them with the world. That's how we build these kind of solutions from the ground up through these movements of engineers and scientists and artists. We need all the voices, we need multi voices participating in creating solutions that respond to challenges to our communities. That's how we see our role as artists responding to these. And myself, I created my artist studio from discarded materials. Well, in the beginning, I didn't have any funding to do it, but then I was looking for opportunities and potential, even in the discarded materials around it from scraps of wood. There's scraps of wood and metal and carpets that I found around in the camp, collected them, put them together and created a space for me and for other artists to use. And I think there's a potential and a lot of possibilities around us. We just need to slow down, provide ourselves, give ourselves the time, that space in order to think and re-envision, re-look at things in a different angle and talk and discuss and create solutions. Create connections with other artists as well. That's a very important aspect of my art practice as well. Thank you, Mohamed. It's a shame that he's not with us right now to kind of talk to him more about it and ask him more about his amazing work. It sounds incredible. There was so much in that video that I found incredibly fascinating. I didn't know about the effect of the Sahara Desert on the Amazon forest. I mean, that's definitely new to me. So it's a lot to kind of learn around in there. But I think one of the things that I can pick up from there and from all the talks from the panelists here is we talked a little bit about the idea of displacement. And we use the word displacement quite a lot. I just want to ask kind of the panel, particularly Zayna and Hamza, around what does that word actually mean to you in general? And how could we actually differentiate this displacement that is resulted from climate change from a normal kind of economic displacement or political displacement?  So what does displacement mean to you to start with? I think displacement, I actually, when I hear it, I think I respond to it in very emotional terms. I think about my own family, I think about, you know, the communities I grew up in, in diaspora, in exile. As I mentioned, you know, my mother is Iraqi, my father is Palestinian and both experienced very acute displacements in exile on account of colonialism and war and a lot of corporate interest, most of which also ends up in the oil and gas industry to Hamza's point. And yet, you know, I think what we're seeing, what we will see in the future, again, what Hamza was alluding to is that, you know, there's this discourse of like, these are refugees and these are climate refugees and these are whatever. But actually, I think if you look at the history of displacement writ large, why people flee their homes, it's an area of reasons. And I think, you know, we're getting to a point now where, where does climate change begin and where do water wars end, where does, you know, where does not be feeling safe in your home, how much of that has to do with climate change as a sort of environmental phenomenon and how much of it has to do with the political instability that it creates. So I think, you know, that we're living in this gray area and it's going to only going to be more gray as time moves on with regards to what constitutes a climate change emergency and what constitutes the regular invertecom is emergency that might create someone or motivate somebody to leave their home if they're dispossessed. So I think these are some of the questions which there isn't an established discourse around on all sides of the political spectrum I feel like there's quite a healthy amount of hypocrisy around these discussions and I also think you know I spent a lot of time thinking a few years ago, particularly when that sort of the really xenophobic discourse around the migrant crisis again in inverted commas was rife was this idea that sort of, unless refugees or displaced people can in some way contribute to their adoptive country they are a drain and they are undesired, you know that they're not desired. And that cheapening of human life in that way I mean for me has just been and hearing that discourse from people who are sensibly on the left has actually been the most shocking and file aspect of the last decade so I think, you know, you know, displacement, a myriad of legal definitions that come into play but actually fundamentally for me it just signifies someone who is no longer able to live in their home country or their home place and exhibit incredible bravery and being able to root and try and replant elsewhere and all of the experiences that that brings. So it's not just being forced militarily speaking it's sort of lots of reasons that it's almost like that their life is made impossible to kind of continue and they have to seek alternative options which in a way makes them forced to leave us. Hamza, is there any, sorry did you want to come back and say no. No, no. Sorry. And is there any sort of academic way of looking at displacement to try to differentiate it and identify that this is because of climate change directly so if you think about a fire somewhere. You know people leave their homes and go somewhere you know is there any kind of scientific way that we can look into that. So, so you're giving me the tough question. But that's a tough question. No, but to answer the question the question your question generally for me displacement. Like it has some negative connotations right.  And, and I think in the main or the mainstream or the mainstream imaginary is that we see displacement as like some refugees or some people migrating from south to north, which is not, which is not true. Most people are displaced regionally to neighboring countries, internally displaced internally from rural to urban areas, because of various various elements. But when it comes to differentiating between I don't know that's why I don't like when they use our economic migrants or something like that. What, what, what do you mean people, you know, migrate or leave their homelands for various reasons and it's really hard to differentiate and to say, for which reason what is the primary reason. I'm only speaking that the term climate refugees. I don't think it has any legal basis yet. Some people are trying, you know, to put forward the kind of a definition to say that climate change would play a role in, you know, displace in people. But it doesn't. It's really hard to differentiate. So that's, that's my brief answer to you. Thank you so much. I mean, that's a really good answer. It's an interesting debate because if there is like a legal definition it becomes a thing, maybe, you know, climate refugees, as it were, would be allowed to come into Europe because Europe is part of climate change and maybe maybe something that needs to be looked into in more details. And then I'm going to come back to you with a question around the role of artists to compact greenwashing from kind of occupying kind of colonial powers as it were. Today I read in the news that Israel by 2030 will have all their cars being electric. You know, there was this big news on the BBC around it that it's going to be the first country to have all vehicles electric. No more importing of, you know, petrol cars or fossil fuel cars, etc. Where do you see, I mean, for me, I see this as a propaganda, to be honest, because when I look at what Israel is doing as a colonial occupying power, yet at the same time they promote this as a greenwashing kind of propaganda. Where do you see the role of artists you as an artist and as a poet to combat that and to kind of present to expose these ideas and these propaganda. I mean, I don't think artists have any more responsibility than anyone else to expose a hypocrisy when it comes to this discourse. I think it's actually really dangerous. You know, greenwashing as with pink washing as with all other kinds of slight, you know, discussive sleights of hands which are used to hide and mask the reality.  You know, one of the most jarring aspects of working on the Palestine Israel issue is people constantly saying, Oh, well, you know, Israel is so green. So it has all of it's developed all of these cutting edge technologies that has all of these startups has all of the whatever. Any reference to all of the extractive policies that it has towards the Palestinian people, and how much it profits, you know, from Palestinian resource, whether that's water, land, you know, agriculture, Israel, and the occupation stands to gain. And it's hugely they're the greatest, the occupation is the greatest challenge that Palestinians face, both economically in terms of like lack of freedom of movement and goods and people politically, i.e. Palestinians not having any kind of self determination or sovereignty and destabilizing the already climate vulnerable population in a particularly climate vulnerable region. So what we need is resilience we don't need Israel, you know, pretending that, yes, okay, it might have more carbon neutral policies than Palestinians but there's a reason why that's the case is that Israel hinders Palestinians from adapting from developing adaptive capabilities to deal with climate change. Because Palestinians and Israelis inhabit the same physical terrain. You know, because of direct political decisions, Palestinian suffer disproportionately more and different Palestinians according to where they live suffer even more greatly than that, you know, as you mentioned at the beginning. And I think that the situation has, for instance, is infinitely worse than other parts of historic Palestine and so I think, you know, it's important to hold this hypocrisy. Call it, call it out and hold it to account because I think, otherwise what ends up happening is it israel managers to have this jainist faced approach where internationally it presents itself as pioneering and X Y Z technologies, but in reality the reason why it's population is able to adapt and mitigate the effects of climate changes because of theft of Palestinian land theft of Palestinian resources and control of Palestinian bodies and I think there needs to be some kind of clear articulation of what that of the dire effects that that poses to anyone who looks for justice and climate justice. Thank you. And on the same subject.  That's a very good question and this discussion is, I feel is a very important one because I think it's, it's important to connect the dots and to have a kind of a system a systematic analysis, or I would say an anti system analysis. So, so in the case of Palestine climate justice would mean decolonization. And the same thing for the Sahara ways. If Israel is doing this to Palestinians by greed greenwashing colonialism. Morocco is doing the same is position in itself as one of, you know, the champions of renewable energy building all this huge solder, you know, panels and wind farms, but in the occupied land of Sahara ways. So it's some people call it green colonialism. So it's the continuation of the same colonial practices of plunder of exploitation, but just with green credentials using renewables this time rather than oil and gas. So, regarding regarding your question of how to tackle climate change, and when it comes to questions of, you know, militarizing the borders, or putting forward the kind of a security discourse around climate question. So, our global leaders like to use the security narrative, we need climate security. And, and when you enter that discussion, it means more spending on the military, more spending on the police, more spending on patrolling borders to not letting the most vulnerable people escape in you know, different forms of oppression either climate environmental or political or economic, letting them out. So, the most privileged, the people who caused caused that, you know, climate crisis in the first place are safeguarding themselves safeguarding their interests. And in here of course we need to make some differentiations because, you know, there are black bodies in Europe as well. There are poor people in Europe as well. We're talking about the elites, the ruling classes, the rich, the multinationals, they are safeguarding themselves and their interests, and letting out people and we need to resist that discourse. We need to, for me, like personally we need to push for an open border policy. And if we really care about justice, if we really care about repairing the historic injustices of colonialism and ongoing once, and neocolonialism in various countries, we need to have that policy of open borders. And here, like before I joined this panel, I was talking with fellow African scholars and activists around the question of climate debt.  There is huge, you know, the impact are so huge on communities and working people, like in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, if you have repeated heatwaves and droughts, the impact would be on small-scale farmers, right, because they depend on rain. And they are usually impacted. These countries do not have, at least most of those countries, do not have the means to tackle these issues. And I believe, personally, that most of that money, or at least compensation, must be coming from the most countries and multinationals responsible for causing that crisis. And so this is climate justice. It has many elements, no to militarization, no to secularization. We need a policy of open borders to help the most vulnerable, and we need the payment of climate debt for the most vulnerable in the world. Brilliant. Thank you for this brilliant answer, Hamza. Really, really enlightening, actually, to hear it. I just want to check to see if we have questions from, I can't see the question and answers here, but I just want to open it up to see if we have questions from the audience as well. I just am aware that we should be finishing in 10 minutes, but the conversation, as I said, we need about two hours to cover this topic minimum. But just wondering if there is any question from the audience. I've got one here that just comes through. So you've all been involved in fighting for system change against large forces. Any tactics slash moments of success that we can learn from. I think it's a good question for the audience. Any good example to follow? Thank you, Peter, to quickly share some thoughts. You know, I think, I think everything Hamza said is bang on the money. I think when it comes to questions of, you know, repatriation for of indigenous land and life, and also reparations suddenly everyone who speaks of justice tends to But he's right, you know, this is a question of decolonization in many of these contexts, you know, it's decolonization and in Turtle Island and contemporary. The, you know, the contemporary USA and Canada decolonization in Palestine from settler colonialism decolonization in Australia and all of these country it was decolonization decolonization in Algeria and I would argue that's an ongoing process in Algeria. You know, I think these issues are very intimately connected and I think it takes an understanding of the being able to view the world with that understanding actually is what facilitates a conversation around justice because otherwise what ends up happening is you fall into these traps such as green which I think is actually a really good phrase. And others where you just perpetuate the existing cycles of inequality, but with some kind of interest to preventing global collapse or civilization collapse through climate breakdown. And that really is the only difference but it's still maintaining a system of elites and hierarchies. You know, instances where where I think there's some more success. I would actually, you know, I'm really inspired by comrades in on Turtle Island, particularly indigenous communities who work really hard to safeguard their, you know, natural ways of life. And I think, you know, what happened around standing rock a couple of years ago was really inspirational you know it was a form of global solidarity where communities are mostly of color but but all communities. And I think it was meant to to standing rock to the reservation to actually, you know, defend the land and support the indigenous community who were who were resisting and I think that's not something that should be should be snubbed or disregarded I think if you think of how many forces stand in the way of that kind of global solidarity moments where that breaks and you have this surge of support is actually really inspiring.  And it's a daily form of muted but nonetheless valuable success so I think I would just like to flag those as examples. Thank you Zayna Hamza is there anything you'd like to add a ceremony example you can think of. Yeah, I think there are there are a lot of examples from all over the world. Zayna mentioned some struggles from the indigenous. But what I want to emphasize that frontline frontline communities that are facing various kinds of injustices, including the impacts of climate change are putting forward some alternatives are putting forward some inspiring demands. You know, I engaged in struggles that we should learn from. Like from from North Africa, I could give some examples that are you know ongoing uprisings right we've seen since the first wave of the Arab spring the so called Arab spring from Tunisia and Egypt. We've seen a second another second wave including in Nigeria Sudan Lebanon and Iraq. Um, it is challenging. It is really difficult because you are pitted against very strong revolutionary forces, counter revolutionary forces I meant to say. But that hope is still alive. Tunisia right now with all the economic difficulties that it faces showed some, you know, inspiring struggles like Gemna, for example, and the oasis of Gemna at the time of the start of the uprising in 2011 that was 10 years ago. The people of the oasis took over the control of the production of dates themselves so they did a kind of a self management experience from below. They took the control of the oasis, they distributed the revenues among the people. They built a school. Of course, these are small, and they need, you know, to be scaled up at the national and the regional level. But I think they give some kind of hope that people are still resisting people are still putting forward some kind of alternatives that we need you know to heed and and to learn to exercise, because in the current, you know, doom and gloom scenarios that we see all over the media despair can be can be the solution but no people are still are still are still resisting and there is hope. I think also, I think it's a really good question from the audience there and I think also in a way it's not just our responsibility to kind of have success examples I think there are success examples in Europe and other places as well. I think we just what we're saying here we need to be part of that as well we don't need to kind of divide the discourse of climate activism as it was whether this is European. And then you change some rules and policies around green energy alternative energy and that's it. We move on. No, actually, you need to engage more with the people who are affected. We need to have more success examples like that that hopefully later on, it will overcome some of those challenges we're talking about like closed borders, and, you know, militarizing off borders as well. Then I want to ask you a little bit about that actually about immigration. Do you feel that there's enough new poetry specifically really embraces immigration talks about immigration and celebrate it. Do you feel there's enough in Europe and elsewhere that enough poetry that celebrates that and do you think that might help a little bit in terms of the climate crisis and its effect on refugees, other space people. I mean, I think why I don't know I mean my ideas on around the subject of constantly changing. God, sorry, I live next to train tracks and I think that cargo trainers literally it's just chef's kiss tonight. Yeah, I mean I think, you know, the discourse around immigration is always immigration immigrants immigrants and immigration as object and as the object of the sentence and you know the people who feel a particular way about immigration either people who aren't immigrants are the ones who set the tone around it, which I think is a completely false way to look at it. I think you know, I think artists for the most part are quite embracing of people's challenges and different ways of living including those who have migrated. I don't think artists are the ones that create the hostile environment, you know, I think this is a kind of as Hamza was saying like this anti systems position like that we live in systems which stigmatize and criminalize and, you know, objectify people who migrate for whatever reasons no matter where they come from or how long they've been there or how well their languages or what other identities might be be a gender class sexuality whatever. You know, we've have a very kind of, we talk about it like a blunt instrument so I think you know, I think, I mean I said it was an easy answer to your question but I suspect if there was a more tolerant or understanding approach to the way that people live including those who migrate we'd have a more tolerant understanding of how to deal with the planet and have the courage to be able to do what is necessary to safeguard our future. Brilliant. Thank you so much. I think we have come to the end of this talk this really exciting talk so thank you so much to our speakers here live with us. I'm Zayna Agha and Hamza Hamshain. I hope I've pronounced it right this time. I feel embarrassed because I'm an Arab I speak Arabic so I apologize. And also for Mohammed Suleiman al-Bard and apologies that we couldn't have him here with us live as well. And there is a video of his work and what he does which I think we will circulate later because of because of time. So I'd like to thank everybody today who joined us today for this amazing discussion our speakers. And again a big thanks goes to the Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival and creative instructions for arranging this. And yeah, please, you know, follow the artists work and the researchers and everybody and support them and keep talking about the subject because it's very, very important and whenever you're invited to talk about climate change or anything just just think of this. And think of the people that matter, like our poet Mahmoud Darwish once said, think of others, think of others when they're there suffering as a result of the stuff that we're discussing over here. Thank you all very much. I hope you have a lovely evening and I hope to see you again and other exciting talks as well. Take care. Goodbye everybody.


Derek Wolf apparently he been keeping his ears to the streets on Twitter, and he let it be known like hey, I Fully intend on coming back this season Because there was an article that was put out that said that Derek Wolf He was actually considering Retirement because we all know that he just last year he was all kinds of beat up. It was just rough I remember they them saying that he had like this back injury During the off-season and he was trying to get right from that And then he got designated to return from injured reserve at one point in the season So I was like, all right, we getting Derek Wolf back We getting some reinforcements and then I think they said he had like one practice and I was like, okay And then we never saw him again Never saw him at practice again I remember reading Jeff's rebates tweets about it him saying that Derek Wolf didn't even look close to being ready to come back And we saw how true that was because we just simply didn't see him. We didn't see him So it then in January, I think he had the hip surgery and it's like it was like, oh, I don't know about this one so he was also somebody that I have been saying is on the list of Potential bonuses for the Ravens because you got some guys like a Ronnie Stanley Hopefully you get him back, but it's a bonus if you do and he stays Joanne James if he even remains on the roster and you can get him to play that's a bonus if you can Derek Wolf is another one. He's had injury problems with the Ravens It's rough last year. Very very rough But he did let it be known. He said no all that stuff about me possibly retiring off. No, no, no Yeah, fully intend not all might come back to see oh, no, I'm working on that No, no, he said I fully intend on coming back this season now One thing to think about is his roster spot that's safe with the Baltimore Ravens reason I asked because Ravens got to see what life was like without a Derek Wolf So your best ability is availability and when you're not available your team gets to see okay How good or how bad can they be in your absence? And with Derek Wolf if he remains with the team, I know his cap hits nothing crazy if they release him Then they don't really gain anything if it's pre-June 1st if it's post June 1st Then I believe they can gain about Two mil I believe don't quote me on that though somewhere around there But you release him pre-June 1st with that designation Then you got more dead money Then you would as far as cap saving so you it wouldn't really make sense to release him with the pre-June 1st designation But again, it's not even a guarantee that he even gets released is they trying to come back So we'll see what happens. You know where Ravens that defensive line again There are a lot of vacancies. It's a lot of vacancies there right now. It's a lot of openings It's like the Ravens defensive line right now. They having a job fair and it looks like um, Eddie From the from the Bears, he's gonna be the first one Eddie Goldman He's gonna be the first one to apply at that job fair, but it's it's wide open right now So we'll see how they address it. We'll see how Derek Wolf does in his recovery And hopefully it just is smooth. There ain't no setbacks. They know drawbacks. They none of that stuff and he'll be good to go So love y'all team keeping clean appreciate y'all keeping up with all the updates Appreciate y'all watching all the videos appreciate y'all supporting subscribing telling your friends your families Retweeting the videos all that good stuff. Thank you. I love y'all and we out


Mastery learning, it is an instructional approach, it is a concept to just get mastery over any concept or information. It is basically teacher initiative or teacher's instruction or teacher's directed instruction towards students. And mastery learning basically teacher always make a plan how to teach his or her students. And this is basically fully you know including the teacher's directions and instructions. And teacher always plan that in how many days he or she will complete the lesson and how many quizzes or assignments will be included and when will be the midterm, when will be the final term. So all decisions are made through teachers. So they decide to get mastery over concepts or information and for mastery they always advise to read more books and to read more notes and to use multiple channels to get information and not only books to memorize but to get other information from different internet channels. So the burden is so much that it becomes a lecture that we have to work so hard. But its strengths are that when a concept is read with complete rich information and detail then they also remember it, relate it to it, validate it with different channels. So this is because their information is very rich. They know multiple backgrounds, multiple connections of information. They don't consult from one book or only from notes. They don't have superficial information but they have in-depth information. So mastery learning, the teacher directs the learning and sometimes only the sense of finding the solution or conclusion of the any concept that only the teacher introduces and then he says that the details are taken from the literature and the literature which is less than 10 articles you have to read and you have to discuss the idea of the research with the writer's point of view. So a lot of children come into the habit of book reading. After that they are aware of multiple sources. Some people are talking in favor of it, some are opposing it. In this way their divergent thinking increases a lot because by giving multiple angles to prove any information there is no increase in the information of a child. In fact it opens up the mind of a child that they should not explain the concept with one author. In fact multiple authors mean multiple school of thoughts. What have they explained? This can be a rich collection of information.


First of all, we want to say thank you to Helsinki and Slush for having us. This conference is unbelievable and Max, I'm very happy to be here with you and before we get into it, Sequoia has been partnered with you guys since the seed and We're more convinced than other that this is a legendary company in the making and so Would you mind just telling people what fair is and what inspires you to start it? I think the founding story is really Wonderful for people to hear. Yeah, so fair is a wholesale marketplace We connect independent retailers with independent brands so they can then sell those products in their store And I think the story of fair really actually started Back when I was in college. I went to a public high school in Oklahoma and then I ended up going to college at Yale and The first couple of years that I was at Yale were really challenging I went from being successful and basically everything that I'd done in high school to Failing at everything that I did my first couple of years in college You know, I was the captain of my soccer team in high school I wasn't even a starter on my college soccer team my freshman year. I You know was on the debate team in high school I couldn't even make the debate team in in college and there was just example after example of that And I think it culminated my junior year. I was applying to internships Which is you know what you're supposed to do it in Ivy League school You want to go into iBanking or management consulting and I didn't even get an interview with any of any of the companies that I wanted to get an interview with and you know it's a little bit of an identity crisis at the time because I think achievement had been such a big part of my identity and I just wasn't achieving anymore and I ended up starting a house painting business in the summer after my junior year just to Kind of make money and to have something to do and I absolutely loved it I you know enjoyed every minute of it. It was the most fun that I'd ever had doing anything And it was really a liberating experience, especially after a couple of years of really struggling And I remember I called my dad and I said dad. I found my dream job. I know what I want to do I want to paint houses and my dad Who was spending a lot of money on education at the time said that's great son But I think maybe what you want to do is be an entrepreneur and you know I think that was really the beginning of it and I think he was right the thing that I really loved about it Was being my own boss. I didn't really like the house painting part that much And that ultimately led me to a couple of experiences that I had after college where I was kind of charting a path to try To be an entrepreneur The first was I ended up working as a product manager at square And I was really drawn to the opportunity to build technology products for other entrepreneurs I think being you know having that itch and really understanding that so deeply myself I wanted to build products for entrepreneurs. I also wanted the opportunity to learn from somebody like Jack Dorsey I think one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time And then the other experience that I had was I introduced this product called the blunt umbrella to the US market On the side while I was at square and so you know I had this opportunity to basically on the on the weekends go to trade shows Try to get this product in front of retailers and then during the week. I was building products for small business owners and you know really seeing What happens when you don't have any technology in the case of me being a small business owner myself You know that ultimately led me to to to try to pursue the opportunity with fair And you know again have the opportunity to try to support small businesses and support other entrepreneurs by By building this wholesale marketplace to make it easier for brands to get their their products out of the shelves of retailers That's awesome. Well, we're glad that you didn't end up painting houses, you know and decided to do this instead One thing that you talk a lot about is small businesses independent businesses I think that a lot of times for people they think small businesses independent businesses small market And one of the things we've talked about a lot is that this is actually a giant market and it's a giant market That's hiding in plain sight What do you think fair was able to do and you were able to do in order to identify That market and why do you think you guys were first and I think it'll be inspirational for people who might think that all the good ideas are already picked over and you guys managed to find something that was pretty unique Yeah, so the the question of How big is the market and you know the fact that the market is hiding in plain sight was actually One of the things that made me most nervous when we were first starting out because I'd been going to these trades Shows for like six or seven years and it was really clear from the very first show that I went to how broken it was One of the things that held me back from just going and doing it Was the fact that it seemed like surely if there was a there there somebody would have done it This market is huge, you know trillions of dollars are flowing through the wholesale industry, you know There's hundreds of trade shows with millions of attendees If there was really an opportunity here somebody would have taken advantage of it and that frankly scared me off for a long time Yeah, and Once I left square with the idea of starting my own company I kept coming back to this idea and I kept asking this question of like why hasn't somebody done it before and I ultimately came To the conclusion that there's really two reasons first is The fact that it's not exactly hiding in plain sight. It actually is kind of hidden. Yeah, good You know the the retail industry really has three main players. There's brands There's retailers and then there's consumers and retailers sell the products of the brands to the consumer All of the innovation in the retail industry over the course of the last 20 years has really been focused on the consumer legs of that triangle You know you can think of Shopify connecting brands to consumers You can think of Amazon connecting brands to consumers You can think of instacart connecting retailers to consumers doordash connecting retailers to consumers Square connecting retailers to consumers No one was paying any attention to the wholesale leg of that triangle And I think a big reason for that is there just weren't that many people from the tech industry going to trade shows and seeing how broken You know the wholesale market was and so I think there's just weren't that many people paying attention to it And to the degree to which there were people paying attention to it I think the second reason that you know it took so long for for this to to this problem to get fixed is that It wasn't immediately obvious what the problem was that needed to be solved in order to move the market online the reason why trade shows exist is it's really a filtering mechanism for Retailers they're going to the show in order to see the products that are actually going to sell in the store There's all these showrooms these sales raps who are curating these showrooms where you know the retailer shows up They know that the products are actually going to sell And they're able to touch and feel and it gives them you know a sense of trust That the products are actually going to perform if you're a small retailer in particular if you Buy products that don't sell you go to business. And so it's really scary Buying products site unseen via you know on online marketplace And so there had been a few folks that had tried to move the market online But they hadn't been able to because they didn't solve that trust piece Yeah, and you know that was ultimately I think what helped fair get off the ground was we offered free returns net 60 payment terms We took all the risk out of buying and that enabled us to get liquidity and able us to get off the ground and you know That ultimately led to to things really taking off Yeah, I think that the one of the things that impressed us most at Sequoia was just this sort of Discipline around understanding the real customer need that you guys had and I think not force-fitting your own insight on it But actually going and listening and I think that's a real hallmark of the culture All right, so let's get to it in the sense of the name of this session is taking on Goliath Leveling the playing field for independent retailers. So maybe give us a history lesson How did Goliath become Goliath in this industry and what is fair going to do specifically? To level the playing field and arm the independent retailers. Yeah So there have been a couple of Goliaths over the years in in the retail industry I think the first was Amazon or was Walmart and you know now now it's Amazon But really the history of retail over the course of the last 100 years at least has really been a story of consolidation where you know I think in the 70s and 80s Walmart really rose up and you know proved that Scale economies of scale could really be brought to bear in the retail industry. They use technology they use data they use their bargaining power in order to drive down prices and You know in order to offer giant assortments to consumers all over the the country in the US And then Amazon has basically taken that playbook lower prices larger assortments you know data-driven assortments and they've applied it, you know tenfold and have had a lot of success in doing so The interesting thing is over the course of the last 20 years There has been there started to be a counter movement by the independent retailer Against the walmarts in the Amazon of the world. They've actually figured out how to compete in a world where they don't have the lowest prices They don't have the largest assortments. They figured out a compete on experience, you know these retailers are artists They are curating an experience for you as the consumer where when you walk in, you know, it's entertaining It's fun to shop in an independent store. They're community builders. They're connecting their communities They're building presence online and building their community online and you know, they figured out you don't have to have the lowest prices You don't have to have the largest assortment If you can create an experience that draws people in if you can build community among your customer base You can compete and so in many ways Walmart and Amazon are competing head-to-head on the same dimensions and the independent retailer because they already went through Their version of the retail apocalypse, you know, 30 40 years ago They figured out how to survive in in this new world And as a result They're actually thriving the number of independent bookstores in the United States at least has more than doubled over the course of The last decade that is a shocking stat that I don't think people really grasped Which is that there's this story that you know retail is dying and it's like no Undifferentiated retail is dying right retail with no point of view is dying These independent retailers are actually thriving in spite of some of these disadvantages that they do have that I think you guys can help fix Yeah, I think fair actually has a very important part to play in the next stage of the journey for these retailers You know, they still have these structural disadvantages. They still, you know, struggle to have bargaining power They struggle to get capital You know They're still at a disadvantage in many ways and I think part of the idea of fair is we're taking 600,000 retailers and you know soon to be a million retailers and We're pulling them together into a collective into a network into a community that gets stronger the bigger that it gets that brings The power of scale and technology to independent retailer that it's traditionally only been available to the largest companies like Walmart and Amazon We give them access to net 60 payment terms so that they can buy more inventory And they can actually carry more products that that ultimately are going to sell We give them access to the ability to return products that don't sell There's something called buybacks that actually large retailers have been able to do for for decades If a product doesn't sell, you know, our retailers can just send it back And that allows them to take more risk that allows them to to find the best-selling products themselves And then another thing that we're doing is I think we're actually allowing them to lean into their strengths Allowing them to you know be the artist that is curating this experience And one of the things that we've just started doing is we started using artificial intelligence to enable them to find the exact product from You know the 70,000 brands that we have they can find the exact product that they're looking for they can find You know coffee beans from the hills of Italy they can find, you know boho blouses from California They can find Nautical-themed goods from Maine, you know, whatever it is from wherever it is They can search for it on fair and they can find it rather than having to wander the aisles of a trade show Hoping that they stumble upon that thing they can have a creative vision and they can match it on fair And not only can they match it, but they can match it knowing that those products are going to sell Because we have the power of data 600,000 stores, you know ordering reordering returning we have pointed sale integrations Where we're actually seeing how the products are selling so not only are they able to you know create that vision They know that the products are going to sell and that they're going to be more successful as a result. I love that I think one of the things we talked about at Sequoia and we've talked about before is AI ought not stand for artificial intelligence It's stand for augmented intelligence and you think about taking these collection of artists and giving them superpowers and giving them The ability to leverage technology in a way that the Goliaths have had But you take that combined with their taste and I think you have something really magical And I think it's quite dystopian to think about a world where you only shop at these giant You know personality list big box stores one thing that's amazing about Helsinki is actually these stores are everywhere, right? And I think that This place is actually ahead of the game. I think on on that I think Europe in general has been ahead of the game with the local movement And you know, that's one of the reasons why I think we've seen so much success in Europe to date where I think we've sold something like 30 million products over the course of the last year It's been wildly successful for us as we've expanded over the course of the past year. Wow Well, I know there's a little off-track, but how has Europe done since we've launched here relative to the US at the same time? It's grown much faster, huh? And I think part of that is we'd already figured out a lot of the things that we needed to figure out You know when we were first starting in the US there was a lot of kind of tinkering that we needed to do to get it Right, but I think part of that is just the European market Is in many ways better suited because it's so fragmented because the shop local movement is so powerful here You know, we've seen fair takeoff here in a way that you know, not even in the US Where I think we also saw really strong growth. That's amazing well One of my favorite things about the job that I have is I get to hear the future from people like you Right and so I think that if we can give that as a gift to everyone Give them a glimpse of the future of retail You've done a little bit of that and then give them a glimpse of the future of fair. Where's fair going? Yeah, so I think that the future of retail is really one of blurring lines And I think there's a there's a bunch of different lines right now that are Segmenting the retail industry. There's lines between online and offline and I think that line is Increasingly blurring you hear a lot about omni-channel. I think that's something that's been happening Gradually over the course of the last, you know, 20 years But I think it's really accelerated over the course of the last couple of years at the beginning of the pandemic Only about 25% of our retailers had an online presence now Almost all of them have an online presence and actually an online channel is growing very rapidly for us It's growing and I think it's now about 20 25% of our total business is sold through online retailers pretty similar to the you know Overall e-commerce penetration I think the second thing that we're seeing is a blurring of the lines between brands and retailers in between D2C brands and Wholesale brands, you know traditionally a brand either sold through their Shopify store through their big commerce store Or they sold through wholesale Increasingly, you know, we're seeing the fastest growing segment on fair is actually brands that had never done wholesale before and I think part of that Is because they're realizing D2C is really tough right now, especially, you know with the privacy changes that Apple's made It's really made it a lot more difficult to build your brand through online advertising all of a sudden, you know Wholesale looks like a really good deal. It's a really good way to build your business And so I think the the whole concept of a D2C brand is really going to start to feel increasingly antiquated And and I think the the third line that that's going to be blurring is the line between social media influencers and Retailers I think more and more you're seeing social media influencers. They really are retailers, you know, they're they're taste makers They have an audience they figured out how to monetize that audience in the same way that retailers have an audience They have a brick-and-mortar presence. They have an online presence. They have foot traffic They're monetizing that audience by being taste makers increasingly. I think you're seeing the social media creators looking to use Retail to sell products to monetize their audience and you're also seeing retailers particularly independent retailers building community online you know identifying ways to create Content that connects to their community offline In really blurring the lines between their online community and their offline community and using social media to build their brand to build their Presence to connect with their customers and to sell more one of the most successful things that our retailers did during the pandemic It's sort of doing live selling On on Instagram on Facebook, you know, they found that that was a really successful channel for them They've got personality. They've got the ability to story tell and I think that's something that fair can can really play a role in In the future I think the future for fair is really to help to blur those lines. It's to help the D2C brand Sell wholesale it's to help the on the brick-and-mortar retailer Build an online presence and identify which products are going to sell online to you know push products directly from fair Onto their Shopify store onto their big commerce store and to take a lot of the pain out of managing an online channel It's to help the social media influencer find products that they can sell to their audience It's to help the online the brick-and-mortar retailer, you know build a digital presence give them the assets that they can then You know sell through their online channels one thing, you know, we talked a lot about the industry and the business There's a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs here as early founders one thing that I think would be beneficial as fair is one of the best-run companies that Sequoia has been lucky enough to partner with and I think that you all have built it with real Discipline and purpose Can you talk a little bit about the culture that you guys have created? What are some of the elements in it? Why have you done it that way because I think it has been built with this idea that it's going to be around for decades And it's not something that's just you know what it is right now, and so I think people will benefit from that Yeah, I mean I Said I wanted to be an entrepreneur and that I wanted to be an entrepreneur for for over a decade and I think one of the things that I found that I love most about the job But also that's most challenging about the job is the degree to which it changes Every year every six months the job is completely different than what it was You know the the prior six months and you know, I I've joked to my wife. It's actually it's usually not a joke She turns it into a joke About every six months. I turn to her and I say I don't know what I'm doing Yeah, like I'm bad at my job and she says you said that six months ago I say yeah, but this time is different like this time. I'm like really mean it I'm really bad at my job and I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know if I'm gonna be able to figure it out and Every time I mean it and you know, I think when we were first starting out The challenge for me was I'd never been a manager before you know I'd I'd been a product manager, but being a product managers really different You know, you're you're leading through influence. You're trying to get people to do You know what what you want them to do you're trying to facilitate You're not actually managing people people's careers are not dependent on you in the same way I had a really hard time making that transition. One of the things that I really struggled with was you know this idea of I'm the boss, but I Also want to be friends with the people that I'm working with and you know early on we had to make some difficult decisions and let people go I Really struggled with that and it made it so hard because I loved the people that I was working with Yeah, and so there's a period of time where I actually kind of withdrew because of that experience And I didn't want to build relationships with the people that I was working with Because I was afraid it would make it harder for me to make tough decisions I ended up reading this book called radical candor that was really clarifying for me And I think his ended up being a core part of Ferris culture and the idea is you know You want to be direct But you also want to be caring as a leader and you want to build a relationship with the people that you're working with and that Was really freeing for me where I realized you know You actually do need to build a relationship with the people that you're working with in order to be able to be direct in order to make the tough decisions Because otherwise, you know, you're just being what the book refers to is obnoxiously aggressive That's the opposite of and then if you're to ruin his empathy. Yeah ruin his empathy is that yeah Yeah, and I struggled between those two polls and I think you know my journey as a leader has you know That's been a big part of it. I think another big part of it has been transitioning from being a Product manager where your job is to build the product is to you know, make the product better and better and better Because that that was my background to actually thinking about the company as the product and that's been a big transition over the course of the last few years where You know my job is to make the product better But the best way for me to make the product better is to actually make the company better Yeah, and to really think about the company as the product to think about you know the people that we hire The culture that we build the way we define that culture We spend a lot of time thinking about our values and our operating principles codifying those values and those operating principles building mechanisms to reinforce those values and those operating principles our core values are Serve our community. We serve our community. So very mission-oriented seek the truth very rigorous Embrace the adventure so you know focus on taking risks being resilient You know one of the operating principles there as we laugh We like to have a good time be an owner you know being willing to do What it takes to make the company succeed and you know really thinking thinking of yourself as as you know Whatever it is whether you know, it's giving up scope whether it's doing the hard thing whether it's driving outcomes And then the final one is be kind And we were really thoughtful about the way that we try to build Mechanisms in the company to reinforce those values And then I think the the final thing that Has been a big adjustment for me over the course of the last You know year two years is making the transition from You know again being very focused on the product and the execution of the product to being more of a capital allocator Like I talk about the transition from PM to GM where you go from a product manager where you're just building the product to being a general manager where you know You're managing the company You get to a certain scale and the role starts to change where you're actually you know your job is capital allocation It's like making the big strategic bets that you know help the company succeed I think one of our investors I think maybe Vinod Kosla says you know your job is CEO ultimately you get to a certain scale It's to get the like five decisions, right? Yeah, there's like five decisions every year that matter And so one of the things that I've been focused on you know over the course of the last couple of years is getting better It make it identifying those five decisions and then making those five decisions And you know some of that is getting yourself into the right frame of mind to be able to make those decisions Some of that is building a decision-making process that enables you to make those decisions Some of that is building a team that is really good at kind of identifying You know your weaknesses or your blind spots and filling those in and creating a culture of debate that enables you to get to the right decision You know we do try to do that with our board. We try to do that with our executive team And then part of that is you know getting good at breaking down the problem into its component parts We use writing to do that a lot. We have a very written culture I find writing is very helpful and kind of clarifying thought also it exposes any Flaws in your thought process. You can't hide you can't hide sloppy thinking and writing The one of that is an extremely unique thing within the companies that I've ever been around The long-form writing that you all do to have discussions. Yeah, sometimes a little too long But but yeah, it's a very powerful mechanism to force strategic clarity of thought Well max, thank you for sharing your wisdom. Thank you for starting fair and thank you for letting us be on the journey We're very proud that we get to be a part of it. Thanks so much Ravi appreciate it. Thank you all. Thank you