This is Startup Storefront. There's nothing better than a home-cooked meal. As the pan simmers, the tantalizing aroma's filled the air and everyone's taste buds begin to salivate in excitement. For Hector Saldevar, the founder of T-Labida, sharing his family's hot sauce recipe is akin to welcoming you into his kitchen for a home-cooked meal. In Latin American culture and others, family recipes are passed down from generation to generation. Hector, with his mother's blessing, has taken her hot sauce and bottled it for everyone to enjoy. Some recipes are just too good not to share with the world. T-Labida sells cactus chips, grain-free tortillas, and the best hot sauce on the market. Listen in as we discuss how Hector convinced his mom to let him commercialize their secret family hot sauce recipe, why the large Hispanic brands are out of touch with today's consumer, and why Border Patrol agents started questioning the increasingly large amounts of home-cooked hot sauce being brought over the Mexico-American border. And thank you to Cat Footwear for sponsoring this episode. They're a premier shoe company that empowers builders and doers to reframe the world to create something more meaningful. And on that note, let's jump into the episode. All right, welcome to the podcast. On today's show, we're talking to Hector from T-Labida. Thanks for joining. Welcome. Thank you so much, guys. We're very excited. For people who don't know, what is T-Labida Foods? What's the company do? T-Labida is a better-for-you Mexican-inspired food brand that uses clean, simple ingredients in all of our products. And we are the first brand in the United States to introduce cactus or nopales as an alternative, functional, sustainable ingredient in our line of tortilla chips and tortillas. And what made you want to start the company? Like what was the first thing you were trying to... Because I know, at least in our culture, like trying to get my mom to eat healthy or my Tiaz eat healthy can be kind of difficult. Sometimes they're like, I want my sugar, I want this, right? And so it's like, once the word healthy gets in there, they're like, I don't want it anymore. Right. And so we're careful with the word healthy. We tend to lean into better-for-you, right? It's a better option than other products. I've been in food and beverage, consumer packaged goods all my life. That's how I did my career. That's what brought me to the United States. I'm originally from Monterey, Mexico. And I came here 17 years ago. I drove my 1999 Nissan Altima. That's what's up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that car. From, from, yeah. It was like the old model. It looked horrible. Not the new fancy, bigger version. I drove it from Monterey to Sacramento. Took me two and a half days, two speeding tickets. One in Chihuahua while crossing Chihuahua. You don't want to get stopped by the federales there. And so I landed in Sacramento with this Mexican startup that was commercializing and distributing powdered soft drink, kind of like Kool-Aid or Tang, but with Hispanic flavors. I was frescoes, you know, orchata, hibiscus, tamarind, all that stuff. Yeah, so that's how I started my food and beverage, CPG life adventure. And from there I've been progressing, you know, through the ranks and other different companies. Then I worked for Nestle and then Diamond Foods. And through this journey, I started to realize that, you know, that the Mexican brands that were being offered here, or the Latino or Hispanic brands that were being offered here were, number one, not updating their ingredient lists. They were still using a lot of, you know, high sodium, artificial ingredients, binders, fillers, a lot of junk. They were not innovating. They were just very comfortable just offering just your bland, approachable flavors and foods. And I think most importantly, also what I realized is that for new generations, and especially in a cultured Mexican like myself, they have lost their authenticity or their originality. I don't know if I can mention brands or not, but imagine these entire legacy brands that have been in the shell for 50, 60 years. For new generations, these are mainstream brands. They've lost their authenticity. They've lost their originality. And then they're not keeping up with the new trends. And so that's how I started ideating that there was a big- So you saw that in the market. You were like, okay, this is an interesting area. Okay, so then you're like, all right, cool. I see the space. And then how do you decide what product you're going to go for first, right? Absolutely, yeah. So here's what happens. So when I moved here, my mom Lupita would send me care. People don't know that the company name is after your mother. Yeah, the company's name is after my mom, Lupita. Well, a good son, she must love that, bro. Well, a Lupita, thank you. Yeah, I think she does. As a normal mom would send me care packages, right? Granted, a regular care package for my mom would be like a sweater, maybe some socks, a little money, that would be nice. My mom would send me hot sauce, a family recipe hot sauce that she made. This family recipe had been passed down to a single family member of each generation. Because I like to explain it this way. In Mexico, we don't inherit cars or jewelry or money. We're too poor. What gets passed down to us are our family recipes, right? That's how our family legacy passes on continually. You will always hear Mexicans say, ooh, I'm gonna make my aunts enchiladas, or there's a party, ooh, I'm gonna make my grandmother's mole, right? So those are the family recipes. That's how we pay homage and treat it. That's why they have the debt so big, right? Yeah, that's true. That's true. We do that in Peru, it's a turkey thing. So if you think about this, right? So Peru Thanksgiving, like in most places, this isn't a thing, right? And so we move to America, and then it's Thanksgiving, and no one in the family knows how to cook a turkey because no one's ever done that before. And so my grandma makes this, like, she made the best turkey on the planet, frankly. And it's this delicious recipe. And now you can Google Peruvian turkey recipes, and I think it's something they used to use with chicken, and then they just did a little something else, added some Coca-Cola to it, and so all these secret stuff. And now it's like, but it's the best turkey on earth. And to your point, it's like the grandma's recipe. Every time we make, oh, we gotta use grandma's recipe. Grandma's recipe, for sure, right? Yeah, and it's like an little index card somewhere. I think eventually these recipes with each generation get tweaked. Right, sure. Yeah, each person adds their own little bit. I remove the Coca-Cola, I was like, we're not doing that. We don't need that. We don't need that, we don't drink that anymore. And so was the first product the hot sauce? Yeah, so that was that. So that hot? Which one was it, which one? The red one, the original, the what we call the OG. By the way, they're amazing. Thank you so much. So for people listening, we were lucky enough to get all the products sent to us before this interview, which helps a lot. And Owen, who's our video guy over there, literally will not share it. He's like, they're all for me, and they're just gone. And the chips become really vessels for all the sauce. I was mixing the chipotle and the habanero, that was really good. But dude, fantastic product. So the story about the chips, that's how they came about, where? How do I eat the hot sauce? How do I sample the hot sauce? So I was sampling the hot sauce, exactly. But I mean, just to answer your question, it was surprising to me that when I started sharing my mom's hot sauce with- In the care packages. Right, yeah. And your friends. I'm the guy who brought the hot sauce to work, right? Like the workplace, like, ah. You want to try some homemade hot sauce? And so, dude, what's that bottle? Like, you know, immediately when they see like a funky looking bottle that doesn't have a label, it just like, it's like, what is that? I was like, oh, it's my mom's hot sauce. I put it on my salad or my sandwiches, I was like, can I have some of that? Like, yeah, yeah, it's spicy. And that's the other thing that I started to realize that I've seen change over the years is that the American palate has evolved tremendously. And in Mexico, we've always had that perception that here in the United States, you know, American people couldn't tolerate spicy foods, right? That's the Mexican thing. That sort of thing, oh, we like spicy food, right? And you know, Americans don't know. So I was kind of surprised to see that when I started sharing my mom's hot sauce, people started falling in love with it, literally falling in love with it. And, you know, every time I went back to Mexico to visit, like, they would intercept me on the hallway or like, dude, how are you going to Mexico? Can you tell your mom to make me a bottle? I'll pay or whatnot. And so it started evolving and growing that way, you know, until it became kind of unsustainable. Like, guys, I cannot take any more orders. My mom's working around the clock. Exactly, you know what I'm saying? I'm leaving clothes behind. The custom agents are getting suspicious, like, dude, what are you doing? Like, the last time you came here, you were bringing three, now you're bringing like 13 bottles. Like, what's up? Yeah, you're paying them off with hot sauce. You're like, here's some for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Vaya con Dios. Yeah. And so that was kind of like the, a little bit of ha-ha moment or like, there's something here. And I think there's some other conversation that happened. Well, that, the same thing, like, guys, I cannot be bringing hot sauce all the time. And so it's the quintessential, well, you have to bottle it, man. You have to make it. Sure. You're gonna, you know. It's so good. Everyone should experience this. It's so good. Everyone deserves it. And I think from there, the seed got planted. It was not immediate, right? But it was, it took years of the seed got planted and then the irrigation and the taking and then it started to grow into this idea of there's a possibility, right, of me doing this. And yeah, that's kind of how it all came about.  You're like, all right, let's go. Let's start playing with other flavors, maybe. Exactly right. And she's like, what are you doing? Well, so remember, it's all, it's all remember. You left your job for this? What are you doing? It's all remember this. This is a family recipe. Passed down to a single family member. My mom had to pass it down either to me or I have two sisters, right? So she was, she was already, she had already been approached by many people in Mexico, like other family members, friends, other people that had tried it, like Lupita. If you give me the recipe, I'll blow it up, I'll take it, I'll give you a share, blah, blah, blah. My mom is one of those persons that's super nervous. She gets super worried, super flustered. That's why she wears that curler wig because of her bangs and she gets super hot and the bangs keep falling on her head. And she's like, so anyway, see, so I did have to convince my mom. I had to call her and say, hey, I think I have this idea. I think I want to take a shot and commercializing and building the hot sauce. And so she's like, well, did you ask your sisters because maybe they wanted to do the hot sauce too, you know? Yeah, sure. Because she's being a mom, right? She's like, well, you, this is. I know. I haven't made my decision yet. Yeah, exactly. It's going to one of you, I don't know. What have you done for me lately, Eddie? They really are treating it like an heirloom, like a jewelry or something. Absolutely, and so lucky for me, my two sisters were not interested at all in like learning or trying to do anything with the hot sauce. Actually, they were kind of supportive, like, yeah, bro, you do it, you're the food guy, you're the CPG guy, go and run with it. But to your point, I did have to fly my mom in because it's different for her to, you know, over the phone, you know, tell me how to do it. Maybe couple bottles. No, by the way, she didn't have measurements. Right, she's all. This is like, so how much is that, mom, on the measurement? It's two wooden spoons. It's like, what does that mean? Well, the universal measurement. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the universal measurement of two wooden spoons. I don't know how many you would. So we had to bring her over and she spent a whole week and a half just like teaching me. We have pictures of her in my kitchen, you know, wearing her apron and teaching me how to prep the peppers and all that stuff. So yeah, and then making sure that we could scale it up. That's the thing about businesses. It's fine to have one good product, but you really have to have like four or five, six, right, amazing bangers. And it's hard to do it. It's one and one is hard enough. Never mind two, three, four, five.  What was the capital looking like? Did you just put all your life savings into it? Yeah, so at first we bootstrapped. And I say we because I have my wife and I like to say she's the silent partner, right? And she's the boss. Yeah, she's not silent. Yeah, she's not silent. So no, at first, again, there was this, again, you know, to start a business and to take the dip and the dive into the CPG or a startup world, you need to have a little bit of, you know, confidence, have a little bit of naivete and be a little foolish, a little bit like it's a combination of everything. You know, my approach is like, I only need one hot sauce. I only need one skew. Like Tapatio is one, you know, Cholula for the main, it's one, you know, Tabasco. You just, you know, other, they have all the skews, but they have one, like one main. So I'll make it with one. That's the foolishness and naivete that kind of dive into with. And then, you know, you start receiving the feedback and then, so for us what happened, so we bootstrapped this from the get-go. So the company that I worked for had been sold and so I got some severance from that and I got a little bonus and I got some packages on that so that with my wife's blessing, she said, like, we can allocate that to starting the business, right? Let's see how it goes. Let's give it a year, you know? Famous last words. Like, let's give it a year, let's see how it goes. And so for us, I started the hustle right away. I mean, I immediately put my door-to-door sales rep cap which brought, that's how I started in the United States and it was easy for me, just, you know, waking up early, crackin' the dawn, five a.m. because I know that there's a very tight window for buyers or grocery store managers to receive you, right? Because then after six, it's go time. Like, they won't see anyone, they're super focused on the inventory and receiving orders and the customer and all that stuff.  And then from there, literally just because one account took it, then the competition wanted it because they didn't want it and so, and because I'm local and I was leaning in on the local stuff, local, local, local. And it kind of cut fire within the Bay Area, specialty, natural accounts, independently.  And I'm like, can I curse? Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, fuck, I should know this, man. Yes, I'm from. I'm on the CPG.  And so, yeah, and so that's helped. So later, that same year, we sold our first bottle in 2018. Late 2018, I was already, you know, launching our second skew, which is the salsa verde. Did your mom help in the creation of all these other skews? All of them are based, so the salsa verde is 100% my mom's recipe. And then that also kind of took off, but I think it was so, there was not a salsa verde in the format that I was offering and that also became a really good seller. And then I just started seeing the traction, right? And so I'm like, all right, all right. And so obviously, what's another popular flavor? And then that's chipotle and then habanero.  Habanero was the one that she didn't because habanero is actually a pepper that it's not grown in the Northern Mexicans, but I knew that habanero was catching up. I knew that habanero is hot as hell, and so a lot of people don't do exactly intimidating and don't want to try it because of that. So I wanted to make sure that using kind of like the same base ingredients. So if you look, except for salsa verde, the hot sauce chipotle and habanero will have vinegar, cumin, oregano, black pepper, and salt. And so that base gives it that tielupita flavoring. So yeah, so I did that with habanero, but I want to make sure that you could taste the habanero and enjoy it and that it didn't fatigue your taste buds and then you're like, I'm not gonna reuse it again. Exactly. So that's why we got creative with using carrots, diluting the heat with carrots and onions and mangoes and dates.  You're probably out facing the cat building. Things are going great. Obviously I need to sample, right? And so on the sampling, I started to realize like, you know, I'm always buying like the tortilla chips to see that's how you sample hot sauce, right?  So I'm like, huh, all right, maybe there's something here, right? And also then I started to realize that there was this white space that I had noticed that like, hey, maybe Tila Pita can become more than just hot sauce. Maybe we can become this platform brand and kind of following my self-fulfilling needs, if you will, because at the end of the day, the hot sauce is self-fulfilling for me. I launched it because of the demand I've had in my network of friends and colleagues, but also for me, I'm a user and I couldn't find a hot sauce in the marketplace that tasted like my mom's hot sauce that had the right amount of heat and flavor and so in ingredients. So kind of following the same fulfilling needs, I decided, okay, Tila Pita, we're gonna become a platform brand and the next line of product is going to be cactus tortillas. No, it was cactus tortillas. Tortillas made with nopales. And was that hard, that just the innovation or the concept of that to get the taste right? Here it goes. In Mexico, they already have this offering. So every time I went to Mexico, I would be bringing cactus tortillas for myself. Why? Because the product didn't exist in the market here. I love tacos. I, here's the thing.  So in Mexico, we realized that by mixing cactus or nopales with the corn masa, we were able to reduce the calorie and carb content of the tortilla, which is like, that's the guilt part of the taco. It's not the insight. It's always at the shell. It was always a tortilla. And so I said, hey, maybe I can launch this with a Tila Pita branding cactus tortillas. And honestly, I first went with Whole Foods in Northern California with a forager and I talked to him and said, hey, I have this idea. Do you think, you know, if I make it, would Whole Foods be interested in this? Like, is this something that you would carry? And so I gave him a taste of product that I had brought from Mexico, which by the way, it was crappy in quality and still we're using binders and silicon sand, stuff that you wouldn't like to eat. But he tried and said, you know, if you can offer us something that is with simple ingredients, natural and tastes better than this, I think this could work. And yeah, and that's how we got to work on that project. And very quickly, I had an opportunity, there was a Consumer Discovery show here in LA in Santa Monica and Whole Foods buyer for Southern California and New York were visiting the show. They stopped, they tried a tortilla, they loved it and they immediately brought it. Like, it was like so innovative. They loved the nutritional fact that the attribute, the store behind cactus, which is a whole nother, you know, segment here. So they brought it first in Northern California. I even, to the point that Northern California felt like left out, like, dude, we're the ones who were collaborating on this. But yeah, they brought it immediately. And so if you can make, so check this out. I'm sampling the tortillas and someone tries these and they're like, this is already delicious. Are you planning to make tortilla chips? And I'm like, I wasn't planning to, but it was like, well, you know that you have tortillas. You just cut them in triangles and they become tortilla chips.  Yeah, but I have, yes, as a matter of fact, yes, I was planning to make tortilla chips. And so that very quickly, man, Telupta evolved into this platform, bro. Just on conversations and demand and hearing ideas from other people. So in a timeframe, you said you went from first skew in early 2018 to the end of 2018, you had the multiple hot sauce line. So two lines. Two lines. And then in 2019, I still only had hot sauce. So early in 2019, Chipotle hit the market. Avanero hit the market right around the middle of 2019. And towards the end of 2019, that's kind of when I was just like, all right, I'm working on the other two line extensions. Got it. And in terms of just, if we can take a bit of a detour here, I'm just curious about the growing patterns of the cactus that you're using. Because again, I know cactus in my mind grows fairly slowly. And so I don't know about the Nogales cactus if it's a little bit faster growing or anything, but like, how often can you harvest this cactus? Yeah, so exactly. So there's this types, there's different types of cactus, right? You have the Sahuaros, right? That are the ones that look like people. Yeah, take like 100 years to grow. Every summer, there's like nopales. Nopales is the one that have the pads, the flat pads. Some produce a prickly pear, which is also becoming really popular for drinking. It's good in beer. Yeah, also, absolutely. And so what's beautiful about cactus, I mean, to the point that for me when I was doing the market research, it's like, why hasn't anyone done this? I mean, it's like the typical Andy Warhol that drew the kind of soups like, well, I could have done that, but you didn't. It was Andy Warhol who did it. And so I'm like, so check this out, nopales. For us Mexicans is part of our heritage, culture, diet. Like if you go to a Mexican restaurant, the vegetarian option is gonna be nopales. It's even in our Mexican flag, the eagle eating the snake on top of the cactus. It's very meaningful for us. But nopales has the same superfood nutrients as kale, moringa, goji berries or kelp. So it's high in antioxidants, low glycemic, high in fiber, high in calcium, high in iron. But not only that, it's the most sustainable plant in the world. It grows in the desert. Needs very little water to grow. And nopales reach maturity every six months. So we can crop and harvest twice a year, right? And so crops are yielding less. I mean, this is gonna sound super shitty, man. I'm sorry, but global warming is real. Climate change is real. Crops are yielding less. And nopales is the only plant that thrives under that condition.  Your business in a way has become future proof just by virtue of the ingredients that you use. Exactly, right. And I know, and I kind of knew also that nopales is polarizing on its own. Like the cactus with spikes and it's green and how do you handle it? You process it and once you get out, it's slimy on the inside. So I knew that, you know, if I wanted to reach the mainstream consumer that I needed to teach it in an approachable way, put it as an ingredient in chips and tortillas, right? And then from there, hopefully spark more interest. And I'm really happy that, you know, well, back in 2018, I did get a lot of pushback just like on the education. And it's like, especially from investors, like how are you gonna educate or are you worried about this and that? To 2022, we're going into 2023 and there's this surge of cactus brands. Like it's amazing, there's a brand in New York called Mopalera and she uses the same cactus to do soaps and shampoos. There's the prickly pear water movement. There's like a brand in Boston that does prickly, cactus water. Vanessa Hudgens has her own brand called Kali Water with prickly pear. There's a snack in Chicago, a snack brand in Chicago that uses cactus and chia seeds and amaranth. When I first saw your brand, I'll give you some user research here and this is gonna probably surprise you, maybe I don't know, but basically when I looked at it the first time in, you know, before even really doing any research, I literally thought it was just like the color. I was like, oh, cactus is the color. I didn't think at all it was the ingredient.  And it's just the color is a little different. And the color of the logo on the chip Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what I thought it was. It's just like, is the color of cactus, that's why it's- They call it cactus, just to add a little flair to the bag, that's all, literally. Interesting, yeah. Yes, because to me, I think maybe in the tortilla chip category, like maybe the user's just conditioned if it's a chip, it's either a potato chip or a tortilla chip. A tortilla chip, yeah. What other chip can there be? Have you seen what I'm saying? Absolutely. And so there's some, maybe it's just after I was doing research, I was like, oh, this is interesting. Right, no, and to your point, there has been this movement of grain, going into grain free, right? And because it's better for your digestive system and there's other, you know, people have other autoimmune deficiencies that, you know, grain irritates them in their- It's even better for you because even the production. So even if you're getting like, even oat grain is, even if it's like in the vicinity of wheat at some point, any wind can bring it over. And now if you have a gluten free product using oat flour, that can go bad. We just had a conversation with someone who had to do a recall, even though they're doing oat flour, but there were strains of gluten coming from somewhere around the farm.  No, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, you have to be really careful, especially if you have certifications like we do, you know. And these certifying companies, when they're due, they're audit, they're really meticulous. They really want to make sure that there's no cross-contermination that they know the origin of the ingredients that we're coming from and all that stuff. So when I started thinking about tortilla chips, then also through conversation, it's like, should we go corn and cactus or should we go grain-free? And I think I chose going grain-free because that would allow me to open more doors. I think because from that, because you know, a corn chip is already, it's very known and it's very saturated. But if I went grain-free, which is still on the up-rise and adding the attributes of this novel ingredient, like the cactus, I thought that would help me open more doors. Yeah, and it seems to be working for you. And it has, absolutely. Are you nationwide with Whole Foods? We are, we are in five regions. How many regions are there? I think there are like 13, maybe, but we're in the good ones. Yeah, I'll be the best. I'm kidding me, Atlantic and Florida. Indiana. Indiana, Indiana. Midwest, I still love you guys. Coming soon. Coming soon. No, but we just got our chips because authorized in nine divisions of Kroger with three flavors. So they're bringing sea salt, hot sauce and chipotle. And we're gonna be in QFC, which is in the Pacific Northwest. Fred Meyer as well, Pacific Northwest. Ralph's, which is Southern California. We're gonna be in Fries, which is more of Nevada and Arizona. We're gonna be in Dillon's, which is the Kansas area. Then Houston, Dallas. We're really proud about that one.  We just, our one skew of chips, our hot sauce flavor chip is gonna debut at Costco here in LA. Oh, nice, nice. 59 clubs. Wow, I'm gonna look out for that. Yeah, thank you. September. It's hard to get into Costco. Oh, well, exactly. Big production. So then the next question is, are you going to set up one of those, like, booths inside Costco? Absolutely. Yeah, that's what we're planning to do that, exactly. We wanna make sure that we're educating shoppers and their club members and that we're telling them about the attributes of cactus and why this product is better than other options out there for sure. So, yeah, we're really excited. We're nervous. We said, big production, big, big out-of-pocket.  Right, it's gotta be Costco-sized. Palette, palette, yeah. Palette ready to display palette with the things. And so, we're a small, but mighty team of four and we're super, you know, we're stretched thin, but we're really focused. And now, are you raising capital or are you still bootstrapping? No, we're raising capital. So, we were able to bootstrap, you know, for the first couple of years and then we were like, okay, wait. This is becoming really serious, we do need more. So, we did, you know, traditionally, we did our friends and family and then from there we did a pre-seed and so now we're doing a seed, right? Right on. Are there any other things you're working on? Like, are there any categories that you see as interesting that maybe you wanna expand into? Right, right. Of desserts or, obviously the chip aisle seems, you've dominated, but is there more there? So, I think with chips, well, there's a lot of innovation still to do within the lines, right? Two ounce, so a snack size to go like into the delis and convenience stores. Oh, you mean like the sauce? No, I'm talking chips. Okay. You know, it's all about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, got it, got it, got it. But same with hot sauces, we... Yeah, Owen would love that, it's good. Crush, you would crush a little two, three ounce or? Oh, yeah. Well, that's exactly right. So, for example... And a little toothpaste spot? I can just see you going, a little cheese get there, like a little... This is my to-go salsa, it says Owen on it. Or you can go really big. So, if you go to Costco, Canada, Costco, Canada, this is one of those things that... Costco, Canada. Is bringing a 32 ounce bottle of hot sauce. So, earlier in the episode, you talked about how Americans' palates have changed over the years. So, in my head, when I think of Canada, I think of their proclivity to even less heat and... Maybe more, maybe their intensity. Well... There's a big Indian population in Canada. Yeah, there is, there is. So, everything that starts in the States eventually makes it to Canada, all trends and all the like. So, remember, Canada is also really cold and so hot sauce gives you that perception of heat. So, I was really surprised when I started this, we got requests from Finland and Norway and Denmark. So, we shipped the Lupita directly to the Nordic countries. Not something I would have guessed. No, absolutely. And so, what they tell us is, they're the ones who say that their food is kind of bland. True, true. And that they're, you know, they've discovered it with spicy foods and hot, that the flavors come more and more alive. And then, you know, it complements the winter, right? If there's anything that makes them sweat during the winter. So, I'm guessing in Canada, it might be the same, but there is a spicy trend happening also in Canada. People are, I think it's a worldwide thing. So, are they connected enough where you getting your hot sauce into Costco Canada will eventually help you get into the US? Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. That's what we planned. That's what we're hoping for, right? Yeah. But again, like you mentioned, getting into Costco is really hard. They're very picky, they're very meticulous. I mean, talk about restricted shelf space, right? Everything is merchandised by the pallet and you have so much square food that you can allocate. So, our idea is to, you know, hopefully mature our chips here in the 59 clubs and then next year ask for, you know, can we expand into 150 clubs or 200 clubs and then maybe on year three, can we go national, right? But the thing, it's growing smart and at the pace that we can afford, right? You know, growing this fast without direction, you can lose focus and it doesn't help if we go nationally at Costco and the product doesn't move. When you think about the future of Tia Lupita, are you thinking of potential partnerships because when I think of hot sauce, our chips or tortillas, obviously there's a lot of brands that you might be able to partner with or where you could pair your offering with theirs. But then again, there's the route where you could just do it yourself like you have with the tortilla chips and the tortillas and I'm not sure if you've explored that option with anything else. Yeah, no, absolutely and I'm always open for partnerships and helping other brands. This is gonna sound super weird but it's true, two years ago, it was still during pandemic times for April Fool's Day, we decided that we were gonna make an announcement that Tia Lupita is now going into ice cream and we're gonna do flavored salsa verde ice cream. Some people do that. So flavored chipotle ice cream, habanero. And so I posted it on social media and on LinkedIn and it was such a polarizing post that people were like, this is amazing. When is it coming out? Or it's like, oh, I hope this never happens. But the positives were I'll pace the negatives so much. And it's like, guys, April Fool's, we're not doing this. Literally next month, double rainbow ice cream in San Francisco reached out to us like, we used your chipotle in one of our chocolate chip ice cream and it tastes delicious. Can you come and taste it? And so I went and tasted it and it was amazing, dude. The chocolate chip habanero chipotle. And it was amazing. And they launched it, dude. They launched it this year. And it's been raised with publications and you got featured on the Today Show. Like, it's amazing. That's phenomenal. But yeah, it's what started us a joke. It's a good PR hit. Yeah, exactly. Became a collaboration and so it's stuff like that. So yeah, for sure. But there's also the opportunity of, we continue to expand. We wanna be this better for you Mexican platform brand, and so salsa matcha is the other one that we're launching. We're really excited about salsa matcha. Salsa matcha is the Mexican take on chili crisp, chili oil, chili crunch, right? Which is taking the United States by surprise. This trend, they're putting fly by jing on ice cream. And so I saw that there's all this craze for chili oil, but it has this Asian flair, Asian taste. So I'm like, exactly. So it's like, in Mexico, we have this. We have our own, but it's regional. In Mexico, it comes from the state of Veracruz. And so, but more regional foods are making it to other parts of Mexico. So it helped that last time I went to Mexico, I went to my parents house, they had salsa matcha. It's like, what is this? I have never had it in my life. It's like, oh, it's salsa matcha. It's oil with pepita, sunflower seeds, and some have peanuts, some have cranberries, and you can put it on anything. And I'm like, and I taste it, I was like, this is delicious. That's one of the other things that I think with Telo Pita becoming this platform brand is we can introduce other regional foods from Mexico that even within Mexico, we don't know about that we can bring them here to the United States and we can find them at use. I mean, I was in Minneapolis last week and we were at a food show next to our booth. It was this gluten-free brownie company. And so I grabbed one of their chocolate brownies and literally poured salsa matcha on top of it and took a bite. And it's like, everybody was like, what are you doing? And I was just like, I feel it's gonna taste good. And lo and behold, it blew us all away. It gave an additional butteriness and spice and on a level, it's just amazing. And it had the pepitas and so it gave it some crunch too. And it was amazing. What about a restaurant? You ever think about a restaurant, just a, because I think for your business and CPG is like the closer you can get to the customer, the better. And so the feedback loop becomes everything, but it's hard when you scale, right? It's like at the beginning, it's you doing the tastings and at some point it's not you and then someone's doing it at Costco, but it's already like the product is proven by the time you get to Costco or nationwide.  I mean, I did at once, but it's like, take it easy Hector, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. It's a lot. It's a different animal. It's a beast. But to your point, I think a logical next step for Tielupita is also to start dipping into the food service. So making sure that our hot sauce, we have it like on a gallon or a sachet or like something like so that people, we can sell it to delis or taquerias or airlines, Delta Airlines, the other day came to us at a show and it's like this chip on a, you know, it would be amazing. And so we have all this great stuff, but it's, it's again, we need to do it at our own pace, right? Yeah. Because- How do you view your social media strategy, right? And so, right? Cause it's kind of tough for like, really your business is selling to businesses. And so you're a CPG company, but at the same time there's like brands so building the brand becomes your Instagram, social media is the only way of doing that. And so how do you, with the changing, it's changing every day now. How do you view that? No, I just thought the same thing. I just, we just hired our online marketing and community manager, because before it was, it was me. Yeah. With what I know doing- April Fool's jugs. Freaking Instagram, exactly, you know. Which, you know, to be fair, worked. Well, yeah, exactly, but you know, we could, we could be doing so much, but I was born in 1977. I know I don't look like it. But, so I missed being a millennial by three years. So I don't know how to just, you know, to connect with millennials or Gen Z. So I knew I needed to hire someone from that generation so that she can connect through her with the brand to our tribe, right? And so we're super excited with her and she's done a fantastic job. And so that was something that I needed to invest on, right? Like that we needed for sure. That's what we're trying to prove that these tired legacy Hispanic brands or Mexican brands are not connecting with the new generations. They connected with the boomers and all that stuff, but with the new ones, they don't. They lack social media connectivity and then just on the ingredients, on the marketing and everything, right?  We need to revitalize this Hispanic set. And we need to bring brands like Tielopita, like La Monarca, Agua Bonita, Somo, Chusa, Nemi.   Like this is real now. This is so much bigger or different than I had thought. Yes, I think, you know... Let me get you a drink, hold on. When I started, I was doing the hot sauce myself in a commercial kitchen, right? My mom had taught me how to do it. And so I was the one who, and so I could only do seven cases of hot sauce every time I went to the commercial kitchen. So the moment that I decided the orders, the velocities, I about paste what I can do here. And I went to a co-packer and it was nerve-wracking because had to give them the recipe. Exactly, and then there's NDAs and all that stuff, but you tweak something and it's something different and that goes whatever. So trusting this person with the recipe and then... That had been handed down for generations.  For example, my mom would use fresh jalapenos, you know, when you go to that scale, imagine the stemming in jalapeno. So we had to compromise that we can use puree, which comes from the same, it's the same, but it's just somebody processed it and pureed it and then now where are you gonna use it? So stuff like that, that is like, okay, this is, you know, am I compromising too much? Is this gonna work? Are people gonna like it the same, et cetera, et cetera. It's stuff like that, that you talk to other people and you need to bounce it off with other founders and other people that have gone through the same journey. I think someone just told me, hey, progress, not perfection, right? And then I think that clipped on me and then I kind of started to go and I started to let loose. But there's, dude, a whole bunch more, like if you bring a bottle of tequila, man, I would, you have four more hours, raising money, getting all the struggles of missing shipments, not getting orders. Like it's a whole thing, everything's a stress, but it's good, it's good. Keeps you sharp. Absolutely, absolutely. Nobody said that it was easy, right? Because if it was, everybody would do it. That's so true. Hector, thanks for coming on the podcast, brother. Really appreciate it. Thanks for sharing your story. That's it? I was just getting warmed up. No, I'm kidding, no, no, no, thank you guys so much, man, I appreciate it. It was a lovely time. Thank you for allowing me to tell my journey and I also wish you guys good luck on the podcast. And send me the deck. Send me the deck. Absolutely, man, we'll do it for sure. Fundraising season is here. Yeah, fundraising season is here. Well, it has to before the recession, I guess. That's true. How are you thinking about the recession? Are you doing certain things internally? Yeah, that's why we're raising and we want to make sure that we have enough money in the bank so that whatever happens, yeah. But as other brands are struggling, we are thriving and so it's... You're the category leader, it seems. Yeah, yes, for now. Yeah, keep it, baby. Hopefully, yeah, we will. Thanks, man, I appreciate it. Appreciate it.  Thank you so much for making it to the end of the episode. Make sure to follow us on Instagram, subscribe on YouTube and we cannot wait to see you next week for another great episode. Cheers.


Good morning sirs. Curse from Hazari Park. That is the legs sir. Yes sir. How are you? I am doing very well sir, thank you. You have been in Delhi or coming from Hazari Park? Sir, I was in the Hazari Park till now. I came here a couple of weeks back to the preparation. You worked in Goldman Sachs department? Yes sir. What's your father? Sir, he is a junior engineer in the Public Works department in Sharpen. Tell me something about the Holy Works department in Sharpen. How it is working? What are the issues? And any good experience your father would have made? The Public Works department is historically set up in 1850s by Mr. Dalhousie. It's involved in a lot of public assets creation, such as lids, loads, bridges, etc. My father goes through and approves the estimates for such projects. He has reported a few cases where... Estimates at all? Sir, I understand he approves the estimates first and oversees the construction data. Coming to the issues, there are funding crunches. Often there are projects that need to be approved for a greater amount. But the funds get delayed. There are also some reports of the delays and the overrunning of funds. And some reports of corruption as well. Sir, coming to a few... I can think of one good incident where the project was quite essential. It was an irrigation project for the farms. And that had been pending for a long time. Yes, and also it's part of the WTO? So it was a point construction for general purposes. I think it would have led to irrigation as well. So that was pending for a long time. My father was quite instrumental in getting it approved at an earlier age. So people were quite happy. Do you have any idea about the last action proceedings? Sir, that means... Since I'm 11, I cannot take over at this time. No, sir, I cannot take over at this time. A lot of cases and reports. Sir, I'm not aware of the specific category of cases. I'm sorry, I'll look at them. You'd have read the papers that came yesterday and the papers that came today. Monetisation of 6-5 crore. Yes, sir. So the project is meant to monetise our existing assets across diverse sectors. We need railways, we need energy, we need electricity, and so forth. The idea is to not lose ownership of these projects. I don't know what that is. We have roads. Highway is there. Highway number 8. Yes, sir. So a private sector could be given operational control over it. They will be responsible for maintenance, etc. And at the same time, they will benefit from the toll that has been provided there, sir. So... So it will be burdened with extra toll. We are the consumer. So it will be burdened with toll. Sir, that is the meaning of monetisation? Sir, the project has to be something that is monetisable. This means it has some income source associated with it. So it has some roads, I think, on that road or something. There will be a small amount of toll method to ensure it is maintained and a good quality road is provided to the consumers. Airports? So in the airports again, it will be leased out to private sectors. They will be giving a monthly or yearly payment for it. Airports are only private sector for their managing? Some of them, yes. There are two or three of them which are currently being managed by private sector. But the others can also... Sort of, what's the basic of today? Indeed, sir. Yes, sir. You understood? I couldn't understand. So in this specific case of airports, I don't fully understand you. In the case of roadways, it's easier to visualise how it will be monetised, how the cash flows will go. I'll look up about the airports. Okay. Our computer has some in the country. I think in the last year, there has been good growth in the computer sector. Personal PC. So have I any idea about that? Yes, sir. The internet penetration data has gone up quite dramatically. Around 35% a year before. 45% in one year. Oving to the COVID pandemic and the technology adoption. Can you tell me about the good markets in the country? Sir, I can take a guess, but I'm not aware. Sir, I would believe Lenovo has a good cap along with that Dell. HB. Yes, sir. Even Acer to some extent. Okay. You would have heard CSS. You heard CSS? Indicates. Yes, there are central response schemes. There are another two CSS. One is central response scheme. One is central secretary service. That is central staffing scheme. Sir, I'm not aware of the latter two. Going to the government, they're not heard of this scheme. I'll go and read to you about this. Okay. Where do we have jabras and kirabs in our country? Sir, as far as I'm aware, kirabs do not occur in the country. They don't use address. They don't occur naturally in the country. Do not happen. So we can import them and have them artificially introduced. They haven't approved like this? Yes, sir. Okay, if you did a couple of things generally, and you're optional is mother marriage.  Yes, sir. I'm going to ask you about game theory. Are you comfortable with game theory? Sir, I understand the basics of game theory. Okay, very simple thing in game theory. What is known as prisoner's dilemma? What is prisoner's dilemma? Yes, sir. So it's a situation where there are two prisoners and it is not clear who has committed a crime. So they are asked to compress. Then based on the compressions, actions will be taken. So if neither of them confesses, they get a small amount of penalty, let's say one year of imprisonment. If one of them confesses, the other does not confess. That person gets two years of imprisonment. The other person is let off. In the final case, if both the person can press, sir, I think I'm missing this one. It's the other way around. Both the person can press, they get one year each. If one person can press, he gets two years. If nobody can press, both of them get three years. So what is likely to be the outcome? Sir, the likelihood will end up being, basically the decision will not be in the favor of either of them because for both of them, it is more beneficiary to not confess, regardless of what the other person is taking. This is like a strategic guess as you have put it. I don't know what you mean by strategic guess. In game theory, this is the sort of strategy you should follow. But now coming to civil service and game theory, what will be the outcome? Suppose you have a social policy. Now, you know what is isolation paradox? Sir, I am not going to talk about that. See, what is good for individual may not be good for the society. For example, I can preach, save, save, save. I myself may not save. You follow. This is called isolation paradox. In administration also, you may come on the situation that individually you feel something should be, I mean you don't do it yourself, but you just do it. So we apply this game theory there. Now, do you know what is the Karna solution in a game theory? I am not aware. Okay, something more simple, let me ask you on mathematics. What is the value of zero? So zero is a symbol you shouldn't invert or nothing. It has a null value. Basically, the value of zero is more as a prefix to a number or as a suffix to a number. So zero adds more value as a suffix to a number. So a suffix to a number. Now, a simple thing. What is the harmonic mean? So the harmonic mean is the arithmetic mean of the reciprocal. So if there is x1 and x2, the geometric mean will be, I am sorry, the harmonic mean will end up being 2x and x2 upon x1 is x2. Is there any relative between harmonium and harmonic mean? The instrument harmonium is 8. Sir, I mean how? Is there a symbol in the harmonium? No, no, sir. Or that means most of the musical instrument. Okay, now we were talking about monetization. Yes, sir. Now, you see to me the whole idea of monetization is here. The problem that is announced is basically the user charges. Can I say that? Whether it is road or power sector, any sector. And to minimize losses, is that the idea? What do you think? Sir, the idea is to have a revenue stream coming out of assets which are currently either lying without a revenue stream or to improve the revenue stream. The government has more revenue out of the existing assets without transferring monetization. Is there some sort of rent seeking? Sir, it is definitely renting. Although rent seeking has a negative connotation. Sir, I will not use that. Why? In what sense? How can rent seeking be negative? Sir, we know. That tells me how? Sir, normally rent about that in the context of corruption where people ask for bribes. So, I thought this would have a negative connotation, Okay, good. Now, one more simple question. What is FRBM? Sir, FRBM act, the fiscal regulation and budgetary monitoring. Fiscal? As regulation, responsibility. Responsibility and budget management. It is basically an act that provides a roadmap for fiscal consolidation that is bringing down a fiscal deficit and keeping a sort of, encouraging government to cut down on excess expenditure. Recently, there was a review committee on the increasing resource center and that provided a roadmap in 2022 for 0.8% revenue GDP and 2.5% overall fiscal deficit. 2.5 overall fiscal deficit. How do you define a fiscal deficit? The fiscal deficit is the excess amount that is spent apart from excess of the income of the government. This does not include the budgetary borrowing, sir. So, it is essentially the borrowings that we have to meet to ensure the budget balances. Is the problem a bad thing? Sir, a deficit means that we end up having to borrow to meet it. So what? Borrow for a good cost. So, economists say that as long as our interest rate for borrowing is less than the expected GDP growth rate, it means we can recover it in the future and we are gaining net profit. So, a small amount of deficit, especially in a faster growing economy like India, is not a very bad thing, sir. Last question. What is the difference between a consumption expenditure and a capital expenditure? Sir, consumption expenditure is made on asset or something which is consumed immediately. So, if a consumer makes an expenditure on food items, that really comes up in expenditure. What is the capital expenditure? Capital expenditure is made on asset for a longer time period. For example, this could be the acquisition of land, this could be the acquisition of shares in the stock market, etc. So, don't we think we should look at the, why the deficit has come up? We should condemn the expenditure or capital expenditure. So, you can't just pass a judgment saying the deficit should have that. You know, it is all different. Thank you, sir. Can you tell us something about Hazaribat? Any famous personality, qualification is important? Sir, personality wise, I can think of, I would say Yashwant Srinu, who was in a minute civil servant and later went on to serve the government as minister as well. I can also think of a few places which are famous in Hazaribat. Okay. Now, in Jharkhand, this next slide problem is spending since long. What are the reasons why several governments they came but could not handle it so effectively? How do you analyze the whole situation? What are the problems behind the actual crisis line? Sir, the fundamental problem is the development deficit. Prior to bifurcation, the freight equalization policy posed bifurcation, a mix of problems including political instability and infrastructure, et cetera. So, whenever we have a development deficit that leads to dissatisfaction among the people and promotes radical activities against the region. Secondly, also, sir, the geography of the region, which is highs and lows of the platter and dense forests, they enable nationalism to exist, sir. Also, in countries with the Red Polydor, where even when the state takes action, they take refuge in another state, such as for Telangana, et cetera. Interstate coordination, sir, there is slightly lacking. All of these reasons come together to make mixillism a threat that is relevant even today, sir. But one good approach would have been to stop their funding, because they are getting funding from some internal sources. So, what are your observations of that? So, indeed, any strategy to counter mixillism needs to be multi-planned. One of the problems needs to be funding the funding as you pointed out, sir. The other problems will be development and security capacity, sir. Have you heard about the NEP 2020? Yes, sir. So, what are the salient features of this and how it will affect the future of its students in higher education? So, national education policy, the recommendation of the customer and then committee, set our road map for education in the hall, over one by 28, 30, 35 years. It has a lot of prominent features both in school and higher level education. In school education, it set a target of 100% enrollment by 2025. We are providing for vocational and internships right from Class 6. It's shifting our focus from road learning to testing code learning competencies. We are equally focusing on teacher training. All of this makes it quite a complete overhaul in the schools in the schooling. Coming to higher education, sir, we have targeted 50% enrollment by 2035. We are targeted of 6% GDP expenditure in this. Trying to give us a maximum, shortest possible form. What do you mean? So, apart from this, we are setting up the National Research Foundation to foster research across the country. Setting up mayor's, modern education research universities. They will act as a beacon of inspiration for other institutions to progress. So, apart from this is data flexibility to students in the form of academic credit grants multiple points of entry and exit into the courses. And data-proposal process can be used for studies and research. Our students, research professors, they are of high quality because when they go abroad, in Oxford, Harvard, they are doing wonderful job. Why not our IITs and IIMs? They are opening up their, you know, campuses in USA and UK and Europe. And they can come and establish their campuses in India. So, what is the hard way there? This is indeed a proposal in the National Education Policy, as well, in these prominent universities and open campuses abroad, and enable collaboration. Currently, I understand there was some popular opposition until now because it was feared that foreign universities open campuses here. And they are making money from India. Our money is going to them. So, why we should not get their money after establishing our campuses there? Yes, sir. So, that is something we definitely are exploring and we should be looking at it. I think there also is something, some significant expenditure involved. That could have been one hurdle here. So, we are now looking at it. Okay, India is prone to several natural disasters which is causing a lot of loss. A lot of you can say loss in economy. So, can you tell us what are the natural disasters, how we can minimize them? There is no concrete approach. Yes, sir. Sir, due to a geographic diversity, India is indeed prone to multiple disasters. Be it cyclones on the eastern and increasingly the western coast. Be it animal floods in Bihar and Assam and now in some urban areas as well. Be it avalanches and flash floods that we have seen in the Himalayas also in landslides. All of these are the common natural disasters in India. So, our approach so far has been on adaptation here. I think one important thing we can do is mitigation. That is preparedness against it. In terms of disasters like avalanches and landslides better land management strategies needed which includes afforestation and land identification. Secondly, sir, there also needs to be a focus on disaster resilient infrastructure so that even when the disasters occur the impact on human lives and property is quite minimal. They can recover faster. Okay, now there is another very important issue that is climate change and a lot of you know countries they are putting pressure on India to stop carbon emission. Is it possible for us that we can stop our carbon source or emission by stopping the burning of the coal because coal is mainly used in thermal power plants and we need energy. So, if we stop you know burning of the coal what are the other options of living with us? So, coal indeed contributes 55% of our electricity. So, it is very important. Despite the need for climate, for net carbon neutrality that I guess set by 2050 for EPCC report sir, India has traditionally not used the carbon emissions. Our emissions is very, very low on per capita basis. All developed countries have used it to lease the levels of prosperity. Secondly, sir, India also needs substantial commitments under a Paris climate deal. The iron disease. They have also upgraded their commitments earlier under Kyoto too. So, these are something in that India is the only G20 country to be on track to achieve the iron disease. So, I understand India is already doing a lot and given our socio-economic conditions India needs to use the fossil fuels to bring more people out of poverty and provide them better living conditions. So, I don't think India should be pressurized into an early commitment. However, we could strengthen our commitments in coordination with the other developed countries especially through their commitment of the 100 million dollars per year under the Green Climate Council. You know, one UN conference, one expert from Harvard said that in India the rural women can play important role in mitigating climate change. Can you suggest any idea of what he was referring to? Rural women in rural area, how they are producing carbon dioxide, what activities they are doing? The major thing I can think of is the domestic fuels which are often coal or oil. Burning of the wood, cow dung. So, they have to use for cooking food even for boiling water during winter. So, 80% people are residing in villages in India. So, what are the options of living with us that we can really stop such activities in rural areas? Sir, the first thing I can think of is the LPG usage. Something common is already promoting under the Ujjvala scheme. Equally, we can focus on higher gas. That is not only a country-based management issue but also enabling to use the same waste for gas which is far cleaner. It will also be an example of circular economies because the plant waste or the cow dung is being resettled into gases. So, the net carbon emission is not there, sir. Okay, you have done your bitter computer science from IIT Bombay. You know, this advancement in computer science is that really we are getting benefit of that but at the same time this has decreased the employment revenues for the youth as well as increased in the cyber crimes. So, how these two issues can be tackled? What are your observations of that? Sir, with the IIT Bombay, we have reduced computer science for our growth as well as export boosting. As you rightly pointed out, sir, there have been concerns of job losses especially with automation coming up in IIT 4.0. So, for this, I think we need to reorient our scaling programs accordingly. Currently, sir, the focus has been on labor and denser industries. That needs to continue but that also needs to be in line with the coming up automation. We shouldn't be training people to do tasks which will be automated in the next 5 or 10 years. Secondly, sir, we also need to create a greater pool of professionals in the upcoming technologies through dedicated academy programs, through academy industrial increases so that these two automation tools are available to everybody because what I eventually see is automation being a tool to increase the value of human decisions. When a person, sir, for example, earlier we had the iron tools that boosted the output that one person could produce. Similarly, here when somebody in the industry has access to automation. Thank you, sir. So, you also have a hobby of mountaineering. Where have you been? Sir, for my late hours of Mumbai so I went to 9 or 10 4 tracks in the western parts. While I was at Bangalore for a year I went to Kumar Bangalore which is the second highest peak there and to Mulyangri. And in Paila Delhi, sir, I went to the basic mountaineering course of Manali and a 300 track invention. So, any hardcore mountaineering sites, right? Maybe Mount Everest or something? Have you thought of it or have you planned anything? Sir, those are definitely the future. But as of now the most hardcore I have been to is the Chitidhar Peak. It's in the Himalayas until a height of around 16,000 per minute feet is a part of my course. How has it changed you mountaineering? And I think what you do is hiking. What is the difference between hiking and mountaineering? Sir, hiking would be walking through any natural terrain. It could be a forest, it could be a mountain commonly driven by walking. Mountaineering includes trekking or some hiking. For example, hiking through forests would not come under this. Mountaineering also includes dedicated claims through equipment like ice axes etc. So, our climb in the poles was mountaineering. The rest of it was more appropriate for trekking. And how has it shaped you or appropriate you? Sir, apart from an appreciation for fitness, it has also helped build mental resilience. Because a lot of times when I'm doing something difficult, for example as preparing here, the mindset that I got into was similar to that where I could see a peak and I had to raise that. Also, sir, I think it helps me help me appreciate nature as a whole and so when we're in the mountains at that point it's hard not to accept that nature is so primordial and supreme and our actions cannot overpower it. Sir, a close relation I see with the climate change that our actions are triggering nature's wrath. What are the strategic games that you play or what is exactly this hobby? Sir, I played a few board games such as Settlers of Patan, Dominion etc. These are games, these are team-based games that we compete with each other on the board. You make strategies and implement them while competing. They also involve negotiations. If you permit, I can tell you about one of those games. The game is for Settlers of Patan under which we have, all of us have a lot of settlements which produce some of the resources. For the other resources we have to trade with the other party.  That's how it prevents. Got your point. Can you tell me something about these semi-conductor shortages that we are seeing? So we are indeed seeing a global chip shortage, primarily due to the lockdown which has led to a spike in demand for electronics but also due to the supply chain that are getting disrupted globally. Apart from these are third reasons. The automobile industry has seen a contraction. That led to automobile chips being less in demand. This led to the supply being shortened. Now when the demand has come up again, the supply is monthly. It takes time to build up the supply. In India, is there any semi-conductor manufacturing facility? And what are the challenges of it? So there is one dedicated manufacturing facility in Chandigarh by itself. There are multiple institutions having manufacturing. IIT Bombay has also built a jeep chip store. Coming to the challenges, firstly is about the raw materials. Our semi-conductor and rare earth metal production is almost zero. So we are dependent on the imports. Secondly says the costs. Every such facility requires 1 billion dollars. Thirdly is also the amount requirement of clean water and dedicated professionals. And a good manufacturing base. All of these are still in recent stages in India. What is the PLI scheme on electronics? PLI scheme is to incentivize production of different components. Even in electronics, we need to produce more electronics. This links up with this is a part of the national electronics policy as well. Targeting 1 billion from manufacturing. 600 million for export. Why civil services? I think you could have done very well in private sector. Computer science in IIT Bombay, I think it's the best in India. Why not opt for Google, Amazon and all those companies and why civil services? Indeed there are a lot of opportunities. But I felt one of these was slightly narrowing the scope. Compared to that when I look at civil services it offers me opportunities to work on a diverse sector and in a very deep role. At a very young age one can be working in a district. That sort of leadership opportunities as well. And not afforded by the private sector. So these motivated me. Okay need one economic deal.


Come September you have detected gravitational waves. What does that allow us to explore and understand that we did not before? Yeah, I have long thought that the most likely thing for us to see first is collision of two black holes and If that's what we see We will then be for the first time opening up a study of Geometrodynamics How does warped space and warped time behave in a storm? We it says though. We've only seen the surface of the ocean on a calm day We've never seen a storm where they're rolling waves Breaking waves where there might even be water spouts and Similarly, we've never seen how warped space behaves and warp time behaves in a storm I think the goal of this and the great excitement is not Detecting gravitational waves is not discovering and proving that they're there it's Using them to explore aspects of the universe that we have never ever seen This is going to be a number of things will be discovered that they are very unexpected Some things will be proved that you didn't know whether they were true or not But this is a tool for doing a rich variety of science for example, if you have a compact binary system say Two neutron stars neutral star black hole black hole black hole They will be inspiring in towards each other slowly getting closer their orbital period Decreasing like with time as they grow closer together what you would expect to see there is a signal With slowly increasing frequency a chirp signal And then as they like kind of grow closer and merge, you know, you'll get this fantastically messy You know signals like you get to black holes merging with each other, you know, that that's crazy And you get this my kind of new new black hole that kind of created and you know, it's it's excited and Releases energy in gravitational waves and it will ring down Characteristic frequencies that will tell you things about like kind of the the massive the new black hole and the spin Since I got started, I've always thought that probing what's going on Right in the center of black holes or right at the outside of black holes where the Curvature of space becomes so wild. I thought that was always the most interesting interesting part of this project The theory seems so wild to me I've always thought can't be can't be that just like that and so You know, this would be our first way to really Get a handle on does space curve the way that people have been predicting all along or just something really even more wild happen at the edge when the Black holes merge and the curvature becomes really high are new particles created or does our knowledge of space time completely break down? Maybe we don't know what space is at all the deepest most fundamental physics. These are the kinds of things we could discover When I first started my career at Caltech roughly a half a century ago What I wanted to do is a discovery how how what happens then how In these this most wild of imaginable situations for space and time How does it space and time behave and the light goes going to show us And we will see this for the first time it will open up our eyes Into into deep physics that we have not previously understood our insights our understanding of space and time will be completely different 20 years from now because of LIGO plus computer simulations than it is today That's just one example of the great richness of things. This is going to do for human understanding of the universe


As we are witnessing widespread hunger and unemployment as the result of the pandemic and the lockdown imposed in response to it, a discussion on socio-economic rights, participative democracy, and empowerment becomes more important than ever. Today we have with us activists Aruna Roy Nikhilde and Rakshata Swaben for a discussion on these issues. Welcome Aruna Nikhil and Rakshata. Our discussion today is based on a book edited by the three of them which was released recently. The title of the book is We the People, Establishing Rights and Deepening Democracy. My first question is about the rights-based legislations that the book talks about. In the introduction you mentioned that from 2004 to 2014 we have witnessed an important period in Indian democracy as this period marked enactment of various rights-based legislation. However, post 2014 these legislations and the rights ensured in them have been undermined. Could you elaborate on this point? 2004 to 2014 was kind of a golden period for rights-based legislation. It was also very pioneering across the world because up until 2004 and the 2004 elections saw this great slogan about India shining but actually the electorate did not necessarily see it as shining, at least a large number of people in the electorate and that message came through loud and clear and therefore it became clear that what people needed was very basic access to services and they needed it as rights and that had been part of the manifesto of several of the parties that came together to form the UPA. So the UPA one had a national common minimum program which put many of these rights-based legislations right to information to be strengthened because there was a law which was not implemented at all. The right to work became the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Forest Rights Act, the Street Wenders Act, a whole series right to education, a whole right to food, very importantly. So a series of laws that were earlier schemes at best or not even conceived of at all became justiciable laws and therefore they moved in a sense from the directive principles towards legislation which was justiciable and that was the idea of the directive principles at the time that the Constitution came in. 2014 saw a reversal in a sense of the dominant discourse in government because right up till 2014 from UPA one to UPA two, the strength in the rights-based legislations went down but after the 2014 elections there was government said that these are all handouts these are we want the market to provide to empower people by giving them proper jobs. They said that this is not something that the state should be doing so this entire reversal actually we've seen in COVID times as threatening people's right to life because NREGA and the right to food are two things that have actually saved people if anything at all and COVID is a very good time to review and see how effective this has been. The book has a series of essays from different angles whether it's from marginalized communities like Dalit's or whether it's from the point of view of the economy or from the point of view of governance or from the point of view of education and health it's got a whole it comes at the social sector from different angles in a sense to bring this point together. Actually let's I want to see it from the movement point of view. Look at what happened with the movements as soon as we got independence we just felt that everything would land on our lap because the constitution was given a guarantee and we agitated continued to agitate it for the delivery of all those various demands to various whether it was for not building a big time or whether it was fish workers wanting their rights whether it was people who were being you know vilified by corrupt practices in smaller lower bigger levels we all thought that the system should deliver and the system was monitored and propelled by the constitution. It came as a realization to the MPSS and many others that actually if you want to make the system work then you will have to have the right to proceed against them for non-deliberation but if you don't have the right to lodge a case against that person or lodge a complaint against that person for non-deliberation with the fruits of that complaint being a working order or a speaking order there was no way it would become effective for years and it's not because it's not the lack of effort because it is very good people even in the system who've tried very hard to deliver but the delivery has never taken place so for that simple reason the translation of a demand to a right was a very important conjunction and I think it led up to it it was not that it happened in a day the decade before 2005 was a very important decade when this was led up to it and it so happened that in 2004 when the UTA won the election they gave a statement of their intent called the national common minimum program and in that program they made promises to the people of India and the first one was an Indian R&D and the other one with the most painful right here actually appealed to us and there were other acts that they promised in the process or rights they promised the rights that we were demanding if you wanted the right to information the right to food security the right to employment the right to education the right to forest rights they understood in a sense the better part of the political system and the democratic system kind of understood that this was necessary for for for the country to function so they set up the national advisory council which invited many civil society people to be part of it not all civil society it was composed of members of parliament it was composed of members of planning commission etc but also civil society members and it gave us the space to ensure that these rights-based draft legislations which we already had many of them were enacted and that's why that period was so important because participatory democracy at its best and and that's why it was a very important period an extremely important period of the history of not only of the rights of people but of Indian democracy. Rakeshita would you like to talk about what has changed post 2040 how what the undermining of these rights has meant how has it unfolded? Yeah so I mean it's also that the undermining of these rights was like was also pointed out before it did begin from the UPA two time onwards and we saw the ways in which that manifested so it began with a cutback in expenditure underfunding became the first obvious way of undermining these rights and of course post 2014 we've seen that magnify in a very large proportion so the the way showed by a previous dispensation was really built upon and underfunding so NREGA the food security act you had you had critical pieces of legislations not being provided the adequate amount of funds that it needed to be able to show the kind of an impact it was set to create then post 2014 we've also seen this culture of debasing these rights so it was not just mechanistically undermining them but you had say a prime minister on the floor of the house in parliament mocking NREGA and saying that what use the only purpose that this law should be kept alive is to remind people of the failures of India so that is that is an undermining which is not quantitative in nature but it really shows it sets a it sets a sort of a a dictate down the line to that bureaucracy to the administration so that kind of a debasing of laws has really begun 2014 onwards and we've seen these rights based legislations as being seen and called the complete opposite which is doles are being given to people these are handouts which it's actually completely the opposite of and the whole conversation has now begun around any social welfare is looking at insurance models involving private sectors so the imagination of social development and welfare is now leaning towards like a model which is more of an atman and package or contributory pensions and not rights or just disabled rights and the one thing that I just wanted to mention in regard to your previous question is how are they I mean how these laws being undermined are affecting covid relief and recovery it's also showing that at the end of the day after all that these rights were blamed for by this dispensation they've had to rely only on these rights to be able to bring any semblance of recovery in rural areas so one has to rely on the national food security add to be delivering pensions the NREGA to give basic minimum wages so it's also shown the power of these rights that in spite of any political dispensation at power these rights are actually what the state resorts to to be able to look after if we look 2014 to 2020 and if we look at all the kinds of social policy related interventions made by this government they are not going towards just disabled rights it's arthman irma programs of Ayushman Bharat which is insurance based health care or model villages of Pradhan Mantri, Aadash, Gram, Yojana which are convergent schemes so and the social security pensions which are contributory so it's the one can only comment on what is the nature of these policies that this government is introducing by looking at the nature of these schemes which are non-justice that's what I can add to what Ashukar is saying that very simply the previous period looked at legislations of empowerment post 2014 there are just programs and if you have been or have any acquaintance with civil service jargon you will understand that a legislative law is empowering and is permanent a procedural program in just a program and this program not only is a program but doesn't really lead to any empowerment it's a handout so there's a great deal of difference between empowering you to access and a handout building on what you said earlier Aruna that certain schemes and relief programs are replacing concretely guaranteed rights under legislations do you think this approach of our current government of undermining rights on one hand and handing out relief schemes on the other hand do you see this approach as exclusionary and non-participated this government has not really enacted major policy so but it has tried to reduce the extent of all these laws the scope of these laws where there's the right to write to other laws like rights-based legislation but it has it cannot as Ashukar says tamper with the basic law and this it was and set it aside in parliament so these are laws but today if you look at the period of 2014 as contrasted with the previous two terms of the parliament the difference lies in the fact that the people were involved in a very systematic and completely integral form with the framing of policy between 2004 and 2014 systems were set up by which people's views could be taken on board there were consultations apart from consultations there were also websites where information was posted today most of these decisions are not only not taken in consultation with people they are taken by very few people so you don't even have an entire planning commission which has to be constructed you have a NETIO with three people or four people who are visible we don't know how many take the decisions then there is no difference to parliament for most of these important decisions decisions are taken arbitrarily by the prime minister with the two other people this first thing is that it's taken in a very small group and does not reflect democratic process the second is that there is no sharing of information so it's completely non-transferent whereas every policy should be put in the public domain to elicit people's opinions and opinions and reservations before policy becomes law in this case they haven't done it and if you go back to the book which argues that there should be a welfare state the welfare state as was set up in 1950 really argues for a structure in which there is a balance development and in the balance development which balances there are many balances but I prefer to this balance equal a balance of people and the power structures that they elect to govern us that there should be a permanent continuing structural participative process which has been absolutely denied so in the process what has happened is that we're getting these grand gestures of handouts but which are only scratching the surface they're not really going through the basis of these problems that we have and people have innumerable problems with those even those services that I hand out but have no platform to voice their issues or to be heard so really all in all it's a completely non-participatory process top-down mainly of course procedures of procedural and programmatic approach to development and to governance which is limiting as a rest of them the only thing that I wanted to add was actually to further if need be repeat Arunaji's point about these these laws also the way they came through I mean the National Advisory Council had a really institutional role to play in in this time in this decade of 10 years where so many of these diets came and the and the even the National Advisory Council played a role in a participatory pre-legislative process so it was what are these platforms which through which inputs are going to be sought and deliberations are going to take place and one legacy that not only did this period leave us with these rights which are which we continue to see are so valuable like the food security forest rights at NREJ but it also left a legacy of what a transparent and a participatory pre-legislative process can look like so in 2014 this is something that's hardly ever really showcased and discussed but one contribution of the National Advisory Council was also to leave with the Ministry of Law and Justice which is a direction an order issued by the Ministry of Law saying what are the steps that should be followed before government enacts a law how do you seek inputs from public how do you consult and proactively consult with people who are going to be most affected how do you demystify all these jargons and laws and explain to people what will be the potential impact so there are all these standards that were also laid out which we see are being flouted literally on a daily basis we've seen so many laws and policies come which are not adhering to any semblance of a consultative process that's it's also that the last set of questions that I have are first what impact do you see of of this type of a government which is clearly moving towards a very centralized approach to governance and it's it's really a power aggregating government what impact do you see it having in the recent years the second question is what immediate relief measures would you suggest for for responding to the current situation of pandemic and the unemployment hunger that is resulting because of it see what has happened is that every single step in which government is active whether it is the enactment of policy legislation or in terms of consultation through various institutions that were set up for consultation consultation has completely uh has gone to a downslide so you see that not only are public people they would the public domain like us it's a society not consulted you see that the federal structure itself is harmed because you don't have the states consulted in many and there's a choice of only those states which have the same political view as the center consulted or maybe go opted into a system but for the rest when there are differences of opinion they're not even considered so really it is for all of us to think about how much pressure we should put also on our representatives and our political other political parties in the opposition could demand that they get the federal equal federal system working in a manner in which it should so that's one thing and the second thing that I want to remark on this is then I hand over to the team the kind of parga that we all have had to put on in terms of the fear of the disease and in terms of mobility and in terms of mobilization that it has really put a parga on the kind of activity that would have forced the government at some point of time to take note of us so because of that huge centralization has occurred and there has even been that kind of massive protest that would have been if we hadn't been trapped by the disease and fear of infection. First say that there are a couple of chapters in this book that talk about the contrasting of ideas you talked about centralization centralization is an idea and even though the BJP had talked about federalism a lot when it was in opposition it is absolutely clear that it has centralized and covid has been used even more to centralize so the contrast is there is a chapter from Thomas Isaac who is the finance minister of Kerala and Mr Vijayanan who spent decades looking at Kerala's decentralization process about how a bottom up approach can be and that chapter was written before covid came but it actually shows you how Kerala dealt with covid in a completely decentralized manner and that's therefore it has been so much more powerful in its response so it is a contrast of ideas can a vast country like India deal with a crisis in that fashion the I will request Rakshita to talk about because the chapter that she looks at is a bottom up approach to monitoring how do public audits social audits how do people themselves monitor so she will talk about that so that chapter also looks from bottom up but so do the others so do the there's a chapter on question of inequality look at it what what has actually happened but at the bottom so does the chapter on Dalits and tribals look at it in that kind of fashion so these are and when you come to the question of ideas we have discussed that is this an opportunity actually when you face a crisis to see can you have a completely renewed idea of that welfare state can that be the answer to the crisis and can that be what we were looking for all along so like the new deal in America when there was a great depression we have said in the chapter for instance that Rajendran and Annie Raja have about employment norega has had they've had to increase by 40 000 crores there are huge demands for the much larger norega there's a demand for an urban employment guarantee act so can you have a new deal for India where education where health these all basic rights these are not luxuries but can you meet them at a time of crisis and that this book should be able to lead to that debate a little bit right and just to add to this point itself of what even the book is trying to show as a way but also in response to this kind of a crisis a social and economic and actually a political crisis that this COVID has shown us a few things that even the book talks about and demands that are being repeatedly made by people's campaigns and movements is to expand of the entitlement existing entitlement of NREGA from 100 days to 200 days entitlements that are made available to families be in fact be made available to individual workers the urban and equivalent of an NREGA to be launched in urban areas the urban employment guarantee laws then to universalize pds and pensions because we've also seen the inadequacy of the NFSA coverage during these COVID times so these are some of the urgent what you had requested socioeconomic measures that can be introduced which the relevance of which has been outlined in the book but is also being repeatedly made by people's campaigns and movements in every public platform possible I want to say yeah one thing that the title itself we the people establishing rights develop deepening democracy I think that title says a lot about the point of view of the book that it is from people's campaigns that it draws its lessons and people's movements over the years that it combines development with democracy and it seeks to continually establish rights as a way in which people will have a greater say thank you Aruna Nikhil and Rakshita it was a very insightful discussion with the three of you


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I got a new notebook. Old one was full, and well, I never really liked it much anyway. This one's better, honestly. Bigger, too. Anyway, I'm at the parking lot. Gonna have breakfast. Maybe I'll order pancakes again. I got time before the new job. Gotta do a retrieval today. Note. Cast Insurgency Transport at 2pm. Be Advantage Point. GOC Ambush at 2.15. Slip in. Acquire Target. Advantage Point T-5 Minutes. I see the GOC Strike Team. Their new camouflage tech isn't really all that great against skilled eyes. By the way, remember that. Got a uniform from Lefty that affects perception to see it as either GOC or Chaos Insurgency for an observer. So I should be able to slip by both sides. Acquire the Target. There was difficulty due to thumb-aturgic enhanced weapons, but I prevailed. Target is a black box with a seven-digit combo, cracked in four seconds. Insight is an item from Dr. Wondertainment named Insta-IC cones that come in four. Packaging is in the shape of a freezer. They're really cold to the touch. Being client behind a Toys R Us as stated by them. Which is weird, but they've paid well before. Client was found spray-painting insults on the wall directed at Toys R Us. Client was happy at my arrival, and then attempted to hug me. I noticed that the client then grew a yellow tail. Client expressed satisfaction and stated his affection for Dr. Wondertainment products. He explained he attempted to purchase the retrieved item, which is a discontinued product originally from MCND Limited, although he was banned from their premises. Looking into the situation, he would go frustrated and childishly threatened patrons according to the records. The last straw was when he threw two pretzels at the auctioneer after losing a bid to a CI operative. Client with a piece of chalk drew a door and opened it. Other side was a swirling vortex of colors which he jumped through. The drawn door then disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Money was found to be fake. A memetic agent was cast on them to disguise that fact. There were actually just monopoly bills to do. Look further into Client. Check Wonder City. Or was it World? Whatever. Records for possible residents. Returning uniform to Lefty. Get new memetic inoculations and keep better record on when they expire. Maybe ask that waitress out from the diner earlier if I don't do anything else.


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