I need to welcome the ninth meeting of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. This morning, the committee will be considering a package of instruments, laid before the Parliament in connection with the Bankruptcy Scotland Act 2016. We'll just wait for a minute while the minister appears. I don't seem like to be taking a big step. As I said this morning, the committee will be considering a package of instruments laid before the Parliament connection with the Bankruptcy Scotland Act 2016. This act was considered as lead committee by the session 4 delegated powers and law reform committee and as such this committee has been designated as the lead committee for consideration of these instruments. This morning, the committee will undertake both its usual technical scrutiny and policy scrutiny as lead committee for the instruments. Item 1 is an opportunity for the committee to take evidence from the Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy and his officials on the instruments. This is an opportunity for the committee to ask questions on all of the Bankruptcy instruments laid by the Scottish Government and to do so from both a policy and a technical perspective. That is my pleasant duty to welcome Minister Paul Wheelhouse, who is the Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy. I also like to welcome Graham Fisher, who is the head of branch 1 constitutional and civil law division, the Scottish Government legal directorate of the Scottish Government. I also like to welcome Alec Reid, who is the head of policy development and the accountant in Bankruptcy. I also like to welcome Carol Kirk, who is a policy review team leader to the accountant in Bankruptcy. Minister, if you have an opening statement and I note that you have, so if you would like to make it, we would be very pleased to hear from you. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning, everyone. The regulations before you today represent what we intend to be one of the final instrument installments in the exercise to consolidate bankruptcy legislation in Scotland. Following the successful passage of the Bankruptcy Scotland Act 2016 through Parliament earlier this year, in which your predecessor committee, as you know, convener, played a crucial role, the next step in the process is to consolidate the regulations that accompany the primary legislation. The consolidation of the regulations will complement the 2016 act to make Scotland's bankruptcy legislation more accessible for those practitioners who use it and for those affected by it. I should say something about our approach to consolidating the regulations. We proposed that the 2016 act will apply to sequestrations applied for on or after 30 November this year and trusted arrangements executed from that date. There are currently 11 sets of regulations that fill out the detail of primary bankruptcy legislation, which we propose to reduce to four for sequestrations and trust deeds falling under the new act. Together with a short set of commencement regulations that will bring the new act in on 30 November 2016. We consulted and draft regulations over the summer, but stakeholders who provided valuable feedback on the proposals for consolidation of these regulations. I note that I cast say that while in some instances we may not agree with the conclusions reached, we would wish to formally record a gratitude to this approach being taken and we consider that such an approach represents best practice and can assist the Parliament to scrutinise legislation brought forward and ensure that legislation introduced is fit for purpose. The first affirmative instrument that you have before you, the Bankruptcy Scotland Regulations 2016, consolidates the main secondary legislation under the Bankruptcy Scotland Act 1985, principally the 140 pages or so of forms used as part of the bankruptcy processes. At this point, I would also like to highlight regulation 14, which makes a minor change to the value of assets at which the simplified minimal asset process ceases to apply to address a discrepancy in how newly identified assets, principally PPI repayments, are treated. The second affirmative instrument, the Protected Trust Deed Scotland Forms Regulations 2016, provides for forms to be used with protected trust deeds under the new act. This instrument also takes the opportunity to bring minor points in the 2016 act forms into line with current practice. The third affirmative instrument, the Protected Trust Deeds Scotland Amendment Regulations 2016, for ease of administration mirrors minor amendments to the forms under the new act for trust deeds under the old act. Although technically beyond the scope of consolidating the existing regulations, it is helpful to have those considered as part of this package as they do the same thing. As part of a consolidation, it is important to stress that, well, with one exception, the regulations do not introduce new policy. However, we think that it is important to clarify legislation or clarify issues that we have sought to do within those regulations, as I have mentioned. The negative instrument on bankruptcy applications and decisions regulations 2016, also before you today, consolidates the rules for proceedings before the accountant and bankruptcy for cases under the new act. I should mention that the bankruptcy fees regulations will be reviewed in the first half of 2017. They have not been consolidated at this time, but continue to apply under the Transitional Continuity Provisions in the 2016 act. The accountant and bankruptcy will, however, publish details of the corresponding provisions under the new act on its website in the meantime. Introducing the package of regulations ensures that references to the new act are changed. Detailed tables of correspondence have also been prepared to assist users of the legislation in making their transition. We have worked closely with stakeholders who have provided valuable feedback on the proposals for the consolidation of these regulations. In particular, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, or ICAS, the Scottish Committee of the R3 Association of Business Recovery Professionals and the Step Change Debt Charity. ICAS, in particular, also provided feedback on issues that we recognise as important and will seek to address, but which we consider to fall out with the scope of this exercise. The Scottish Government and the Accountant and Bankruptcy will continue to work with ICAS and other stakeholders to consider these areas separately. I would acknowledge some relatively minor drafting issues arise with two of the sets of regulations, and for the reasons that we have set out to the committee, we do not see those raising practical difficulties in the meantime. However, it is important to put those right, and I can confirm that I will ensure that those are rectified as soon as is practicable, together with the minor points raised by R3 in the response to the committee's call for evidence. I am, for example, keen to address the request of stakeholders to ensure arithmetic issues are more transparent in the forms, although I do accept that there are some reasons why the forms are laid out in the way they are. I would like to thank the committee for taking the time to consider those instruments. I would just finish on the fact that we have received a reference from the likes of ICAS. Overall, in taking into account the comments that we have received back from the AIB in response to the informal consultation carry-out, we would support the regulations coming into effect, and I believe that R3 has also made similar remarks. We are, of course, and we are happy to take questions. Okay. Thank you very much, minister, for your opening statement. I just advise the minister and our committee that we will start with technical questions and move on to policy questions thereafter. In relation to the draft protected trustees form Scotland regulations 2016, the committee will consider item 2, whether to draw the regulations to the attention of the Parliament and the general reporting grounds, as the regulations contain two minor drafting areas. It is noted that the Scottish Government tends to correct the errors at the next legislative opportunity. In relation to the draft bankruptcy Scotland regulations 2016, the committee will consider item 2, whether to draw the regulations to the attention of the Parliament under the general reporting grounds, as they contain drafting errors, and whether to report the regulations underground H, as the meaning of regulation 22 could be clearer. The committee would like to explore that second point with you, minister. Regulation 22 of the draft bankruptcy Scotland regulations 2016 makes provision in respect of the conversion into sterling of a credit as claims stated in foreign currency. Regulation provides that the manner of conversion is to be at a single exchange rate of for that currency, as determined by the trustee with reference to prevailing exchange rates on the date of sequestration. The Scottish Government has confirmed that regulation 22 should refer to a single exchange rate for that currency and proposes to remove the word of as a printing point in the minister's signing copy. The committee considers that errors in the instrument should only be corrected by way of printing point when the error in question is highly self-evident in nature and capable of no alternative interpretation. The error in regulation 22 does not appear to the committee to be self-evident in nature, since a doubt may arise as to the intended meaning of the provision. The erroneous word of might be taken to indicate a figure that is missing from the provision. For example, the provision might be intended to read a single exchange rate of x for that currency. Therefore, it is considered that the meaning of regulation 22 could be clearer. For that reason, the committee, if I may ask you minister, does not consider that the error identified in regulation 22 should appropriately be changed as a printing point at signing. Would you instead consider making the required change to regulation 22 of the draft Bankruptcy Scotland regulation 2016 by an amending instrument, please, in due course? First, I will just address the point at which you very fairly raised, convener, and for the record, I apologise at that. However, having to be raised by the committee, it clearly should have been picked up and recognised that. The typographical error in regulation 22 should refer to a single exchange rate for that currency, just to confirm that, as in regulation 11 of the Bankruptcy Scotland regulations 2014 SSI 2014 stroke 225, which is consolidated and updated. We propose that this is corrected as a printing point, but we are moving off. However, I take the point that you have made, convener, and we are happy to address that through an amendment if that would be to the committee's wishes. Okay, thank you very much. So, I now move to other questions, if that would be all right. We've got a series of questions, minister, and I just invite the first two questions from Stuart. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. By changing the asset threshold at which a debtor must move from the minimal asset process route into bankruptcy to the standard route, what do you think the effect might be on the number of people transferred from the minimum asset process into full bankruptcy? I think that, if I may bring in Alex in this particular point of detail. I think that the numbers will be low, but there have been instances, a low number of instances, where people in a minimal asset process bankruptcy, we've been made aware of PPI compensation payments, which somebody in a full administration bankruptcy that would vest in the estate and vest with the trustee, but with the threshold limit it's not being able to be administered within the bankruptcy, so it's really designed to address that anomaly and introduce greater fairness in the process, although I think we'd acknowledged that the numbers would expect it to be low, but it's something that we felt we needed to address. When you say that you think the numbers will be low, do you have any indication as to do you have any forecasting data in terms of what the final number will be? I don't, I don't. I would have to say that we don't. I know that there have been a low number of cases, at least two cases where those payments have been received within the period of a minimal asset process, but I don't have any way to predict what will happen. Okay. Has there been any information possibly provided by external organisations to maybe provide an indication as to what figures that they could potentially see? I don't have that information to hand. As I say, it's an anomaly that has arisen, but I don't have information as to projecting the number of people within a minimal asset process bankruptcy that are likely to have that sort of compensation or an additional asset coming in. Okay. Okay. Second question, convener. In your view, does the current approach help support financial resilience among those with the lowest incomes? Is there a risk that this change might, which removes assets from this group, might be counterproductive? I mean, it's certainly, convener, in response to the first point as well that I appreciate that we are not furnished with the information. Ideally, we would like to be able to say exactly how many people might be affected and caught up with this. From what I can gather, from the evidence that has been shared with me, is dealing with a potential anomaly rather than a huge wave of people that are being affected. It's difficult, therefore, to say to what extent the current provisions are actually causing any disadvantage or creating difficulty in that respect, but we have committed through the exercise in working with ICAS, R3 and with Step Change and other stakeholders to future review. We can look at picking up some of the issues that have been raised in the consultation that we felt were outwith the scope of this particular consolidation exercise, but we have also taken into account, as the practice, if you like, unfolds of putting through this regulation. If it does appear to be causing any difficulty, we can obviously address that later on down the line. I commit to the member that we will keep that very much on our horizon as something that we will keep an eye out for if it is causing any difficulty for those who are affected. That would be helpful. Thank you. I just want to go back to you again on that minister, if I may. In terms of scale, I appreciate that you don't want to put numbers on it, but would a low number be 1 to 10? Would a low number be 50 to 100? I am not trying to be difficult. I am not close to the detail of what was said in the consultation in terms of engagement with stakeholders. If I may, I deflect that question to Alex again, just in case he is aware of any anecdotal evidence that has been given by any of the consultees that have been involved in the exercise to date. As I said, I am aware of two instances so far where there has been a mineral asset process bankruptcy, where the funds have not been able to be administered within the bankruptcy, where they would have been administered in a full administration bankruptcy. I take the point about disadvantages of people who are in that group, but there is an element of unfairness in a bankruptcy process. Funds are being administered in one route, but not in another. Moving ahead, as I said, I am aware of two cases, but it is difficult to put a figure on the number of cases of compensation or where assets will arise in the future. It is difficult to do that. I suppose that we should welcome your natural caution. I will move on to questions from Monica Lennon. Thank you, convener. Good morning, minister. You mentioned in your statement that you value the feedback from stakeholders during the consultation over the summer. In the written evidence to the committee, both ICAS and R3 have argued that setting the statutory interest rate for bankruptcy dates at 8 per cent is punitive in the current financial climate and should be reduced. How do you respond to that concern? In the context of current low interest rates, I would agree that 8 per cent seems to be punitive. We are aware of that concern. I have shared my concern with the AIB about that, but there is a proposed consultation that is under way in England and Wales, which we can learn a lot from in terms of the feedback on that. In terms of the interest rate, there have been suggestions around having a 1.5 per cent premium on the base lending rate. The Bank of England might be a more acceptable mechanism that might be fairer. I am sympathetic to those arguments, but we want to learn from the exercise that is being undertaken in England and Wales. We have two separate consultations on the same subject that is running concurrently. We can learn from that, and if we need to adjust our approach based on the evidence that comes forward at that point. I appreciate stakeholders who have said that there is no need for ministers or AIB to have exactly the same approach that is taken in England and Wales, but we can learn in this case from a consultation on this issue and then decide either to take a similar approach to England and Wales or to decide whether we feel that the approach that they take is still too punitive to do something that is more appropriate. I am very much aware of the issue and I agree that 8 per cent is unacceptably high at this point in time, but we want to see the outcome of that consultation and learn from that. It has been the committee's understanding that the Scottish Government did prefer to wait for the results of the review of interest rates in England and Wales before considering changes here, but why not look at it now? Do we know how long that could take and is consideration being given to setting the Scottish interest rate separately? As I was saying, we have not set out in a path where we are deliberately going out of a way to have a different approach to doing than Wales. I do accept the principle that 8 per cent does seem unusually high given that we have very low base rates at this moment in time and it does not seem to have moved in line with the move down in terms of base rates. Therefore, it means that people are paying perhaps a higher rate than might be justified in the current circumstances. I think that we can learn from the exercise that is being done in England and Wales and once we have the outcome of that, if England and Wales decide to themselves reduce the rates, then in theory we could either go and set a similar level to England and Wales or, if we feel that the rate that they conclude is appropriate, it is still too high, we can do our own thing and have a different rate. However, I certainly give the member a commitment that we will be looking at this issue and, if need be, we will take a different path to that in England and Wales. However, we can learn from the consultation that is involving the same stakeholders that we would be consulting with in terms of the professional bodies, those advising individuals on debt issues and we can learn from the submissions that they make to the England and Wales exercise and take that forward. Is there a timescale for that? If it starts to take too long in England and Wales, is there a point where Scotland really cannot wait to learn from our neighbours? On the general principle, if it was taking too long, yes, we could potentially act, but maybe I will consult colleagues on the precise timing of that consultation just to make sure that the committee are informed of when that is likely to conclude or that Alex will address it. We have been advised that it is due, but I do not have a specific, we have asked for timings, but I do not have a specific timing yet. But clearly, if it was relatively soon? Yes, we would. No reason to believe that it will be delayed unduly by the authorities in England and Wales. I have a question now about conflicts of interest and given concerns amongst the holders about conflicts of interest in the accounts in bankruptcy's decision making roles, was any consideration given to introducing new procedures in those regulations to avoid such conflicts of interest? I certainly note the points that have been made by ICAS in particular on this and in regard to the appointment of those to the review panel. The potential that there is to, if not an actual conflict, turn to the perception of one to exist. It is an issue that I am quite keen to ensure. Because I think that AIB is a very impressive organisation doing an excellent job, I do not want any potential mud to be slung at the organisation, fair or unfair, and it would be in their interests as well as the wider interests of transparency to have that addressed. I do not think that there is any suggestion, convener of any impropriety, but I think that the fact that, as I understand it, the members of the panel are appointed by AIB, although they are perfectly good individuals, I am sure, to have them appointed and at least overseen to some extent by whatever mechanism independently validated would be helpful in ensuring that there was no potential for any conflict of interest to be perceived. That falls out with the role of the consolidating regulations that we are discussing today, but it is something that we could take forward under the future review that was discussed as well. You would look at that in future, so you do not really accept ICAS and R3's view that an opportunity has been missed here to make it process more transparent and whiter than white? I think that, convener, I would accept that it is a legitimate point to address. Because of the need to ensure that we have regulations through and time for the 30th November, timing may not be perfect to address that at this point in time, but I certainly commit to the committee that we will look at that issue and address that issue as soon as it is practicable in terms of the forthcoming review that has been proposed by AIB. My question involves a point that a number of stakeholders have drawn to our attention that regulation 5.1g of the draft bankruptcy, Scotland regulations 2016, requires that a money adviser must be licensed to use the common financial statement by the Money Advice Trust. ICAS and R3 suggest that money advisers will, in effect, be regulated by the Money Advice Trust as a result of this requirement. They suggest that it is inappropriate for this matter to be in control of an unaccountable third party, as opposed to a public body. Does the minister share those concerns? I certainly recognise the point that has been made. I have tried to understand myself why that has arisen, and I will invite colleagues to comment on this shortly if it may, convener. However, it is important to recognise that we are represented by the Scottish Government on AIB through AIB as an organisation, so we have a voice. If there were specific Scottish cases that came forward, we would have an expectation that the perspective of AIB would be listened to as to the circumstances of that money adviser being called into question or the use of appropriate regulation being called into question. I am confident that Scottish cases would be dealt with having listened to the evidence around the circumstances as they applied in Scotland. However, I accept that it may look somewhat odd to a third party audience that this is the situation that has arisen. I will ask colleagues to come in on this, but I understand that it is because of the various tools that are being used by money advisers in terms of collecting the evidence, whether it is the financial tools that are themselves regulated by MAT. There is a logic in having MAT oversight of the conduct of the individuals who are giving the money advice, but I can perhaps bring in Graham Fisher and Alex Whedon on this just to provide some background as to why we have ended up with MAT in this particular role, if that would be helpful, convener. I think that this goes back to the consultation from the Bankruptcy in Dead by Scotland reforms and the general approach that having a common financial tool to assess income and expenditure introduced a level of consistency and transparency in the process so that, where possible, debtors were being treated fairly. There are a number of different mechanisms for calculating income and expenditure, so that was part of the consultation. The consultation agreed that the common financial statement, which is available through licence from the money advice trust, was the most appropriate tool to use and to be adopted and prescribed in legislation as the common financial tool. That has been operating. Now, because access to the common financial statement becomes critical in the process of undertaking the function of money advisory in bankruptcy, it becomes a prerequisite of undertaking that function. To the best of our knowledge, we do not think that the money advice trust has revoked a licence. They have not informed us of that and we are certainly not aware of it having been an issue in the past. As I say, we would need to react to anything that happened in the future on that basis. However, we are where we are because that tool was accepted as being the most effective way to introduce some consistency and transparency across those calculations. Can I push you on how you will monitor the situation and ensure that you have accountability? Well, within the legislation, we have to ensure that, for example, we are setting debtor contribution orders. We have to ensure that income and expenditure, the common financial tool, is being applied properly and appropriately. That happens on an on-going basis when we are dealing with debtor application processes or where we are dealing with variations in debtor contributions or looking at the contribution levels in protected trust deeds, which are also calculated using the common financial tool. On an operational basis, that happens on an on-going basis. In fact, if we had particular concerns about a money adviser or a money advice organisation, we would most certainly raise those concerns with the organisation. Ultimately, it could be raised with a money advice trust, but we have not had to deal with that situation yet. Clearly, on a case-by-case basis, we have queries that go backwards and forwards in terms of the way that the common financial tool has been applied. However, in terms of monitoring it, that happens on an on-going basis. If I could add, convener, I think that it is important. It is important to recognise them. I understand Rachel Hamilton's point there, and I think that it is a fair point to say whether you will keep an eye on whether this is working in practice. It is certainly something that we could look at again during the future policy review. We could come back and understand if there have been any examples of this not working in practice. If there have been concerns about perhaps the decision not taking account of circumstances as they apply in Scotland and that we have not had a chance to intervene or to have a say, then those are the opportunities that might lend themselves to us to actually review whether this is still appropriate for us to go forward on this basis or should we do something differently? We can have a look at that at the time of the future policy review, if that would be of help to the committee to give reassurance around the role of MAT and to ensure that it is actually acting in the interests of good governance of the policy in Scotland in that intent. That would be helpful for reassurance on that point. ICAS has raised concerns about the absence of the appeal process against a decision by the accountant in bankruptcy to withdraw a money advisor's approved status. Does the minister think that money advisors should have a right of review against an accountant in bankruptcy decision to remove their approved status? On the general principle, everyone deserves a right to have their say if they are charged with something to be able to rebut the charges and the principles of good natural justice, if they like, that apply in our courts. That is something that is very important in our court system. Yes, I agree that that is important. That is something that I have asked colleagues who are with me today to have a look at in the context of the future policy review. The more we can design out the need for someone to use a judicial review as a means of questioning a decision that has been made about them, it is a very heavy-handed approach to potentially—some GRs can be very expensive for those involved. I think that we would like to ideally have a route that is more of an administrative justice-type route, which is lower cost and fact-based and hopefully less contentious and can be dealt with quickly. We will have a look at what can be done there. To provide reassurance, there is some protection through judicial review. I am saying that there is a route for someone to appeal or to raise concerns about the process that has been undertaken in terms of having their licence revoked, but I do not think that it is necessarily the most efficient means of doing that from a point of view of being a relatively onerous process to go through a judicial review. I am certainly happy to look at that under the future policy review and see if there is some improvement. Again, it will provide confidence in the system if there is an appropriate course to appeal if you feel that you have been done in justice. Do you have a timescale on what you are proposing? In terms of the future policy review, not as yet, but I will happily come back to committee on something that I want to discuss with the IBE myself and see if we can get some certainty around that. Unless, in the passage of time, Alex can update me on something that has been determined already, I am not aware of a fixed timescale. We have discussed the need for a policy review on all aspects of the reforms that were introduced. The reforms are quite wide-ranging, so some of the policies that were introduced, for example, on debt or discharge and variation on debt or contribution order, although it has been introduced since April 2015, some of those processes do not have a great deal of experience to learn from, because they happen some way down the line within the administration of IKs. However, we are not recognising the need that, as a significant amount of change was introduced at that time that will be subject to policy review and we are discussing the appropriate time that we should be undertaking that, but it has not been fixed just yet. I may add that this is one issue that falls into a family of issues that we have already discussed today, which are perhaps beyond the scope of the secondary regulations and legislation itself in terms of regulations, but are worthy issues that would be worth taking forward and having further discussion around them. Future policy review will mop up a number of those issues and hopefully come to a constructive place in terms of addressing them. We recognise that the legitimate issues that are being raised by IKs, R3 and others and the committee today, but we feel that it is more appropriate to deal with it separately than through the regulations, because they are really bringing into effect the intent of Parliament when it passed the act unanimously. We can deal with other issues that arise through the consultation in a separate vehicle. That you've finished, Rachel. Anyone else got anything further to add? If not, we'll now move on to the debate on the motions recommending approval of the affirmative instruments, which is also agenda item 2. We will consider the three motions recommending approval of the three affirmative instruments. I remind officials that they are not able to participate in this formal debate on the motions and advise that, in accordance with rule 10.6.3 of standing orders, the debate on the motions can last no longer than 90 minutes. I now invite the minister to move and speak to motions S5M-02136, S5M-02137 and S5M-02138. I have no further comments to make. Are there any contributions that members wish to make or not? That was a relatively short debate, minister. I'm sure that you're very glad about how you might wish to respond and move matters forward if you'd like to. I'm grateful for the committee's consideration of the regulations and I'm happy to take forward the points that we've discussed today in terms of further work that needs to be done. It's very helpful to have the committee have such detailed oversight of the regulations, and that's helpful to us and to EIB, so thank you for your consideration. Okay, thank you very much. I now advise you that I intend to go through each of the instruments and associated motions in turn. In terms of the protected trusted forms Scotland regulations 2016 and references to section 171i of the Bankruptcy Scotland Act 2016 in the entry for form 3 in the list of forms used in connection with protected trust deeds contained in the schedule and in the heading to form 3 in the schedule that should be referenced to section 171i. Does the committee agree to draw the regulations to the attention of Parliament on the general reporting grounds as they contain two minor drafting errors? Does the committee agree to welcome the Scottish Government's intention to correct the errors at the next legislative opportunity? Motion S5M-02136 invites the committee to recommend to the Parliament that the draft protected trust deeds forms Scotland regulations be approved. Does the committee agree to that motion? No points have been raised by our legal advisers on the draft protected trust deeds Scotland amendment regulations 2016. Is the committee content with this instrument from a technical perspective? Motion S5M-02137 invites the committee to recommend to the Parliament that the draft protected trust deeds Scotland amendment regulations 2016 be approved. Does the committee agree to the motion? Turning now to the draft Bankruptcy Scotland regulations 2016, Regulation 22 makes provision in respect of the conversion into sterling of accreditors claims stated in a foreign currency. The regulation provides that the manner of conversion is to be at a single exchange rate of for that currency as determined by the trustee with reference to prevailing exchange rates on the date of sequestration. The Scottish Government has confirmed that regulations have agreed to amend that and amending instruments, so we welcome that. Does the committee agree to draw, nonetheless, the draft instrument to the attention of the Parliament under reporting grounds 8, as the meaning of Regulation 22 of the instrument could be clearer? In addition, the draft instrument contains the following drafting errors. First, the definition of common financial tool in Regulation 22 refers incorrectly to Regulations 14 to 16. The reference should instead be to Regulations 15 to 17. The committee may wish to accept the Scottish Government's proposals to correct this error as a printing point in the minister's signing copy since the error is minor and highly self-evident. Form 27, in schedule 1 of the regulations, refers incorrectly to section 141 of the Bankruptcy Scotland Act 1985, as amended. The reference should instead be to section 141 of the Bankruptcy Scotland Act 2016. Committee may wish to note that the Scottish Government intends to correct this error at the next legislative opportunity. Thirdly, in the notes to form 26, the third bullet point should refer to a fine imposed in a justice of the peace court or a district court rather than to a fine imposed in a district court only. Committee may wish to note that the Scottish Government intends to correct this error at the next legislative opportunity. Does the committee agree to draw the draft instruments to the attention of the Parliament under the general reporting grounds on account of the drafting errors? Does the committee agree to welcome the Scottish Government's intention to correct those errors? Finally, motion S5M-02138 invites the committee to recommend to the Parliament that the draft Bankruptcy Scotland Regulations 2016 be approved. Does the committee agree to the motion? Excellent. It only remains now for me to thank the minister and his officials for their evidence and for coming here to be with us today. We are very grateful, minister, and I now allow you to leave if you would like to suspend the meeting just for a few minutes while the minister and his team take their leave. Thank you, minister. Everyone, we will now move to agenda item 3, which is consideration of a negative instrument, which is part of the package of instruments connected to the Bankruptcy Scotland Act 2016. No points have been raised by our legal advisers on the Bankruptcy applications and decisions Scotland regulations 2016 SSI 2016-295. Is the committee content with this instrument from a technical perspective? Is the committee content to note the instrument and make no recommendation? We now move to agenda item 4, which is consideration of an instrument not subject to any parliamentary procedure, which is part of the package of instruments connected to the Bankruptcy Scotland Act 2016. No points have been raised by our legal advisers on Bankruptcy Scotland Act 2016 Commencement Regulations 2016 SSI 2016-294. Is the committee content with this instrument from a technical perspective? Thank you. From a lead committee perspective, is the committee content to note the instrument and make no recommendation? Thank you. In relation to all the instruments, does the committee wish to draw to the attention of the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee the policy evidence that we have taken today? Before we move on to the next item on agenda, I am remiss in as much as we have received apologies from David Torrance today, which we did not announce at the beginning of the meeting, so I will put that on the record now. We are sorry that he cannot be with us. We now move to agenda item 5, which is consideration of an instrument subject to affirmative procedure and no points have been raised by our legal advisers on the following affirmative instruments. The draft Air Weapons Licensing Exemptions Scotland Regulations 2016 or the Draft Crofting Commission Elections Scotland Amendment Regulations 2016. Is the committee content with these instruments? Thank you. Agenda item 6 is the consideration of instrument subject to negative procedure. No points have been raised by our legal advisers on the following negative instruments. The Act of Sederent Fees of Solisters and Shorthand Writers in the Court of Session, Sheriff Appeal Court and Sheriff Court Amendment 2016, SSI 2016 slash 316 or the General Pharmacutical Council Amendment of Miscellaneous Provisions Rules Order of Council 2016, SSI 2016 slash 1008 is the committee content with these instruments. Agenda item 7 is the consideration of instruments not subject to any parliamentary procedure and they are the act of Sederent Sheriff Court bankruptcy rules 2016, SSI 2016 slash 313. Form 6.1-A in schedule 1 of the instrument contains the following drafting errors. Some text is missing from the second and alternative sub-paragraph B of paragraph 3, where petitioner is a trustee under a trustee of the statement of facts. The paragraph should read that it would be in the best interests of the creditors that an award of sequestration be made. The first sub-paragraph B of paragraph 3, where petitioner is a trustee under a trustee of the statement of facts should refer in the italicised note to the debtor rather than to the respondent. Does the committee agree to draw the instrument to the intention of Parliament on general reporting ground, on account of these drafting errors? Does the committee also agree to welcome that the Lord President's private office plans to correct those errors before the instrument comes into force on 30 November 2016? No points have been raised by our legal advisers on the following instruments, the act of Sederent Rules of the Court of Session, Sheriff Appeal Court Rules and Sheriff Court Rules Amendment, Bankruptcy Scotland Act 2016, SSI 2016-312, or the act of Sederent Rules of the Court of Session, 1994, and Sheriff Court Rules Amendment number 4, simple procedure, 2016, SSI 2016-315, or the act of Sederent Rules of the Court of Session, 1994, amendment postal administration, 2016, SSI 2016-318, or the act of Sederent Rules of the Court of Session, 1994, and summary application rules, 1999 amendment, serious crime prevention orders, etc. 2016, SSI 2016-319, or the Scottish Fiscal Commission Act 2016, commencement and transitry provision regulations 2016, SSI 2016-326. Is the committee content with these instruments? Thank you. In relation to SSI 2016-315, does the committee agree to welcome that in respect of an undertaking previously given by the Lord President's private office, various provisions in the instrument promptly correct errors reported upon by the committee in relation to the act of Sederent Simple Procedure 2016, SSI 2016-200? Will we welcome that, please? We come to the end of the meeting. I thank you very much for your attention and help this morning. I'll close this meeting.


priming by the federal government, maybe it'll last for a while. I say it should last because the tax and spending cuts that created the climate for recovery will probably be very short lived if our opposition manages next year to elect a veto-proof House of Representatives or to take back control of the Senate. So please remember how important this coming election is. In the state of the economy in 1982, the Republican Party did pretty well last November in states where we made extra efforts and Republicans turned out to vote. Next year we're going to need plenty of money to get our message on the air in all the states and rev up our precinct organizations and fire up our constituency. We're going to need to remind the voters what things were like a few years ago and the changes that have been made. But even more important. We have to remember that this is one campaign that will be one from the heart. We have to remind Americans of what many of them are already instinctively feeling that this great country of ours is on the way back, it's walking tall again, and our best days are ahead of us, not behind us. As a matter of fact, some of our people that have been overseas on trips having to do with the international situation have returned and all have said the same thing. And that is they said it's great to represent the United States again abroad because the United States and the eyes of the people we visit with over there is once again looked up to. That's all of you. You've done that and we're going to keep on doing it. Your generosity makes all this possible. Nancy and I and the leaders of the party are very grateful to you and we're especially grateful that part of the proceeds from tonight's dinner are being used on behalf of the James Brady Foundation. Jim is a friend, a colleague, and a patriot who's given much to his country. So for Jim and for the Republican members of the House and Senate, I thank you very much and I'm not going to talk any longer because you're going to have to listen to me again later on. Thank you all for being here. This is the man of the hour, Father Paluma. Tony Tchaikovsky. I've been very, very supportive of him, so thrilled, especially in these days when there's been a lot of support this year. Mr. President, you received some encouraging economic news today about producer prices and production, but might that be forwarded about this problem with passing a budget resolution? Well, I think that's the budget. I'm not supposed to answer questions about photo opportunity, but since I see them all over, I'll answer it to you. Yes, I think budget, the budget resolution before the Congress has a great bearing on what we're talking about and the economic recovery. We do have good news here today. We've just received some additional news for activity and so far we've had a great effect. I mean, there's still more Congress in the community if they will have it. Probably judiciously on the budget. Do you think it compromised to be achieved? Yeah, it compromised to be achieved, so. Thank you.


Hi everyone, good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are joining us from and today we have with us Birad Sheet, the person who sort of founded Gupshap right now, which is the platform that he's founded but before this he founded another company called Elance which was really one of the precursors of the gig economy and we are going to talk to him about the life of an entrepreneur. So over to you Birad, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us on Dreamers and Unicorns. What I wanted to do was to actually get started first by asking you a personal question. I'm going to start with that personal question. What is the meaning of Birad? What does it really mean? Oh, it's a Sanskrit word that means Padui or honour or an award and I guess my mom looked deep in the dictionary to find this because it's a fairly unusual name even by Indian standards and the fringe benefit I have of a name like this is that I can get it in any namespace so in Yahoo or Skype or Gmail it's just Birad. I don't need to add any digits after it, right? There's only one of me. So Birad 15 at gmail.com. That's great. Birad, I'm going to sort of divide this conversation into two chunks. One I want to talk to you about the sort of early influences that we'll talk about the gig economy and how you sort of really went about building that and then we'll talk about your current workspace. So do you have a preference in terms of how we should start from now or we should start at the back, looking at it, the making of Birad shit, which of these two is better story arc for you? No, I'm finding the way but I guess the chronology might make more sense going from early to now. Okay, all right. So I'm going to really start by saying that when you look at your early years, how do you sort of define the influences that you've had as you're growing up? What were those, who were some of the people deeply influenced you or incidents that influenced you?  Well, not quite in that fully formed way but anyway, let's start. So I think, I mean, I grew up in a sort of average middle-class family in Mumbai, I think growing up in Mumbai or growing up at that time in the 70s and 80s, one is we had limited means and resources, so frugality is a value that you just grow up with, you don't think about it, you reuse, you recycle, you reduce your usage, you sort of just live with the new means but on the other hand, you're just surrounded by lots of love and relationships and family, so that's a good part. I think, of course, Indian parents value education, so all of us were beneficiaries of that focus on education. How was it told to you? What was told to you? That education is the way to a better life and nothing, I mean, you don't have a lot of money, you're not given a lot of inheritance but what you have is sort of what's in between your years in your head and you got to use that to find your way to a good life but not no pressure as such, right? I mean, it just sort of do the best you can and I think for me, I mean, I just was, I was just curious, inquiring mind, I think the good thing was my parents just let me explore, let me try different things and they really loved, my dad was really a fan of math, so he just made me love it or enjoy it in a way, my mom was always very creative, hacking solutions, if you will, finding creative ways and I think that rubbed on to me as well and I took Oh, I don't know, I mean, it could just be improvising, if something is missing, then you find something else in the house that looks like it and you improvise it and you never or even just, yeah, I think, for example, I mean, she used to work in the insurance industry and she'd have to, she had to go out to work, which means I'd be left alone at home because my dad was also working and so she signed me up to some place and it'd be a lot of overhead if I think about it now, she'd have to take me to, we lived in Boroughville, she used to take me somewhere to Santa Cruz, drop me at this kid's sort of play area and then go to work and come back, pick me up, then come back home and so on and she was always, even as it was tiring and exhausting, I mean, she'd focus on just really child development, if you will, right and I'd say I'd have one hour class for badminton or something, but I'd stay there the whole day sitting in the library, hanging out, meeting friends and so on because I had nowhere to go but in some ways I never realized that it was a problem because I really enjoyed it, had a good time, I took like fish to water, I'd read up all the books in the library on my own and a lot of Amar Chitrakathas, if you know, right, I mean, this was when I was really young, but later on, I just took like fish to water to just, I don't know, math, science, you know, then yeah, she heard about something called Bombay talent search or national talent search, which now is fairly commonplace, but at that time was fairly uncommon.  In fact, it was funny, these classes were in Matunga and they said, okay, coming from Buribli, this is in eighth or ninth grade, right?   So then she went around and drafted three other kids who would go along with me so that we could be a group going to these classes safely, traveling on our own in local trains and so on. So I think just some of these were early influences, but I never felt like we lacked for anything because we had whatever I needed in my then worldview, we had in abundance. There were always lots of friends, lots of family, lots of books, what more do you need, right? So, is it better for an entrepreneur to have a mindset of abundance or is it better to have a mindset of scarcity? What creates a better mindset? Oh, I mean, certainly, frugality is a key prerequisite and even if you have a lot of funding, like say, and we'll come to that right now, we've got a big round of funding, but the frugality mindset is not just doing things with less money, but it's doing more with whatever you have, right? Stretching the limits, pushing the limits and so on. So absolutely essential, but in early stages, it's critical because you usually, you know, you may raise a few hundred thousand or a million dollars and really, you know, the statistics say that most companies die simply because they run out of money. It's not that it's a bad idea, it's not that it didn't work, it's just that you didn't last long enough to be able to figure out whether it was a good idea or not, or to be able to deploy your vision and so on and the in frugality can stretch your runway. It can help you, you know, keep going and to innovate more, to ideate, to iterate over different examples and so on. So absolutely, you know, frugality is key. Another direct influence I can tie to that is also, you know, never getting hassled, right? I mean, nothing goes as planned. Like at that time, you know, if the trains are not working, you still have to show up to work, you know, you just figure out and it may take a half an hour longer to get there, but you just go, you don't complain, right? If the rickshaw is not working, you get a bicycle and get to the train station, right?  Nothing is ever going to go as planned. You're just going to improvise, figure it out, adjust, go with the flow and so on, right? And it was funny that in some other places, conversely, when things go exactly as scheduled, always on time and then you're just conditioned to expecting that and when it doesn't, you can get very frazzled and so on. So I think I've just found that these are, I think in many ways Indians are natural entrepreneurs, right? Because you are between frugality and resiliency and just sort of being calm about things, I think it helps. Now, I'm not saying everybody or every Indian is like this, but I think in general, the ecosystem is such that it forces you to be that way. When you finished your school, what was your career choice? I mean, what did you want to be if somebody had asked you in class 8, 9, 10, whatever? When you were old enough to sort of understand some career choices, what was it in your head? What did you want to do?  I think it was really abstract in some sense, right? Because like I was telling you, National Talent Search, these are really IQ tests. They make you solve puzzles really and it was a lot of fun. It was like really, you could work just doing things like this. It's only much later than I realized that a lot of things in life you do. Problem solving and really tricky problem solving is a rare skill and if you can do that and do that well, that helps. Now, I went to IIT Bombay and I studied computer science again partly because everybody, every advisor or every uncle I talked to would be like, okay, this is the future, so you got to do a focus on that if you could and fortunately I had a high rank, so I had that choice. But I really, again, loved computer science. It was very, it's exactly that, problem solving. A lot of it is just math, analytical, algorithmic, so it was a lot of fun. So I stayed with computer science but it's not like before I got in there, I knew exactly where that would lead. So yeah, the earliest sense of it was, yeah, just work on the most challenging, exciting, interesting puzzles and problems that you can find and let's see where that leads. And obviously, as I went through it, you sort of realize much more. After IIT, I ended up at MIT as well and that just exposed me to a lot more things, right? I mean, things happening on a global scale. So I think that sort of one thing led to another. Yeah.  What is it that you see as an inherent strength of the IIT, you know, or versus the MIT? What would that be? Oh, versus MIT because I think there were very similar experiences in some sense, right? I think they really take, you know, the cream of the crop, if you will, at least in the STEM fields, they take the best kids they can find in the country and put them together. And, you know, you'd think it's a hyper competitive, which it is, but it's surprisingly also very collaborative. I mean, I've formed some of the best relationships that survive to this day, right? Really, my closest friends are people I went to school with, even though back then we used to compete a lot and fight a lot. I think MIT had the same dynamic as well, right? Just they sort of take the best kids from the US or globally actually and put them there. Maybe the difference to the extent it existed was because I did undergraduate school versus graduate school. It's a little different, right? Undergraduate school is a lot more of coursework. Graduate school is a lot more of research. So you're more, you know, focused on just your lab and your work and so on versus lots of group activities and lots of, you know, large classrooms and so on, right? So I think maybe that was the difference. But in terms of school, of course, you know, MIT has a ton more resources, right? So again, you know, Indian institutions are frugal, but also very creative and resourceful, right? The books are the same, but the computers are not and, you know, you kind of have, you have to push the limits of what your, you know, what your computers can do to develop some of these things. But I think it was really great preparation. I mean, there was no challenge whatsoever on the core things, right? I think the bigger learning, perhaps, going from undergrad to grad school, right? So the, there are many strengths and weaknesses, I think, of the Indian education system, right? I think certainly, you know, in some ways, there's a greater emphasis on education among all families, people like doing it. It can be hyper competitive, which is, again, good or bad, right? If you're at the top of the pyramid, it's a great thing. But, but it can, you know, really be challenging and distressing for a lot of other people, right? So I don't know if it's entirely good, but obviously, many people who went through IIT and so on benefited from this today. But the other thing is, you know, you're always told what to do, right? All through high school and undergraduate school. Well, this is the course you take and that's it. And when you get to, when I got to MIT for grad school, it was kind of funny, you know, I'd go to the admissions office and what courses do I have to take? And they ask you, like, what are you going to do? And it's like, oh, I don't know. I mean, I've been told all along what to do. And now you have to think, right? And you have to find and chart your own path through the education system. What is it that you're really passionate about? And it's surprising, right? It was a very new phenomena at that time. But it really forced you to think, like, you know, to your earlier question, right? That was the first time where you really started thinking, okay, what is it that I want to do? Where do I want to go? What is it? What is it I want to specialize in or study or, you know, interesting? So what did you want to study? What was that? So yeah, it was, it changed. It changed a lot. And I discovered a lot. And I think it was a process of self discovery. So for example, in my case, you know, I'd done some coming out of IT, I'd done my research and published, even published a paper in distributed computing, right, which was sort of one part of computer science. Explain to me in layman's terms, what is distributed computer? It just, you know, connecting lots of computers in parallel to make a bigger computer, right? So that's sort of one specialized field of science. But even before I got to MIT, I read all the brochures and I saw these images of people working on AI, right, artificial intelligence.  So I said, okay, this sounds more interesting or more cool. So even before I got to MIT, I changed, changed it.  So I did that, but when I got to MIT, now this was in the early 90s, you know, Cold War was over, defense funding was declining. So the AI lab had less funding. But then I went to the media lab and I worked on, you know, again, AI for personalized newspapers, right, which is super interesting. I took courses in the management school at Sloan School, which I was just curious about, right? This is where I started sort of thinking about, okay, you know, technology is great in and of itself, but what impact does it have on the real world? How can I apply it? And, you know, sort of, you know, how do you make a dent in the universe as the cliche goes in Silicon Valley? You want to, you know, you want to have, have some real impact, not just academic problem solving, right? So this is where a lot of that development happened about, you know, sort of how the world works and how, how money works, right, which was super interesting. So by the time, and perhaps the most important realization was, you know, after about, so I was admitted to the PhD program, but I realized that I didn't want to stay in academia. I wanted to be in the, in the world of business entrepreneurship and try something along those lines, right? So already I'm taking these courses at business school along with my research in computer science. And I think that sort of really, when it got crystallized or formalized into saying, okay, you know, I like working at the intersection of, of technology and business of, of using, you know, all the things that I'd learned to have some real world business impact.  Because clearly, this is not something that you planned for. So is it something that takes very little time to develop? You know, how does it go? I guess, I don't know, maybe my Gujarati blood or something like that. No, I'm just kidding. I think so, you know, the things that you don't learn that, that in general, right, again, generalizing the Indian education system is a good ad is really, you know, letting you experiment, freestyle thinking, right, figuring out what you want to do, or a lot of the interpersonal skills, right, the sort of persuasive skills, right, conflict resolution skills, having, having debate, challenging, trying to convince the other person to your point of view, and still, you know, being mature and cool about it, even when they disagree with you and so on. And these are all very, very essential skills, right.  Now, of course, you know, in, in IT, a lot of it, at least for me, happened informally.  So, so you pick it up along the way, right.  And by the way, once you graduate, you can get almost the best salary jobs that there are. And it's, it's not that challenging. And therefore, a lot of people would just say, you know what, it's, it's good already, why take a risk, right, because I've succeeded in everything, why put myself in a position where it could fail. And that, that fear of sort of a track record of success can also lead to a fear of failure and so on, right. So, is that why you decided to go and take a job in the financial sector, where you work with city and Merrill Lynch and No, actually, so in my, in my thinking, really, you know, I knew, I mean, I'd learned everything that was at that time, you know, to learn in computer science felt very confident about it. What I didn't know enough off was about the business world, right. So, in a sense, my sort of five-year stint on Wall Street was more like my business school experience, which really taught me a lot about, you know, negotiation about selling. I mean, I was initially, I was modeling sort of securities, right, which is, which is more computer science than finance, if you think about it, because you're really, you know, developing these financial models, which are all sort of based on statistics and computer algorithms and so on. So, and then a couple years later, sort of, I became the trader of these securities, a bond trader, if you will. So, but in that process, right, you're hedging risk, you're building a portfolio, you're trading, you're negotiating, you're strategizing and so on. So, I think it helped. That was my, like I said, my business school experience, but meanwhile, and while I was there, now it's in the mid-90s, you know, the internet happened, right? Sort of, Netscape went public, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, all of these companies were being formed. And I was like, okay, now it's real.  And that's where I kind of got back to my sort of, you know, got back to the intersection of business and technology.  I think the fear of failure never bothered me. I mean, I felt like, okay, you know, I'm confident I feel I have nothing to prove in an academic sense, but there's a lot to prove on the business side. And I think, you know, what good is all the skill sets and all the experience that you've developed, if you can't, you know, sort of solve some interesting problems, create some new things, have an impact, you know, on the world and so on. Right. So that's how I felt. I mean, I was just drawn to it. It didn't, you know, just sort of doing a basic job at that time didn't excite me. It just really wanted to have more creative freedom and drive it. Now things have changed a lot these days. Right. I mean, a lot of tech startups today provide that creativity while without having to take so much risk, you know, while being part of a large organization. So I think these days there are many more choices than there used to be. But so that's how I ended up where I am. Perfect. So, you know, just to sort of recap for those of us who've joined in late, I'm talking to Virat Shet. He's the co-founder of Gavsha. He's the CEO of the company as well. And he also, you know, formed another company which was at that point of time called Elance and later it became Upwork as a result of a merger. We'll get talking about that. But that's coming up for you. We have a couple of comments that, you know, some of our viewers have put together, you know, they've shared. Preeti Shroff talks about the early influences, progality, family education and experience of hacking solutions. And she also says a great insights. Thank you. Real impact is the true measurement of education, entrepreneurship, technology and learning. So that's Preeti.  So you have some of the listeners comments. So thanks. Thanks a lot for listening in and just to recap, we're going to really start moving into your entrepreneurial journey and really start with this question which I have always been intrigued about. You know, when you start a company, is it true that when you're an engineer, you know, you're dealing with a lot of things which are binary. You know, it's either right or wrong, whether it's putting, whether it's engineering problems. When you are working in business, you're working with people and it is anything but binary. You know, the same person is not going to respond in the same way to the identical stimulus. Is it tougher for somebody who's trained in a very binary thinking process, you know, do engineers find it harder to respond to human solutions or challenges? What is your take on that? No, I think quite the contrary. Well, so the interpersonal, I mean, I don't know if there are good schools for interpersonal relationships or, you know, sort of teamwork and so on. That's something all of us are born with and you sort of refine and, you know, optimize and so on.  How do you do large, complex things by breaking it into smaller components, by modularizing it, by, you know, solving each component separately, being very analytical about it, by, you know, leaving emotions out. And I found that, you know, a lot of, you know, when you deal with sort of the personal dimension of it, the people aspect of it, sometimes it helps to be thoughtful and feeling an emotional person, but many times it actually helps to take emotions out of it to depersonize the issues and focus on whether it's right or wrong. And I think, you know, for example, you know, conflict resolution requires you to sort of actually, you know, take emotions out of it and really say, okay, what makes sense or what's the best idea, right? It's not about egos. It's not about hierarchy.  It really is, you know, looking at it objectively saying, what's the best idea? Who has the best idea? You create a meritocratic environment that actually leads to, you know, sort of the best ideas coming up, the greatest growth for the company, the most innovation.  Or did you talk to that person directly, right? Don't escalate to me until you try to resolve it. Or even if there are challenges and so on, right? I mean, it's a workplace is not a family, right? It's really, we are optimizing for business growth. We're not trying to optimize for personal happiness, right? So I think really just keeping that focus, you know, I think the engineering mindset really equips you with a very, like you said, you know, it's a bit of the opposite skill set, but equally as essential in solving the people aspect of it too. Now, there's no doubt that, you know, some, some people are just far more, they're far more EQ, far more intuitive, you know, far more capable and so on. So of course, you know, as a team, we have lots of people, many of whom are better than me and some of these other aspects, right? And so on. So you kind of have to know your strengths and your weaknesses and surround yourself with others who can compliment you and so on, right? You don't need to be no one. That's also much tougher. You don't work with people who are very different from you. And I actually want to sort of challenge this whole view that, you know, you said that you take away the emotion and that's one part of it and make an objective, totally get that when you're trying to solve a problem. Sometimes it's important to segregate the emotion and the person. But does it also mean that, you know, when you take emotions out of it, the workplace becomes super transactional. And then you don't get all the things that you talk about employee engagement, you talk about being passionate about a dream. You know, would you think that when you remove emotions, it also has the by-products that you make it super transactional. It's the money, you do this and then I do it kind of thing. So, yeah, fair enough. I think, look, this is such a complex topic that I don't think you can generalize to one end of the spectrum or the other. I think there are situations where, you know, diffusing emotions is better. There are other situations like leadership, inspiration, motivation are clearly emotions that drive, right? So there are constructive emotions that, you know, passion, commitment, right, intensity, hard work, resiliency, great. I mean, these are very critical and essential emotions to success and you got to have that in spades. In fact, you want to over-index on that side, right?  So I think there's, I don't think you can generalize entirely. So, yeah, you want to have a lot of the right kind of emotions. You know, one thing we talk about a lot is you want missionaries, not mercenaries, right? You want people who are excited about the mission of the company, what you're working on. It's not just for the money, they're just not here just for the compensation because, as you know, in a hyper-competitive Indian market, you know, no matter what salary you're at, you'll get, somebody will pay you. In fact, because you're at Gapshap, very likely somebody will pay you more, right? Out there. And you can't sort of play this game of matching and one offensive constantly, right?  But, you know, it's not like we're going to under-pay by any stretch, right? Because you want everybody to have a good life and everybody has to live. But on the other hand, you know, you want people to be excited about what they're doing as well. So yeah, I think, you know, just finding the right balance, you know, seeing where it's useful versus not. Yeah, I think it's really a balance. You know, and you built one of the first places, at least that I know of, which is about the gig work, you know, finding opportunities for gig workers. What was that idea like? How did it evolve? What set you in that direction?  Tell me about it. So this was, you know, it was in the late 90s and really, this idea was a culmination of my life experiences until then, right? So this was in the late 90s. I was in, you know, I just graduated from MIT, I'd spent some time on Wall Street and so on. And as I now think back, right, so there may be some post facto revisionism, but not really, right? I think, you know, coming from India, I knew that there were talented people all over the world, right? But so that's sort of one obvious life experience. Having studied computer science, I could see the immense power and impact of the internet to connect people in far-flung places. That was sort of my second, you know, personal life experience. And then the third thing was, having worked on Wall Street, I knew that you could create marketplaces even for, you know, seemingly illiquid securities, right? So not just for stocks and bonds that most people think about, but even for all kinds of other, you know, mortgage back and asset back securities and things like that. So you take these sort of three ideas, right? And what you get is really a global services marketplace, a place where you can have freelancers from all over the world interacting and getting work done for people in other parts of the world connecting through the internet, having a live marketplace where, you know, the price for doing work is determined by the freelancers themselves, by the participants, you know, and so on. And we just, we set it up as a little experiment, which was, you know, so the funny thing was literally the beta version of the product, we said, where can we, you know, getting a marketplace started is really, really hard. Where can we get some freelancers who can do some, you know, high quality work for a low price and then try some projects with it. So guess what, we went back to IIT and there's a lot of, you know, summer students who are always, you know, they had some job, but oftentimes these are not interesting jobs. So they could work on, you know, of course, coding projects, they were very good at those things. And any pocket money, especially in dollars at that time was a lot for these kids. So even today, right, kids from that time, they remember they made a ton of pocket money far more than whatever their internship paid them. And somebody would list a project saying, can you bring me a website or can you write this software program? And guess what, right, like literally like three days later, right, it would get done, it would be very high quality and it'd be very inexpensive and really sort of validated that idea. So soon as that happened, we made public with it, we, you know, launched it, more people signed up and so on. And you just sort of from that, you extrapolate to what today is up work. And there are millions of freelancers all over the world earning their livelihood through a site like this is such a, you know, it's so gratifying that it has had such an impact, like I was saying earlier, right. So really, it's fostered, you know, millions of entrepreneurs in a way because a freelancer is really an entrepreneur, right, they sort of every day, they come in and they create their own future really. So very exciting. But yeah, that's how that's how Elan's got started. Even at a personal level, we didn't have a lot of money or resources. This is where frugality comes in, right, we started in a in a two bedroom apartment in New York or in Jersey City, which is just across the river. Because, you know, I mean, we raised money from some friends, again, the IT alumni network, right, we had about five friends, each of whom brought like three or four investors in. So we had about 20 people. We raised a million dollars, you know, we are in this two bedroom apartment. And we grew to about 20 people who would come in in the morning and leave in the evening.  And in fact, my co-founder was actually using that as a bedroom at night when nobody was around. And in the daytime, it'd be office and so on. So I think it's been quite a story of how we got started.   Is there a balance between the two? Well, I think, you know, firstly, there's no one size fits all, right. Some kinds of work are just inherently modular, right. I think, I mean, if you think about it, let's say, you know, even as a company in normal circumstances, when you're working with lawyers, you don't need lawyers all the time, right. But if you're doing a transaction, if you're doing a deal, if you're negotiating something, you need them, but there are times when you don't need them. Or like design work, right. You need them when you're launching something new. But once it's done, you want to be consistent with that design. So you're not changing it every time. And so when you go through it, right. In fact, it's funny. So there was an MIT professor who did some phenomenal research on the theory of organization, meaning what's the right size of a company. And, you know, he studied like over the past couple of hundred years and sort of said, you know, companies grow big when it makes sense, when it's easier to do transactions within the company than outside the company, right. But new technologies, especially the internet at that time, was making it easier to transact outside the company than inside the company, right. Because if somebody had a stationary shop, right, meaning office supplies, they could do a really good job at it rather than your department in house. So you're better off working with them.  So his point was, you know, as that happened, as internet gets more widely adopted, organizations grow smaller because you don't need, you just keep your core competency inside and outsource the rest, right. It's sort of the Indian outsourcing industry and then freelancing is an extension of that. And by the way, this is what he called, he coined the term sort of the Elance economy, which is where we took the name from. And then, you know, we talked to him, made him an advisor and so on. So I think, no, it's no one size fits all. I think there are things that need continuous sustained effort, but there's a lot of work that is just periodic, modular, on demand as needed. And companies need the flexibility to be able to scale up during, let's say the holiday season, when there's more demand for some services, and scale down when there's less demand, right, maybe a call center, maybe a support operation and so on. So I think the whole freelance model really gives businesses the flexibility to solve other kinds of problems that were not previously possible, right. So you now have Nimbler organization that can right size themselves over time, right, literally by the day or the month and so on. So I think, yeah, I mean, it's really, by the way, you're seeing this, you know, the computing equivalent of this is what we call cloud computing today, right. You might say, well, I want to own my computer because I use it all the time.  So you might want to own your own car, but 80% of the time you're just sitting in the garage, right. What if Ola and Uber can find another passenger when you're not using it. But when you need it, you press a button and it shows up, right, we're all sharing the car or Airbnb, right. Yeah, you want to own your house, but your bedroom is lying idle, what if somebody you could rent it out, you could make money, they benefit as well, right. So this whole idea of there being idle time that can be utilized better and optimized is good. It just unleashes greater efficiency through the ecosystem, it drives more flexibility, it drives, you know, less wastage and so on. And it just, you know, it literally creates a value out of nothing. I mean, it was just lying idle, right. So freelancers, a lot of it initially started with literally moonlighting, meaning you have a day job, but you still have a lot of energy on the weekends or evenings and so on, and they want to work and they have the skill. So they just do a little bit of a project and get it done, but it's at a lower cost because, you know, it was idle time for them anyway, right. So they can make extra money and it has to cost lesser than the market rate and therefore it just drives, you know, full of employment and so on. So I think these are really powerful, impactful ideas that have now gone on to, you know, transform the world we live in. Do you look at, you know, the world of gig work, so to say, with a sense of, right, that, you know, it's created so many opportunities or do you feel that your vision of how gig work should have been, you know, now a lot of people talk about the fact that gig workers don't have health insurance and all of that and this notion of flexibility is not something that somebody can really sustain at a really minimum wage kind of a level. What is your take on that? I mean, how do you view it? Opportunities on millions, there's no getting away from that.  I think what's missing yet is that the rest of the world has to catch up to sort of this freelance lifestyle, right? Let me explain what I mean, right? So traditionally, you know, so where did the idea of 9 to 5 jobs come from, right? That's not how, thousands of years ago, that's not how people lived, right? You had the artisan economy and you had people just doing in the village, you'd have people doing their own thing or the trading communities and so on, but it was sort of in the industrial era, right? Where you started having the steam engine and the factories that followed after that that required, you know, there's a standard place of work, right? Firstly, there's a fixed factory and then you have to have shifts because it has to keep running and so there's a fixed amount of time and so on. And once people started going from 9 to 5, for example, then you had to create schools where kids could go at the same time, right? Which also give you the school hours because while the parents are at work, somebody has to watch the kids and so on. And then the education system developed, you know, so a lot of it is it came from the industrial era, right? So it's not sacred by any stretch, but over the 500 or so years that it developed, you know, think about it, society also adjusted around it, which means healthcare and employment sort of got tied to your place of employment, right? So at least in the US, all your health insurance and benefits are provided by the employer and that kind of worked. Now the moment you get to, but the internet era is inherently different, right? It allows you to make connections with people all over the world instantly, flexibly and so on, which is what's driving the freelance economy. It provides additional flexibility to businesses, to people.  While we were preaching remote work, there were many people who were skeptical or doubtful and so on, but two decades in a pandemic later, it's now conventional wisdom, all of us, right? The world would practically have ended if we couldn't do remote work over the last couple of years with the pandemic, right? The fact that and even in the US, for example, these remote towns where lifestyle is good are getting very popular because you can go live by the lake or in a nice, lovely place with less traffic, even as you're working in New York or in Silicon Valley and so on. So the point I'm making is, it gives you, it affords you these opportunities that you didn't have before.  But now guess what? You know, you could go live in Goa and work in Mumbai or Delhi. I mean, isn't that great? Now, the challenge is benefits, healthcare, you know, which are employer-linked, they need to change to be employee-linked, right?  So Europe, for example, has less of an issue dealing with some of this because they have nationalized healthcare, right? So it doesn't matter where you work. It's not coming from your employer, you know, so you have flexibility to do different things and so on. So I think this is really, you know, the world or, you know, governments and benefit programs and, you know, the rest of the ecosystem has to catch up with really this powerful force that's been unleashed with freelancing, right? So it's been what, like, barely two decades since I started it and just a few years since it's become widespread. So I think, you know, the world needs some time to catch up to what's really going on. Tell me about your current setup in Gapshap. What is Gapshap? What does it do? Where do we see its impact? Talk to me about that. So we describe ourselves as a conversational messaging platform, okay? And these are big words. So let me explain, right? Firstly, let's talk about basic messaging, right? So most of your users today on their mobile phone listeners, on their mobile phone, they receive these text messages, right?  So these are, so businesses across industries and across geographies, right? Worldwide send a lot of these messages in real time to all their consumers. So we provide a platform that allows them to send these billions of messages, you know, to lots and lots of people we connect with mobile operators and to other networks to enable that delivery and its high performance and there's a lot of complexity to it. So we manage all of that, that's the platform we provide, right? Now, so far, all of this messaging has been very basic, which says, you know, you sort of get an SMS very likely or just a plain text message. But there are some newer technologies that are emerging, which allow that message to be much richer. So you can now put an image inside the message, right? So it could either be a logo or a chart or something that's relevant or you can put buttons and cards inside the messages so that, you know, if you get some spend notification, you can, you know, you can reschedule your delivery or you can make a payment right away and so on. And also you can now have two-way conversation between the business and the consumer, right? And that's what's called a conversational messaging experience. And if that happens, now, just through that message, you could, you know, you get the payment reminder with one click, you make a payment, you get a delivery notification with another couple of clicks, you can reschedule the delivery or with some order confirmation, they can give you a recommendation saying, here are some accessories, there's a special deal on that and you can even shop for it.  So suddenly chatting or interacting with business becomes as easy as chatting with a friend. You can just send a text message. So now you won't need to call the call center, assuming they have one, right? So if they have a call center and you call, you don't have to call them, you don't have to be on hold for like 15, 20 minutes, you don't have to explain the whole story, you're really just sending them a text message and say, I have this problem, I need a refund or I need to do this and it just gets resolved right there or I need to upgrade my flight or reschedule, you know, my hotel booking or whatever. All of that just gets done through conversational messaging. So it's a really big idea where, you know, if you think about it, in the mid 90s when the web came about, every business had to build a website because that's how customers were looking to interact with businesses and today it's all commonplace. I think if you look forward a few years from now, every business, right, will be doing this. So the conversational experience is sort of the new digital storefront. This is where consumers are looking to interact with businesses and if they, and you know, we will all just be able to chat with any business for getting deals and offers, for buying things from them, for reporting problems, for getting, you know, so whether it's customer support or marketing or commerce, all of that would just be taken care of maybe through WhatsApp, maybe through, you know, SMS messaging or newer technologies that are coming up will make it really, really easy to to converse, right?  We are very excited about it. We are the leading platform. We provide all the tools and all the infrastructure that businesses need to make this work and to offer a delightful experience, right? And there's a natural, there's room for AI and natural language processing so that, you know, you can do this, do these automated conversations with millions of people at very high scale. So anyway, that's, that's what we're working on. Yeah, so, you know, when you think about, when you think about this whole, you know, experience of growing an organization, when you think about that, why is it that when you build an organization, the technology is going to be at a certain stage and then technology evolves, you need different skills, you know, so how do you build for that in the organization? What is your method of doing that? Yeah, I mean, I think, in fact, we are living this right now as we speak. We are going through a hyper growth phase and really, you know, scaling fast. But, you know, the best analogy I've heard is that different company, there's a military analogy which says, you know, there's different stages of company growth, you need different kinds of people. In the early stages, you need commandos, right, which are, commandos are very versatile, they carry everything they need on their backpack, you can throw them, you know, far into deep into enemy territory and they'll figure out a way to establish a beachhead. And once that's done, right, then you bring in the army, right, which operates in a lockstep fashion, they need, you know, a whole supply chain to support them, but they can, from the beachhead, they can go there and acquire, gain more territory, you know, but they operate in large numbers with a lot of support and infrastructure. And finally, once all the territory is captured, then you need the police force, right, to maintain law and order, right, they're just making sure that things are working fine, that there are no complaints, and so on. And each of these is a very different skill set, right, so at early stages, you know, and that's very true with tech startups as well. In the beginning, you need these versatile people who are, you know, who are comfortable with lack of structure and lack of, you know, you have to do whatever is required and the, you know, the job requirement might vary by the day, because different things happen and different, you know, you have to deal with it. But it's a small team that can be very aggressive and figure that out. And then as it scales up, now you bring in the specialists, right, growth marketing, or it could be, you know, sales in a particular region, and so on, right. And then finally, you also bring in, you know, operations people and, you know, scale so that they can really run it at very high scale without things breaking, right, everything sort of runs very, very precisely. So I think one is that's the mindset. You need different attitudes at different stages of company growth. I think the other is just, you know, at least what I've found is trying to maintain and hold on to your culture, right, as long as you can. For example, I talked about some things earlier. You want to be, at least at Gapshap, we want to be, you know, very innovative, very entrepreneurial, very collaborative, you know, apolitical, you know, to the extent it's possible. I think really focus on solving external problems rather than creating internal challenges. I think empowering people, right. If you want to bring in entrepreneurial people, you have to give them the freedom and the flexibility to do, you know, to experiment, to try different things, because no one has a monopoly on ideas and so on, right. So we operate in such a new, you know, it's a new area that there's green field opportunities in every direction.  You don't want things breaking because we have existing customers and scale and performance and so on. So I think it really, so an important thing is it's not just the resume value alone, but the attitude. How do you measure that in an interview? What do you ask to measure that? I think, you know, you can tell very quickly if people are flexible, they have a growth mindset, they are open, you know, if you ask, you know, or even why, like why did you switch from one job to another to another or what was the narrative? What's sort of the, what makes you tick? What's the driving force, right? What's the common thread and therefore if you extrapolate from that, right?    It's, it's not like your ego is wound up into, you know, everything you're, you're talking about because, because entrepreneurship is a very humbling experience. I mean, every day, right, somebody has a smart idea and you don't and if you get your ego, right? So, so, so a lot of these things, right? I think, and some people are very versatile and adaptive, but others, let's say if they've worked in large organizations where your identity is tied into your hierarchy, into your, the size of your office space, into, you know, sort of your title, then those are not the kind of, you know, that's not the kind of mindset that will work in a startup environment where you're really just like, look, let's just get on with it and who around the room is the best idea and they could be a junior person. It doesn't, doesn't matter, right? And so on. Another thing we try to encourage people to do is, you know, is, is creative conflict is good. There are different ideas and so on. You don't want people to be excessively deferential to the, you know, you have these fresh young kids coming from school going, yes, ma'am and so on. And, you know, so we have a no-sir culture in our office, right? Saying, look, I don't want, you know, I'd get more mad at you if you do what I said than what you think was right, right? So, it's really important. How much progress do you have now? Well, so until a couple months ago, it was 200. We are now touching 300 and we'll probably end up at 400, you know, within a month or so. So it's growing very rapidly. And I think by the end of the year, it may be much larger as well. So we're expanding also global, right? We are in many countries outside India and so on. So growing very rapidly. So does it mean that at some stage when the organization is in multiple countries, there are different geographies to manage and all of that. So, you know, when you think about the complexity, would it still be possible for you to maintain the culture and the dream that you have? Oh, absolutely. And it's kind of funny, right? Culture transcends language, right? It transcends geography. I think we, of course, you have to do the extra bit to engage with people in different places. Now, personally, I've had the luxury or the privilege of, you know, I've spent half my life in India, half my life in the US, right? And I think that already is very different, very different cultures and places. And also, you know, growing up in India, it's such a heterogeneous society that it's very hard to be very insular because you're always dealing with people who speak different languages, eat different foods and, you know, different traditional clothes and so on, right?  In fact, you can see the humanity and the personality through those differences, right? Saying, you know, whether it was at IT or other places, it didn't matter which part of the country you came from, you're really debating ideas and sort of concepts on its merit. You know, so I think dealing with people, I think, again, right? So if you approach it from first principles, as opposed to saying, oh, you know, this person is different. So they may be, I don't know, if you have a stereotype or a prejudice saying they must be bad or good, I think those are the things that can get you into trouble. What if you're really open-minded saying, look, you know, yeah, there may be some cosmetic differences, but we actually, there are more similar in really meaningful ways than different. So it makes a huge difference. So no, we're growing a lot in Latin America and Europe in the US as well. I'm in here in Palo Alto right now, right? So I think we are, it's not been a problem if you, you know, if you, and a lot of it is, it depends on the leader, right? I mean, if you project the right kind of culture and personality into the organization, then everybody knows that this is, you know, then they don't think about where we are or what culture or language it really is just here's what needs to get done. Perfect. So, you know, I just want to sort of say thanks to all of you for joining. Thank you, Beirut. We are at the end of the hour. So thanks a million for joining and I so appreciate all the comments and the questions and, you know, we'll keep this going. And next week again, we are going to be back at the same time with yet another really super interesting person. So just stay tuned, look forward to your questions. And if you have any questions, you can email me and connect with me on LinkedIn and we'll take that. So thanks a lot and goodbye.