Hello, everybody. So I'm really excited for this, because what UHA and IQM are working on just gets me so fired up and optimistic about the future. We're talking about manipulating the quantum states of superconducting circuits that close to absolute zero temperatures to enable a method of computation the world has never seen before, which might enable us to develop new therapeutics and solve the climate crisis and do all sorts of incredible things. And so I'm super excited to learn more about what you're doing in your journey. So maybe first just tell me a little bit how you got started in the world of quantum computing. Right. I would start from the five years ago. I was here for the first time in Slash and looking for funding for the seed round. And actually, it was part of our one year startup phase, or like a funding phase, where we're looking for the investors. We thought that it would be easy just to get the money. It took like a one full year. Eventually, we were able to rise the biggest seed round funding in whole Europe, 11 and 1 half million four and half years ago. So we are actually kind of university spin out from all the university VDD state research center here in Finland. We are four founders. During this first year, we were able to convince 20 of our best people we knew to join the company once we get the funding. There were like a, before this, there is like a 20 years of, let's say, preparatory stage. So first, I was a physics student, studied quantum computing 2001. There was a first set of lectures in Finland on quantum computing ever. My co-founder, some of our employees, took those lectures by Japanese professor, Mikio Nakahara, who actually we hired to the company when he retired from Japan in the beginning of this year. So there had been like a long, long history, a lot of work done in university. And then there was a spin out. And then we started flying. Cool. Love it. So I want to dig into specifics. But first, maybe at a very high level, it useful quantum computers have been two years away for like 20 years. So first, tell us a little bit about the state of quantum computing. And please answer the question, where are all the quantum computers? Well, I can deliver you one in six months, so no problem. So yeah, so they are quantum computers where for a long time they were a university research topic. And they are now taking off from there. They are about to land on commercial side to industry. They are still a bit far away or like one or two years away, as you said. But we, as ICAM, don't care so much about that. It's not a big particular event for us. But we are like those ones who make the shovels for the others who are digging the gold in the gold rush. So there's a gold rush for quantum computing. Someone will find it, someone not. But we will take benefit. Our business is not based on that. Who will find the gold? But we will provide the tools for the others who are pursuing the road towards that. This might be an answer to my next question. You've raised $11.5 million. Google is spending billions of dollars developing quantum computers. IBM is committed to tens of billions of dollars. How does a small startup in Finland fit into that ecosystem where so much money is being spent in such an R&D intensive industry? Yeah, so we have been always being on a two-string budget here in Finland. So that is not the first time. So let's say that why we can do it is that there has been like 60 years of university research. There is a lot of talent around here. There is like a lot of open facilities. We have actually quite an open culture for collaboration. So we don't need to do everything ourselves, but there is a quantum ecosystem. And all those help us to develop things quite rapidly. And of course, we have our own tricks at IQM. And so does the money that Google's spending and IBM's spending, are those dollars that you might see because you're building infrastructure for them? Or how do you fit in exactly? Well, first to say that we have actually now collected close to 200 millions already. So it's not anymore like peanuts. So but this is a capital intensive domain. So we have to build. We have to have those hardware on our facilities. We have to have big facilities. It all costs. But what is good in Finland? We have another company like Blue Force who is building those fridges which are cooling the chips to absolute zero. They are spin out 10 years earlier from the same lab. So and then there are like VTT, state research center, who are doing part of the value chain there. So we don't need to build everything in-house. We collaborate with others. And that way we can reach the complete solution together. Well, so you've already referenced a couple of times that this was built on top of research done in academia.  You have your three co-founders also have PhDs. The CEO of the company is a PhD. In my opinion, one of the most interesting and important trends we're seeing globally is this rise of science entrepreneurship. This rise of PhD entrepreneurship. And so I'm curious in your journey, what were the advantages of coming from a very technical background and what have been the challenges? So yeah, so all in all, we have now about 300 people in IQM and about 40% of them are holding a PhD. So they are very smart people out there. There are obvious advantages that you don't need to tell them twice what to do. They will figure out. So I should say that there is like they are learning quickly. They can adapt quickly and so on. But then of course, I should say that the biggest part of the issues are always the people issues. So you need to make sure that those people, they are usually very stubborn with their own thoughts. Everybody think that they know exactly what to do and sometimes they are conflicting views. How to manage those people, how to make sure that they all fit to the company culture and they are all aligned to work towards the same goals. So that's the biggest challenge I see in this. That's maybe the same for the other teams as well. Some of the muscle memory or habits that make you a great researcher don't make you a great employee of a startup or founder of a startup. No, no. So where are the tensions there between the mindset of academia and research and the mindset of building a commercial startup? Yeah, so the challenge is that many of the university researchers are missing the business muscle. So for them, the perfect product is the goal but for a company, the business, the customer should be the goal. So the happy customer, so we should understand what the customers want to build, particularly that product which might be a different from that what the researchers thinks would be the perfect. Interesting. And then what do you do as the leader of the company to sort of help ferment that kind of mindset, the sort of commercial customer-focused mindset among the entire team? Yeah, so that has been a big, big learning curve for us to convert and I think it will be forever. There is like always this kind of conflict but let's say that how we are tackling that is that we have our business unit, our product teams which are different from our core R&D teams and then we try to make those teams to make them discussing with help of the requirements and some technical documentation. So we convert this mindset problem into technical process. Six months away from some sort of very useful content computer, say over the next two to three years, how should everyone in the room, right, I'm sure we have a lot of investors, we have people from corporate, we've got startups, what should they know about what's coming in quantum computing that might impact their businesses? Right, so yeah, so in IQM we are very humble and we don't overpromise anything. So what we are doing, we do quantum computers, we can do them on relatively low Cupid counts but we will deliver them in six months. So and they are very good for research for educational purposes, but let's say that at the same time the whole field is progressing towards quantum advantage or towards like useful applications. Can you define quantum advantage? Yeah, so the quantum advantage is when someone for the first time shows like exponential speedup what the quantum computer should be capable of delivering. So when the problem size grows, then the speedup should be exponential as a problem size. That's a quantum advantage. Since that is maybe a little bit further away than a year, people have started to talk about the useful quantum computer, which means that you would select the quantum computer instead of any other computer for solving the problem. So it might be that the speedup is not exponential but it provides some advantage, which might be like a better accuracy of the solution or less energy consumed for the solution or some other metrics which make it useful so that you eventually select. And so do you think over the next three years quantum computers are gonna be available enough that it's gonna impact the businesses of people in the room or are we still more than three years away from that? I think still over the next three years we are going to see mostly like a very, very impressive demonstrations but maybe it will take a couple of more years before, let's say, the consumer level. Maybe the investors will see it happening but let's say that before the consumers start to see the first applications where you really take advantage of quantum computer for some everyday problem. If I was talking to an American entrepreneur, they'd be saying, oh, next year for sure. Okay, so at the end of the day quantum computing is about computationally solving useful problems. We've seen over the last couple of years the rise of large language models and just sort of classical computing AI technology and it's had incredible applications in drug development in solving the climate crisis, in security. So where is there a need for quantum computing? Like why aren't we gonna be able to solve all these problems with large language models? So I don't see the AI and quantum being competing against each other but I think they are more like supporting each other. So let's say that quantum computer can accelerate the classical computation and you can be running AI on hardware which is quantum accelerated and that way since those large language models are computationally very heavy, they are super heavy. So they consume a lot of electricity, produce a lot of CO2. So quantum computer can jump in there, can help potentially to accelerate and save a lot of CO2 emissions for example. And on the other hand, AI is supporting quantum. So it can be worked in many roles to develop better quantum computers working between the end user and the quantum computer since end users or let's say software developers don't want to learn yet another programming paradigm. So AI jumps in there, you might ask your large language model, please make me a quantum software for this political application. And are there any classes of problems that quantum computing will be able to solve that you don't believe will be able to solve with sort of classical computing AI? There are many. So let's say the lowest hanging fruits are simulating nature. So simulating molecules, that could be lead to like a drug discovery, discovering better enzymes, discovering some functional molecules which are doing a job for you which are not available today. So there are like two ways to find a new molecule either you synthesize them in a wet lab which cost a lot of money, it's very slow or you try to use a computer simulation to make a molecule and predict the chemical properties. But quantum computer can help there and it's a quantum mechanical, it's very well fits to this kind of problem.  You can like in logistics for example where you can expect some improvements quite quickly. So you touched on this sort of very briefly but say you have a quantum computer working, right? You have to build applications for it, right? Sort of software but the software of quantum computing looks more like writing algorithms. So what does that look like now? The sort of software aspect of quantum computing and then how do you see that looking 10 years from now? Well, at the moment you, let's say the quantum resources are so scared and let's say those programming interfaces are rather low level. So you go to something which is like assembler or even below that in a classical computing and I think for ages no one was anymore like doing any assembler code for computers. So it takes still few years to develop before let's say all the algorithm libraries are out there. So at the moment there are basically everything available in Python so some let's say tech savvy people can go and start doing it but let's say they are not yet available to that degree when let's say millions of software developers would be able to take advantage of quantum. So not that long ago you basically had to be a sort of mathematician to write software for quantum computing. Is that no longer the case? Can a Python developer actually write applications for quantum computers? Yes, there are libraries available but you need to still know what you are doing. So in that sense it requires usually like a university level education which is a limiting factor for the number of end users but I think that things are developing very quickly so let's say better and better programming interfaces becoming available. Right, so I mean one of the challenges that many not all but many deep tech companies face is that it's a long road to the final product. And if it's a really long road to the final product and you wait until you have the final product to sell that means you have to be completely reliant on venture dollars to fund the company which is kind of scary. I think quantum computing, looking for something that's scalable, low error rate, long coherence time it's one of these fields where it's just gonna take a while to get to the end final product. You found ways of monetizing different steps along the way. So I'd love to hear your sort of philosophy of going to market very early even before you have your final product and then why you chose to take that path. Yeah, so we found that company four and a half years ago and we were able to run it like a half a year before the COVID hit us and we thought okay is this not the end of the company or what should we do?  We had a starting team and we had a little bit of technology in the corner of a lab. And the largest seed round in European history. Yeah, so we decided that okay we don't stop here but we become aggressive. So we started a very aggressive marketing. We put together what we had in the corners in the lab and started to sell it. We thought that who would in this world buy a quantum computer? Then we actually found out that when the COVID came there were those COVID rescue funds and in Europe they were like almost every country they were looking at the list of new technologies what are the technologies to invest and they had quantum computing pretty high on the list. So we ended up that actually it's a public affairs what we need to do. So we approached those public entities. We told them that actually there is quantum computing available, the hardware you just need the hardware maybe you would like to have maybe your universities maybe your research institutes want to have a quantum computer in the laboratories that will help them to boost their research and so on. And that actually started to resonate very well. So we were able to close those deals like in Finland, in Germany and we have been selling to Israel, Spain other countries as well. So there is kind of a need for this kind of instrumentation so they can build their own knowledge on top of that. So we were small company, less than 50 people and we were talking to the governments all over the Europe. I love that. That's the only way to survive in that one. You did it because you had to. Many founders are very scared when they have the sort of rough products that are laying around the lab to go and sell that to companies because they go, what if it's coming and they'll like it and they'll judge us, they'll never come back. But I know we've talked before and you found that you learned a tremendous amount from going and having those sort of conversations with customers that even impacted your future roadmap. So talk a little bit about like what is the value aside from the revenue of having those conversations with customers so early? I think they are absolutely crucial. So like we discussed, like usually talking about this quantum advantage which is yours away but when we actually learned, when we started to talk to the universities, we actually learned that this is actually this educational aspect is the key. So they want something for their education for their research. And the same thing happened when we started to think whose business is to host a quantum computer. It's high performance computing centers. We actually found that there are hundreds of them around the world. We were selling them like a faster computer and they said, come on, if you want a faster computer we go to HP or Dell or some other providers with the money they provided more computing power. So it's not a computing power, but it's actually CO2. They want less CO2 emissions. So we go talk to them. You learn a lot of things. Maybe you actually keep on developing the same technology but you make a completely different product, very different marketing out of the same product. Well, and then do you have a sort of philosophy of when those sort of very early sales are a distraction versus when they're a really good idea or do you think it's always good to go and try and sell things early? I think it's always very important to have a customer. It's if you're very isolated, you're like, okay, but there are those companies who are doing this big bank strategy. So they are developing for five, six years. I don't know where they find the investors, but yeah. Cool. No, I agree. So you are solving some just insanely hard technical challenges, right? And so how do you build a team that's capable of solving so many really, really hard problems? Actually, the physicists are very crazy. I can tell you, actually, they don't think that it's hard. So I'm surprised myself. So we made like a customer, like an employee satisfaction survey and we were asking like a lot of questions. And the questions were like, in the end, like some, there was always some red there, like some issues here and there, little bit this and that. And then there was one question, who thinks that your skills are not enough for the problems we are solving? And none say that they don't have enough skills. So they have all, everybody very confident that we have a road map, what they can complete. So that is the thing. But of course, like Ernest is speaking, like what we have been doing, we have been targeting the best people in the world. So we have been like in the very beginning, you are nobody, you are startup. You can maybe attract your best friends and the network close to you. But then after that, you are nobody. It's very difficult to convince someone to move to Finland from far away country. So it brings me to my next question. Well, so first of all, when employees feel like they have a good grasp on the challenges ahead, it means you are not setting the bar high enough. Your team should always feel a little bit underwater, right, because that's how you make sure if they can find the 10th gear. So why did you choose to build a quantum computing company in Espoo Finland? Wouldn't have been on my list of like places I'd expect. So there are like a lot of success factors. So this ecosystem, but why there is an ecosystem, there is like a concentration of talent. So there is a concentration of quantum talent here in Finland in Espoo, in particular. And then there is like funding available. There are maybe some other success factors like good regulatory environments, stable conditions and so on, there is a list of those ones. But then in a company, what is the success factor? You need to have a good enough team. You need to go beyond the tipping point. So actually, we found out that once you are able to attract some of the best people in your company, then the others will follow since they want to work with those guns. So, and we started that in physics. We knew very well who are the best physicists. And, but also it happens now we have been like our marketing team. We found some of the world leading marketers to our company. And also we have got a lot of applications now since they want to work with our head of marketing now. Yeah, no, it's absolutely true. I mean, this was the story of Google in the early days that the first 10 hires at Google were the people in search. So all of a sudden everyone else was like, wait, they're at Google, they're at Google, I got it. What is this Google? And so if you can get the first 10 to be really exceptional, it creates this snowball effect of future talent. So we don't have much time left. I would love to leave everyone with a reason to be excited about quantum computing. So like imagine that quantum computing manifests, right? What is your vision for the world when that happens? Like what sort of impact is it gonna have on longevity, on the climate crisis? Like what crazy cool world are we gonna live in? Yeah, we will find a lot of a lot of applications. Like we will have, as I told you about those molecules will make miracles as drugs or they make us like a fertilizer for agriculture without too many CO2 emissions. And eventually the big thing will be that once you have like a chat GPD on steroids, you have a generative AI and then you run it on quantum mechanical computer, like quantum computer. I think that will be the ultimate solution. So then you have a body, you can ask a question which is more smarter than you. So it can answer the fundamental question, what is the fabric of reality of this world? So quantum chat GPD, you heard it here first. Thank you for joining, this was very inspiring. Thank you very much.


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This is Covering the Spread, part of the Fandall Podcast Network. Formula One is back. They have got the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend. The season opener, we're going to see if anybody can take down Red Bull this year. We're going to talk about some F1 betting with Sam Hopin of Betting Pros for today, getting his read on modeling out Formula One, his thoughts on the 2024 season, and some bets that he likes for this weekend in Bahrain. This is Covering the Spread right here on the Fandall Podcast Network and Fandall Research. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a managing editor of digital media for Fandall Research. Joined here as mentioned by Sam Hopin. Check him out on Twitter at Sam Hopin. He is a data scientist for Betting Pros. Sam, it is a delight to have you on the show for today. How are you doing? Jim, thank you for having me on. I'm doing well. It's always funny. I've listened to your show a number of times, but I always listen to it on a faster speed, so then I get to hear the intro at a normal speed now, but we're going to be talking speed all today with some Formula One. I feel like I'd be a nightmare to listen to at 1.25 or 1.5, because I talk fast to begin with, and I know that about myself. It's just like the caffeine, the ADHD blend is a really fun one for talking slow. I can't imagine trying to keep up with my voice if it were faster. Yeah, it's I don't go that as crazy as the 2X speed. I saw three out somewhere. Well, it may be very anxious, but there was a three. Yeah, just the 1.2X doesn't distort things too much, but enough that I noticed the difference in the in the intro. Well, that is good to hear. Well, hopefully we can, as you mentioned, allude to the pace throughout today. Get your read on the 2024 Formula One season and much more in just one second. But first, a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast. Check us out now for podcasts, Spotify, wherever else you get your podcast. If you like what you hear, leave us a five-star rating. We appreciate those you have done so already tomorrow, talking some NFL draft combine props as well, which should be a fun one. Talked about some NFL storylines that could impact betting markets yesterday on the show as well. Get buckets with your first bet on FanDuel America's number one sports book because right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's 150 bucks if your bet wins. Betting all your favorite NBA players and teams with quick bets, live-sign game parlays, exclusive props and more. Just visit the FanDuel app and shoot your shot. FanDuel official partner of the NBA must be 21 plus in president select states. First online real money wager, only $10 first deposit required. Bonus issued is now with trouble. 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But first, I want to dig in to overall betting process when it comes to F1. You've been doing F1 modeling for a bit now. For those of people who are new to betting specifically on F1, what are some key things you've learned from your process of building on a model that they should know before they decide to bet it? Yeah, there's there's a lot that goes into it. There's it's much different than, you know, a football or a basketball where you have specific plays that you can simulate out, stuff like that. You know, within Formula One, there's there are tiers of teams, which we'll we'll get to with it within the rest of the podcast here. But it's there are a lot of things that not necessarily decided. But like Max Verstappen, who will talk about like he's going to be the favorite in almost every race, there are a lot of one way markets. So it's it's tough to necessarily fade drivers as much as you'd like, which is something I tend to want to do a bit more than buying into someone like Max. But that said, I think some of the best bets are often the ones with a lot of juice. Like it's it's not fun to lay minus 300 on a favorite to finish on the podium or finish in the points. But those are often the best bets. And it's basically as long as they don't crash or the car doesn't go to put then you win the bet. So I think it's the and I'll talk about this in the modeling section here next. But the the DNF problem, which is what I like to call it is how do you simulate a driver not finishing the race? Again, whether it's because of a crash or because their their car cramps out, but there are a couple of ways to to do that. But again, I I personally try to buy low and sell high on on some of the teams and drivers understand when they're making upgrades to their car, there are a lot of nuances throughout the season in terms of how many upgrades they can make penalties if they make more upgrades, things like that. So I honestly want to say that there's a little bit more qualitative analysis to this and things that can't necessarily capture in a model that you need to pay attention to, you know, because there are lap times and the the Formula One public data that that's available is is incredible. But I by no means am a a physics expert and understand the things like that. So I don't get that in the weeds and there are some people who do. But understanding again, what, you know, with these different courses to that they're driving on, what team cars are best suited for those courses as well. And luckily, I think that the the qualitative part, you know, if you're not an expert in it, which I'm not similar to you, like, I don't know, aerodynamics and stuff like that. There are a lot of people you can find who are able to parse that for you. And with the upgrades you mentioned, those are reported beforehand. So there will be a list of upgrades in that specific specific week, and you can list that out. And it may not mean an upgrade every time, because sometimes it takes a while to get adjusted upgrades and stuff like that. But it means increased uncertainty. And I think it's important to keep that in mind and increase uncertainty can work both ways, can be good or bad. It could be McLaren last year, mid part of the year or, you know, could be Haas towards the end of last year where their upgrades did not work. So I think it's an important thing to keep in mind that, especially this point in the year, we have not seen cars on track in equal conditions yet. There is a lot of that qualitative aspect in there that you mentioned for right now. Now, you alluded to the modeling part. And my favorite thing about building out a model is sometimes it's like something clicks. It's like, aha, OK, I figured this thing out. And that really brings the models together. And your confidence in the model can increase dramatically with one tweak to it.  Yeah, so I don't know if I've had that aha moment yet. I mean, I mentioned the, again, what I call the DNF problem and trying to understand, again, what causes these guys to DNF. And, you know, it's if you start further back in the grid, you're more likely to crash in lap one because you're in this big cluster of things. Again, the reliability stuff, sort of assigning reliability for a car as opposed to a driver. Like if a Ferrari engine, you know, craps out, then there are several cars that use Ferrari engines. So what can you can you learn from that? I am currently working on a new type of model. So I'm hoping that this aha moment comes. Previously, I was projecting finishing position in a race based on a number of factors and then running simulations based on that. The new model I'm building, I'm trying to build a lap by lap model. So I can, one, again, use some of the more nuanced data in terms of lap times and when people are expected to pit all that sort of stuff. But also apply it to to more markets. There are stuff like leader after the first five laps after 10 laps, stuff like that, so hoping to be able to derive that sort of information from this new model. But yeah, it's it is it is a challenging thing to write, because it's it's similar to golf where not every course is the same. So one driver and car can be different in, you know, on a street circuit versus a race circuit, stuff like that. So I it is it's one of the more fun and challenging projects for sure. I think the aha moment could be the realization that you want a lap by lap kind of model, you know, saying like this is the ideal way for me to build this and kind of getting down that path can even be like, OK, I feel like I'm at least heading the right direction. Right. And because there are things, too, that you can capture with that, whether it's, you know, whether within the specific race, too, in the training data you're using that hopefully, again, I'll be able to capture more. Yeah, OK, I like that. That's a pretty fun improvement. Looking forward to seeing that as it eventually gets rolled out. Now, let's talk about some teams here, because last year, the big story obviously was Red Bull. They won twenty one of twenty two races. Max Verstappen won nineteen of those two for Czecho Perez. And we don't know if that will translate to twenty twenty four. But the preseason testing numbers kind of set is probably going to happen. So let's kind of just assume right now, Sam, that Red Bull continues to do what they did last year. How should that impact the way people bat formula one? It sort of goes back to to what I was saying earlier, of finding some of these other markets. I personally really like had to have markets where you're getting betting on a specific driver versus another.  So they're giving, you know, better as other things to to bet on. And that's something that I started simulating out, too, is, you know, how many times does a driver finish essentially second without or first without Max Verstappen? But it's it's understanding those team tiers and understanding, again, when you're doing, you know, looking at the head to head markets, where the drivers sit within those teams of of drive, excuse me, of teams. And so like you've got Red Bull at the top and then you've got the next tier of Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and probably Aston Martin and then everyone else after that. So understanding to what those teams priorities are, I think is super important. Like for them, for some of the bottom teams, like finishing the points is a huge win for them. And it's like all they ever want in a race. So they're not going to necessarily be aggressive if they get into the top 10. Whereas a team like Mercedes finishing seventh is not a great result for that. So understanding those dynamics, too. And then I think within the teams, understanding if there is a driver dynamic in terms of sort of who's their one A and one B, like Max Verstappen is is the one A at Red Bull. They there are times where they're going to tell Checo to move over and let let Max go through. That's something I built in my simulations last year of understanding. OK, when they're sort of neck and neck in the simulation, I'm going to flip them because that's what Red Bull is going to do. Right. Got an interesting scenario with Ferrari this year where we know Lewis Hamilton is going to be joining them next year. Carlos Sainz is going to be on his way out. And so how does that impact Sainz's driving? Does he just sort of ignore team team instructions at certain points? Maybe, you know, goes a little more toe to toe with with Charles Leclerc. But again, that's a lot of that qualitative stuff that is very difficult to capture in models. And I think that the other part, too, is how tightly correlated stuff like that is, where if Ferrari is fast, it's going to benefit both Leclerc and Sainz. And the gap between them will stay likely stagnant. You know, if you have a gap between Leclerc and Sainz, but that makes it tougher for Sainz to beat Leclerc. If you have it in there where, you know, Leclerc is a better driver because in the event where Sainz is very fast, Leclerc is probably fast, too. And that's a really tough component with doing all this is trying to figure out what that correlation is, how to model that. But then also trying to figure out the prioritization of the two guys. And, you know, whether a slightly lesser driver within the same team, what the odds are that he actually beats his teammate and stuff like that. That's it's very difficult, for sure. Yeah. Now, you've alluded to a couple of markets and the markets that I enjoy. So I want to ask you, what have been your most successful markets when you've been betting F1, modeling F1 and stuff like that? Yeah, it's it's not the outright markets because I mean, trying to pick a race that Max's car craps out or something like that happens, like there were several times last year that he started outside the top 10 and still won the race. Like it's it's absurd. Like at that point, like you you were able to get him at like slightly plus odds and plus 150 in Miami. I remember. Yeah. So like that's a time to buy by him. But the head to head markets for me, because again, you have some of that qualitative stuff that you bring in, especially the ones that are cross team. Most books will do like same team markets for, you know, Lewis Hamilton versus George Russell. But it's really fun when you get like the fifth and sixth starting drivers against each other or the seventh and eighth stuff like that. So I think that's been been really successful for me. And again, that sort of gives you a little bit more of a chance to to fade certain drivers if you want. And I think part of it, too, is also when you're betting these markets, because I've found that I tend to have a lot more success betting post qualifying markets specifically, not like not a specific market, but post qualifying markets, because what I found is that my back testing on what weight to put on the starting grid is lesser than the weight that sportsbooks tend to put on it. So when we're looking at those matchups and stuff like that, I've wanted to find a lot of success in that department because at least based on what I found, I think that specifically the starting grid I'm not talking about qualifying because qualifying matters a lot. So there's a grid penalty and stuff like that. That's where I found there to be some pretty big discrepancy between my model and the market, which is terrifying to bet on a guy starting eleven versus a guy up in seven. But I do think that there is a bit of an over adjustment and a bit of an over waiting on the grid spot. It's very important, but I think that it might be overweight at the bit. Yeah. And and that's, you know, you set a very nuanced thing there of qualifying position versus starting grid. And those who don't know, again, you can get grid penalties for a litany of things. Again, the upgrades that I mentioned, stuff like that, there are sometimes when a driver will just try to get into Q3 and then just stop trying. So their qualifying might not look right good. And then their grid or a grid position is not going to look any better. So again, those are the things that essentially the film versus stats debate for Formula One. Well, I also think that that going back to the Miami example for Max in Q2, he had the fastest time of anybody the entire day. He's spun in Q3 and started towards the back. But his like, if you look at the best lap time of the entire qualifying session, it was Max and Q2. So my model treated him as the fastest driver in the pack, even though he was starting, I think, seventh or whatever it was. And that was what presented value on him at plus one 50 or whatever it was for that race was because that speed kind of got overlooked by what the market was. So that's that's something I think is important to keep an eye on. It's not always going to be that way. Sometimes grid penalties will matter a lot.  But like, no, I think we do see a lot more weight on not a lot. There is more weight put on grid position than I would personally put on it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, OK. Let's talk about 2024, Sam. We can talk about rain in a second and that specific race. But I wanted to ask you, you know, going into NFL season, we can have some teams or players want to buy into like, OK, I think I'll be above market on this team. That may not happen because many markets are sometimes they're pretty savvy and they can get ahead of players or teams or drivers we thought we'd be high on. But when you look and think about things holistically, are there any drivers or teams you think you'll be above market on entering this year that you kind of want to buy in on before markets can adjust? Yeah, there's there's two teams and they're both in that that second tier. The first one is McLaren. They finished the season incredibly strong last year. It didn't didn't have a great testing session last week. But I'm not buying, you know, reading too much into that. They it sort of began at Silverstone, where Lano Norris and Oscar Piastri finished P2 and P4 respectively. Norris finished top five and all but one of the final eight races. That was a race that he didn't finish. And he was on the podium for five of those races. Piastri had a couple of podiums of his own in Japan and Qatar. Like they started moving in the right direction. And I I'm really excited about the direction that they're heading. I think they will be ahead of Aston Martin this year and be able to contend for sure with at least Mercedes and Ferrari. And again, speaking of the second team, like the other one that I'm bullish on is Ferrari. And like I hate to say that because they've been a bit of a mean lately the last couple of years and obviously have that dynamic with Carlos Sainz and Louis Hamilton coming in. But it's their second year with Fred Versailles, their team principal. You know, I think it's they they did show pretty well in testing last week. And I think it's a bit of buying low a little bit and and not, you know, fading the narrative, I guess, in terms of the some of the mistakes that they've had and all that sort of stuff. Like they're still a really good team. Like they had some good races last year. Sainz was one, I think the only not Red Bull win last year. So like they still have the ability to put up a good race. It's just like, can they avoid those daunting mistakes? Right. Yeah. With Ferrari, I was on them a lot last year. So fully on board with you with that one. I didn't have the courage to take Sainz outright at Singapore because I'm a coward, but had a podium that would have. Yeah. Yeah. I showed value of my model. I mentioned that like on my piece and I was like, oh, I got a value. I'm not taking it.  But with McLaren, I think the tough thing with them with testing is I can't get a read on them because we never saw Lando Norris get a full race run in. It was Oscar Piazri who got one in. And Piazri has had trouble with tire degradation. He's pretty well below Lando, at least in my stuff. Just based on last year, I think that long term Piazri, the outlook is good, but not Lando. And we never saw Lando get in a long run. So I have no idea how to handle them. Betting markets are very low on the McLaren right now. But like I don't think they showed their entire hand, given that they're at least by my numbers, they're better driver, never got in a representative run. Maybe that means he's not going to have the same. Car knowledge that other teams do runs in will have. But I think that they're they're a pretty big unknown for me right now. Speaking of those betting markets, take a look at them right now for this weekend for the Bahrain and Grompre. When you look at these specific markets, Sam, looking across the industry, any bets you want to lock in before? Specifically, we see tracks on cars on track on Thursday. Yeah, sort of dovetails off of of my last point there. You know, going back to the old me, but Charlotte Clare to podium. I think you can find them around minus one or five or even on on some books. I again, they showed really well in testing. There's a chance that they, you know, he takes pole position in this race. Like they do have continue to have a great single lap pace. And that's the other thing is, you know, these cars can be incredible in a single lap, but then just not have the race pace. So again, I think they're firmly, you know, I don't want to say that they're going to compete with Red Bull like I need to see it for a couple of races first. But I do think that he can push to be sort of the best of the rest. Another one. And this is a little bit further out there, but Alex Albon top 10. I think he's around plus 250 or points finished for those who don't know finishing in the points is finishing in the top 10. 220 looks like unfan dual there. It's again, he had some really good races at the end of last year as well. He was able to hold off, I think Louis Hamilton. I don't remember what race exactly it was, but was driving really, really well. They showed out really well in testing this past week, too. So I think there's a chance again that with his their single lap speed that he can can creep into the top 10. And then finally, if you want some equity in Max Verstappen, it's to be the fastest qualifier and to win the race. I think that's around minus 115. So it's again, there's a lot to it. I think that's if you want Max Verstappen, that's that's the way to play it for me. Yeah, that was that's also a market that can be pretty interesting when it comes to tracks where it's difficult to pass like last year in Monaco. Max was I think like plus 240 to win the podium in the race, where the or to win the pole in the race. And like, because those markets are so tightly correlated to Monaco, it actually made a lot of sense to go that route. So it's another one to kind of have like in your mind of like, OK, if it's tough to pass, maybe you want to go that route, as opposed to just the firm outright, because I mean, if he qualifies seven through bets dead, regardless, he might as well get a better number on it, that kind of thing. So I think that's a smart way to look at things. A smart look, a smart market to look at as well. That is Sam Hoppin of betting pros. Make sure you check him out over at betting pros. Find his work on Twitter as well at Sam Hoppin. Sam, I appreciate the time. Fun talking to you about the F1 season opener. Good luck to you on Saturday and hopefully talk to you again in the future. Yeah, thanks for having me on, Jim. Alrighty, thank you, Sam. Once again, you can find Sam on Twitter at Sam Hoppin. I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis. Check me out on threads at Jim Dot Sonnis and FanDuel Research on Twitter at FanDuel Research. Back once again tomorrow, talking some NFL combine betting. We'll talk to all of you then. This has been covering the spread right here on the FanDuel podcast network.


Good morning Los Angeles just got to Westchester skate plaza meeting up with Dan I think Zach's coming out today as well We're gonna skate park for a bit then we're gonna hit some street spots Yeah, if you ain't ever been here before this is basically Westchester skate plaza slash park or what it's really funny They got this beautiful ledge here, and then the ledge that goes out to the footpath They've put some skate stoppers on it very plaza like Very little transition. I mean the only transition here is that flat bank over there There's like a stage slash man you pad thing the flat ledge in the middle some hubbers little flat bank kicker thing I think it's a five set over here could be wrong. Oh, no, it's a five two hubbers down the side Yeah, but this is where we're gonna start our day off this morning We're heading to this green ledge spot that I've always wanted to skate so I'm pretty keen to skate it So yeah, I just got to find where Dan is and then we'll get right into today's session There's Daniel Not too sure what's going on there. You might have like a seized bearing or something Anyone's wondering the jack-per-cells are riding really well. I've just got to glue it up Like I started gluing my shoes up before every session like the night before So that's how you keep them fresh So then you don't have to worry about busting a hole for the side But you just got to worry about the soles fighting it out flattening out my bad So I set up this eight three eight, right? This is an eight three eight and I had some hollow 159 so I was like, oh, you know what I'll chuck those on I'll chuck my other standards on my other board and these are the rules that I left in the hand sanitizer overnight and They worked well for a bit but now they're like dead slow like they might not sound it or look it But like when you're rolling on the concrete, they're so slow. I'm not having a fun time Every time I'm on a session skating like I make sure I have breakfast before I leave the house But it's like an hour and a half drive up to LA So once I get here I skate for like an hour then like bang I get hungry and I started to feel like sleepy So like we're gonna make sure I eat so just hit this spot down the road. It's like a vegan They're called pokey bowls here in Australia. They're called. I don't know sushi bowls, but yeah, just hit this joint down the road I can't remember the name of it, but it's like a They have a vegan option so I'm gonna rip into this and then get back into skating today get some clips for you guys But yeah, check it out. It's my lunch today a lot of greens Very excited to eat this meal Don't I'm just realizing I feel like this might be the same material that they use on the barracks ledge Like it seems like a similar color and stuff, but the difference is since this is outdoor it gets that thick sand on it Whereas the indoor one doesn't maybe that's the big difference Toss that crook. Well, maybe you can do them all in a row.  I Got some confidence in him. He's pretty good. He's wearing a not thrasher shirt. Yeah, I thought that was a thrasher shirt I'm so glad it's not Sort of skating ish with a thrasher logo Now that's what I like to hear when it has a thrasher logo and has nothing to do with skateboarding this thrasher also Has nothing to do with skateboarding What do you think you can do? I'm saying probably 5l. He did have a trick I requested.  He said it's here. It turns out his words not mine Frontside over crook. Here we go Sean's been killing it lately this video. I wanted to talk about having Confidence and skating with conviction Sometimes like I was saying to Zach earlier I said like when I first came out to skate with you guys like the powerl team I was shy like I knew I could do tricks, but I was like worried because I didn't want to like I don't know You're worrying about people judging you and stuff about skating But then you figure out no one really cares It definitely does help if you skate with like more confidence in your head and conviction like you throw down And like this is the one I Find that helps me out anyway and skating with better people so blind confidence. Yeah But definitely having a crew of like people that are better than you at skating and skating with them Just helps you so much because you ask a bunch of questions and you learn all these new tricks to the tricks as I said before But yeah, that's it. It's looking at these two hoppers over here.  Oh, maybe You should at least 50-50 it. Yeah What do you think front smith backs out 360 out this guy.  It's like yeah It's not bad over here. The ground is decent on the opposite. Yeah, you're landing on still somewhat smooth ground. Yeah East coast in the middle California on the side Kind of Midwest here right here Okay, go for it.  You will not stick hundred percent No chance in how you're sticking I Accidentally film that in the background. You'll see him do front-nose Nali hill to Feggy a lot of people do that.   Yeah, yeah, and confidence. You just kind of go to blindly like So Yeah That's ashton. I don't know what you're gonna fire over the hub I vote on her from board. Okay from board. Do I can have a word? Yeah, definitely Now you won't stick What's the app called again? This one's the skate spot at skate spots at this isn't the one that I paid for the password for people Oh, is there no? Oh, do I have it on airplane mode? Oh, I actually turn my internet off because I'm What you would refer to as a moron? Okay, now it's the green ledges they are oh The green beauties How far are we off? Good country mile Country mile a Five miles but 17 minutes. Oh easy. Let's hit it. What a buzzkill.  What do you know? I mean, there's little things just to keep in the car. So when we do have the opportunity to skate spots like this I just got a bird pill on my phone When we get the opportunity to skate spots like this sometimes I need a little bit of grooming I need waxing then need like sweeping which is fine because you end up having a better session that way Just to give you guys a better look, you know, you can go over the step around the corner But there's just these sticks everywhere that have fallen off the trees And looks like this spot's had a favorite of Bondo too, which is sick So I'm here some over there. But yeah, you can tell this spot's well skated. They've capped the ends I don't know why they didn't cap in the center It's really weird.   You just got to not be able to not be afraid to put your body weight this way Oh, yeah, that's all it is.  Your body weight was wrong. Yeah, next try for rotate a little Just put your stand up on that bad boy. It'll go a little further Try a trick on the way back. Oh, that was spicy I feel like you definitely stuck. I swear you're sticking. So I'll use sydney grongs. I want to crochet that waxing spots Legit come out to california. It's all waxed up.  Yeah going faster. What if you fall it's creepy knee Yeah, sometimes things just won't slide. So definitely a little bit of wax goes a long way Yeah, bend heads don't grow on trees There you go.  Yeah, if you slide it good I don't dislike it or actually for your front nose the fakie on a handrail. I'm like, oh, I don't know. We're still gone Yes, I was so solid. Oh, that's like if you're trying a trick and you like failed 12 times It all adds up and you get a better feel of the trick. So don't let it discourage you. Yeah Yeah, so pretty much the topic of this video was being able to skate with confidence and conviction Like um, there's a dude shredding at westchester park the dude with the beanie But like when you seen him roll in at his tricks, his face was like so like oh, yeah He's very stern with his yes very stern and like even his body language is very like I've got this I'm ready to go I think it's important because someone commented like sure and you should skate with a bit more Confidence and it's like naturally. I'm a shy person like As I said earlier being able to skate all these dudes out here has definitely helped my skating confidence grow and like Helped me progress because I kind of have that thought in my mind where I'm like, yeah, I can do this.  I was like, all right I just got to get in and push it and hold on and for some reason like there's small little nuances that happen that I'm like If I bail this or that but if I think too much about like Bailey I'm going to bail but if I think a lot about like just sticking it it usually ends up working out I don't know if it's the same for you like yeah, no, I think um I think it's not a coincidence That cocky people tend to be really good at skating.   I'm not wanting. I don't hail marry anything Yeah, like I've never like I'm just gonna go for it. Like I have to I have to be pretty confident Of course, yeah, um, but yeah, I mean you can fake it till it works like you can fake Uh beat your confidence and try to be like overly confident and eventually I think it'll become more true Yeah, you know, I mean But just having that like because for me, I was shy like the first time I skated the power crew I was like I couldn't get tricks I normally could get because in the back of my mind. I was like everybody's watching me like Really?  Yeah, no that you're like, hey Dan or zack film this Dude, yeah, it becomes so much more of a like, I don't know a vibe when you're skating with good people Yeah, I I prefer to skate with good people. It's just really hard for me to do because no one's better than me in the entire world It's just like I search like hell and high water and they just don't exist But yeah, I just wanted to touch base on that because I know there's other younger kids that skate and they get a Bit shy skating at new parks around new people.  It's a public skate park Yeah, that's what I mean. We're all doing the same thing that we're skating around Yeah, if someone's vibing you out, they're long as they're not physically touching you like them Yeah, yeah, there's definitely been like there's definitely times where I'll be at a skate park And I'll be like skating and there's like kids in my way and I have to constantly remind myself like hey It's just as much their park as it is my park It's just a matter of like long as you have common sense and stay out of people's way Like if you get in someone's way, I see this all the time some will get in someone's way And then they'll get like really awkward and sometimes they'll just like sit down for a while like don't sit down Keep skating. Yeah.  So it's like oh this this person actually exists. So I'll acknowledge or so That's like when I was watching that dude at Westchester I was like, oh man, and then I heard him talking.   Well, it sounds like it's like the east coast. Yeah, they're very like Like here if you see someone going for a trick and then um, they take like a few tries at it, then they get it Whoo. Yeah, and Sydney is just like Just really yeah, that's so funny. Yeah, I don't know pretty much wraps up for this video guys Hopefully I gave you guys some type of insight into how I kind of think about skateboarding Maybe you guys can relate naturally. I'm a pretty shy person. I'm very introverted So being able to go out and skate around new people is always being quite challenging for me But that's how I kind of broke through that barrier just kind of not worrying about what other people think and just trying to have fun On my skateboard. So hopefully you guys can relate. I've been keeping some of these videos pretty raw Just easier just to shoot and edit and then chuck it up for you guys to watch I mean everyone's here to watch skateboarding anyway, so there's a ton of skateboarding sometimes It's even more funer watching raw clips and it is a whole with a whole bunch of editing and stuff But yeah, I'm going to wrap it up here guys. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video and I'll catch all of y'all in the next one You're right


I love it oh honey three miles in the books nice and easy good year logo I love it I love it I love it with that hyperburst midsole so it is it is about 50 degrees out in Denver but I'm got a little overzealous thinking I could wear shorts today it is still January better put some pants on it's freezing also the shots today aren't gonna be quite as good because I broke the pole that holds the gimbal that holds the GoPro so the shots aren't gonna be quite as zesty if you know what I mean all right let's lace it up now before I put the right shoe on hopefully you can see that one of the tags says hyperburst that's the midsole foam it's a patented technology from Skechers but then also you see there good year 120 years of quality performance and technology and rubber so on the bottom of the Skechers go run ride 8 it's it's got the the black is the rubber but it says good year there on the bottom and I I love when big corporations work with other big corporations and so I don't know how Skechers made that connection with good year to place their rubber the good year rubber on the outsole of their shoes but I just I think it's so innovative to see that cross pollination between two completely kind of different industries you know the automobile industry and the the running industry or the sportswear industry so I think it's neat and I think Adidas has a do they does Adidas work with good year as well it's either good year or maybe it's Firestone I can't remember I think it's good year actually so anyway that's pretty neat good work there Skechers okay let's get this on surprise surprise the family's here at the park he's ready to rock or roll all right let's go buddy oh yeah true love made it to the park yeah with the baby bump baby bump he's dancing this is a hi hon we're back we're just hanging out eating food I love it miles in the books nice and easy we're just coming back just coming back everyone nice and easy go run ride eight we'll get you the thoughtful review first impression in the studio hon those are legit my favorite colors Kelly green and navy blue those are wedding colors oh nice nice thumbs way way up there for me oh hi Michael hi we'll see you there here we go first impressions of the Skechers go run ride eight I realize I'm a little late to the game this shoe was released last fall I think I was in the midst of uh getting ready for the world mountain running championships right around when this shoe came out and so I just was unable to put it through the paces for all of you last fall but now we're getting to it and there it is on the side quick quick uh little side note on branding I'm a little surprised that Skechers did not put their signature s on both sides of the shoe because I want everyone to be able to see the s right there but it's going the wrong direction compared to all the other shoes in the studio anyway just a little side piece for Skechers to consider putting the s on both sides of their shoes okay let's dive into it um first impressions let's see a roomier toolbox I did not feel scrunched at all through that toolbox so I guess I'll just dive into fit right now as well I went true to size spot on true to size I guess you I've said this many times I prefer a little bit of a more a little more of a snug fit through the entire shoe I don't like to feel any sort of slipping when I'm out there running so today like my toes we're just kind of dancing around in the toe box a little bit too much um which actually surprised me a little bit and I don't know if it's because of and let's dive into it the upper if it's the engineered knit upper uh it's a it's a little more flexible than I expected so meaning that it's a little more malleable to the top of your foot very comfortable I will say that about the overall upper on this shoe no issues with the eyelet chain rubbing on the top of the foot it laid really nice and flat on the top of the foot and I still I actually put the cardboard back in I'll take that out just so you can see um and also so far no scrunching up on the toe box as well unlike the beacon v2 and before I forget as I mentioned I think I mentioned this on the run actually the beacon it felt the midsole ride felt like the beacon as far as first impression so if you like the beacon there's a good chance you'll like the sketchers go run ride eight uh no issues with the tongue it's uh it's a it's a normal tongue on the sketchers grr eight not gusseted meaning it's not connected to the outer walls of the upper as far as that tongue is concerned and then um I was going to save this for later but let's just keep rolling my drawback for the shoe and probably my only drawback thus far I was slipping around just a little bit on the run today three miles 5k uh 850 a mile I'm still taking it really easy as I come back from the runner's knee injury uh so I don't know what's going on I'll keep you posted after 50 miles for the full review if the slipping continues when I wear different socks other than smart wool who knows maybe the different fabrics just don't mesh together if you know what I mean let's get the uh the drop so 30 millimeter stack height in the heel uh 24 millimeter in the forefoot for a six millimeter drop that's basically right where I like it felt great today and just so you know the formation of the hyperverse midsole what they do is they they inject uh co2 during the formation process this is a patented technology from sketchers and what happens is it traps little air pockets inside the midsole which helps with uh keeping the midsole nice and lightweight but also a little bit of bounce and I would agree today on the three mile run they felt kind of bouncy out there so if you're looking for a bouncy shoe if you like that feeling through your gate cycle there are the g r the go run ride eight is for you and onto the outsole the bottom of the shoe you can see the good year rubber the black and then also the exposed hyperverse midsole foam I kind of like when companies blend on the outsole uh rubber and exposed midsole I think it cuts down on weight and on that note in men's size nine we're looking at 8.7 ounces for men's size nine and there it is on your screen in grams so this is a very very lightweight daily training shoe so overall uh now listen if you're going at high speeds on wet roads I'm not sure this outsole is going to grip incredibly well maybe the good year rubber would help increase you would think if it's a if it's good year rubber it would increase the traction a little bit so anyway oh also I wanted to mention so far so the the sketchers max road four was actually one of my favorite shoes of 2019 but the only issue on the max road four is you can see the pods there the difference in the outsole patterns I'm not sure I like the pods on the bottom of the of the max road four so I think I'm leaning toward the go run ride eight as my preferred outsole pattern when it comes to sketchers running shoes so anyway just wanted to point that out for all of you so far I don't know I think I like what I'm seeing on the GRR eight better now how will I use the go run ride eight moving forward most likely an easy day shoe but I'm gonna test it I'm gonna take it up to that eight 10 mile uh type of day and I'll also take it to higher speeds as well like 630 a mile 645 a mile just to see how that midsole performs overall my general conclusion is that the go run ride eight is a simple shoe okay they're not overthinking it it it gets the job done and I think okay price point 115 dollars that is awesome if you could get now the question will be is that 115 dollars spread out over 300 miles over 500 miles over 800 miles I don't know I'd be shocked if it goes over 400 frankly but maybe it will and probably my guess is that the midsole would last past 300 400 miles my concern right now would be the upper I would I bet there's gonna be reports out there now it looks like it's a well constructed upper but it's definitely not the most I can I can already sense it's like it's not an a6 it's not a mizuno uh not even close so anyway we shall see if the 115 dollar price tag stands up to the test of time sound good everyone all right and that question of the day who has run in sketchers ever by any shoe from sketchers ever and part two who is going to buy a sketchers running shoe in 2020 is there a whether it's racing whether it's trail whether it's training whether it's track whatever the case may be are you gonna pick up a sketchers running shoe in 2020 I'll be curious to hear what everyone thinks about sketchers moving forward into 2020 kind of like I said in the car today thanks for watching thanks for being here love you guys oh just a good Saturday kind of keeping it a little a little simpler today as far as filming goes but we got it done here in the studio all right everyone we're going to toss it back on the right to the sketchers max road four shout out in the road running shoes of 2019 my favorites from 2019 that'll be on the right and then on the left we'll toss it back to the new balance beacon v2 full review since I mentioned that shoe today that'll be on the left all right everyone thanks for being here thanks for watching seek beauty work hard and love each other see you tomorrow


In this series, I address your questions about self-harm. It's a tricky topic, but I want us to talk more about it. If I haven't answered your question yet, leave it in a comment below and I will attempt to address it in a future video. Sam asked whether drug and alcohol abuse count as self-harm, and it really depends. So different people have different opinions on this. When I'm teaching about self-harm, then I try to think of self-harm in the broadest possible sense. So I would think about things like drug abuse, alcohol abuse, binge eating, anything essentially where someone is engaging in an unhealthy means of coping would be something that I would consider self-harm. When you are engaging in an activity that does you harm or has the potential to harm you because you need to use that as a means of coping, of managing, of dealing with difficult emotions. If you were to look at the academic literature, they tend to have a very much more narrow range of definitions for self-harm and it does vary a little bit from place to place. But in terms of when we're looking at how we can support children and young people, then lots and lots of the methods that we would use to support someone who was perhaps injuring themselves. So through a more common means of self-harm like cutting, for example, we could use lots of the similar kinds of questions of thinking, of replacing that behavior with other healthier means. If we were working with someone who was struggling with drugs and alcohol. So it's a bit of a non-clear answer, but I guess if you're worried about someone and they are using drugs and alcohol to cope, then we'd ask similar questions. We try and look beyond the behavior and we try and understand what's motivating that and how can we help them move towards using a healthier means of coping.


So, hi everyone, thank you for coming to this talk about the Infosec Mentors Program. My name is Marissa Fagan and today I'm going to talk to you about this particular project and then also a bit about mentoring in information security in general. So the Infosec Mentors Project was actually inspired by something that happened at Source Boston this year. Casey Thayer, the director of Source Boston had a workshop where I was a participant and I was connected with one of 20 mentees and it was somebody that I didn't know and we were introduced and then started a mentoring relationship as part of the conference. And most of those relationships that were started there ended there too, sort of a week long understanding that you would be, you know, more like conference buddies. So I thought that that experience was fantastic and I wanted to take it even further. So in May of this year I started the program and almost immediately we got a lot of volunteers and up to this point we have 55 matches, more than 110 people in the program. And if I could just take a minute to tell you how the program works, I have volunteers give me biographical information and then talk to me a little bit about what their interests are and their experiences. And then things in those profiles stand out and we match them based on those things that stand out on a manual basis and go from there with a one-on-one relationship. And the program supports that relationship by following up and providing ideas and support. So the main thing I wanted to get out of the project was to introduce people in the information security community to people that they would not otherwise get a chance to meet. So not people in your social network, but people completely in somebody else's social network and try to combine these networks, you know, even across countries and really grow the community. And at this point we've gotten worldwide participation. So why be a mentor? This is really the most important question I hear. It might take a lot of time people are concerned about. They don't know if they want to meet a stranger. But I'm here to tell you that there are essential things that you should really be doing and you really can't afford not to be a mentor. First of all, it makes you look good.  The program is established and we've got some official relationships now. So it's really going to be something that you can rely on to put together as part of your career in the future. And we're trying to make this something that people can talk about reliably as part of their careers. So the second thing is that mentoring can be an essential training activity. In the IT community and in security, we talk about don't make yourself irreplaceable. And the way that you need to make yourself not irreplaceable is by training your replacement. And then you can be promoted. So having those soft skills, being able to train someone else for the job that you have is a career skill that all of you need if you're going to have a successful career and move up in the organization. So this project is a free way to get essential training. And in this economy, free training is pretty good, right? So the next reason you should be a mentor is because we're all in this together. One of the main drives for this program is to grow the community aspect of information security. And if we all grow together and try to improve each other's skills, we're going to increase the base level of the technology as a whole. And that's going to give us all a lot less headaches. So the higher the base level is, the more we can grow as a community. And the last reason that you should be a mentor is because soon the student will become the master. You're going to start out as a mentor-mentee relationship, but the mentee, the more you help them, the more they'll grow, and they're going to become your peer. And this is, it can start as a training sort of opportunity, but then it becomes a networking relationship. And it's somebody that you can rely on in the future to work on projects with you. So what makes a good mentor? I polled the 1,000 or so Twitter followers that the Infosec Mentor's Twitter feed has. And above and beyond, everyone said, patience, enthusiasm, and belief in the relationship. The most important thing you can do as a mentor is be an advocate for your mentee. This means trying to get them involved in the things that you're involved in. Make sure that they're doing things that are worth their time. They're going to not just any conference, but the good conferences, the ones that are cost-effective and have new information. They're not reading any books. They're reading the new books that are not going to be discovered three months later to be mostly just plagiarism. You know, they're really spending their time effectively, not just taking a random guess. I'm sure you all can remember when you were first trying to get into the community, it was basically a crapshoot. DEF CON was pretty much the center point where everyone knew that something was going to be going on. But as far as regional stuff, it was really hard to know what the best use of your time was. So an advocate can help you grow in a much more efficient way. So the last thing, or the next thing that makes a good mentor is sort of going on being an advocate, recommendations to cut through the nonsense. They're really sort of tips and tricks that you've learned along the way that you wish somebody had told you. And the last thing that you can do is open doors. Actively try to improve the career of your mentee. And this is the altruistic aspect of being a mentor.  So I wanted to tell you what you should expect from your mentee and what it's okay to ask for. I believe that mentees should surpass your expectations. Expect determination, passion, and energy. If you're in this industry and you are not passionate and energetic about it, do yourself a favor and get out. Because it is a lot of really long caffeinated nights. And if you don't think this stuff is super cool, you're probably going to burn out way faster. And that's just unfortunate for your mentor who probably would have been able to help somebody that is passionate about it. The next thing that you should expect your mentee to do is follow through on your suggestions. Especially in the beginning, the most important part of the relationship, hands down, is trust. Many mentees are not really sure what they're getting into and they burn out and they lose interest. And this is just really a shame because it creates a bad relationship for the mentor. He or she may not even want to do it again for somebody else and that is a very big shame. So trust in the mentee is the most important part in the beginning. So for the first activity, for the first project you work on, as the mentee, you should just go with it. Do what they say. You can argue back and forth about what you really think you should be doing later. But in the beginning, it really requires a leap of faith for the mentee and trust. The next thing that the mentee should do is add value to the mentor. Yes, you can. One of the things that I think that a mentee can do, especially if the mentor is working on some of these open source projects, or maybe if the mentor is working on a promoting a conference or has some kind of pet project, your mentee is your street team. They are going to provide energy and enthusiasm and possibly some networking that you don't have. And it's not out of line to get your mentee involved in some of your projects and use their energy and really open doors for them in that regard. The mentee also is the one that should be responsible for maintaining the relationship. It is okay to put that on the mentee. It is up to them to maintain a monthly. Monthly is probably about the ratio of emails, contacts. If you're working on one or two projects every year, that's about right. But just conversations, at least monthly, is the mentee's responsibility. And then the last thing that the mentee should do is think about it in terms of what their mentor is doing. Think about it in terms of paying it forward. And when you think about yourself as what you will be like when you become a mentor, you're going to get a lot more out of the relationship. So on my last slide here, I just wanted to give the contact information and talk about how all of you can get involved in this program and just mentoring in general. The website is infosecmentors.com. And there you can sign up to be a participant in the program and also get information about our future projects. Right now, our main project was doing an infosecmentors meetup during Las Vegas this year at the Security B-Sides Conference. And that was on Wednesday and that went really well. So we're going to try to continue to bring not just two people together, but also the whole community together in some of these activities. There's going to be some regional stuff that happens in the Southeast and in the Bay Area. And then if anybody can pull these things through in other areas, please talk to me. Right now, we're trying to build the project with volunteers. It's still very small and it needs to grow. And I'm looking for people that have technical skills that can help us grow a social network style of web, web presence, and then also just people with enthusiasm that are trying to grow the social network. And one of the things that we promised in the infosecmentors program was to support these relationships. So most of that is happening on the infosecmentors blog. We have someone that is doing interviews with our current mentees and mentors asking them what specific things they're doing, what activities they're doing. And these interviews, if anyone is currently involved in the program and wants to be a part of it, please get in touch with me so that we can talk to you about what you've been doing with the program. And that's been a really good resource so far for people to get ideas for tangible things that they can contribute to each other. I just wanted to mention also that one of the ways that you can bring mentoring into your network is by talking to the people at your workplace. A lot of the larger organizations have official mentoring programs in their offices and I think that's a really good thing. Some of them are better than others and we're trying to learn from those sorts of things as to what works and what doesn't. And then just this sentiment, bring the newbies up to the new level. If you see somebody around here this week that kind of looks like they're more enthusiastic than knowledgeable, really use that and help them find out what to do next, later this week or later this year and act on this and make a difference. We are all in this together and this is really about community building, so you are the ones that will make the difference. If not for yourselves then for the whole community. Do it for us. So if anybody has a comment that they would like to make about mentoring or a question about the project, you can either shout it out or come up here if it's a comment. We have a couple of minutes left. Do you wanna come up here or just shout it out? So it'll be recorded. So where do you normally find your mentees? Are they coming to you? Do you go out and reach out to them? There's been a lot of outreach to some of the universities but mostly it's just Twitter. It's all online right now and basically everyone is hearing about just through word of mouth. So there hasn't really been one characteristic that any two of the volunteers have. So it's mainly been the social networks that have kind of brought them to you and kind of brought you guys together. Exactly. Okay. Infosec Mentors is the Twitter feed. One word. Sure, come on. I just wanted to say that I work for a larger company and we have an official mentoring program and in the beginning when I was mentee for the first time I really didn't know how that all is supposed to work and I learned at a certain point that you find your mentor and your mentor finds you and usually for me it was always a situation where I had one or two mentors at the same time and I was looking for them for a specific issue that I had an issue with. One of them was security and I am a mentor myself now. So it is a match. So assigning mentors is something that some people do but that usually doesn't work. You have to find yourselves or each other. Thank you for bringing that up. That was definitely one of the big questions that we weren't sure if this was going to work or not. Two strangers that may or may not have the best social skills might be a huge disaster and about 20% of the time it has been such a disaster that we've repaired people and about 20% of the time people are so excited about it that they're now telling their friends. So it's kind of a, you know, it's a bell curve. I personally think that it worked for me so I tried it but some people it may not be right for. Did you have another comment? Do you want to introduce yourself if you have so much?  So a lot of us work in very sensitive fields where we may not be able to talk a lot about what we do day to day. How do you address that with the mentoring program so that we can mentor someone without having to get into all the sticky stuff about getting them involved in what we do? So there's the social aspect of it and then the technical aspect of it and you kind of find that balance. You have to be able to be honest with yourself and give what you can. I think that there is really no expectation that you're going to be using your personal work activities as your subject matter because they're not going to come work for you. You're going to be talking about the open source projects and if they're interested in web apps you talk about web goat, that kind of thing and it doesn't necessarily have to be your personal projects that even come up at all. The Infosec Mentors program does not require you to tell me a whole lot of personal information if that's a problem for you we can work with that and there's still a way to help. The question was is there any part of the project for non-information security professionals and right now the scope is small. We are looking for information security professionals just that community and that's pretty complicated in and of itself so 50 to 70 different sub-fields of security sounded like plenty. You should have co-presented with me. I know I could have. I'm working at the same time to bring people in because we have a mentor program inside our organization but it's not focused on security people specifically so I'm trying to bring the guys that come in with their comp side degrees and stuff and bring them over and say hey, we got this fun thing we can do over here. You can come and apply some of those things because I spend all my time in meetings but I've got a lot of cool things I can have you do for me so but one of the things that I run into is training and especially for these new guys coming up figuring out what training they need to build up kind of a core competency that qualifies them at some level. We all, obviously if you've made it here someone's either you or someone else is paying for your travel paying for you to come to the conference and the poor college kids don't always have that. How do we bring the training, roll the training into the mentoring? A great deal of the volunteers right now have two or three years of experience. Even the mentees are a little bit more experienced. I know that that has been an issue that Joseph Socoli sitting in the audience right now talks about the young and the restless of information security. This stuff is expensive and right now I don't have a good answer for how to incorporate some of the financial problems that come up but you have these online relationships and email interaction and that sometimes can be enough. But so he said that ISSA for example has free training and one of the easy stuff is free. The free training is something that a mentee might never find out about if not for somebody guiding them to that. So that's the kind of thing that we're really talking about the tricks and cluing people in. Leading the horse to water as it were. Well I think unless there's any other things that people want to say about mentoring I just wanted to say that this is a pretty good turnout and I really appreciate everyone's involvement. One more thing. That's an interesting thing that you've just brought up. It's been brought up several times. Half the people are very interested in where everyone else is and what everyone else is doing. And then the other half of the people are very concerned that they don't want to be exposed in that way. So we're trying to work right now with a feature program that may expose the geographical locations of each of these pairs so that they can be connected to each other as well in making a mesh relationship. But for now we're still trying to work that out. So if you look at the infosecmentors.com feed or infosecmentors Twitter you can find out if we do that in the future. I think that's it. Thank you everyone.