Hello, everybody. My name is Daniel Crook. I'm the CTO of Call for Code, the Global Initiative as well as Code and Response, which is a program that we have at the Linux Foundation in partnership with IBM and many other partners like the United Nations and sponsors like Slack, Arrow, the CNCF, another Linux Foundation organization, and many other small and large partners. I'm here today with Derek Thier, my colleague. We're going to talk a bit about the Code and Response with the Linux Foundation umbrella project, and we'll talk exactly how projects enter into that program as well as how developers can take part in some of the projects that are there or even create new ones as part of the Call for Code competition. I'm going to start by talking about the Call for Code program, and this is, sorry, just having a little issue with the slides. Oops. There we go. I figured out the slides. Sorry about that. Let me talk first a bit about Call for Code. Call for Code itself is something that IBM launched with the Linux Foundation as well as United Nations just over two years ago. It's a partnership to not only be a five-year program but also to host a yearly Tech for Good competition, and it's the largest of its kind in terms of participation from developers around the world. The goal with the competition every year is to create open-source projects, sustainable projects that have a sponsor organization, the creating team normally, as well as an open-source community around those projects so that they can make a difference immediately as well as long-term against some humanitarian issue. In the past two years, we focused on what can technology do to mitigate the impact of natural disasters, and this year we've launched with a scope around climate change and COVID-19 solutions, which I'll get into a little bit later in the presentation. But the goal is that we inspire developers over the course of about four months to learn about that important issue from experts, from organizations that know much about it, what the real problems are, how technology might help, and how to measure their impact. What we do with Call for Code is pair developers against those real-world issues. For example, in the case of natural disasters, that would have been the Sendai framework that comes from United Nations Disaster Risk Reduction Organization, and this year with climate change, it's focused around the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. Now, the competition puts forward a theme, a global challenge, and the five winning teams are recognized from the competition. All five get support from the Linux Foundation, help them implement their project as open-source projects, implement some best practices for how to run an open-source project, such as having a code of conduct, contribution guidelines, as well as raising awareness through foundation events just like this one. So there's a cash prize, of course. There's that open-source support from Linux Foundation. Then there's also, through the Code Response Program, folks have access to the IBM Service Core, a set of volunteers that can be drafted to fill in gaps on the submitting team. For example, if they need hardware experts, if they need software experts, user experience experts, designers, branders, things like that. So the winners of the competition win, not only the competition, they don't just go home, take their cash prize and go home. Code Response with the Linux Foundation provides that way to ensure that every call for code winner has the ability to be deployed out in the field. So innovation coming from around the world and the support to make those ideas real. So I've mentioned two programs so far, and just to be clear about what those are, call for code is the competition, is the yearly competition. Code Response with the Linux Foundation is the project for incubating those ideas. So they come in from call for code, for example, last two years, grand prize winners, as well as some of the runners up, and other interested projects that are open-source come in. We help them build out the solutions, matching them with the skills I mentioned earlier, as well as helping them achieve some non-functional goals, doing some security audits, helping them scale, things like that. We help test them. Derek will talk a little bit about some of the extensive testing we did with the 2018 winner, and then we help them graduate out by implementing their solution, kind of getting to a milestone where they're either a sustainable company, maybe they've got their first sale or first contract with some partner organization, or they just generally have the ability to keep on sustaining themselves as open-source projects. So as I mentioned, we are in our third year of call for code, the second year of code response, and the team that won the first year, they created a really interesting mesh network, an ad hoc mesh network that could restore network access after a natural disaster, and it's really about quickly and cheaply restoring that access, and getting to just about 1% connectivity, which is much better than 0% connectivity. When you're trying to get just short emergency messages over the network, you don't need to stream Netflix, you just wanna get some basic text messages over the network with what's already built into the phone or into a PC, because the network access is actually a lot harder to restore than power, power you can have generators and solar and things like that, but it's connectivity that's really been the big challenge after many natural disasters. So let me hand it over now to Derek to talk specifically about the Project OWL team, as well as how code response helped them bring their idea to life during several tests. Thanks, Daniel, appreciate that. So like Daniel mentioned, call for code 2018 winner Project OWL, they have a fantastic IoT based solution that creates a mesh network for people to be able to reach out to first responders. So it's not just the open source hardware that they're using, but they actually have their own DMS, their data management system, running on IBM cloud that they have, and that's kind of a really value add to what their solution is. So not only can you take what they have that's open source, but they also have software that specifically is meant for people to reach out to first responders. And I think it's a really phenomenal idea that they came up with, and it only got better when we use the IBM service core to do this deployment. So like Daniel said, we have the IBM service core where we get volunteers from within IBM from all over the world. We source the best talent globally from within all the volunteers that wanna be involved. For Project OWL, we had people from Israel, from the UK, from Canada, from the US. So it was a very global project. And we brought those people in to Puerto Rico where they had two weeks on the ground there. These are some of the photos you can see in this slide. And basically what we did was we took Project OWL's idea, we brought in the best of the best from IBM service core and we helped them fortify their solution, their software, their hardware to make sure that they had the best product that they can because they wanted to test this in Puerto Rico after being inspired by Hurricane Maria and knowing that people didn't have connectivity there, they wanted to do this and test it in the field. And that's a really cool thing about what Code and Response does. We don't wanna just say, here's the money, thanks, it was great, have fun. We wanna make sure that these companies and these startups and these ideas can grow. And really that's what we did. We did pilot tests in Puerto Rico for two weeks. We were in, Bayamon was our hub, kind of the center of where we were at Engine 4 which was a great co-working space for us. We did some pilot tests in Loisa, in San Juan and Isabella in Comerio. We were also in, I think, Dorado, we did a few tests. So it was great to be able to test this in a wide variety of environments. On the beach, in the middle of the mountains, finding out what impact the environment had, humidity. All of these factors that were, you can try to plan for them as best as you can in your head, you think about doing these tests. But actually being on the ground to test this stuff was phenomenal. And we had some really other great partners as well, ITDRC, which they were instrumental in helping us and Project OWL come up with the best places to test, to look at the actual radio spectrum and determine how things were working, if we were getting interference, anything like that. So it was phenomenal to do. We also had some really essential partners, the University of Puerto Rico, Johnson & Johnson, some local government help as well in San Juan, Bayamon and Isabella. And throughout the course of 2019 as we did this, we also did have a documentary about this, which is really cool. So just a slight little plug for that. If you're interested in that, take a look at our coding response documentary on Project OWL. There's some really cool behind the scenes stuff and just some great footage. You can see our progress as we did this in Puerto Rico. We, between IBM and Project OWL, I think we were in Puerto Rico about a half a dozen times in 2019 working on this. They made additional visits to other parts of the island like Umacau and Mayo Huez and Aguadilla. Great places, again, to continue testing and further building relationships. And the slide here you'll see is where Project OWL and IBM, we engage the students from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayo Huez. And the great part about that was that we had an enthusiastic group of students that were interested in learning about leading edge technology. And so we took what we were working on with Project OWL and helped them understand the hardware, the software, how to set things up. We partnered with the school to actually set up these devices on the top of numerous buildings. And the students got to learn how it works. They managed the devices out there. It was a really awesome opportunity for the students and for IBM and Project OWL. And the outcome from everything that we did with the service core, with Code and Response, we helped improve Project OWL's technical architecture and their solution, created a ton of connections and valuable resources on the island of Puerto Rico with people that are always willing to help us so we can help them and give back. And then they've also, after working with all of us, they've continued the iteration of their product and their software after the service core. So it's great to see Project OWL grow from the winner to the deployment and implementation and then further continuing on as their own company where they're killing it. So really, really cool opportunity with Project OWL. I'm gonna hand it back to Daniel to talk a little bit about our 2019 winner. So Daniel. There we go. All right. Great, hopefully you can hear me here. So there was a question I saw in the chat already. Derek, maybe you can answer that. Somebody was looking for a link to the Code and Response documentary on Project OWL. There's a 15 minute documentary, which is the one hosted on IBM.com. And there's actually a feature length documentary called Code and Response, which is at a higher level about the program. That's also something that's interesting to take a look at. You can find that on Amazon Prime as well as a few other streaming services. Okay. Great, looks like we got side by side. So that's good. Let me just in there. So let's talk now about the 2019 winner. So this was the team that came through the competition last year, a team named Prometeo from Spain. And what was really interesting about them is that there was, as opposed to the Project OWL team, which was already a set of developers that knew hardware and new IoT, what was really inspiring about Prometeo is that their team comprised of a full stack developer and a data scientist, but they also included a firefighter, a nurse and a PhD engineer on the team. So they were able to come to call for code with a great application that was something that could measure the effect of certain chemicals on firefighters in the field and ensure that incident commanders could see exactly what was going on with a set of 10 firefighters, but also track the exposure over time with the end result being that with a small device with many sensors on it, you can really help make an impact right away through an open source project. And it's something that can scale beyond what it was built for in Catalonia to actually go scale around the world to Argentina, to Australia, to Norway, to California, other places where folks are exposed to similar types of toxins when doing controlled burns or working with wildfires directly. So for this one, let me hand it to Derek, take audio and talk a bit about the team itself and what we had done with them with a field test and some of what the future holds for what they're doing today. Thanks, Daniel. So again, this was another phenomenal idea that came out of call for code to be able to monitor specifically wildfire firefighter health. This was a new area to me where I didn't realize that wildfire firefighters in particular, they might be out in the field handling a burn for days potentially. So they don't wear oxygen masks and carry tanks and things like that. So this was kind of a gap where Prometheus came along and said, look, we need to watch out for these firefighters and have a device that can monitor their immediate health but also have access to a history of their health over time. And so it's pretty incredible because they had a device similar to what Project Al was, the same IoT board, and they were just using it a bit of a different way, but they were still monitoring smoke concentration, humidity, things like that. And it was incredible to see the passion that this team had. And again, this just goes to show that call for code is not just for developers. It's not just for technical people. Like Daniel said, one was a firefighter, one's a nurse. It's great to bring people that are experts and bring them together to create a cohesive solution. And I think Prometheus, the epitome of that. We did the prescribed burn or this field test back in February of this year, right before all the COVID stuff kind of happened. And it was incredible to see this in action because we got everything set up. You'll see in the photos here, we're in a big tent that the firefighters set up for us. And they did a controlled burn, got some great drone footage too. And we were able to kind of watch them do this controlled burn, but also monitor what they were doing on this wearable that they had that Prometheus came up with and saw live what was happening. The cool part about this was, and we talk about the importance of open source and tech for good. As we looked at Prometheus and what they were doing with everything, we kind of looked at it and said, hey, let's kind of involve Project Owl from last year because they have a year head start working with a similar device. They've probably learned some really good do's and don'ts and learn things the hard way and have some really good experience with it. So we actually asked them if they wanted to be on site for this and kind of show Project Owl the art of the possible for what they do. Because, I'm sorry, it's Prometheus, the art of the possible, I apologize. Because Prometheus was using a Wi-Fi based technology where Project Owl was using Laura. If you're familiar with Laura, it's a long range low power Wi-Fi connectivity. And so we said, hey, why don't we take this because this will expand what Prometheus can do. We can take the expertise from what Project Owl has learned from this and integrate it together, which is exactly what we did. And that was really cool to see. We had two teams from two different winning years come together, work on something and be able to have it work live in the field. And we had a pretty simple integration process through our IBM IoT platform that made that possible, which is pretty incredible. And we did some really awesome long range testing of how far could these sensors work.  And it was amazing to see just how amazing this technology was and how it all kind of worked together. And again, we involved the IBM Service Core in this project as well. Here's some photos from the prescribed burn, pretty amazing time. One of the coolest things I've probably ever done in my career. But the IBM Service Core has been engaged now. We are just battling the COVID-19 stuff. So right now the work is being done virtually with an onsite plan either later this year or sometime early next year to be able to do exactly what we did for Project OWL and go onsite in Catalonia and do some more prescribed burns and some testing and gathering firefighter feedback. And the thing about open source and tech for good and the way that these solutions can really help people is it does attract some attention. So, Prometeo is exploring options with a large electronic manufacturer looking into edge technologies to do some of this processing on the device instead of doing machine learning on the cloud. So there's some really, really cool stuff that kind of came out of this project and just further goes to show how important it is to focus on tech for good and things like this through our code response program. So, Jayne, I'm gonna hand it back over to you. Great, thank you, Derek, much appreciated. And just to echo a key part of what Derek said, open source was key to not only improving Project OWL solution, they've got a very vibrant project, the ClusterDoc protocol. If you see that on GitHub, I'll give you a link at the end of the session. They had a similar platform and they could bring that year-long headstart to Prometeo, I'm sorry, and use that technology to improve how it can be built forward. And going forward with Prometeo, we're working with them to go to the third-gen platform. We are transitioning to their repose out in the open source organization, breaking out their version one, their version two, and consolidating on a version three or at least three, that's gonna have additional sensors. So the focus for the field test was carbon monoxide, but through the community, we're sourcing new designs for seven new sensors, which will include things like nitrogen dioxide, acrylene, formaldehyde, and benzene. Because these are controlled burns, they actually start them themselves. It's kind of ironic the firefighters starting fires, but to get ahead of any wildfires, what they do is start and they've got a very highly toxic accelerant with benzene in it. So working with those, and hopefully by the end of the year, we'll have a third iteration of that and we'll grow the community out as well. So let me shift gears a bit to this year's program and then talk to how you can take part and maybe you could become the next code and response of the Linux Foundation project. If you place the top five, but we want you to be aware of what's there too and invite projects into the Linux Foundation under this umbrella, even if they don't come through the call for code challenge, which is the case of one promising technology that's gonna come within the next six weeks. So call for code, you can learn about it at this URL below. That'll take you to the ibm.com page where you register for the competition. And then there's the call for code.org site has information, the canonical rules, the judging criteria, the timeline, things like that. But as I mentioned, call for code does focus on some of the world's most pressing challenges. And when we launched earlier this year, we really expanded out the impact of natural disasters on humans, wildfires on firefighters, for example, to look at more of the systemic causes. So we launched in partnership with the United Nations who are in their 75th anniversary this year, as well as with the 10 year countdown to the sustainable development goals. We launched with a focus on climate change. And it's really something that is such a powerful issue. It affects people around the world. It's something that's growing. It's something where action needs to be taken immediately. So it's really something that we have to keep an eye on and to conceive of new solutions to it. So we launched with climate change, with three sub themes of water sustainability, energy sustainability, and disaster resiliency. But we also recognize that there was a growing pandemic that was a much more pressing challenge, one that was having a more immediate and visible impact on human lives. So we added a COVID-19 track to this year's call for code competition. It doesn't focus on vaccine development or medicine research or gene sequencing, things like that. It's really about understanding the social and business issues out there that can be improved by technology. And I'll get into some of those sub themes shortly. So we do have both themes, developers can create solutions for one or both tracks and some potential solutions for an immediate impact of COVID-19 may be also something that's helpful in future pandemics or also as part of climate change type of activities. So there is a bit of overlap and very excited to see the solutions that come into that. So looking specifically at COVID-19, the focus of call for code is to bridge that gap between experts on the particular issue as well as the technology that can be used by the world's 24 million developers to actually make a difference and make sure they're solving the right problems. So what we do with call for code is we call out a set of sub themes. And in the case of COVID-19, we make that abstract issue more concrete by asking developers to focus on crisis communication solutions, perhaps how to create bots for managing overloaded local resources or understaffed supermarkets that need to manage and how information is shared. Remote education, right? So I don't know if you hear in the background here but my son is doing tutoring in the other room over Skype. So just finding ways for folks like him who are lucky enough to have his own iPad but also people are offline, don't have access to computers, what potential solutions are there out there for students and their parents and their teachers. And finally, community cooperation. So how do you make do in this new economic environment? How do you share resources, share information, really track and know the risk from the pandemic around you and understand how you can make a difference and really again, make that abstract now to something concrete that someone can do with technology. I touched on it earlier, but water sustainability, energy sustainability and disaster resiliency are three key pillars behind our climate change track. So understanding the impact of what someone can do, giving them information on the best way to conserve water, make better decisions about how they water crops. For example, based on future weather trends, energy sustainability, so making buying decisions, tracking your own consumption, making sure you're focused on the real things that are consuming power, maybe rather than things you think consume power. So looking at great solutions there and disaster resiliency. So going beyond natural disasters as in the first two years but also manmade disasters, climate related disasters, things like that. So both tracks each have a sub theme within and the price structure is very similar to what we did in prior years. So $200,000 for the top team, $25,000 for the two runners up and then the fourth and fifth place teams get $10,000. All of them get some mentorship from the Linux Foundation which can also connect them to other communities and some potential funding and mentorship opportunities. And by joining this, you'll be able to work together with folks around the world within the Linux Foundation as well as students, small and large institutions around the world. So we're really looking forward to seeing how this community grows and improves year over year to improve the previous year solution but also inspire new innovation on top of that. So just a look at the timeframe for call for code. We launched it in February with climate change, the track there, we added an early track for COVID-19. We decided to recognize the support three projects early. So those are also projects that are starting to work their way into code response with the Linux Foundation. One of them is a really great solution called SafeQ. Maybe Derek can provide a link to that in the chat but it's one of those ones that's really having a great impact already. It's being tested in the field right now with support from code response, really great stuff. But you can continue to develop applications for the competition through the end of July. So you've got 30 days left. Judging will be done by experts from around the world. Earlier for the, actually the early track we had Mark Cuban as one of the judges. We had experts from the United Nations. We had experts from local organizations, law enforcement, climate change experts, disaster resiliency experts, really to take not only a view at the technology and assess that but make sure that it's something that is relevant, transferable, feasible, solving the right problem. So again, looking forward to highlighting these applications in October and beginning their deployments in 2021. Hopefully when we're back, able to do group events and beyond the ground. Actually, yep. So here were the top three, SafeQ. RU Well was another great application which was a way to connect folks with medical resources in the communities and focusing on the situation in India, ensuring that that location is not overwhelmed. It's medical resources are not overwhelmed. They're already experiencing quite a bit, especially Mumbai. There's a lot of overloaded medical institutions there right now. So this solution is being iterated on through Outran, the team that created it as well as with support of Anthem, a large insurance company and other partners. And COVID impact is a way in Canada to connect small businesses with resources, grants and other information that may apply to them so they keep resilient through these tough times. So look out for those applications. They also remain eligible for the global competition. Okay, so if your developer wants to take part, there's four steps. You accept the challenge, which is registering for the competition. You've got access to open source technology. Most of what's on the IBM cloud is based on open source. I think it's 80% at least. So if you're working on Docker locally, you're working in Kubernetes, you're able to take that and host that up on the cloud. Same with OpenWISC, Knative, a bunch of open source platforms, open source technologies are able to run there. You can find teammates through our Slack community. As I mentioned, Slack is an affiliate. They've helped us get a nice community in there. I think there's six to 8,000 folks in there right now, all kind of collaborating and looking for teammates, working and learning about the technology, sharing information. And then finally, at the end of July, submit the idea with up to four other team members and we'll rate the highest ideas that come out of there through the judges. So we do also, as a way to bridge that abstract challenge like climate change or COVID-19 to some feasible use case, we have what are called starter kits. So these carve out one particular use case around that larger sub theme and give you a starting point. For example, you wanna learn how to make a bot, run an offline learning platform, learn what data sets are available for energy resiliency, things like that. There's a whole set of starter kits there. They basically make the abstract real and give you a great starting point. There's also, if you already know what you wanna build, just dive directly into using some of the IBM cloud services, open source data sets. We've got a list of things from around the world that come from lots of different sources that you can use in your Jupyter notebooks, for example, and connect with your open hardware-based systems using it. Again, within the Slack channel, I see there was a question about how do you get an invitation to join the Slack channel? It's a great question.  You accept the code of conduct and then it'll send you an email and how you can join. So there's channels for each of the themes and sub themes and you can reach out to IBM mentors in there as well as experts from lots of different companies like here, which is a location-based service and there's a couple of other APIs and things you can learn about in there as well. And it's one thing to create an amazing solution based on all those resources and solve the real problem, but you've gotta also be able to communicate why your solution is different, what problem you're solving, how you're gonna measure your impact. And given that we do have all of these widely skilled judges that aren't just technologists, that aren't just open source experts, but that are heads of NGOs, you really wanna be able to understand the issue you're solving. Try to speak in a common language that appeals to everybody that can quickly understand your idea and then document it very well. There's a starting project sample that has a good skeleton repo based on some of the Linux Foundation best practices you can start with. And that includes some tips around the video and deeper documentation. But it's really just like with SafeQ earlier this year. The value of that was evident that the innovation was quick and amazing just how fast it came together based on a starter kit and it really hit the judges with a nice demo. So that's why it was really a top solution to look at. So you can go check out, as I said, callforcode.org, that is the multi-year initiative page that has information about what the competition is, the rules, the judging, the judges themselves are gonna be listed there. And it also has information on what you need to submit the FAQ. And if you're not just a developer but that you also want to perhaps join as an organization, there's information there on how you can join the ecosystem, sponsorships, affiliates, no cost, supporterships, things like that. And there is also a corresponding Linux Foundation page that links to a couple of the projects we have right now. It highlights just two right now. So the cluster doc protocol, which is the one that came out of Project OWL, it's their open source firmware. And there's also a link there to Drone Aid, which was another very interesting solution that came from one of the first call for code events we did in Puerto Rico two years ago. And this is about solving the problem where folks, you've probably seen it in the news, I know in Houston it was big news, Florida, Puerto Rico, but folks who are disconnected from networks, how do they express their needs to helicopters, to drones, to civil aviation, to satellites, they've kind of put together logs that say help or write help in the sand sort of thing. What Drone Aid does is it sets up a common language based on the UN OCHA standard icon model and trains a visual recognition model that can be put into a drone, again, just take live feeds from satellites or whatever it is to identify the need expressed by somebody on the ground at a specific location and speed some help to them. So a couple of great projects there. There's many other projects that are so in the works in the other ones are in various states of iteration right now. Liquid Prep is one that came from actually an IBM internal competition. They are starting a service core deployment right now they're connected with some organizations in India to test their device. It's one of these that helps give farmers advice on whether they should water now based on weather forecasts and Isaac Simo is one based on a previous year winner as well. It's for assessing building construction quality ensuring that people who've had improvements done to their home through an NGO and particularly in Columbia can prove that the work was done well and if they can safely go back into their homes. And one of the ones to keep an eye on is this open EEW open earthquake early warning earthquake warning system project. You'll be hearing about that one pretty soon. They're coming to Linux foundation as well. What they do is rather than a multimillion dollar earthquake warning system that's at the national level they sell a small or create a small open source device that has a very highly sensitive accelerometer in it. So it scales out where the sensing of earthquakes are such as in Puerto Rico where we have a few installed and get folks alerted 30 seconds to a minute ahead of where they might be affected. So really promising technology, a nice portfolio of what's out there. You can contribute to them, you can join the conversation but yeah, again, if you enter a call for code with an idea and you win, you'll get really some hands on support to take your idea forward. So with that, let's open it up to some questions. I saw some that came into the chat and I'm not sure if Derek caught any of them. Yep, so Derek provided a link to the 18 minute documentary. That's great. And he's got a link to cluster doc, right? So they've got their solution. They've got how you can assemble one of these devices. They're continuing to add additional device support. They started with the ESP32 board. I think it was a hell tech. I don't know, it wasn't 100% reliable. So they're always looking for different platforms. So the community has been able to help them be more abstracted from the specific implementation. If you have any hardware expertise, go check it out. Try to set it up yourself and contribute to it in other ways. You can build an ecosystem of other things around that to kind of help visualize where the information comes from. All right, so Derek's got save queue in there. We talked a bit about Slack. Sounds like we've got that one handled as well. Okay, if you have any other questions, drop them in the chat. Yeah, it's interesting the question. There's a question there about a copy of the presentation which I think. Yes, I do have that actually. That's always the first question I get. So I already put it up on SlideShare. So let me actually ping that in the Q&A. Okay. So anything that you wanna send to them will go to the Slack channel. Okay. Oh, I see, yep, you have the chat there. Okay. Let's see, I can post them in the Slack channel, but if you go to slideshare.net slash Daniel Crook, my full name, you'll see the slide deck is updated there. And, okay, there we go. So the channel is, if you're in the OSS Slack, two track open source project updates. And again, to join Slack, it was callforcode.org slash Slack. And gethub.com, go ahead, Derek. So I think there's like a substantial lag here. So I apologize. One of the other questions in here just says, if you enter that you're not a winner, can you enter again in a subsequent year? And the answer is yes, yes, you can do that. So the theme might change every year. So a solution that you might build for this year might need to be adjusted for the following year. It could be something completely different. But yes, you can do that. And additionally, we made it so that, you know, if you're doing any other hackathons or events like that, you're able to take your solutions that you're creating for callforcode and use them elsewhere as well. And I should mention too, there is a fresh code rule. So whatever you do submit, should be fresh for the new competition, but it can build on anything that was open sourced and available to anybody else at the start of the competition.  But your code's got to be substantially new. It can't be a project that you created privately last year. You know, a whole new thing that you just submit. It's got to be a new idea or a new set of code that you're submitting. And as you submit, since the goal is to create sustainable open source projects, we ask all winners as a condition of accepting the prize, they patch you to license their projects. And they can form business models around them as Owl and Prometeo have. But yeah, you make your code available through the program. Great, I think that's it for the questions. So again, for follow-ups, so if you go to github.com slash code and response, you can find the repos and then in the Slack channel, there's actually two Slack workspaces. One is the Golf Code one, which is golfcode.org slash Slack, but the open source summit Slack also has its own channel. We'll put the slides into both areas so that you'll have those. Great, and with that, I think we're all set here. So thank you very much for attending. Look forward to seeing some of your applications. If you could participate in Golf Code this year, or even those issues open, the pull request sent to some of the code and response repos already.


ESO's telescopes and instruments have contributed to essentially all parts of astronomy and astrophysics. And as a result there are discoveries in quite a number of subfields of astronomy. ESO's website keeps a list of the top 10 discoveries and I think all of them are fantastic. And it is not so easy to decide which of these is the most important. Amongst my personal favourites are certainly the fascinating studies of the surroundings of the Galactic Centre black hole with the stars running around it, testing general relativity basically. There are discoveries about a deep universe.  And the HAARP spectrograph has continued to find very interesting planetary systems around other stars. 50 years into ESO's development we are still operating telescopes on Lesia, in fact using the HAARP's instruments.


All right, this is contenders optic number 31 Jasper's case breaks calm. Thanks everybody for getting in Yeah, did a V it's uploading to YouTube now. It should be up into the next 20 30 minutes. It's a very long video And I might be able to do a recap later too, I haven't done a recap yet for that football mixer um Is there a lemon one Sam is a big fan of lemon? I'm sure like anyone I know we didn't need a number block for this one Aaron Which is good Marlon got the last two teams Broncos and One other team Titans. All right. Good luck everybody First one out. We have a Luke Keekley and all cards ship in this of course Melvin Ingram There's Cameron Wake Derek Henry. I didn't know Wake was a Titan. I thought he was still a dolphin 38 of 99 and And Stefan digs number 299 Drake's cakes cherry pie is lethal right quail arm instead it's on the Mount Rushmore of Pastries Kim Benedict and Lil Josh Jacobs nice Raiders Yossick nice Lil Jake Jake Josh Jake auto Yeah, I've been watching this new show dead to me Just started a season two with Christina Applegate And it's with the actress who played Velma And Scooby-Doo the movie like 10 15 years ago Laura something So that's what I've been doing at night vanilla gorilla not yet It'll be coming up in about an hour and a half or so the baseball mixer sold out before it Little say quant action a little dust on it to Mark Ingram you've been ripping through it. It's pretty good. We got to talk about it Teddy 29 exes and those tarot tarot Suggs Khalil Mack number to 199. I'm on like season 2 episode 3 or something. There's Cameron Smith Auto for the Vikings. It was shot in San Pedro. That's cool Vikings is Anders and we have a JJ Artega Whiteside For the Eagles Aaron Salinas. There you go. But yeah, I like I like the actor the Velma actress a lot Like Christina Applegate to Carson Wentz Leave you on belt Aaron Rodgers MVP contenders number to 99 Marlin Mack for the Colts number to 199 Zack Allen. Yeah, that's where she started right? Cardinals is JC Yeah, I'll say the Scooby-Doo movie. It's fine and 45 of 75 all-time contenders auto Brian Dawkins Very nice hit for the Eagles Weapon X Aaron Salinas has the Eagles I just want to Aaron. She's also in Mad Men too. I've never watched it, but I was doing my research the other day redemption on the bottom G a J. Buye We have a randomizer round numbers Nikhil Harry Marquise Brown number to 50 that'll be randomized at the end of the break Otto Beckham, Jr. Green Pulsar number to 27 Cleveland Browns is Glen Campbell Javon Curse number to 27 auto Legendary contenders for the Eagles It's a great Titan. This one is Eagles That is Aaron Salinas. Yeah, Christina Applegate wasn't married with children. We're talking about Laura Reddington, I think it might her make maybe her name is redemption. Good luck RPS auto blue TJ Hawkinson for the Lions Barry Roberts Lions get that one six boxes to go Whoa to a restaurant for a Baker and Dunbar cornerbacks Robert What are they doing robbing during quarantine? All right, you're bisque Eddie Pinheiro another randomizer number to 27 Debo and AJ Brown are these first off the line boxes. Why is a number this much green? They send us those by accident. No, they would have a sticker on it carry on Johnson 27 27 For the Lions, ooh number to 50 Gardner-Minshew Big hit there Gardner-Minshew 50 number to 50 Jaguars is Kevin Benedict. Look up what this one goes for it's gonna be a Lot more than some people expect 39 out of 50 It's a nice one and redemption is Debo Samuel for the 49ers Oh nice just made the wife's day Everybody likes Gardner-Minshew, right? And they didn't bring in like any Quarterbacks either so it looks like he's got like the starting job pretty much locked up, right? Let's say signed somebody Kenny Galladay. Ooh, anybody see that people see that It's been a nice ten-boxer John the neighbor might this take so long to fill Oakland Raiders is Yossick Redemption Marquise Brown for the Ravens. That's going out to Aaron Billingsley Gold vinyl coming up. I think those are one-on-one in this maybe out of five Let's see who it is We have a round numbers that'll be randomized Isabella and Campbell it is a Evan Ingram gold vinyl one-of-one for the Giants got to JC not too shabby Maybe have a big breakout year For the G men And this is also a randomizer So we'll randomize this and these two also Yeah, the the gold vinyls are are sharp. All right Four boxes still to go. Good luck Get some hit list people on the board here. I almost had a sneeze warrior Al Sean TB 12 We have a dual X's and O's honey badger and Patrick Mahomes 48 out of 50 for the Chiefs Joe Clinton We have a Kyle Schirmer number 199 Not James Dean, but Jamel Dean auto for the Bucks Nicholas beat with the Bucks and Jared Stidham auto for the Patriots very nice Aaron Pettit with the Pats Anybody ever been to Raisin Canes Teddy B in the chat not a fan of me Yeah, my only qualm there is definitely the lack of a barbecue sauce There are one-dimensional team, you know Quincy Williams, we got around numbers T.J. Hawkinson and Noah Phant And we have a Mitchell Trubisky blue 61 of 99 number to 27. I waited till all the don't worry Teddy. I waited for all the The Raisin Cane simps to leave There's Christian McCaffrey. We got a David Montgomery auto We'll give the air contenders Sean Sean likes it number to 75 That's Bears. That's Daniel and we have a Mack Wilson the Browns That's going out to Glenn Yeah, I like their food, but yeah, it's just Like of condiments for me there's There's laws bland Teddy says Man Teddy, what if we have a customer that works there? He just offended them him or her Never buy here again Bobby Wagner Julian Edelman winning ticket orange number 50 look at that 11 of 50 That's a Jersey number for Aaron Pettit Leukeakley orange for the Panthers number to 50 Calvin Harmon for the Redskins Aaron Pettit auto rookie And we have a Bradley Ridley rookie ticket auto for the Bears That's going out to Daniel Nelson. All right last box here. Good luck Don't randomize those Round numbers cards. I didn't know there'd be so many randomizers got four or five in here Don't peak Mike Evans Coral and Sutton we got a Collins and Peterson number to 50 Mason Rudolph to 99 allergies are bugging me Ty Summers number to 76 Let's go on to the Packers Patrick sorry 33 of 75 not to 76 And we have the last head of the break is two of 27 miles Sanders For the Eagles going out to Aaron Salinas. There you go, Aaron great auto on that car too Plus it's live usually a redemption a lot of products. So there you go. That was the break We got some round numbers of randomized some nice stuff a one-on-one nice men's shoes stittum Jacobs Sanders Dawkins, so we'll go is all these Right here, let me set them up. So we'll roll one dice One pair of dice for all four. So first one is Ravens second one is Cardinals Colts, we got a baseball mixer a big baseball mixer coming up next Select baseball fielder break first and then the break the mixer Lions Broncos schedule is in the chat pretty much booked up for the night Unless maybe choice sells out 49ers and Titans. All right, so let's roll the dice and we're gonna go Nine times first one up Ravens and Pats after nine times one two three four five six Ninth and final Ravens go on top there get the Marquise Brown to kill Harry Next is Cardinals Colts nine times for the Isabella and Campbell Cardinals get that one nine times on Lions and Broncos for the Hawkinson fan No, it goes to the Lions and last one is AJ Brown debate Debo Samuel Nine times no problem Aaron. Thanks for getting in Glad we filled this up tonight Seven eight and ninth and final 49ers Flip on top. So that was contenders optic 31. Thanks to everybody getting in and congrats all the winners


If you need someone off the waiver wire, I've got two options for you. One of them is Marcus Mariota, who finally looked healthy on Monday night against Dallas. Now, Mariota has thrown a touchdown in just three of his seven games played this year. I won't sell him as someone who has a safe floor, but Tennessee faced a pretty tough schedule prior to their buy, and even though they've been the second-most run-heavy team in football, it may be pretty tough for them to not be aggressive against New England. The Patriots are seven-point favorites in Tennessee, and because they're good, they've faced the seventh-highest pass to rush ratio in football this season. What's more important is that over 86% of touchdowns scored on New England have come via the air, which is the second-highest rate in the league. Marcus Mariota is definitely not an easy player to just throw in your quarterback slot, and I would still peg him as a QB too. But the passing touchdown upside is always there against New England, and we know that Mariota is athletic enough to pick up some rushing production as well.


Hi Cheryl. This is Dr. Don. I'm looking at your file now and I'm not really sure what this is. It appears that you're plotting the margin of errors as a separate data series than the means. And let me show you real quick how to do this. You can just start out by selecting the the regions and the means. Let's go to insert recommended charts and I always like to do these things starting with a line chart because it allows me to have the names, the categories across the bottom. Then we just need to click on the line, right click format data series, and it brings up this dialog over here. We want to click on the little paint bucket. I'm going to turn on markers, marker options, built in just to select that. Go back to the line, click on no line that gets rid of the line. Then we right click, I'm sorry, click back in the chart and we have the plus there to add chart elements. Go down to error bars, click on that, more options. Make sure that the histogram icon I call it, the columns selected down at the bottom select custom, specify value, brings up the dialog box and you need to make sure what we're doing here we're going to add the margins of errors around these mean points, not create a separate data series. So I delete that, select my margin of errors. Now with the negative sides I got to delete that. Some reason I always tend to leave that equal sign in there, but I select it again and click okay and then I've got my basic chart. It's kind of small because these margin of errors are small. So what I like to do is right click on that, I'm sorry, I'm not thinking here, not out of coffee. I want to click on the axes and go over here to the histogram again and let's put the minimum to 2.5 and the max to 5.5 and that'll start to give us our chart there. You can see that the margins of errors differ for these which they are over here. You just need to put the label, I think this is speed and label the the two axes, regions and the mean score and that pretty much has it. So I hope this helps.


It was pretty much inevitable that the Red Sox were going to clinch, but is it still disappointing to now have it be official? Yeah, I mean, they've had a solid year, I mean, you can't deny that, and you never want it to be here that they get it, but we get it what we got, and they can celebrate now, and we got time to celebrate later.  I know you've been watching video working in the cage. What adjustments have you made to try to get that back on track? Just have a better rhythm in the box and be on time. What do you think is the difference between you guys and the Red Sox? We're both juggernauts, man. I mean, there's I can't tell you that right now. When you hit that Grand Slam, are you thinking momentum? Is in our favor at home with our bullpen. This is this is a solid opportunity to pick up another one. Yeah, we we we had a good opportunity there to to stay stay in the lead.  Him like that. Is that something that can help you move in the right direction offensively? Yeah. How does one at bat do that or is it a cameo? Other things just have saw that bats feel feel better timing and rhythm in that bats. I mean, one isn't going to do it. But it's it's it's a good push helps the team. Take a look at Stan.


With an estimated net worth of $700 million, Paul David Houston, better known as Bono, has cemented his status as one of the wealthiest musicians in the world. While most recognize him as the legendary frontman of the rock band U2, Bono has also established himself a businessman through his private equity firm Elevation Partners. This profitable venture shows Bono's instincts and has contributed handsomely to his fortune over the years. Amidst all his fame and success, Bono remains an unbashed family man at heart. The rock icon considers Dublin, Ireland his true home and continues to maintain deep roots there. Bono's sprawling Manorhome Temple Hill is situated in the exclusive seaside suburb of Dahlke and Dublin. While his mansion's exclusivity is maintained by an air of mystery about what it looks like inside and out, the 6,000-squared-foot home was originally bought by Bono in the 1980s. And it's undergone extensive renovations over the years. Located on a hill, it overlooks the scenic Kilinney Bay and offers views of Dahlke's medieval church and Rotello Tower. Nestled in a peaceful area, filled with bird songs and the sounds of the sea crashing off the rocks below, this home provides a tranquil setting for Bono and his family. An additional 2,500-squared-foot adjacent home was purchased later and connected via a corridor. Surrounded by large gates, the mansion has become a tourist destination, situated among other posh celebrity homes in this neighborhood. With its expansive size, renovated Manor style and idyllic seaside location, Temple Hill serves as both a luxurious and a quiet retreat for one of Ireland's most famous musicians. Beyond those security cameras and gates, Bono prefers to keep his home pretty low-key. In fact, the rocks are personally landscaped at property's edges with trees and vines to shield the home from prying eyes. Still, persistent fans gather hoping to catch a glimpse of the iconic musician on his rare days off. Beyond his beloved Dublin, Bono also owns a lavish vacation home along the glittering French Riviera. Nestled between Nice and Monaco, Bono's setting beachfront villa provides easy access to some of the Riviera's most famous attractions. After purchasing the property for $4 million, Bono invested an estimated $16 million towards extensive renovation. The resulting four-story mansion spans over 20,000 square feet, providing ample space to host celebrity friends and business tycoons. Guests enter through regal iron gates into a lush courtyard filled with palm trees and colorful blossoms. Inside, Bono embraces a vivid art deco aesthetic with sleek painted murals and bold geometric design. Each of the 20-plus rooms has been meticulously styled from the state-of-the-art kitchen to the lavish master suite. Floor-to-ceiling windows flood the interiors with natural lights and show off panoramic coastal views. The villa's highlight lies outside a sprawling seaside terrace perfect for sunset cocktails and alfresco dining. During the day, guests can take a private walk down to the beach or lounge poolside beneath beach umbrellas. Every aspect of the villa indulges the senses, from the luxury linens to the pleasant floral aromas that fill the air. In addition to his extravagant home's Bono also enjoys cruising the seas aboard his super yacht scion purchased in 2008. This 48.7-meter vessel can sleep up to 12 guests in the ultimate comfort and style. Stepping-on-board visitors are dazzled by wood finishes and elegant living spaces where they have a five-star hotel. Yacht's six state rooms each have ensuite bathrooms, satellite TV, and luxurious bedding to ensure maximum relaxation. Sion also has a ton of plush sofas and a baby grand piano perfect for evening concerts. For fitness enthusiasts, Sion offers a fully-equipped gym with panoramic views of the water. The yacht also boasts plenty of toys like jet skis, kayaks, and water skis for aquatic adventures. Back on land, Bono prefers cruising along coastal roads in his sleek Tesla Model S electric car. As an environmental activist, Bono takes pride in Tesla's innovative, sustainable technology. Inside his car, you can enjoy superior comfort and high-tech amenities like entertainment displays and advanced noise engineering. For road trips, this extra spacious interior stays whisper-quiet while providing room to sprawl out.  Overall, Bono's personal vehicles capture his blend of style, performance, and innovation. He invests in quality craftsmanship, whether it's a super yacht or purchasing a luxury sedan. Bono's appreciation for finely engineered machines aligns with his artistic passion and forward-thinking principles. Amidst all the wealth, Bono continues using his platform to raise awareness and make an impact. In 2005, he was named as Time Person of the Year and made a commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters. The singer was listed in the Forbes Generous Celebrity List for helping Depth Aids Africa, because of eradicating and stopping the spread of the fatal disease in Africa as he has always advocated for cancelling the third world debt. Bono has contributed to Hurricane Katrina relief, wildlife conservation society, Not On Our Watch, and many other charities. Moreover, he has made a personal donation of $50,000 to One in Four Ireland, an organization fighting against sexual abuse. Bono's integrity explains why fans remain devoted after decades of stardom. For a kid from small town Ireland, Bono has certainly come a long way. That's going to wrap up our Bono house tour before we go and say this question for me. How can those with significant wealth strike a balance between enjoying their success and making a meaningful difference in the world? Let me know down in the comments and don't forget to like, subscribe, and follow me on Instagram to chat. I'm Kara The Vampire Slayer and I'll see you all in another video. Bye!


This is the secret of why I put controversial titles. How can you trigger the algorithm? Because my real supporters, they of course understand my situation. We've been not only demonetized, but shadow banned as well, copyrights striked, videos deleted and whatnot. Since I accepted Islam, the algorithm tried to burry me. Therefore, how do we get out of that digital prison if you want? We have to create some triggering titles. It doesn't work otherwise. But as I say, don't judge a book by its cover, right? Open up the cover and check out what is in it. But I got the haram but it's outlawed. Haram!


And so what I will be fighting for on the federal level is an investment in those organizations doing that work because more people are disclosing now than ever before. Ayanna Presley may be running in a predictable race tonight, but her primary win was anything but. The first black woman from Massachusetts to be elected to the House, Presley defeated 10-term incumbent Michael Capuano in a historic win back in the September primary.  I will always stand up for my survivor tribe. It is one of the reasons why I ran. Presley's election comes at the same time as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, who also upset a major Democratic player in her primary. She's looking at herself on television right now. How are you feeling? Can you put it into words? Nope. Presley's stances are very similar to incumbent Capuanos, but Presley takes the label a step further on some issues, such as advocating for the abolishment of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. To our immigrants worried about the knock on the door, change can't wait. Presley has promised to shake things up in Washington, but it remains to be seen whether her and the other progressive Democrats will be able to make a dent in the establishment Democrats agenda. For BU News Service, I'm Nabah Khan.


From the CUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE Conversation. Hi everybody, this is Dave Vellante. And as you know, I've been running a CXO series in this COVID economy. And as we go into the post-isolation world, really want to focus and expand our scope and really look at startups. And of course, we're going to look at startups, let's follow the money. And I want to start with the investor. Mark Robers is here. He's a managing director at Stage 2 Capital. He's a professor at the Harvard Business School, former CRO over at HubSpot. Mark, great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, you bet, Dave. Thanks for having me. So I love looking at your career a little bit and your LinkedIn and following some of your videos. I love the fact that you did and now you teach and you're also applying it with Stage 2 Capital. Tell us a little bit more about both your career and Stage 2. Yeah, I mean, a lot of it's a bit serendipitous, especially the last 10 years, but I've always had this learn-do-teach framework in mind as I go through the decades of my career. Like you're probably like 80% learning in your 20s, early 30s, and 20% doing. And then I think my 30s was leading the HubSpot sales team a lot of doing, a little bit of teaching, kind of hopping into different schools, et cetera, and also doing a lot of some writing. So now like teaching, I think investing kind of falls into that too, where you've got this amazing opportunity to meet the next generation of extraordinary entrepreneurs and engage with them. So yeah, that has been my career. Dave, I've been a passionate entrepreneur since 22 and then the last one I did was HubSpot and that led to just an opportunity to build out one of the first sales teams in a complete inside environment, which opened up the doors for a data-driven mindset and all this innovation that led to a book that led to recruitment on HBS's standpoint to like come and teach that stuff, which was such a humbling honor to pursue. And that led to me meeting my co-founder, Jpo, of State Your Capital who was at Bessemer to essentially start the first VC fund running back by sales and marketing leaders, which was his vision, but when he proposed it to me, addressed a pretty sizable void that I saw in the entrepreneur ecosystem that I thought could make a substantial impact to the success rate of startups. Great, I want to talk a little bit about how you guys compete and what's different there, but I've read some of your work, looked at some of your videos and we can bring that into the conversation, but I think you've got some real forward thinking, for example, on the best path to the upper right, being the XY axis on growth and adoption, do you go for hyper growth or do you go for adoption, how you align sales and marketing, how you compensate salespeople? I think you've got some leading edge thinking on that that I'd love for you to bring into the conversation, but let's start with stage two.  What's different about stage two capital? Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, we're a bunch of sales and marketing exacts. I mean, our backing is 100 plus CROs, VPs of marketing, CMOs from the public companies. I mean, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Oracle, Salesforce, SurveyMonkey, Lyft, Asana, I mean, just pick a unicorn, we probably have some representation from it. So that's a big part of how we compete is most of the time when a rocket ship startup is about to build the sales team, one of our LPs gets a call and because of that, we get a call, right? And so we're just deep in helping, first off, assess the potential and risks of a startup in their current go-to-market design and then really stepping in, not just with capital, but a lot of know-how in terms of how to best develop this go-to-market for their particular context. So that's a big part of our differentiation. I don't think we've ever lost a deal that we try to get into for that reason, just because we come at the right stage that's right for our value prop. I'd say, Dave, the biggest sort of difference in our investing theme, and this really comes out of like, post-hubspot, in addition to teaching at HBS, I did parachute into a different startup every quarter for one day where you can kind of like, assess their go-to-market, looking for like, what is the underlying consistency of those series A businesses that become unicorns versus those that flatline? And if I, you know, I've now written like 50 pages on it, which I, you know, we can highlight to the crew, but the underlying cliff notes is really the avoidance of a premature focus on top-line revenue growth and an acute focus early on on customer attention.  And I do think like, there's a fraction of companies that are ready for that and a large amount of them that should they pursue that path will lead to failure. And so we take a heavy lens toward world-class customer attention as a prerequisite to any sort of triple, triple, double, double blitz-scaling type model. So let me ask you a couple of questions there. So it sounds like your LPs are heavily, not only heavily and financially invested, but also are very active. I mean, is that a fair, how active are the LPs in reality? I mean, they're busy people, they're software operators, do they really get involved in businesses? Absolutely. I mean, any half of our deals that we did in fund one came from the LPs. So we get half of our funnel comes from LPs, okay? So it's always like source, pick, win, support. That's like what basically a VC does. And our LPs are involved in every piece of that. Any deal that we do will bring in four or five of our LPs to help us with diligence that they have particular expertise in. So we did an insure tech company in Q4, one of our LPs runs the insurance practice at Workday. And this particular play is selling into big insurance companies. He was externally helpful to understand that domain. Post-investment, we always bring in four or five LPs to go deeper than I can on a particular topic. So one of our plays is about to stand up in account-based marketing capability. So we brought in the CMO, a former CMO at Rapid 7 and the CMO at Unisys, both of which who have stood up like account-based marketing practices much more deeply than I could. You know, of course, like we take the time to get to know our LPs and understand both their skills and experiences as well as their willingness to help. We have Jay Simon who's the president of Atlassian. He doesn't have like hours every quarter. He's running a 50 billion dollar company, right? So we have Brian Halligan, the CEO of HubSpot, right? Like he's running a 10 billion dollar company now. So we just get deal flow from them. And maybe like an event once or two, twice a year. I would say like 10 to 20% of our LPs are like that. I would say 60% of them are active operators who are like, you know what, I just missed the early days. And if I could be active with one or two companies a quarter, I would love that. And I would say like a quarter of them are like semi-retired. And they're like, they're choosing between helping our company and being on the boat or the golf course. So this is kind of a new model. Do you see having a different philosophy where you want to have a higher success rate?  But I wonder if you could address that. Yeah, I don't think it, I'm not advocating slower growth, but just healthier growth. And it's just like an extra, like it's really not different than sort of the blitz scaling oriented San Francisco, V.C. Okay, so, you know, I would say when we were doing startups in the 90s, early 2000s, before the lean startup, we would have this idea and build it in a room for a year and then sell it in parallel, basically sell vaporware. And Eric Reese and the lean startup changed all that. Like he introduced MVPs and pivots and agile development. And we quickly moved to a model of like, yeah, when you have this idea, it's not like you're really learning, keep the team small, keep the burn low, pivot, pivot, pivot, stay agile and find product market fit. And once you do that scale, I would say even like West Coast Blitz Scaling oriented VCs agree with that. My only take is we're not being scientifically rigorous on that transition point. Like the, go ask like 10 VCs or 10 entrepreneurs, what's product market fit? And you'll get 10 different answers. And you'll get answers like when you have lots of sales. I just profoundly disagree with that. And I think revenue and sales has very little to do with product market fit. That's like message market fit. Like selling ice to Eskimos. If I can sell ice to Eskimos, it doesn't mean that product market fit. The Eskimos didn't need the ice. It just means I was good at like pitching it, right? You know, other folks talk about like having a workable product in a big market. It's just too qualitative, right? So that's all I'm advocating is that, I think almost all entrepreneurs and investors agree there's this incubation rapid learning stage. And then there's a thing called product market fit where we switched to rapid scale. And all I'm advocating is like more science and rigor to understanding some sequences that need to be checked off and a little bit more science and rigor on what is the optimal pace of scale. Cause when it comes to scale like pretty much 50 out of 50 times when I talked to a series A company, they have like 15 employees, two sales reps that got to like 2 million in revenue. They raised an 8 million dollar around in series A and they hired 12 sales people the next month.  Like it's just to be able to like absorb 10 reps in a month, being a 50, it's just like, who even does all those interviews? Who onboarded them? Who manages them? How do we feed them with the man? These are some of the things that I just think warrant more data and science to drive the decisions on when and how fast to scale. Mark, what is the key indicator then of product market fit? Is it adoption? Is it renewal rates? Yeah, it's retention in my opinion, right? So the very simple framework that I requires, you're ready to scale when you have product market and go to market fit. And let's be extremely, you know, precise and rigorous on the definitions. So product market fit for me, the best metric is retention. You know, that essentially means someone not only purchased your offering, but experienced your offering. And after that experience decided to repurchase, whether they buy more from you or they renew or whatever it is. Now, the problem with it is in many, like in the world we live in, it's like the retention rate of the customers we acquire this quarter is not evident for a year, right? And we don't have a year to learn, like we don't have a year to wait and see. So what we have to do is come up with a leading indicator to customer attention. And that's something that I just hope we see more entrepreneurs talking about in their product market fit journey and more investors asking about is what is your leading indicator to customer attention? Cause when that gets checked off, then I believe you have product market fit. Okay, so there's some documentation on some unicorns that have like flirted with this. I think Silicon Valley calls it the aha moment. That's great. Just like what? So like Slack, an example, like the format I like to use for the leading indicator of customer attention is P% of customers do E event in T time. Okay, so it basically boils it down to those three variables P, E, T. So if we bring that to life and humanize it, 70% of the customers we sign up, this is Slack, 70% of the customers we sign up send 2000 team messages in 30 days. If that happens, we have product market fit. I like that a lot more than getting to a million in revenue or like having a workable product in a big market. Dropbox, 85% of customers share one file in one hour. Okay, HubSpot, I know this is the case. 75% of customers use five or more of the 25 features in the platform within 60 days. Okay, P% and E event do E event in T time. So if we can just format that and look at that through customer cohorts, we often get visibility into true product market fit within weeks, if not like a month or two, and it's scientifically, or data driven in terms of its foundation. Love it. And then of course you can align sales compensation with that retention. You've talked a lot about that in some of your work. I want to get into some of the things that stage two was doing. You invest in SaaS companies. If I understand it quickly, it's not necessarily early stage. You're looking for companies that have sort of achieved some degree of revenue and now need some operational help in scaling. Is that correct? Yeah, so it's a little bit broader than SaaS. Any sort of like B2B software, any software company that's building the scaling through a sales team. I mean, look at our backers and look at my background. That's what we have experience in. So not really any consumer plays. And yeah, I mean, we're not, we have a couple of product LPs. We have a couple of CFO type LPs. We have a couple of like talent HR LPs, but most of us should go to market. So we don't, you know, there's awesome seed funds out there that help people set up their product and engineering team and go from zero to one in terms of the MVP and find product market fit, right? We like to come in right after that, right? So it's usually like between the seed and the A, usually the revenues between half a million and 1.5 million. And of course, we put an extraordinary premium on customer retention, okay? Whereas I think most of our peers put an extraordinary premium on top line revenue growth, we put an extraordinary premium on retention. So if I find a 700,000 dollar business that, you know, has whatever 50, 70 customers, you know, depending on their ticket size and has like north of 90% lower retention, that's super excited. Even if they're only growing like 60%, it's super exciting. And what's the typical size of investments? Do you typically take board seats or not? Yeah, we typically put in like between like seven or a K and 1.5 million in the first check and then have like larger amounts for follow-on. So on the A and the B, you know, we try not to take board seats to be honest with you, but instead be board observers. It's a little bit selfish in terms of our fund scale. Like the general counsel from other venture capitalists is of course, like the board seat is there for proper governance in terms of like having some control over expenditures and acquisition, conversations, et cetera, or decisions. But a lot of people who have experienced with boards know that they're very like easy and like time efficient when the company's going well and they're a ton of work when the company's not going well. And it really hurts the scale, especially on a smaller fund like us. So we do like to have board observers seats and we go to most of the board meetings so that our voice is heard. But as long as there's another fund in there that, you know, has, you know, world-class track record in terms of, you know, holding proper governance at the board level, you know, we prefer to defer to them on that. All right, so the COVID lockdown hit really in earnest in March. Of course, we all saw the Sequoia memo, the Black Swan memo, you were, I think at HubSpot when you remember the rest in peace, good times memo came out very sort of negative, put a pall over the industry's, you know, stop spending. But there was some other good advice in there. You know, me to sort of go too hard on that. But it was generally a negative sentiment. What was your advice to your portfolio companies when COVID hit? What were you telling them? Yeah, I summarized this in our lead blog article. We kicked off our blog, which is partially related to COVID in April, you know, which kind of summarized these tips. So yes, you are correct, Dave. I was running sales at HubSpot in 08 when we had our last sort of major economic, you know, destabilization.  And I was actually, after that year, looking back, we were very fortunate that we had a value prop that was very recession proof. We were selling to the small business community who at the time was cutting everything except new ways to generate sales. And we happened to have the answer to that and it happened to work, right? So it showed me that like, there's different levels of being recession proof. And we all, you know, we accelerated the raise of our second fund for stage two with the anticipation that there would be a recession, which, you know, in the venture world, some of the best things you could do is close a fund and then go into a recession. Because, you know, there's more deals out there, the valuations are lower and it's much easier to understand nice to have versus must have value props. So the common theme I saw in talking to my peers who looked back in the O1 crisis as well as the O8 crisis a year later was not making a bolder decision to reorient their company in the current times. And usually on the go-to-market, that's two factors, the ICP, who you're selling to, ideal customer profile and the CVP, what your message is, what's your customer value prop. And that was really, you know, in addition to just stabilizing cash positions and putting some plans in there, that was the biggest thing we pushed our portfolio on was almost like going through the exercise, like it's so hard as a human to have put like nine months into a significant investment, leading up to COVID. And now the outcome of that investment is no longer relevant. And it's so hard to let that go. You know what I mean? So, but you have to, you have to. And it's, and that's everything from like, you spent two years learning how to sell to this one persona. And now that persona is like, Jim's retail and travel companies. Like you've got to let that go. You know what I mean? And like, and you know, it's just like, so that's really what we had to push folks on was just, you know, talking to founders and basically saying this weekend, you know, get into some, a great headspace and like, pretend like you were parachuted into your company as a fresh CEO today and look around and appreciate the world and what it is. What is this world? What are the buyers talking about? Which markets are hot? Which markets are not? Look at the assets that you have.  Right? And so that's really what we pushed hard on. And in some cases, people just like jump right on it. It was awesome. We had a residential real estate company that within two weeks stood up a virtual open house module that sold like hotcakes. That was fantastic execution. And we had other folks that we had of like three meetings with the push them deep enough to go more boldly. But that was really the underlying pattern that I saw in past recessions and something I pushed the portfolio on is just being very bold on your pivots. Right, so I wanted to ask you how your portfolio companies are doing. I imagine you saw some looked at this opportunity as a tailwind. You mentioned the virtual open house. Maybe we're exposed, revenue exposure to hard hit industries and others kind of in the middle. How are your portfolio companies doing? Yeah, it's strong. I'm trying to figure out like, of course I'm going to say that but I'm trying to figure out like how to provide quant to just demonstrate that. We were fortunate that we had no one and this was just dumb luck. I mean, we had no one exclusively selling to like travel or restaurants or stuff. That's just bad luck if you were and we're fortunate that we got a little lucky there. We put a big, obviously we had put a big premium and customer attention and that we always looked through our session proof lens at all our investments. So I think that helped. But yeah, I mean, we've had, first off we made one investment post COVID. That was the last investment on our first fund and that particular company, March, April, May their results were 20% higher than any month in history. So that was a very, those are the types of deals we're seeing now. It's like you literally find some deals that are accelerating since COVID and you really just have to assess if it's permanent or temporary, but that one was exciting. We have a title of mallison company that's just like really accelerating post COVID. Again, luck in terms of just their alignment with the new world we're living in. And then, geez, I mean, we've had I think four term sheets for markups in our portfolio since March. So I think that's a good sign. We only made 11 investments and four of them either have verbal or submitted term sheets on markups. So again, I feel like the portfolio's doing quite well and I'm just trying to provide some quantitative measures so it doesn't feel like a political answer. So thank you for that, but now how have you or have you changed your thesis post COVID? Do you feel like your approach was sort of geared toward this post COVID environment? What changes have you made? A little bit, like I think in any bull market, generally speaking, there's just gonna be a lot of like triple, triple, double, double blitz scaling, huge focus on top line revenue growth. And in any down in market, there's gonna be a lot of focus on customer attention, you and economics. Now we've always invested in the latter. So that doesn't change much. There's a couple of things that have changed. Number one, we do look for acceleration post COVID. Now that obviously we were not, we weren't that lens didn't exist pre COVID. So in addition to like great retention, selling through a sales team, around the half million to a million revenue, we wanna see acceleration since COVID and we will do diligence to understand if that's a permanent or a temporary advantage. I would say like markets like San Francisco, I think become more attractive in post COVID. There's just like San Francisco has some magic happening. There's some VC funds that avoid it because it's too expensive. There's some VC funds that only invest in San Francisco because there's magic happening. We've always just been, we have two portfolio companies there that have done well. Like we look at it and if it's too expensive, we have to avoid it, but we do agree that there's magic happening. I did look at a company last week, it's sort of Dave, they're 300K in revenue and their last valuation was 300 million. So why is San Francisco more attractive, Mark? Well, I mean, and those happened in Boston too. We looked at it in Boston. I thought you were gonna tell me that valuations were down and that's all. Well here, here's the GLI. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And this is one, but in general, I think like they have come down and honestly, the other thing that's happened is good entrepreneurs that weren't raising or now raising. So like a market like that, I think becomes more attractive. The other thing that I think that happens is you're sort of following strategies different. Okay, so there is some statistical evidence that obviously we're coming out of a bear market, a bullish market in both the public and the private equities. And there's been a lot of talk about valuations and the private sector is just outrageous. And so we're fortunate that we come in at this like post seed pre-A where it's not as impacted. It is, but not as, or hasn't been, but because there's so many more multi-billion dollar funds that have to deploy 30 to 50 million per investment, there's a lot of heating up that's happened at that stage. Okay, and so pre-COVID, we would have taken advantage of that by taking either all or some of our money off the table in these follow on growth rounds. As an example, we had a company that we made an investment with around 30 million in valuation and 18 months later, they had a term sheet for 500. So that's a pretty good return in 18 months. And that's an expensive, so that's like, wow, we probably, even though we're super bullish on the company, we may want to take off a two X position and take advantage of these secondaries. And the other thing that happens here, as you pointed out, Dave, is like, risk is not, it doesn't become de-risk with later rounds. Like these big billion dollar funds come in, they put pressure on very aggressive strategic moves that sometimes kills companies and completely outside of our control. So it's not that we're not bullish on the company, it's just that there's new sets of risks that are outside of the scope of our work. And so that's probably like a lesser opportunity post COVID. And we have to think longer term and have more patient capital as we navigate the next year or so of the economy. Yeah, so we got a wrap, but I want to better understand the relationship between the public markets, you've seen the NASDAQ up, which is just unbelievable when you look at what's happening in the main street and the relationship between the public markets and the private markets. Are you saying they're sort of tracking but not really identical? I mean, what's the relationship? Okay, so there's like hundreds, there's thousands of people that are better than that at me, like the kind of like anecdotal thoughts that I, or the anecdotal like kind of narrative that I've heard in past recessions and actually saw too was the private market, when the public market dropped, took nine months roughly for the private market to correct. Okay, so there was a lag. And so there's some arguments that that would happen here, but this is just a weird situation, right? Of like the market, even though we're going through societal, crazy uncertainty, turmoil and tremendous tragedy, the markets did drop, but they're pretty hot right now specifically in tech. And so there's a number of schools of thoughts there that like some people claim that tech is like the utilities companies of the 80s, whereas just a necessity and it's always going to be there regardless of the economy. Some people argue that what's happened with COVID and remote workplace have made, accelerated the adoption of tech, the inevitable adoption. And others could argue that like, the worst is still the cop. Yeah, and of course you've got the Fed injecting so much liquidity into the system, low interest rates. Mark, last question. Give me a pro tip for entrepreneurs.  I think that the extension I do at this point is like, you know, do your diligence on your investors and what their thoughts are on your future growth plans to see if they're aligned. Cause that becomes like, I think a lot of entrepreneurs when they dig into this work, they do want to operate around it, but that becomes that much harder when you have investors that think a different way. So I would just, you know, just always keep in mind that, you know, I know it's so hard to raise money, but you know, do the diligence on your investors to understand what, you know, what they'd like to see in the next two years and how it's aligned with your own vision. Mark, it's really great having you on. I'd love to have you back and as this thing progresses and see how it all shakes out, really a pleasure. Thanks for coming on. No, thanks, Dave. I appreciate you having me on. And thank you everybody for watching. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE. We'll see you next time.