Dating as an Asian man in America to put it simply is not fun. You guys agree with this statement? Welcome everybody to the hot-pot boys Filipino American actor Mike Cabellon has just written a viral article Detailing these struggles of him dating in the Midwest And a lot of people have a lot of responses about it might kind of dropped a banger Today calm usually they got like cake recipes on that site people are like looking for cake recipe. Oh my gosh I had no idea. This is what you guys were going through. I don't be an Asian guy It's a little bit of like an internal discussion that some Asian guys like having with each other not even all Asian guys And he kind of just put it out on USA today And it was really interesting because the internet it went viral and had a lot of couple different responses for different camps of Asian guys Micro mid macro thinkers and one was Asian masculinity on the micro side, right? And then there was the happier broad crowd in the middle And then there was like the Asian identity almost like narrative geopolitical one in the very macro so I don't know. It was really interesting Let's break them all down and at the end we'll give our own opinions on what Mike Cabellon said Yeah, and I know we want to break it down from the micro mid to macro because we feel like that This is an aspect that is missing in a lot of these discussions and trust me We've had this discussion about Asian male dating statistics a lot on our channel I think this discussion has been going on for like 25 years and maybe we've been talking about for like seven years All right, so shout out to Mike. He wrote the article sparked the discussion. Let's get into it guys the micro This is where most people spend the time Thinking about how to solve this problem right getting buff Changing your hairstyle changing your clothes all line abs Go approach a lot of women and be very confident. It's micro is based around yourself. What can you change you as a person? Make yourself better and this is where on the forums They were really digging into Mike Cabellon being like bro. Don't blame it on being Asian bro because you're like short Super baby-faced, you know geeky clothes, bro. You like a kind of a geek squad type dude Don't blame it on being Asia, bro. Take the responsibility for yourself. It's all about individualism be rugged and that is actually It's not wrong. I don't think it's a fully holistic perspective But basically they were saying Andrew that Mike Cabellon was not an attractive product to women So don't blame it on being Asian.  He wasn't as attractive. However his look Is more of just that kind of like comedic, writer-y look so it plays in a scene But we're gonna get to it. It wasn't the scene that he was in no no no It's very second-city upright citizen brigade kind of like a jake in a mere more rocker I guess like beta white guy cute look maybe that's like the equivalent lane he's going for but here's the truth Andrew you can't just look at something that worked for a white guy and then try to be the Asian version of that in any City in America and have it work. Yeah, it is hyper contextual guys and You know, I will say and I'm not saying that I'm defending all the alpha Chad bro Kevin win jawline types because I don't look like that. I got a baby face But I will say that that's more conventionally able to get women in any city Whereas the other ones it's more like industry specific. Do you have that hipster writer Williamsburg Silver Lake City? type town in the Midwest Probably not because the Midwest Simply maybe outside of like Northwestern University in Chicago doesn't have that world So if you're trying to play that world and not only that you're the B grade Asian version That's a pretty tough play. So that's on the micro level, right? That's why guys just say be this buff alpha Chad bro But here's the thing Andrew It is true that not everybody has the base to level genetics to do the Kevin win thing David You said you have a baby face, but it's got a lot of hair on it now, which is different. That's different It's a baby face with a beard. So now it's a baby beard kind of a combo Yeah, yeah, I'm going from baby face to more like the club in Shanghai baby face Crazy reference no one will understand it The last thing about the micro is also what you are looking for because there can be a crazy Misalignment if you're a guy that works in it, but you only want the girls who are popping on IG Yeah, I don't know man if you know like C++, but you only want the girls with the OF that is a difficult match I'm not saying it's impossible depends on how good of a you know software engineer. You are you getting money money But anyway, uh, it's just basically guys There's a lot of things even in the micro where some guys Andrew Professionally make a living whether it's on YouTube or personal camps on coaching guys in the micro So literally that's clothes hair body, etc. Anyway, moving into the mid This is probably the most overlooked aspect of changing your dating life as an Asian guy because you just move cities Or you move to a different part of the city or you move to a different country and everything can shift Dude, we have a friend who grew up in a Korean suburb and you know, he's mixed Latino and Korean and growing up He's not getting a lot of love from the more traditional Korean women because they don't really see him as Korean They're probably looking more for like Korean guys. You're not one of us. Yeah He's only half of them right and so but then he went to college just 15 miles south He went to a college campus, you know, everybody's young. They're more open-minded. It's a mixed more mixed Asians And he was like the k-pop star of his group Right He was not being Korean enough to being the Korean k-pop hunk that all the ladies were starved for Literally 15 miles south moved from high school to college, bro. That's the same city same state You know, um even within our city that we grew up in Andrew There was a school where people were like horses in the back like on some like Marlboro Wranglers type vibe, you know like wrestling horses and stuff and then you went over a little bit And people had like six headbands with the pinwheel and everybody looked like XXL source You know like it was so hip-hop and it was so street and like swagger pinoe over there It really depended which school were you about to be more successful with women out or just even socially man It depends on the narrative of that specific high school Yeah, I know people always ask us because they know that we lived in LA and New York and there was like dude What's like better for Asian guys man, LA or New York? They're both really big cities I'm like guys both cities are great But it depends on your personality and what you want and how you can handle the city and how do you fit into the City, how do you connect to the city if you fit in more with LA and you like to drive you want that chill Beachy vibe and all the different types of Asians and there's this like everybody spread out go to LA But if you can handle the intensity of New York, New York is cool So I just that it's as simple as that where it's just changing your context can change so much Yeah, yeah, yeah And it's like for some guys who don't want to think about either the micro or the macro And they just want to stay in the mid which is sort of like I don't got to think about how buff I am and how much am I fitting these like Western standards? You know what I mean and then on the macro It's like I don't want to think about like global geopolitics or narratives or whether people trust us or mistrust us or think We're evil or not. I could just move to Toronto Vancouver SGV Hawaii and not have to think about any of these things because these are of course Asia Where these are just hyper Asian context where it operates more like Singapore essentially than anything else dude I even know Asian guys on YouTube that are living a happy life over in like South America, right? It's very interesting It's just matters just like where you feel like you get a fresh start where you want to where you feel like you're Seen as an equal or if not Possibly an elevated product, you know, and there's not that many spaces So everybody's just gonna you know figure it out But but trust me the mid a lot of people don't talk about it moving changing your environment Or even just changing your industry, you know some guys It's like weird because finance guys they party more, right? But the finance world is also more I guess pro-white and that's pro-Asian, right? But then you could go into the medical field, which is not as lit and party filled But it's very pro Asian people aren't gonna be making the same jokes and comments that they're making in the finance world So now you have to make the reads based on like where you feel more comfortable Maybe you find a mix you go to fintech Which is like a hybrid between the two worlds basically guys You just got to understand the IQ here because I don't like to see the blanket statements that I see online They just seem like way too far this way or way too far that way There's no nuance, but the answer is usually in the middle anyway We're gonna move final to the last bird's-eye view under the macro. These are like people on AZN identity They're almost consumed with like the macro movement of Pangea breaking apart into different continents These are like geopolitical rankings global narratives is the yellow man evil is it back to the Genghis days But is it pro Genghis or is it anti Genghis or we're part of the Golden Horde or are we a part of the Nemoidians or how are people seeing our yellow golden skin or are you part of the how are you? K-pop wave guys This is where this comes in listen k-pop being such a big wave right now It can affect your daily life Especially if you're Korean or Korean passing and you want to go into that look and get that in that lane Yeah, we know a guy who wasn't like really doing much and then he really doubled down on the k-pop lane He's on tiktok right now. He's killing it guys. It's a different game. Also. It's kind of like let's say, you know China's becoming more of an economic power. So a lot more non Asians are taking Mandarin class Obviously, if you learn the language of a peep of a person you might be more open to meeting them or hanging out with them Obviously that increases options for that. I know a lot of guys look at Eastern European women They seem to be more open to Asians guys These are all macro trends that you can actually not impact yourself as an individual, but you can ride the wave Yeah, and I think it's really interesting because to be honest guys You need all three levels and I do think by the way Macro thinking like media representation is a lower form than like global narratives but I'll say this to sum it all up between the Micro which is like just focusing on yourself and what you're doing in the gym and on your like online hinge profile Looking the best possible to the mid which is like the 300 to 500 people around you that you see every day Maybe that you don't even talk to but that you just visually see and then obviously to the macro Which is like we're talking about the movement of like billions of people's here and and very powerful people enter Everybody online that is an Asian guy giving advice to another Asian guy tends to focus on just one of these three things But they actually all matter dude I want to tell a couple stories guys remember when Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player ever and then he quit to play Baseball he changed the sport and he figured out. No, that wasn't my sport. I'm not that good at it He didn't make the major leagues So changing sports can be better or worse now I have a success story Yul Tron was an Asian guy rapper out of LA and he wasn't getting a lot of shows as a Rapper maybe wasn't the greatest rapper, but he had a cool style But really he just was not popping as a rapper He switched and did EDM music and he's a DJ now and he's rocking crowds of like 10,000 He didn't even have to swap out all his drum kits on his like production software the same He didn't change his look. He just changed the game. He changed his environment He changed his what he was doing and he changed his platform You see it all the time in music and you see it all the time in restaurants like sometimes a restaurant Is too fusion need to be in the authentic area, but dude, I'll just say this real quick This is don't hopefully this is go over people's heads Wagamama Andrew is a really hyper fusion Asian New York restaurant Every time it is opened up in a diverse neighborhood where there's a lot of minorities it always fails The other day I was there at Wagamama's in midtown. It was packed. You could not even get in There was so many white people trying to get a bowl of ramen next to Pad Thai Oh Restaurants music it's just about the packaging. It's so hyper contextual to the neighborhood you're in and the execution Guys think about I think and I don't want to people like not to think about it in like a weird like problematic way I'm just saying think of dating. It's like any other thing that you can study or figure out There are skills that you can develop in dating, you know Or there's like skills that you can develop or you can change the game You can tweak the game you can change the way you play the game you can change where you play the game Guys like there are so many solutions to attack this problem if you find it a problem Yeah I think the game is changing to the point of Mike Cabellon at the end of his article saying BTS is Helping change a lot of larger narratives and there's some trickle down and you know Obviously some people are closer to the blast zone than others I will say this I think that a lot of life and achieving difficult things for people who aren't meant to do certain things It's a lot like basketball Isaiah Thomas has to work a lot harder and have much higher basketball IQ than Javell McGee because Javell McGee just got built with a lot of In like born competitive advantages that Isaiah Thomas doesn't have he's got to make you know Isaiah's got to even think about center of gravity and where to bump people on their hip just to move them out of the way Just to create some barely some daylight to get his jumper off Javell doesn't have to think about any of that right But it doesn't mean that it can't be a better player than Javell But it meant that he had to put in that much more work into the gym and have that much more IQ coaches And what I see sometimes online when Asian guys give other people other guys IQ coaching on like social reads It's just very middle tier. Yeah, it's not holistic also when you're giving advice to on people online You don't know that much about them like sometimes they don't even know how you look people are just writing one thing And then asking for a bunch of advice so it's just strangers trying to analyze another stranger They don't know and give them advice specifically on Reddit Yeah, and I'm just saying sometimes like you just have to give them the overview guys These are the factors that are involved micro who you are how you look and what you want number two mid It's just your environment where are you around different environments provide different context for you It can literally change how you're perceived and then macro What are these larger waves and trends that are at play for you or against you figure it out? Just think about it this way. That's all I got to say guys. I gotta give props to Mike Cabellon for writing the article You know, I think that he just brought it to the forefront You know, I don't know fully what his motivations were but I think ultimately as embarrassing as it is I guess for like other people to see the internal Asian male struggles It's probably more better if it sparks more discourse because discourse leads to progress and you just got to get the ball rolling So that's my pretty much my final thoughts on it. All right, everybody. We're gonna close it up here Thank you so much for watching this video Please leave your comment down below what you think what you thought about the article if you read it Or what you think about just Asian the Asian male dating experience in general We all know it's getting better a year by year, but there's still a lot of struggles. We still feel overlooked Do you feel that way? Let me know hit that like button. We are the hot pop boys and until next time we're out Peace shout out to a potato go Bethany


But for a soft scale answer, you need to train it, such as how I train it. It should be streaming live right now. So we're going to start in one minute. Okay, great. So it's successfully live. We're getting started in one minute. Welcome guys. Let me stop sharing the screen. I'm also parking my phone right here. Welcome, welcome guys. Hey guys, this is Dr. Nancy Lee. I'm so excited to see all of you guys today. Today is our first episode of our insider podcast and I'm very excited to have our guest loop looping. Hi, I'm Nancy Lee. This is Dr. Nancy Lee, your host for your host today regarding product insider podcast. I'm a direct product and featured in Forbes. I am obsessed with all things career growth, product management and nonprofit. I want to help you to create the product you are truly passionate about and create the impact, create the product you can impact millions of people's life together and also make the work like balance that you deserve and maintain the things you fall in passion about in your life as well. And quick introduction myself. I'm an immigrant with $800 in my pocket when I moved to the US and within four years I became a direct product and right now I run my own educational company called product manager accelerator. And my goal is my management career available for everybody. That's why on our product insider podcast we brought lots of industry leaders to share with you guys how they move their career into leadership positions and how they create product that actually impact millions of people's life together. Awesome. So great. I'm very excited to have Luton Lupin campus with us together and she is director of growth and stash. Let me do a proper introduction of her. Hi, Lupin. How are you? I'm good Dr. Nancy. How are you? I'm doing very well. So glad to have you on our podcast. So let's do this. Lupin, so why don't I just let us know regarding the bio, what do you plan to do today and do a proper introduction of Lupin and currently so Lupin is an electric, electric product manager leader and former entrepreneur and above all month of two. She was, she has worked in tech for almost 15 years and playing diverse roles from leading a consulting company to funding an ad tech startup and being a venture partner at VC firm. Lupin has also found focus on helping mission driven companies grow as a growth product manager and leader for the last few years, and she currently helped the 99% and build long term bills by guiding the customer acquisition and subscriber experience as stash and we're not, we're not at work and and she will spend time with playing with her kids in the backyard and high and hiking in the trials of Atlanta or hurting out of country to visit her friends and family. We love to have you today and Lupin why don't we do this today we talk about product growth and also imposter syndromes and also challenges for women working at home, especially during this pandemic and post pandemic hybrid combo So let's get started regarding, do you want to give a quick overview, we I gave a very long bio of who you are do you want to give us a quick overview regarding your career growth, how we get into where you are right now. Yeah, sure. It's been, it's been fun and I, the quick part is going to be hard because it's been, I'm in my 40s now, I'm really, it's the first, it's my first month that I can say that so You look much younger than that. Next time you say I'm in my 30s. Yes, I agree. But I've been. So it's been, it's been, it's been a long path here and it was never straightforward which is I think a commonality within product managers in general. I studied industrial design started working in advertising. And then from there I moved to software with my best friend, because we we wanted to find our final one thing and we wanted to have our own company. And software was what we had in common so doing the same thing that I was doing in industrial as an industrial designer that was understanding problems and building solutions from there. I moved from the physical world to this online world and the computer world. And then, yeah, I've been doing I did that for many years we pivoted that into a startup in the attic space as you mentioned, we, I was the CEO. We like learned a lot about like fundraising and all that. And then unfortunately after like three years we decided to close that company we didn't want to go through like an aqua hire or something we were just tired of a lot of a lot of really hard work that takes racing you're having your company and raising money and all that. One of our investors was like hey, was great working with you. What would you want to do next sounds like I have no idea she's like okay great and you're going to come work with us and we'll figure that out. Together while you have a salary and at that time I was moving from New York to the West Coast to California for my husband's job so I was like okay great because the VC was in California was 500 startups. And then I decided that I couldn't be behind people be like yeah you should like think about this way like that I wanted to do things I missed executing I missed being on top of the product. And so I started my job search I started doing product management, which was what I was doing before but I just didn't know that they go through a lot of working with engineers and like converting problems into solutions and guiding them through the process and I had done like agile courses and all that I am pretty much a product manager just didn't know that. So that's when I exactly product and got really excited about the early life cycle of the users. And my first company that I started as a senior product manager, I was fascinated about that part, I had no mandate on where to work but I knew that a lot of our KRs were easier. If we studied it early in the life cycle. So when I was working there I realized that that was like was really passionate about that that kind of like touch a little bit on my, my advertising and at tech days because there's a lot of like related with like Facebook ads and all that I was doing in my company before. And then so my following company was like hey we're looking for a director in the product growth and was like, listen, I've been increasing these numbers and the onboarding flow increasing these numbers of like the activation and whatnot and it sounds like a good match. So I moved there and then since then I've stayed in that area for me. That's awesome. And actually, your story resonate with lots of our audience, because lots of us are not part manager beginning at the beginning of a career which is doing something and which will happen to be that we work with engineers and we work with companies to create certain type of product that's our problem for others. And not until tech industry becomes so popular so prominent now everybody do not want to be a McKenzie consultant and say oh let me become part manager. Now it become a thing that everyone transition into PM and that's why later on we'll talk about imposter syndrome people feel like they are not fully equipped, or they're good enough they feel like they are into the fan level or big tech level or into a direct level as well but I'm glad you show us all the past into PM you have taken to get to where you are right now. So let's talk about this regarding growth PM. I think this is a relatively new area for management space you specialize in girls and also as a director you always manage like other people working under you to grow your team as well. So why don't you give us a quick introduction regarding what is growth management. What do you guys do. I think growth is slightly differently defined in each company but on on the big scheme of things. It's basically the work you do from the moment the user learns about about you to the moment they start paying if you have if you have a subscription product or if you if you have like a e-commerce is the moment they buy something but how to grow that audience how to convert them better down the funnel and how to make sure that they're coming back right so it's it's a little bit. It's a little bit working in the early life cycle of the user. There's like there's also product lead growth which is basically working constantly on creating opportunities for new users and generating this famous product loops. Where you say oh well the product like companies a company that has a product that will ignite the fire of bringing new users so a company where like Pinterest is a big example of that people started like pitting things on their boards and then people will Google certain terms and find out about those boards and they created a Pinterest account and then pin more things on the boards and would not so that's kind of like product lead growth. Which is kind of the ideal scenario on the growth space but there's also the few steps. Prior to that we say okay let's make sure that we have a great product that works and that is useful for our users and that makes them excited about being there and makes them pay for it. And that's that's also product growth so basically how we treat users from the ads all the way to the inside of product experience and how we convert them better and how we generate this trust that's like one of the biggest things in the last six years I want to say I five years I've been owning onboarding processes and trust is the commonality and this is through wellness fintech the kids related fintech or finance investment related fintech always is about trust and about getting that trust from the customer and keeping it and increasing it over time. So that's that's what I've been doing on the growth side basically thinking. What, how does the user feel throughout the flow throughout this onboarding flow through this first time user experience their screens that you as a user only see once. And that's the only opportunity you as a company have to delight them delight them. Yes, and to kind of like help them move forward and help them feel this trust and all that so for me growth is a lot about try generating trust with the user and and provided a user experience that will make them understand the value they are getting right away. So bringing the value early on the user life journey, super important, you don't need to wait for them in my case right now I work as a fintech company. It's about investment it's about building long term wealth like wealth, like even the name of what we do describes that it's really hard to show value right away. Yeah, long term wealth. So, especially you are your company I look up your company actually I earlier when I exploring different startup ideas, I work on one of the idea which is helping women to invest better. And then look around of the existing competition with stash you guys a really good product actually and helping small people like us get started like you don't need to be millionaire. You are intro like 99% like us 1% of people the millionaire, like, and they are 20 financial advisors going after them and you guys will using the software fintech approach for small people who started with 100 200 or maybe 1000 10,000. You can start investing today. So that's your product. Can you tell us more regarding for stash. What's your unique customer acquisition strategy. I thought the question is always hard only also because of the how much you want to tell but I think our customer acquisition strategy is around, given the users a good product and a good service from the first moment. By doing that, basically what you do is you decrease your customer acquisition costs because you're paying these new users to your advertising partners against them actually creating the account so you want to make sure that all of them are creating accounts and that lowers your cost so that's kind of like a virtuous cycle. And also on the other side, we create experiences outside the app that other people can join and share. We have stock stock party that is basically any stash user can sign up to that to stop party and the more people in the pool the bigger the pool gets, and everyone gets stock for free. So you are encouraged to sharing it with a family so a lot about like referrals and sharing it. So you get more people to use stash and then these parties get bigger and then you get more stuff on it. So it's kind of like trying to incentivize people, but I think ultimately, it's also a lot for stash about education and getting people that never thought that we're going to be able to to have like a retirement account to have savings to have and to start investing with their own money being like hey, let us educate you and you can learn how to do this with your day to day money and maybe you skip that Starbucks coffee and put this in your future and maybe you skip this position and you put that in your future. So I think that's a lot about we grow by getting, giving people back the power on their money, and that is contagious. This is amazing. Did I hear a key words called you give free stocks, as people join. We have stocks and stock party we have free stocks when you sign when you create your account for the first time and we also have a stock back card so instead of getting points on your on your debit card or whatever you on your credit card on on your stash card you get stock back so you get 36 cents today and that money is going to grow when you you just keep it there and that's money for free so we want to get people to understand the value of compound investment the value of yeah in long term but as a growth manager. His brother manager is really hard to consolidate that we need to show you value right away right it's like exactly the value is like have a great experience and while you have that great experience in our app. You are building you're building your future at the same time so that's kind of like the fascinating like this part that I'm really excited about. This is awesome oh by the way we're going to link the free stock links in the show notes everybody make sure to download and get your free stock as well. Okay we're going to get a link at the podcast just discover something you awesome. Now, let me ask you this sounds like your company is product led growth strategy, you have amazing product design different kind of free stock incentive by them educational plan and then drive users continue to product instead of spending lots of money on ads and direct marketing am I right. Yeah, that's the intention is to have a healthy balance. No company can throw money to the problem all the time and especially on these times that we're living in so that that was a big change across the board from all the people I've been talking to you, where it's like a few years back during coffee companies like most online products were having a feast right they were like throwing money and people were locked in their houses, just taking it, clicking on any add and downloaded anything felt that could give them some like whatever opportunity or having fun opportunity to save more money to do this like it was like kind of like a party going on for people that were advertising online online products because competition died like people saving to go on and people saving to take the kids to Disney like all the money kind of like needed to be allocated somewhere. The tables turn right the market kind of went when everywhere. People started going out more and traveling more money and other things and dinners and this and that. So companies had to be much more efficient on their, their spend and then and those are the companies that that have been doing well and have been surviving these down market. You're like, you, you're not throwing money through the problem you're making sure that every money, every dollar that you put in there is giving you a fair return and if not you're not spending it you're like spending somewhere else so it's the good thing about being more like product like growth is like okay we're going giving it with product, we are finding other ways to bring people in that is not paying them. Basically accelerating the growth. Of course you always do paid advertising. Because it's also like branding and we're not like you need to be out there, but it would be much slower the growth of the company and the overall like, yeah growth of the product if it's only, it's only based on pay. Given that let me ask a deeper question. I'd love to ask those kind of questions so given as this, the S band return investment S band Stephanie's like lower than before so you need to introduce new strategy to grow. As well as the strategies you have some sites mainly having customers to get free stock use a product am I right so what does let's say top five or top three growth strategies outside the current S band right now. Yeah, there's a lot. I would say there's a lot going on about promotions. No deny me this is not like that exclusive but for what I'm seeing. Promotions. So referrals to referrals is a big one it's kind of like a really cheap way to acquire good customers because yeah, you have a good customer that customers going to bring in average good customers. So referrals is a good. It's really used and and also people are familiarized with referrals enough that you're kind of expecting the companies to have a link you can share so we like I get 20 and you get 20 and you can 30 and 30. Yeah. I think that's I think that's the most popular well known one and then and then it's more about network effect so if you and this is not like for stash particularly right if you bring more people to certain product your experience with the product is better. So you want to bring more people in. What else. It's not ready for this one. Yeah, trying to grow like trying to improve the experience and get better ranked in both SEO in up store searches and all that to of course so if you if you care about the users you have then the return increases for you to so. It's awesome. Thank you for sharing us the insider secret. So as I said when I might go when we start the podcast and one of the Joe Rogan said podcast we really want to bring in any deeper follow up questions that's why we just hit on different questions. Awesome. Okay, so let's do this. Thank you for sharing all that insider secret because this is a very exciting pass of having amazing product that helps to grow because you have amazing part nobody use it. It's kind of hurting the feeding support manager so that's why your role is extremely important for the company. Now let's switch to gear a little bit. So let's talk about the unique challenges for women facing at work and also how imposter syndrome is preventing women from advancing their career. When I will actually be talked about this many times when we have offline discussion I personally felt like I imposter, so my own career and only until like last week. I started to admit to other people that I was very very poor and actually I send like two paychecks on my first internship money back to China and that time it's only $10,000 but that $10,000 is like. And throughout my entire career also I always said I don't deserve it. I came I came from very poor background and my English was broken and always felt like someone else is better than me out there and even if when I got director position I always feel oh I'm too young to be a director managing someone I mean this is just like sounds crazy never felt good enough. I think lots of women out there felt the same way. Can you touch up on more regarding the challenges women are facing at work and any advice and keep them. Sure, so a lot of the last one back there but I feel I have yet to meet a woman that's like. No, I have serial imposter syndrome and 24 seven I feel that I'm the right person for this job like there's some there I don't I don't I haven't met them personally. I feel there's also men that have that but it's more pronounced on women. I think that brings the challenge of not putting yourself out there, not not asking like the famous I get a seat on the table. Yeah, was like it's the common expectation is that you're going to be like walking around and someone's going to be like hey, this is your seat on the table and then I come like just walking by pull the seat and see on the table right it's like yeah it's. That's at least that's how it feels from outside like the confidence is different when it comes to those things. At some point in my career what happened to me was that I started getting closer relationships with women more senior much more senior than I was. And I started hearing their struggles, and I started hearing their, like, why am I being here, questioning themselves I was like, Oh, so this never stops you just you don't grow out of it you just like learn to you live with it. I was like, so you have to kind of like fake it till you make it but you're never quite making it for yourself you're making it this, like, I remember talking with this person it's like she was a senior VP at company she had a math team whatever. Wow.  Wow. So I was like, Okay, so if this badass super experience, why woman feels that myself as this tiny Latino, not bad as one thing. I'm always gonna feel that way so I better just deal with it and keep pushing it away and every time it comes because it comes like people's in right just suddenly you're like, Oh, they're going to notice. Oh, they're going to notice. This is the day they're going to write the amount of times I think I've been fired. It's a week. You will you don't want to know like I'm like, every time someone is not smiling at me, I'm assuming I'm going to get fired. And maybe that something else like I'm like just like one day I was in New York. I was based out of a plant as you said beginning. I can course on New York. And I went there for three days to do kind of like a planning session for the following quarter with my manager or not. And we first meeting. He was quiet and he said well. So, let's talk about I was like, Oh my God. And he said why I was like nothing. He's kind of like, he starts telling me what he was telling me I'm not getting fired. And then I'm like, I told him like, do you think I will make you come all the way to New York to fire. I don't know.  I feel like feel bad, but I have that feeling all the time because I'm also really hard on myself. And that's in a lot of us was like, if I do something that I don't feel it might have not been the right decision. I'm like, okay, you deserve to leave and I know you. I was actually not like I had that last week was like that was actually not about decision, because you were lacking part of the context now you have the full context, and we really find decision and it's fine. I was like, sure. Sure. I'm still like, still getting that paycheck at the end of the month. Yeah, it's all in our in our head right and actually she was right that you are flying from Atlanta to New York to fire you know, because you're doing good job of having a strategic discussion of the company. Yeah, the majority of the imposter senior is all in our head is I think it was sharing the story with us being vulnerable. I think lots of women heard this and that's about Oh, even if she fell this way, it's okay sometimes I felt the same way. And how much I will have a lot hearing a director or whatever role higher than mine, say that when I was a PM like a senior piano like I, I was never enough for myself I am never enough for myself, but hearing. Okay, that's why I share it was like, you know what, maybe you're thinking the same. At the same time, you are thinking that I'm great. So now now you see now you see what's happening right it's like oh I was thinking that was great and she was feeling that imposter senior for herself. So now I'm like oh I'm authorized to feel that but I can push through it. So if I tell myself like I hopefully one person hearing this is like, you know what, she's right. This is going to be here I need to live with it. I need to fight it. Because this is the last battle is going to be there it's annoying it's going to crippling in weird situations, each one of us have different triggers for me everything that is a trigger party, but also I have moments when I'm like, boss bitch like I know what I'm doing I have this super clear someone comes to me and I'm like answer answer answer great. And they look at me and I, I am I know a lot of stuff like I'm a smart person. Exactly. And then this like little devil here comes and it's like, No, you're not. No, you're not. Didn't you notice in that meeting how someone rolled their eyes. And maybe their husband wasn't the behind the computer you know like making me. Yeah, you don't, you don't know. Exactly. And also have a secret want to tell you. We had a line meeting when we scheduled the talk right when I talked to say this woman is so badass. I felt that way you know you you have really good impression and also inspired people to push through this woman so badass but it being vulnerable is a key to connect with the audience. And today when badass woman says, Oh, I feel like people don't laugh at me. Oh, I don't don't laugh. Don't smile at me some fires that wow people fail the same way even if she's a badass to me. Yeah, it's, it's crazy that happens. Even if you're senior. It's happens in all levels. Oh, it happens everywhere. It happens I, I'm getting more and more comfortable asking advice to more like senior people.  If you get praise in in a message or in a channel or in all kinds of something like I, I'm like, always try to kind of like you know, that's not, it's actually not true. You know, it's like, I'm not that that's that awesome but someone says something that is not great about me. Oh, I'm going to cling on that I'm going to make that big and I'm going to believe that and that's like, it's a lot of mental work to learn to let go of the things that you don't like, and not overthink them, because they're most most times not something that's actually true. And then do everything the good things because those give you that fuel that you need to keep pushing against the bad, the bad things like the bad ideas and the tiny devil. Exactly. So in summary, what do you think the top three things we can do when there's little devils coming up?  You know, and that kind of gives you that fuel for pushing harder. Talking, I think talking to people and I think you mentioned before like one of your questions like challenges women have in the workforce, and most of us like product managers tech, the tech workforce is knowing for being highly male and high white represented, especially leadership levels. So I think community is a big challenge sometimes. So I encourage anyone like if there's only one other woman in the entire company, be her best friend because you need the best friend inside you need someone. Yeah, that's going to support you in those like big meetings it's going to you know someone that is going to help you decompress that understands where things are coming from. And all that. I think that's one thing representation is another is another problem that I see when I when you look up in your career and there's nobody looks like you. Exactly. And you and I was like, as an immigrant as a woman and what else like a person of color, what else do I have. I'm super proud, one of the most. One of the things that I love about stash and I love many things about stash but one of the things I love about stash is the representation. I think right now, starting a couple of months ago, I think or a month ago, we have a female CEO, which is cool in fintech. When they announced it we were like, what, and she's been in our board for a long time so she knows like she's like we know her she's great. We like all of us were like, finally, that's what we were looking for like more representation, we have our executive team, they announced it today because happy women history month. We have 5050 representation female male in our executive team, we have over 40%, 40%, I think roles over director are women. So it's a really diverse company, there's a lot of people of color, there's a lot of women there's a lot of like, a lot of representation, and that makes you feel safer in many aspects. So it's a really challenging challenge when you're reporting to the white guy that is reporting to a white guy that is reporting to a white guy. It gets gets really hard to see yourself growing anywhere and it's really hard to see to feel protected. That's what that's when the village comes in and my last my job before that I have these like white guy to white guy with to a guy. Yeah, or, and I had a woman, a friend from another area she's an engineer and she was a staff engineer, and she was a meeting in a meeting that all the directors in my area were but me, the only woman. I invited, and she is the meeting started and she was like, where's Lupin. She should be here. She's the most like the director has been here for the longest time we're going to make decisions around the area that she's responsible for. Mm hmm. Why she not here.  So I reach out to my manager is like hey way I'm not here she's like I'm not sure he was new so he didn't quite new dynamics. I'm not sure like here's link join and I joined the meeting and the person that organized the meeting his face change. Because he was intentionally leaving me out of the meeting I'm like, ah, why, why are people doing that and that's because I'm a woman and I'm now. So if you're saying something that is not in favor for my team, I'm going to speak up in this meeting. He wanted a breeze he wanted a good conversation. Just remove the problem from the meeting I guess. Like, and that's why I'm like if you have a village if you have people that are there rooting for you if you have people that they're supporting you. That's how you avoid those things because they're going to happen, and I be tired career, avoiding. It's impossible those things because I active on where I work and when I work but when your workers start up and startups grow like, I joined my last company when we're 80 and I left when we're 500. So, wow, work culture works. Sorry, startups grow culture changes, and you get in the middle of that. So you're never fully safe from these things happening to you. And but when you have a image when you have representation, you start having a little bit more solid ground to step on. This is amazing how you share when startups or company grow, the leadership needs grow with the company to to have the representation and also politics. Clearly, the party has happened but if you have good friends who sponsors or ally they can bring in the main and this is crazy. This actually happened. What was director will fail same even before I became a director this happens. Yeah, so that's why having the representation being the best friend of other people will help you out that's a key. Thank you for sharing with us. Let's talk about growth PM, and actually lots of our audience are thinking about getting into the profession and growth PM, not the PM like growth PM specialized. So do you have any advice regarding how to become a growth manager. Yeah, I think one good quality of a growth PM is to be data oriented, I like data obsessed, I would say. So understanding knowing how to read data know how to pull data understanding different systems. You don't need to know. I feel like I don't know how to write phrase. I'm starting to learn, look her now because that's the best tool we have at my company, but I'm bad as mixed family human like I can create any report of me smiling and understand any data mixed as long as the data is clear. I think that is one thing that is super important because you need to be able to slice and dice information to better understand what's the experience each type of user is having where when and how. Yeah. And experimentation mindset being completely obsessed about trying new things, testing everything and understanding that data from the tests and make decisions based on that. We have a new chief experience officer and in my first meeting with him yesterday with more people he was like, the tests are going to fail. And that's fine. I'm like, we are talking the same language, my friend, because we're going to try a lot of things. And of those many things that you're going to try a lot are going to fail. But one is going to be great and it's going to justify all the rest of the work. So my experimentation mindset means not only to test frequently. And they diverse diverse parts of the app or not, but it also means understanding that tests are not always going to win. And most of the time I'm not going to win. In my last company we have these presentations with all the tests and this was a winner. This was a winner.  And I was like, can we stop calling them losers. Let's call them learning. So it's like, this test was a win. This test was a learning. Like we started. Exactly. Oh, sorry, I didn't realize I had a notification song and something just on. So we started focusing a little bit more on, okay, why did this test didn't win? What's the learning here and try to like bring that up high. Oh, I assume users were going to think these the hypothesis was these that we didn't validate it and this is what these are the hypothesis on why and keep iterating on the same test until we completely understood the reasoning. So I think those are the two main differentiators of growth PMs and also there's, it tends to be a faster environment. There are more so in the startups like you need to test something doesn't work move the next thing just as exactly to the next thing is a test here you mean a testing. Yes, a test experiment.  So it's a testing but in the sense of we have a hypothesis is not it's you can a test to launch any new feature to understand the impact on what not, but I'm like, I have a hypothesis. Why this is the impact I think we're going to have this is how we're going to. What we're going to implement. This is the a test, and then read the results and iterate over that so that's kind of like that. I see more like a scientist. I love this. And especially talk about the language, actually the language really change people's mindset learning from your experiment so that you can design a better experiment that's next time instead of the loser just sounds really depressing. Think about the engineer that spent three days of his life coding that change that it was a quote unquote like I for those listening I'm doing air quotes and loser. Okay, I just wasted a lot of my time. And when you have a lot of experimentation going on and you have an experimentation program in your in your team or not. Then that's going to happen more than know because this might our CXO said the other day like experiments are going to lose like they're going to not all of them are going to be winners. So the word is important you're changing that mindset I mean like that all that effort brought us a learning that was great let's keep moving and then then we're going to have a learning that's going to be a win and we're going to implement that and keep moving. Exactly perfect. Okay, so Lupin and think, thank you very much for sharing with us regarding a growing into girls PM now let's and also remember for everybody. If you like those kind of insider podcast, please make sure to like and subscribe our content and so that you will be notified every time we have a new one and actually within two weeks we also have another podcast with a director platform Netflix. And then the week after we have the podcast interview with the VP of product at Google is actually very excited about those. Now let's go to into Q&A, and people who join us live actually are our student in the inner circle so which means that they get exclusive access to more insider tips with our speaker. So let's do this any anyone listen in to have any questions we can go into Q&A quickly. You can directly unmute yourself and raise your hand. Carla. Thank you. I'm here. I'm here. I'm getting on camera and I'm meeting myself. Hi nice meeting you. I'm not sure if you've experienced this but I've experienced this quite a bit and I've witnessed it as women, especially women of color. It's our behavior that tends to be policed and that ends up taking the focus on what we are versus our accomplishments and what we have been able to deliver and the value that we've been able to provide for the organization. Have you noticed that experience that yourself and so how do you overcome that. Thank you Carla that's a great question. It's, it's painful to hear but it's true. I, I, I feel that in the past, I had, I had people being like, oh you need to like, you need to improve your communications and you need to. And they couldn't pinpoint it and I was like, is it because I talk like long sentences that's because I'd like my original language is Spanish and like we speak longer like we were not that concrete so I'm going to try to be better in my English. So I don't do that but then there's also part of me that is always going to be like that right so I cannot improve quote unquote that I'm not my accent. Yeah, it might improve it might not. I don't know, but I never warm this way. Right, it's like, I can. Yeah, my accent is better than when I moved here eight years ago probably is still strong and you can listen to Latino me coming from miles away. Definitely. I don't care. I have moments where I was like, you know what I'm much more, much, much more smarter in Spanish like you want to have an argument Spanish right now because we have kind of things like it drives me crazy. But I understand also that there's, there's a culture that I am embedding so I try to kind of like, they're parts of me that I'm not going to turn off, I'm not going to stop being one of the loudest voices in the room, I'm not going to stop being talking whenever I feel that I have something to say even though if it's a room like more senior people and whatnot like I'm not going to be. If I'm invited in that meeting I assume that I'm part of that meeting that's it right. But if the comment is kind of like, can you like tone it down. I can't like I can fake it for a solid month. That's all I can give you. I also on the other hand, had. So when I introduced myself in this new company, and for like all the product team I had two people coming at me on DMs being like hey nice to meet you I love seeing you not meeting your energies amazing. Like I love how you got in there like full power. And that's who I am. And that's what I feel I bring to the meeting. It's not for you don't take it I don't care. But there's people that they're appreciating that and they're appreciating how I am my energy and whatnot and I respect me for that. And those are the people I want to talk to. So that's kind of how I feel it. And it's a little bit an apologetic I would say, but I'm like hey, I, I'm going to bring the whole me here, if you don't like it. That's that's kind of like your fault because I'm not precise in the way you are. When it's more senior people, for sure. But I try to, I also avoid conflict as much as I can. So I try to you know what if that person is in the meeting. I'm just going to say whatever I need I feel is like important to the point and just skip it but I'm not going to change the way. And I take what the good parts to right. I'm just sitting saying something that it's going to help me grow and be better at my job I'm going to take that. But for me one of the strong parts is always like communicating and be more politically correct sometimes or even more strategic sometimes with what I tell what I don't tell I am pretty open like I'm going to tell you everything. So that's that's something that I don't know if it's it's cultural or what but I feel that it is something that happens to me when it's like oh, you don't want me to discuss certain things around certain people because you don't like that. But I don't want to get on that. So that's, I don't know if I answer your question but that's kind of for what I. Yeah, that helped a lot. Thank you. Awesome. Be the loud person in the room if you are shy be the shy person in your room but be yourself, your best way and if they want to change you then they are the problem in many cases. Yeah, exactly. The other side of party actually love you for being who you are. That's that's why I really like you the first time we talked about when you bring her on the podcast because she can inspire like me and some women out there through her story. So it's always two-sided story and so next time quick tip for everybody next time when people give you advice, you need to evaluate and ask lots of follow up questions on site is this constructive feedback or not. And actually I have like one minute short story is crazy so before I became a director I asked my existing boss and hey what can I improve so that I can become a director as well because I want to get on the seat on the table. Then my director and manager at the time saying that you're too green. I was like define to green. How can I make more yellow the screen more ripe and and he doesn't he just like you don't spend enough time in the company. I was like joining the company only three years in the company was okay so what can I do better, except I can change the fact that I'm not old enough or I'm only three years in the company but doesn't change my leadership potential what can I work on. And the more I ask the less information I can get so which means that it's all BS is like that's not anything you can do is more about you getting beaten too young. So that triggered me to become a director outside my existing company because they just felt like I'm just too young and I cannot change. I'm always the youngest director so what I cannot get older because you're asking me to grow up. No, I love that I think that's, and I started doing that at some point was like okay let me know how how can I improve that what was my communication style that you like. Is it about what the message I'm giving the way I'm giving it the way I am the way it's like my accent. What is there, and there are a lot of things that I improved a lot from feedback like that. But when the feedback was just like repeating. And I kept changing things and improving things and feedback was repeating from random people and say okay, let me dig a little bit deeper.  Which is you're not comfortable with the way I talk so there's another option you guys that's one of the reasons why I was like piece out once I'm like you know what I'm not going to be able to improve my English anytime soon so if that's going to portray me as not professional not smart enough. Maybe the company wasn't diverse enough. Yeah. Cool. Any other question before we close today's podcast. The speaker. Raise your hands. No, cool. Okay, great. And loop and how can we break into Oh this is a question I think Germany asks this question how can we break into girls PM row. So she's her questions more about how to manage up in PM row. Transitioning from other industry into PM row so do you have any top tips. Yes, I, I was talking about this with someone in the past, and I was telling them like kind of like start creating your portfolio of stories and things that show that growth mindset. If you're a PM from different area show a lot a little bit more of like that depth on data that depth on experimentation. I hired many people for growth PM roles, many of them didn't come from a PM from a growth background but came from like data analytics background from PM on a small company where many of the things they did were actually really aligned to growth from marketing. So it depends on kind of like what your background is, but start gathering the examples of things that could be applied to a growth PM role so anything related as I said before with data anything related with experimentation mindset and how you run experiments, even like this person I was talking she was. She was an experimentation, she was a PM, but she was not a growth PM and she wanted to be a growth PM I was like, just start running more experiments in your little area that you own within the app and try to grow that area. And then you're going to have the, the case, the case studies or examples to give you an interviews and kind of like explain how from there you want to migrate to a growth role. The other way is within the same company. If there's a growth role growth PM opportunity to start like building the relationship with the team that is on that and be like okay what are you missing what what is the person that you want to hire or what what's your next next hire going to look like and start building towards that. And actually, you touch up on the key concept we teach people inside PM, etc, which is building a product portfolio to demonstrate your skills before even become a product manager. This is amazing hey guys we have certain different kind of product ideas, and you can build on the side. You are part of the portfolio and I'm going to also going to link the certain different project in the show notes so you guys can start build your portfolio starting from today. Okay, awesome. Thank you for providing all the like insider secret tips today. Thank you, Lupin. Alright, so any last minute advice you want to tell tell our audience. I think there's one in the chat. I am. Just a question here what top three must have skills in senior product manager. Well, I've been hired mostly on growth roles so it's kind of relate with what I was saying but if I have to move outside to not give the same answer all the time. I would say, I think there are like hard skills soft skills on the soft skills side is the power to influence people without power. I think that is something that as a PM you need to be really good at like everyone needs to rally behind you even though you have no no one is reporting and you don't have the power of of a title over them to make them move which is something that I don't even do with two people that report to me, but it's kind of like how traditionally in companies like oh you do whatever your boss says as a product manager you have to manage a lot of people around a lot of people around products around ideas around experiments or not. I don't owe you quote unquote anything. So that power, I think that skill I think it's super important is a soft skill but super important. I think I'm trying to think the top three execution and be able to prove that you can execute in a tight timeline making decisions on the way I think it's important for for a PM senior PM role. I think you need to know how to execute on different projects at the same time and how to prioritize. And then I don't know if this is a this is a something that I will you will be able to find out on on an interview or not but maybe from examples, but I think another good skill is to know when to ask for help. Nice. To know when to when to escalate problems to know how to escalate problems to to know how to read on time enough to avoid a fire. A lot of people don't understand that our role as directors is to help you put up potential fires before they happen and not running behind you to to make you put them out right the firefighter. Exactly. Sometimes you're like, if I if you tell me certain things I I know when something is going to explode. If I don't have that information, I'm not but if you're like, I feel like something might be happening here I'm going to wait it out. That's a big problem. You know that's that talks about how you're not experienced enough to escalate things at the right time. And also if you can escalate everything all the time it's kind of like well I have five more pms to work with so it's like I cannot be running behind your team all the time. So it's kind of like balance but for me it's really, it's a really important skill to be to know when and how to escalate things to make things happen. Yeah, I'm here to unblock you but you need to bring up which blocks are showing up. This is beautiful. Thank you so much loop and and thank you for your time and and also the audience in our inner circle thank you for your questions as well for people who are interested in a circle please go to darknancy.com slash inner circle so you can get exclusive Q&A right now and current in the circle is free so people should take advantage continue to learn starting from today. Thank you very much loop and for joining us so everyone please make sure to share, subscribe and follow product insider and check out a future episode with director product at Netflix and people at Google. And thank you very much for joining us today loop and all right have a good day see you guys. Thank you. Bye. Oh, Lupin stay here one sec. Let me stop recording now. Let me. Let me check checking on one thing my second let me stop the. Oh, to turn off. One sec. How to. One second.


Hi everyone, this is Alice Gell. In this video, let's work on applying the value iteration algorithm to the 3x4 grid world. Recall what the value iteration algorithm looks like. If you're fuzzy on the details, you may want to go back to the previous video to review the details. Also recall the numbers of some of the parameters I introduced, a couple of videos before. So we will use the discount factor, which is equal to 1. We will assume that the immediate reward of entering any non-goal state is minus 0.04. And then when we're applying the value iteration algorithm for the 0's iteration to start, we will assume all of our estimates are 0. This video is going to be focused on examples, answers, and also calculations for the calculations. Because of this, I won't make separate videos for the explanations. I will include the questions, the answers, and the explanations altogether. Now, you should definitely take some time to do some of the calculations yourself. So make sure you pause the video and do the calculations yourself, and then keep watching for the answers. To start, we are going to assume that the v sub 0 values are all 0's, as I'm reminding you in the table that you can see right now. We will calculate two values for iteration number one. The first one is for state s23, that's this state right here. And then the second question is for state s33, so that's for this state right here. Now pause the video, take some time to do these calculations yourself, and then keep watching for the answer. For the first question, the correct answer is option A, and the exact value is that v sub 1 of s23 should be minus 0.04. I've included the calculations here. You can also see this calculation on a later slide in bigger fonts, so if you have trouble seeing this, you can look at the annotated slides. Now let's go through the calculation and make sure we understand how to do development updates. Well, on the left-hand side, we have the target value that we are trying to calculate, and then on the right-hand side, what do we have? First of all, we have the immediate reward of entering that state, which is minus 0.04, and then plus we have the discount factor, which is 1, and then we're taking the maximum. The maximum is over the expected value of taking each of the four possible actions. So here, similar to before, I've labeled the four cases with the four possible actions that we can take. So the worst action, well, actually, I can't really say that, but let's start with the action of going to the right. That seems to be worse because we are going directly towards the minus one state, which is probably not what we want to do. If we take that action, then what's happening? Well, we have with 80% chance we'll get minus one, and then with 10% chance we'll go up and get zero, with 10% chance we'll go down and get zero. So this is exactly the same as how you calculate the expected utility of taking an action. Same as before. And then we have, let's look at the action of moving to the left. So if we're going towards the left, with 80% chance we'll bump into the wall and come back, that's why we have 80% multiplied by zero. Then with 10% chance we'll go up, that's zero, with 10% chance we'll go down, that's zero, so everything is zero. And then the actions up and down are actually symmetric. So the calculations will appear to be the same. If we go up, then with 80% chance we get zero, with 10% chance we go left and come back and get zero, with 10% chance we'll go right and actually go into the minus one state. So the only really different parts here are 10% chance multiplied by minus one, 10% chance multiplied by minus one, everything else are the same. So these calculations are really the same as how we would write out the Bellman equation, except we have to be careful that on the right-hand side, when we're doing the calculations, we will use all the values from iteration zero, whereas on the left-hand side, we're deriving a value for iteration one. Now after looking at the calculations, let's also look at the grid world to see whether this makes sense. Well, the calculation makes sense because going towards the right is indeed the worst thing to do, right? There's a really high probability that we'll just get into the minus one state and stay there, we escape the world. That's the worst thing. Now going up or down, they're slightly better because our chance of getting into the minus one state are now much smaller, only 10%, whereas going towards the left, that seems like the best thing to do because that guarantees us expected utility of zero, as opposed to going to the right, our expected utility is negative. So indeed, the maximum here is going to choose left as the best action here, which gives us a expected utility of zero, and that's how we get minus zero point zero four plus one multiplied by zero, which is minus zero point zero four. Let's look at the second question. What is V sub one of S three three? And as I've highlighted the state on the grid world, the process of calculation is extremely similar. So I'm not going to explain the process again. But one thing to be careful here is that we just calculated the value of V sub one as two three, right? So if you were to you were doing this yourself, what you might have done is you might have crossed out that zero and put minus zero point zero four there because that's the value for the next iteration. But be careful that when you're calculating V sub one of S three three, you are plugging in the old value of zero for S two three rather than the new value of minus zero point zero four. Okay, that's the only thing you need to be careful about. Otherwise, you should get the answer of zero point seven four. And again, this answer makes intuitive sense, right? For the state S three three, the best thing we could do is to go right because that gives us a really high probability of getting into the plus one state, right? This, you can see in the expression there going right, we got to expect the utility of point eight, which is great. Whereas all the other actions are not that great. Going up and down are similar because we get a 10% chance of getting into the plus one state. And going left is the worst because we just we're guaranteed to get zero. So therefore, the max is going to choose right. And we do our calculation, which is minus zero point zero four plus one multiply by point eight, which ends up being zero point seven six. On this next slide, I included the two calculations again in bigger font. So you can take a look if you like. If you want more practice questions, then I've included this additional slide where I have an empty table for V sub one. So you can do more practice and fill in this table. But in fact, this table is really easy to fill in. And why is that? Well, the reason is that the only state that will have a positive expected utility will be S three three. We already calculated this. And the reason is that this is the only state that's adjacent to the plus one state. For every other state, when we take one step, we are not going to get to the plus one state. So it ends up being that for every other state, the updated estimate is minus zero point zero four. In other words, you can intuitively interpret these value updates as follows. If we are calculating the estimates of the V values for iteration I, that means, well, only the states that can reach the plus one states in I steps or less will have a positive positive estimate of the V value, right? Because if the state is unable to reach the plus one state within I steps, then it's only going to accumulate negative reward. In this case, for V sub one, only S three three can get to the plus one state in one step, right? That's why this is the only state that has a positive positive estimate for the V value. Every other state has a negative estimate. Because the best thing you can do is get zero and then take one step, which costs you a little bit for the exploration. I've included three more questions for iteration number two. Now these are really good practice questions for you, but I'm not going to go through the process again. I've included the answers and also the detailed calculation process so you can check your answers. Here are the answers. For iteration two, for state S three three, the value estimate is 0.832. For S two three, the value estimate is 0.464. For state S three two, the value estimate is 0.56. And I also have all the value estimates for all nine states. You can see that the reason I included these three questions is because these are the only three states that will have a positive estimate for the V value. And that's because these states can reach the plus one state in two steps or less, right? We are dealing with the second iteration number two now. So if a state can reach the plus one state in two steps or less, then it will have a positive estimate for the V value. Otherwise, it will accumulate negative rewards. Finally, let me make a few observations about the value iteration algorithm. First of all, I've already tried to explain this. When we're executing the value iteration algorithm, every state will accumulate negative rewards until the algorithm finds a path to the plus one goal state, right? This observation is a little bit specific to our grid world, but it can help you to understand what the value iteration algorithm is doing, right? Because the immediate reward of entering any non-goal state is negative. So a state basically is trying to find a path to the plus one goal state. And before it finds such a path, it's going to keep accumulating negative rewards, right? In other words, it's saying, well, if I only take one step, I could only reach reward zeros, a non-goal state. So I have only accumulated the negative reward of exploration. But as soon as I can find a path to the plus one goal state, that plus one will add to my existing negative reward and make it a positive. Now, I want to make a final point about the value iteration algorithm, but this point is very important. There are in fact two versions of the value iteration algorithm. One is the synchronous version, and the other one is the asynchronous version. When I was talking about the calculations, I was strictly following the synchronous version. So the synchronous version says we will start with the estimates for iteration i. That corresponds to a big table for our example. And then we'll use all of these values, all of these estimates to calculate the estimates for the next iteration. So the iteration i plus one. And once we calculate all the estimates for all the states, we'll update all of these estimates at the same time. So in other words, let me look at the previous slide and explain this again. So in other words, if you were to implement this in code, what would you do? Well, you would store two arrays or two data structures. One data structure is keeping track of all the estimates from the previous iteration. So on the slide, that's the estimates for iteration one. And then you will have another identical data structure keeping track of the estimates for the new iteration. Here is iteration two. So we'll fill the blue table down here with the new estimates first, and then we'll replace the old estimates with the new estimates once. Alright, so this is a synchronous version of value iteration. But there's in fact an asynchronous version. The asynchronous version says we do not have to update all the states before we do not have to sweep through all the states for one iteration before we move on to the next iteration. In fact, we can update all of these states, the values for all the states at any time in any order. It doesn't matter whether we've updated the estimates for one state more frequently than we've updated the estimates for another states. Eventually, if we do these updates for all of the states infinitely often, then we are guaranteed to converge to the optimal values. So the asynchronous version suggests that if there are certain states that are more promising, maybe you want to update their values more frequently so that they will converge faster. But one thing you have to make sure is that you want to make sure to update the estimate for each state a sufficient number of times so that all of the values will converge. That's everything for this video. After watching this video, you should be able to apply the value iteration algorithm to solve for the expected utility of the optimal policy for a Markov decision process. Thank you very much for watching. I will see you in the next video. Bye for now.


10 Best African Countries to Spend Summer Holidays Welcome to Africa Reloaded, Africa's best destination that brings insight into the beauty, development, and the future of Africa. Africa may not always be on the radar for the typical visitor, but those that go have the chance to experience the ideal fusion of the East and the West, the wild and the urban, and the old and the modern. It can be challenging to choose your experience on the second largest continent because of everything from the coastal splendor of Cape Town to Tanzania's game reserves. US news selected the top tourist destinations in Africa, based on user votes, expert opinions, accessibility, cost, and the diversity of things to do. Africa is the only region in the world with more to offer tourists. Africa has it all, for exotic cities and fascinating cultures to wildlife in national parks and wild camping under the stars. The trip of a lifetime can be anticipated in Africa for those seeking the promise of an adventure and the best that Mother Nature has to offer. Your first visit to these African nations will leave you feeling inspired by their diverse cultures, thanks to the Blue Nile and Victoria Falls, as well as their significant UNESCO heritage and ancient ruins. Being aware that many people are considering where to spend the upcoming summer. If you are one among them, stop stressing about where to go this summer, since we have put together some incredible destinations for your enjoyment and comfort. Out of a total of 54 entirely distinct countries, this video ranks the greatest countries in Africa to visit. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of organizing your trip is deciding where to go. Hello, I am James, your host. Stay with us as we travel through the most interesting wonders of the African continent in order to find you a perfect destination. 10. Morocco This northern African nation has a distinctive atmosphere from the rest of Africa, since it combines Mediterranean and Arabic cultures. The nation has genuine attractions that combine the desert, the coast, and the cities. It is tucked between the Atlantic coast in the west and the Sahara desert in the east. Marrakesh, Fez, and Casablanca are the best places in Africa to visit, while smaller cities like Chephyawan have unique architecture and a thriving artisan industry. She is therefore among the top nations in Africa to travel to. 9. Zambia Because Victoria Falls possesses the biggest mass of free-falling water, it has been named one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Tourists are now focusing on Zambia, which also borders the falls, due to the political unrest in Zimbabwe. There are various reasonably priced lodging alternatives in the adjacent town of Livingstone for tourists. Zambia draws visitors to its safari parks and nature reserves, which are noted for having some of the densest wildlife populations in southern Africa in addition to Victoria Falls. 8. Botswana One of the safest countries on the continent is Botswana, which has a long history of having the most stable economy in Africa. With a sizable portion of its territory set aside for wildlife, it is also a top safari destination. A number of antelope species and predators that have long evolved to dry climates live in the semi-arid Calahari region and the Mechadikati Pans. The country's north, in contrast, has a warmer subtropical climate and an abundance of water resources in the Okavango Delta and Chobh National Park. Overall, the nation is one of the best places to visit in Africa because it offers a vast diversity of species due to the different temperature and vegetation. 7. Uganda Fortunately, Uganda's natural environment still offers mountain gorillas, their preferred habitat of the tropical forest, even if they have grown endangered over the past few decades. Uganda has a lot of water because it is the source of the river Nile, which is essential for the gorillas as well as many other creatures and birds. The nation provides a wide variety of activities as well, including kayaking, rafting, hiking volcanoes, and traditional art festivals. 6. Malawi Despite being a landlocked nation, Malawi is one of the top beach and scuba diving destinations in Africa. The vast lake Malawi, which contains a variety of freshwater marine species, is to thank for it. The lake's surrounding coastal communities provide opportunities for water sports, diving, fishing, and hiking. The lake is a significant water source for animals, especially antelopes and leopards. Your journey will be much more delightful because the nation is also known for having the kindest people in the globe. 5. Madagascar One of the most tranquil nations in Africa is Madagascar. It is a top diving location with top-notch diving facilities and opulent resorts that is surrounded by the coral reefs of the Indian Ocean. After leaving the touristy sections, you'll find charming fishing villages, miles-long rows of bobbed trees, and lemmer-rich national parks. Holders of U.S. and U.K. passports require a visa to enter Madagascar. 4. Tanzania In numerous lists pertaining to tourism, Tanzania is consistently at the top. Among the top beach and diving locations in the world are its beach attractions like Zanzibar and Pemba. Since it sees a large wildebeest migration from nearby parks, Serengeti National Park is frequently regarded as the top safari destination in Africa. Although Tanzania's landscape is unmatched, some of the great sites require challenging treks. For instance, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro's top, which is the highest point in Africa at around 6,000 meters, can take months of planning and preparation, but it will be well worth it. 3. Ethiopia While many African tourist areas are starting to overflow with visitors, Ethiopia is yet untouched. Its environment combines peacefulness and adventure. One of the few remaining active volcanoes in the globe is Urta Eil. You'll never forget the experience of watching the roiling lava shoot out of its crater. The nation offers a historical tour that includes Urta Eil in addition to monolithic churches, ancient obelisks, and Lake Tana, the source of the blue Nile. You'll understand why Ethiopia is one of the top holiday destinations in Africa once you've been there. 2. Egypt Egypt's significance in human history is apparent as the intersection of Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. There are remnants of the numerous prehistoric kingdoms that previously called the region home all around the nation. One illustration is the famous pyramid's UNESCO World Heritage Site. Egypt is one of the best diving locations in Africa because of its Red Sea shoreline, in addition to its distinctive historical heritage. Egypt offers travelers the option to apply for their visas upon arrival, so you do not need to worry about this. 1. South Africa Because some areas of South Africa resemble locations in the US or Europe, it is conceivably the most unique African destination. But the nation exceeds your expectations of a normal African nation in every way. Thanks to well-known natural treasures like Table Mountain, Nature is Unsurpassed, and Kruger National Park is known for having some of the continent's most diverse fauna. While the towns can seem incredibly rural, its larger cities, including Cape Town and Johannesburg, are the most cosmopolitan in all of Africa. In general, the nation is a must-visit place for a variety of reasons. There are many undiscovered areas on the continent, therefore these top 10 countries are not the only ones worth seeing. In this film, we aim to highlight nations from all of Africa's geographical regions while showcasing a variety of unusual things to do there. After your first adventurous trip to our motherland, you might get completely devoured by wanderlust. Whatever attraction you find most interesting, traveling to Africa is a wonderfully eye-opening experience.  If you were intrigued by what you just watched, do well to subscribe and turn on the notification button for more interesting updates on Africa Reloaded.


Welcome to State of Affairs. I'm Steve Adubato. We are coming to you from the Agnes Vera studio here at NJTV. We are welcoming Robert Garrett, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Hackensack Meridian Health. Good to see you, Bob. Good to see you, Steve. Not much happening in the healthcare world, huh? No, nothing at all. Nothing in the news, nothing going on. By the way, talk about this, the partnership, the merger that happened when, exactly? Our merger, Hackensack University Health Network and Meridian Health merged July 1st. So we're nine months old as a new organization. And lots, lots happened in those nine months. We've made great progress on a lot of fronts. So we're excited, excited about the future of our organization. And in spite of what you hear about healthcare, we're excited about the future of healthcare. New brand just came out. It did. We, we launched it last week with a reception for all of our leaders at the NJPAC in Newark. And our brand can be best described as well-orchestrated. We're a well-orchestrated organization, you know, an organization that plans and executes really well. So we thought a great place for, for the launch would be an orchestra, you know, site for famous orchestras, which is the NJPAC. And if you look at our, our new logo here, it, there's a, there's a center to it with a, with a hole that looks like kind of an orchestra pit with the orchestra surrounding it. So a lot of symbolism around it, but, but we're excited about what the brand really represents, which is, which is really bringing health and, and care together because as a healthcare organization today, it's not just about delivering care. It's also about keeping the population healthy. To a disclose, I've worked with a fair number of physician leaders and others within the hack and sac meridian system during communication, coaching and seminars over the years. I know the system quite well. And Bob, I want to ask you this. One of the things that, that has made the news is, it's not really a merger, but it's a collaboration of partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering. It is obviously, talk about brands, cancer institution that's got incredible reputation. What is the partnership and why does it matter? We are incredibly excited about the partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. So it is taking two great brands, putting them together. But most importantly, we think it's going to transform how cancer care is delivered in our state. How? Give us an example. So how it's going to work is it's, it's, there's really two parts the way I look at it. There's 11 existing cancer centers, ambulatory cancer centers in the hack and sac meridian network all through New Jersey. There's soon to be three Memorial Sloan Kettering sites. So for those 14 sites, we will co-brand those, those organizations with Memorial Sloan Kettering and Hack and Sac Meridian Health. But more importantly, we're going to develop one set of clinical protocols that will guide how cancer patients are treated. So if you're treated at Ocean Medical Center or at Hack and Sac University Medical Center or at Memorial Sloan Kettering, you will get the same treatment, the same set of clinical protocols. That's, that's one part of the partnership. The second part is together, we will own and operate cancer centers, new cancer centers in the state of New Jersey. So we're looking for the appropriate sites. We're looking for the right, the right location and the, the right mix of, of demographics to, to locate new cancer centers where Sloan Kettering Memorial Sloan Kettering and Hack and Sac Meridian will actually own them together. Cancer rates in New Jersey, are they higher than we think they are? Or is it that our reputation? No, they're significantly higher. There's been studies by the American Cancer Society and other organizations that indicate that they are, you know, one, one and a half times, two times higher depending on the part of New Jersey that we're at. So unfortunately, it's a disease that's going to be, be with us for a while. And what people really want is they want, they want quality cancer care delivered in, in convenient locations. So they don't necessarily want to have to go to, to New York or to Philadelphia if you're in New Jersey. So by putting Memorial Sloan Kettering and Hack and Sac Meridian together, we think we can, we can deliver the best quality care in a very accessible location. We'll have over 1000 clinical trials, which is unprecedented, 1000 clinical trials available to, to cancer patients. And between the two organizations, Steve, one other stat I like to, to talk about because it's, it's staggering. We, between the two organizations, we will do over 900 bone marrow transplants this year, which means not only are we number one in the nation, but we'll be the second largest in the entire world. The other thing you mentioned is, which is important because medical education is a piece that we've talked about a lot. The physician shortage, New Jersey losing a lot of physicians, people who may be trained here and go someplace else. The new medical education facility, excuse me, the new medical school, it's a partnership with so many partnerships here, the Seton Hall partnerships, talk about it and why it matters in terms of caring for patients in this state. What is it? Is it 2018? Yeah, 2018. So we formed a partnership with Seton Hall to establish what will be New Jersey's only private medical school. There is a physician shortage in New Jersey that is more significant than the primary care physicians, mostly primary care, but also obstetrics and gynecology. It's even general surgery, Steve. So it's, it's, it's widespread. And in just a couple of years by 2020, New Jersey will be short about 3,000 physicians. Nationally, it's about 125,000 physicians. So by, by having a private medical school, we hope to retain New Jersey residents who want to study medicine right here in New Jersey and also be able to attract some real talent from out of state. And the statistics show where students go to medical school, they are more likely to practice medicine. So we think this will be a great tool to put to provide a supply of physicians for generations to come. Give me one minute on the national health care landscape changing every minute as we speak. You know, I think there's a there's a couple trends that are going to happen. And I think as health care leaders, we need to step up no matter what happens in Washington. So whatever bill ultimately comes out of the Congress, I think there's going to be certain characteristics like there's going to be more decision making put into consumers hands, less government, less employers, more in consumers hands. So what does that mean? That means we have to provide accessible care to to consumers. We have to make sure care is as affordable as possible because they're going to have choices. We also need to be more transparent as an industry, meaning our quality results, our patient safety, even our pricing, we have to be very, very transparent to the to the consumer because they're going to be shopping around more decisions are going to be made by the individual consumer. So I believe, no matter what the final bill looks like, it will have those characteristics. Before I let you out of Garden of Dreams real quick, what is it? So the Garden of Dreams, we it's part of a partnership called Tackle Kids Cancer, which is a great program, which we're spreading awareness and raising money for pediatric cancer research. We've already raised $4.5 million. Thanks a lot to the help of Eli Manning and the New York Giants, who recognize Eli Manning for that as as the co man of the year. Absolutely. And recently we announced a partnership with Madison Square Garden and the Garden of Dreams. So we're happy to have them on board. They're going to help promote awareness and to raise money for for Tackle Kids Cancer. We're really excited about the partnership. Great iconic organization. You know, some of the sports histories made there almost every night. So we're really thrilled to partner with with those guys. Thank you, Bob. Appreciate it. Steve, thanks for the update. Not enough things going on, huh? State of affairs right after this.