Hello, everybody. My name is Ajay Swamy and I am a Senior Product Leader for Amazon Web Services, specifically focusing on small and medium-sized businesses where we build solutions to help them succeed and scale and discover new competitive advantages. Thanks for joining me today. Today, I'll be talking about how to position your product for investors. Essentially, I'll be going through the framework and a sort of criteria that you should adhere to when you want to raise funding through VCs or through angels and one of some of the key things to keep in mind. So let's quickly go through the agenda. There are four key topics here. The first one is about the general macro environment today. What is the rate attrition and what is your opportunity? Why is it the right time to sort of really lean into your entrepreneurial bug and start to build something? Number two, I'll go through the framework of what investors care about in terms of your product or your venture. Number three, I'll go through a quick storyline as to what the key topics you should address in your investor deck. And by the way, this is in no means shape or form that you should follow the same exact thing, but these are the key topics you should definitely cover in your deck. And then lastly, I'll run you through a fictional example. And I actually think it's a pretty good idea that'll give you an example or actually give you a notion of how to actually pitch this to an investor. Awesome. So let's get started. Okay. So a couple of quick points here. One is this webinar is not about how you want to execute the build of your product. It's not really about agile product management either. I'm going to assume that you're here because you're interested in pitching your idea or your venture or maybe even your bootstrapped product to investors. You want to ensure that you have a framework that you can fall back upon to make sure that you're answering the right questions for your investors. And then lastly, you want to tell a compelling story that makes sense. You want to be simple but yet effective in being able to communicate the idea and the benefits of your venture to investors. Okay. So as I mentioned before, this is the first topic in the agenda. And one of the things that's happening today is what's called the great attrition. The great attrition is the notion where employees working at corporate jobs are actually leaving, apologies, let me go back here, are actually leaving their jobs to start their own thing. I looked at some of the research that was conducted by McKinsey, PWC and a few reports by CNBC and a few other news websites. And as you can see, there has been a significant increase in entrepreneurship and a record number of applications were filed to form new businesses in 2021. And these are not just digitally native businesses. These can be brick and mortar businesses or these can be franchise businesses. The second piece that is actually really worth highlighting is that venture funding has hit an all time high in 2021, which is fantastic. That means that, look, that means two things. One is VCs and investors, they're hungry for returns. The stock market has been performing very well despite the recent downturn, but still investors and VCs, they're looking to put their money in places, in new ideas where they can see an outsized return. And then lastly, the COVID pandemic, and despite the fact that we're coming out of it, it has resulted in significant or I should say permanent shifts in working culture. And what that means is that folks work from home, they might have side hustles, they might have side projects that they take on in order to actually make money on the side.  And in fact, the study from PWC states that in the near future, at least 20% of the people are looking to quit and maybe start their own thing or maybe just look for a new opportunity. So this is the time, despite what any of the macro indicators tell you in terms of the high inflation or the economic downturn, these are the times when you should really be starting to think about taking a risk and starting something on your route. So let's dive right in, right? This particular slide is really a high-level overview on what investors care about when they sort of look at your idea or your venture. Number one, investors, they all care about big opportunities. If you're looking to make a few million dollars or if you're trying to build a franchise that by result it depends on millions of dollars, VC money is probably not the right move for you. Investors, they care about big market-sized opportunities and they want to make sure that the teams they pick and the ideas they pick, they are capable of de-risking, de-risking in terms of failure. So let's look at some of the four key elements here. So number one is industry, trends, and target customers. So when you think about pitching your idea or your product to VC, the fundamental thing you need to think about is look, what industries are you targeting? Are you a horizontal technology-based product that can apply across all industries? Or are you vertically focused in terms of fintech or healthcare? Number two, who is your customer? Who is your target customer? What do you know about them? And number three, how does this particular product or your venture fit in the grand scheme of things with an ongoing trend? So for example, we know that the payment space is drastically moving towards digital payments, right? In terms of checks, there's going to be less use of checks and cash, and that's going to be predominant going forward over the next few years. Now, if you have a product that really exploit this particular trend, VCs might be interested in that because you're going with the trend. Again, you could possibly have another product that's completely contrarian, but if you're able to show that, look, you're trying to create a new trend or you're trying to create something that's unique, you have to be able to show that and prove to your investors that this opportunity is outsized and is actually the right move. The second thing you need to sort of focus on is the problem statement. Think about simplistically what the problem you're solving for is. You should be able to narrate the problem in a way that a five-year-old can understand it and exactly how big is your problem and how does your product solve for that problem? These are the key facets that you should be talking about. Number three, you should also be thinking about why are you uniquely positioned to solve it? What is your unfair advantage? Maybe you and your founders are extremely technical product-oriented people and you know that you can build a super complex technical product. That could be your unfair advantage. You might not even need a team to actually do that, or you might not even need any sort of technical architectural help to do that. That is an unfair advantage. Maybe your other unfair advantage is the fact that, look, you're probably building this product along with partnerships that you already established. That might be a bit of a moat because other competitors might not be able to do that. That, again, is an unfair advantage. Think about what those things are and make sure you're able to communicate that effectively. Number three is what I talked about earlier, is your unfair advantage. Your team should be your unfair advantage. Your team should give VCs or investors the level of confidence that, hey, you will be able to achieve, you will be able to hit that pinnacle of success. A couple of things to highlight here is who are they? Why are they uniquely positioned to drive this venture? What is their track record? Do they have a strong execution experience? Do they have a strong operational experience? Do they have the ability to pivot if in case something happens, for example, there's a regulatory change that allows them to, that sort of stops them in their tracks, will they be able to pivot? You want to make sure that you can speak to some of those values and the strengths that the team possesses. Lastly, you want to focus on your product or the solution or even your service. Why is it that this product will be used by customers? Have you done any market research? Have you even launched an MVP? What is the initial reaction by customers? You want to be able to bubble those up and speak to those in terms of some of your early successes. Second, talk about the fact that if there is a specific technology aspect that's really unique, bring that up. If the specific algorithm that you have discovered, if there's a specific algorithm that you have coded, make sure you bubble that up and say why this is unique and why nothing out there exists in the market today. Lastly, if you have any IP protection in terms of patents or any trade secrets or how you've actually done things in terms of a unique user flow or any integrations, you should probably bring that up. These are all things that actually build moats around your business. These are the key things that industries care about. Now on to the key things that should really go in your investor deck. I've laid out all of the different slides or the topics that should go in your deck, starting with a cover page all the way through the topics to the thank you page. Again, this is not a storyline for everybody. Feel free to adapt this, but make sure that your deck addresses all of the topics that are listed on here. Let's go through those one by one. Number one is the vision. What is the vision for your startup? What is your tagline? Make sure that vision makes sense. Make sure that it's catchy. Make sure it's big. Think big. Number two, what is the problem? Why is that problem so important to you? Make sure that vision incorporates that and also make sure that your problem statement also talks to why this problem is so big and it's so key for you to solve this and how will both the vision and the way you're trying to solve for the problem, how do you sort of come together and make a difference to your customers? Make sure you elaborate on that. This is key. Number two is, look, this is really the crux of your deck. What is your product and what is your technology? Really, what are you building here and why should anybody be using it? You really sort of think through why does your product solve the problem and why does it do it well? For example, if you are trying to build a product that you're trying to build a better product for something that already exists in the market, you might want to explain why your product is more elegant and is better suited for a comparatively incumbent competitor. Number two is, what are some of the key features that your product does and why is it unique? Why does it lead to enhanced user experiences that really sort of brings joy to your customers? Lastly, talk about the key benefits. What are the benefits that come from this product or this technology? And then finally, if you're so inclined, you can also sort of draw out a competitive differentiation matrix, which I'll go through in the fictional example in the next few slides. The third piece is really about the market size. This is what VCs really care about. They don't necessarily know yet what your notional P&L is or how much money you're going to make or what your MRR or your ARRs are. None of those are really set in stone. These are all just projected numbers. But at the end of the day, the bigger the TAM, the SAM and the SOM, the better it is for you that you'll be able to sort of make a high revenue for you to build a high revenue, high growth company that can actually address the problem. So let's go through that. The TAM basically stands for the total available market. And this is basically the total market demand for your particular product or the problem that you're trying to solve for. Then comes SAM. SAM is really the serviceable available market. And basically, this is a segment of that total addressable market that you think you might really be able to target. For example, this might be a part of the market that's really within your geographical reach. For example, you might only be focused on the problem within the US or you might only be focused on a core segment of your customers. And then lastly is the SAM. SAM is the serviceable obtainable market. And really, this is the true realistic portion of the SAM that you might capture. This is basically, okay, after everything is said and done, this is really the market that I might be able to capture, taking into consideration existing competitors, regulations, new entrants, et cetera. So make sure you sort of spell that out in terms of market size. And if you need help, talk to a consultant, talk to your friends and try to figure out what the market sizing is. There's plenty of research out there that'll allow you to really sort of think through what the market size is. Number four, what is your business model? You have to be able to tell a story about how you're going to make money. What are your different revenue channels? What might be your projected monthly recurring revenue or your annual recurring revenue? How are you going to form partnerships? Is there going to be a revenue share partnership?  What is the probability that you're able to actually achieve sales or signed letters of intent or actual contracts through that pipeline and across what period? And then finally, if you already have an existing product or a SaaS business, what are your unit economics? Be extremely thorough with those numbers. You need to know your business inside and out. Number five, funding. This is the crux. You are pitching to investors, you're pitching to VCs, ask them, what are you asking for today? Are you asking for money? Okay. How much are you asking for? And then clarify how are you going to spend that money and where it's going and how are you going to grow the business? And then lastly is the team. This is really, please over index on this last piece because the team is what builds confidence for your investors, right? More of their qualifications. As I mentioned before, what is their experience, operational execution, etc. And why are the key members of this team? And this is important to actually showcase that. And then lastly, sort of end with the thank you or a call to action. So let's go through a fictional product. This was actually a deck that I built maybe a year ago. So and this might actually be a feasible idea if somebody wants to take it and run with it. But ultimately, I decided not to go with it. But here's what it is, right? This is a fictional product called Homer. And the vision really, the tagline is the future in your hand, right? And if you look at the vision, it really tells a couple of things. One is the vision is pretty broad, right? And it's pretty broad and it's impactful. It says, empower a new generation with physically responsible habits. That's pretty, that's pretty novel. And it's pretty righteous. And it's quite broad and visionary. So your vision statement should really sort of look to the future and how you sort of impacts masses. Number two, how are you going to achieve this vision, right? And that sort of goes into four bullet points. One is Homer as a digital product. It brings together a unified experience for millennials for their savings needs, whether it's their banking investing or lifestyle-based spends. It's a digital first bank with money management-driven functionality on the palm of your hands. Number two, it also allows you to invest by partnerships with robo advisors controlled all within the Homer app. And then lastly, it also gives you lifestyle-based spend opportunities based on your lifestyle and based on your interest. You're able to sort of partner, you're able to sort of get discounts and savings based on where you shop, whether it's Lululemon or whether you're into watches or sneakers, whatever the case might be, you'll be able to sort of exploit some of those savings and truly sort of cement this within for your habits and all your needs. The next couple of slides, really, I talk about the problem. Here's where I said the problem is sort of really important. You want to be as informative and make sure the problem is really broad. And here, really, I sort of go high level in terms of what the current problem is. Number one, I'm saying, look, the traditional solutions in terms of banking or investing or trading, they're broken, right? Brick and motor banks, they cannot adapt to millennials' needs. Existing digital banks, they don't provide an aggregated or a holistic functionality of spend saving and investing capabilities. Traditional brokerages, like whether it's E-Trade or Fidelity or even investing apps like Robinhood or even Public, they don't necessarily wholly understand the customer in terms of their spend habits or their savings habits or what their savings goals are for the long term. And lastly, none of these segregated apps actually truly understand that millennials need a long-term partnership. With their fiscal applications as they evolve through their lifecycle in terms of getting their first job, marriage, et cetera, et cetera, key events across their life. And then one of the other things that you want to do within your deck is actually truly tell a story. Here, I have a persona named Pedro who has recently graduated and works at Facebook. And you can see that Pedro wants to manage his finances in an easy and a smart way. He wants more help with long-term investments, but he doesn't know how to. He manages most of his life on his mobile. And I'm sure all of us do that. And it's also where there's not saving enough for retirement, good for Pedro. None of us have the foresight of 25 to think through that. Again, none of the solutions currently address that and Homer is the one that does that and uses the future in your hand through a combination of digital banking and savings, longer-term investments and personalized motion offers, all leading to savings for your future. So you can see that I've put together two things here. One is the problem set that's generally speaking about the macro in terms of how existing solutions do not provide value or enough value for millennials. And number two, I also sort of put this from the perspective of a young millennial named Pedro and how the problems that the macro problems actually affect him and how Homer might be the solution that he might embrace. So let's move to the next slide. This is again the product slide. And there's a couple of things I want to highlight. One is this gives you a view into what Homer is. Number one, on the left-hand side, it tells you, look, Homer is a super savings app. It gives you a unified experience where millennials can manage their savings needs, banking needs, investing needs, and lifestyle based opportunities, whether it's being able to shop at their preferred brands.  It tells you that it's a robust mobile banking platform. It's simple, it's innovative, and it has full control in terms of saving buckets, real-time balance, and spending. It also tells you that there is deep integration with the variety of investment robot advisors. There are also lifestyle opportunities, intelligent engine that allows you to spend smartly and efficiently, making into consideration any discounts that are aligned with your target demographics behaviors or brand interests. And then lastly, there's also customized learning and educational opportunities within the app, so you get to learn about investing and saving. I should start using this. And then you want to sort of augment that with the advantages. What are some of the advantages that you bring to Homer? Number one, your advantages or your unfair advantages are that you have a strong founding team with deep technical and financial markets experience. Number two, it's an intelligent, well-designed platform that is very singularly focused on millennials' behaviors and habits and it caters to savings and retirement opportunities in line with their values. Number three, it's cloud-native with best-in-class scalable technologies. Number four, it's maybe it's data-driven, it uses machine learning, maybe it uses AI to maybe predict the next move or the next best behavior or the next best action that your customer might take. And then, finally, it's secure. Everything is secure because financial data needs to be secure and that is paramount. Perspective. I also sort of highlight two things here. If you look at the box on the top left here, this is sort of what I talked about earlier in terms of a competitive matrix. Here I talked through, look, there's N26 Revolut and other digital banks, there's investment, digital investments, businesses such as Betterment, LearnVest, Twine, and there's also some of the legacy retirement products like Fidelity. And then you have Homer here. And then I compare some of the values provided by the products on the top with the functionalities on the left-hand side. And you can see that across digital banking, there's only N26 Revolut and Homer that provide the same thing. And you can see that when you look at lifestyle value-focused-based goals, Homer is the only one. Merchant-saving opportunities, Homer is the only one. Custom learning and courage in the right action, Homer is the only one. And this really sort of gives you just the breadth of information that you can sort of provide to your investors. And from an investor perspective, they can look at this and truly understand exactly how your application is differentiated. That is the key because you don't want to be duplicating anything. You want to differentiate yourselves. Number two, the bottom right-hand side is about the actual product roadmap itself. Here, I'm assuming that, look, you're raising money for a product that has not been built yet. You just have a very, very strong founding team. And look, you might have an MVP or a few sketches or a few designs, but it's not being built yet. So you're asking money to actually build this out. So here, I've sort of broken up the product roadmap into three different phases. First is the MVP phase. And it sort of talks about what the scope is in terms of the first digital banking product. And it'll be built in five months. Talks about the timing. It also talks about some of the core features. Phase two talks about, okay, how am I going to expand on this? How long is it going to take? And really, what are some of the features coming in phase two, the high-level features? And then phase three is how do you sort of induce more scale and intelligence? It talks about, again, what the timing is, and then some other features. And you can see all of these sort of add up to a year of development as you sort of build the product end-to-end. Okay, so let's move on to the next topic within the deck. And this is really the opportunity, right? This is the market size. So as I talked about before, the TAM, SAM, and SOM, TAM, the total available market, this is basically the total size of the market. And I made this number up, right? There's probably more research that goes into this. And TAM is basically around, let's assume, it's $200 billion. This comprises all millennials who are banking digitally or otherwise. Number two is the SAM, which is the serviceable available market. These are all of the millennials who have maybe digital bank accounts and a combination of savings or investment accounts, right? So you can see that this is a segmentation that actually narrows down a little bit because now I'm really focusing on people that have digital bank accounts and digital investment accounts. And then finally, you have the serviceable obtainable market, right? And this is really the portion of the SAM that can truly capture. And here I really say, look, our initial target market is going to be focused on 25 to 30-year-olds who are not married and have some combination of online banking or investment accounts. And the hope is that through Homer, we can convert them to using holistically one super app that provides them banking, saving, investing, and maybe even prefer purchasing and spend accounts. And that leads to maybe a $75 billion opportunity. So you want to be thoughtful about your market sizing and how that sort of evolves from a TAM perspective to a SAM perspective. This will really sort of tell the investors that you're thinking very broadly and you're sort of trying to solve a pretty big problem, right? $75 billion is certainly not a small number. And even if you were to maybe take a chunk of that market share of the $75 billion opportunity, that is a unicorn or a deca-corn. And that is actually quite, interesting for investors. The next aspect of the VC deck, I've sort of combined three slides here into one. So what really is your business model? How are you going to make money? So there's a couple of the key things here. Here on the left-hand side, I sort of talk about, hey, look, I'm going to have all of these partnerships with these merchants. These merchants will actually be useful for our millennial customers, right? Maybe they like to shop at Coachella or maybe they like to shop at Lululemon. It really depends, right? And through revenue sharing opportunities, there might be a channel to make money here. And you can see sort of how you sort of target all of these partnership conversations and what you want to get to at the end of the day, how you sort of break down the actual partner acquisition over quarters. Number two on the top right here, there is sort of the revenue model here in terms of the total number of users. And again, there's some assumptions here, right? This is all in the hundreds of thousands. I'm assuming in the first quarter, there will be 80,000 users, et cetera, et cetera. And the fees that we'll make is based on monthly fees, a one-time bank card fee. Again, there's going to be merchant partnership fees and commissions, maybe a retirement and investment advisory fees. And you can see that eventually you can get to a number of some sort. Again, these are all projections. A lot of these numbers really come from a lot of assumptions. So when you do actually pitch the notional PNLs, et cetera, make sure you're able to speak to what your assumptions are. And then again, these are the key pricing elements that actually get to the revenue model. Right here, I'm talking about a monthly user fee, a one-time bank card fee, merchant partnerships, and the retirement slash investment advisory partnership fees. So make sure you're very aware of the singular metrics, the singular revenue streams that sort of add up to the total. And make sure you're able to explain to that and talk to that easily. Next, we're talking about funding, right? This is why you built that deck. So you can actually build this, you can actually put this slide right up front, not the whole thing, but just the fact that, look, we are Homer and we're raising 1.5 million. Join us and help us create the next generation of physically savvy citizens. Or you could have this as one of the latest slides. And this really sort of helps the investors know how you plan to use that money and over what period of time. If you look at the product roadmap that I shared earlier, that was over a period of one year. And there's exactly how it's broken down in terms of all of the salaries for the team, the technology costs, SGNA costs, et cetera, et cetera. And it's also broken down in terms of phase one, phase two, and phase three, as per the product development costs. So there's really a true transparency in terms of how the money from the VC is going to be spent. And then it can delve into any of the details as you need to. And then lastly, right, you want to talk about the team. The team is very, very critical. Investors care about the core executive team. Maybe you might have some advisors on board. Maybe you might have some board members. But really, the executive team are the ones that are going to make a difference, right? You might want to talk about like, why is Ajay and why is maybe Gary the two key people to really sort of run this successfully? How can they actually de-arrest this venture? How can they make sure that, you know, the money is not gone to waste? How can they make sure that they can actually grow this quickly and within the timeframe of the VC investment horizon, which is five to seven years, right? So this is the kind of story that you want to tell in terms of their experience, their roles, and what they've done before. So this really is sort of the last slide. And I can't stress this, but, you know, the team, VCs invest in teams, right? VCs also invest in ideas, but technically, you know, the idea might or might not work out, but VCs truly invest in teams. So overindex on this. I think that brings us to the end. So some of the key takeaways, right? Number one, look, put yourself in their investor shoes, right? They're people too. Don't be too complex. VCs look at hundreds of ideas. They don't really know how your idea is better than the rest. That's why you should tell a story. Keep it simple. And be human, right? Be human and tell that story so they can understand it at a level where it's actually makes sense.  It's their capital. Why should they give you the money? Number two, know your numbers. Know your assumptions across all of your revenue projections, PNL, market sizing, et cetera. Figure out what your numbers are. Figure out what underlying assumptions you have. And make sure you're very clear and comfortable with that, right? Don't make things up. You don't want to get found out. It'll be pretty embarrassing. Number three, look, a lot of people pitch to VCs and investors, you will get rejected. And the rejection is not that they might, that your idea is bad. It might mean that it's just not the right timing. Or it might just be that that particular investor did not get your idea. So don't stop and don't get the solution. Ask for feedback, right? Ask them what you could have done better. Ask for what they did not get, right? And make sure you address that in the next iteration of your deck. And then keep improving. And with that, get building. Good luck. Start a venture. Build a product. And if you have any questions for me, please reach out to me. That's my LinkedIn profile. And you can also reach out to me on Twitter. Thank you all and have a great rest of the day.


In Spain, a near-real-time surveillance system was developed using Kulldorf's prospective space-time scan statistic, STSS, to detect daily emerging active clusters of COVID-19. The system detected an increase in active clusters and municipalities affected throughout the summer of 2020. Initially, clusters were limited to a few, low-case regions, but by the end of the study period, they had spread across the country and included larger numbers of municipalities and total cases. This suggests that the system may be useful for tracking the spread of COVID-19 in low-incident scenarios and identifying potential areas of concern before they become widespread. Additionally, the clustering of cases over time and space could indicate the occurrence of community transmission. This article was authored by Nicholas Rosillo, Javier de la Guilama here, Ayala Rojas Benedicto, and others.


Salam from the People's Dispatch Studios in New Delhi. This is Dispatches from India, where we talk about the burning issues from the world's largest democracy and the impact they have on the country's economy, polity and society. We begin the show today with the second anniversary of the All India Lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic. On the 24th of March, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced this nationwide lockdown and over the following weeks and months threw the whole nation into chaos. The worst hit were of course the working class, especially migrants. Despite some in the government claiming there was no data, the impact was there for all to see. Thousands of migrants were forced to flee big cities and many walked hundreds of kilometres to reach their homes. For the unluckiest, death lay at the end of those highways. News Clicks Pragya Singh recounts the horrors of India's first COVID lockdown. So the Indian government basically announced a national lockdown on March 27, 2020. That was when COVID was just beginning to spread. They were around just 20 deaths by then due to COVID. So that lockdown was very sudden and total and it had a terrible impact on the economy and on income immediately. When sources of income dried up all of a sudden, people basically started walking home. There was a massive reverse migration of workers from cities to villages and thousands of, there were actually thousands of people who had started walking home. Some were walking for several hundred kilometres because suddenly the buses and the trains had also stopped running. Very often we found that ordinary people were standing by the highways and trying to assist these returning workers. Then since the lockdown was announced at just four hours notice, there was immediate shortages in food and also other supplies. The rules were so flexible, they were constantly changed. So that the movement of essential goods itself became a maze for people to, which people found impossible to navigate. For example, you have relief camps coming up, but then how can people who need to access those relief camps get there when there's no working transport? In fact, there were many state governments which actually welcomed the lockdown, but when it came down to the action, they were fearing very badly in helping people during that time. People had to register at the state level if they wanted to get help from the government, especially the workers, but the process was confusing or you needed biometrics or the schemes were simply not designed for those circumstances of a lockdown. The end result was that we saw the prices zooming up and the supplies of many items kept falling. There were long wait times for basic things which you need at the time like sanitizer, important medicines, your masks and especially in smaller towns and villages. For the underprivileged, basically it was a pretty big disaster. There were reports of people who had not been able to access food. There were some reports of people died due to lack of food, but all the governments basically denied this. Indeed, the government had promised to help all those who were stranded and even the migrant workers, but those who thought it possible decided to walk home. And if you really look at the reasons why this would have happened, it's probably because they did not believe that the government would be able to help them. Then those who had managed to walk home found, they're troubled and end there, they found that the most of the state governments where they belong to were ill-prepared to meet them. So the government, by then the government at the center, many states had essentially handed over the management of the pandemic to the police. And the police was beating up people who violated the strict lockdown. We saw many high-handed tactics, especially at the state borders, when the tired and hungry workers were basically stopped and told they wouldn't be able to go ahead. Maybe some people would argue that India's was the strictest lockdown in the world, etc. But actually, though nothing was moving in that time, actually it was a time when the resilience of the underprivileged was put to kind of very cruel trust. And at least 200 people died in that walk home, which is probably an underestimation. The lockdown was also symbolic of the government's overall management of the pandemic. We saw a lot of top-heavy, law-and-order centric and focusing on messaging. Prabhi Purkayastha, who has been studying the epidemic since day one, talks about the early approach of the government. This is two years when the first lockdown was imposed during the COVID pandemic in India. Now, we have a lot to learn from this and also a lot to unlearn from what happened. First is why did India impose a lockdown of this magnitude? In fact, it was one of the most draconian lockdowns imposed anywhere at that time. And it is not in consonance with the numbers that we were seeing. In fact, the numbers were rather low at that time. And if we look on it today, it was certainly a mistake to use all India lockdown at a time when the pandemic had really just started in India. And that also in a few of the well-connected internationally those places. So you would have some in Kerala, some in Mumbai, some in Delhi and Punjab. So it was really, the numbers were very low. To lock down the entire country was a huge mistake, which is what epidemiologists and health, public health experts said later that you locked India down at a time when there was no need to impose an all-India lockdown of this nature. You also locked down without any preparations and the entire burden of this lockdown was borne by the migrant population. Those people who have come from the rural areas and who work in cities is wrong to call them migrants really in that sense because they do work in the cities and they go back only occasionally to their homes. Their real workplace is art today in urban India. Now this population suddenly were basically into various kinds of casual work as it is called, had to leave the urban areas because they had no access to income, they had no access to food and they had no other support. So they actually left and when they left they were treated very badly because they were treated as if they were criminals fleeing from their place of work. Well, actually there was no work and there was no support for them. So this was a huge dislocation that took place and it was quite ratituous because the numbers that went up went up a lot later even in the urban areas and as I said that the numbers if you see at the beginning of the lockdown at the end of the lockdown you will see numbers at the end of the lockdown was much higher than the beginning of the lockdown. So it served no health purpose, public health purpose. Five Indian states went to the polls in Feb and March 2022. In the run up to these elections state-owned oil companies such as Indian Oil, HPCL and BPCL froze retail prices of both petrol and diesel for a record 137 days. Now that the elections are over in which the ruling Bharatya Janta Party dominated the hiatus on revisions of oil prices has ended. There were four hikes of 8 tenths of a rupee each in the five days starting from March 22. A trend that's likely to continue with international crude oil prices in the 100 to 120 dollar range per barrel. Industry watchers say India's oil companies have lost over 2 billion dollars since November last year and at current crude rates will lead to hike prices by as much as 25 rupees a litre for diesel if they want to pass the entire load down to the customer. We spoke to Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha to get a better sense of this dance between politics and market economics. I'm Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha in Gurugram, near Delhi, the capital of India. On Saturday the 26th of March 2022 for the fourth time in five days oil marketing and distribution companies in India increased the prices of the two most commonly used petroleum products namely petrol or motor spirit and diesel. Behind the increase for the fourth time in five days lies an interesting story. These oil marketing companies are mainly owned by the government of India if not owned certainly controlled by the government of India. On the 4th of November in the run up to elections in five states or provinces in India these oil marketing companies froze prices. Prices didn't go up. Then after the elections to the legislative assemblies of Uttar Pradesh which is India's most popular state Punjab which is one of India's most agriculturally prosperous states not to mention smaller states like Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur after elections were completed and the results were declared on the 10th of March 12 days later the prices started going up. The prices were kept on hold for four and a half months and during this period international prices of crude oil shot up from roughly $82 a barrel to around $117 a barrel. There were various reasons for the increase in the international prices of crude oil the most important one being the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Now international prices of crude oil are very very very important. Very simple reason. India in the recent past in the last two years has been importing between 85 and 90% of the country's total requirement of crude oils. That means India is producing domestically between 10 and 15% of our total requirements and this includes the petroleum crude oil which is imported to India refined and then exported. The short point is that this four and a half month long freeze in the prices of the retail prices of petrol, diesel and other petroleum products has resulted in these oil marketing companies which as I mentioned earlier are mainly controlled by the government of India but it resulted in them losing 2.25, 2 and a quarter billion, billion US dollars. So even after these four increases in the prices, the retail prices, the prices available at the pump there's every likelihood that prices will go up again and these include not just the prices of petrol and diesel which are used largely in the automotive sector also to some extent for power generation but also petroleum products like LPG or liquefied petroleum gas or cooking gas. So the prices of all these products, the increase in the prices of all these petroleum products which have been kept on hold because of political reasons have had an important, one of the important contributory factors to the rise of inflation in India and the rise in prices of a wide range of commodities because these are used for transportation and therefore are an intermediary which results in the prices of other products going up. And finally, ugly scenes are playing out in movie halls in India during and around the screening of a film called The Kashmir Files. The film claims to tell the story of Kashmiri pundits, an upper-caste Hindu group who were forced into exile in 1990. However, the film and its director have been criticised for blatant disregard of facts and for using the film to promote an anti-Muslim narrative. The film has been strongly backed by the ruling BJP with several states giving it tax exemptions. Journalist Anand Dev Chakravati decifers the model of propaganda in our times. Kashmir Files has generated an intense divisive debate across the country. Its filmmakers and those who support it say that it's an eye-opener which tells the tale of the genocide, the alleged genocide of Kashmiri pundits that took place more than 32 years ago and that it had been pushed under the carpet neglected by successive governments till the coming of this government which has read the issue again. Those who criticised this film say that it's a thinly-wailed piece of propaganda and it has been used essentially to target one particular community and to generate communal polarization. And whatever the filmmakers might have intended to do and one can give them the benefit of the doubt, it is without any doubt that it has resulted in intense communal passions. We have seen across the internet videos being shared of people giving communally charged hate speeches in theatres where the film was screened and that these videos are being shared on social media by politicians and also on WhatsApp groups across India causing deep-seated anxieties, resentment and bubbling over of hatred. So whether the filmmakers like it or not, there is no doubt that it is working as a propaganda film but the question is why do people believe in propaganda? Why do they accept disinformation and believe it? Now propaganda has become an absolutely easy tool in the hands of those in power and those who control the economy which is corporates with the spread of social media with the decline of old forms of knowledge whether it's books, whether it is articles, newspapers where a certain form of debate could take place. Today's social media, easy newsbites, a few texts, photographs, pictures, memes they dominate public discourse, they dominate messaging and it is very easy to control this with control over money and to spread it as existing old forms of political mobilization have become weaker as reaching people through social media, through national mainstream media has slowly replaced the old system of workers, party workers going and campaigning the ability to control messaging, political messaging and corporate messaging has become much more easy and it's an easier tool today in the hands of those in power. That means for democracy to survive you have to question power everyone needs to ask questions, without that you will be a victim of propaganda and you will be a carrier of propaganda you will never question, you will believe whatever is being fed to you. That's all we have on Dispatches from India for today for more on all of these stories visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and give us a follow on all the regular social media platforms we will be back next week, until then stay safe, goodbye.


Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Dell EMC World 2017. Brought to you by Dell EMC. Welcome back everyone, we are live here in Las Vegas for Dell EMC World 2017. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, and my co-host here is Keith Townsend, CTO at Hashtag, I mean, AdSign, CTO advisor on Twitter. Our next guest is David Goulden, who's the president of Dell EMC, infrastructure business, great to see you. Our eighth consecutive year covering EMC World now, Dell EMC World, the first Dell EMC World, kind of a seminal moment, watershed event here. You've been to all of them, you've seen the movie with EMC now, through now eight months after the close. It's Dell EMC World, but it still feels like EMC World. What's your reaction? I mean, all the same? No, giant, it's very different to me. Maybe because it's in Vegas and it's in May, so those two things are common. But the content, the breadth of the message, you mentioned it, it's eight, nine months after the closing of the transaction, but of course, bear in mind, we had a year before our planning after we announced, so it's really quite some time into the concept of this transaction. And to a large extent, this week for us is the coming out party. It gives us a chance to demonstrate to the world what we spent the last nine months, a year before that planning and doing, and actually investing in, and you saw just from my remarks this morning, the breadth of technology we bring to our customers, the amount of innovation and the better together story coming real, I think it's exciting. You know, Dave and I are always complimenting you and talking behind your back when you're not around as well, but the compliment is, you're a great operational person, but you're also a strategic chess player as well in terms of the industry. The Dell EMC strategy is pretty clear on the existing traditional infrastructure, data center, whatever you want to call it, it's a mature market, it's consolidating, win that business, be the number one supplier in that market, we see that playing out. However, you got to have the growth strategy. That's the future revenues that are going to come down the pipe. Describe for a minute which the strategy, because pretty obvious the mature market on the data center is moving to hybrid cloud there's a pathway there. So you're locking and loaded on that being number one, fast 14 generation servers, we see that. Cool, growth strategy. What's the growth strategy for Dell EMC? Well, don't rule out growth in on-prem data centers, right? So let's not put that into pure and mature, a no growth. It's not hockey stick. Right, but the market is still a massive marketplace in on-prem data centers. It's true that all the infrastructure growth, so if you look at the infrastructure marketplace, $110 billion is served by service storage, networking, data protection, you look at that marketplace in total and you say, where's all the growth? The growth is in off-prem. We'll come back to that in a second. But the on-prem, i.e. the data center is still over 60% of that marketplace and in total that market isn't growing, but the consolidation opportunities that you talked about is huge. And segments of it, like moving to a private cloud, like hyperconverged infrastructure, there are rocket ships occurring inside of that big target adjustable market. That's $60 billion a data center IT spend. So there is growth for us in there and there is growth as being the largest, most capable player to consolidate, pick up, share, be stronger in the newer segments than we even were in the more mature segments. So I wouldn't rule off growth there. From an infrastructure point of view, of course there's a lot of growth off-prem. Now off-prem is a very fragmented marketplace. As soon as people think off-premises, they go immediately to the web scale public cloud providers and they're certainly a part of it. But there's the SaaS companies. There is the outsource integrators. The IT as a service companies. There's a huge opportunity there. I mean, everyone is a cloud service provider. Everyone will be, I mean, Riot Games, which does legal edges, they're a cloud company, right? Everyone's kind of a cloud company or a SaaS company these days. That's what they're trying to get there. That's because the whole IT industry is moving to cloud because cloud is an operating model, not a place. And cloud is about delivering IT at all levels, application, infrastructure, networking. Whatever you think about it, it's delivering IT as a service that can be monitored and meted and charged based upon use. That's a very simple definition of a cloud and everybody wants to do that.  So we shouldn't get too confused about the cloud opportunity. It is the redefinition of the IT industry. So David, as we talk through the opportunity within the data center, one of the obvious things when you look at Dell EMC is the breadth of products, the depth of capability compared to your competitors. Traditional knowledge would tell us that, you know what, you guys have the potential to really dominate this thing. But when you're coming to customers, what's the clear message that you're bringing when it comes to specific products in the core of that growth? So the message to customers is we are investing for the long term, we're investing heavily. Our strategy is not to just be good enough. It's to be the number one. So we don't want to just be the number one market share player but always have the best technology. So message to customers is, hey, Mr. Customer, Mrs. Customer, you've got a lot of things to worry about in your IT world. Ultimately, you want to be providing IT services to your customers. You need an infrastructure partner. You want that company who can be that essential infrastructure company who can provide the vast, vast majority of all the things that you need to be able to equip your IT shop to provide services to your customers. That's the message and it's very powerful because it spans the client through the data center in and into the cloud and it encompasses security and all the elements of the infrastructure play. So it's a very, very powerful message and the final four I would tell you is relative to that is I haven't had a customer in the last two years who told me they want more IT suppliers. They want fewer and they want them to be strategic and more capable and that's all play. Well, great. I want to double down on that comment. They don't want more suppliers. I buy that. And I think end to end, you're seeing architectures. We saw Intel on stage. You're seeing 5G being end to end with IoT. They like the end to end. They like the supplier consolidation. But the other thing we're hearing in the hallways here at the event is and this is the question for you because you manage a product portfolio is I don't want more products. I want less products or SKUs, if you will, whatever you want to call it. So there's a product overlap. Certainly with the Dell EMC combination, there's been some overlap. People have been talking about that. So how do you guys are managed? How are you managing that? I know we talked about it a little bit last year. You know, just getting the roadmap cleaned up. But what specifically are you doing to manage the product overlap with respect to some of the products that kind of are overlapping between the two companies? Well, first of all, your earlier comment was right. Customers want outcomes and we'll come back to that. But specifically relative to your question on overlap, the beauty of this combination is we come with one of everything and two of almost nothing, which is most unusual in a large-scale tech merger. The only area we had any overlap was in the mid-tier of our storage family, where there was the Dell SC-Compellants and there was the EMC Unity family. Now, if they'd both been mature at the end of their product cycle, it could have been a longer issue. But the point is they've just gone through a full investment to create new versions of each one. So what do you do? You roll them out.  So we didn't have to make any short-term, keep one kill one type choices because it was a very fortuitous stage that both have been through that cycle. But that's the only part of the entire portfolio, where there's any overlap. The rest is all about- And you're saying it's opportunistic for you because there's no real conflicting overlap. It's what you're saying basically. There's no conflict. We have two mid-range storage products, one from each family. Big deal. Most customers don't want to be confused. So if they were a Unity customer, we sell them Unity, if they're a component customer, we sell them Component, and we say, don't worry, we're going to bring you a converged solution in the future. It's really quite simple. Everywhere else, Dell came with their technology, EMC came with ours, and we can focus on how you create the power of more. Okay, so back to the end to end conversation because you mentioned they want less suppliers is the trend, I agree. And more partners. Multi-cloud, for technical reasons, latency on the things, I think it's not ready for prime time, but certainly the direction. Hybrid Clouds, Front and Center, I see that. Talking to CEO Oracle last week and his briefing with me, they want to be the supplier. Everyone wants to be the end to end supplier. So multi-cloud implies multiple vendors. So there is still a multi-vendor. Could you just share with us your vision on that because it's not a one-vendor take-all world, certainly in life cycles good, but how are you guys dealing with this multi-vendor, multi-cloud scenario, and how should customers look at that in dealing with Dell EMC? Well first of all, we didn't say we want to be any of those exclusive IT provider. We want to be their most strategic. Everybody has a number of IT vendors. And this is one of the challenges that most IT operations have. They have tens of vendors. In some cases they have tens of vendors for just one piece of the stack, like their management tools. So they're looking for fewer more capable partners. And what we want to do is to be position ourselves to be the most strategic amongst their handful of key partners. As it comes to multi-cloud, that all ties back to applications. So this whole conversation about cloud is often mixed up with a question around applications. So I was with a customer, a large financial services customer after lunch. We were having a conversation about cloud. I asked them how many applications they had. 6,900. And that by the way, that's after they've done two years of application rationalization. So what they now want to do is figure out a strategy for those applications. Well, they're not all going to sit on one cloud. They're going to sit on multiple places. They'll assemble, sit upon an internal cloud. They may have a couple of different flavors of internal cloud. They're going to have some SaaS vendors. They're going to have some public cloud. So multi-cloud is a reality of anybody with more than, let's say, 50 or 100 applications. It's just a way of life. Particularly when you take my definition of cloud or our definition of cloud as being an offering model and not a place. In the final minutes we have, I know Keith's got another question that Bud wants to ask, but I got to ask you. Because you've been on the EMC side. You've been running that business with the team there, Federation over the years. You've had a good treasure. You look at the roadmap. You've seen the growth rates. Now with the combination, I'd like you just to spend a minute and talk about what's different now and be specific because now you have so much more opportunity on the revenue side with the combination. So talk about, and Michael made a comment to me just now this morning, they're winning more business. So you're winning business. You're seeing some successes. NSX with VMware is doing great. They've converged this stuff. It's going great. We've got product announcements. What specific wins are you having to illustrate this new growth opportunity that wasn't there before the combination? We're having a number of wins. We're having a number of situations where in the data center, for example, a strong Dell server customer may not have much EMC storage and we're winning the storage footprint. Conversely, we're having a lot of wins where we've had a strong storage footprint in the data center with EMC strength and we're winning significant server deals on the back of that. So we're seeing this cross synergy occurring just on the back of having a number one position on both sides. We're also seeing our ability to bring brand new products to market like VxRail that includes a PowerEdge, that includes VMware, that includes EMC software. So we're winning because we have the broader portfolio and we're winning because we're creating new products that leverage the best of both.  That is going to be the next generation bedrock of the data center. We'll incorporate that across all our entire portfolio. Why is that important? Quickly, what's the value proposition? What's the value proposition for 14G? It's been designed for the digital transformation of the future. It's been designed not only to host existing applications but to host those scale out, high performance applications of the future. And we can uniquely provide the scalability, the performance, the security those applications need. So it's built for the next generation. It's built thinking about things like machine learning, deep learning, artificial intelligence. It's the platform for those applications. And that's really powerful to have that inside the portfolio. So David, digital transformation, a lot of time to value, a lot of buzzwords I've heard this today that I've generally heard from my management because over the days. Dell EMC is now the leader in the infrastructure space. You guys are now having conversations with much different people. CMO, COO, CEO, CIO. What lends Dell technologies, Dell EMC, the credibility to come to these new contacts within enterprise? I say a couple of things. So first of all, we have the world's most advanced platform as a service tool with Pivotal. There are more cloud native applications being built on the Pivotal framework than any other single framework out there. I'm a big fan of Pivotal. So am I. And it lets customers become software businesses and everybody talks about becoming a software business and it creates not just a platform, but a tool kit and also through Pivotal labs, the ability to train people. So Pivotal gives us the credibility to have that software conversation. And then on the back of Pivotal and just on the back of what we're doing in the infrastructure business, we recognize that there's IT transformation and there's digital transformation. And we're building infrastructure that is aligned to support both of those. So we're building applications for big data Hadoop. We're building infrastructure for IoT. We're building applications for the next generation digital transformations. So the infrastructure side of the business is able to address IT transformation and digital transformation and infrastructure layer. And then we've got the best tool out there for the digital transformation applications. So I think that gives us a lot of credibility. So having that conversation. David, final question. Take your president of EMC hat off for a second with your personal David Goulden hat on. And I'd like to have you just reflect in your own words what surprised you about this combination. It's been historic. You got the entrepreneurial led CEO, Michael Dell, you're private. It feels good. We haven't heard really any horror stories about the integrations. There's been some bumps, but no major horror stories. So congratulations. But in your own words, what's the biggest surprise that you've seen given the history you have with EMC and as an executive at Dell EMC? What's the biggest surprise that folks might not know about in this massive combination? I think you've hit upon a couple of them, John. So one, we've planned for contingencies that didn't happen. You put a big merger together. I'd like you to expect some things to go wrong in the night. They didn't touch wood. So that perhaps is an attribute to the planning and the integration that went on. And then on the other side, it's just how quickly we've been able to bring things together. I thought it was going to take us another six to nine months before we could really have customers cheer around us and say, we are now viewing you as our most strategic partner. And that's happening to me today. And I really didn't think we'd be there within the first Dell EMC world. I thought it would be the Dell EMC world a year later when we could have those conversations. I think when you just look at the amount of innovation and the progress we've made in a short period of time, because I think what's happened here is we've hit a little bit of an inflection point. We are touching upon a real requirement those customers have. And maybe even more than we ever realized that they really want a technology innovator who's broadly based, who's not constrained by some of the conventional models out there who can push the envelope with them. You must have those moments where you kind of pinch yourself and say, wow, look where we are. I mean, kind of where the, how the industry's changed over the years. You guys have a nice pole position. Interesting times. We're excited about it. And we think also more importantly, we're playing a long-term game. We view that in three to five years time, the industry becomes even more consolidated. And we think that we have this unique position as this essential infrastructure, broad-based platform company that can just continue to grow from here. Michael Dell is the same thing. Jeff Bezos at Amazon, 10 years of innovation is what it pretty much takes to kind of make things happen. Congratulations on your success. Dave, great to see you inside theCUBE. Thank you. Thanks for your kind comments. We really don't talk behind your back. I mentioned that earlier. We actually say good things about you. David Goulden, president of Dell EMC Instructure. Here inside theCUBE, I'm John Furrier with Keith Townsend live from Las Vegas. We'll be back with more coverage. Stay with us.


Welcome to Moments with Melinda and I am your host, Melinda Moulton, and today I am so thrilled to have as my guest, Catherine Mondstream. Catherine, how are you? Oh, I'm fine. Thank you, Melinda. I'm so happy to be here. Always a pleasure to speak with you, see you any way I can get you. I know. We just had the opportunity to see each other a few days ago and it was wonderful. I always loved seeing you. But we've known each other for a very, very long time. I mean, back in the early days at Main Street Landing and Union Station when you came into my office to run a studio, you want to talk a little bit about that day and when that was? Yeah. I was probably like 25 years old and I heard there were some studio spaces in this old train station. So I like wandered down. It was kind of like a little bit derelict to that and there were like wires to trip over in the lobby and I was sort of like, ooh, this looks interesting. And then I went upstairs, I found you and I was like, hey, can I, can I maybe rent a space here? And you're like, sure. And we just had this right away, hit it off. And that was before kids, probably before dogs. And over the years, I think I spent 26 years at Union Station. You did. Lots of transitions. Now, I think now, I think I actually think when was in Charlotte, I think that you might have had Charlotte in a snugly. I think that can work, but I mean, because I just, I just, I just remember you having trouble. Anyway, now she's all grown up and she's an artist herself and that's a whole another story. I'll have to interview her at some point. But so let's talk a little bit about your early childhood because a lot of people in Vermont know you. You're very well known. You're very highly respected. Your art is so beautiful. And but a lot of people don't know about you, Catherine Mondstream. So where do you hail from and tell us a little bit about your childhood? I grew up in a sleepy town in central Connecticut, right outside of Hartford on the Connecticut River, Weatherfield, Connecticut, and had, you know, pretty lovely childhood, amazing parents are so supportive, brother and sister. I was not a good student. I really struggled in school and think I'm so grateful. My parents noticed that, but they noticed I loved to draw and paint and they were really good. Immediately got me into like amazing art classes at the Wadsworth Athenaeum and playing air with my art teacher in the summer. So I feel like I landed in a really good place, even though school was like could have gone worse for me. And but thank God I had my folks that were like, we got you. So that was lucky. Well, you do have an extraordinary family. Both your parents are still alive and I've met them and and they're just remarkable human beings as are your siblings. So your parents recognized that you had this gift and they encouraged you. So who who was your greatest inspiration as a child? Who who inspired you the most in your life? Or maybe there's a few.  And I just thought she was like such a superstar and she was my art teacher for years and really taught me to go outside the box and paint outside and also how to do contour drawing, which is when you look at the object and you study it and you have to look and look, you can't just guess the line. And that was like really, really good stuff. So I always wish I could find her and I haven't been able to, but she was amazing. You have not been able to connect with her. No, I think she dropped her last name. And so then it's hard to find people on my heavens, but she should find you. You did. You did keep your maiden name. So maybe someday she'll find you if maybe I remember those days because I could have been that hippie that is that hippie with it. And they were called platform shoes. Yes, literally. And a lot of us and a lot of us broke our ankles back then because of those platform shoes. I once went up, went up for a layup and playing basketball with Rick's brother and came down and broke my ankle. But anyway, that's another story. So let's talk a little bit about your art. And in the medium, you primarily use our watercolorist, which is extremely difficult painting and you've done some oil. Talk to us about what the inspiration is for your work and what moves you and what and what you see in your mind when you move for to do some new projects. Right. I think I'm always looking for the next thing that kind of hits you over the head where you're just like, what this is amazing. And early years was the train station and the train yard. And I did some pretty gritty paintings down, got permission to be in the train yard and did a bunch of watercolors there. Later, more industrial was in ran plants. I've also done projects on African dance, swimming holes. So you're kind of always looking for a theme that you can kind of really dig your dig your nails into. And the watercolors for me are just so familiar. I I've got so much time into learning that craft that I know they're hard. But I feel like I kind of understand what they're going to do. And I had a great teacher, Larry Goldsmith, who really taught me to paint wet on wet, just start wet and let it go and not panic. And and that takes some time to kind of be able to be brave and go, OK, here we go, this thing is going to take off on me. Oils have such a different feel to me because of the scale and this viscosity, there's no glass. So I also love oil painting, but for different reasons. And I kind of go through stages where I'm really practiced in one or the other. And then when I switch back, I'm a little I'm always surprised. I get a little rusty. I wouldn't think I would, but I do. So I'm always looking for like the next subject that will just kind of really push me in a new direction. So what's your subject now? What is your subject that you're working on now? What is what's the pandemic really kind of kind of put me in a place to paint really? I thought I was going to do all this new exploration about what I'm finding I keep doing is sunsets. It's just like I keep looking for the beauty because it's calming. And so I feel like I've really done many, many, many sunsets and just sort of more beautiful vistas that kind of take me to a place that's calm and that in a world that's sort of in a pretty uncomfortable place day to day for many reasons, I think that has been really helpful. It's kind of therapeutic to paint these really, you know, colors of skies and just letting them melt together. It's just like, OK, I can do this. So it's painting is therapy for you in the same way that music is for some people. Yeah, I would say that's true, because you can get lost in it, you know, to try to find that place where you forget about what time it is and you're just in that zone. It's kind of hard to get there sometimes, but if I can get to that zone, it's just really it's a restart and it's it's good. Well, that's what art does for humanity, whether it's whether it's theater or performing arts or the visual arts or music or poetry or writing, it does take you to another place. And art is what defines civilization. So let's talk a little bit about that. A lot of artists aren't aren't able to promote their work and actually make a living as an artist, and you have managed to do that in spades. And so I'd love for you to share a little bit with my viewers how you did that and and and and what sustains you in being able to create this incredible business. It's nationwide to take your work and your art, which heals you and put it out there to the world and actually make a living because not every not every artist can do that. Yeah, I feel like I have been extraordinarily fortunate. And part of that is just my family always being so supportive. But I think there's one part of it that doesn't have anything to do with me or my work. And that is who's to say which artists work is so one person said digestible that they want to own it. And I and that's kind of unfair. Like there's some incredibly talented people out there. But whether people pull out their checkbook or their Venmo, that's a whole other thing. And for some reason, I don't know why my work is something that people have wanted to own. And that's been just I think that's pure luck in a lot of way that what I paint happens to be desirable. And it's it's not about talent. It's just they're just interested in it and they want to have it. So I feel like I I reach a lot of people that way. And that's not something I really tried to do. It just happens. But then once I understood that people responded well, I think I am good at reminding people that I'm here. And we, you know, use our social media platforms and have openings and try to really make it. And then with our greeting card company, I mean, the greeting card company is wonderful because it's like mass marketing. You're sending out thousands of cards to stores where people can flip it over and go, oh, I want to see more of her work. So that part is again, sort of lucky that we've been able to sustain a greeting card company. That's not something that I would necessarily recommend because it takes incredible amount of time. Luckily, I have a husband who loves that job and that's his. If tomorrow we said, I don't want to ship cards anymore. I would just be like, just sell them on the rack. I'm not I wouldn't try to keep that that part of the business going. But it's a great marketing tool. So we've been lucky that way, too. Being able to talk to people is really not everybody can do that. Some people are really shy and it's hard to communicate. So I feel like I'm lucky. I have a background in which I don't share very often real estate for a little while. I sold real estate. And I think that was so hard to like have to open yourself up to people. And I think that really helped me be like braver about talking to new people.  And Alan, I years ago took on the greeting card business and you have your annual sale where you sell it. But the other thing about your work and I'm going to I'm just going to say this and I'm not being patronizing, you paint beautiful images that people relate to people can relate to your work, whether it's my looking at a painting of yours of camel sump of the mountain that I look at every morning and the way that you capture it and the colors that you capture, you have a way of taking the beauty or natural beauty or whatever you're painting and you make it relatable to people. And that is a talent. That's a gift and not everybody has that. But you have your show that you do. You have your studio. You have your card business. And the other thing about your work is it's affordable. It's not the fifty thousand dollar painting.  Well, that's and that's partly because as much as I always wished that I would be having shows in New York City by now and have paintings for fifty thousand dollars, that's just not how it went. It I just feel like my local patrons and the local folks have been so supportive of our business and of my work for so long. I never would have imagined that. And even during the beginning of the pandemic, I thought, wow, make a list of everything that you need in your life right now. And it's like, I'm last, you don't need art. And yet people came out in droves and were like, I'm going to support the arts. I'm not going on vacation.  So I was really I feel like I've been around in this business long enough that people not only like the work, but they're happy to support our family. And I feel like that's a little piece of it, too, which is really nice. I never had really any intention of being an artist or thinking about whether it's affordable or not. It's just I'm sort of more like, OK, this is working this week. Let's keep going.  It's just where it is. The prices do go up, but not that much. We are here to be now person and you live in the now, which is a which is a wonderful quality. But at the end of the day, I do believe if you wanted to have an exhibit in New York that you could if you wanted to. And if you want to destruct your life and your work in the way that your paintings were beyond the reach of most people and only hanging in the homes of the rich, that that wouldn't appeal to you, that you want people to be able to share your art. Yeah, do that. And that's a loving, caring, sharing way that you are. And so for that, you should embrace that. And I know you're honored for it. Do you believe that that art is what's defined civilization? Because I believe that. But do you do you get that? I don't. I don't think I could could agree. And not because I don't agree, because I haven't really thought about it very much. That's that's that's a big that's a big one. And I'd have to I'd have to put that in. Would you want to know why? Why? I get to tell me. Because because whenever you go back in time, years and years and years ago, whether it's what's been painted on the inside of caves, tens of thousands of years ago, or what you find in the chips of pottery that you find in the ground, that is what that is how we today define what that civilization was. And it's always the art. Yeah, that is interesting.  The books you purchase, maybe, maybe not. But art is something that people, if they like it, will hang on to for possibly generations. And that's pretty interesting to me. That thought of that is kind of like, oh, that's kind of cool. And not just me, but like in white in civilization and great artists of Monet or whoever then go like you do. Look back and go, wow, these things have lasted. And they tell the story of that time, that time. So I always say art is what defines them. But anyway, let's talk about Vermont.  So why Vermont? What is it that makes you love the state? What brought you here? What keeps you here? Share a little bit about that. I mean, I I knew from the time I was six or seven that I wanted to live in Vermont because growing up in and Connecticut, it's it's flat, it's hot, it's hot here, too. There's no large bodies of water, except for like the Long Island Sound and a few reservoirs. There's a lot of billboards. There was this huge influx of highlights. It was a huge bedding area, like lots of it just wasn't. It didn't feel like me and my people are so I always knew when I came to Vermont to ski, my dad got me skiing really early. I was just like, yeah, this is where I want to be. And it never went away, even in high school. Every Sunday afternoon, we pack up the station wagon and drive south back to Hartford. I was so depressing. I don't I love my family and my home there. But I just didn't feel like it was really my my place. I always wanted to be in Vermont. So as soon as I was 18, I went to Green Mountain College for two years and then went out to see Boulder for my last two years. And but I just knew I wanted to be in Vermont. So I just basically was reading about Bernie Sanders. And I was like, those are my people. I'm moving there. So I moved here very after I didn't get into UVM twice, not once twice. I was like, I'm living there. Even if I didn't get into the university, they can't stop me. And so I really never looked back. It's perfect for me. Well, you would so get into UVM today and as you get an honorable diploma from UVM because you certainly deserve it. So I'm putting that right out there. My viewers, I do want it. I do want to send my viewers to your website. Go to K. M. M. Studio. Dot com. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. A. M. M. Studio dot com. And you can look at all of Catherine Mondstream's work. You can learn about her life. It's a lovely website. Um, well, I'm glad you came to Vermont. I think you've made Vermont a better place to be here. And you've definitely made it made a lot of change happen here. So let's talk about a little bit of the state of our world. How can art transform society? Because I know back in my generation, we had a lot of music and art and a lot of I just learned about the fuzza's movement. I don't know. I mean, I'm pronouncing it right. But John Clacky shared with me a story you wrote about a couple of artists who started the the art movement where the the art transforms itself right in front of the viewer. But anyway, how do you feel art is transforming our society today to help fight some of the issues and challenges that we're facing today? Right. Again, for well, for me, it's it's it's so much more just visceral about me, my brain and then the paint. So it's I don't always get involved as much in thinking about like the bigger picture of what it brings to people or society. So I but I certainly think the the thing it can do is bring joy and distraction from a really hard, hard news that we're having day after day. That's also highly, highly stressful for everyone, even if you live in a beautiful place like Vermont, you read about the Ukraine, you read about Washington, DC, you read about another school shooting. It's like it's so painful. So I don't I don't know how we can really get so much transformation through art. But I think the the people people that are doing beautiful things or not even beautiful by doing really poignant pieces, whether it's performance or or other, I think it's really important that that continues to happen. My role there, I don't know other than just I would say joy and and distraction are the two things that come to mind and beauty. But Catherine, you are you you do speak up and you do paint for things that you believe in. And one of those was the Moran plant that the renovation. You were very, very involved. And when you get it, when you get into something, your paint will reflect that. I even think that the chili dippers, which I want you to talk about is a form is an art form.  Yeah, powerful, courageous women. That's an art form. That is performance art. Yeah, watch the videos and we look at the women and they're all beautiful, all different shapes and sizes and jumping in the water when it's 20 below zero. And that is performance art. So I do think that you have a message that you do. So let's talk a little bit about the chili dippers and about how that all came about. Right. Yeah. I never thought it would be something I would do, but I have one friend named Elise, who's just an amazing inspiration to me. And she had been doing it every month without missing a month for 12 years, 12 years. Like never missed a month. And I just was like, like so inspired by that. And I didn't really want to do it, but I did. So finally she would invite me. And finally, after maybe like a year's worth of emails, I was like, it was December. And I was like, I'm just, I just have to go do this. I'm going to go.  It's just like, I loved how brave and how proud of myself I was. So that really like kind of fueled this really amazing positivity that I felt for a long time. So once I did it once, I was like, oh, I want to go again. And then I started doing it regularly. And then the pandemic started and then I was getting texts. When are you going again? When people were desperate to be near each other, outside and to do something that would just like take them out of their head that was nearby. You didn't have to travel. And I think that sort of started it. And at that point I was like, wow, a lot of people really want to do this. I need to come up with a name. So I had all these dorky names, like Ladies of the Lake, no, The Seal Club, no. So my youngest daughter came up with it. She's like, mom, the red hot chili dippers. I was like, okay, done. It's perfect. And it just kind of grew from there, but mostly from the Instagram page, people would see the pictures and then say, how can I join you? When are you going again?  It's really a revolution that I didn't, obviously I didn't start it, but it's been going on. Well, you did start the revolution. And you have to take credit for that. You are one of the most humble, beautiful women I know. And I love your humility, but you did start a big movement. Talk to us about the benefits of Cold War, because I did do the penguin plunge for Special Olympics. Because of my age, it's not something that I can do regularly, because of my heart. But when I got in that freezing cold water, the water was almost hot. It felt hot to my body. It was amazing. And it wasn't amazing. And when I came out, Rick said to me, you look 20 years younger. I was so flushed and beautiful.  Talk to us a little bit about the health benefits and how people can get involved. Sure. I mean, for me, these are things that I don't really know. Wim Hof is the Dutchman who really has revolutionized this whole thing, at least in the current time.    Because at that point, your body's like, oh, we have to survive this. This is life-threatening. So everything, that's the part I love, is you just come out and you're just like, it's just you can just start fresh. And so I think, to me, that is always so, I look forward to that feeling, even though I don't. People think I love the cold water. I don't love it. I love what it does for me. There you go. Circulation, better circulation, inflammation, it lowers. There's all kinds of testimonials about what it's done for people, and amazing life letters that people have said, you have no idea. You will never know how much you've done for me. And it's been really interesting to hear those and feel them. It's like, wow. If people want to get involved, I have a nimble, small group that goes every day, all winter, but then we do a larger open dips, which are maybe once a week. And so there's an email chain that I will say, because I have to watch the weather. It's not like I can say every Wednesday at four, because if the wind is blowing really hard, or it's too cold, or even the path down to it is just like glossy ice, because the day before was waves. You just have to kind of do it a 24 hour ahead of time, because it is dangerous. I mean, I have to remind myself, it's not for everybody. And I don't want anyone to get hurt. There you go. And you have to think about that. But I love seeing, even down here in Huntington, seeing the women sitting down by the Huntington River in the middle of February, and they have the ice flows around them and they're sitting there in big smiles. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad that you're saying that you understand that it is challenging and there is a level of danger, but it also is a wonderful movement that you've started and it's helping people. And I congratulate you on that. So we have a few more minutes, Catherine, and I'd love to talk to you briefly about your wisdom for today's youth and how to face the world that they're facing. I know you have three children, tour just at that fabulous 200 mile bike ride for reproductive access. And I know Charlotte is involved too in helping to change the world as is your younger daughter, Bear. So share with us a little bit about your wisdom for today's youth, because I'm sure you share that with your own children. Yeah, I mean, I think mostly we try to set good examples of saying like these are important topics that you need to vote and show them that you vote. And you need to like find joy in your life. What is your passion? Is it riding your bike? Is it climbing? Whatever just helping them find things that where they can also get out of their own head because there's so much to worry about for, especially I think for our youth with Roe versus Wade being overturned and just so many things like the war. I mean, it just goes on and on and then just fear of going to school. I really ache for I think these younger people that have to kind of navigate so much. So I think finding your joy and to be able to find that and use it and also be an activist. There's nothing wrong with like speaking up or donating or however you can do something to work on climate change or whatever your passion is. I think that those are very satisfying things to do. And then lastly, find your people. There is, no matter what your stick is, there's people out there like you that will understand you. And I think that's really important because we can definitely feel isolated if we're a little different or if friends aren't being kind and you need to like find the people that do understand you and surround yourself with people that will share that love for your passions and also support. That's a great, that's such a beautiful message, Catherine. And just, that's exactly, I mean, that's just such a beautiful message and thank you for that. Well, we're coming to the end of our interview and I'm gonna ask you to stay on after I stop the recording. But I have just, I mean, basically we've grown up together. You've grown up from your 20s into your 50s and I grew from my 30s into my 70s. And I've always considered you just a bright light in my life and certainly the life of most Vermonters. And it's such a privilege to hear about your life and to hear about you and your work. And thank you for giving me this time. It's my pleasure. I've always loved hearing what you're up to and seeing you. And I hope to see you more now that you're not working as much. I hope I get to get my hands around you a little more. Maybe I'll show up at one of these chili dippers and just get myself in there. All right. And to my viewers, I wanna thank you for joining us today and I will see you again soon with another moment with Melinda. Thank you and goodbye.