Jagdeep Singh On Raising A $450M Series A Round To Build Robots To Transform The Future Of Work

0:00 Usually, it's not the risks you worry about that come back to bite you. It's the risks that you aren't worrying about that actually cause a problem. And so, the more you think about the risks up front, the more likely you are to be able to deal with them preemptively and and not let them come back and bite you. All righty. Hello everyone and welcome to the Dealmaker Show. So today we have a really a spectacular guest. You know, he's done it so many times, so many companies that I mean, just from counting, I I got dizzy. So I think that you guys are all going to be able to learn a lot. It's going to be quite inspiring. You know, the whole full life cycle of building, scaling, financing, exiting. He's done it multiple multiple times. And I think that you're all going to find the conversation of today really, really inspiring. So without further ado, let's welcome our guest today, Jack Deep Singh. Welcome to the show.

0:58 >> Hiro, pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. >> So born in Delhi. Uh obviously you don't remember much because you moved out of there at four years old to to the US. But but walk us through how was life, you know, growing up for you. Give us a walk through memory lane. >> Yeah, you know, so I I did grow up in the DC area. You know, I did start college a bit early at 15. Uh, and I remember um, you know, when I, uh, was, uh, still in high school, I think, seeing an episode, an issue of Time magazine with Steve Jobs on the cover.

1:30 Uh, and, uh, and that was pretty inspirational and I, uh, I felt like that's the that's the path I wanted to pursue was, you know, was entrepreneurship in the in the technology field. >> So, at 19 and not even not even waiting any longer, you moved to to the valley. Now, now there being in the Bay Area, I guess um I want to ask you like the whole problem solving because you went to study computer science. Where did that whole law for solving problems, you know, come from? Because I mean, in your case, you've been starting, you know, so many companies and so deep into into grabbing a problem and resolving. I mean, what where did the love for that come from? Yeah, I I think basically, you know, pretty much from that uh you know, that issue of Time magazine where I wanted to kind of follow in the footsteps of Steve Jobs. Uh but, you know, as I I realized I wanted to start a company, but you know, starting a company really just comes down to finding problems that need solving and then being able to solve them better than what has been done before. Uh I mean to be more precise uh you know over time I came up with sort of four key things that I think are required to do a great company. Um and these these learnings came over time but but uh at this point the last my last several companies have had these four things in common. Uh the first is you have to find a large unsolved problem. I mean you you can't build a great company in a small space right? So, it's got to be a big problem. And you define big by how many people have that problem times how much they're willing to pay uh per unit for that for the solution, right? So, it's got to be a big problem. But the second thing you need is you need it to be uh you need to have a differentiated solution. You need to solve that problem in a way that has not been solved, not been done before. Now, if it's a big unsolved problem, then you know uh chances are it's been looked at by others because it's a big problem. Uh and then the question becomes why have others not solved it? Uh and you have to be able to do a lot of research, understand why previous approaches haven't worked. You got to come up with a novel approach that's different that does solve the problem. Uh and that that's key because if it's not differentiated, then you're kind of in a commodity business and commodity businesses are just aren't fun because there's a lot of pricing pressure, the margins are low, you can't really reinvest in R&D and so on. So the second key thing is a differentiated solution.

3:51 The third key thing, obviously it goes without saying, uh, and this is kind of almost a cliche, but you really do need a world-class team, right? You need people who are the best at what they do. And you really don't want to settle there, especially with your co-founders. You really want to get people that are, you know, really deep in the domain, that have the IQ points, uh, that have the people skills ideally, uh, and have the history of getting things done, right? Getting results, not just talking, right? And the last thing that I look for in my companies and this is just this is not required for for every company but for the kind of companies that I do which tend to be more deep tech companies I look for early customer validation right before we even uh spend a dime on on on building anything I like to engage with with the potential customers and say look here's what we're thinking here's what we see as your problem here's how we think we can solve it is this compelling to you uh and if they say if they say you know yeah it's it's interesting come back when you a product uh that actually is not a good answer. The answer I want to hear is is uh uh well this is so compelling that we want to help you get this to market.

4:56 What can we do to help you make this thing real? That's when you know you got something interesting and that's when you kind of you know actually go off and do it. So those are the four things I look for. If you look at um you know my startups uh they've all to one extent or the other had those four things in common. So I've been doing a lot of different spaces as you know you know from telecom equipment to you know solid state batteries and now this you know AIdriven uh you know robotics um you know project but um the common things are those four things they all have attacked what I've seen to be really big unsolved problems they've all had very novel differentiated technical solutions uh they've had just exceptional teams and in every one of them we got early customer validation uh to give ourselves comfort that we're solving a real problem that needs solving. So in your case, I mean you you did the after your um your computer science degree and and basically the the masters I mean you were working at Huelet Puckard at you know a another company micro what was what was the other one it was >> Sun Micros Systemystems yeah >> Sun Microsystems yeah so what pushed you in your case to entrepreneurship >> again it's something that I'd wanted to do since before I was even in college right and All throughout college, I just kept wanting to, you know, uh, to to start companies. I did some, you know, I started little consulting companies when I was a computer science, you know, undergraduate trying to help people, you know, implement, uh, software systems for in their, you know, companies. Uh, and when I came out to California, uh, you know, to Silicon Valley, I realized this was kind of the epicenter of of entrepreneurship. And that just kind of fueled the fire, if you will. Uh and and so I've always wanted to do you know to to start a company. I I felt like you know I feel like um you know uh uh starting companies is the best way to make a sustainable impact right uh you you solve a problem that someone needs sol solved and you do it in a way that if you succeed generates you know an ongoing revenue stream and and an earning stream that allows you to fund you know uh additional innovation uh to keep making an impact right so it's kind of a self-sustaining uh paradigm >> but what were you waiting for you to really launch, you know, what became your first one, airsoft, because obviously you worked at these big companies and you knew that you wanted to do this, but what were you waiting for? I wasn't waiting. I was literally I was literally coming up with ideas all the time. I had I had these notebooks I would I would keep where I wrote down the ideas and I would really uh try to, you know, do the do the homework for each idea. You know, I say, "Here's a concept. Here's a problem I think is is a problem. Um, you know, how how big is this problem? people really care about this problem, you know, can I solve it?

7:41 What what are some different ways to solve it? Can I convince other great people to join me in this effort? Can I actually talk to some customers to see if this is if they really care about this? And then I would rule out the idea and I would go to the next page and start go through another idea. And I did that for years uh while I was still working at Hilipackard and Sun Microsystems. And finally um when I was doing my my uh my master's degree in computer science at Stanford um you know one of the ideas was this notion of um of building um uh of improving the uh the network protocols to allow them to work on very low bandwidth high latency networks of the type that were coming out with wireless and and remote access kind of networks. uh and and that one you know seemed to pass all the you know all all the checks that that I was trying to you know apply uh and and led to actually the first company but um before that there were many many ideas that didn't go anywhere so >> so so based on your experience obviously and all these companies that you've started where do ideas come you know from for you and and how do you go about validating until you finally like you know what this one I'll probably do something about it and and and dig deeper into this one.

8:48 >> It's a great question. I think you know you have to know you have to get to know a given domain deeply enough to understand what the you know what the open problems are in that domain right I think it's hard to be very you know to come in with a very shallow understanding of an area and really be able to identify uh truly important unsolved problems uh you do need to get deep into the space so I think like you know when when young entrepreneurs ask me what you know about you what what they do to help um come up with ideas.

9:22 Uh one of the pieces of advice I give them generally is well start by just getting deep into one domain you know either by working or by studying in that domain to try to get a sense for what the unsolved problems are. Uh and then once you have those some some ideas then you can start to engage with customers to validate whether the customer agrees with you or not. You can talk to technologists to see if your ideas for how to solve it are real. um you know you can um you know um try to see if you can get people to to join you in that in that uh in that uh quest. Uh but it starts with you know an understanding of a of a domain uh and and uh an idea of of what the open issues are in that space. Right.

10:03 >> So your first company uh airsoft I mean that's you you got financial independence on that one and you were 29 years old. I guess if if if you had the that younger self or maybe like other people that are going through like a nice uh liquidity event so early in their life, I mean what what would you tell that younger self or what would you tell those those people so that it doesn't get you know maybe too much to your head or or how would you go about that?

10:26 >> You mean before or after the liquidity event? >> Both. >> Yeah. I I think you know before the liquidity event you know as entrepreneurs are starting out the one piece of advice I'd give them is you know um it's important to do your own work and come up with your own um you know uh uh opinion on whether what you're doing makes sense or not right there's a lot of people that will have opinions uh and uh here's one one thing that I learned over the years that I kind of think is is very cool you're an investor so or you were an investor so you you you understand this but you know in investing there's a notion of being contrarian right if If you simply do uh invest in in in uh in stocks that that u everybody thinks you know uh are great stocks if that's the conventional wisdom then then uh it's already priced in and even if you're right there's not a lot of value to be created right uh but if you're contrarian and right then there's a lot of value to be created I think the same applies to to entrepreneurship right to ideas you want to pick an idea that is that's that's contrarian which means that not everybody body you talk to will agree that it's a good idea. In fact, if if everybody says it's a great idea, it's probably already too late because it's already priced in, if you will. Uh so, you know, you want, you know, one idea where where it's different from what everybody else thinks is the right way to do it. Uh and then you want to listen to the criticisms and see if you agree with them. Uh don't don't get swayed by the emotional, you know, aspect of the criticism. Just think about, you know, is um do I agree with the fundamental content of the criticism? And if you don't agree uh and and but you've heard the opinion but don't agree, great because then you have something that's contrarian uh that but you actually believe could could be uh could be done.

12:08 The trick though is to be contrarian and right. If you're contrarian and wrong, you're still wrong, right? So, and to be right, that's where you have to do all the homework upfront uh to make sure you you know you you really you're not just uh you know pursuing the idea because it's your idea, but that you've thought about all the things that can go wrong, all the issues, and you've convinced yourself that that in fact those issues are all addressable. So, that that's a really good paradigm for me to think about things is is to be contrarian and right. Uh and and um and so if that's what you're doing, then one of the things you have to learn is is um to um be willing to um you know not be swayed by criticism. Right? There'll be a lot of people who think what you're doing is wrong. It doesn't make sense. Uh and almost to see that as a as a good thing because it means that what you're doing is truly something that you know if it works would be would be contrarian.

12:59 Right. So, so in your case, I mean I mean we could we could go on and on with all the companies, but just so that people, you know, that are listening get get it. You did airsoft, then you did Lighter Networks, you know, that was acquired by Sienna literally 10 months in 550 million. I guess with that one specifically, I want to ask you about timing, you know, how how do you how do you think about M&A because 10 months in, you know, is quite early, you know, in the life cycle of the business. So at what point you know should a found or you know think about whether is a good time to get acquired or not?

13:34 >> Yeah, great question and and I learned a lesson from Leera actually because there was a funny story there because one of my investors was Venode Kosla. uh you might know V know it from from back then he was a client of Perkins >> and um uh you know when we started that company and and then the offer came in uh to get acquired um >> you know the other investors in that company were looking at the return they were making and they were making you know more than 10x their money and they were like wow this is a good return let's sell the company uh Vinode was the one guy who um saw the potential of what the company could become and he urged us not to sell uh you know he was like look you guys could build a really great independent company here. Don't don't sell this company. Uh in the end, um he actually he drove over on a Saturday to try to convince the management team not to sell. Uh the team in the end decided to sell. Um uh but but post the sale, the company ended up generating, you know, literally billions in revenue for for Sienna. Uh and there was no doubt in my mind that it could have been a great independent company. uh but I think the the lesson there is for me was you know every company I start now I don't start it with the intention of M&A I start it with the intention of building you know a permanent company that can really make an impact the industry u now if along the way you know somebody comes in and makes a crazy offer uh to buy the company well look the board has to consider that the board has a fiduciary responsibility to look at those options and they might choose to take the option but if you start a company with M&A as the as the uh as the the end goal then you're just not thinking big enough in my view uh to really make a big impact. Uh so I I like to start companies with the viewpoint of you know how can we build a permanent part of the economy uh and then if if an M&A happens because you know you got a crazy offer fine but that's not the primary the primary purpose.

15:23 >> That's amazing. Now obviously the then after that you did on Fiverr also acquired by Quest Communications and then after that you started Infinera and that one you took public and the IPO was 1.2 2 billion, you know, when you guys um, you know, went public, I guess, how is the experience of running, you know, one of those IPO uh process and then also like being the founder and the CEO of a company that is private versus public, you know, because that's a little bit of a of a different challenge.

15:53 >> It's a very different challenge. And, you know, it's so funny. Going public is like a uh things just flip overnight, right? before you're public, right? You're cash poor, but you don't care about the P&L uh because, you know, it's just paper losses, right? But you care about the cash balance a lot. Once you go public, you raise a lot of money. Now, you have a very strong balance sheet, but you can't really spend it because you have to, you know, you have to be P&L positive, right? So, you're constrained by your your your topline relative to how much you can spend. And that's a different mindset, right? Uh you also your you know your board of directors goes from being uh you know a bunch of bunch of capitalists who you know understand your business quite well because they were with you as a small private company um and and they're also the main stockholders to now becoming a board of people that are representing the shareholders. You have a lot of public shareholders. The board represents them. Uh but no one board member, you know, controls the company the way they do in in the private company case. Uh and that's a different paradigm as well. The other thing with public companies, of course, that is not fun is that, you know, you're now open to, you know, lawsuits, right?

16:54 Basically, securities lawsuits. There's a whole um there's a whole army of people out there whose job it is to to sue public companies and try to get a settlement and make some money. Uh so, you got to be very careful about what you say and how you manage all that. So, you know, there's pros and cons. Um you know, some people like running public companies, some people don't. Um, uh, to be candid, I don't know if I I love running public companies, but, uh, but I do love, um, you know, building building companies, and I think a lot more of the building happens while you're still private. And once you're public, it becomes a little more of a incremental kind of growth as opposed to, you know, the truly radical ideas, right? And talking about building companies, I mean after after this one, you know, you bought a Tesla and you saw, you know, the the inefficiencies um you know, that was going on there.

17:38 But you joined Kosla Ventures and you've been in and out of the VC, you know, kind of like space or or the or the side of the table, you know, that you're in whether it's as a founder, as an investor. tell us about that rotation that you have experienced in your career too and how do you think that has helped you you know in terms of uh thinking about differently in terms of the execution of building and scaling a company.

18:02 >> Yeah, I think it's been very helpful to be on the other side and see how VCs think about investments and what what they look for. Um I did realize that it wasn't what I wanted to do. Um you know obviously being a VC at a successful venture capital firm produces you know provides a good you know good living. you you can make a decent living and that's not a problem. But um you know the venture capital um sort of uh you know uh uh you know lifestyle if you will is one where you know you're you're involved in multiple companies but not very deeply in any one right uh and if that's the kind of person that that you are great it's a good lifestyle um for for me I tend to want to go deep into whatever I do and I wouldn't be happy just serving on a board uh and giving advice to the to the founders or CEO So uh and then going away basically I I just like to before I give advice I like to make sure that I understand the space really well uh the problem the technical approach the the customer needs and so on. And I I realized you know in through those venture capital um stints if you will that um that what made me the happiest was uh was picking one venture and going deep really being an operating guy in the end. uh and and and having learned that that's what I've been doing you know the whole time.

19:23 >> So after this you went to start QuantumCape also took it public you know but with this one you stayed for quite a while 14 years. What do you think kept you for so long? >> Well both Infinera and QuantumCape were you know pretty long ventures. I mean infant era was almost 10 years and and for QuantumCape it was it was 14 years. Um you know two main reasons. One one is you know the the technologies in both companies were were deep tech kind of difficult technologies. They both involved material science and and you know semiconductors in one case and you know battery fabrication in the other and so on. Um uh but you know the the companies were just it was fun. It was it was you know it was fun to grow those companies and and you know navigate all the challenges and and so they kept uh they were certainly kept my interest right. um uh uh the other companies that I've done over the years um you know uh uh we had these acquisition offers that came in and and the board decided to to take the offers and that's why uh those companies got got acquired but my preference is to build companies for the long run. So I I would like to do companies for you know 10 plus years at a at a stretch right >> and and and even if you were there for 14 years you were not getting bored at all because you were also doing stuff on the side like Rex room for example you started to there where you were the executive chairman that sold to Google for a billion uh and obviously you know that was the um the most immediate step before you getting started with your most recent baby I would say with Roda.

20:54 So talk to us about Roda, you know, how did the um the idea come knocking? Why did you think it was meaningful enough to take action and what what needed to happen for you to bring it to life and be where you are today? >> Yeah. Yeah. Roa I'm really excited about. Uh so you know we all we've all been following the AI revolution, right? And it really is a revolution that the world is going to be different post AI than it than it was preAI. Um and I took my first class in AI back in 2018. So it's that almost like uh seven eight years ago now eight years uh it was a class on um uh uh neuronet networks uh for natural language um and I remember the the um the um uh the the the transformer paper had just come out from Google uh and one of the authors actually came into the class to present the paper uh and nobody knew at the time how big this was going to be that this was going to lead to chat GPT and and the whole revolution of of AI Uh so as I was following the space what I realized was that obviously AI was going to be transformative but I also realized that um you know a lot of the big opportunities in AI were already uh addressed right so uh in language models in uh image generation models video generation models there already existed 800 pound gorillas in each of those spaces and I didn't want to do a company that was just another meto player in in in one of those spaces I was looking for an unsolved problem. And as I was looking around the industry, uh the one area where AI had not yet made an impact, where there was no 800 pound gorilla was in robotics, right? Robotics clearly needs uh intelligence for the robot to know what to do and how to solve problems in the physical world. Uh but nobody had figured out how to uh take robots from the laboratory where they're they can do kind of cool things into the real world. uh and the reason for that is because uh in the laboratory setting u you can basically control the the the setting that the robot is operating in and allow the setting to match the data set that you train the model on very closely. Uh in the real world the actual data set that you see diverges from the training data set and that divergence is enough to make the models fail. So these AI models uh that have worked great for language and image and video uh have not worked for for robotics uh and and that was a really in my mind uh one of the biggest unsolved problems in technology bringing AI to the physical world uh and that's why I got excited about trying to solve it here with ro >> and how have you guys too about capitalizing the operation because I mean after all these you know companies that you've done you know I'm sure that you were very intentional as to who you would bring in and and what would the process of doing so?

23:42 >> Yeah. So, you know, we knew this company uh, you know, was going to require a really solid balance sheet. This is not for the faint of heart. We wanted to do our own AI model. We wanted to do our own AI hardware, robotic hardware, uh, and, you know, sell to customers directly. Um, so we needed, you know, a good balance sheet. We wanted to go with investors that we had worked with that had shown that they were really supportive investors, that they were long-term thinkers, they cared about building, you know, uh, a real permanent part of the economy. Uh, and so we brought in a number of people that I've successfully worked with before. You know, I mentioned uh, you know, people like Ben Kosla, but also people like John Door, you know, uh, people like Bill Gates. These are all people that that have all invested in the company.

24:26 Uh we um uh uh have um uh raised uh uh $450 million in the series A. So it's enough capital. Uh and with that, you know, we're we're attacking the problem now. >> I mean, that's a hell of a series A. So So I mean, probably one of the largest series A that I have probably heard in a long time. So, um, how do you go about, you know, because I I do come across, you know, I'm sure that there's a lot of founders out there that, you know, it's kind of like out of the typical norm of a series A that you would see where a median average, you know, could be like around 10 10 to 15 million. How do you go about obviously, you know, you you go after sophisticated players that really understand what you're tackling, but how do you go about, you know, perhaps or or what can you tell founders that maybe are a little bit outside of the typical average and how to go about that and get investors to be a little more um educated or informed?

25:24 Well, I I think um you know uh there are there are uh I think four things that uh you want in an investor, right? Um uh you care about the investor's um you know uh uh uh name brand because their their credibility helps you in terms of attracting you know employees and customers and so on. uh you care about um uh you know their strategic advice and their value whether they can they can really give you you know value in terms of uh you know building uh the company. Uh you obviously care about their their money you know their capital and you care about um the network that they have. Do do they actually have like you know people they can deduce you with and so on. And um you know you really want to try to find people that have you know a lot to contribute on each of those metrics. So, it's not just money, but it's uh it's money that comes with a network, money that comes with credibility, uh you know, money that comes with with actual advice that that you can that you can uh you know, that can help you build build your business.

26:28 So, I've been lucky because this is my I guess my seventh startup now and I've been able to work with a lot of great VCs over the last, you know, many years uh to be able to tap into those networks. If you're starting out from scratch as an entrepreneur, it's a bit harder. You know, you're kind of, you know, unproven, so there's a bit more skepticism. Uh but I think in the end if you have those four things I mentioned at the beginning, if you have a big unsolved problem, if you have a um differentiated solution, uh if you have an exceptional team, uh and if you have customer validation, uh then I think you have a pretty good chance of of bringing in some some great investors uh you know, at good valuations.

27:05 >> So what does a great investor look like? If you had to break that down, what does what does that look like? Again, I would say those four things for the investors, right? The, you know, uh how good is their network? How much experience do they have relative to building other companies so they can give you advice? Um you know how um you know uh uh you know how much how much you know you know you know cash can they put in basically these are all the things that I think you know create a great investor.

27:36 So, um, obviously, you know, when when when you get investors on board, um, they're betting on a vision, right? On on a big vision, and that's what obviously what you guys are are doing with ROA. And talking about that, if you were to go to sleep tonight, Jack Deep, and and you wake up in a world where the vision of ROA is fully realized, what does that world look like? >> Yeah. I mean to be candid in the fullness of time we think um what we're doing transforms the future of work right uh so the these robots are general purpose uh and they're intended to basically do any task right now we're starting out in the near term with very with a very specific focus on manufacturing and logistics tasks u because those are tasks that we think u you know uh uh customers you know actually are willing to pay for Today uh in the fullness of time though uh all tasks whether it's you know actual manufacturing logistics or whether it's you know household robots doing your laundry and your dishes and your cleaning um you could have robots driving your car for you if you don't want to have a self-driving car. You know all that is within the realm of possibility. Um you know labor in the United States alone is on the order of uh from numbers I've seen between four and five trillion dollars a year. um you know and that's just US worldwide it's probably north of double that north of$10 trillion dollars a year um and if you can you know uh have robots do all that all that labor uh then that's probably the biggest transformation in how humans live since um you know uh well since the in recorded history right I mean uh you know we we uh there's only once in human history that you actually um you know transition to a point where you know u machine intelligence becomes smarter than humans uh and we may be living in that era now. So I think I think that um you know uh it's uh the long-term impact is is truly truly transformative.

29:42 >> So I guess um you know you were alluding to earlier and we were talking about it you know the caliber of people that you've been able to to bring on board is is really spectacular. you know, for >> for a kid that went from uh DC to the to the Silicon Valley and being able to uh to to to do what you've been able to do. I'm I'm sure that surrounding yourself by the right people has been critical.

30:05 Um how how do you think people should be intentional about, you know, building their network as founders? >> I think it's probably one of the most important things you can do as a founder, right? If you you know, people ask me how do you you know, you say you want to build an exceptional team or a world-class team, how do you do it? And I say, look, this is exactly where you need to prove your worth as a founder.

30:22 Right? If you are if you're a founder worth your salt, you've got to be able to convince the best people in the world, people who have great jobs working at the best companies in the world to leave those great jobs at great companies and come join you in your vision. And how do you do that? Well, there's no one formula. It's a mix of using, you know, the power of the vision, using your personal charm, using, you know, fear, uh, greed, right?

30:45 I mean basically whatever whatever is required in the end you know you need to be able to convince these you know incredible people who are very well taken care of wherever they are because they're so good to to to leave what they're doing and and you know uh and um you know uh uh uh drop the opportunity cost of of of the the the second best opportunity come join you uh in pursuing this uh and and you know if you can do that you you're cut out to be a great entrepreneur. If you can't do that then, you know, then uh you're not an entrepreneur. I need to keep working on on on improving those skills. Um so I think you know that's important. This also ties into I think the question you asked about investors. You know you asked me what what I look for in a great investor and there is one thing in common that I think great investors and and and great team members have in common or have to have which is they both have to have uh you know a um complete belief in the vision of what you're doing right. uh they have to have complete buy in and have to be super excited about uh about the idea and and and the potential you know impact of society if you succeed. Uh so you want people who really you know buy into the the overall story because you don't want founders uh at the helm who are you know half bought in right and by but but let me be careful when I say people who are bought in I don't mean people who are uh just yesmen right I mean you can have people who believe in the vision but there has to be that tension where they have you know once you buy into the vision then it all becomes about what are the risks in executing this vision and you've got to have people who along with you are willing to brainstorm everything that can go wrong, right? And then you can systematically say, okay, which of these risks is the biggest risk in terms of both probability and and magnitude of impact? And you can start you can literally rank order the lists and start addressing them one by one.

32:38 And that becomes your execution plan is think of your execution plan as being a risk reduction plan. uh and and um you know to to think about the risks you need people who are not just yesmen but who can who can really you know think about you know who can who can almost be paranoid about what can go wrong that's one of the actually another key things that you need as an entrepreneur is a sense of paranoia right you have to be you have to be your job as CEO or or co-founder is to be the chief risk officer of the company which means you got to be thinking about you know you know how many ways can this go wrong.

33:12 And then for every one of those different ways it can go wrong, you know, you need a you need someone who's worrying about it more than you are. And you need a plan for how to address those risks. Uh now, some of those risks will will, you know, uh be be mitigated, but some some will not. Uh and and then you have to react to the risks that that have happening. My personal experience has been usually it's not the risks you worry about that come back to bite you.

33:36 It's the risks that you aren't worrying about that actually cause a problem. Uh, and so the more you think about the risk up front, the more likely you are to be able to deal with them preemptively and and not let them come back and bite you. >> I love that. So, Jack, for the people that are listening that would love to reach out, you know, say hi, learn more about ROA. What What can you tell them?

33:54 >> Yeah, so um you know, we uh by the time this airs, we will be uh you know, out of stealth and we're going to be you know, we have a full website up roa.ai. Um we know we we'd uh we welcome the you know the the uh you know people that have uh you know uh this uh uh this ambition to bring robots into the into the world out of the lab and into the world uh to reach out to us. Uh we think there's you know huge opportunities uh here to to both help them grow and also help them make an impact with what we're doing. Uh and the best way to reach us would be through our our website at ro.ai.

34:29 >> Amazing. Well Dr. Tape thank you so much for being on the Dealmaker show today. It has been an absolute honor to have you with us, >> Alandro. My pleasure is all mine.