Jason Calacanis: Welcome everybody to The Sunday Show. It is VC Sunday School and This Week in Climate Startups. Today I talked to Emily Kirsch, who is the Managing Director of Powerhouse Ventures, investing in climate tech startups. Aren't we all? However, Powerhouse Ventures has actually been around a very long time as far as these things are concerned and was in fact a twist guest on episode 614 way back in 2016 and a panelist at a launch event that same year. It's a great

SPEAKER_03: interview. And we can't wait to catch up with Emily. She is a great guest. So congratulations

SPEAKER_04: on that. But first, Molly has some questions about investing in private companies in a downturn when the stock market crashes. What is it like for private market investors and companies? So we're going to go over that in our first up VC Sunday School segment. It's going to be an amazing show. Stick with us.

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SPEAKER_04: where I, as an 11-year investor, give some advice and answer some questions and mentor. I take her to church. We go to church, Molly and I, and we pray at the capital, at the altar of capitalism.

SPEAKER_14: Right now, Molly's world friends are just like, what happened to you, Molly? Your world friends are like,

SPEAKER_19: oh, Molly. They really are. They're just like, who are you? And also a little mild blasphemy to start the day. You free market monster. No, you're using the free market to solve

SPEAKER_23: a big problem in the world, which is climate and sustainability and all that important stuff. So let's get right to it, Molly. Well, you've been thinking this past week and we've been DMing and

SPEAKER_24: talking about the down market because the stock market has been correcting a bit. What's your

Jason Calacanis: question for me this week? Yeah. And if you saw our interview earlier this week with Alex Wilhelm from TechCrunch, we talk about the IPO market, what the future looks like for startups. And I have a very practical question about how this affects our business, but I'm going to put it in personal terms, which is like, do I have the worst time ever timing? Is this a bad time for me to have

SPEAKER_27: come to venture? Quite the opposite. Great. The down market is where fortunes are made. They're

SPEAKER_04: collected in the up market. I started my career as an investor investing in the down market after the Great Recession in 2008. And I look like a genius because I invested in Uber and Robin and all these other companies, which grew through the down market into the up market, went public, and then you collect at the height of the market. That is the ultimate timing if you can do it. So if in fact, this is a crash and a correction, if it's clearly a correction, if it winds up being a crash, your time would be perfect. Because let's talk about the fundamental nature of a startup company. I talk about this all the time. So it's not going to be news to anybody. But a startup company is a product that is made by a team that hits customers. And then that flywheel gets going. So let's break down each of those three in a down market. So if the market is down, let's say a market crash, the stock market is at half, unemployment is high, and people are a little bit scared and that it's a recession, right? So we'll just pretend that's what's going to happen in 2022. Okay, I don't think that's what's going to

SPEAKER_24: happen. But for the sake of debate, let's say, unemployment is high, the stock market is down 30, 40, 50%. And people are a little bit scared for the next year or two. What happens to a startup's

SPEAKER_23: product? Well, nothing, they're making the product in their office, you know, in their lab, it has no impact. You can build a great product independent of the stock market. So if we define the crash as the NASDAQ lost a third of its value, and the Dow lost a third of its value, would that impact

SPEAKER_24: product creation? No. Would it impact your team? Well, maybe. And the impact would be there would be more team members available because there would be more layoffs. And the price you'd have to pay to hire that team would be lower, because it wouldn't be as much competition if it was in fact a crash. So typically, the companies that do survive in a down market have lower salaries and more talent

SPEAKER_04: available, especially because some of those people would have started their own company. So your CTO, your CMO, your director of sales, they might have started their own company. But because the market's correcting, they're too scared, or there isn't that opportunity because there aren't as many investors. So therefore, they go work. So you have talent consolidates in a down market to the winning ideas. And then finally, you have customers. How does it change for customers? Well, there might be less customers, they might have less money to spend. But generally speaking, if you're a B2B software, and you're a startup, you don't have that many customers. It's not like you're Netflix at scale, or Tesla at scale. And people are saying, you know what, I'm not going to buy a car for the next three years, or I'm not going to go on vacation, I'm going to do a staycation. So because you're so nascent, you don't really need that many customers. So again, it doesn't really impact you that much. That is the lens for the startup. Questions?

SPEAKER_32: Does it become harder for you the startup to raise money, though? Do we in venture capital have less money?

SPEAKER_04: Okay, so generally speaking, venture capitalists are always raising funds every two to three years, sometimes three or four in the old days, now it's two or three, they raise funds. And the people who are giving them money are really rich people, who have been through cycles before, and they invest through cycles. Now you may lose some of the looky loos, the first time fund managers, the first time LPs, because they're licking their wounds, or maybe the check sizes will be smaller. So instead of putting in a million dollars as a high net worth individual, they put in 250. But they

SPEAKER_24: still know they need to put money to work. And they're looking for where to put money to work. And they know that fortunes are made in the down market and collected in the up market, as I always say. So yeah, it might extend the amount of time it takes to close a fund, the fund might be smaller, but funds will still get closed, just not for new fund managers. So that ease at which new fund managers were starting funds that could be more difficult for established fund managers, probably

SPEAKER_32: very little difference. Great, all good news. And then I wonder, how does it start to impact

Jason Calacanis: diligence? Like, right now, money is falling out of trees, right? And so everybody's sort of acting like, I don't have time to give you the bank statements, or, you know, I have people beating down my door, I would imagine that in a in a downturn, you have a higher possibility of investing

SPEAKER_39: in companies that like you can you can be tight as right, and not lose out on deals as a result.

SPEAKER_04: So there'll be the velocity in which deals get funded will slow in a down market, and people will be more cautious, and they'll look for more traction. So all of that will be true. And valuations will come down, because people will see the outcomes come down. So if they look at Coinbase, or they look at Airbnb, or they look at Uber, and it's not trading at its all time highs, or Peloton came back down to earth, they'll say, Okay, the outcome for this company that looks like Peloton is not, you know, 50 billion, it's 8 billion, or the outcome for GoPuff and Instacart is somewhere between DoorDash's and Uber Eats, and what Postmates went for. So they actually will look at the outcomes, and then say, Okay, well, how do I make 100 times my money or 50 times my money? And those early stage valuations will come down, it just takes a little while to reach that level. So we're not seeing them plummet right now. But we are seeing people slow down and think before they bet. Does that make

SPEAKER_24: sense? Yeah, they're thinking a little bit more before they bet and they're and the idea that like a diligence request would be like, nobody else is asking for diligence, will go down because the person who is the founder will need the money. And they don't have some dopey, you know, 50 dopey angels who put in money in a party round and nobody checks if the company's incorporated or has any lawsuits against it. Like literally, if you're if you're 50 angel investors putting in $25,000 each to, you know, raise a million bucks or more for a startup, and nobody's diligencing it, nobody's reading the docs, there might be some funky stuff in the docs. And nobody asked,

SPEAKER_04: you know, in basic diligence, has the company been sued? Or has anybody threatened legal action? And have you received any legal letters? That's how we phrase it, you know, professionals, when you do diligence, not only have you been sued, because we can find that in public records, has anybody threatened to sue you? Has anybody sent you a legal letter on behalf of their counsel? Or has anybody orally, you know, former employee IP holder threatened litigation? But in a hot market, you're right, like maybe people will not even ask that question, or there's a number of funding sources that are party rounds, and the founder is so hot, they can just raise and people will take that risk. Yeah, so people's risk profile changes in a down market, they do get more conservative.

Jason Calacanis: I do. I want to get back to the down market. But for as long as I have you, and it's yeah, here we are in church, in an up market. I mean, one thing I have noticed already in the almost a month that I've been here is that our standards don't seem to change. And I like that, right? Our standards are high as a firm, we don't tolerate those shenanigans, or at least we're like, Okay, well, great, if you don't want to give us you don't want to participate properly, in diligence, then we don't want to do the deal. Is it hard to or was it hard early on to resist that? Like when you're in a really hot market, and things are really competitive? You know, even I fell into a little bit of the like auction frenzy where it was just like, Well, everybody's in on this and I have FOMO.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, here's the thing about FOMO. To be successful, you do not need to invest in every

SPEAKER_24: unicorn, you need to hit one in your career. So this would be as if in the NBA, you could hit a full quarter half court shot and get the title for the year. That would be like a weird rule, right? Like if I could pass the ball to somebody under the opponent's bat under your basket, and you do a full court shot. And if you hit it and don't hit the rim, it's nothing but net, you win your championship. Like there's like a weird rule like to this game. So if you happen to come out and you're the early investor in Coinbase like Gary Tan was, and you hit that half court shot, you're made. And it makes no logical sense that there would be a rule like that. But that is the nature of what we do. Therefore, you don't have to hit everything and you don't need to have FOMO.

SPEAKER_23: And once you realize this game is rigged in favor of people who have discipline and invest consistently over time, and who take the work seriously, you can then take that approach. So

SPEAKER_04: that's what I told my team. Let's pick how we like to work. Let's look at the process. Let's define a process. And let's stick to that process. And the process for us is we back builders. If the person who is pitching us doesn't actually build the product, and they don't have people in the company who build the product, and we've never met the builders, it's not a company for us, not for our firm. We like builders, because all the success we've had has come from people who know how to build great product. That's a great starting point. And then when do we invest? Well, we like to invest when they have modest early traction, or they're a serial founder. Okay, great. Anything that's not that we can say, you know what, we'll wait for the next round. And we're high profile enough, we provide enough value, we increase the chances of a startup's success. And we can say that to a founder, like, we're going to increase your chances of success and lower your chances of failure. And if you can look a founder in the eyes and say, Listen, if we're your partner, lower chance of failure, higher chance of success, and we're going to go to war with you, then you but we want to wait to the next

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Jason Calacanis: 500 coupons right now. Okay, now let's talk about future returns. That does seem to be the only other risk factor when it comes to investing in a down market. And in fact, Bestie, David Sachs, tweeted earlier this month, when exit prices are great, entry prices are lousy, which of course, right, if everything is like the valuations through the roof, it costs a lot to get into around. But he says when entry prices are great, exit prices are lousy. This is a riff on my classic line,

SPEAKER_23: which is fortunes are made in the down market and collected in the up market. If you invested in

SPEAKER_69: Coinbase, tweeting each other all the time. So what's happening?

SPEAKER_23: Well, no, I mean, it's it comes from spending hours a week together talking about and, you know, debating our strategies. Right. And the issue he's had, and I've had over the last year or two is like, this is valuation makes sense. And if it doesn't, yeah, sometimes you got to pass. And sometimes you feel like you're overpaying. I don't mind overpaying. But I would like there to be some basis in reality or logic to the overpaying, right? If you were to overpay to stay, you know, at

SPEAKER_04: an incredible resort during the Super Bowl, you'd be like, Well, it doesn't make sense to stay at this five, this, you know, Ritz Carlton, and pay 1500 a night for two nights, and pay $3,000 when it's normally $500 a night, but you'd be like, but it's a Super Bowl. So there's a reason why I'm overpaying because I'm here for the Super Bowl, it's gonna be dope, it's gonna be a once in a lifetime experience. So that's like, I'll overpay for a certain experience, a certain company. If it's like, okay, their first 10 customers are spending twice as much this year as they did last year. Okay, good. That's a reason to overpay. Or they have this like incredible management team that formally worked together at Uber, and they know growth, and the growth team from Uber left to start this new company. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I'll overpay for that. So you should have a reason. I think you have to have a reason to overpay not other people overpaid. That's stupid. I think so have a reason.

Jason Calacanis: There must be some risk. Maybe it's not even risk, right? But it's clear that the way funds operate, it's sort of a series of windows like you have invested at this time, returns come in at this time. And that at some point, the window is going to include a time when you invested during a bubble, when things are really hot, and valuations were just high because they're set by the market. So even

SPEAKER_39: if you didn't overpay at that time, there is still a risk that your return when you get to the end

SPEAKER_04: of that window could be lower? It's possible here's what you want to do. As best as I can tell 11 years into this and having as a journalist live through two cycles. So I'm a three cycle guy now I kind of see it. I think you consistently invest in great companies, when they are proving themselves to be great companies, you try to put as much money as possible into it. So you keep investing. So you're riding your winners. Then if the market is really hot, over the last 18 months, we've spent more time helping our existing portfolios raise money during this hot market than investing in new companies. So before you got here, I had a conversation with Jackie and Ashley, two of my top lieutenants, managing directors here, who are your peers, right? You're the three of you are my three managing directors. I said to them, Listen, the market's crazy hot, it's hard to get in these deals, people don't want to do diligence. And these prices are crazy high. We're still going to

SPEAKER_24: invest. But can you ask every I asked Jackie, who's incredible, Jackie, just ask every company if they're raising planning on raising if so when, and then if they're confused about it, have a conversation with them about how wonderful a time it is to raise money. This was 18 months ago. Then I said, Jackie, every meeting we have with our team or staff meeting on Wednesday, I want you to present to us which of our companies are raising and at what stage and she started sharing that metric. So if you go into the weekly charts, you can see over the last six months, how that charts changed. It's been out of our we've invested in over 300 companies, let's say 200 active, it's been 50 60 70 companies are raising money right now in the last 18 months. And then they keep raising at higher and higher valuations. That's good for us, especially if they're raising large amounts of money, because then they reduce the risk of ruin, and they get closer to being default alive. So my belief was in a hot market, sell shares of your company and get your existing companies cashed up. And then on the priority list is investing in new companies. So

SPEAKER_23: you can just change the priorities. Yeah, in a down market, we're going to want to invest in more companies. And we're going to want to own more of the winners. So it's like a gambling strategy, you

SPEAKER_24: know, like if you play poker, yeah, play good play good cards, good starting hands like see, that's always good advice. And play late position is always good advice, because you get more information. And getting up from the table with chips when you're up is always better than leaving when you're down. Right. So we sold small percentages 10 20% of our ownership in unicorns early. Some people would be saying, Oh, you sold too early, but walking in a win. You know, it's only 10 20% of your returns. That's a pretty

SPEAKER_76: good idea. I think. That's everything. Okay. And then finally, I love that. Let's do a little fan service for startups. Because obviously, we have a ton of founders listening. And we have notice in

SPEAKER_04: here. So if nobody's have one or two questions, maybe we have notice in here who are loving this

Jason Calacanis: segment. I'm glad to see that we all get to learn together. But for those founders, how how does this

SPEAKER_93: change? For example, should your runway be a lot longer? I always like to have 18 months of runway

SPEAKER_04: in any company I run. So if you look at launch our fund, we always have something like that. Why do I like to have that? Well, I don't want to have to make a knee jerk reaction and lay off talent. If the market hits the skids, I would like to have plenty of time to make that decision and keep my talent here, because most of the skids last six to 12 months, you got 18 months of runway, you can you have enough altitude to land the plane safely if you needed to, right? And you have a, or if it was a car, you know, you've got enough space around you to stop the car, right? You're not tailgating somebody. So I think 18 months always the right thing. And you can, if you feel like you're burning too much cash in the market is correcting, you could lay off some people and lower your burn. I don't know if

SPEAKER_24: that's the right thing to do right now. But I like to stay at 18 months. Then I think being focused on being default alive in Paul Graham's parlance, which is, can you get to profitability on the money you have in the bank? Can you get to profitability on the money you have in the bank? If you have a million dollars in the bank, and you're burning 250k a month, you're not going to get magically 250k in revenue, you know, by month five, to hit break even. Now, if you're burning 50k a month, and you have a million in the bank, well, you've got 20 months to get there. If you're making 10k a month right now, and you double it every six months, you'll easily get to that 50k, you'll be default alive. So there's some recognition of can I get to default alive aka, also known as profitability, that is wise for founders. And then the companies that are in favor, will move from potential to performance. So you'll see investors give greater value to quality revenue. As we talked about with Alice Wilhelm on the show, we talked about IPOs, that same quality of revenue will become more prominent, your frugality or efficiency, all of those things will become a topic because people will realize you can't

SPEAKER_04: raise as much money as frequently. So therefore, the money has to go further. So just a little

SPEAKER_96: discipline goes a long way in.

Jason Calacanis: In fact, we are really starting to see this become a hot topic right now because everybody's having all the same questions. Jason Lemkin tweeted downturns are an ally. If you have more than 24 months of runway, you push on even harder while they play some defense. So start to use your money as a moat, if you're just like in a poker tournament, if somebody has a huge chip stack,

SPEAKER_04: and you have a small one, you raise, they're just going to re-raise you every time and put you to the test. Because if you go all in, and they could put you all in 20 times, and they have a third chance of winning, they've only got to put you in a couple of times before they're almost guaranteed to knock you out, you'd have to get very lucky. So a competitor, let's say it's GoPuff, and they had, they had like seven or eight of these competitors. If GoPuff has a billion dollars in the bank,

SPEAKER_55: well, they don't have to worry about those competitors. And in fact, they could do things that might be considered anti competitive, like, figure out what three markets are the most profitable for their competitor, go into those markets, and give everybody discount codes. I'm not saying Uber ever did that. But I may have heard some people say that maybe they did

SPEAKER_06: give discounts in markets where our competitor was strong.

SPEAKER_04: WeWork. WeWork. Yeah, like WeWork could go into a place where they know some, you know, office sharing place is doing really well. And they can have a better office space, and charge less for it, put that person out of business gain market share because they have a big chip stack. And what does that person do they have to then react and lower their prices, or lose their customers, or they could go to everybody in your building and say, Hey, if you move to WeWork, we'll give you six months free rent. And then those people start breaking their leases. So there's,

SPEAKER_24: you know, or you could do with drivers, you go to the drivers and say, Hey, if you do 100 rides with us, we'll give you $1,000 bonus. And there was all these ride incentives, you remember, driver incentives, and it was driver incentives, you know, I think we're a big reason why Uber just

SPEAKER_63: absolutely dominated Lyft for so long, when my guy was running it.

SPEAKER_103: And this is how you murder.

SPEAKER_75: Do we have any questions from the notice? I mean, yeah, like, I'm from the murder capital of the world.

Jason Calacanis: If you're disciplined enough to use your money as a moat, you're gonna be doing a great job. No matter what we murder. And I feel like that goes for funds and startups full,

SPEAKER_107: right? Like the lesson is the same. Tide is right.

SPEAKER_03: In every market where they weren't number one, in billion dollar loser, they did what I

David Friedberg: explained. So let's get to this Emily Kirsch interview. I got to hear this interview. She's great. I'm so jelly. I'm so jelly that you got to interview her.

SPEAKER_04: Oh, I had no idea you knew her. I would have invited you. No, I feel like Sundays, you got to stand on your own. And it's like, it's got to be your passion. Well, you know, good news about Emily. She's a fellow

Jason Calacanis: Oaklander. So if you feel like making a track, we can all drink.

SPEAKER_04: Do you got a great Chinese food restaurant? Because I'm in love with Chinese food and Peking duck. If we can find a great East Bay Chinese food restaurant, I'll come out for Peking duck.

SPEAKER_113: All right. It's a challenge. All right. Here she comes. So any of that Emily Kirsch, we'll do we'll do it. We're going to Oakland,

SPEAKER_04: Chinatown. It's like, Oh, is there a Chinatown in Oakland is good? Yes. Oh, I'm coming out. Let's do it. Let's do a Sunday. Let's do a Sunday dim something we'll go to bring the New York

SPEAKER_93: Times will be great. Done and done. All right. Next up, Emily Kirsch from powerhouse ventures. It'll be a great episode.

SPEAKER_102: Hey, let's talk about CODA. Last year, I interviewed CODA CEO,

SPEAKER_55: Shashir on episode 1160. Go back and look at that. And we spoke about the productivity renaissance going on in tech right now.

SPEAKER_24: And well, that's what CODA is all about. In CODA, your text and tables live together in the same documents, and all your valuable data plans, objectives and strategies are all in one place. So this helps any team collaborate more efficiently, especially in this right first world that we're in remote world. They've got 1000s of templates for you to work, or you can take the playbook published by some of the best innovators out there and use them for yourself. It's right there ready for you to read duplicate and start using. For example, if you want to map out your OKRs the same way Pinterest does, it's right there. You can read it, duplicate it and start using it. So CODA works right out of the box. It's totally customizable. And you can create a wiki or a knowledge hub for your team. You can onboard new hires quickly, and you can adapt fast to any major or minor changes in your business. What CODA can do is exciting. But what's even more exciting is what startups can do with CODA. So here is an amazing program for startups they've created. They're going to give you $1,000 in credit. I kid you not $1,000 in credit right now if you go to

SPEAKER_26: CODA.io slash twist CODA.io slash twist. Emily Kirsch, founder and CEO of

SPEAKER_115: Powerhouse. Thanks for coming on. Hello, Molly. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. How's week? Is this week two? Week three?

SPEAKER_116: This is week four. I'm halfway through week four. I'm almost a month in.

SPEAKER_107: Yeah. I mean, I've given up on the idea of sleep. And no insanity. No, it's so exciting. I mean, you know this from what you do like it is just thrilling. It's so fundamentally optimistic. I have talked to companies that are trying to solve real

SPEAKER_118: problems. I've talked to like bonkers moonshot companies. I've sort of said like my first yes and my first no. I mean, it's all happening. It's thrilling.

SPEAKER_121: Nice. Congrats. It's so exciting. And you're right. It's the climate crisis is so daunting. But when you get to work on solutions every single day, it gives me and I think everyone who gets to work on solutions, a sense of hope and optimism that otherwise I think would be really hard to have.

SPEAKER_107: I think it really would be. I actually feel really grateful that I get to. I mean, it's it's wonderful to talk to founders anyway. They're just a positive force on the world and they're trying to make real change almost in, you know, no matter what they're doing, but particularly around the climate crisis. And it is it is like a great way to combat anxiety. Climate anxiety.

SPEAKER_127: For sure. For sure. Yeah. This podcast. It's like therapy.

Jason Calacanis: It totally is. Exactly. We may be crying later. We just want to warn you now.

SPEAKER_128: But hopefully not. I'm a crier. So I'm ready at all times.

Jason Calacanis: Me too. Oh, we're doomed. We're doomed. No, we're saved. Or we're saved. Exactly. It's going to be phenomenal because

SPEAKER_107: we're going to it's going to be happy tears of hope and joy. Exactly. Exactly. Um, and that's our like title for So Emily, tell me about Powerhouse. You're the founder and CEO of Powerhouse and the managing partner of Powerhouse Ventures. What are those two things and what is the difference?

SPEAKER_121: Sure. So really high level. Powerhouse is an innovation firm that works with globally leading corporations to help them find and partner with and invest in and even acquire the most innovative startups in clean energy, mobility and climate. So that's the company, Powerhouse. And then Powerhouse Ventures, the fund, we back seed stage startups, building innovative software to rapidly decarbonize our global energy and mobility system. So I know we share that kind of software focus

SPEAKER_107: between the funds. When did the venture fund start? Was it was spun out of Powerhouse, the company?

SPEAKER_137: It did exactly. And it was June 2018 when we started investing. Okay. So it's funny because that is

SPEAKER_107: not that long in an objective number of years, but in terms of investing in climate tech, which is

SPEAKER_141: super hot now, you were like, oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. Powerhouse is certainly kind of OG in the space having been around for nine years, which even that feels like nothing. And to some who have been in the industry for decades, it is. But, but to others and so many who are new to the industry, it is a long time. And the fund as well, we will end the first fund with 26 portfolio companies. So,

SPEAKER_107: so, yeah, we've been been busy for that time. Yeah. Tell me about that software focus. That is, I think, sort of the question for climate tech investors, right? Is like, are you software focused? Are you meat space? Are you deep R&D? What made you pick that lane and how has it turned out?

SPEAKER_121: Yeah, definitely. So the energy and mobility sectors represent the technology and infrastructure backbone of a carbon free economy. And energy and mobility together constitute over two thirds of GHG emissions in the US. And climate tech solutions are not only needed to combat the climate crisis, but also they're tapping into this massive market opportunity. And I think that's why we're seeing

SPEAKER_136: so much new capital flow into the space. In terms of quantifying the market opportunity, according to

SPEAKER_121: Morgan Stanley, the investment opportunity of global net carbon emissions to get to zero by 2050 is about 50 trillion dollars, 14 of that in renewables and storage and 36 trillion in decarbonized

SPEAKER_136: transport and tech. So, you know, high level software aside, just massive, massive market opportunity. In terms of our focus on software, I'm sure you've found this already. There's, there's basically two camps. There's the people who say, we already have the technology we need.

SPEAKER_121: It's about getting it to scale globally as quickly as possible. And you do that with software and

SPEAKER_136: financial technology and business model innovation. Right. There's another camp that says, we're never going to get there with existing tech. It's about breakthrough technology, you know, 10, 20 year path to commercialization stuff. That's really hard and really capital intensive to build.

SPEAKER_121: Anyone who tells you that it's one or the other and one is right and one is wrong,

SPEAKER_136: I'd say they're not very informed. There's a lot of hot debates on social media and we need both. This is a both. And in terms of powerhouse ventures, we fall relatively into that former camp of

SPEAKER_121: most of the technology, 80 to 90% of the tech we need to reach 100% decarbonization in the electricity

SPEAKER_136: sector. It does exist today. And with the right financing software, we can get these technologies to scale globally as quickly as possible. And so that's, that's where we play in the market. We don't take test tech risk. And we're very complimentary to the funds like Breakthrough Energy

SPEAKER_121: Ventures and others that, that are willing to take that, that long term risk and invest in the kinds of

SPEAKER_136: technologies that we do need to ultimately address the climate crisis, which isn't just about mitigation. It's about, you know, getting carbon out of the atmosphere and utilization and things like that. Yeah. So yeah, so that's the, that's the breakdown.

Jason Calacanis: What, for people who are also new to this, talk about the technology that do exist,

SPEAKER_107: those existing technologies that, you know, it's about deploying, it's about electrification or simply sometimes just plain old solar. Um, but tell it, you know, give us some examples of what those

SPEAKER_118: technologies are versus some of the technologies that people would really like to event.

SPEAKER_141: So, uh, the most recent portfolio company that we announced is called finite and they are a platform

SPEAKER_121: that's been built to simplify the sustainable investment process, enabling everyone. So people like you and me to invest in sustainable assets through a family of public funds. So they're very squarely in the fintech space. Um, and by financing real assets like rooftop solar, their platform empowers investors, including individuals to drive measurable, actionable impact for as little as $500

SPEAKER_136: while maximizing returns. Um, but sustainable investing is pretty broken. So of the 850, uh, ESG

SPEAKER_107: ETFs. So you're saying that ESG is, um, broken. And I was going to actually jump in and say, define ESG for us, for people who are literally noobs. Totally. Um, so environmental, social

SPEAKER_136: governance, uh, it's three categories that corporations, you know, companies big to small are thinking about in terms of the impact that they have. So not just the environmental impact, um, the social impact. So the communities they work in, the communities that they, you know, benefit or harm, um, in this case benefit and then governance, you know, who's on the team, how are decision made decisions made? Um, how can equity be built into each of those areas?

SPEAKER_02: So good question. And as you're investing it, I mean, it's been interesting watching the evolution

SPEAKER_107: of ESG as a concept, right. And as a metric, because there isn't a lot of accountability. Um, it seems there, there aren't a bunch of standardized metrics. And I wonder how, as an investor, you balance, you know, making sure that you're investing in companies that are walking

SPEAKER_02: the walk as opposed to trying to attract capital with the right language.

SPEAKER_162: Hmm. Yeah. Great question. We, when we're in diligence with a company, we want to know what

SPEAKER_136: impact they're having and what impact metric they use to determine the impact that they have. So there's another debate in the industry, which is what type of impact can we track accurately and how should we report it? And there are some who say, this is all about GHG emission, greenhouse gas

SPEAKER_121: emission reductions. That's the thing that we should quantify and aggregate and track across portfolios.

SPEAKER_136: And there's good reason to do that. Um, but there are other philosophies and, and we fall into

SPEAKER_121: other camp that says it is really hard to do that accurately. And that doesn't take into account things like resiliency or adaptation, how we're adapting to the climate crisis, which are going to be really important. Are today important investment opportunities and solutions to have that have no GHG emission reduction benefit, but are still worthy of consideration. And so at

SPEAKER_136: Powerhouse Ventures, we, we, for each portfolio company, we report on an impact metric that is specific to that company. Um, and so when we're in diligence, that's what we're evaluating is, is that impact specific to how they operate? Gotcha.

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SPEAKER_107: get $1,000 off. Okay, so then back to the technologies that are fundamental and need deployment and need incentive. Definitely. Tell me a little bit about those,

SPEAKER_118: and then we'll talk about some of the moonshot things that we're seeing in the rest of the industry.

SPEAKER_121: Perfect. So yeah, another example, also in the fintech space, a new investment called SUST, Global, S-U-S-T. They are transforming complex climate data into granular financial signals with

SPEAKER_136: what they describe, and we agree, is best-in-class data integration. And so what does that all mean? As you know, the climate crisis threatens to decimate the financial system. So

SPEAKER_121: we're not currently properly assessing its impact. The financial industry certainly isn't, but the world stands to lose 14% of its total $85 trillion in GDP if temperatures rise beyond 2 to 2.6 degrees Celsius by 2050. So that is scary. It's not all doom and gloom, though.

SPEAKER_180: You said that so casually. You know.

SPEAKER_183: I want to repeat this. 14% of global GDP. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_184: By what? 2100. But just as, you know, 2050. Oh, good.

SPEAKER_141: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not that far away. But again, not all doom and gloom. Accurate and actionable

SPEAKER_136: climate data has the potential to accelerate economy-wide change and economy-wide decarbonization. And so SUST delivers this real-time climate data that allows its users to determine the risk

SPEAKER_121: of climate change to their assets and seamlessly integrate it into this platform to help inform

SPEAKER_136: decisions today that can have an impact on whether we cross that line or not.

SPEAKER_107: Right. How much does policy play into, I want to come back to financialization because I do think creating those financial tools, you know, this is something that actually, you know what, I'm just going to start there because I'm already down this road. Creating those financial tools, I don't think people realize necessarily from either an investment perspective or even just sort of an understanding climate crisis. That's how things get solved, right? Measuring risk, creating investment vehicles, financializing. That's essentially how the solar

Jason Calacanis: industry has been built in some ways by, you know, packaging up solar leases and selling them like a

SPEAKER_121: bond. Mm-hmm. And this is your whole world. Like, I love that you brought this up because this is why everyone, no matter what industry you're coming from or what you've done before working in climate, your skills are applicable, your knowledge is applicable. You're a perfect example of that,

SPEAKER_193: given what you said. That was the marketplace stuff right there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_141: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, so agreed. I think policy is absolutely critical. You know, I think

SPEAKER_136: sometimes there's this hubris in venture capital where it's like, oh, we don't need government, get out of my way and let me make smart decisions. And that's BS. Like if, if you, if you work in this industry, your job has been enabled and created in part by policy that, that, you know, started 40, 50 years ago as it relates to solar in the United States. Um, and now we're seeing the need for that same kind of incentive to be applied to industries that are harder to decarbonize and, and, um, not as far along as the wind and solar sector, for example. So things like shipping and aviation, industrial processes like cement and steel, food and agriculture, um, carbon capture and utilization. These are all things that, um, are, have a longer path to market, haven't received as much investment historically, haven't received, uh, political or, or financial support, um, from the government, but things like, you know, home heating, heat pumps, heavy industry, like these are all things that we have to do to address the climate crisis. Um, and investors are certainly playing a really important role and they're not waiting for government, but we also, if we're going to do this, we need every option to accelerate

SPEAKER_02: solutions, including regulatory ones. Right. Like if the SEC came along and said to every company of a certain size, you have to measure risk and you have to report that, that is now a

SPEAKER_197: regulatory requirement. Then all of a sudden you have created a market for a lot of risk metric tools.

SPEAKER_136: That's, it's such a good point. And, and coming back to Finite, Finite spent two years working with the Securities and Exchange Commission to achieve approval, to build sustainable fund investing in illiquid assets for people like you and me. That was not previously available to us. It was only reserved for large institutional investors. And so their inaugural fund is called Solrx, S-O-L-R-X, enables people like us to benefit from these real assets that if, unless they had advocated to SEC for that change, still wouldn't be available to us. But with that capital, like put

SPEAKER_121: all that capital use in real projects, that's what move, that, that is what moves the needle.

SPEAKER_107: Right. Tell me more about why that solves, the problem that solves. We're saying ESG investing is broken. Right. What, how is it broken? And like, how can it get solved by, for example, one of these portfolio companies?

SPEAKER_136: Yeah, definitely. So, so yeah, currently, um, 850 of the thousand funds that are labeled ESG ETFs, um, that were added in the second quarter of last year, none of, so 850 of those out of the thousand, they're not new funds. They, they were existing funds that were relabeled as ESG to kind of, as you were alluding to earlier, kind of like a little greenwashing, a little like, oh, let's just

SPEAKER_121: check the box that we're, that we're offering this. And only two of the top 10 largest sustainable ETFs, um, included renewable energy development at all among the top five holdings. And so there's this

SPEAKER_136: sense that, you know, yes, the market is trying to meet the demand, but not with real new solutions that make a difference in the climate crisis, but rather just rebranding, which rebranding isn't, isn't going to get us there. Um, and so that's why I think things like finite are so interesting and why we invest it is because it gives people like us and, and all of your listeners a chance to invest in

SPEAKER_121: real renewable assets, maximize returns in a way that we couldn't do previously. We were, we didn't have the same option as institutional investors. Right. And then hopefully incentivize,

SPEAKER_107: of course, creation of more renewable energy, because renewable energy is just one of those basics, right? One of those DNA of climate crisis, like, yeah, more of that, please. Yeah.

SPEAKER_204: Well said.

SPEAKER_107: I mean, and it also, it seems like you have invested in several companies that help people monitor and maintain assets, right? I'm seeing Ensemble Energy, Raptor Maps,

SPEAKER_02: Overstory, AmpUp, like a lot of this really is about risk management. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_207: A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly right. And I think Overstory

SPEAKER_121: that you mentioned is a really good example. Um, uh, so Overstory uses machine learning to interpret satellite imagery and climate data in order to monitor the risk and impact of vegetation. So trees and stuff like that on power lines, because here in California, we now have a fire season.

SPEAKER_136: You know, I grew up here. I've been here my whole life. Fire season was not a thing. It is a very real thing now. And we're seeing that proliferate across the country. Um, these once in a lifetime events are not no longer once in a lifetime. They're, they're every year. Um, and so we can use data, we can use software, we can use technology that Overstory is built to say, we don't have to run trucks and helicopters to inspect power lines, which is really expensive and utilities don't do it. And when they don't do it, vegetation encroaches on lines, they start fires, and then a lot of people die. And so companies like Overstory are playing a really important role in, in using the latest technology, using satellite imagery, using things that weren't available to us even a few years ago to,

SPEAKER_121: to play an important role in the industry. And utilities are, um, not only seeking these solutions, but they're being forced to adopt them because of the harm that they've caused.

SPEAKER_107: Right. We could go, we could have a whole long conversation about harm and utilities in Northern California in particular, but maybe that's for a different show. Um, maybe, um, once you start to build up a portfolio of risk management, for example, once you really start to have hard metrics, you're, you're, um, I am fond of saying that you cannot manage what you do not measure. Tell me how that starts to feed into the ecosystem over, overall, like when you're working with a breakthrough energy ventures that might be trying to come up with a next generation technology, you know, talk about how creating this ecosystem feeds maybe technological breakthroughs that you and I might not be able to write checks for now, for some reason, but that can build on the work that you're doing.

SPEAKER_136: Yeah. I mean, I think part of it is, is knowing what we're each good at and knowing where we fit in, in the ecosystem and then playing to our strengths. And that's something that I think I've learned. I continue to learn more and more over time. And as I grow in my career, it's like, what am I really good at? What am I bad at? And in the case of powerhouse ventures, what are we good at? What do we know a lot about? And the stuff that we don't know about, leave it to someone else. And so, um, when we invest in companies that are taking that approach of get existing proven tech to scale globally as quickly as possible, we can then be complemented by those, like you said,

SPEAKER_121: like breakthrough that are working on harder tech solutions that are going to have a 10 to 20 year path to commercialization. And that's okay. That's, that's, that's the risk that they're taking. I think it's the complementary nature of both and each focusing on that, which we know best that, that gets to the solutions that we're, that we're all ultimately striving for and just choosing

SPEAKER_159: the lane that we think we can excel in. Does that answer your question?

SPEAKER_107: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's, it does seem like it's about building, you know, it's about of solutions on top of each other. And it's like breakthrough isn't doesn't have to worry about community solar, you know, then they're not, it's like, great, look, put, just plow that money into whatever bunker solution you're coming up with. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_02: Tell me, so I neglected to mention at the top that you are also the host of a podcast,

SPEAKER_18: what it takes, because you're doing this like tried and true formula of like,

SPEAKER_107: using the podcast, I assume for deal flow and promotion and outreach. But also, it is an incredible repository, because I have found in this very brief time, that it feels like there are lots and lots of climate tech investors. And not as many, you know, it's like maybe for every one startup,

SPEAKER_18: there's like three to five climate tech investors. And you have created this delightful directory of like, almost all of the companies, it seems like. Thank you. Tell me about the podcast and how you're

SPEAKER_107: finding, you know, both sources, people to be on the podcast and how you're using that to impact deal flow.

SPEAKER_185: Yeah. Thank you for the podcast plug. I love what, by the way, W.A.T.T. Guys, it's so clever.

SPEAKER_141: What it takes. Thank you. What it takes. So clever. Thank you. So, yeah, we came up with the podcast at a wine bar in Oakland. This is like five years ago. So pre pandemic with Shell Khan, who's at a

SPEAKER_136: fun called Energy Impact Partners now, but at the time was at Green Tech Media and on the Energy Gang. And we release episodes monthly. I do not have I don't know how you do this every day. Or I know,

SPEAKER_141: in your case, once a week, but between you and Jason, like every day is insanity to me, because we just do one a month. And that already feels like a lot. But once a month,

SPEAKER_225: you can't hear it right now. But there's producer tears just flowing over. Somebody's crying. Somebody's crying.

SPEAKER_141: So, yeah, once a month, we talk to a founder of one of the most innovative companies in the

SPEAKER_121: climate tech space. And they tell the personal stories of how they built their business, their upbringing, their risks, their failures, their breakthroughs that are transforming our

SPEAKER_136: world. It is very personal in nature because we know that that's what everyone can relate to. Like whether you're a wonk or not, we want to make these stories accessible and inspiring to people who are deep in climate and people who are just climate curious and starting to dip their toe in. And so we've featured people like the founder and CEO of Sunrun, Lynn Jurich, that the company now has, I think, eight or nine billion market cap. Co-founder of Tesla, Martin Everhard, Andy Karsner, who's at Google X and now on Exxon Mobil's board as an activist shareholder.

SPEAKER_121: Donnell Baird, the founder and CEO of Block Power. Van Jones, who's a mentor of mine and CNN commentator and just got a hundred million dollar grant from Jeff Bezos. So he was in the news recently for that. But he was a pioneer in green jobs and that's what we spoke about. So anyway,

SPEAKER_136: I feel incredibly, incredibly privileged to get to speak to some of the biggest names in the climate tech space and hear about what's made them who they are and what have they learned and what advice do they have for people that are starting companies or fundraising. And it's just,

SPEAKER_121: it's so much fun. So yeah, for listeners who are interested in those personal stories, definitely encourage you to check out the podcast.

SPEAKER_107: Well, now I feel like I have to ask about your personal story because, for example, you did work with Van Jones, it looks like for about six years, doing workforce development, climate policy, valid initiatives focused on clean energy. Talk about your background and then how

SPEAKER_141: you ended up where you are. So yeah, definitely a lot of, a lot of credit to Van. So I met Van when I was in undergrad and, um, and now, you know, I think a lot of people now see him as this voice of justice for our country. But, but when I met him, he was not, he didn't quite have the platform

SPEAKER_244: that he has now. Um, none of us did Emily, none of us did. And I don't know if I ever will.

SPEAKER_136: Um, but, uh, but he started, he started nonprofit and I worked with him, um, just out of, out of

SPEAKER_127: undergrad doing the work that you were talking about, worked as a community organizer, which I think before Obama ran for office, everyone was like, what is that? And most people still say that. Um, but that was a role that Obama also had early in his career. So I take, I take pride in it.

SPEAKER_136: Um, uh, but yeah, the organization that Van, uh, started focused on, uh, criminal justice reform, environmental justice. He and the org pioneered the concept of green jobs and the clean energy economy. So like you said, I spent almost five years there. Um, and Van was friends with Prince, the music icon, and Prince wanted to do something related to clean job, green jobs in Oakland. Um, and at the time, a colleague of Van and mine was starting a startup to, to help finance solar on nonprofits and community-based organizations. And Prince was like, that sounds great. That's it. I want to help get it started. And so with a grant from Prince, um, the startup got off the ground. I got to work with them on their pilot. Um, I, I loved it. It was my first exposure to working with a really early stage startup. And I just thought like, this is it, this, you know, you can, you can work on the best policy in the world, but if you don't have businesses to, to build the solutions, then your policy is going to sit on a shelf. And so in working with them, I realized there must be, you know, how many other companies like this are out there? Is it, you know, dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. And if, if they could all tap into corporate connections and investor connections and other founders, how much more quickly could they accelerate their solutions than if everyone was just kind of working in their silo on their own. And so in 2013, I quit my job at that nonprofit to start powerhouse initially to be that hub of, of innovation and entrepreneurship. Um, and then over time became what the company is today, which is an innovation firm that works with corporations. So, um, our clients include utilities like NL that have deployed more renewables than any utility in the world and oil and gas companies that are working on their transition, like BP and tech companies like Google, um, Asian conglomerates, like Marabeni power, um, DNV, like people who have said, I know I need to change if I'm going to stay in business and stay relevant. And I know that that change is not going to come entirely from within. Like, I know I have to partner with innovators and startups to, to stay relevant and to stay ahead and to stay a leader in, in this space. And so they come to us and they're humble enough to say like, we know we need help, like help us find the startups that we need to partner with and invest in and, and bring in house so that, so that we can continue to be the leader that we want to be in

SPEAKER_228: a decarbonized world. That's a pretty great, hold on. But did you get to meet Prince?

SPEAKER_136: I never got to meet Prince. No, that was, that was, yeah, that was rough. Um, but Van was really close to him and, you know, friends, close friends until Prince died. Um, but I just, I love that.

SPEAKER_141: I mean, what a remarkable origin story. Yeah. And, and credit to him. Like, you know, he, when, when we were working with him, you couldn't talk about it. He was so humble that he's like,

SPEAKER_136: not only do I not want you to talk about it, you can't like, this isn't about me. This is about the work. And to this day, when you drive around Oakland, if you're on a freeway and you see

SPEAKER_127: a solar project on like a church or a nonprofit, high chance, high likelihood that it was funded in part by Prince. That's like the best thing I ever heard. Isn't it awesome? I mean,

Jason Calacanis: I remember when he died, I don't want to derail us completely, but I remember when he died, Van Jones telling that story about how a lot of times when he would show up in a city, because I was one

SPEAKER_02: of the dum-dums who did not go to that last show in Oakland, um, that a lot of times when he would show up in a city, it was because he was doing some kind of philanthropic or community development work there. Yeah. And it just made me wonder like, what also happened that, you know, the weekend

SPEAKER_136: that, that he played. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. He was, yeah. And you're exactly right. He, he did this kind of secret philanthropic work all over the country. And it's a huge testament to who he is

SPEAKER_121: and the fact that it can live on in, in the power that's being created, that helps these great organizations put more resources into the great work that they're doing in the community. It's

SPEAKER_136: something that was part of the foundation of my career and has stayed with me. And it impacts how

SPEAKER_121: I think about, you know, DE&I and community impact and things that are, are important to us as a fund.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is super cool. Um, yeah, I forgot to mention on the top that you and I are fellow Oaklanders.

SPEAKER_18: Ooh, so we're driving, we're driving by all the same solar projects. Um, what you were just saying

SPEAKER_107: about powerhouse is so interesting, because it's a lot of this is in some ways about creating markets and policy can help do that. But of course, you know, something to buy helps create a market. But you really have a symbiotic relationship between the company and the ventures. And you can I mean, that seems like a huge advantage to be able to essentially say to a portfolio company like PS,

SPEAKER_261: we can also be your customer. Yeah, exactly. I know. You're exactly right. I think what's so

SPEAKER_136: unique about about powerhouse and powerhouse ventures is the structure, the network that we share and then the brand and a lot of a lot of funds for a long time. They were like, we're so secretive. You can't access us. You have to know someone. And I'm like, okay, good luck if that's your, if that's your strategy for deal flow. Like, um, but in our case, you know, leveraging things like the podcast that's had over a million downloads and, um, having a social media following of, you know, tens of thousands of people across multiple platforms and just being out there, like being the fund that when you're starting a company, if you're early, you know, your seed stage, your software focus, like we want to be the go to and we want to add so much value to our portfolio companies that they're the ones saying like, yeah, you should work with powerhouse ventures. So, um, I think between the structure, like you said, of having powerhouse, the company and the fund work side by side and share knowledge and insights and relationships. Um, and then, and then the network of, yeah, corporates and investors and leaders and decision

SPEAKER_121: makers across the country and increasingly around the world is something that we love making available to our portfolio companies because it's a win-win. Yeah. Um, speaking of the ecosystem,

SPEAKER_107: what, what are your thoughts about this moment we're in right now where there is all of a sudden the opposite of an exodus, a huge influx of people wanting to be climate tech investors or, you know, I mean, I think like I am proud that at launch, we're bringing climate tech investing to a pretty mainstream firm, right? Like a fund that doesn't have this history, isn't a niche. Um, how do you feel about this expansion of the ecosystem? Like lots of tourists like me coming in,

SPEAKER_181: isn't a net positive? Do we all have a lot to learn? Yeah, I think, I mean, generally speaking,

SPEAKER_136: very positive, like the influx of capital that we're seeing is so long overdue and we're seeing the impacts on our day-to-day lives, um, of, of it being overdue, you know, like the very real impacts of the climate crisis that we're seeing in the deep freeze in Texas and the fires in California and, you know, all the other weather events that, that shouldn't be happening. Um, that influx of capital, like, yeah, it's, it's about time. So I think my general sentiment is like, happier here and work with or hire experts such that you're making really good informed decisions and, you know, partner with funds that have been doing this for a while and co-invest with them and track what they're doing and, and, and then learn, you know, build, build, build your own knowledge base. And, you know, and not to say that like, oh, we know so much about the industry.

SPEAKER_266: It's changing so quickly that all of us like do though. Yeah. Thank you. And that's a fair thing

SPEAKER_136: to say. Thank you. And I, and I think it's important to recognize that like, yeah, the industry is changing quickly. So as you're learning about what's happening, so are we and, and then learning alongside each other at the same time. So yeah, I would say yes, capital's welcome. I hope the new investors and especially the, the big, the big funds that are starting to more in the space, you know, make sound technology decisions. Cause that was one of the downfalls of the 1.0 cleantech wave that didn't work out as well, but also the market dynamics are so different now, you know, now almost everywhere around the world, wind and solar are cheaper than fossil fuels. So

SPEAKER_224: it's just, we weren't there, you know, 10 years ago. Let's, as Jason would say,

SPEAKER_02: let's unpack that a little bit more though. The idea that if we, if there are a lot of high profile

SPEAKER_107: whiffs, um, and you know, pot misses just like, yeah, it's an onomatopoeia. Um, there is that risk though, right? That people could come in, not do their diligence, that there could be, God help us,

SPEAKER_141: a Theranos of climate tech. I mean, I'm sure there are really, right? Yeah, I, yeah, no, I think

SPEAKER_136: especially with the SPAC market, like there's, there is a lot to be wary of. And that's why I think having that expertise and access to that expertise is so important because, um, because, yeah, we, we, we certainly don't want many of those, uh, in, in the space. And at the same time, like this is a risky business. And most of the investments we make, you know, it's fair to assume that most, if not many are going to fail. And that doesn't mean

SPEAKER_162: that we don't do the work. It just means that, you know, we operate in a way that takes that into account. Um, yeah, but if you're here, be humble. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, before I let you go,

SPEAKER_107: what is one startup that you wish existed? What's the one, if you could order up an investment opportunity on a plate right now, I know I'm springing you on this one. What do you think it would be? I mean, Jason calls it Rick request for startup RFS.

SPEAKER_136: I, I love the idea of having, in addition to finite and solar X and their fund that's investing in kind of real renewable assets. I love the idea of an index fund that is enabling people like you and me and everyone who gives a damn about climate to invest in an index fund that,

SPEAKER_121: that is truly fossil free. We have not seen that yet in the market. And I think there's an opportunity

SPEAKER_159: for it and we're, we're, we're looking for and starting to see some solutions in that space.

SPEAKER_107: So I hope there's more to come there. Love it. Consider that your climate request for startup. Everybody out there, bring it to us. Maybe we can co-invest Emily Kerr, CEO and founder of Powerhouse,

SPEAKER_236: host of and managing director at Powerhouse Ventures and host of the What It Takes podcast.

SPEAKER_287: Emily, thanks so much for the time. Thanks Molly. This was really fun.