One of the things I've been really interested in too is, and maybe we'll close on this, is just as the CEO of a business, there's lots of social issues now. There's obviously the election kind of uncertainty. There's just a lot of non-business activities that are going on. And I always joke and say that if companies were purely capitalistic in nature and they didn't worry about anything else other than optimizing profits, then there would be no politics in the workplace. There'd be no social issues that you'd ever have to deal with. Like it would just be machines basically, right? Every company would just have like none of the other things that they have to consider. Obviously though, these companies are made up of people as we've been talking about. And so those people have political ideologies. They have certain positions on social issues. We've seen CEOs kind of take a couple of different approaches. Some CEOs say, Hey, look, we want you to express your opinion here. We want you to kind of feel comfortable having every conversation you'd possibly want. We've also seen on the other end of the spectrum, you know, kind of the coin-based approach of like, hey, we're a mission-focused company and there's no room for politics in the workplace. How do you, maybe not so much just like which end of the spectrum are you on, but just how do you think through the aspect of like the people who work here have other interests other than just coming to work here every day and operating like a robot? And how are we going to kind of deal with that along with trying to build the company?

Yeah. Well, okay. So I think the first thing and just sort of going back to sort of the early stages of company building, is the most overlooked hire in every startup is a great head of people, right? Why? It's a combination of HR and talent, right? So we hired a VP of people, Jamie Coakley, a couple years ago. And I can't tell you how big of an unlock that is for me as a CEO, for the rest of our leadership team. To have somebody, if we all believe that a company is just a collection of people, to have somebody whose sole focus is to just look after sort of the health and well-being of this group of people, right? It's just companies wait, I mean, we waited too long, but we nailed it and it really, you know, nailed the hire and ultimately got around to it. But companies wait way too long. And the reality is like, if you believe that the people side of the business is that important, you just you have to invest in having somebody to sort of run that. So that's, that's a huge thing that most companies overlook that you just you got it, you got to get it dialed in. The second piece is what, what I always try to get people to understand and what we really believe in here is that using the company as a force for good is inherently a competitive advantage and a force for good. So I don't care how rigorous your moral compass is. At the end of the day, if all you are, it's just a purely capitalist, profit-driven person, it's still better business to be a good human and to be inclusive and to have a diverse team and a diversity of opinions. And so for us, I think when back in June, July, when a lot of companies were announcing like, oh, we've donated $100,000 to the ACLU, or we did this, we did that. Hey, look, that's fine. Those are all really good causes. But internally, we looked at it and we said, our payroll is going to be $35 million next year. If we can make our recruiting processes even a little bit more diverse, a little bit more inclusive, I have a $35 million money cannon that can actually create real change in real communities, right? And so, you know, and the sort of follow on effects that that has in terms of the company culture that you build and productivity, all that stuff. It's all very obvious. You know, Salesforce is a great example of a company who I think really led the way on this. You know, Mark with his like one, one, one kind of pledge approach. And I can't tell you the number of, of Salesforce executives who I've spoken with over the years were like, that's a big reason they went there and it's a big reason they stuck around. So, um, you know, I don't know if that directly answered the question, but we've tried to orient the company really around that as like, how do we use the whole thing as a force for good? Um, and then, and then in return, you know, we have a diversity of employees who all have different opinions and different things that they care about. But look, at the end of the day, they recognize that we're trying to do good in running this company. And as long as their opinions and their interests don't hurt anyone, then that's what diversity is all about. We support it.

Yeah. What's so interesting about your answer is it really highlights just the complexity of all of this. There is no black or white answer, right? There is no kind of single magic bullet of like, hey, here's the position to take. And if you take that position, then it's going to solve all your problems. Like there is complexity and that's ultimately a net positive if used the correct way. So I think that makes a lot of sense. I always wrap up every interview with the same two questions, and then you'll get to ask me one question to finish it. The first question is, what is the most important book you've ever read?

It's interesting. It's going to be a less shallow answer than it probably sounds like. But when I was in high school, I used to walk around with a copy of Barbarians at the Gate. And I probably read it five times. And it was, I think, you know, I hadn't, I was just in the early days of starting a business, but it just, it was so colorful and so fascinating reading about these crazy, you know, leveraged buyouts and all this stuff, which I had no, you know, didn't know anything about that stuff at the time. But like me as a high school kid realizing like, yo, this is, this is business or like, you know, it just, it just opened my eyes to just, you know, what, you know, kind of what was possible and just how gnarly things were. And so, I mean, I've read plenty of books that are, that are much more impactful, you know, professionally, I'm staring at a copy of Tape Sucks, which is Frank Slootman's book, which is awesome. I've already read it twice. But now Barbarians at the Gate, I think because I read it as a 16 year old was hugely influential. It's

a great book.