WEBVTT - Gentrack chases global power 0:00:00.210 --> 0:00:03.850 What's really interesting in the energy market is pricing is complicated. 0:00:03.950 --> 0:00:07.030 Huge data sets. If you get it wrong, it's expensive. 0:00:07.540 --> 0:00:09.090 You went through a bit of a tough patch a 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:10.280 couple of months back, didn't you? 0:00:10.860 --> 0:00:13.379 I would like to be in 40 countries, 400 million 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.919 meter points. We have big ambitions. A good programmer is 0:00:16.980 --> 0:00:20.320 working with a swarm of programming agents that are actually, 0:00:20.340 --> 0:00:22.060 you put them to work so you can 5x or 0:00:22.340 --> 0:00:23.220 10x your productivity. 0:00:24.100 --> 0:00:25.860 Is it do or die time for some of the 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.400 big power companies? Adjusting to a world where power is 0:00:29.500 --> 0:00:32.610 shifting might take some help. Gentrac is a company that 0:00:32.650 --> 0:00:36.580 wants to position itself between the customers and their bills, 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.800 and the businesses and their charges. How's that all going? 0:00:41.100 --> 0:00:44.260 CEO Gary Miles gave me some of his time. Let's 0:00:44.300 --> 0:00:44.840 find out. 0:00:45.340 --> 0:00:48.360 Investing involves risk. You might lose the money you start with. 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.449 We recommend talking to a licensed financial advisor. We also 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:56.450 recommend reading product disclosure documents before deciding to invest. Everything 0:00:56.470 --> 0:00:58.490 you're about to see and hear is current at the 0:00:58.550 --> 0:00:59.210 time of recording. 0:01:04.990 --> 0:01:08.709 Gary Miles, Gin Check CEO. How hard can it be 0:01:08.730 --> 0:01:09.940 to bill somebody for power? 0:01:10.690 --> 0:01:14.620 Power is tricky, actually, Garth. People have solar panels on 0:01:14.660 --> 0:01:19.319 the roof. They've got batteries in their driveway. Batteries are 0:01:19.340 --> 0:01:21.380 starting to pump power into the grid. You don't want 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:23.920 to pump it into the grid to make some money 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.560 on your bill and then drive off and run out 0:01:26.620 --> 0:01:31.110 of juice. Time of use, it's becoming trickier. And that's 0:01:31.150 --> 0:01:33.669 for consumers. When you get into big businesses, you know, 0:01:34.150 --> 0:01:37.090 grid scale kind of energy needs, it's complicated. 0:01:37.630 --> 0:01:40.190 So you cover the whole range from someone who might 0:01:40.230 --> 0:01:42.310 just be getting a bill once a month from a 0:01:43.069 --> 0:01:45.890 power company right through to a big corporate that's got. 0:01:45.810 --> 0:01:46.350 Four or five thousand. 0:01:46.370 --> 0:01:49.880 A big corporate that's got offices all over New Zealand 0:01:49.890 --> 0:01:52.510 and they want to flex pricing and trading because energy is, 0:01:52.540 --> 0:01:56.900 you know, it's an expensive part of the mix. And 0:01:56.940 --> 0:01:59.780 so they have, you know, the big companies have their 0:01:59.820 --> 0:02:03.120 own trading and pricing teams that are making sure they 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:03.980 can optimize this. 0:02:04.420 --> 0:02:07.240 And you're keeping track. You're also helping them work out 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:08.380 what the best prices are. 0:02:08.900 --> 0:02:13.690 So we help retailers make propositions that can help their 0:02:13.750 --> 0:02:17.850 customers manage their energy prices, have options, make the most 0:02:17.970 --> 0:02:20.989 out of their mix of needs. And you have things 0:02:21.050 --> 0:02:23.450 like load shifting. So you say, hey, if you end 0:02:23.510 --> 0:02:27.130 up can shift the energy consumption to a period when 0:02:27.650 --> 0:02:30.490 It's not during peak. You can save a lot of money. 0:02:30.690 --> 0:02:32.630 As a matter of fact, sometimes you can get paid 0:02:32.669 --> 0:02:35.130 to pump money into the grid. I'll give you a 0:02:35.130 --> 0:02:39.820 really interesting example. There's one of our customers in Australia 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.560 has what's called the battery of the nation. And it's 0:02:42.620 --> 0:02:48.540 actually two lakes. And when the grid is overheating, it'll 0:02:49.300 --> 0:02:51.340 fill one of the lakes and take power off the 0:02:51.380 --> 0:02:54.049 grid and maybe get paid to do that. And then 0:02:54.110 --> 0:02:56.880 when the grid needs energy, It'll drain the lake and 0:02:56.970 --> 0:03:00.570 push power into the grid. So it's a complicated space, 0:03:00.710 --> 0:03:04.750 believe me. And it wasn't so complicated before. You had 0:03:05.310 --> 0:03:10.150 dumb meters, pretty fixed, stable energy. So billing was simpler. 0:03:10.250 --> 0:03:14.089 People didn't have digital engagement to understand it. And now 0:03:14.150 --> 0:03:17.310 it's more complicated. So the IT systems need to support that. 0:03:18.210 --> 0:03:20.790 EY surveyed people around the globe, consumers. 0:03:20.810 --> 0:03:20.950 Yeah. 0:03:20.950 --> 0:03:25.480 78% said, we're doing all we can already to save power. 0:03:25.740 --> 0:03:27.880 Power companies, you've got to help us here. You've got 0:03:27.900 --> 0:03:31.620 to help us recommend better ways. You're helping them recommend 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:32.180 the better ways? 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:34.609 Oh, for sure. I mean, if you look at what's happening. 0:03:35.130 --> 0:03:40.250 So in Australia, one of the really, in some states, 0:03:40.410 --> 0:03:45.280 the number one energy contributor to the grid during the 0:03:45.340 --> 0:03:49.300 day is rooftop solar. because it's been subsidized by the 0:03:49.340 --> 0:03:51.340 government and then they've got batteries on the side of 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:56.520 their homes. And we provide systems that help manage when 0:03:56.540 --> 0:04:00.940 do you pump that power from the battery into the 0:04:00.980 --> 0:04:04.010 grid and make money? When do you run your house 0:04:04.070 --> 0:04:05.990 off the battery or when do you run your house 0:04:06.050 --> 0:04:08.310 off the grid? How can we help them save money? 0:04:08.350 --> 0:04:11.360 How can you return make a shorter return on investment 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:15.180 for those kind of consumer energy resource assets like solar 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.979 and battery so that we can get more renewable batteries, 0:04:19.300 --> 0:04:22.780 renewable power into the grid that's not going to, you know, 0:04:22.820 --> 0:04:23.779 burn fossil fuels. 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:25.779 So this is a virtual power plant. 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:27.250 It's a virtual power plant, yeah. 0:04:27.370 --> 0:04:29.190 Ours is tiny here in New Zealand, like 4% of 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:30.130 the people have got solar. 0:04:30.230 --> 0:04:32.429 Yeah, it's pretty small in New Zealand, but they also 0:04:32.470 --> 0:04:35.250 do things like you've got, you know, your boiler and 0:04:35.270 --> 0:04:38.090 things can start running during a certain time and we 0:04:38.110 --> 0:04:42.400 can offload when that boiler kind of heats up and 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.320 stores hot water in your house, these heat cylinders. So 0:04:46.339 --> 0:04:50.300 we're helping control that, so that'll stabilize. Because what's expensive 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.339 is dealing with these peaks on the energy market. And 0:04:53.380 --> 0:04:55.980 here in New Zealand, we have a lot of renewable energy, 0:04:56.540 --> 0:04:58.920 but I can tell you the retailers and the gen 0:04:58.940 --> 0:05:04.190 tailors are pumping huge sums of money into providing better, 0:05:04.290 --> 0:05:07.050 cleaner power on a stable basis. It's not a trivial 0:05:07.070 --> 0:05:07.870 project at all. 0:05:08.370 --> 0:05:08.550 Yeah. 0:05:08.830 --> 0:05:08.969 Yeah. 0:05:10.630 --> 0:05:13.170 If I understood right, your plan was to try and 0:05:13.230 --> 0:05:15.990 be a company that was sort of at the forefront 0:05:16.210 --> 0:05:19.650 as all of these power companies around the world shift 0:05:19.850 --> 0:05:23.090 out of some legacy systems into new systems. Yeah. How's 0:05:23.110 --> 0:05:23.650 that going for you? 0:05:24.150 --> 0:05:27.190 It's going well. So when I joined the business a 0:05:27.410 --> 0:05:29.630 little over five years ago, we were in four countries. 0:05:30.770 --> 0:05:37.820 We had about 40 retailers around. And I saw that 0:05:37.900 --> 0:05:42.310 as an amazing platform because– Australia, New Zealand, the UK, 0:05:42.370 --> 0:05:47.460 where we operated, were really, really dynamic energy and water markets. 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.979 Let's focus on energy from this perspective. Anyway, I saw 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.830 that as a great platform to modernize our technology with 0:05:55.870 --> 0:05:59.400 those clients. And then to take that technology that works well, 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:01.420 and like in a lot of ways, Australia, for example, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:03.339 is living in the future as far as the energy 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:04.440 transition is concerned. 0:06:04.700 --> 0:06:06.040 Does that mean we're living in the past? 0:06:06.580 --> 0:06:07.280 No, no, no. 0:06:07.339 --> 0:06:10.990 New Zealand is always on the forefront of stuff. But 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.250 we have a lot of stable energy resources, geothermal and 0:06:14.310 --> 0:06:17.789 things here. So it's not as volatile. So Australia is 0:06:18.029 --> 0:06:20.950 hyper volatile. But anyway, so the objective was to then 0:06:21.620 --> 0:06:24.730 harden and modernize our technology and then take the learnings 0:06:24.810 --> 0:06:27.070 from retailers and gin tailors in this part of the 0:06:27.110 --> 0:06:30.190 world and go help other retailers and gin tailors transform. 0:06:30.230 --> 0:06:32.869 So now we're in nine countries. We're looking to expand 0:06:32.910 --> 0:06:36.900 into Europe or expand into Southeast Asia. We now have 0:06:36.940 --> 0:06:41.840 customers in Singapore and Philippines and Fiji and Papua New 0:06:41.860 --> 0:06:43.660 Guinea and a place like that. And we're looking to 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.380 really land Europe. I mean, that's a big focus for us. 0:06:46.540 --> 0:06:48.960 So it's hard to do a new thing with new customers. 0:06:48.990 --> 0:06:50.429 You've got to do a new thing with old customers 0:06:50.450 --> 0:06:51.349 first to prove it, right? 0:06:51.710 --> 0:06:54.710 I think that having been there and done it and 0:06:54.810 --> 0:06:57.830 have customers that talk about it is when you're dealing 0:06:57.850 --> 0:07:00.969 with major enterprise systems, I mean, these are huge systems. 0:07:00.990 --> 0:07:03.850 They need to be cyber secure. They need to be 0:07:03.990 --> 0:07:07.560 very robust. And it's a big investment. So the real 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.560 key is how can I amortize that across as many 0:07:10.620 --> 0:07:12.780 meter points around the world as possible? It's kind of 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.340 unit economics. And to be able to spin up big 0:07:16.380 --> 0:07:19.900 enterprise systems in faraway countries, to sell in faraway countries, 0:07:19.980 --> 0:07:23.260 to deliver it, is not trivial and we've proven we 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:25.260 can do that. So we want to do it. We'd 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:27.940 like to be in 40 countries, 400 million meter points. 0:07:27.980 --> 0:07:31.660 I mean, we have big ambitions. So that's the journey 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:31.960 we're on. 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.480 Do you put people there or is it all virtual 0:07:34.500 --> 0:07:35.630 or is it a mix? How are you doing it? 0:07:35.980 --> 0:07:40.370 So it kind of depends. If it's a big, big 0:07:40.580 --> 0:07:43.870 kind of country presence for us, we may set up 0:07:43.930 --> 0:07:47.770 an establishment, but in general, we prefer to put people 0:07:47.850 --> 0:07:52.650 in to land the system, train a local software integrator 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.860 or support company that can do the ongoing change work. 0:07:56.580 --> 0:07:58.660 For us to be in 40 countries, we don't, you know, 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.020 we're not all polyglots. I don't know. You know, we'd 0:08:02.060 --> 0:08:06.600 really like to work through some Accentures and Capgeminis of 0:08:06.620 --> 0:08:08.760 the world where they can take our technology and deploy 0:08:08.780 --> 0:08:10.380 it around the world, and we'll help them do that 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.810 with resources. But we don't need to establish a lot 0:08:13.850 --> 0:08:14.910 of people in every country. 0:08:15.430 --> 0:08:18.530 So these are these forward-deployed engineers that we're seeing a 0:08:18.550 --> 0:08:21.450 little bit in some of the frontier model companies, AI companies, 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.900 where they're sending people out into the field to basically 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:26.700 teach customers how to use their product. You've got the 0:08:26.740 --> 0:08:27.140 same thing? 0:08:27.780 --> 0:08:30.540 So we do have four deployed engineers. The first thing 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:32.140 we need to do is land our product. So if 0:08:32.179 --> 0:08:33.620 we're going to go in and we're going to replace 0:08:34.140 --> 0:08:38.179 a legacy old IT system, this is a pretty big project. 0:08:38.220 --> 0:08:40.980 It can take 12 months. So we go in and 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:45.260 we do customer migration, we land the system, we do training, etc., 0:08:46.170 --> 0:08:49.319 It's part of that and following onto that, more importantly, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.920 once they have the system, we bring four deployed engineers 0:08:52.380 --> 0:08:56.220 that work with our AI capabilities to really rapidly bring 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.850 solutions to the business or to IT in a super 0:08:59.870 --> 0:09:00.730 cost-effective way. 0:09:01.650 --> 0:09:03.380 Has that changed much in the time you've been doing it? 0:09:04.130 --> 0:09:11.069 It's changed unbelievably. It is astounding, even since February. I mean, November, 0:09:11.090 --> 0:09:14.880 the pace of some of these frontier models started to 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:19.660 accelerate quite a bit. Now we can do things with clients. 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:21.979 I'll give you an example. We're working with our AI 0:09:22.020 --> 0:09:25.500 environment right now where we went to the business. We 0:09:25.540 --> 0:09:28.589 had a three-hour interview on a problem they wanted to solve, 0:09:28.620 --> 0:09:33.770 a complex problem. We recorded it. We all agreed we 0:09:33.790 --> 0:09:36.449 could record it. We recorded it. We took that transcript online. 0:09:38.050 --> 0:09:41.860 We put it through AI. It created a specification. Then 0:09:41.890 --> 0:09:44.520 we had that specification approved by the customer. Then we 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.839 used AI to create the agents to go run it, 0:09:48.900 --> 0:09:52.780 and we were done. Whereas in the past, I'd interview you, Garth, 0:09:52.860 --> 0:09:54.700 and I'd, what do you need? And we'd write it down, 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:56.720 and then we'd go back, and we'd ask the programmers, 0:09:56.780 --> 0:09:59.070 is it clear? And then they'd come, more questions, back 0:09:59.110 --> 0:10:03.650 and forth. weeks as opposed to really days. 0:10:04.050 --> 0:10:05.969 Is the AI solving the problem or is it just 0:10:06.090 --> 0:10:08.829 helping connect the people in your business that are solving 0:10:08.850 --> 0:10:11.450 the problem? Is it doing something itself? Or is it 0:10:11.470 --> 0:10:12.250 just speeding things up? 0:10:12.450 --> 0:10:14.890 Well, it kind of depends. As a software company, it's 0:10:14.910 --> 0:10:18.090 pretty interesting today. And I don't know, I'm sure with Sharesies, 0:10:18.110 --> 0:10:20.470 you've got a bunch of people out there investing in technology, 0:10:20.530 --> 0:10:25.220 software engineers. They'll know this, right? So if you're using 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:29.740 AI today to help you kind of prompt code, do 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.720 some code development, then you're checking it all, you're maybe 0:10:32.740 --> 0:10:37.120 getting a 20% or 30% efficiency gain or throughput. The 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:40.589 good AI programmers are actually... doing a lot. You can 0:10:40.830 --> 0:10:42.610 listen to Eric Schmidt. He's got a video, the founder 0:10:42.630 --> 0:10:47.570 of Google. He says, if you're programming today, just stop. 0:10:47.809 --> 0:10:49.689 It's not good for your career and it's not good 0:10:49.710 --> 0:10:51.890 for the company. Honestly, that's how much has changed, which 0:10:51.910 --> 0:10:54.760 is kind of sad because programming is a profession. We 0:10:54.780 --> 0:10:56.939 got where we wanted to be because we like to program. 0:10:57.020 --> 0:10:57.620 You're a programmer. 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.380 I've done my programming in the past. Probably not the, 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.760 I'm not a frontier model programmer at this point, but 0:11:03.780 --> 0:11:06.079 I work with AI, for example. But anyway, what I 0:11:06.110 --> 0:11:08.360 was going to say is, The good programmer is working 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.640 with a swarm of programming agents that are actually you 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.540 put them to work. They know your environment. They know 0:11:14.590 --> 0:11:16.190 your code base. And you put them to work and 0:11:16.530 --> 0:11:18.290 a task. And then you go to lunch or you 0:11:18.330 --> 0:11:20.350 put three more to work. And you come back. And 0:11:20.550 --> 0:11:22.710 so you can 5x or 10x your productivity. 0:11:23.030 --> 0:11:24.370 You're the ringleader. You're not the act. 0:11:25.610 --> 0:11:27.459 Well, you're always part of the act as a ringleader. 0:11:27.510 --> 0:11:28.240 But, yes. 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:32.480 Now, when we talk about AI with our customers, so 0:11:32.500 --> 0:11:35.940 they have call center agents. They have payment collections agents. 0:11:35.980 --> 0:11:36.420 They have people. 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.740 You know, field services, and it's a different type of AI. 0:11:41.460 --> 0:11:43.800 So in the past, you would maybe have a pod 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:48.310 of customer service reps supporting a group of customers. Now 0:11:48.330 --> 0:11:50.470 you may have a customer service reps with a pod 0:11:50.510 --> 0:11:54.670 of agents supporting that customer's decisioning. So it's all changing 0:11:54.710 --> 0:11:55.310 pretty quickly. 0:11:55.690 --> 0:11:56.050 Factor. 0:11:56.610 --> 0:11:59.790 It's the company you guys bought. It's a little company 0:11:59.830 --> 0:12:02.740 that like went from having one customer to 12 months later, 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.030 New Zealand company, Wellington Tech Company. How on earth do 0:12:06.050 --> 0:12:07.420 you look at a company and go, you had one 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:11.400 customer 12 months ago, now we're going to pay you $ 25, 0:12:11.330 --> 0:12:12.600 $ 35 million for what you do? 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:17.580 Yeah, well, first of all, how long is a piece 0:12:17.620 --> 0:12:21.400 of string when you acquire something that's kind of early revenues? 0:12:21.420 --> 0:12:25.160 It's tricky. So what we're interested to do is bring 0:12:25.220 --> 0:12:30.230 great people and technologies into our team that have experience 0:12:30.270 --> 0:12:34.770 that can help us scale globally. And what's really interesting 0:12:34.790 --> 0:12:38.980 in the energy market is pricing is complicated. It's super 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.400 huge data sets. If you get it wrong, it's expensive. 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:47.320 If you can forecast well what energy usage the grid 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.140 or your customer book is going to require, and you 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.670 can price it well, then you run a profitable business 0:12:53.050 --> 0:12:55.090 and you run a good hedge book. So you have 0:12:55.110 --> 0:12:57.490 to hedge your energy. Without that, you're in a lot 0:12:57.530 --> 0:13:01.650 of trouble. So pricing is disproportionately important. Jess and Simon 0:13:01.690 --> 0:13:04.250 and the co-founders and the team down there, it's a 0:13:04.410 --> 0:13:09.460 really rock solid technology team that understand pricing well. And 0:13:09.500 --> 0:13:11.980 we can take that and plug it into our portfolio 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:14.020 and bring a lot of value to our customers and 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.540 I think new customers and existing ones. So, you know, 0:13:17.580 --> 0:13:22.240 we decided if you translate it into pounds, it's, you know, 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.940 it's not, it's still a pretty reasonable price. And we 0:13:25.980 --> 0:13:28.220 think it's going to be a very good acquisition for 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:29.700 Gentrack and our customers. 0:13:30.270 --> 0:13:34.040 You think a lot in pounds. You're based mostly in London. 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:36.880 Well, we think in Kiwi dollars too because we're listed 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:37.939 on the New Zealand Exchange. 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.100 You're a very global team, right? 0:13:40.340 --> 0:13:42.559 But we're a global team. So we've got about 800 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.950 professionals around the world. We have our utilities business and 0:13:45.990 --> 0:13:48.170 we have an airport business. Our airport business is in 0:13:48.210 --> 0:13:53.290 about 160 airports around the world. So Gatwick and Schiphol 0:13:53.370 --> 0:13:57.030 and Miami and Auckland and Sydney. I mean, you know, 0:13:57.050 --> 0:14:00.679 we're Like if you've touched Gentrack, if you've traveled probably 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:01.559 on an airplane. 0:14:01.820 --> 0:14:04.240 Not that a lot of people traveled for a while there, 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.060 and then not that a lot of people are traveling 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.440 a little bit, you know, because the price of jet fuel. 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.280 Does that hit? Do you find that the business dries up? 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.920 So wildly we're finding that passenger flows are not declining 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.219 that much. Jet fuel pricing because of this mess in 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.460 the Gulf is definitely a concern. It's wild how they 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.400 found some workarounds to some extent for this. But it's 0:14:24.500 --> 0:14:27.980 nothing like when I took over. GENTRAC and we were 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:29.500 in the middle of COVID. I mean, that was a 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.120 bit of a problem for our airports business and our 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.410 airports customers. I mean, if you look at one of 0:14:35.490 --> 0:14:39.350 our airports customers who will remain unnamed, but let's say 0:14:39.390 --> 0:14:43.950 a big airport in Southeast Asia, the airport's revenues, not 0:14:44.010 --> 0:14:46.910 GENTRAC's revenues to the airport, but the airport's revenues were 0:14:46.930 --> 0:14:52.080 down 97% during COVID. Our systems keep airports running smoothly. 0:14:52.510 --> 0:14:56.360 And like I said, we're pretty global in that regard. 0:14:56.770 --> 0:14:59.290 And from a people perspective, we have a few hundred 0:14:59.340 --> 0:15:01.520 people here, more than 200 people in New Zealand. We've 0:15:01.540 --> 0:15:04.620 been growing. We have a couple hundred people in Australia. 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:05.820 We have people in Denmark and we have a lot 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:06.760 of people in the UK. 0:15:06.940 --> 0:15:08.500 You've just hired some new people as well. I think 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.680 you got one like in Tel Aviv, another one in London, 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:15.560 someone here. How do you keep a really united view 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:17.400 when you've got people spread around the globe? 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.960 Yeah, Gareth, that's what I call the tyranny of distance 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:24.730 in this regard. That's tricky. But we're not unique to that. 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.109 I mean, we're a global company. Most companies these days 0:15:27.150 --> 0:15:29.890 are global. You have global scale. It's important. You have 0:15:29.930 --> 0:15:33.250 global perspective. You know, we see stuff in the energy 0:15:33.290 --> 0:15:35.290 markets or water markets and other parts of the world 0:15:35.330 --> 0:15:37.670 that our customers here can like to hear about and 0:15:37.710 --> 0:15:41.510 benefit from. We take them on client exploration journeys so 0:15:41.530 --> 0:15:44.210 they can learn from each other. But, yeah, I mean, 0:15:44.230 --> 0:15:46.370 you know, it's kind of interesting. When I took this job, 0:15:47.290 --> 0:15:50.950 it was pretty easy to look at the interweb and say, wow, 0:15:51.750 --> 0:15:54.780 that's it. tricky time zone difference from the UK to 0:15:54.820 --> 0:15:57.140 New Zealand. But only when you get in the seat 0:15:57.180 --> 0:16:00.120 do you realize really that the overlap in the working 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.850 day is pretty small. So we've found ways to work 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.630 around it. It's just like any global company. 0:16:06.730 --> 0:16:08.110 So you're just up 24 hours a day? 0:16:08.430 --> 0:16:13.090 I'm just sleeping way too little. But no, we've gotten 0:16:13.150 --> 0:16:15.010 a good operating rhythm. So it's good. 0:16:15.750 --> 0:16:18.300 I want to talk a bit about how the company's performed, 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.160 you know, share price performance, all that kind of stuff. 0:16:20.180 --> 0:16:21.740 You went through a bit of a tough patch a 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:23.970 couple of months back, didn't you? Can you try and 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:25.870 unravel that a little bit for me and explain what's 0:16:25.890 --> 0:16:26.590 changed since then? 0:16:26.930 --> 0:16:30.770 Yeah. So first of all, we grew for about the 0:16:30.810 --> 0:16:36.570 first four years of our operation on 25, 26% CAGR. 0:16:36.790 --> 0:16:39.830 That's fast growth. So when I took over, we're about 0:16:39.830 --> 0:16:45.580 $ 100 million and now we're pushing around 230. We've always 0:16:45.620 --> 0:16:48.180 been profitable. So we're cash generative. So that's good. So 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:50.140 I think we performed really well on a lot of fronts. 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.490 We came out with G2, which is our new technology stack. 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:56.490 And when you come out with a major enterprise stack, oh, look, 0:16:56.530 --> 0:16:58.550 we know how to sell well. The vision of G2 0:16:58.610 --> 0:17:01.170 is great. We know how to deliver well. So our 0:17:01.230 --> 0:17:04.990 story is a good story. But our pipeline really wanted 0:17:05.010 --> 0:17:07.810 to see it in production. And they wanted to kick 0:17:07.869 --> 0:17:12.090 the tires. They bring the sandbox. And we were still 0:17:12.190 --> 0:17:14.840 in that process of deploying it with our first few customers, 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.380 which we've done now. So we need to get back 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:21.240 to winning a bunch of new logos. I remain really 0:17:21.300 --> 0:17:27.080 confident about our global potential. And we're just putting our 0:17:27.100 --> 0:17:30.440 head down. And the share price is important. And you've 0:17:30.460 --> 0:17:32.310 got people here that care a lot about it. We 0:17:32.350 --> 0:17:36.310 care about it. But I can say as a CEO, 0:17:36.369 --> 0:17:40.219 we're really focusing on value and customers and growth. we're 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:40.880 pretty confident. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:45.419 I just want to touch quickly on incentives because I'll 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:47.350 be frank here. You hit the headlines last year, the 0:17:47.390 --> 0:17:50.550 local paper took a look and said highest paid CEO 0:17:51.570 --> 0:17:54.709 on the exchange there, obviously as a result of the 0:17:54.750 --> 0:17:57.010 way that the incentives and so on and your, and 0:17:57.030 --> 0:17:59.430 your package worked out. Do we have a problem here 0:17:59.630 --> 0:18:00.950 in New Zealand with paying people? 0:18:01.930 --> 0:18:04.399 That was a, that's tricky. And so it's tricky to 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.179 respond to, but I'll try to respond to it. It's 0:18:07.220 --> 0:18:10.440 fine because we're a transparent company. I, We had an 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:15.640 interesting situation. So in the private equity markets, which private 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.070 equity is private investment of companies, so they'll go in 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.410 and there's a lot of acquisitions of public market organizations 0:18:23.490 --> 0:18:26.230 into the private space and a precedent of creating a 0:18:26.250 --> 0:18:29.970 lot of wealth in that private market. And they incentivize 0:18:30.470 --> 0:18:32.770 executive teams with a lot of shares because they want 0:18:32.790 --> 0:18:37.119 to align incentives between shareholders like Sharesies and the executives 0:18:37.140 --> 0:18:40.020 that are working hard to produce that. We put in 0:18:40.060 --> 0:18:42.180 a double hurdle. So we had to make earnings per 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.100 share forecast, which a lot of our shares investors in 0:18:45.140 --> 0:18:46.940 the early days said, wow, you set a high bar. 0:18:47.420 --> 0:18:49.820 And then we had to move the stock up. And otherwise, 0:18:49.859 --> 0:18:53.080 we got nothing, nothing. And we ended up making those 0:18:53.140 --> 0:18:56.460 numbers and getting some shares on paper. Now, I didn't 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:58.150 go sell those shares because I believe in the business 0:18:58.170 --> 0:19:00.530 and didn't sell any of them besides to retire some 0:19:00.869 --> 0:19:03.790 tax obligations that you have to pay in the UK 0:19:03.830 --> 0:19:07.590 in advance. And we believe in the business. And so 0:19:07.630 --> 0:19:10.830 that that would, you know, that looks like a big number. 0:19:12.690 --> 0:19:15.560 You know, at some point, as we perform really well, 0:19:15.980 --> 0:19:19.159 we'll probably be rewarded for that. But we'd like to 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:23.820 try to reward all of our people and our shareholders 0:19:23.900 --> 0:19:26.399 and bring them the gains, and that's what we're aligned 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:26.740 to do. 0:19:27.050 --> 0:19:30.409 So, yeah. That's an eloquent explanation, I suppose. The question stands, 0:19:30.470 --> 0:19:32.070 do you think we've got a problem here in this 0:19:32.170 --> 0:19:33.730 market with rewarding people? 0:19:35.010 --> 0:19:38.850 Look, there's a disparity in income and people can decide 0:19:38.869 --> 0:19:40.850 to you know give money away and do things with 0:19:40.890 --> 0:19:43.730 their money as they get it and I think if 0:19:43.750 --> 0:19:46.050 you look at the wealth creation in places like the US, 0:19:46.109 --> 0:19:49.690 I mean, it's much, much higher percentage of shares. If 0:19:50.230 --> 0:19:52.450 you look at the NASDAQ and things, it's just a percentage, 0:19:52.540 --> 0:19:56.440 not to mention real numbers. I think that it's dangerous 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.040 for the public markets to put this under the spotlight 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:02.679 too much, because it can put the public markets in 0:20:02.740 --> 0:20:10.669 New Zealand at risk of disappearing into the private space. Yeah, 0:20:10.790 --> 0:20:13.909 should there be more equitable share pay structures across the 0:20:13.950 --> 0:20:16.190 country and things? I think we'd probably better leave that 0:20:16.230 --> 0:20:18.470 to the government to figure out. I'm not sure if 0:20:18.510 --> 0:20:19.580 I answered your question. 0:20:19.670 --> 0:20:21.260