WEBVTT - Khosla Ventures Co-Founder Talks Reevo

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<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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<v Speaker 2>AI startup Revo is emerging from stealth with the aim

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<v Speaker 2>of unifying the steps and data necessary for businesses to

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<v Speaker 2>develop and execute go to market strategies. The company has

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<v Speaker 2>eighty million dollars from a combination seed and Series A

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<v Speaker 2>funding round co led by Coaslaventures and Kleine Perkins. Revo

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<v Speaker 2>CEO David Zoo and investor Vinokosler are with us now. David,

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<v Speaker 2>I would love to start with you. You're trying to

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<v Speaker 2>tackle the concept that you have labeled the Franken stack.

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<v Speaker 2>Even though the term is new to me, the concept

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<v Speaker 2>is something that's been discussed on this program a lot.

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<v Speaker 2>Just to explain what Revo wants to achieve here.

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<v Speaker 3>Sure, well, first off, thanks for having me. It's a

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<v Speaker 3>big day for us. Look, AI is the biggest shift

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<v Speaker 3>in enterprise software since the cloud, but the reality is,

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<v Speaker 3>revenue teams are still stuck in like you said, what

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<v Speaker 3>we call the Franken stack, which is a dozen different

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<v Speaker 3>tools that don't really talk to each other, causing sellers

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<v Speaker 3>to waste over seventy percent of their time wrangling software

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<v Speaker 3>instead of talking to their customers.

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<v Speaker 4>And that's really painful.

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<v Speaker 3>Revo is looking to fix that via one unified revenue

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<v Speaker 3>operating system built from the ground up with AI at

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<v Speaker 3>its core, and with this eighty million raise, we're scaling

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<v Speaker 3>quickly to help all companies win in the age of AI.

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<v Speaker 2>Vinod I was talking with my team this morning about

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<v Speaker 2>the structure of this round and so it's basically a

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<v Speaker 2>combined seed in Series A and Revo is coming out

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<v Speaker 2>and kind of announcing itself to the world.

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<v Speaker 4>Would you kind of give us the backstory?

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<v Speaker 2>You know you are an experienced investor in the world

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<v Speaker 2>of technology. When this crossed your desk, How did you

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<v Speaker 2>know that you needed to get involved and how did

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<v Speaker 2>you determine at this very early stage the potential that

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<v Speaker 2>Revo had.

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<v Speaker 1>The opportunity didn't actually cross our desk in a traditional way.

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<v Speaker 1>It'd be've known for a long time from door dash

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<v Speaker 1>to open door to open store. Sorry, and now Revo.

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<v Speaker 1>We've been incubating ventures with him. My partner Samar has

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<v Speaker 1>worked closely with him on Revo, and we cooked up

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<v Speaker 1>the concept, rainstormed it and thought it was important enough

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<v Speaker 1>to do in the age of Hey, I think most

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<v Speaker 1>applications and application stacks need to be re taught and

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<v Speaker 1>this is David just a superstar armed to know, so

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<v Speaker 1>it was pretty easy.

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<v Speaker 2>That is this an example of you investing in the

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<v Speaker 2>known quantity founder then rather than the idea?

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<v Speaker 4>Absolutely, he wan we invested.

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<v Speaker 1>The idea wasn't clear that was a year and a

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<v Speaker 1>half or two years ago, but the founder was very clear.

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<v Speaker 2>David, I'm trying to track the growth that you've had.

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<v Speaker 2>So spring of twenty twenty four you kind of come

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<v Speaker 2>up with the idea, I guess, incorporate a business, and

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<v Speaker 2>you've hired I guess aggressively. You know you're sub one

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<v Speaker 2>hundred people still, but you've basically gone to companies that

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<v Speaker 2>are well known globally, not just here in the valley,

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<v Speaker 2>and taken the best people you can.

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<v Speaker 4>What was that like, Well, yeah, you're spot on there.

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<v Speaker 3>The company you build taking a page out of Vano's book,

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<v Speaker 3>but the company you built as the team you build,

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<v Speaker 3>as a company you build, not the plans you make.

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<v Speaker 3>And when we thought about tackling the space of unifying

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<v Speaker 3>all go to market tech in one system, spanning marketing, sales,

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<v Speaker 3>and success, we really needed to make sure that we

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<v Speaker 3>had the talent density both from a technical perspective, but

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<v Speaker 3>also from a go to market to really bring together

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<v Speaker 3>the combination of the depth of domain knowledge plus the

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<v Speaker 3>ability to access the first party data to really pull

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<v Speaker 3>this vision off. So global talent is necessary for us

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<v Speaker 3>to make this a reality.

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<v Speaker 2>David, what else do you need the eighty million dollars for?

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, well it's over the next few months and quarters

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<v Speaker 3>and years. Our vision is clear. We need a continue

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<v Speaker 3>accelerating our product role map to build out both the

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<v Speaker 3>breadth of the surface area to serve our customers, but

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<v Speaker 3>also making sure that every single capability is the best

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<v Speaker 3>possible from a death perspective, but more importantly, in the

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<v Speaker 3>age of AI, context matters, and it's very important for

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<v Speaker 3>us to double down on making sure that our AI

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<v Speaker 3>operating system is able to work seamlessly across every single

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<v Speaker 3>one of these modules capabilities. Job to be done, so

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<v Speaker 3>we're not replicating another Franken stack for the future world.

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<v Speaker 4>So that's what we're going to use.

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<v Speaker 3>The proceeds to to do.

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<v Speaker 2>Vinod, I go back to you with the concept of

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<v Speaker 2>the Franken stack. You know you're invested everywhere. One of

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<v Speaker 2>the first checks into open AI the world is changed

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<v Speaker 2>a law since then you know, we had yesterday Shrida

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<v Speaker 2>from Snowflake on the program talking about the problems right

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<v Speaker 2>now and in the data layer. What do you make

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<v Speaker 2>of the frankenstack? Is that a real thing or this

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<v Speaker 2>is just a marketing opportunity around this round.

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<v Speaker 1>No, I think it's a real thing. Of course, AI

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<v Speaker 1>enables each startup to do a lot more than it

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<v Speaker 1>could do. Twenty engineers can do the work of sixty

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<v Speaker 1>engineers if you use the productivity tools AI enables. But

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<v Speaker 1>more than that, the user experience can be dramatically different

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<v Speaker 1>with the help of AI. As I like to say,

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<v Speaker 1>in the old world of applications, users had to learn

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<v Speaker 1>an application and they learned each vertical stack. In the

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<v Speaker 1>new world of AI, the application learns the human and

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<v Speaker 1>responds the way each ship. It's my favorite way to

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<v Speaker 1>think about the transition AI makes possible. You don't have

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<v Speaker 1>to be trained on an application, get SAP or pubs Jack.

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<v Speaker 4>The application gets to.

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<v Speaker 1>Know you and are the humans on your team, and

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<v Speaker 1>so facilitates not only the function, but also work for

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<v Speaker 1>across people and across applications.

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<v Speaker 4>I think it's a pretty important shift in software to

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<v Speaker 4>both you.

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<v Speaker 2>I kind of like to end the conversation by going

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<v Speaker 2>a little bit bigger on the world that we're in

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<v Speaker 2>right now. You know, David, if you could reflect on

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<v Speaker 2>what it was like doing this round. There is a

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<v Speaker 2>lot of energy behind AI right now, but at the

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<v Speaker 2>other end of the spectrum there is valuation concern. You know,

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<v Speaker 2>there's no difficulty in open AI or anthropic those kinds

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<v Speaker 2>of frontier labs gaining capital, but there is a lot

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<v Speaker 2>going on right now. Would you just reflect on what

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<v Speaker 2>the last few weeks has been like in trying to close.

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<v Speaker 3>This well, you know, the fundamental difference is clear with

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<v Speaker 3>our approach. We're AI native and purpose built for remy teams,

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<v Speaker 3>and so you know when you talk about the old

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<v Speaker 3>players that are trying to bowl AI onto legacy stack,

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<v Speaker 3>it just doesn't work. What we're building with Revo is

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<v Speaker 3>akin to how Tesla build its cars vertically integrated with

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<v Speaker 3>AI at its core. This way, our AI is able

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<v Speaker 3>to see, to see, and act across the full customer journey.

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<v Speaker 3>So the old players are held back by their past,

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<v Speaker 3>and the new players, to your point, you know, don't

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<v Speaker 3>have the depth of domain knowledge nor the access to

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<v Speaker 3>the full suite of first party data to pull this

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<v Speaker 3>vision off. So Revo's building with both and yes it's hard,

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<v Speaker 3>but that's really what makes it defensible and worth doing.

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<v Speaker 2>You know, you're co leading this round with your friends

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<v Speaker 2>at Kleiner Perkins. Again the same question, like what does

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<v Speaker 2>the environment look like to you right now? This is

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<v Speaker 2>a very sizable debut round. You had the conviction to

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<v Speaker 2>do that.

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<v Speaker 4>Well.

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<v Speaker 1>It was a while ago we did the seed round

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<v Speaker 1>of ten million, there wasn't the nuts, and now we

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<v Speaker 1>just participated in the seventy million dollars around. Obviously we

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<v Speaker 1>think highly of the team, but I think it's the

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<v Speaker 1>magnitude of the opportunity this opens up for AI native companies.

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<v Speaker 1>I like to say most valuations won't hold up in

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<v Speaker 1>the AI space, but the ones that are really high

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<v Speaker 1>quality companies will return disproportionate returns. In twenty eighteen, people

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<v Speaker 1>said to me a billion dollar valuation for open air.

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<v Speaker 4>Hours too high.

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<v Speaker 1>Then they said twenty six billion was too high, and

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<v Speaker 1>then one hundred billion, then three hundred billion, and then

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<v Speaker 1>five hundred billion were all too high. So a small

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<v Speaker 1>percentage of the companies I suspect, much less than five percent,

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<v Speaker 1>will actually do extremely well and return ten fifty or

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<v Speaker 1>one hundred times their money invested.

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<v Speaker 4>Most companies will still lose.

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<v Speaker 1>Money, and I think that's why you want to back

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<v Speaker 1>quality founders like David. David's a superstar, right back almost

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<v Speaker 1>anything you did.

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<v Speaker 2>David Zo, CEO of Revo Ai Vino Cosla, co founder Coasadventures,

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<v Speaker 2>and as we just discussed, co led that around. Great

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<v Speaker 2>to have you both on the program. Frank, you