Heidi Wyle - Petri Dish Discoveries to Autonomous Tech

[00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of the HerSuccess podcast.

[00:00:04] We are the podcast that interviews highly successful and aspirational women,

[00:00:08] primarily within the engineering and tech world with the hope of inspiring

[00:00:12] the next generation of leaders in this space.

[00:00:15] The podcast is brought to you by EngTel.

[00:00:17] We are an engineering and technology recruitment firm.

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[00:00:23] that truly cares about DEI, please get in contact.

[00:00:26] If you're an engineer looking for your next position,

[00:00:29] we would love to hear from you as well.

[00:00:31] On this episode, we interview Heidi Weil.

[00:00:34] Heidi is the founder and CEO of Bente Technologies, an autonomous vehicle firm.

[00:00:40] And she's a serial entrepreneur with a fantastic background.

[00:00:44] She has a bachelor's from Brown, an MBA from Harvard

[00:00:47] and a PhD from MIT.

[00:00:50] It's a really great conversation learning about her background.

[00:00:53] I'm sure you guys will enjoy.

[00:00:55] Without further ado, let's get to the show.

[00:00:56] Hi, everyone.

[00:00:57] And welcome to this episode of the HerSuccess podcast.

[00:01:01] I'm delighted today to be joined by Heidi Weil.

[00:01:05] Heidi is the founder and CEO of Bente Technologies.

[00:01:10] They're a Singapore based firm and leading autonomous logistics company.

[00:01:16] Heidi has an incredible background, phenomenal education.

[00:01:20] She has a bachelor's from Brown, MBA from Harvard, PhD from MIT.

[00:01:24] And she's done a number of really cool things in her career.

[00:01:28] So I'm really excited to dive into her journey and learn a bit more about her background.

[00:01:32] First and foremost, Heidi, thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast and welcome.

[00:01:38] Thank you so much. It's actually a pleasure.

[00:01:40] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:01:41] First things first, I'd love to just get a bit of an overview of your journey.

[00:01:45] So I know you did your bachelor's degree at Brown and then you've done a number of things.

[00:01:49] So maybe you can just start us there and give us the 50,000

[00:01:53] view of your career so far.

[00:01:56] Sure, I'd be happy to.

[00:01:57] So I was born in a lower socioeconomic environment

[00:02:02] with parents that were immigrants and life wasn't particularly solid.

[00:02:08] And so I always had, I would say grit.

[00:02:12] I don't know where the grit gene came from, but I believe that now they've

[00:02:16] discovered it's actually a gene.

[00:02:18] So I had that.

[00:02:19] Yes.

[00:02:20] So I had that and then also a hunger for learning.

[00:02:24] I spent my childhood reading books.

[00:02:27] And so when I graduated from Brown, I went straight off to MIT.

[00:02:32] It was in my family, the pinnacle of.

[00:02:38] Education, I think, towards a solid life that you could depend on.

[00:02:45] So I did my Ph.D. there.

[00:02:46] I got elected to its corporation, which was an amazing experience for me all those

[00:02:51] years ago, coming into people who ran City Corp and Johnson and Johnson and so forth.

[00:02:58] And what that showed me was that these people who took me under their wing to mentor me,

[00:03:06] that they mattered to me and I could do the same thing.

[00:03:10] And so actually, through my career, which has been just a joy, I have spent a lot of

[00:03:16] time with that mentoring of the next generation of leaders.

[00:03:21] But I got into biotech early.

[00:03:24] I was excited about a new industry that could use technology at that point.

[00:03:30] Obviously, the genome to actually make people's lives better.

[00:03:35] I loved it.

[00:03:36] It was new.

[00:03:38] We were doing low hanging fruit.

[00:03:41] And I just absolutely adored traveling around the world with leading experts in the

[00:03:45] world, speaking with them and helping them from my corporate position to fund

[00:03:50] their research and build new ideas.

[00:03:53] That was really fun.

[00:03:55] And then after that, I decided that it was interesting for me to do something

[00:04:00] different. So I actually started my own biotech companies for all the people who

[00:04:07] are out there.

[00:04:08] The first one was a failure.

[00:04:10] The market went in a different direction to government funded situations for the

[00:04:16] we were talking about as opposed to private.

[00:04:19] And then I founded a company that was actually acquired by Agilent.

[00:04:26] And that was quite quickly after we had started it.

[00:04:29] So it was a very strong financial success with an utterly new technology

[00:04:34] basis.

[00:04:36] We were mixing the genome with the location that was turning on a gene.

[00:04:46] So it was a new discovery.

[00:04:48] And after that, I was finally merging my life with children in addition to my

[00:04:57] work life.

[00:04:59] And I had seen a lot done a lot.

[00:05:02] And I founded Bente with Professor Daniela Ruse of MIT, who runs MIT's

[00:05:07] largest lab, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.

[00:05:12] She's amazing.

[00:05:14] And so we founded that company to bring the new science of autonomy to the

[00:05:23] world.

[00:05:23] We actually wanted to make the world a better place for many different

[00:05:26] reasons.

[00:05:28] Each of us was driving kids around white knuckled.

[00:05:31] I had my dad who was in a wheelchair and an automated wheelchair would have

[00:05:35] been superb.

[00:05:36] So we started the company to change the world and also to create the

[00:05:40] biggest company in the space.

[00:05:43] Wow, that's amazing.

[00:05:44] I mean, great, great journey.

[00:05:45] I think that's the magic combination.

[00:05:48] If you can combine a desire to build a great company with also the

[00:05:52] why of doing good in the world and making the world a better place.

[00:05:56] Typically, I think those are the companies that really make an impact.

[00:06:00] Tell us a little bit about Bente.

[00:06:02] You mentioned how it was founded, but how has the last few years been and

[00:06:06] kind of where is it at today?

[00:06:10] Sure.

[00:06:10] Chris, I will say that for people who work 60 or 70 hours a week, it's

[00:06:15] a really wonderful thing when you really believe in what you're doing.

[00:06:18] That's for sure.

[00:06:21] So the last few years of Bente have been quite an exciting and

[00:06:25] interesting journey.

[00:06:27] The company's actually headquartered in the Boston area and most of our

[00:06:31] staff right now is in Singapore.

[00:06:34] And so we have been working with a major partner who is a port operator

[00:06:40] and we've been working with them to actually make real the

[00:06:45] promise of autonomy.

[00:06:48] And my opinion is that in our space, which is developing autonomous

[00:06:54] vehicle, AI powered of course, that's what autonomy is, logistics

[00:07:00] vehicles for environments where there are heavy logistics.

[00:07:07] So ports, airports, factories, warehouses.

[00:07:12] So our goal is in logistics spaces and I believe this is where the

[00:07:17] field of autonomy should have started.

[00:07:20] So we're there and we have been wrangling the technology for the last

[00:07:25] few years.

[00:07:26] And I'll tell you with enormous pleasure that towards the end of 2023,

[00:07:32] we actually hit a three year milestone to deploy our vehicles 24 seven

[00:07:39] for quite some time.

[00:07:41] So it has been an enormous piece of work from a best in the world team

[00:07:47] who are incredibly committed.

[00:07:50] I just feel like the, I tell them, I just feel like the luckiest woman on

[00:07:53] the planet to be working with them.

[00:07:56] Oh, that's amazing.

[00:07:59] Yeah.

[00:07:59] No, that's incredible.

[00:08:00] And I know it's a cliche, but when they say you really love what you

[00:08:03] do, you don't work a day in your life.

[00:08:05] I certainly feel that myself as an entrepreneur and sometimes it is easy

[00:08:09] to put in those 60, 70 hour weeks.

[00:08:11] If you're really passionate about what you do, you're passionate about the

[00:08:14] people that you work alongside and everything like that.

[00:08:17] So that's fantastic.

[00:08:19] To take it a step back for a second, you mentioned earlier, you have

[00:08:22] obviously immigrant parents.

[00:08:24] You came from a lower sort of socioeconomic background.

[00:08:28] How do you think about formed you and what part did that play?

[00:08:32] Do you think in your life?

[00:08:36] Well, first of all, I believe very much in grit and hard work.

[00:08:42] You make your own look.

[00:08:43] And I also believe in education as a transformative force for people.

[00:08:50] It helps you think it helps you manage your own career, but I think that.

[00:08:58] It's important to understand who you are and what makes you feel good.

[00:09:04] Just as one aside, Chris, I read Lord of the Rings 13 times as a child.

[00:09:13] My favorite book of all time as well.

[00:09:16] I read those three books 13 times because what I believed was that

[00:09:23] Gandalf the white and Aragorn, those guys who represented the good actually

[00:09:29] could win and it was, it was an absolute stake in the ground for my life.

[00:09:36] So that reading really sort of carried me through.

[00:09:40] That's what I would say is that I think that hard work and belief

[00:09:47] carries you forward.

[00:09:49] Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

[00:09:50] I mean, firstly, the Lord of the Rings exactly the same.

[00:09:53] I couldn't tell you how many times I've read those books or seen

[00:09:56] the movies definitely a staple of my childhood as well.

[00:10:00] And yeah, kind of making your own like, absolutely.

[00:10:03] There will be times when you'll get lucky or you'll get bad luck.

[00:10:06] But if you turn up every day, you'll get lucky.

[00:10:08] But if you turn up every day and you work hard and you play things the right

[00:10:12] way, and you're a high level of integrity and everything like that,

[00:10:15] just the luck will fall in your favor.

[00:10:17] It's 100%.

[00:10:19] One of the things that I found amazing about Benti is that you have 16

[00:10:24] different nationalities in your staff.

[00:10:26] That's a huge spread of nationalities.

[00:10:28] How do you think that contributes to the culture

[00:10:31] that you've been able to build?

[00:10:32] Well, it actually has been proven in the data that different perspectives

[00:10:41] create a better outcome.

[00:10:44] It's not a surprise if you think about it, because people see things

[00:10:48] different ways.

[00:10:48] And if you amalgamate all those different perspectives, you end up

[00:10:55] with a bigger, fuller scope in terms of what you're trying to accomplish.

[00:11:00] That's very much what we have.

[00:11:02] We don't care if you have green skin, brown skin.

[00:11:06] You know, we don't care at all.

[00:11:07] We care about what's on the inside of our staff.

[00:11:11] I hire and interview every single person we have.

[00:11:16] It's important to me.

[00:11:18] And I look for someone who puts out what I think of in my mind as light.

[00:11:23] And each person has their own wavelength of light, but they put it out.

[00:11:29] And you can just sense it.

[00:11:31] So we do that.

[00:11:33] But I think, for example, we've got people who do heavy mathematics.

[00:11:38] As you can imagine, they underpin the computation work that we do.

[00:11:42] We have people who are designed and do the user interface to make

[00:11:47] it obvious and easy to use.

[00:11:50] And so as we amalgamate the different nationalities, we amalgamate

[00:11:56] the different perspectives on the world and the different expertise of our people.

[00:12:02] With respect to the specifics of the nationalities, when we have our Friday

[00:12:08] night parties, I just revel in talking to our different people about what's

[00:12:15] going on in their home country.

[00:12:17] I just absolutely love it.

[00:12:19] But we did not hire to do that.

[00:12:21] We just hired the best.

[00:12:24] See, that's very interesting.

[00:12:25] That was going to be my next question is how much of a conscious effort was it to do that?

[00:12:31] So you're saying actually really wasn't.

[00:12:33] You just simply removed any bias or barrier to doing that and simply

[00:12:38] hired people based on talent.

[00:12:39] And like you said, seeing that light that they have.

[00:12:43] Can I tell you something?

[00:12:45] One of my employees grew up in Kalamantan, Borneo.

[00:12:51] His father dug out the dugout canoe that he used.

[00:12:55] And if you ask this PhD autonomy guy who grew up in the jungle, what his best strength is,

[00:13:04] he will tell you it's catching monkeys.

[00:13:09] Wow.

[00:13:10] That's amazing.

[00:13:13] He got himself a PhD from Asia, from a great institution growing up in the jungle.

[00:13:20] So why care?

[00:13:22] I care about him.

[00:13:23] Do I care he came from there?

[00:13:24] No, I think it's great.

[00:13:26] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:13:28] I think the other part having such a diverse workforce is it's a better

[00:13:32] representation of the world and a better representation of your customer base.

[00:13:36] So I think the diversification of thought is incredibly important.

[00:13:40] And if you only have one demographic that works for your organization, your

[00:13:46] product and your marketing and everything typically will be geared towards that one

[00:13:50] demographic because that's the same way that everybody thinks.

[00:13:53] Whereas if you have a very broad spectrum of ideas and people from different walks of

[00:13:58] life in different ages and different countries and things like that, you will be more

[00:14:03] representative of the world that you are selling to, in my opinion.

[00:14:06] So it's also kind of there's such a huge bottom line impact by having a lot of

[00:14:12] those different ideas.

[00:14:14] I think you're absolutely right.

[00:14:16] And the other thing that's interesting is that when you have people from such

[00:14:20] diverse backgrounds, they rub against the opinions and the ways that you live that

[00:14:27] you never knew you had.

[00:14:30] So, for example, you can have people who are don't put themselves forward, but

[00:14:36] they have the best ideas.

[00:14:38] And that makes me learn, for example, that I have to ask, I have to look them in

[00:14:43] the eye carefully and ask.

[00:14:46] So I think it's a great learning experience for each member of our team to just get

[00:14:51] their edges rubbed off by their colleagues, all because they come to this with

[00:14:57] integrity, as you said earlier, most important thing and trying to do the

[00:15:01] right thing.

[00:15:03] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:15:04] Well, one of the people that I interviewed personally today, they are

[00:15:09] neurodivergent on the autism spectrum.

[00:15:12] And they were talking about that kind of very similar thing, how companies, the

[00:15:17] more progressive companies are able to set up scenarios and working environments

[00:15:23] that really allow them to thrive.

[00:15:26] And maybe there might be one person who isn't always going to put their

[00:15:30] hand in the air for an idea.

[00:15:32] There might be somebody else who works a lot better individually than part of

[00:15:36] a team.

[00:15:37] Having that kind of awareness of who is the quietest person in the room, does

[00:15:42] that mean that they don't have the best ideas?

[00:15:44] No, it doesn't.

[00:15:45] It just means that maybe they need to be in a different room or someone needs

[00:15:48] to elevate their opinion and their voice, which I find very, very interesting.

[00:16:35] My next question, you sort of answered this a little bit, I think, but I was

[00:16:39] going to ask you, what have you learned managing and overseeing so many

[00:16:43] different cultures?

[00:16:48] I guess I've learned that the hardest thing to manage is myself.

[00:16:53] They taught me that at Harvard Business School and they were right.

[00:16:58] And the reason is that where I put my attention is the choice.

[00:17:05] So out of everything that I should be doing, out of the six lives I wish I

[00:17:10] had concomitantly so I could get it all done, I have to make choices.

[00:17:16] And those choices come from two places.

[00:17:20] They come from thinking about it and really being on top of what's going on

[00:17:24] with the company, which is very hard.

[00:17:27] And they also come from a place of values.

[00:17:31] So it's interesting for me to talk to other CEOs and understand their

[00:17:38] core values, because in the end you can be sitting in a quiet room with a bunch

[00:17:44] of alternatives.

[00:17:46] You don't know which one is the right one.

[00:17:48] You're utterly bamboozled.

[00:17:50] Like you've had a conversation with the team many times and you have to

[00:17:54] make a decision.

[00:17:56] And that's when a lot of your core values really come to the fore.

[00:18:01] So I guess I've learned that.

[00:18:04] And I've also learned that just what we talked about earlier, when we have a

[00:18:11] cocktail party on a Friday afternoon, I make it a point to go around and talk

[00:18:16] to the people at all levels of my company to hear what they think.

[00:18:23] And it is always a delight to me to get gobsmacked about the kinds of things

[00:18:29] that they tell me that I had no clue about and that inform how I run the

[00:18:33] company.

[00:18:35] Oh, sorry.

[00:18:38] No, no.

[00:18:38] That's what I wanted to say is that talking to people there's HBS.

[00:18:42] There was something called management by wandering around.

[00:18:48] I wander around our cocktail parties.

[00:18:51] Yeah.

[00:18:52] I mean, in England we used to call it, yeah, pub management.

[00:18:55] You learn as much from speaking to the guy in the bar that's worked for the

[00:18:59] organization for six months, as you do sitting next to your executive who

[00:19:03] you've worked with for 20 years and exactly what they're going to say

[00:19:06] before they say it.

[00:19:08] Yeah.

[00:19:08] I w we did this at my last organization, reverse mentoring, when

[00:19:13] we would have someone that had been with the organization for two or three

[00:19:16] years, mentor CEO and the CTO of the organization.

[00:19:20] I always thought it was such a impactful project because just unless you make

[00:19:25] a real conscious effort as your company scales, it's very challenging to

[00:19:31] stay in the weeds that you were when you first started.

[00:19:34] I think unless you really make that conscious effort.

[00:19:38] Well, one of the things that companies often ask us and we consult

[00:19:41] organizations on this is how you create such a diverse culture.

[00:19:48] If you were to give advice to another CEO, maybe someone that has a company

[00:19:52] and they're not as diverse or as broad as David want them today, but they

[00:19:56] were wanting to improve that.

[00:19:58] What advice do you think you would give them?

[00:20:02] You know, I actually had experience with that.

[00:20:04] I ran an organization earlier in my life was a women's organization.

[00:20:07] And I took it over at a time of great change for the organization.

[00:20:10] It was at a real crossroads and it was very obvious to me.

[00:20:15] And we had very few African-Americans and I led the board and we just, we

[00:20:22] made a commitment that we wanted to have these underrepresented groups in

[00:20:28] our organization to at least the statistics that they were in the

[00:20:33] Boston area.

[00:20:36] I'm embarrassed to tell this story, but I thought that I was able to bring

[00:20:42] in the African-American people to this organization.

[00:20:45] And I figured I was president, right?

[00:20:47] Why shouldn't I?

[00:20:48] And it was an utter fail.

[00:20:52] And what I did was I found two African-American leaders who were

[00:20:57] with us and I asked them, I told them about my goals, my dreams,

[00:21:04] frankly, my values.

[00:21:06] This was, you know, this was an integrity thing for me.

[00:21:07] I was horribly embarrassed.

[00:21:09] This is where we were.

[00:21:11] And they took it on and wham bam.

[00:21:13] They got it done like so fast.

[00:21:16] And that's what I would say.

[00:21:18] If you want, if you're serious about bringing on these underrepresented

[00:21:22] groups, just go find yourself some, some partners and let them go run

[00:21:31] and they'll do the job.

[00:21:32] You can't.

[00:21:34] Yeah.

[00:21:35] Yeah.

[00:21:35] I think that's, that's great advice.

[00:21:37] I think so much of it is being aware and being honest about where

[00:21:42] you're at.

[00:21:43] Well, one of my good friends runs a diversity consulting firm.

[00:21:46] And she said exactly that.

[00:21:48] First thing you've got to be very honest and no matter how embarrassing

[00:21:52] or whatever it is, like you've got to be aware of where you're at today

[00:21:55] and like did get it out there.

[00:21:57] And then if you hire someone, whether it's a head of diversity or

[00:22:00] it's just a senior leader in the business that comes from that background

[00:22:03] and is passionate about that, that those two are the first steps to

[00:22:07] really kind of improving that.

[00:22:08] And obviously you've, you've lived that so.

[00:22:11] Yeah.

[00:22:11] I wanted to say something else.

[00:22:14] It's along these lines.

[00:22:15] That's it's been another lesson for me.

[00:22:18] And that is listen really hard to the next generation.

[00:22:24] So I have kids now that are in their late twenties, mid to late

[00:22:29] twenties, and we all love our children.

[00:22:32] What's interesting is that I listened to them and that has caused

[00:22:38] me to listen more strongly to my super young team members.

[00:22:43] We have a bunch of them that are in their twenties.

[00:22:46] I think we may even have a few that are under 20 and you normally

[00:22:51] spend all your time with your executive team, but let me tell you.

[00:22:55] The big ideas, many of them come from the young people and

[00:23:00] uncomfortable sometimes not their age, but it's uncomfortable to believe

[00:23:06] that they don't have the world experience to be able to understand

[00:23:10] why what they're saying won't work, whatever, but you know what?

[00:23:13] They're often right.

[00:23:15] So that was another big learning for me is that the future

[00:23:18] really is the young people and autonomous vehicles is a long game.

[00:23:24] And we, we believe that we're going to be doing it soon, frankly,

[00:23:28] but nonetheless, the utter transformation that autonomy will

[00:23:32] bring to the planet, our cities are going to be reborn.

[00:23:35] We're going to have less pollution because it's probably 40% of the

[00:23:39] vehicles compared to what we need today at a hundred percent when it's fully,

[00:23:43] when it's fully autonomous.

[00:23:45] But that future, it doesn't belong to me.

[00:23:48] It belongs to my kids and my team members that are young.

[00:23:51] They're the ones who are going to tell their grandchildren they were here

[00:23:54] at the beginning of this dislocated technology.

[00:23:58] Yeah, no, not a hundred percent.

[00:24:00] And I think it's almost similar to what I was talking about

[00:24:04] earlier about the, again, the map of the world.

[00:24:06] Like there are a lot of our customers and future customers are people that

[00:24:10] are in their twenties and maybe even younger than that.

[00:24:14] And some of the more progressive leaders that I've seen are those

[00:24:21] ones that can listen to people at all ends of the spectrum.

[00:24:23] Right?

[00:24:23] There are people that, I mean, I think that advice I got from

[00:24:26] my 87 year old grandma, right?

[00:24:28] It's very valuable advice.

[00:24:30] So much life experience that she has lived.

[00:24:33] And equally someone that's coming out of college, that's going to take over the

[00:24:36] world and has all this innovation and all these great ideas.

[00:24:39] If you're able to listen and kind of compartmentalize that and

[00:24:43] put it into a strategy, I think that's, that's the kind of

[00:24:46] secret source, I guess.

[00:24:49] I think so.

[00:24:51] Anyway, it's been fun.

[00:24:52] I learned it.

[00:24:53] I learned so much.

[00:24:54] Yeah, no, absolutely.

[00:24:56] Tell me a challenge that you've faced in your career and what advice would

[00:25:02] you give to someone that's facing something similar?

[00:25:06] You know, the one, there are always challenges, right?

[00:25:09] And they're always big challenges and you just have to put

[00:25:13] one foot in front of the other.

[00:25:15] But I think the biggest challenge I would say for myself is how do

[00:25:21] you manage your family and time with your beloved children while you

[00:25:28] really want a very stellar and strong leading career?

[00:25:34] Because those, because everything we do success is kind of linear with time.

[00:25:41] I think hard work for sure.

[00:25:44] And so how do you balance that?

[00:25:46] And each person has to do it in their own specific family way.

[00:25:52] I can only say that I thought about what my core values were.

[00:25:57] One of them for sure was raising my children.

[00:26:01] And we implemented our lives so that I could have a career and I could also

[00:26:08] spend a lot of time with my kids.

[00:26:12] But I hear that over and over and over again from young women who

[00:26:18] really want a major career.

[00:26:21] And the last thing I'll tell you is that I had the enormous privilege

[00:26:26] of meeting Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was a US Supreme Court justice.

[00:26:33] And listening to her at a luncheon, I was lucky enough to

[00:26:38] actually just shake her hand.

[00:26:40] But she just looked at the audience and she just said, don't forget.

[00:26:45] Somebody has to raise the children.

[00:26:50] That sounds about right for the RPG.

[00:26:53] Yeah.

[00:26:54] Exactly.

[00:26:55] And I thought to myself, wow, I'm not alone.

[00:27:00] That's amazing.

[00:27:01] And yeah, I 100% can see that conversation.

[00:27:05] My wife and I, we don't have kids yet, but we want to.

[00:27:08] And she's an attorney.

[00:27:10] She works, loves her career, but works very long hours.

[00:27:13] Obviously being an entrepreneur, I kind of do as well myself.

[00:27:16] And it's always been a bit of a conversation that we've had is when,

[00:27:20] well, how are we going to balance this?

[00:27:22] Cause we know that we want kids and we want to be there and put all the time

[00:27:26] and love into raising them, but we are also pretty ambitious people that

[00:27:31] are very kind of career forward.

[00:27:32] Her all time hero is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

[00:27:35] So I will be sure to tell her that either you or you had lunch with her.

[00:27:38] She'll be very impressed by that.

[00:27:41] It was quite something.

[00:27:43] Well, I'm not going to give you any advice other than to just keep at it.

[00:27:46] That's fine.

[00:27:48] That's I think that's good advice.

[00:27:49] We're nearly at the end of our time here, which has gone very quickly.

[00:27:53] It's been a really great conversation.

[00:27:54] I always finish up with this question, but you're working right on the,

[00:27:58] the cusp of innovation that I'm right now in the autonomous vehicle space.

[00:28:03] Tell me something that you're really excited about for 2024.

[00:28:10] 2024 will be transformative for Venti.

[00:28:14] We have wrangled our technology to the point where we can expand

[00:28:19] significantly and we can move into that.

[00:28:23] And we have global markets.

[00:28:25] So I, I would say that it's that level of expansion, which was.

[00:28:36] Dreamed of, but not seen is now here for us.

[00:28:42] And that beautiful team that I have that just works so, so, so hard.

[00:28:49] We're going to start a new level where our dreams are.

[00:28:53] So that's really what I'm looking for in 24.

[00:28:57] I'm also going to answer a question you didn't ask, which was.

[00:29:01] What are my dreams for what our technology can do?

[00:29:05] And it's where I started.

[00:29:08] I, our technology will make a greener planet and I'm personally very

[00:29:15] involved up with the animals, the wild animals on the planet.

[00:29:19] And if we can work so that we can move the ships away from the whales and they

[00:29:25] don't kill all the whales by hitting them because we can then tell them

[00:29:30] through autonomy where they can go.

[00:29:33] If we can green the cities in the urban environments, cut the pollution

[00:29:38] for the animals, I would be happy for that.

[00:29:43] Yeah.

[00:29:43] That's amazing.

[00:29:44] I think when you think about, you think about autonomous vehicles,

[00:29:47] you think about AI, you almost don't connect what it can do.

[00:29:51] Like those examples there, you know, I don't think that you'd even think

[00:29:55] about like actually they could have such an impact in that kind of thing.

[00:29:59] So that's really, really exciting.

[00:30:01] And I'm sure a lot of the people listening to this will be watching

[00:30:04] and you know, your organization and cheering you on.

[00:30:07] I certainly will be whether it's for you or the gentleman that you

[00:30:11] mentioned, whose biggest skill is catching monkeys.

[00:30:13] Just a fantastic story.

[00:30:16] But yeah, that's all we have time for today.

[00:30:19] I mean, thank you so much.

[00:30:20] So that was a really great conversation.

[00:30:22] I think it was one of the more unique conversations we've had.

[00:30:26] I think your journey is incredible.

[00:30:27] The company you're building sounds like it will be world-changing.

[00:30:30] So thank you so much for giving us your time.

[00:30:34] Well, it's my pleasure and thank you very much.

[00:30:37] Best wishes to you and your family for 2024.

[00:30:41] Thank you.

[00:30:42] Well, thank you everyone for dialing in and hope you enjoyed

[00:30:45] today's episode as much as I did.

[00:30:48] We will be back in two weeks time for our next episode.

[00:30:51] So dial in then.