Economy and eight Labor Department proposal to make salary workers eligible for overtime pay. Here is a look. President Obama Policies that cut education, help folks at the top, art expanding opportunity. Arent expanding opportunity. We need better policies. [applause] the bottom line is, topdown economics doesnt work. Middle class economics works. [cheers] president obama it works. [applause] president obama it works. And this is also a matter of values. Being an american is not about taking as much as you can from your neighbor before they take as much as they can from you. We are not just a bunch of individuals out here, on our own, we are a community, we are a family. We are all in this together. We all have to work hard. I was taking some photos hadwith ron and met a couple folks with diaairy farmers. Nobody works harder than farmers. They know hard work. [applause] farmers know about hard work. They wake up early. They go to bed late. They are worried all the time about making sure things run. But, they also understand about being neighbors and helping each other out. Thats american. Weve got to make sure that this economy works for everybody that is willing to work. Everybody that is willing to do their fair share. President obama in wisconsin earlier today. You can watch the entire speech around midnight here on cspan or anytime online at www. Cspan. Org. And gop president ial candidate rick perry talking about the economy today, saying he would do more to court black voters. He pointed out improved educational and Economic Opportunities while he was governor of texas. He says as president , he would boost the economy by reforming the tax code and forth tight budget on federal agencies. We will be showing his comments on cspan, or you can find them and watch them anytime on cspans video library. Also former virginia senator jim webb nothing he is running for president , joining the field challenging Hillary Clinton for the democratic nomination. There are now 14 republicans and five democrats in the race. Tomorrow, you can see all of the on camera announcements from the given candidates, starting with texas senator ted cruz, through new jersey governor chris christie, the most recent announcement, starting at 10 00 eastern on cspan. Next, some of the latest Tech Startups with innovators, Venture Capitalists, and members of the media. Part of the Techcrunch Disrupt conference, held in new york in may. I think to start off, you want to say a fewq words. Yes, i think it is awesome the way the Tech Community sticks together. The moment of silence for david is very appropriate. Here is a ceo who is a role model for all of Silicon Valley. Humble, a great leader, a great manager, but better than that, a great friend. Most important link, the father of two great kids. Like everyone here and in tech, i am sure we will keep cheryl and david and the kids in our thoughts and prayers. Everyone should do something nice today in honor of the david goldberg. Thank you. To kick off iyou wrote a post yesterday about why tech should be cynically engaged. Do you want to share . Civically engaged. Not just civically engaged, i think people should be engaged in all sorts of efforts to help shape the world that we live in. People in the Tech Industry often think that they do that with their work by making products, by making companies. But i think that increasingly, the technology and companies rebuild are impacting we build are impacting life in good ways and bad ways. I think it is important to understand those impacts and work with local governments work with philanthropy and other people who potentially can help mitigate those negative impacts. And there are negative impacts. What is so interesting i think about investments you were making. Some of the committees were purely software products. They are dealing with very obligated right areas like housing and transit. And jobs one of the things i see, for example when i talk to robotics ceos creating machines that make hamburgers or machines that can work with factories. I asked them about invocations for the job market. They give me this look like, yeah, thats really hard. Its going to be hard for the Education System and workforce. What do you think their responsibility is, when you have this much impact . I dont think it is just their responsibility. I think it is collectively the technology industrys responsibility to give back. Whether that is in terms of civic and moment civic involvement to help make changes that can potentially be better. We will talk more about it, but i think things like education and education reform things like housing, i think things like making sure that we have Internet Access for everybody things like that that can help create opportunity for everybody and a lifestyle that everybody can sustain are important issues. Technology is making these things harder, therefore we should work to try what does that engagement look like, though . Ron, you are a founder and then you should go find relevant people in the city government, or do you go through an organization like yours . I think you should do what suits your fancy, as long as you get engaged. 10 years ago, the Tech Community was a tiny percentage of any citys population. Today, the Technology Community is a much larger percentage of the population of the community. So tech, because of that, has got to get involved in the community. They are a huge piece of the community. In San Francisco, we started sf city which is basically the tech chamber of commerce of San Francisco. We had tax issues that we got resolved on the ballot. You moved from payroll to gross receipts. We got that behind us. And we said okay, lets do the next most important thing, which is civ engagement civic engagement. Volunteerism throughout San Francisco. Any tech company in San Francisco could adopt a school. The principal of the school would become ceo. That principle tells the tech workers, heres what i needed done in my school. Not us saying, you should do this and this. The principal says, i want you to monitor the kids when they leave school. I want you to help them read, whatever that is. When i talked to San Francisco district teachers, the fact that the district cannot pay them a living wage allows them to be able to have housing in San Francisco, that is not a thing that volatility that that volunteering necessarily helps. When you think about schools it has a well intended affect, but is it really a longterm solution . Circle the schools allows tech workers to get involved in it volunteerism. There are many other volunteer programs that other Tech Companies have started as well. The housing and income inequality issue are separate. You set a goal of thousand, one third of them 30,000 units one third of them for low income. When you look at Tech Industry leaders, what do you think their role should be in conversations . I think the first thing is that Tech Industry leaders have the ability to educate and inform Civic Leaders about important issues. A lot of these Civic Leaders dont see the things that we see coming. They are getting ahead of these issues in the way they should be. They dont care about them enough. If the Tech Industry can say heres what you can do in your schools, europe things you can do about ubiquitous broadband here are things you can do about trent rotation, transportation housing. At least local governments might start to make more enlightened investments and create more enlightened policies. The most important thing is getting into the conversation and educating them. When you look at new york citys workforce and you think about how the scale of the Tech Industry changes, its quite fast. Every year there are different linkages you need to know. Different languages you need to know. Think of workforce and develop it as two big pieces. It is the students in the Public School system and making sure you are teaching them skills that they need for this century versus last century. Then there is the Adult Education piece, retraining, taking someone who unfortunately didnt get that education growing up. The second one is harder. I think it is critical. You cant just wave off an entire generation. These your thing is k12. The easier thing is k12. New york city is doing a lot of interesting things there. The mayor is speaking today. I dont want to get in front of him on anything, so i wont be too specific. But because the Tech Industry is in tight dialogue with the mayor and his team, i think this administration can do a lot of good things in that regard. We want to talk to you about housing. It is an issue raised a lot for techcrunch. You know a lot more. I know. Its like every day i hear a crazy story. Theres a chart about a Planning Agency shared with me, 2 veterans has gone from 600 to 46,000 in 10 years. 46,000 to 26,000. Itss just wild. What is the city i look at 1020,000 people and i dont think it is enough. Not enough. Edley is ed lee is an unusual politician. He doesnt overcommit. 30,000 is a lot. Coming from zero to San Francisco was not addressing housing at all. Politician. At least he has planted a stake in the ground. This years goal is 5000 of the 30,000 units. And that will happen. He wants to meet the commitment. In addition to that however he is putting on a ballot measure on the November Ballot for a 250 million housing bond that, with leverage, will hopefully create another couple of thousand units for lowtomiddle income. This is important for School Teachers cops, firemen, but also entrylevel tech workers. They are faced with this very same issue. A lot of people make it sound like tech is unsympathetic to this. No, this is a huge issue for tech. For every engineer retired there are twfour entrylevel workers that have to have housing. Yes, we have to increase the 30,000, but at least we have a stake in the ground. How do you reconcile that tension in the market with it seems really hard. Is this the notion that it is replacing renters . I think there are a lot of underlying causes to the housing situation in california over many decades. I disagree with that. Even the Planning Department in San Francisco has released a statement that says, that an b b host would have to rent out 257 days a year in order to derive more income than adjust renting it out. Than just renting it out. The notion that b b is part of the problem is false. It is a conjured up argument that the opposition to b b and people that dont understand the sharing economy have come up up. Come up with. It bases it on the market rent, and that only applies to 10 of the Housing Stock in San Francisco. There are large swaths of people who are rentcontrolled painting way below what the median is. There is a Strong Financial pressure for them to be much more lucrative. Keep in mind b b got started in 2008 in the city of new york. The founders moved here during the financial crisis. This is where it got its initial growth and brand name. People in new york were going to be displaced and addicted from their homes and apartments if they couldnt augment their income. In San Francisco, the same thing has happened . We have elderly people, who if they were not renting out a room in their home, would be evicted from their home over not be able to afford it. Airbnb is contributing to certain cases what do you think about caps on the number of days that airbnb rooms should be rented out . I think it is a false ceiling. You think its a false cap. Why should the government be involved in that . Whenever the government gets involved in things, sopa a and others. You are telling us to get involved in the government. When i look at the regulatory processes in San Francisco the city is operating they or operating off of data that the new york State Government has subpoenaed. You dont have a lot of actual transparency into how large the short term rental market is in San Francisco. What do you think about data sharing . Once again, i think the government does not have a right to send in some of bureaucrat to examine the records of airbnbs hosts. We talk about the nsa now we have a municipality citing, municipality saying, we want to inspect the records of your host. Aggregate . It was aggregate and anonymized, maybe that was reasonable. But with this, they want every ounce of data about airbnb hosts. Just for context, it looks like airbnb will be on the ballot in november. It will be very interesting. Private companies should not be forced to hand over data about their users. That is an invasion of privacy. On the other hand, they did willingly hand over the data to a lot of these concerns about airbnb that are miss founded. Companies can use their data and actually actively share it to make clear to people that these fears they have about a service are unfounded. I would encourage companies to be proactive about sharing their data as much as possible. I understand the issues about revealing specific data about specific customers because then youve gotten in the way of a trust relationship between a company and customer, but the more that a company can disclose data on an anonymized aggregated basis, they can use that to make a specific case on doing some thing good or not. Airbnb has been disclosing, just in the last week they disclosed a whole bunch of new anonymized data about their impact in the market. Thats what youre touching on is a really interesting senstension. Its also playing out in los angeles. At these Companies Get very large, they have insight into things that affect public systems. For example sharing data with the city of los angeles was about helping understand how to mitigate or manage traffic. People were using the app to go on all these side drugs and neighborhoods these side roads and into neighborhoods. Is there a rule of thumb when you have a lot of data, you should collaborate with someone vs not . We would encourage our Portfolio Companies to be as public with their data as possible. However, wave can take an individual user and share that data with government. That user would feel their trust was violated. There is a limit to what companies can do without violating the trust that they have with their users. The more that they can be public with their data on an anonymized basis, where they are not counting any specific person, i think thats very lovable. Very valuable. One model you have been planning on is the 1 pledge model. Do you want to talk about what that is . I think its very exciting that the pledge 1 is teaming up with the Robin Hood Foundation in new york to lunch the 1 Pledge Campaign in new york. What that involves is a ceo commits 1 of the companys equity and 1 volunteer time. And if act if applicable, 1 of the companys product to polenta be. To philanthropy. This has been opted by google, yelp splunk, many other Tech Companies. We want to bring that whole campaign to the city of new york. That launches today. We can put our money where our mouth is. With volunteer ours and pledging 1 of equity. Once you go public, that 1 is what, indicate both in the case of yelp, it was half a million. The company decides what charities they want to donate that money to. It becomes part of the culture of the company. I have two ideas. One which the three of us discussed backstage. The attorneys who service the start of founders, whether that is gunderson or wilson or wh oever, there are lots of them, if they put thosis 1 founder stock to a foundation as an option that founders could select right at the beginning when they form their company you would see a lot more founders doing it. A lot of founders dont know how to do it, they are want to spend money or do paperwork. But this is something they can just add without any cost. That is a callout to the legal community. The second is that is a it is important that each city, Tech Community, create some kind of volunteerism system. The people who wants to volunteer know what the opportunities are to volunteer. A lot of problems people have with volunteering their 1 is that they dont know where they can use their skills to the highest advantage. For example going into schools and helping teach Computer Science is a pet project in mind. There are 34 programs in new york that do that. We still have problems getting enough Software Engineers to do that each year. That is because there are good systems like linkedin or indeed. Com to match people who have the skills with nonprofits and other calls based organizations. Causedbased organizations. The other thing we are doing for the adopting pledge 1 is acting asking all Venture Capital firms, when your company asks about pledging 1 equity, we endorse the 1 pledge. Why would they not to do that . We are just making sure. Many firms have already said yes yes yes. Thank you guys. Thank you. Alright, they keep yelling me to not stay to close to the stage. So you can all see me. Our next guest shes not gay, but she does take a huge interest in women. She actually knows how to capture our attention, unlike i do. Please welcome to the stage to when Robert Joanne bradford of pinterest. Thank you for joining us joanne. This is kind of fun you made an announcement this morning that people can read about on techcrunch. Com. But it dont do that yet what was the announcement . Joann we are building out the developer platform and moving to an open api. We are going to have if you would like to get on the wait list, go to pinterest. Com and get on the wait list. We think developers can build everything from education and disruption to vacation planning to meal planning to places he wants to go and travel. Places you want to go and travel. We are happy or our for our users to access the appbased it vibrant. Api has been open to developers before. 2 other apis that we announced last week we have a content api that is used for publishing content for people that are pinning. Then we have an ads api used for biting and buying and pr omoting pins. The one we announced today is the most open, for app development. Your job is focused on the business side and on plans and partners. You joined pinterest backing a 2013. Back in 2013. There was this idea at the time that you were brought on to accelerate and turn pinterest into a real business. Was that a fair characterization of your role . Yeah, i think it was a fair characterization. I think prior to joining, the team had 100 been focused on the consumer experience. We have something we call pinners first, which is the idea that the pinner experience matters more than anything else. When i got there, we started to work on the promote a pin product, which is basically a pin that you can scale up with media. The other thing is that businesses are welcome on pinterest. Brands are a very big part about what pinterest does. We spent a lot of time educating partners on how to think about their pinterest presents. I can show you some of examples. Pinterest prece presence. Who hasnt seen pinterest out there . No hands thats a good thing. This is a pinterest board. We want to give you a fuse examples a few examples about using pinterest. Once you start pinning, you get more options to pin. Just think every time something is originally penned, it is pinned 11 more times. That is a lot of earned traffic. Everyone should have mobile sdk integration to what they have is a partner. Britain this is pretty aggressive treatment with the pin up button, but it pays off for them. You can see how beautiful it looks. It is about putting that pin up button where people can easily do it from a photo, which is awesome. The other thing everybody should have is something called ridge pins when something gives you data when something is in stock or the price point. This is awesome because i was just sitting backstage talking to someone, and they said, i want to know if it is in stock and how much it is, and if the retailer puts in a pin, they can do it. That puts in a different functionality. This is Conde Nast Traveler pin integration and facebook, which they considered to be the top 2 sharing tools for them. Just some simple things brands can do. Finally, target has done an amazing job of building their boards and the presence. I want to give a shout out to people that do great work on pinterest. Do you find that most of the brands, when you first talk to them, are ready . Not that it looks incredibly collocated. Incredibly collocated. Incredibly complicated. It starts off in two ways. They are somewhat passionate in the company. It touches a commerce solution, it touches content teams, social media teams, media spending teams. It is very easy to do. Its lightweight. Everything i just showed you is free. You can do all of those things and not spend a dime with pinterest. If you would like to make it better and scale more, you can buy some promoted pins. We have a set of analytics that gives you information about what people are doing, what they are pinning your stuff to, other interest, etc. We spent a lot of time talking to people just how to take advantage of all of the things they can do on pinterest for fr ee. You talk about how that is all free when you came on, was it clear what was going to be paid, or was there some figuring out . We always try to figure at the Business Model and what is best for us in the longterm and the best thing for pinners in the longterm. All of those things like price, is it in stock, can people make their pins better can brands do Better Things . We think of those things as helpful to pinners so usually those things are free. So you dont see any tension if brands can get utility out of pinterest without paying anything, does that make it difficult to monetize . Is not a problem . No, i worked in a lot of Large Companies where there is a lot of tension between that. Like i said, a brand is welcome. Its not like we are try to stuff a banner ad in the middle of a story. This is very mobile, very organic to the experience. You can promote a pin that is performing very well. Thats tension doesnt exist. We are pretty careful about the quality of promoted pins. We look very closely at their performance. For us its all about that User Experience in being a creator to it. Earlier you were talking about, when you came on, pinterest was just focused on products and user growth. We have seen similar growth with facebook and twitter, what you think, oh my god we have so many eyeballs, and it turns into a more serious conversation about revenue. Where is pinterest in that transformation right now . We have been selling promoted pins for about 2 years. We have learned a ton from that and will be refining those offerings as we go forward. We have a full solution for marketers, and we want them to think about us as having a full solution. That we think about partners and helping them plan and help consumers think about the future and be more creative in their lives. That message really resonates. There is no marketer that doesnt want to be involved in consumer features. People on pinterest plan every day what they want to eat, what they are going to go on vacation, what their dreams and aspirations look like. Someone backstage told me, i just wanted to tell you, i started a secret Engagement Ring board, dont tell anybody. I dont know if she has a fiance or is going to be engaged or anything, but i will not out her on stage. I think she is laughing back there. The good news is that there are a lot of women back there, so you wont be able to figure it out. [laughter] that is clearly an indication of your future. My daughters start going to summer camp. I dont a i built a board for summperer camp. One is going to laser cutting camp. She saw it on a pinterest board. Believe it or not, i saw the Northern Lights in iceland on piontnterest. Im going there this summer because i thought that a school. I took my daughter on a back road trip. I thought that was cool. I was inspired by that and ended up there. Pinterest has a much longer life the consumer than anything. When you search for something it is more of a debate. I want is now, i want an answer. Interest is so much more about your future in putting creativity into it. Maybe we can help people do more fun things in life, the way that they want to do the. Marketers really seem to love that. In terms of what marketers are doing on pinterest are they at the point when they are spending really significant amounts of advertising budget on pinterest, or is it still in an experimental phase . We have many partners this year that committed a significant upfront amount to us over the course of the year. It went from nothing last year to a significant amendment this year. Significant commitment this year. Many told us they are the only partner they made in upfront commitment to, because they are happy with engagement on the platform and are happy with the performance. They are also getting an early look on our roadmap. We have a very aggressive roadmap for the rest of the year that includes lost of fun things that i will not tell you about today. We are working on measurement new products offerings. We are pleased with their commitment. More importantly we are pleased with not just the dollar commitment, but they commitment to the partnership. We have seen people do marketing instore. We have had nordstrom target, walmart, that have done instore promotion and have shown a significant sales lift because of that. Nobody else can really be a merchandising partner to people as an insights partner and eight promoted pin partner. The conversations we are having our amazing. Never have the discussions been at such a integrated level. So you are not going to tell me about the roadmap for the rest of the year. Maybe you can just talk about are there areas of revenue that pinterest now has opportunities for in the future . We think about a whole bunch of things in making a pin more actionable. We think about targeting capability. There are 3 pillars of pinterest from the product perceptive. The first is that you can discover things. Visual search is different than anything else. Then saving, which is the organizing principle. 50 billion pins have been saved. If like 50 billion pages torn from the magazine where your friends can see them. That is pretty powerful. We are working on organizing principles of how you save. And then do, can you actually go to do these things . You also mentioned mobile. Can you give me a sense of where pinterest is in terms of mobile usage . We are about 7580 mobile usage in the app of our total base. A couple years ago, we decided to double down on mobile before i got there. In weeks, mobile usage had surpassed desktop usage. We focus on that first and foremost. We ship everything that. Everything for that. Desktop is important, but those numbers. We see people pinning at all hours of the day. Anywhere you go, if i wear a pinterest tshirt, people just stop you and profess their love for the product and passion. Its quite amazing. Ive never been involved in something where people say, i just love it. I sort of call them on it. I say, see your board. Lets see your board. And its usually true, you can find out something amazing about them. I have a 16yearold daughter and found out she had a real passion for working. Woodworking. I thought she just wanted and easy a. But it turns out she really likes it. She would not do it on instrument or staff chat on instagram or snapchat because she thought it was too geeky. It is about their vulnerability and what they want to do in their futures. People have a real passion for it. It is excited to be involving. People get excited when you walk around with a demand tshirt . They loved ehow. Even livestrong. That was a community that was super passionate about it. Cracked was one of their titles. They were super passionate about cracked. But people were not crying in the streets with tshirts. People crying in the streets when they see your pinterest tshirt . People will say, oh my god, i just love pinterest. I have sent people tshirts and have been very excited. Do you get uncomfortable . [laughter] i do have to say, i lit erally was in a city in the midwest. I finally got to the place where people were so passionate about it, where youre just like, ok ay, i get it. They are really excited about it. What are the next big Growth Opportunities for pinterest . Is it going international, is it getting more men on the site . Are you a pinner . I had to create one for presentation and every woman in the office went to me and said, did you just create a pinterest account . Pinterest is about anything you are passionate about. The idea started with bens bug collection. When people have a collection, the only thing they want to do is look at others collections. Thats the first thing you do. That you want to save and do more of it. That was the principal of it. If you have anything you are passionate about, whether it is a hobby, and idea, a place anything. Do think people will think im cool if i have a comic book board . Absolutely. Pete from leslie pete from nestle, he likes skiing. You can collect anything on the topic of comics and become an influencer on this topic if youd like. Do you have a lot of men on pinterest right now, or is the perception of women inaccurate . In the u. S. It is 7030. We started out by reaching to mom bloggers and crafters around the world. When we do that, we see the mix there. What are your international percentages of terms of total usage . We have expanded. We have offices all over the world. International growth is a big focus for us. Awesome, thanks again for joining us. [applause] okey doke, we are on time and running. Thats a plus for us. Our next founder is pretty much a genius. Theres a good chance you will understand what is being spoken on stage. She bought ecologic for 1. 4 billion in the middle of 2008. She is the biggest boss here. Please welcome paula long. And our moderator ron miller. Ron alright, so these are aptly called founder stories. Paula founded not one, but two companies. She sold the first one for 1. 4 billion, which is a fair amount of money. To put that into perspective i did some research, and it was one of only 20 it companies in the last 10 years that sold for more than 1 billion. Thats a pretty good company. I am wondering, when you were going back to 2007 and selling that company, where you actually looking to sell . Were buyers pursuing you . Paula this is an interesting dance. If you go to fcc. Gov you see that we filed. Our s1 was approved. We closed the papers on sunday night. If we had not closed the papers. We were doing our roadshow on tuesday so we were minutes away from becoming a public company. The 1. 4 billion is an impressive number. We were profitable. We had were thousand customers that were happy. 4000 customers that were happy. 98 satisfaction rating. We were going to go public. When the numbers given, someone said i wanted to buy 500 million. That is a lot of money. But, if you look at our revenue it was not a lot compared to the revenue. If someone offers you something with a b in it, you should think about it. You might not do it, but you might want to think about it. I think it was michael dell. Who tipped me. He was passionate about the mission. He called me personally in wanted to know how to make this happen. I think that commitment from the company acquiring us help tip it a little. Ron were there other companies that were pitching you at the time . Paula periodically people would come in and talking about buying. One person said they would rather die first than be bought. They would be rude. I cant tell you who that was. We had a bunch of offers, people looking at us as we went along. We were focused on growing the company. We had never discarded and acquisition. Ron when you went to the negotiation table with dell and the numbers started flowing up, what was your reaction of you and you are fellow offenders. Fellow founders . Paula i wasnt in the immediate negotiations. I was running product at the time. I work all the time. Anybody who is a founderyou work all the time. I was at my sons parents weekend for the conference. I got a call, they said its over a b now, should be do it . Its like, priorities. I said you guys do what you think you need to do. I wasnt as engaged as i probably should have been. I was watching my sons material science experience at cmu. Learning about helicopter parents, which i was trying not to be. Someone called me and asked arthur any other founders that can answer this . I wasnt in the last nuances of the details. Ron maybe he was better that you are caught up in some thing else that point. You are a ceo and have held a lot of highlevel management positions. As you just alluded to, you werent ceo at first company. How is it different being ceo of a startup as opposed to being part of the management and Founding Team of a startup . Paula i got a bit of a taste of ceo at data logic. The company was growing faster than my ability to learn all of the roles. I decided that if i started another one, i still feel passionate about the company and our position in the market. I understand the business and technology, so i said i would do ceo. What i found is that you care about product and people. As ceo, you care about people and people. It is much more about focusing on the customer. Ron as ceo, is there more daytoday pressure to make sure all of the pieces are moving and working in cohesion . Paula for some reason, i found as a founder that if i failed, it would have been my fault. For me, the pressure is about the same. You have asked your friends to join you and you are responsible for their livelihood. You have asked people to invest in you. There are limits with retirement and college funds. You are very responsible for that money you took. You are affecting peoples livelihood. It feels like it is a race. But it is about the decisions you make, and i take that pretty seriously. Ron how does that drive a founder . Paula i think it is a healthy fear. If a founder is not worried every day, they are focused on it the wrong thing. You are playing chess and checkers at the same time. You are trying to write out your next move, but also what you are going to do in six months to a year. It is a lot of fun, but there is a lot of responsibility that i take very seriously. Ron s going back to thatal going back to that sale for a minute. That was 2007. We were just getting the starts of the romans of what would come in 2008. We were just getting rumblings of what was to come in 2008. Did that have any impact of the negotiations, that kind of economic climate . Paula we were in a market that doesnt get as affected as others. Storage is something you need to have. Everybody needed databases. It you were to look at companies, Data Storage Companies were not as impacted and came back quicker. What we were thinking about was that dell wanted to get into the business, so workere two other firms. Do we want that kind of competition, or do we want to cooperate with them . Ron if you had waited six months, do you think it would have made a difference . Paula all three got bought for more than 2 billion. You could say we went to early. Too early. You have to decide what a good point is for you. Some of the venture guys may have said they went tot too early. They experienced the dip and did just great. Ron data gravity is your Second Company. What was it like launching a company the second time . And as successful as equalogic was, did you ever say there were things he would never do again . You would never do again . Paula launching the second time is interesting. I have been in startups that have failed. You start to think about your next one, you think about your legacy. I left lots of great customers a Great Company culture, of great monetary exit for employees and investors. Now you say to yourself, okay, do i have an idea that is big enough . It took me some time. Datagravity is going to change data storage in a fundamental way. Right now data is not know anything about storage does not know anything about the data it holds. I was pretty sure that i was on to a great idea. I got a great cofounder in john joseph. The one thing i said i wouldnt do as i started to raise money, i made sure that it picked the partners i wanted, i was careful about how we went across how we would grow the company. We would really focus on equallogic, we focused on the customer, but we double down with data garavity. We are ramping up successfully but cautiously. The one thing we didnt do we had no interest which are at equalogic. When we started selling, we couldnt go fast enough. Other than that, it is pretty much the same playbook. Ron when you sold equalogic it was 2007. The cloud wasnt on most peoples radar. The work a lot of clout discussions. Cloud discussions. How is the Storage Market changed between the time you sold equalogic and the time he started data gravity into pretrial the time you started data gravity in 2012 . Paula we were one of the first people doing all inclusive so once you bought the product, now you get all the features. Now everybody is doing that. Cloud was a term in 2007, 2008, but no one was really doing it. When the application and storage are together, cloud is a great place. Not such a great place that the application and storage are separated by some distance, hence thr e gravity comment. And depending on what Regulatory Information you have, its not as deep as you think. There is a balancing act. Ron the gender conversation is definitely prevalent right now. Given your experience, how has the conversation on gender changed from the early 2000 to 2015 as a female ceo . Paula thats really a good question. I have an unfair advantage in that i was responsible in coming up with the idea and strategy. I have been treated pretty equally. It is hard for everybody but i dont think my gender has certainly. It is cool in some cases to be a chick in tech. I would say at the moment, it is more of a advantage than a disadvantage. But at any rate, i dont see it as a disadvantage. Im pretty forthright, you cant shock me. I say what i think, im not necessarily intimidating. I also started doing startups in my 30s. I was more confident when i came out of the gate. I dont know how it would have been if i started in my 20s. Ron getting back to data gravity for a second. You alluded to this of it, but it combined storage search, in a single appliance that you install in a data center. As we talk about the cloud as a storage option which more companies are using, there is even a movement from hardware appliances to software appliances. You dont even have a physical entity now. They are watching those trends. Why did you go that route, and have visit helping you as a company . How is it helping you as a company . Paula Software Still has to run on hardware. What you find is that a lot of companies have software to find storage and find out that the hardware compatibility list is so collocated. So complicated. They dont want to go to one person for hardware and software for another. They wanted just one solution. Storage has become much simpler to manage. That said, i think you will see it as a metro cloud. So what you will see is a lot of resellers becoming service providers. A trusted partner to the Company Buying storage. They will host storage off prem. If your data is unavailable people wonder if amazon really cares or google really cares they care, but you have two terabytes. They have a whole infrastructure. Ron given the push for the cost of storage and competition amongst amazon and azure is it hard for a company like yours to compete with those numbers . Paula you have to remember the numbers are per month and do not include the cost to read it. You can check out anytime youd like. It is expensive to read it again. There are connection costs. Do you really have to do the math on how active the data is . If the data is active, leaving it on prem is likely less expensive. It will be a hybrid. Ron last year at disrupt i interviewed the ceo of pure. I asked him, what was the number that would make you say, i have to do it . His quote was, being sold sucks. I was wondering what it was like after running your own startup you said michael dell was supportive, but becoming a part of the huge corporation, did it take the starch out of your energy . Paula i was there for two years after the acquisition. I can tell you we were on the same mission with a better arms dealer. We went from 140 trailing revenue to a number with lots of zeros beyond that. I saw a real passion to get this right. And i saw a real commitment. 90 of the experience was amazing. There was 10 , welcome to a big company, sign off on this and that. The most part, we were innovating and staying on our roadmap. I do not know if we were in an anomaly, but i was in another company in the 1990s, and the same thing happened. The trick is, if the company that bought you makes money everyone is happy. We had one of the best margins synthetic operating income. Ron you obviously had a good experience. With that influence were just talking about zero gravity being three years old would it influence how you exit from data gravity . Paula we are going for lots of happy customers. We would probably go public. But who knows . It is way too early to know those things. When we are at a couple hundred you in revenue million in revenue i would not rule out either one. It is a big enough idea to go public. That is the point you have to think about. If you are just a commodity think about getting acquired. But we have a broad enough roadmap to be more than a one trick pony. Ron one quick question. Your company lets people have insight into their data. Tell me a great insight the customer was able to get using your product. Paula people have found privacy issues that would have cost them finds worth more than the product. People found people leaving the company. Someone was data dumping and taking it with them. People found old reports presentations that they did not know where they were. People could trend pos against regions. They are able to capitalize on it and make sure theres no downside. Ron thank you so much. [applause] jordan moving right along. We are about to get into the cannabis startup blaze up panel. I will not make a joke. I will just get them on stage. Big round of applause. [applause] this is really exciting. Im glad you could be here this morning. Im not the only guy on stage was probably high. You are, actually. But you seem so relaxed. Anyway, before you founded privateer, brendan, you were coo of a bank. Why did you leave a bank to grow pot . Brendan five years ago, i was at a subsidiary of Silicon Valley bank with 300,000 startups our clients. A Technology Company in the medical cannabis industry came across my desk. I thought it was certainly different than anything i had seen. We started exploring the industry around the country and the world. Realized the end of prohibition was inevitable. That we could build companies that would help fuel the end of prohibition. We quit our jobs and put together the holdings. Ryan so prohibition is a strong word. Talking about the end of prohibition being inevitable at a point in time where cannabis is still not entirely legal, how do you justify that . Theyre all sorts of legislation to be worked through. Brendan we are in a state of transition. We are at a point where politicians and bureaucrats are the last ones to change. When you look at america, our fundamental thesis is this is a mainstream product consumed by mainstream americans. 58 of americans believe it should be legal. 85 believe medical cannabis should be legal. You cannot get 85 of americans to agree on anything. But they agree on this. Ryan jeff, you look like you like to party. Is that why he made the investment . Jeff no. [laughter] jeff it always starts with a macro idea about the world that we do not think people agree with. For us, it was a highlevel macro idea that for the last 75 years, there has been a crazy war that does not make sense that was politically motivated for a range of bizarre reasons. The war on drugs. What of the key tools to perpetuate the war on drugs was the demonization of cannabis. Despite what medical professionals, scientists, millions of americans would say cannabis has been used as a tool to perpetuate war on drugs. Because coming to an end. It has been bad for our country on all the levels. Look at who gets arrested for cannabis possession on a Racial Justice level. Eight times more black americans versus white. So the legalization of cannabis is socially good, good for society. We wanted to find the right company to invest. One of the companies we found was privateer. Ryan lets talk about that and criminal justice. How is it that you are a bunch of white guys that are going to make bank Office Product this product that hispanic and black people are still going to jail for . Brendan last year, we arrested 800,000 americans for cannabis possession or distribution. 75,000 for possession. Those communities have been devastated microvision. By proedition. They cannot vote in many cases. It is important for us to create brands that few will change. We are creating a more diverse workforce. It has been difficult. We are certainly one of the most Diverse Companies in this industry. Ryan from a political standpoint, are you doing any lobbying around legalization . Brendan we do lobbing in individual countries. Some in canada and in individual u. S. States, oregon, washington. Here in new york, where Governor Cuomo signed the Compassionate Care act in new york. We do federal lobbying on an informal basis. Ryan i am interested in the name. Historically privateers were basically pirates commissioned by government that were allowed to operate in certain areas. Ransack opposing maybes navys. What are you trying to say with that name . Brendan it is a play on the war on drugs, cannabis. We believe we can help fuel the end of prohibition. The war is lost by the government already. It is a matter of time until it ends. We currently have 250 employees at privateer and our subsidiaries who are smart professional, come from microsoft and amazon, starbucks. They are motivated every day to end prohibition. That is really different. We think that we have built a workforce that can help fight the war. Ryan are you pirates or not . Brendan the are not pirates. We are privateers. During the revolution, privateers ransack the british navy to help in the revolutionary war. That is the theme. That is how we think about it. Jeff we love the name. Subsidiaries have different names. Totally natural, leafly. That is what is most important. Ryan lets talk about the Companies Inside of of it here privateer. You have three right now. Give a little bit of background on what they do. Jeff leafly was founded four years ago. It helps cannabis consumers learn about individual strains of cannabis and their uses. Brendan someone who has cancer can look at strains that other patients are using and can research them and find a location near them where it is legal to obtain the string. We list about 1200 strains of cannabis and 2400 dispensaries around the world. Last month, we had about 5. 5 million visits. It operates in english and french canadian and spanish. We operate internationally. Wherever there are dispensaries. There is content related to cannabis. Ryan basically a Search Engine for pot. Brendan it answers what and where. If it is a Recreational User, they can find it on a friday night. The Second Company operates primarily in canada. There is a very different system. Give a federal license and operate one of the largest federally licensed medical cannabis grows in the world. It is pharmaceutical grade. We ship using the canadian model. We ship hundreds of packages every day directly to patients from a 60,000 square foot facility in british columbia. The Third Company is marley natural. We did this in partnership with the family of bob marley. It is a Retail Cannabis brand based on the jamaican cannabis strains that we will launch this year. Topicals and lotions, jamaican cannabis strains, and a line of accessories. Either to consume cannabis or store the product. Jeff what are the marleys like . Brendan there are 11 children and his wife rita. They had been approached by lots of people over the years to launch a brand in the space. They came to us about two years ago. It was an obvious deal. You cannot think of a larger global, cultural icon more tightly connected to this product. It was an obvious play. Ryan the family itself i heard you had to go and visit each one individually to get them on board. Brendan we probably had a thousand meetings over two years. Not as many as with jeff, but a lot. A lot of them came to canada to see the grow facility. Last week, i spent a weekend in jamaica. I have a very unusual job in that last week, i was at a very large outdoor cannabis grow in jamaica. Certainly things i never expected to do. [laughter] ryan jeff, what is the facility like . Jeff mind blowing. The canadian facility is mind blowing. Not in a metaphorical sense. [laughter] jeff it is one of the most stateoftheart production facilities across any industry i have seen. We had been talking to this company for over two years. We talked for a year and a half before we made the investment. When we went to the facility in columbia canada, it really came together for me. The execution of talent this team has that sets them apart in the market. When i first met brenndan, he said, we think this is a good market. We are finding someone to make a majority investment. They cannot find one, so they built their own. They built this incredible production facility, created a brand, and a few months later worshiping. I am canadian. Up in canada, 24 hours after placing an order, the cannabis arrives at your door. It is incredible. It is a standalone business with a lot of room to scale. The model may be an inspiration for how medical cannabis is distributed in the United States as well. Ryan you were anchor investor, but not the lead. Privateer raised 75 million. A ton of money. Why was this the only firm willing to put their name on the deal . Jeff maybe we do not care what other people think about us enough. Something crazy like that. But it seemed to us like the type of thing that is controversial but most people secretly agree makes sense. At least from the decriminalization standpoint. We live and die based on our founders. That is the ethos of our firm. We would not make an investment we are not going to talk about. We are proud of the investments we make, whether they were going not. We live and die based on our founders. We are ok sharing we made this investment. Ryan i get this impression that you announced you were investing before the round was close. I get the impression that Founders Fund putting his name on the deal was actually able to get brendans investors comfortable. Jeff when we made the investment, it was a contrarian market. People were nervous about investing in. It shifted immediately, which was a little disturbing. It has gotten a lot more crowded since it was announced. Brendan it gave smart investors permission to look at the space. Founders was so willing to go public with the investment. We started to see more institutional investors, other companies. Certainly, we have had eight figure investments from other firms. Ryan is snoop and investor . Brendan our list is confidential, but i can say he is not. Ryan not that he didnt try. Snoop as a fund focused on making investments in the segment. We are seeing a few other funds pop up with the idea of investing solely in the cannabis market. Jeff, as an investor, what do you think about that as a thesis . The idea of going all in only on one particular Market Segment . Jeff somewhat skeptical that there is that much opportunity. There may be a few that were work. Our view tends to be that, in the best markets, there are a handful that dominate in a 10 year time frame. In this market, i think there will be a limited number of outstanding opportunities. Privateer is one of them. But im not sure i would want to be an lp in a cannabisonly fund forming at this stage. Ryan when you talk about founding privateer, that was the idea originally . Brendan we realized it was a very different industry from Silicon Valley in that it was very fragmented. No leaders, no standards. The companies were not as professional. The leaders were not as smart. That has changed, gotten better in the last five years. But we are skeptical as well of cannabis only fund. A lot of people are building the monster. Com of cannabis, a dating site for cannabis consumers. Jeff if you are cannabis specific, you will be competing with every other investor in cannabis companies. It is a negative competition angle. Ryan we talk about this as a mainstream product. It has really become a mainstream product. Full disclosure, i live in california. I recently got my doctors recommendation to treat anxiety and insomnia. When do we stop presenting that pretending this is medicine and just accept that people like me want to get high . [laughter] [applause] jeff i think there are a lot of people like you. Part of the reason i was inspired to invest is there was a friend of mine dealing with a serious illness using leafly to discover strains. It helped with insomnia. I think people use this product medically. There is certainly a lot of Recreational Use but it is fun to joke about, one of the things i love about this team as they do not strike me as the type of people use it recreationally. They taken very seriously. They are one of the few teams that has not offered me more than a grandma product to sample. I have never sample their product. Im not in the jurisdiction in which they are selling. I should not be offered free weed to invest. Brendan i know you meant it as a joke, but you could not look a mother of a child that has epilepsy in the eyes and make that joke. It is a different product in that consumers and patients on the spectrum from irrefutably a legitimate legitimate to people who want to consume cannabis on a friday night instead of chardonnay. Our thesis is that the entire segment should be allowed to legally consume the product and that companies will emerge to provide the market with product. Ryan now that i am schooled, we are out of time. Thank you for joining us. [applause] jordan perfect on time. Im really proud of them for that. Being a reporter growing up meant you had a screenplay tucked away in your desk, hoping to make it big. Today, that has turned into a startup. That is what our next guest is. Really inspiring as reporters. Please welcome element emily and colleen. Colleen a lot of diverse city in the audience, but generally the tech crowd isnt known for products in beauty. Emily is wellknown in the beauty and fashion space. Can you just give the elevator pitch for anyone that does not already know . Emily glossier is a direct Consumer Company that launched in 2014. Colleen it is born out of into the gloss. I want to talk about where it began, with into the gloss. You started into the gloss five years ago . Emily nearly. Colleen at the time, you had a fulltime job as a stylist with conde nast. How did you take the time to start a company in your spare time . Emily pretty simply. Like a lot of entrepreneurs, it all started with the seed of an idea. I worked on into the gloss, a beauty content destination with a little over a million unique visitors a month. In 2010, i was a fashion assistant at vogue. I worked on into the gloss from 4 00 in the morning until 9 00 a. M. It is an online magazine, so writing, photographs photography, art direction. The idea behind it then and now is that it is an editorial platform that focuses on beauty as an element of personal style. So many beauty purchasing decisions are made via friend to friend recommendations. Into the gloss is a platform that celebrates women sharing with one another, very inspirational women like areata huffington, that the main takeaway is that you are getting peer recommendations from the coolest women in the world. Colleen when you started, it sounded like it was something you are passionate about or just curious about. It is fun to peek into medicine cabinets. When did you realize this was a business . Not just a side project . Emily probably when i realized you can make money on publishing through advertising. We were fortunate with into the gloss to have lancome is one of our first advertisers. Granted, it was a check for a couple thousand dollars, but that set us off. Now we have a very healthy publishing business. Colleen and he raised some money for into the gloss and glossier. September 2013, it was 2 million seed round . Emily into the gloss was selffunded for the first couple of years. I can hear you. Can you all hear her . Colleen makes me feel really important, though. Emily we raised 2 million to build glossier. Publishing online can be done with little overhead, depending on what you are doing. It was something that required little resource. But creating a physical product line to produce Beauty Products and create formulas from scratch, higher experts certainly took a little cash. That is why we raised 2 million in 2013. It was led by kristen green of forerunner. She is behind dollar shave club. She has a lot of experience in retail. It was important to have a female Venture Capitalist as lead investor. It was surly one of the more natural conversations i had with Venture Capitalists. She knew what foundation was. No offense to the guys out there. But, yeah, that was our first round. We closed a series in 2014 right before glossier launched. Colleen was there a difference you saw in the response of investors from when you went out the first time to pitch a beautyoriented company to the second time . Has there been more understanding of how huge the market is . Emily i would not say there was a big seachange from the seed to series a. There are things that remain true in both experiences. Beauty is a quarter trillion dollar industry. Several billiondollar exits in the last 10 years. It is an industry that has not changed and the enormous amount in the last 50 years. It is an industry ripe for disruption. Most Venture Capitalists recognize that. They recognize that into the gloss and our team developed in or mistrust with consumers enormous trust with consumers. We have a large group of women who never cease to inspire us always push the company forward. Very much a twoway conversation. I think the Smartest Companies and brands recognize that. Brands are built not just in a bubble. It is not a oneway conversation. Consumers have a lot to say. It is so important to listen to them. Colleen it seems like this is an inverted path glossier has taken. A lot of big companies, whether they are in beauty or other industries, they have the brand and the later think about how to have content or do marketing or have a social presence. You and glossier did it the opposite way. You started with a personal brand and now youre making product. How has that taken shape . Emily really organically. I think something i say a lot to our team is that the mission is the same. The medium has just changed. The first part of what beauty needed is a place that, editorial he, made beauty personal. Kind of activated an entire core of consumers who otherwise might have been passive consumers were not super excited about their routines or talking about it. Something we hear a lot when we interview women is, what is your beauty regime . Routine . Women say, i am low maintenance. There is a Natural Inclination to say, i do not spend a lot of time on beauty. I think it is thought of as frivolous. Maybe if you spend a long time you are not taken seriously. Part of the mission with into the gloss was to get rid of that perception, bring beauty into the open as something any smart stylish woman in charge of her persona or look can embrace. To get the best information about. Into the gloss was the first phase of that because it brought so much information into the open and connected so many women around the world to give one another recommendations in the comment section. Now, with glossier, it is kind of a physical incarnation of the same message, which is really that beauty is different today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Formulas have changed. What women want has changed. And i think glossier speaks to the fact there is no overarching one look that every woman should ascribe to. That is a message thats only brands have pushed forward over the years. Get to this look. What we are trying to do is say here are the tools for you to customize your own look. We are not going to tell you who to be. Be whoever you want. You can change your mind. Glossier products are also really affordable, i think, for women looking to get luxurious products. That is something we want to do alleviate some of the stress that comes with beauty. Whether it is from a brand perspective, distribution perspective. We really want to make duty beauty modern. Colleen how did you think of what your first product would be . You had data, years of interviews on everything from lipstick to mascara. How did you decide the first product would be skincare products . Emily it is interesting. That actually came a super quickly to us. Skin and this is one thing i have learned being backstage at so many Fashion Shows over the years we are in a moment where women are really understanding the importance of skin. Skincare is something that you develop a routine, a woman develops a routine. It is a very intimate connection with skincare. You will change your lipstick, but skincare is very serious, very important. Something we wanted to do was create a suite of super essential skincare products that may getting ready easy in the morning, or going to bed and making sure you are taking care of very easy and very fun. That is something the market has not seen a lot of. Really cool skincare. Colleen how did you think about introducing these . You did a lot of things on social. Instagram. Emily we launched and instagram. Colleen can a brand launch purely through social . Or does there need to be traditional marketing . Emily i can only speak to what was right for us. We do not spend money on marketing. We did not have money for marketing. We decided that instagram is really and this is totally, i do not know if it is that, but for me, i am on instagram more than any other social platform. I imagine a large amount of Millennial Women are using a too. For us, it came naturally to build the brand in real time via instagram. We wanted to invite her into our world, to see the messiness, the indecision, all the things that go into creating any body of work. Be it a brand or anything else. She really became part of the brand. Started to give us ideas feedback. For us feedback has been so important on every level in glossier. Colleen how do you process the feedback . On your instagram page, there are tons of comments, so much chatter about your product. How do you sift through . Emily we are working on that. At the moment, i just go through manually every night, liking everyones pictures. The data, we have an enormous amount of data across multiple channels. Part of what we are really looking to do in the next phase of glossier in the second half of the year is focus on our digital product, thinking of what i will look like as we continue to break down walls between content, community, and commerce. We have three pillars. I do not think i am unique in trying to solve the content and commerce question, but i think for us, it is almost not a question. It is a request from users. We are seeing so many behaviors from her. She demonstrates so many different behaviors that show she wants to do more. Wants to be more involved with other glossier users. For us, a big part of glossier will be data and breaking down walls. Colleen what is your tech team like . It sounds like if you are building these products, you need a solid team. Is that a big focus . Emily a huge focus. The way we wanted to build glossier, i think we have been successful in doing what we set out to do. First and foremost, create a brand women wanted to switch to. For beauty, you have so many choices. There are so many choices on every single product. You can get a cheaper one, one closer to home, but to get a better one is something we were really really very serious about. So we spent the First Six Months of glossier really making sure we created a brand that was better, that women would try once and repeat purchase. We are already seeing that they hate your. We are focused on growing behavior. We are growing our tech team. We have a team called dynamo in montreal that worked with us on our mvp. We do not just want to be a highperforming ecommerce store. So we are looking. Colleen how do you convince or recruit techoriented people to come to a beauty site if they are an engineer and do not think they are interested in cosmetics . How does that conversation go . Emily it is an interesting conversation. I think something that is important for our company has been hiring people who are passionate about our mission. It does not mean if you are, you know a dude, just because you do not understand makeup does not mean it is not the place for you. If you are interested in data interested in making women feel like they are building a company , because so many of our customers are coconspirators in making the company happen, you can be excited about what we are doing. I am not a technologist, either. But i am learning a lot. We are just looking for the right partner who really understand the opportunity. Colleen last question. The way you launched glossier was interesting. A great post. I think it is an interesting way you framed going from one level of the business to a totally different one. You said, the sheer fact there is a place on the internet that celebrates women brings together the best products in the world, is enough to make me retire. You are already really proud of what you had done with into the gloss. How to think about doing Something Else on top of that when you had already been so happy that you could retire . Where did it come from . Emily i think it came from the same itch when i started into the gloss, which is i just did not love the way i felt at hearts with a lot odds with a lot of elements of the beauty industry. I do not see a brand i can call my own, that i identify with as a woman with their values. I understand who is behind it, what went into making the products. For me, it was an exciting challenge to think, if there were to be a truly modern beauty brand, what would that look like . One that i would be proud to have as a consumer . That was glossier. Colleen thanks for joining us. Emily thank you. [applause] jordan good work. Pressing forward. My biggest technological achievement as a 12yearold was killing six tamagotchis. Now we have 12yearolds learning how to program and outpacing me as a productive human being. That is due to our next guest alex klein. Please welcome him and our moderator, the top shalom us. Natasha thanks for joining us. For those of you who may not know, you are basically building a diy computer and coating kit. Kids put it all together. And you use raspberry pi and build an os that is accessible to kids. It is a complex product but you are making it simple for this target age group of seven to 14. Is it fair to label it a toy . It has creative and educational potential, but you are designing something for kids to play with. Alex i would say it is a computer. You just happen to make it yourself. It has the intuitiveness and accessibility of a toy, but it is powerful. Kids around the world use kano to position solar power. Kids have shared over 5 million lines of code. The idea behind the project is to build a new Computer Company one that puts creativity in the front seat rather than consumption. It may start with a simple kit but from there, you are building a hardware system. You are hooking it up to the internet. It was inspired by the notion that making learning and playing are intimately connected. All of us have this curious and creative spirit of a nineyearold inside of us. All you need are affordable tools. Play can become one of the greatest accelerants of invention. Natasha is your goal to change computing behavior . Is it like teaching kids to cook so they eat more healthily . Alex about 30 months ago i encountered natasha you have everything in your pocket. Alex i encountered the raspberry pi. Hackers were sending it into space, around the ocean. We showed it to a sixyearold my cousin mika. Making a server array which wasnt wasnt something that appealed to him. He said, i want to build a computer. It has to be as simple and fun as blago lego. Natasha but is it simple enough for every sevenyearold to write code . Alex in the early workshops all we had was cardboard boxes with boards and a book. A stepbystep illustrated story. Which of these into skills in the u. K. , south africa, the middle east. I asked questions. Who here has seen the inside of a computer . We live in this world of 8. 2 billion connected devices. None of these kids had seen the inside of a computer. Who here can tell me how a computer thinks . Tons of ideas. It sends magic waves to you to. Youtube. Question three, who thinks they could make a computer themselves . No hands went up. Silence. I said, guess what . In the next hour, you will build your own computer. You will connected to the internet. You will call a video from youtube. You will play minecraft. Without me saying a word. Sure enough, an hour later, this really intuitive hardware, they built a. Natasha you are the most popular person about point . Alex we ask is how they feel after the workshop. This one kid said adults think we are incapable because we are so young. But today we made a computer and powered it with matrix code. That makes us super children. I said yes, you are a super child. There needs to be a Software Company built by you. This generation needs to do more than swiping across prepackaged apps. Colleen natasha the name kano has a nice ring to it. How did you come up with that idea . It involves your cousin . Alex the original challenge came from my sixyearold cousin. He challenged us to create a computer he could build himself so no one would have to teach them. Kano started as a strange dream in a north london flat. We realized we could make a simple computer kit at a low cost, 150. From the challenge came a bigger idea looking at the world today, these 8. 2 billion connected devices, but not all of us know how to talk to them. Most of the magic is sealed away. 1 of 1 want to democratize the way to create technology. Kano was connected to this. Kano jigora was the founder of judo, a martial art that extended beyond a small class in japan. The founder was a Primary School teacher. His motto was maximum efficiency, minimum effort. You are trying to put that improvisational power back in the hands of people when they are young so they do not grow up thinking of computing as a black box in Silicon Valley. Natasha your Team Includes your cousin, and another cousin sol klein investor. How important has family been to get it off the starting blocks . Alex the fact were building this with mika, who ive known since birth, but he would probably not want me to reference that, added a lot of emotion to the product. As for sol, an incredible mentor. He introduced me to my cofounder. Together, we teamed up in london. Found a couple of misfits from around the world, ally handwrote from the playstation alejan dro from the playstation. All attracted to this affordable attractive computer. That core mission has attracted 18 of 36 a team of 36. We are trying to do something different, more creative and experimental with the world of the pc. The pc still sells 65 Million Units a year. But why are people experimenting like they did in the 1980s hacking it together and inventing something new . The world of the ec has become too homogenized. We want to put it all over the world with a new sense of experimentation. Natasha very ambitious. You actually started this on kickstarter, crowdfunding. You had some seed funding before as well. You raised 5 million on kickstarter. What is the next step in your funding story . Alex it has been an incredible journey to this point. We are really happy to have brought many investors tinkerers, together, to drive the core kit. For the next age of kanos the relevant, we are excited to welcome jim breyer, who will be leading our 50 million series a to bring it to new markets and breathe magic back into open source making. Someone like jim, who we have gotten to know in the past couple of months, this guy drove the first pc revolution at dell. One of the First Investment investors in facebook. We are really happy to welcome jim oneill to the team. He was the chief economist at goldman sachs. We feel kano needs to be in a coating kit all over the world. We need to unlock potential. Jim oneill understands this intimately. We are bringing Collaborative Ventures along. And you mentioned our backdrop as a crowd funded company. You will be crowdfunding 500,000 on choir an amazing place for the community to come together and get a significant equity stake in the company, not just buying a product. We will use that community as we used the kickstarter community. New ideas for developing the business, and for fun. The more participatory the company is, the more accessible the final product will be. Natasha im curious who the users are at the moment. What is the gender balance . Are you thinking about ways to design the kit to be equally appealing to girls and boys . Alex that was a design goal from the beginning, that it should speak to fundamental impulses rather than those delineated by age and gender. We believe no matter who you are, you have shared urges. We want to look inside. We gave a macbook air to a monkey named lily and watched her try to take it apart. Everyone wants to take control and make it play. That is genderneutral, age neutral. The average age right now is 9. 5. 6040, mailfemale. We have kids of all ages. We have 81yearold grandmothers learning how to code. Sixyearold nineyearolds, the gamut. Families in oklahoma using it to create stop motion video of flowers blooming. Artists, painters, creating generations of art. We think if you merge the arts and sciences and take the pc out of its traditional techy mode, you bring different people to the table. Colleen natasha who buys kano . Alex a ton of interest from parents and teachers, but as we took the kit around the world we saw there is a rising creative generation of kids pulling together modular hardware, opensource software, and making things that the brains in this room could never have imagined. We went to freetown. We met a young man named kelvin. When he was 13, he started pulling electric parts out of the garbage. He looked up what these components to. Within a few years, he built a battery. A couple years after that, he built a Radio Station and was broadcasting across sierra leone. We have spoken word artists using this to compose. We have kids building servers and game consoles. The core audience, a lot of errands and teachers. To prepare the next generation, they will have to again, the audience for this is a company is a new kind of pc expression, one that is created lowcost. We think back to be mainstream. Natasha do you see yourself building an Education Company . You are part of this growing learn to code movement. Alex we are building a Computer Company. Look at the early days of apple. It always made education a really important channel. If you can make something that is so simple that a curious mind can walk stepbystep through something that is immediate, and human, you will have value to educators. They still sell a massive amount to schools, and to teachers. Fundamentally, you look at kids today, they dont want to be educated, they want to learn. We dont need to teach these kids we dont have to give them a prescriptive hierarchy so that they can grow up and become billionaires or work at google in a beautiful multicolored cafeteria. They want to make. Hopefully, whether they work at google or they become an artist, or a musician, or a baker, or a candlestick maker they can take control. Because it is fun, that is a more mainstream message. We think that will bring the next generation up. Natasha that is quite a tough design challenge. Kids can be a tough crowd as consumers. How do you make sure they think it is fun . Alex i think the physicality really helps. Especially with the new kano which is six times faster. Kids want to be given the benefit of the doubt. They dont want to be told what to do. They want to be given a simple set of steps that they can reimagine and recapitulate at will. If you look at minecraft, a global phenomenon. What we did is take a lovely version that microsoft made free and put in a simple coding arena. Stepbystep you
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