Samantha Herrick:
Welcome to the Tech Optimist, a thrilling journey through the world of innovation presented by Alumni Ventures. Please secure your curiosity and prepare for bold ideas, cutting edge tech and the promise of a brighter future. I am your host, my name is Samantha Herrick, and I will be your guide. Your adventure begins now.

Paul Lwin:
And all the DOD officials that went around asking, "Hey, this is really cool. If I give you money, can you build thousands of these?" And no one, and including the company I was with, had even thought through that and had an answer.

Samantha Herrick:
This is Paul Lwin, our guest today, CEO and Co-founder of HavocAI.

Ryan Musto:
Us defense tech investors are hearing it all the time when we talk to the DOD. They want cheap, scalable, and "attritable" technologies, which is frankly a new word that the DOD and the defense community has invented.

Samantha Herrick:
And this is Ryan Musto, senior associate at Alumni Ventures. This initiative underscores a critical shift in defense thinking, lean, scalable, tech that levels the playing field. And as Hicks puts it, "This isn't just about keeping up, it's about staying ahead." And that's me, your guide and host for this podcast, Sam Herrick.
Hello listeners. Welcome back to the Tech Optimist, the podcast where innovation meets inspiration. So today I'm thrilled to be able to spotlight HavocAI, a startup at the forefront of autonomous maritime technology. HavocAI is revolutionizing Uncrewed Surface Vessels or USVs, developing a scalable platform where a single operator can control thousands of these autonomous assets. This Rhode Island based company has already demonstrated its tech at a Department of Defense exercise showcasing 12 operational vessels in action, and they are just getting started. They've raised around $11 million in seed funding with backing from Scout Ventures, Shrewsdale Ventures, Alumni Ventures and others.
Paul Lwin brings a compelling story of leadership and resilience. He's our guest today. From fleeing Myanmar as a refugee, to serving as a Naval Academy graduate and pilot, Paul now leads HavocAI with a vision to transform maritime operations across defense and commercial sectors.
So next we're going to hear about their plans for leveraging Rhode Island's renowned boat building expertise, partnerships with industry leaders like IBM and their message to make scalable maritime autonomy a reality. So join me as I bring you through this conversation today between Ryan Musto, a senior associate here at Alumni Ventures and Paul. And we're going to explore the future of HavocAI and their bold ambition to dominate the waves. Really quick, we've got an ad, a disclaimer, and then we'll hop right in.

Speaker 4:
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Ryan Musto:
Hey everybody, I am Ryan Musto, Senior Associate at Alumni Ventures. Today I am joined by Paul Lwin CEO of HavocAI. Hey Paul, how you doing?

Paul Lwin:
Hey, Ryan, thanks for having me. How are you doing?

Ryan Musto:
Good, good. Thanks for stopping by. So a bit of context for our listeners. If you're a politics nerd or perhaps a current or former member of the military community or you just spend a lot of time playing Call of Duty, you might be familiar with the acronym UAV, which stands for Unmanned Area Vehicle aka a drone. But you might be less familiar with another breed of autonomous vehicles that is certainly making a splash. And as Paul knows that's a very corny pun. USV stands for Unmanned Surface Vehicle. We're talking maritime drones today. And HavocAI is really at the forefront of this fast-growing space. So before I give too much away about Havoc, maybe it's best to start off by chatting a bit about your background, Paul, because you have an awesome story. Immigrated to the United States when you were a kid from Myanmar. US Naval Academy onto the Naval test pilot school. Deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Man, your resume is insane. Yale MBA, CS advanced degree from Johns Hopkins, three air medals for combat, the Navy Commendation Medal, the Navy Achievement Medal.
So after all of that, tell us why did you want to head up to Rhode Island and build boats?

Paul Lwin:
Yeah, definitely. So what you just mentioned, my experience as a refugee I think really resonated with me in everything that I do. It's why I went to the Naval Academy and went into the Navy and did what I did. I think, while I was in the Navy, I flew Prowlers, which are a 40-year-old airplane. And that was in 2010. I was flying over Iraq and Afghanistan and I was conducting a very modern and digital mission in a 40-year-old plane. And that's when I really got interested in what we talk about today, defense tech, defense innovation. And up there as a test pilot too, got to work on next generation weapon systems, really got to see the issues we have with innovation in the DOD. And so, decided to get out and ended up on a bunch of the test tech startups. And at the last one I was with, I got invited to go to a conference with the DOD that they were having around maritime systems. And this is two months after the Replicator Initiative was announced.
And at that conference everyone brought all these cool things that they were building, mostly USVs and all kinds of robotic systems. And all the DOD officials, they went around asking, "Hey, this is really cool. Hey, if I give you money, can you build thousands of these?" And no one, and including the company I was with, had even thought through that, and had an answer if that makes sense. And no one says like, "Yes, give me the money, I'll build thousands." And in my mind I was like, "Here is a customer with money telling you exactly what they want and no one has an answer?"
Luckily for me and Havoc, my co-founders and I have been building robotic boats in our garages. We knew the technology for what the DOD was asking for existed, we just needed to harness it and figure our way to build at scale and make the product from these prototypes. So that's why we quit our jobs in January 2024, and we went full steam into that to show that we could really build them at scale. We built 12 of them. Usually most companies just build one prototype. They go like, "Why would you build 12?" Well, this is successful. The ability to build thousands is kind of what Havoc is building. So we built 12. And then to show that they work and that they were mature and they weren't just [inaudible 00:08:03], we took it to a DOD exercise and let the DOD use it in the real world for 10 days [inaudible 00:08:10]. And that was to show that hey, we can build a scale and we can build things that provide capabilities to the war fighters.

Ryan Musto:
And now, before we get into the tech, and it's super cool and I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but I think it would probably be best to talk a little bit about the market here, because there are these enormous geopolitical tailwinds that are blowing through that really affect all of us. And I'm talking South China Sea, I'm talking Black Sea. Maybe to frame it up, former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates probably put it best, or at least I think, when he said, "Putin's invasion of Ukraine has ended America's 30-year holiday from history. For the first time since World War II, the US faces powerful, aggressive adversaries in Europe and Asia." So teeing it up for you. How does Havoc fit into this highly competitive geopolitical landscape?

Paul Lwin:
You just nailed it. Geopolitics are changing, the nature of warfare is changing. And we are one-year-old company, and we're utilizing modern technology and all the innovations that everyone that came before us have built on to solve this problem. If you think about it, we're the only company to have started in this environment to go and solve these problems specifically. You hit on China. And I think Secretary Gates hit it best. But if you look at it, the chief of naval operation just announced this navigation plan, which is like a guideline for the Navy. And in that Xi has explicitly come out and said, "Hey, China is getting ready for a war in 2027." And Xi says, "My goal as the leader of the Navy, it is to be more ready by 2027." So if you hear a lot of Navy leadership go about talking at these conferences, they literally show a countdown 2027. And I think that's very important. That shows the audacity of what we're doing. It's not this nebulous, idealistic thing we're chasing. There is a real timeline that's being dictated by the other side.
And so same thing with what Ukraine has done. If you look at the Red Sea, a country with really no Navy has taken on what we thought was a very capable Navy. And for us in the Red Sea, you look at it about the hoodies with $50,000 boats [inaudible 00:10:36]. Also, the entire carrier battle group can move that's using these cheaply made things. And so that's where you start to look at it, and the nature of warfare is changing. We have to change with it. We can't keep doing the same things that we're doing and hope that it's going to work out. And luckily for us, I think on the investor side, on the technology side, and on the government side, for the first time in a very long time, there's alignment. And so there are a lot of companies, not just Havoc, a lot of other companies that are trying to solve this problem and making sure that our future is secure.

Samantha Herrick:
So now let's talk about a pressing challenge in maritime innovation and how HavocAI is stepping up to the plate. Right now, the US and its allies face a tough reality, outdated R&D and production models are limiting their ability to meet global maritime demands. While technological advancements speed ahead, traditional shipbuilding just can't keep pace. HavocAI, however, is flipping the narrative. And this is a little bit about what Ryan and Paul were talking about just before this. So their approach, it's all about efficiency, scalability, and adaptability. Picture this, autonomous Uncrewed Surface Vessels, or USVs, that are ultra-low cost and can be built in hours. These vessels are equipped with modular designs, which means they can be reconfigured for a range of missions, whether it's surveillance, defense or exploration.
But what makes it so revolutionary is their AI-enabled tasking system. Instead of micromanaging routes, operators assign broader mission outcomes. Teams of USVs adapt on the go even in challenging conditions like communication loss or GNSS degradation. HavocAI isn't just designing for tomorrow, they're delivering solutions today, making maritime autonomy accessible at a fraction of traditional costs. It's a game changer for the defense and commercial sectors alike.

Ryan Musto:
Yeah. I think the Ukraine, I guess case study almost, is such an interesting one. Us, defense tech investors, are hearing it all the time when we talk to the DOD. They want cheap, scalable and "attritable" technologies, which is frankly a new word that the DOD and the defense community has invented just in the past couple of years looking at Ukraine. Maybe share with our listeners what does attritable mean? And you mentioned a little bit earlier Replicator Initiative. Tell us about that momentous DOD roadmap, because it's a pretty big deal.

Paul Lwin:
So it's not a new concept. A lot of this came about. If you think about the Indo-Pacific and the adversaries that we're facing, they can out-build us and they can out-man us, they just have more people. So there's always been this thought, how do you counter that? And you just got to route a lot more things than them, and you have to do it efficiently. So we can't go capital ships. So when I say capital ships like destroyers and carriers and try to match them, we should, and I think hopefully we are going to, but there are other things like what Havoc is building that we could deploy tens of thousands of our surface vessels out there and hopefully it can act as a deterrent. And so that's the thing. It's because the oceans are so huge that you need a lot of things out there to match the mess that the other site is putting out.
And in Ukraine, I think what Ukraine has done is show that it works. We've cut out this a lot of building things more affordably, using commercial off-the-shelf things. And before Ukraine, if you were to go and sell the DOD and say, "Hey, I built this. It's using mostly commercial stuff." They would be like, "No, we can't do that. That's not how DOD acquisition works. We're going to go to the prime." So they have to build and they'll take 10 years, because that's how we work. And what Ukraine has show is, wait, no, you don't need to do that. You have the Ukrainians, very brave, very innovative. They're building new things every two, three months. And it's not because it's cool, their survival depends on it. And they're showing in an actual battlefield that that concept works. And so on our side, it's helping companies like our, it's helping every defense startup in this space show that finally you can adopt innovative commercial things and get them into the defense sphere.

Ryan Musto:
Yeah. And maybe just to double-click on, for our listeners what the Replicator Initiative is. This is Kathleen Hicks who is a very high up official in the Department of Defense. This is her initiative to get the Department of Defense fully focused on procuring technologies that can be scaled quickly, can be cheaply built, and can be capable of being lost in war fighting settings without taking a huge hit to the budget basically.

Samantha Herrick:
As Ryan said, let's double-click on this a little bit more. So this topic really intrigued me, the whole Replicator Initiative that Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks is putting through. So I'm going to provide a little bit more information on it, because I think it's a really interesting piece of legislature that is on the table right now. So back in August of 2023, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks unveiled the Replicator Initiative, a bold push to deploy thousands of autonomous systems across land, air, and sea within a tight 18 to 24 month timeline. The goal, to counter China's rapidly advancing military capabilities with scalable cost-effective technology.
So here's the deal. The Pentagon is channeling $1 billion over two years to bring this vision to life. But it's not just about creating something new, it's about scaling proven tech quickly. So we're talking about aerial drones like Anduril's Ghost-X, loitering munitions like the Switchblade 600 and even classified maritime systems, which HavocAI is the sector that falls into. So it's a fascinating mix of hardware and integrated AI-powered software that allows these systems to collaborate and adapt autonomously. Now, progress is already underway, which is also the really, really cool part. You would say almost 12 months in probably 14 months in, we're seeing some progress. So the first Replicator systems were delivered to military personnel in May of this year. Over 30 companies, including names you've probably heard in defense tech, have been awarded contracts. And the competition was fierce, more than 500 commercial firms were evaluated.
But not everyone's convinced. Congress is keeping a close eye on transparency, costs and operational security. And honestly, balancing speed and scrutiny is no small tasks. So still the Replicator represents a strategic pivot, one that focuses on delivering results at scale today, not years from now. This initiative underscores a critical shift in defense thinking, lean, scalable tech that levels the playing field. And as Hicks puts it, "This just about keeping up, it's about staying ahead."

Ryan Musto:
So it's a really innovative procurement strategy that the DOD has employed. So now that we've set the scene, Paul, let's nerd out a little bit about the tech, because it's super cool. You guys have a different way of attacking this enormous market that's laser focused on providing exactly what we just discussed: cheap, scalable, attributable. The DOD is eating it up. Software first approach, super price competitive. Tell us about the boats and what makes them so special.

Paul Lwin:
Yeah, definitely. So we'd like to say affordable, not cheap, just because the price point is important. So I'll start there. When I went to the conference when we started this company, we really went and looked at the market research. We said, "Hey, there are a lot of competitors in this space building uncrewed surface vessels. Why can't they build thousands right now? Why do they only have two or three?" And we did a lot of research. What we found out was that it is very capital intensive. And we said, "Well, why is it capital intensive? What are they doing?" And the problem is they're building boats from scratch. So when you start a USV company you say, "Oh, I'm a boat company, so I have to build boats." And that takes a lot of effort. You have to hire labor architects, hydro [inaudible 00:19:10], CFD experts, and build this, the facilities needed to build these boats.
And so we asked ourselves, "Is that true?" We went back to first principles. Like, "Do we need to build the boats?" And we did this thought experiment where we said, "Hey, people have building boats for thousands of years. It's the innovation, the boat?" And we were like, "No, the innovation's not the boat." The Polynesians were crossing the Pacific on wooden rafts that they built out. They were very sophisticated systems, so you could do it. So you don't need to build this very sophisticated, elegant boat. And so we went out to the boat builders to try to understand, hey, what's the realm of the possibility? And when we talked to them about the requirements and the performance that we were trying to reach, most of them didn't think it was a big deal. And luckily for us were in Rhode Island, the center of America's Cup and all the ecosystem for boating that exists.
And what we found out that what they were building, these sailboats, racing sailboats, were building different models regularly. And when they looked at the problems that we gave them, it was just another boat to them. And so they didn't think it was difficult. They were quickly able to help us design and figure out how to build it at scale. And the thing that they also were very interested in is that they saw that they could sell tens of thousands of boats here. So for most of these US small boat manufacturers, the commercial demand has already maxed out. They can sell a lot more because there are Chinese manufacturers that just sell cheaper boats. And so they realized that this could open up a whole new market for them, so they're very excited to work with us. What that allowed us to do was to say, "Okay, we don't have to focus on the boats, we can build thousands of boats if we needed to using the system we implemented. Now we can focus on what's really important."
If you think about it, trying to control a thousand things, put them in the real world and make them work, make them communicate with each other and make them coordinate with each other, that is an incredibly difficult challenge. It's tough for hard eye. It's something that no one's been able to do. So before us, you hadn't seen people put in more than two, three boats uncrewed surface vessels in the water. It's the same, they hadn't be focused on that. So we focus on the software, the autonomy spray log, the communication software, and the human machine interface. Just because they're autonomous doesn't mean that humans don't have to be in the loop. At some point, humans have to know what's going on and provide decisions and read back to them.
And if you're talking about tens of thousands of these things, human can get very overwhelmed. We focus a lot on how does the human interact with thousands of these boats. And so that's what we get. And that's the ability to make this a software program, we call them software-defined boats, has allowed us to [inaudible 00:22:12]. You're in, you invest in tech, so you understand once you make something a software program, you can look really fast. How within 18 months, we had multiple defense counselors tell us that we were the most mature platform that they had passed it, and that was it. We focused on the right things and not the wrong things.

Ryan Musto:
Yeah. And just to continue to paint a picture of these vessels for folks. They're sold in squads of 10, which can be operated synchronously. You guys have logged something like 500 plus hours of autonomous operations just this fall, which is super awesome. These things, they function really like network nodes, which offers a ton of advantages for the war fighter. So maybe walk us through what are the use cases? A lot of things come to mind. How do you envision war fighters using this technology on a day-to-day basis?

Paul Lwin:
You just hit it. So what we open up is this whole new distributed way to do some of these defense use cases. The easiest thing, we built these boats so that you can put whatever you want on it, sensors, payloads, weapons. And because of that, they can just carry things and move it around. So there's a big use case right now in the Pacific for, Hey, how do we move around supplies? Both, the Army and the Marine Corps have gone back to, "Hey, in the Pacific we'll have to do this island-hopping strategy and spread out over hundreds of islands." You think about it right now, the way you are going to get food and basic necessity to these islands, it's a piloted vessel, either a helicopter or a ship or a boat that goes and transfer what we call bees and bullets to them. That puts that crew at risk in the conflict in the Pacific. Those things are going to get taken out. And so what we can do is move a lot of supplies. Each boat right now can carry 300 pounds or bigger boats that can carry more payload. And now you start to see we remove people and we let them go focus on more vital things that just move the supplies.
So that we can do right now. If you told us, "Hey, you need to pass and move supplies between multiple sites," these boats can autonomously do that. The other thing you can do is stay in the ocean, get you in the area and monitor in the area. What we call maritime domain awareness, you can put whatever sensors you want, that's EOIR, RF sensors, and then try to sense what's going on, see what other ships are in the area and protect [inaudible 00:24:51] waterways out bay. And then once you find it, the other thing we can do is what we call find fixed track and target mission. If you think about what the Ukrainians are doing, think more than one vessel, and they're not remote control, they'll all be autonomous. They'll do coordinated tactics to try to find a ship, and then do something with it in conjunction with what the humans will tell them to do. So those are use cases. But now imagine doing this over 6,000 miles. And that's why we want to put tens of thousands of boats into the Pacific.

Ryan Musto:
And we've just touched upon two or three use cases here. There are so many more, which is why this is so exciting. It feels like for those of us that stay up to date on what's coming out of Ukraine, the Ukrainians are finding new use cases for autonomous technologies, particularly USVs, like once a month. So really the opportunities here are enormous. So as I've been talking to folks about Havoc, people naturally start asking questions about some big macro questions from China to the election, international relations, political economy, all these things are really tied up in your space in ways that for other startups it's probably less so. We'd love to run through some questions because you really have become an expert on a lot of these topics. And one that's I'm sure at the top of most people's minds is Taiwan.
Xi has openly discussed and planned for the PLA, People's Liberation Army, to have preparedness by 2027. The US Navy knows it, like you mentioned before. Anyone's guess, but you certainly have a better guess than most. What do you think is going to happen in 2027? Do you think that we will actually face conflict in Taiwan?

Paul Lwin:
Hopefully not. I think that's why we exist. And I'll go back. I'm not an expert in any of these things. I think we're all trying to figure it out. Especially, you know this, in startup world. You have to be very humble. You have to be willing to learn. And so that's what we're doing. I think going back to your Taiwan question, obviously, that it's a very tough geopolitical question, and there are a lot of smart people are trying to figure it out. On our end, all three founders, we're all veterans. Joe and Andrew. Joe was a Navy guy, and then Andrew was a FSOC pilot. We've all been on combat deployments. We know when we talked about this conflict in 2027, that is not something that anybody want. So Havoc exists, and I think most defense tech startup exists to try to prevent war. And in case war happens, we want to make sure that we have the advantage, but our primary goal is to prevent it.
So what we want to do is give the DOD, and specifically the US Navy, the capability to deploy tens of thousands of this in the next year. And that it's the [inaudible 00:28:08] to show the other side that, "Hey, we have the capability to match it. And that we do it in a very sophisticated way. Let's calm down, let's come back to the table. Let's figure out how to solve these problems so that we don't have a shooting war. Because there is a shooting war, we're going to build hundreds of thousands of these and we'll make it even more challenging for you." But my hope is that, one, we are successful that we have prevented this 2027 conflict from happening.

Ryan Musto:
Yeah, makes perfect sense to me. In the same vein, I'd be remiss if I didn't touch upon AUKUS, which for our listeners is the US's biggest maritime counter to expanding Chinese influence in the Pacific. It's a trilateral security partnership between us, the Aussies and the Brits. Joint development of a whole host of really exciting technologies from quantum, hypersonic, electronic warfare, and of course the crowning jewel of all this is the Australian acquisition of nuclear-powered attack submarines. A lot of analysts see this as a paradigm shift. What do you think, and how does Havoc fit into this really exciting dynamic landscape in the Pacific with our allies?

Paul Lwin:
I think we fit perfectly into it. If you look at AUKUS and Australia specifically, they have realized that their survivor depends on the maritime environment. You look at Indonesia and Malaysia and how many islands that Australia has to worry about and monitor. They always know that. I think we forgot about it post-World War II, and specifically post 9/11 are focused on the conflicts that we were fighting, and now we're coming back to it. And it is going to be a challenging maritime fight that we're talking about in this conflict. So I think it's good to have the Australians back working with us. They understand these iron chains very deeply, and the environment and the technology we need. So I think we've been talking to Australian partners, obviously, we've been talking to our DOD partners. We're hoping to get our boats out there to Australia, to the island chains and start experimenting out there, learn from them.
Because if you look at the Australians, they have a lot of small boats and [inaudible 00:30:33] that they use in their navy. There's a lot of lessons we can learn and take that and provide autonomous solutions to them, and then move people from harm's way. So I'm very excited about it. I think this is a partnership that we absolutely need, and it's vital.

Samantha Herrick:
All right. Before we wrap this episode up, we're going to do an ad and then we'll wrap back into the last few minutes of the show. Don't go anywhere.

Speaker 4:
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Ryan Musto:
Yeah. Turning maybe from the international to the domestic, new administration that has close relationships with Peter Thiel, who of course was heavily involved in the founding of Palantir and Anduril. Do you think we're about to see an even further acceleration of the perhaps demonopolization of the primes? And for our listeners, when I say primes, that's an industry term for defense contractors. So think Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics. Paul, curious to hear your thoughts as the new administration might really shake up how these old players exist.

Paul Lwin:
I think so, and I hope so. And it's not to say that the primes are going away. Those primes, they are vital to American security. If you hear people in the DOD talk about it, they will say that too. The primes are going to build F-35s and the destroyers and carriers and the really big systems, just because that's what they're meant to do. Now for the first time now, the DOD has accepted, "Okay, we don't need to let the primes build everything." And so the DOD realizes that there are companies like Havoc and other defense tech startups that can focus on building innovative things, and that incorporate commercial technologies to solve defense use cases. And so that's what's happening. And I think it's already happening, but I think it'll accelerate. Obviously, if you look at Palantir, I think the evaluation just beat Lockheed Martin for the first time yesterday, which is mind-blowing. And it's the right path to go. But I don't think it's like a zero sum game, I think what we're already seeing, at least on the Havoc side is we're partnering with a lot of them. They reached out.
I think on their end too, they accept that they don't want to build a thousand boats being sold at $80,000. That's not how their business structures are built around. But that's what we do and we can do it. So what they can do is partner with us, help us move faster, and then tackle some of the more challenging use cases, and integrate with these systems, with the F-35, and the big destroyers and carriers. So that's what I think is happening, and at least I hope is happening. You're going to see a lot more the first tech startup become programs of record and then integrate and partner with the existing primes who still going to build these very big and exquisite things that have their use cases.

Ryan Musto:
Yeah. So as we wrap up here, I'm certain that many folks tuning in will find themselves moved by the magnitude of the mission. How can they get involved? Do you have an ask for our community?

Paul Lwin:
Yeah. I would say, we're very big on LinkedIn. We post a lot of videos. We do that because a lot of times people don't believe us and we're like, "We've got four boats." And sometimes they're like, "Well, they're remote control boats, right?" Because that's what everyone's showing. We're like, "No, they're autonomous." So we'd like to show them. If you're in the government or if you are on the commercial side, please come visit us in Rhode Island. Every Thursday we do a day where we demo for customers and investors and just anyone that's interested in this space, to come see the boat and operate them, and then talk through some of the use cases and some things that we could innovate on. If not that, I think you could get my contact info, I'm sure through Alumni and find us on LinkedIn, just send us messages and we'd love to host you.

Ryan Musto:
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing some time with us today, Paul. I know you're a busy guy, so we're so stoked that we were able to learn a little bit more about, again, really what is an enormously important initiative that Havoc is building towards. So thank you so much and hope to chat again soon.

Paul Lwin:
Thank you so much, Ryan. And thanks for all your support. Specifically Alumni has been a huge supporter just in the last few months. We're excited going forward. Thanks, Ryan.

Samantha Herrick:
Thanks again for tuning into the Tech Optimist. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you'd give us a rating on whichever podcast app you're using. And remember to subscribe to keep up with each episode. The Tech Optimist welcomes any questions, comments, or segment suggestions, so please email us at info@techoptimist.vc with any of those. And be sure to visit our website at av.vc. As always, keep building.