sure. So, uh, it's a complicated story. So you have to bear with me. I, uh, grew up in Detroit, Michigan and Detroit. Ah was really the Silicon Valley of the United States. It was the center of the automobile business, and I was very much into cars when I grew up. So I I decided to go to college and learn more. I went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I spent six year, eight years there is a student and worked in electrical engineering and computer science. So the ah, while I was there, there were two things that were going on that we're, ah, bear keeping in mind. One was that M i t. It started working on an operating system called Multex, and they worked on Multex with a General Electric That was in the computer business of that time in Bell Laboratories. And what what came out of that was that Multex really never was a commercial success. But on an individual at Bell Laboratories, Ken Thompson did a stripped version of Multex, which is called UNIX. Multex had too many X and UNIX only have one Nick and ah, UNIX. Ah, was used widely throughout Bell Laboratories throughout the 19 seventies and eighties, and Ken Thompson took it to Berkeley in 1975 where he met Bill Joy and, ah, the rest was history in terms of the spreading through Silicon Valley. So today you have ah, you know, one of these things. Ah, own. And so the hardware technology in the phone Ah, is based on transistors that were developed at Bell Laboratories in the 19 forties 19 fifties. So the hardware technology a lot of people don't realize that Android and IOS or direct descendants of units, their derivatives of it, that if he off significantly. So the software technology for the phones also came from Bell Laboratories. The second thing that went on an M I. T. Was, uh, I I had the privilege of working with someone, actually when I met him at Bell Laboratories, but he was at M. I t on Arthur's, and he I had a very gung ho, uh, graduate student named Leonard Kleinrock. So Leonard Kleinrock, in the 19 late fifties early 19 sixties, wanted to work on a doctoral dissertation at M I T. Which is where at Arthur's was then and so Ah Ah! And thought that the most interesting things were going on in the area of communications were connecting computers up. So Leonard did a whole variety of computer simulations that uncovered all kinds of things that no one had ever seen before because no one had ever looked. And then Leonard graduated and went to U C L. A. And he wrote a proposal for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to build the computer network. In 1966 he was able to get funding for this Ah, using Bolt, Quranic and Newman to do a what would today be called a friend and processor so it would connect the computer to the network on and and so that lead over time to the what we not call today the Internet. OK, so both of those were there at M I. T. In that period of time, and I knew many people are working on them. The other thing that was going on was that alumni from M i t. We're going off and starting a variety of class of businesses of all sorts, so you have to go back in time. When I was a student there. There really wasn't any interest in and in. Ah, startups. Okay, okay, it's Ah, you might sound strange, but it really wasn't and and so the there was. Ah, but there was someone there, uh, who had a class who ended up. He was He was what was called an adjunct faculty. And they got in this in the Sloan School of Management. So he invited his friends in from route 1 28 And they told war stories about how they started up this company in that company and so forth. And so I was intrigued by this in the m I t alumni by themselves organized Saturday morning seminars where they would just get together and have a talk on marketing or just on me, actually. And I just on finance and so forth. And this evolved into what became the M I T. Enterprise Forum. Uh, I I actually went on the board of this in the 2000 timeframe for three years on this and so forth. When I was on the board of it, I argued that the M I T Enterprise forum should developed strong ties to start ups or angels cause I felt that where the action Waas and I thought they could do something to, you know, popularizes. And this was I basically suggested something which became shark tank on television three years after I got or Okay, so So that that was that was what happened. Eso What did I do? I I went to Bell Laboratories and spend 12 years there, which allowed me to see a wide variety of of technical issues and problems of all sorts. But it was not really doing any sort of start ups are getting involved in businesses. I was there at Bell Laboratories. I wrote a variety of papers. I co authored a book with my colleague and so forth. But it wasn't anything related to startups until a T and T decided to break itself up. And when they decided to do that, I decided to leave because everyone told me that there would be potentials for all kinds of opportunities. So I spent, uh, in the next 14 years after I laughed doing a lot of I did over 450 consulting engagements and was in over $60 billion in placements. Main thing was, I got involved with optical communications, and there were two different companies. I was involved with 11 did optical networking components called JDS Uniphase, and the other one did optical networking systems called Seanna. And now those companies air still around today, and they provide, Ah, lot of things interesting. It's it's all evolved toward connecting cellular base stations. Not on that what it was originally intended for, but that the market went, uh and, uh, and so forth. So I spent a lot of time with many different venture funds, a lot getting involved with how they would evaluate investments, and on it was notably seven Rosen and Warburg Pincus. Uh, and the B end result of that was that I was allowed to go Cohen vast of them on a number of opportunities, which I did. You know, I elected to go off on my own at that point, the SYRIZA venture funds called Signal Lake, which we've been involved with since that time frame, and we continue to invest. We typically invest in ah, hard sciences. So things were there significant intellectual property, but there could be some significant capital expenditures required, uh, you know, different than than investing and software where you don't necessarily need the money for for capital. Because I can simply use rent servers and do a lot of but I and so often we need the money for marketing. Uh, mark, your expenses is significant. So but so you know, the end result is we do things that are in the area of materials or energy. Uh, things in biotech. Ah, that tend to be viewed by other people is very risky. And they are, uh I did go and look, uh, at a survey called Money Tree 20. Tree has been around for decades. Every quarter, the ass, venture capital funds to provide all of the investments they made for that quarter and that I'm some background, like was Was that equity or debt? Was there something about the valuation, how much money was put in and so forth? So I looked in money tree from 1980 to 2007. Okay. But that encompasses many ups and downs and ah, money tree showed that there were 24,000 companies that received venture capital funding. Now, remember, this is a voluntary survey, so probably people left bad news out of it. Okay. But out of the 24,000 companies, uh, 13,000 which is which is about 56% returned exactly zero to the investors. Okay, way You look at 200 to 300 business plans for every company that we would actually investment. So that 4000 companies, you know, is the tip of the iceberg of how many things are out there and these air, the creme, dela creme, the best opportunities, and yet they return zero. Now there's 3400 out of the 24,000 roughly one in seven was able to do an I p. O. And that paid for all the other failures. But of course, if you weren't in that AIPO, then you don't have anything to show for it. And the Romanian companies were all acquired, okay, so they don't get nearly the same upside that kick. But what came out of this was ah, you know, a realization of that. They were there some very basic things. One was, uh I met an individual named Steve Blank who I thought was very interesting person. And he he framed, you know, looking at these businesses, My asked in three questions just to filter things. What is the problem that you're solving? Is it? You know, Is it is it a real problem? Can you explain it then? How our I was that that other people are solving this is it? Are you solving it in some unique way? They can't copy. Is it going to take them a long time to figure out how you do it? Or can they copy it quickly and come after you and then the other thing and this usually gets left out is how do you price it? Okay, A lot of times, people don't price these things correctly, so they need more money or less money, whatever it is in going through these things. And we find that was a useful way to go view them way. Also found but looking at, ah, these three things people in products and markets to try and understand what was going on of the three that to easiest are the the market in the product. You can look at the market. You can look at the product. You can do all kinds of relatively simple but straightforward analysis. The hardest thing is always the people and people side is also the most important side of it. That takes takes the longest, hardest amount of work to try and sort out who can really do this. Who can't yeah, eso that that's That's what we do ended up doing. We we moved toward much more of providing debt rather than equity financing he's on. The reason for this is that basically feel that that the capital that's provided to the company's it can be provided in the form of equity, meaning you buy stock or computer guided in the form of death, that is, you give them alone and you expect get paid back. And many of the many of the people offer equity because you know, they're scared that they can. They really pay the debt back. I just I just explained to you that over half companies fail, you know, so eso what happens here. So but But having said that, you know, I've just come to the belief that the real value is created by the people in the company's, and therefore they could be rewarded for this and not be diluted in their equity participation that does not lose them So we offer them that. And then they, when they become profitable, they pay us back and they have enough money so that they don't need to spend time raising money. One of the problems with equity financing s a standard view on the venture capital side is that you'll do say, three rounds of financing. You'll do, Ah, a seed round just to get going. But the Siri's a around Israel to build up the management teen and to and to get out, get into where you can build a prototype of a product or a service and and then, having done that, then you go to a Series B round where now you bring on additional sales people and additional things in logistics to to help you scale up. And finally, a as theory see round, which is typically what's called working capital, where you're trying to scale up Now at this point that all the everything is understood. Now the problem with this is that Ah, if you think about it is a soon as you raise, uh, started raising the syriza around your spending time thinking about how to raise money, what story it is you're trying to tell people and the purpose of the pump is to in fact provide a product or service that customers want. It is it isn't to raise money. Your your you. The company has two things that you consult like and sell its product or service or it consultants paper. The paper is the equity or the debt. So what happens here is that people get caught up. They do their series A financing to get this money. They've got enough money for a year, maybe even two years, and immediately they're racking their brains for what story they have to come to be around. And then they threw that in there and they're spending all their time, a significant amount of time in meetings with people on on raising money. And then they go do their B round. And now immediately they're going crazy thinking story to come up for this series C round so forth. And what the edge of that financing is that if they become profitable and return the money back, then they own the company, okay, and that's fine with me. Ah, the were looking much more for capital preservation. Then we are for financial returns. That's just ah, different. A different philosophy. We're trying to create viable businesses. So the people that Aaron, the businesses of the ones that created the value and they have the choice at that point they could simply run the business and pay themselves dividends. Okay, so that they can take money out. You know, you don't need to have a public stock flotation to go do this. You can paid dividends. You could choose to sell the company. If you want to sell it, you could choose to take it public if you take the company public and you have to remember that you're going to spend somewhere someone's going to spend some time dealing with investors, especially institutional investors, explaining what the world it is you're doing. And and every 90 days you get a report card, which is whatever it is that you report for earnings in that in that time period there and and that's, you know that's a particular way to go. But if your private you don't need to do that, OK, it's it's up to you. So by keeping people more options, it's It's a compelling thing for people, and typically the people that we are for this too. You have been through 123 other spirit up. Understand what it costs to go raise money, the things that go with it. And then they find it very compelling. And so with that, I've tried to answer all of your questions here about No. How did we get to a rat today? These examples along the way and yes, this lead to this sort of Ah, um idea what you

products or services. We originally focused on things related to computers and communications. So this encompassed, uh, you know, things in in the area of, ah, routers for the internet and encompassed optical networking equipment that went with this, uh, or and also, uh, wireless networking equipment. Uh, and, uh, in terms of software, they went with it, Um, that I would say the difference that's happened here is the software was typically to manage some piece of a network. Okay, Uh, and and what's happened with software is it used to be, you know, decades ago that you could develop some software and then sell it Acela weapons and get a support. Uh, I'm going support for it. So just to pick some numbers, if if you had a license for, say, $10,000 for this piece of software and you could then also include a $2000 a year, uh, or 20% fee for for a service for getting upgrades to the software and bug fixes so forth. Uh, what's changed now is is that everything has gone to the cloud. And so now, instead of getting a chunk of money up front, you get you know, 9 95 a month or, you know, 49 95 a month. And so what used to be something that would say be 10 $20 million to do a successful software company now becomes $100 million because you have to be able to go stay the course for that period of time to reach positive cash flow. OK, okay. So in part, for that reason, we've gone back and have been looking at things like materials. Okay, which which are capital intensive. Ah, And by this I mean carbon composite fiber. I mean, carbon nanotubes. I mean graphene. Ah, in energy. We've looked at a lot of different things related to photovoltaic X, both gallium arsenide as well as a silicon. And there's a lot of potential there. They're related to battery technology, and, uh, in biotech. There's a lot of interesting possibilities there for medical devices that are again something that you can, uh, you know, sell That will do some things, uh, to make the world a better place. Okay. No, this is all of these things. Draw on the court technologies, the computers and communications. So we've evolved over time But it's if you start to look at what we're actually investing in. We're still investing and hardware and software that allows you build these sorts of things. So that's where how we meant it up where we're at.

our venture fund right in the middle of this, uh, telecom bubble. People call it a dot com bubble, but it's true. There were a lot of software companies there that were, ah, being funded. But ah, people aren't aren't aware that there was, ah, deregulation that occurred in telecommunications and that they were literally ah, you know, the amount of money that went into software It was intent, the amount of money that went into finding telecommunications carriers. I mean, just did an example. When we started, I I counted over 35 or optic carriers that were covering the United States. These are all start up and the each required 100 million minimum have. And but that would. But money was no object. Everybody was saying, We're going to be the next eight and t we're gonna you know, go go at it and and so forth. And so everybody was just throwing money like there was no tomorrow. So So we didn't have a lot of difficulty in terms of raising money. But then then the roof fell in after that and march of 2000 and we got to see what it meant to conserve the money And how did out of think about going into different directions and that was It was interesting. You see, the switch occurs so dramatically. Okay? And people that were doing venture funds all of a sudden became buyout funds. They they just immediately into, instead of investing any more money and startups, they invest in them and taking buying up troubled companies and dressing them up and then selling them for big multiple. So they made it out, find we. We chose not to do that. We just chose to stay in venture the whole time, But it was It was an exciting, you know, time, riel, rock and roll. I mean, II understand. I went a very well known first year investment banker, Teoh, visit a software company. They wanted me to go along to help them evaluate the investment. And the purpose I was with was probably at most 25 years old. Okay, Very bright, very polished, etcetera. So we went in and were there with the company. And after, you know, on our twos, this person said, Well, you know, your problem is you're only losing five million a month now. If you could take it to 10 month, then we could take you public. Can you lose 10 month? And I walked out of there and I said, This is it. It's all over. For people that make these statements is is just ridiculous, so that without times, then people will get caught up in these things.