How to Help Startups and Institutions Empower Global Finance for the New Millenium, with Evan Owens @ Kadena (Audio)

[00:00:03] Hello everybody and welcome to the Crypto Hipster Podcast. This is your host, Jamil Hasan, the Crypto Hipster, where I interview founders, entrepreneurs, executives, thought leaders, amazing guests all around the world of crypto and blockchain. And today I have another amazing guest and it's a repeat company. I interviewed their chief of growth officer, operations officer, I don't know her exact title, back in May at ConsenSys and it was an amazing conversation.

[00:00:32] Today I have her colleague, I have Evan Owens, who's the Vice President of Business Development at Kadena. Evan, welcome to the show. Yeah, Jamil, thanks for having me. Did you interview Annalise? I did. Okay, great. Yeah, yeah. She's our chief business officer. She's my boss. She joined Kadena maybe five or six months before I did. But yeah, she's awesome.

[00:00:58] She was actually just over in, at Davos at the World Economic Forum. I think she was on a couple panels. Sounds like it was a great time. So. Yeah, I know some people who are there and they had an awesome, wonderful time. Oh, nice. Maybe next year I'll go. You ever, you ever been? Never been. Nah, me either. All right.

[00:01:20] So, very nice to meet you and, you know, let's kick things off. I'll ask you first, you know, what is your background and is it a logical background for what you're doing now?

[00:01:29] Yeah. Yeah. Good question. Probably not logical. I have a pretty wild career arc. I studied philosophy in college. My first job was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. I wasn't like a broker in the pit. I was a clerk, a lowly clerk. But this is back when, you know, trading was still done live in the pit, just like you see in the movies. So that was a pretty fun experience.

[00:01:56] But then went on to be a sailboat captain, spent four years at sea down in the Caribbean. We had a 50-foot catamaran charter boats like you and your friends would come down and we had a chef on board and we'd cruise the islands and go scuba diving and do all that. Then went to LA, proposed to my wife and then got into the tech world, started a company called Pogo Seat. It was a, it is a seat upgrade app. So if you go to a sport game and you're sitting in the nosebleeds, you can upgrade in real time and there's dynamic pricing.

[00:02:26] And that company is still going today, 15 years later. I think we got about 50 teams in the NBA, MLB and NFL and whatnot. But that was my first foray into the tech world. When I started that company, I didn't really know anything about being a founder or tech startups. And it was there that my co-founder, Andrew was mining Bitcoin in our office in like 2012 or 13. And so, and he's much smarter than I am. So he educated me on crypto and got me to learn a little bit.

[00:02:55] So after Pogo Seat, a few friends and I started a fund called Enigma Capital. This was right kind of before and during the ICO boom back in like 2016 to 19 or so. And that was a multi-strap fund. So we did some liquid trading and we had a small VCR in which I ran. And yeah, I did that for about three years.

[00:03:19] I still do a lot of investing in the crypto side, whether it's through some investment DAOs or being an angel investor or an LP in some crypto funds. And then I spent about a year and a half at Flipside Crypto, which is a really awesome. They're technically a data analytics firm, but what they really do is help blockchains grow. I got to work with Dave Balter. He's an incredible founder there. And those guys are crushing, awesome experience. A lot of gigabrains at Flipside.

[00:03:45] And that led me to Kadena. So I've been here about five months now. It was my first chance to work, you know, on the network side for an actual layer one. Whereas Flipside, we were a vendor selling a product or service to L1s. It was pretty exciting for me to get the chance to go on the other side of the fence. So, yeah, it's been an incredible five months. We've got a great team. The future's bright. A lot of momentum on the product side.

[00:04:11] I'm sure we'll get into all this. But yeah, that's the short pitch on my journey there. Awesome. Awesome. I interviewed Angela and Elise. I interviewed somebody at Flipside, too. I don't remember the person. Oh, nice. Yeah, they're a good company. Yeah, they're great. Thank you for the opportunity to pay homage to one of my favorite sports personalities. Bob Euchre passed away recently. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's Elise.

[00:04:41] But he would have loved your Pogo app. Oh, yeah, that's cool. I wish I would have bet him. And got the chance to pitch him. Yeah, he must have been in the front row. I was seeing who was in the last row with you. He might have been in the front row. Yeah, he probably didn't need Pogo seat. He already had, you know, front row or floor seats. Awesome. So, Kadena, right? What's it all about? And what makes, you know, what is your vision?

[00:05:09] And what makes a position well for the future? Yeah, great question. I mean, first of all, I think we launched Mainnet in January 2020. So, it's an older chain. And the pro of that is that it's battle tested, right? We've been in the wild for five years or so. We have incredible founders, Stuart and Will. They were originally met, I think, at J.P. Morgan, maybe even before that.

[00:05:34] But they helped to build one of J.P. Morgan's first forays into the crypto space. I think it was called Onyx, you know, as a private permission chain. And then for whatever reason, I don't know if J.P. Morgan shut that project down, but Stuart and Will spun out and started Kadena. And I think their original vision was to, you know, have the best of both worlds, right? Kadena is proof of work like Bitcoin.

[00:06:00] But then we have this chain web architecture that makes it scalable, you know, like Ethereum, for example. So, it's a very unique chain in that regard. I would say we have the ingredients to really have an incredible next, you know, year or two. We have this amazing team, especially the core engineering and tech is awesome. We have a very robust grants program. You know, that's what my team works on, of course, is encouraging founders to come build on Kadena.

[00:06:29] And then, you know, by hiring Annalise and then myself, and we're still growing our team, we're really putting a lot of effort into, you know, the beauty side of the business, the marketing, getting the word out, right? Because I think there are like 200 L1s or maybe more than that right now live. And you have lots more coming on board like Monad, Barachain, Abstract, etc. So, there's definitely lots of competition just to get attention and mindshare in crypto, you know?

[00:06:55] So, one thing we're working on at Kadena is crafting our narrative, telling a better story. I think traditionally maybe we led with the tech at Kadena, like, hey, we're proof of work. Plus, we have ChainWeb. We have our own smart contract language, which are all awesome. But sometimes the general public doesn't really care about that, you know? So, we're really working on crafting a new story.

[00:07:20] So, on the beauty side, we have this, you know, awesome team, lots of momentum, huge deals coming on the pipeline. I can probably drop some alpha in this podcast at some point. But then on the product side, we have, you know, a new bridge coming online. We just announced we're going to be EDM compatible probably early, like Q1 and 26. Hopefully, we'll have a DevNet launch soon. We just did a big AMA with Stuart and Will for the community and announced that.

[00:07:44] So, that will help plug us into the, you know, crypto community and make it easier for founders to, you know, bring their apps to Kadena. So, anyway, I think the combo of the team, you know, BD deals coming through the pipeline, Fog developments, and crafting this new story are the ingredients that could lead to breakout success for Kadena in the next year or two. Sounds exciting to me. Yeah, thank you.

[00:08:13] You guys are doing a lot. And I see Annalise out there talking about her book. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's right here. Oh, no. I took it home already. I forgot. It was behind me here. But from hoodies to suits. Yep. And the interesting thing is in my AIG days, you know, I used to wear a suit. Yeah. And now I got the hoodie. So, I went reverse. Yeah, there we go. You went reverse. Okay, I got it.

[00:08:41] Wait, where were you earlier, Jemil? My early career, I was at AIG. I worked at AIG for 12 years. Gotcha. Gotcha. The interesting thing about AIG was when I was there, I never heard the word Bitcoin. But as soon as they threw me out the door in 2017, then I heard about Bitcoin. They did a pretty good job of keeping it under wraps. Yeah. You know, that's interesting. Yeah. So, your journey.

[00:09:09] I want to find out how you actually met. You said you were a sailboat captain, right? So, I want to find out how your journey in crypto and Kadena was similar to your journeys in the Atlantic. Yeah, great question. Let's see here. Well, one thing that stands out is before we got to the Caribbean and started running the charter business, we had to get the boat from France to the Caribbean. So, we had to sail across the Atlantic.

[00:09:37] So, we left the Canary Islands and went to St. Lucia. And so, we were at sea for 21 days, you know, crossing the Atlantic. As you can imagine, there's an incredible amount of planning and preparation that goes into that journey, right? Like, stocking the food, making sure you have extra engine parts, making sure the watch is set. So, you know, Evan comes on from midnight to four to sail, why people get to sleep, all those things.

[00:10:01] And similar to, like, the BD team at Kadena, we're laying out our roadmap for the next year or two, right? What big deals do we want to get done, you know, with new wallet providers or stable coins or custodians or DEXs? What are our OKRs? What's our North Star and then what are our OKRs to help get there in terms of, you know, developer acquisition, onboarding new wallets, growing TVL,

[00:10:28] all these things to, you know, make the Kadena ecosystem robust? So, we've laid out, we've done a lot of planning and preparation at Kadena for the future, just like we did sailing. Now, what also happens is when you sail across the Atlantic, things go wrong, right? The weather changes, a sail breaks, someone falls overboard, the food goes bad. So, you have to be, you know, able to adapt and adjust on the fly, same at Kadena, right?

[00:10:55] We might have, you know, new additions to our team that we've got to plug in and teach about Kadena. We might have deals that blow up and go south and we've got to get another deal done. So, you know, I think Mike Tyson says, right, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. And for sure, that's going to happen. You just don't know what it is. But being able to be resilient and persevere and get to the challenges will take you a long way.

[00:11:23] So, we got across the ocean, we made it. And so, I'm hoping with Kadena, we can also get across the ocean. Yeah, sounds good. So, I want to find out, you know, the best way for Kadena, like getting across the ocean, what's the best way for the Kadena blockchain to help power global finance? Yeah, it's a good question. So, I think, again, if you go back to the origins of Kadena, you know,

[00:11:50] with our founders coming out at JP Morgan and being proof of work, i.e. being incredibly secure, that appeals to traditional finance and Wall Street, right? My team at Kadena is mostly focused on the crypto world and getting those deals done. And Elise and her team, which we call the Labs team inside Kadena, is focused on TradFi on Wall Street. So, you know, that's why she's at Davos. And they have conversations with lots of the big banks.

[00:12:17] And so, we would love to, you know, have one of the big boys, you know, launch an RWA fund on Kadena or do, you know, tokenize some assets, right? And the chain is built to, you know, scale for that and, again, be incredibly secure. So, I think there are a lot of arrows in our quiver on that side. And then, again, like, you know, on our side of the business, as we get more deals done with crypto companies, let's just say like DeFi protocols, right?

[00:12:46] It could be a lending protocol, for example. Then when they come to Kadena and we're like, hey, we have a partnership with Big Bank XYZ. By the way, let's make a warm intro, connect you guys. They might be interested in providing liquidity for your lending protocol and starting to get into the DeFi world, right? So, we can, you know, help broker that relationship and hopefully be like, you know, the symbiotic ecosystem, right? Got it. So, I was going to ask about Wall Street,

[00:13:16] but I'm going to shift it to focus on your side of the business, which is the crypto side of the business, right? Yeah. There's still a lot of disconnect. There's still a lot of areas, companies that are protocols that don't, you know, interconnect or that don't, you know, that everybody sees themselves as a silo. You know, how do you improve the silo so that you have a world where different chains are working together collaboratively?

[00:13:44] What are the obstacles in that? How do you get there? Yeah, it's a great question. I think one answer is there are some really awesome, you know, companies in crypto that are solving that interoperability problem. It could be, you know, the Axelars of the world, the Layer Zeros, the wormholes, right? You get a partnership done with those guys, integration,

[00:14:10] and then you're pretty well connected to a hundred other chains, right? The challenge, at least for us, is because at the moment we're not EVM compatible, the technical lift to get those integrations done is pretty large. So all those names I just mentioned we are chatting with, the timing of when those deals will get done is still, you know, TBD. But that's the answer, I think, to, you know,

[00:14:39] helping break down the silos and solving the interoperability problem, which you're right to call out is a big issue, you know? Hence why those companies, I think, have raised lots of money and are growing and doing really well. The other issue, I think, is you just said it was EVM compatible. There seems to be a lot of problems in the Ethereum ecosystem where Ethereum stalled, right? And there are other chains that are growing, like yours are growing, right?

[00:15:08] So EVM compatible is not the necessary thing that it used to be, right? So what's going to replace it? Or how do you, in a world where Ethereum is not compatible, how do you, what is? Yeah, we thought about that. Obviously, you know, Solana pops to mind, you know, being Solana compatible, right? SVM, right? Which may well, you know, flip Ethereum at some point. I don't think it's too far away right now.

[00:15:39] Or it could be some of the new ones, right? The movement ecosystem. You got, you know, SWE and Aptos and movement itself. So I think it's a little bit of an unknown there. But as of today, you know, being EVM compatible is still, you know, the top dog and the first choice. But you're right to call out that if we talk again, you know, in January 26th, that might not be the case, right? And maybe blockchains are doing other XYZ compatibility, you know?

[00:16:10] But yeah, we definitely thought about it a little bit and shatted internally because obviously this decision was made a while back to do this, become EVM compatible. I think it will be a great one, especially I just know from the BD side, all these folks we talked to where the technical lift is a hurdle, you know, becoming EVM compatible will make my team's job much easier, right? You will. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

[00:16:37] So I want to talk a little bit about TradFi, right? You guys are both focused on developing strategic partnerships across TradFi and DeFi and scaling businesses across industries, whether it be Wall Street or crypto, right? What's the role, the importance of developing those strategic partnerships? Well, I think if you zoom out,

[00:17:06] the new administration is very great for the crypto industry, right? You know, to use a sailing term, the wind is at our back now, right? We're sailing downwind. I think everyone feels that. We're breathing life into the industry. It sounds like we're going to get some sensible regulation in place that everyone has been asking for for years. So we know, you know, what's security, what's not, or the tax implications of, you know, making businesses in crypto.

[00:17:37] All that will be amazing and fertile grounds to grow the industry. But I think the main thing is to allow, you know, there's a reason that TradFi and Wall Street has not necessarily flooded into crypto over the last, you know, 10 years, right? Because they're waiting for sensible regulation and tax clarification, all those things. I think you can look at stable coins as being a massive early adoption funnel,

[00:18:03] you know, for TradFi to get money, you know, in the, get fiat into the crypto sphere, right? And then you can start playing around and do stuff. So it's funny, like when we started that fund, I told you about Enigma Capital back in 2017, Novigratz, you know, I'm sure you know, he was pounding the drum and the line was like, the herd is coming, the institutions are coming, right? So we've been saying that for a long, long time.

[00:18:33] And I'm always careful to say this time it's different, but it feels like it is different now and that the big boys are coming in size and going to start deploying. Then the question becomes where and what, right? And so I already mentioned stable coins. I think RWA is going to be a huge, you know, vertical in crypto, right? There's, I feel like tokenizing assets has a lot of benefits, you know, for the big banks and consumers.

[00:19:03] And so that's where Kadena would love to play, right? And we're set up for that. And those are the deals that Annalise and her team are working on. So I want to talk about Enigma, not specifically Enigma, but I want to talk about the ICO boom of the 2017 and 18, because I was there as an advisor too. And, you know, you help startups, right?

[00:19:32] The space has shifted dramatically since the ICO days of startups into what startups are today. You know, how do you, what lessons did you learn from the ICO days and how do you apply them to the startups that you helped today? Yeah. Oh boy. I mean, first of all, you know, the initial coin offering, there were some beautiful things about it, you know, in terms of

[00:20:02] access to tokens and companies and lots of people made lots of money. I wouldn't necessarily say it was a, you know, democratic process because there were still like insiders and free sales and the initial pump and then retail would get in and there'd be the dump. You know, keep in mind too that I had just ran Pogo Seat for seven years and we raised, you know, five and a half million in seed funding. So I was in the Web 2 world, right? And

[00:20:33] raising money from, from VCs and angels, you know, they're asking about, you know, what problem are we solving? What are we building in the world? You know, and I was really good at telling the Pogo Seat story. And so then I'm meeting these founders in the ICO world and like, to be honest, not much was being built, right? A lot of it was scams and vaporware. Obviously, there were, there were great projects that came out that boom, you know, Maker or even Ethereum a little earlier, you know, there, there were some, there were some awesome projects, but I would say

[00:21:03] if I had to put a number on it, it's like, you know, 90 to 95% of ICOs were not great companies solving problems in the world or adding any value, right? So, so I guess one lesson I learned was just trying to keep that, the Web 2 hat on a little bit of like always asking, you know, are you building something people want? Are you solving a problem? What's the value? What's the product here? What traction do you have? You know, and it's hard because, you know,

[00:21:32] if I remember back to the ICO boom and, you know, we had a fund, so we're deploying capital, there's lots of excitement because people are making money really fast, right? And so sometimes you get undisciplined and make some bad decisions or you make a lot of money, but you don't really feel great about it because it's not like the company you invested in is going to change the world. So, I mean, look, we're seeing that today in a sense with the meme coin craze, right? There's like, you know,

[00:22:03] I don't even know, millions of coins launched a day. Pretty much every one of them, you know, goes to zero. Again, a small subsection, people are getting rich. I think the majority of retail probably gets rugged. obviously Trump launched his own meme coin. People made a lot of money. People lost money. Is that great for crypto in the grand scheme of things? I don't know about that, you know? Yeah. I think it would be great. Yes. Just so you know,

[00:22:32] I missed that on Trump. I was looking at it Friday night at the crypto ball and it was like, you know, at a billion dollar market cap and I was like, oh, well, you know, I obviously missed the boat already and then I woke up Saturday morning and it was at a 50 billion dollar market cap. So, I guess a good lesson there. You might think you're late sometimes, but you're not always too late. I mean, there were other coins that came out in the past few years like Pepe and Pork and different things. There's always going to be an opportunity. You know,

[00:23:03] it seems like if you missed one, it doesn't mean you're going to miss the next one. Yeah. Yeah, I think totally and what I do like about even meme coins or ICOs is the fact that in theory, everyone gets a chance to invest, right? Early. Whereas, you know, the, you know, the private markets don't work like that. Like, unless you get invited to the Series A or seed round of the Stripes or Airbnbs or Ubers of the world, you're not going to be able to invest until they go public, right?

[00:23:33] So, I think crypto does break down those walls, which is, which is odd. That's a great piece of it, right? It breaks down the VC walls, right? So, what's the future of the VC market when it comes to crypto and then non-crypto? Yeah. By no means am I an expert in this space. So, I take all this with a grain of salt. I'm also an investor in a few crypto VC funds, which are awesome. I love them. I don't know a lot about it, but I was reading about, I think, Kobe,

[00:24:03] one of the, you know, KOLs or influencers. Obviously, he's an OG, but he started that platform, Echo. Have you heard of that? Yeah. So, crypto startups, again, can just raise from a group of individuals online. And I think it's been pretty successful so far. I've seen some startups raise millions of bucks in like eight minutes, right? So, again, I don't, this is just like reading it, you know, from the periphery, but there's probably just more competition for crypto VCs because there's other avenues

[00:24:33] for founders to raise, you know, from a select group of individuals very fast and not go through the process of the pitch deck and the pitches and all of that with VCs. Now, you probably need some time to see how it plays out because there are crypto VCs. I know it's kind of like a meme, but add value, right? They can make, you know, warm introductions to companies you want to get business done with. They can help with recruiting. They've been around and seen cycles. They can talk about token economics, right? So they're, I'm certainly still a believer

[00:25:02] in the good crypto VCs. You want them in your corner, right? Especially in your Foxhole when the, when the next bear market comes, right? So, but yeah, I think, I think it's good for founders. They have, they have more options now and there's probably just a little more competition amongst crypto VCs for the hot deals. Well, let's hope the bear market doesn't come for a long time because we've had enough of that. Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:32] I hear you there. So, there is, there is a little bit of, there is a little bit of argument right now going on in the industry, right? And when is Donald, President Trump announced that there's going to be a strategic crypto reserve and the Bitcoin maxis are like, it should be a strategic Bitcoin only reserve and I'm looking at it from a perspective like, no, I think that's a benefit to have lots of things. You know, what do you,

[00:26:01] what is your thoughts on it? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I mean, it probably makes sense to have an index and obviously it's going to be weighted heavily toward Bitcoin, but especially with, I think, I don't know if it's official yet, but I've been reading that crypto companies based in the US, there'll be no capital gains taxes. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's great for Cadena, right? We're a US company. Um, so we're very excited

[00:26:31] to hear that. Um, we'd love Cadena to be included in there. maybe, maybe it's like, you know, look, Trump's trying to bring business and investment back to America. So it could be like, Hey, the index, the strategic reserve is, you know, the top 20 crypto companies in America, for example, right? Um, which would be a strong signal, I think. Um, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I wouldn't die on a hill saying it has to be just all Bitcoin. I think an index is probably, um, a reasonable decision. Yeah,

[00:27:01] so do I. I know the dangers of not having everybody at the table. So, yeah, exactly. But then you get, you get, um, you know, um, you get the collective horsepower of, of a few different communities as opposed to just one, right? Yeah. So, what's the future look like for Cadena? Oh, great question. You know, we want to continue to grow. Um, we have a very robust product roadmap. Um, again,

[00:27:30] we mentioned the bridge and you get compatibility. We have this, um, um, feature called Spire Key, which is trying to kind of abstract away, um, some of the difficulties when you launch a wallet. So, it uses biometrics like a face scan, right? And, but also keeps your seed phrase safe. Um, and on the BD side, you know, we have, it's, I can't, I can't announce it yet, but, um, really cool, uh, sports deal

[00:28:00] with a major global, um, company to, to build on chain and do some fan token stuff and NFT stuff plus a sponsorship. Um, and then getting deals done with major players in terms of the interoperability vertical you mentioned, um, new wallets, new custodians, new DEXs, all marquee names you've heard of. So, as you stack those up and continue to build momentum, it just, you know, makes the path easier and easier, right? And gets to flywheel spinning. So, I think when you combine the BD team,

[00:28:30] the deals, um, the product roadmap, the underlying tech, being proof of work, five years in the space, Annalise and her team working on the TradFi Wall Street deals. If we, you know, that basket right there, if we hit home runs on all of those, the future is very bright for Kadena. Sounds like it. Sounds like it. Sounds really good. Um, and then you said early on, I think I got most, if I understood you correctly, you help, you,

[00:28:59] you help like people new to the industry, people start us companies, right? Like, it's like a labs or how does, how does that work? Yeah, no, we don't have an internal accelerator incubator, but, um, you know, for example, Lendo S is a new lending protocol building on Kadena. There are two founders actually, I believe, applied through our grants program, right? So you can go online, you can apply for a grant. Um, uh, we've done a good job about speeding that process up and like, instead of like weeks, like days and like, they're rocking and rolling, right? Um, but, you know,

[00:29:29] so actually, uh, Jessica Rossman on my team worked with those founders, got the deal done. We have a new head of DevRel named Charlie, who's amazing. And so we want to make it, um, as friendly as possible for new developers, right? So we just launched a new, um, website update for like our tooling and documentation for developers. They can easily figure out, Hey, here's the tech stack. Here's the tools we use. Here's the instructions on how to do it, right? Like removing as much friction as possible. So it's developer friendly, right? Um,

[00:30:00] we've made a lot of strides there. We still have a ways to go. Um, also creating a community for all the founders building on Kadena to share best practices, make sure they know the processes, who to communicate with. Lana is one of our, is our head of account account management. So when the BDT team gets deals done, you know, Lana takes over the handoff process, does the kickoff meeting welcomes, you know, in this case, let's just say Lendo S to the ecosystem. So getting that down,

[00:30:29] I think other L ones are also doing a great job and we're trying to learn from others, right? Like, um, but you have to do that to eat. That's like table stakes to compete, to attract developers, right? Cause when we talk to people, they're like, Hey, I can go build on, you know, sweet app to say salon, et cetera. Why Kadena? We have to make sure our sales pitch is airtight, um, and, and really compelling, right? Um, so we're, we're getting there. We still have ways to go. And that's, that's again, part of, part of my job is to, um,

[00:31:00] make that better. Awesome. Awesome. Um, well, I want to thank you very much for speaking with me today. Enjoyed our conversation. I have one last question. How can people find out more information about you, about Kadena? How can they start to use your platform? How can they, how can they do that? Yeah, totally. Well, definitely Twitter, you know, you got the Kadena main site. Um, I'm captain Owens on Twitter. Please follow me. I, like I said, our website, we just updated the, developer documentation and tooling sites. You can go there.

[00:31:29] You can also apply for a grant right in our site. Um, on telegram, I'm also captain Owens. You can hit me up anytime and say, Hey, I want to build this project on Kadena. We'll set up a meeting and, you know, get, get the ball rolling. So. Very cool. Thank you very much for your time today. Yeah, Jamil. It's been a pleasure.