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The music business was built in a golden age of mass media: wide distribution, narrow access, and a curated portfolio of monetizable megastars. Digital downloads broke it. Will AI save it—or drive it into the ground? After two decades at two revolutionary media companies, Netflix and YouTube, Robert Kyncl must now confront the collision of creativity and technology as CEO of one of the "big three" recording giants. He's joined by Warner recording artist Grimes, a creative rebel in her own right who's spent years experimenting with AI-generated music and digital identity. In an intelligent age, can the music industry self-replicate its way to success?


Robert Kyncl, Chief Executive Officer, Warner Music Group 
Grimes, Producer and Artist
Andrew Nusca, Editorial Director, Brainstorm, Fortune 

The Industry and the Instigator

Conferences

In this session, moderated by Fortune Europe Editor Francesca Cassidy and presented in partnership with Glean and VivaTech, Fortune explored how senior technology leaders at some of the world's largest companies are navigating the shift from AI experimentation to applied AI at scale. Speakers included Bruno Zerbib, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at Orange; Rahul Shah, Global Chief Digital & Information Officer at Mars Pet Nutrition; Nigel Richardson, Chief Information and Digitisation Officer at Reckitt; and Ursula Soritsch-Renier, Group Chief Digital and Information Officer at Saint-Gobain. The discussion examined how C-Suite and board-level leaders are making AI investment credible, revenue accretive and defensible, moving beyond strategy to build the organizational foundations needed to succeed in the era of agentic AI and large language models.

Fortune 500 Europe: In Conversation with Tech Leaders

Cynical headlines about Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s entry into corporate America are hard to ignore, but they are also stepping into a workforce unlike any before. These generations, deeply shaped by technology and instability, bring a distinct lens on work, culture, and reinvention that business can’t afford to ignore. Hear insights about the realities early career workers face today, how they’re challenging legacy cultures, and what leaders must do to move beyond the stereotypes and truly harness the distinct perspective and potential these generations bring. 

Gabrielle Judge, Founder, Ms. Anti Work
Brad Rencher, Chief Executive Officer, Bamboo HR
DV Williams, Chief People Officer, Match Group
Moderator: Kristin Stoller, Editorial Director, Fortune Live Media; Co-Chair, Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit

The New Generations at Work: Moving Beyond the Stereotypes

So Gabriel, your brand is literally anti-work or decentering from your 99 to 5 from being your whole identity. DV, you are trying to retain talent as a at a company where the culture kind of is the product in, in a lot of senses. So I, to start, I, I'm curious if you both agree on what Gen Z actually wants from work. So give me the top thing on your mind that is important to this generation. Gabriel, let's start with you, um. You know it, it's, it's a very interesting time for Gen Z. Um, I would say overall we do want some meaning. Meaning to work looks different than what it did for millennials, um, and so oftentimes it does take being able to sit with them for a little bit and ask those questions of what meaning means. Um, at the same time we don't play the office politics games, and I know that that can be quite challenging and different right now, um, so the whole mode of just communicating in the office is much different right now. Yeah, yeah, I think they want a few things. I think transparency and communication is huge. They want to understand the inner workings of the business, how decisions are made, and how they can impact those decisions. Another component of it is agency. Are they sitting at the tables and have the ability to influence what the product is, how they, uh, you know, how they begin to work together. So they definitely want that influence. They also want to be aligned to the mission. And so that's why you have a lot of Gen Zers who question, they're not questioning the authority of their leaders. They're wanting to understand that they are aligned to how the leaders are running the organization and how the mission is evolving at the company. And so those things are very important to that that group of people. Absolutely. And another thing I think is important right now is AI and how that's affecting this generation because you have young workers who are being told you quickly adapt to AI it's you need to do it to get a job, but then also being told at the same time AI is replacing you, you're not gonna get a job. So I, I'm wondering which is it love for you to debate is the early career dead to AI dead because of AI and why or why not? So, I was going to say early career is not dead at Match Group. I can tell you that for sure. We're actually doubling down on it and starting to implement more entry level roles. We're talking about the Gen Z population who's actually AI native. They grew up with technology that the other generation. did not, so they know it firsthand. And as we think about our end product and the fact that it's going to serve Gen Z and Gen Alpha behind it, we want those people influencing how the product evolves. And so we're doubling down on it through our internship program. We reinstate it as well as implementing more entry level roles. I, I think one part of it that could be refreshing for Gen Z is because their early career they may not have as much, uh, well, let me explain like how millennials are thinking about this. So if you told them for 20 years to do these tasks because it's the entire meaning of your life and then all of a sudden I. We're Gonna automate them with AI and robots. It's almost like, wait, hold on. Was I like a robot this whole time? I think we'll lose. I think we'll not have as much resistance with Gen Z as well in that because they're so early career they don't know what they, what they don't know, right? And they don't have that baggage and they don't have that expectation. Um, at the same time, uh, I really liked your point of high agency with Gen Z because that was, that was the reason I left corporate America, to be frank, that's why, because it almost felt like high agency in order to have those high agency roles took so much time and also so much trust, and it just, it's, it just took too much time. It was too clunky for me, whereas now with social media and AI how it's working today, it's so easy to go independent in some way and so the things that I do at 29. Would have taken me like 20 years to cultivate in a career in, in, uh, in corporate America and so I do, I really like that point that you have with high agency. um, I do think as well early career is gonna look very different for Gen Z. Um, one question I have for you with that is what do these job scopes look like for entry level? How are they changing, if at all? Yeah, so they're definitely changing. The, the goal of, of the output. is similar, like what you need to accomplish. The how is what's shifting. And so instead of saying, hey, this is how we make X, we're saying, hey, the goal is to get to X. Let's think through it as a team on how we get there and how we use AI and technology to help further the mission that then starts to break down the role of the structure that a lot of Gen Zers don't want and it gives them the agency that we just talked about to say we can create the path and we probably can get you there faster. If you don't give us all these hurdles that we need to, you know, kind of overcome, mm, Gilbert, I wanna go back to something you said because you, you left the corporate world. We have a lot of people who are trying to convince your demographic to come to the corporate world. What was it missing that you really didn't see and why did you decide to go out on your own? So I come from the tech industry. I graduated college in 2019, um. I had about a good 7 months until everything closed down, right? So it was so funny because I would be in these meetings every day, remote working and people would be like, I can't wait for it to go back to normal, and I'd be like, I've been remote working for 14 months now in the pandemic, this is my normal. Um, so it's just like a weird time to join the workplace. I will say every time that I would hit around 12 to 18 months with these big tech companies, all of a sudden due to economic factors they wouldn't have departmentwide raises and I was like fool me once, OK, fool me twice, OK, I'm not doing a third time. I'm just gonna figure this out myself. Um, there was also a lot of things going on at the same time where any disgruntledment, anything that made me disgruntled with work, I just had to practice a lot of self. Self-awareness and be like, hey I just Gab, I don't think you wanna be an employee. I think you wanna like take on the risks and that's OK, right? And there's some Gen Z that are like that and there's some that aren't, um, but for me kind of what I was talking about earlier is that agency so I felt either I needed to be micromanaged or be given a lot of free. Like quiet we call it quiet hiring projects outside of my career to like prove myself and things like that um and so I understand why that works and why that worked for so long but I do believe that's an outdated way to um approach talent and so now for me it's like I'm an employer now which is insane and for me I'm always looking for. It, it's strategy at this point, right? I'm not looking for task execution. I could find a VA or I could find, you know, AI to do that. It's more about strategy, um, and so that's where I think the biggest part is going to be is that curiosity, empathy strategy for this next talent of Gen Z. Um, but yeah, that's kind of, I mean, that's, that's why I left and, and just kind of made a career out of it, which is crazy, yeah, and, and DV, hearing, hearing that, how do you, how do you feel about that? Is that how are you trying to prevent that from happening to your young workers and if so, how? Yeah, uh, earlier you had mentioned, uh, during the intro that they're breaking the rules, and I look at it as they're reshaping. Helping evolve how we work all together and so it's less of how do you get them to fit your organization, it's more how is your organization evolving to ensure that they can bring their best work and so it's it's a different approach and it's one that is being forced, which I think is very healthy for us because how we, you know, how we work today is not how we're going to work in the next 5, 10 years. Gabriel, you coined the term and have gone viral for the term. It's called lazy girl jobs. Can you explain to our audience what that means and do they still exist today? Yeah, so lazy girl jobs came from the great resignation era, um, so different time obviously than where we're in today. Um, I'm a huge high achiever. I'm a huge workaholic. I have been since before I had a job. It's just something that was taught in me, uh, from my family. And for me I go 170% at everything that I do, um, and I didn't have a lot of balance and so what was really hard for me was to get a quote unquote lazy girl job which was still a really good job. I was pretty much like an account manager for Wix at the time, um. It wasn't a next rung in the ladder or anything like that. It was just a lateral move, um, and I was able to get my job done in 2 to 4 hours a day and build Miss Anti-Work, the media company that I run today. And so some people get lazy girl jobs because they're. Not careerists and they just want work-life balance. Some get them because they're like me where they're like, OK, I don't have the means or the funds to do my own thing yet, but I wanna try it out in a low risk way, kind of part time while I do something else. Some people start their own therapy practice and are crazy and say that's their lazy girl job. I would disagree. That sounds like a lot of that to be lazy. So, you know, it's like it's, it means. Something to everyone, and I think that's why it popped off so well. At the same time, lazy girl job, those three keywords together are quite controversial. I knew that going into it. I thought it was fun. Uh, that's like, you know, that Gen Z humor. And so, yeah, I mean, that's how I started it and then it, it resulted in tens of thousands of worldwide media mentions. I've met, you know, Doctor Phil and 60 Minutes Minutes and the whole thing, you know, so that was a really fun time. Um, but do they exist today to answer that last question? I mean, I think so. I think they do look different though. I mean, especially just how corporate America works right now, but like I said, it's subjective. It's, it means something to, to, you know, everyone. I think, I think that lazy girl jobs have a time and a place for sure in the workplace at the same time. The division of labor, the wants and needs of these companies are gonna shift so much. I don't know if I would tell an entry level person right now, like, uh, just chill for two years, yeah, just opt out, yeah, yeah, um, DV, I want you to respond, but I just wanna let our audience here know that after this I wanna come to you all for questions. So if you have one, please raise your hand. One of our mic runners will run a mic over to you. But, but DV, I wanna know what you think because, you know, Gabriel's built this following around people who are really resonating with, yeah, I. Want to opt out. Maybe sometimes they want a quiet quit, but you know your job relies on relies on people opting in and really wanting to be their full selves at work. So is there a middle ground and how are you working on finding that? So I think that what she's describing is literally a place and a space for individuals to make a call on. I don't think it's a like a group dynamic and everyone's saying like this we all should be doing this now, so you should conform to that. Uh, we've seen, and what I believe this is the agency part again, what we've seen for people who do want to take like their career in that direction, they would stay in roles because they didn't believe that they could do like this is what they had to do. And when they got the ages and you would sit there and then you would call them a poor performer, no, they weren't being engaged the way that they wanted to be engaged, and it wasn't a good fit for them. And so you see them leaving the workforce, which is positive for them because they're leaving and doing the things that engage them. Uh, in our environment we want to continue to engage them against our mission and make sure that alignment is still strong so we won't see a lot of people who will say, hey, you know, I want a job that's only 2 to 4 hours per week or per day that you work in, uh, that that wouldn't work in terms of how we need to get things accomplished, right? And so for those folks when we identify them, we help them understand like. Is this right for you? Does this work for you? This is what we're trying to accomplish. It's the transparency and communication as opposed to going down a path of you're not good or you're not aligning to what we need out of you and taking that path. And it's more, hey, where are you right now and what is it that you need? And here's what we need and let's see if it's still a match. Excellent. No pun. Any questions from the audience? OK, well, if you do keep raising your hand, I'll keep looking out, but for now, Gabrielle, you've mentioned this before, you know, part of the Gen Z stereotype is how disgruntled they are with work. I, I don't actually don't even know if it's Gen Z. It could be us, us geriatric millennials, and Stevie likes to call us here on stage too. Yeah, but it's, it's, uh, you know, everyone wants to complain about work. It's kind of like a badge of honor. In a way, um, but as we heard on the stage last year we had a panel of Gen Z's, um, there's so many white papers that it's like Gen Z values, integrity values, realness, but then there's still this, this negativity that they have around work. How do we square both of those getting past negativity if I wanna start such a good question, um. I think that Gen Z is pretty nihilist in my opinion than we've seen. I mean, I think millennials had like a grunge phase for a second too when they were younger. I think it's just that teen angst. I don't know. I mean, there's so many different factors going on for Gen Z. We've never been more. The, the global media is, is, is a lot for us, right? So you gotta think back when I was like, I don't know, I don't even know how old I was during the Iraq War. I was like scared, you know, like, and could you imagine now like being a kid and seeing all these TikTok shorts and blah, blah, blah, like all this stuff going on. So there's that aspect, right? So they feel powerless over that. They feel powerless over all these affordability stats that are now coming out, and we're starting to see how much, um, reactions to the pandemic, etc. really change things. Um, there's just so many things. There's the AI conversation, right? There's so many things going on, um, that it's hard for Gen Z to understand what they can and can't control. And so oftentimes the things that they can control, they'll equate to, well, I can't control that either. And so that's where you're seeing that nihilism, that disgruntledness, um, and that's like an important conversation between the distinction of us as well because sometimes my lazy girl job or other trends that I come up with or just my media company as a whole will get. Co-opted by this like disgruntled thing and I, I, I never, I'm not, I'm not into that at all. I think it takes two to tango, right? So it's like you're, you're only a victim for so long with the, with the job that you don't like if you're continuously staying, staying for 6 to 9 months. That's your choice, right? So yeah, I, I think that it's important that we like overall just really touch on that nihilism for Gen Z. I know you all aren't their parents and you shouldn't have to be, but at the same time there's a lot going on for them. It's a different media. Landscape and yes they may say things like they want 100K out of the bat and that sounds crazy. I live in Colorado. You need to make 250K just to like live and breathe. So it's just, it's a different time, you know, that's, that's where that energy is coming from. Yeah, I agree. You know, as you think about it, I don't see it as much as disgruntle as them questioning what are the reasons to believe in what they're doing. Like why am I here? They're like, we only have so much time. There's a lot of negativity that they see or perceive in the world, and they're like, Is this what I want to spend my time doing? Have we done our jobs and saying, hey, align to our mission, do this work, and if not they're going to question you and they're asking those questions not to be angry and not to be bitter they're asking those questions to say, do I continue to invest in this and they're doing it in a way that generations before them couldn't. And because of that it comes off as very angry. If you look at how many generations we have in the workforce, some people would never question their manager. They would never, you know, speak in a meeting unless they were spoken directly to. And then you have people who are taught you ask questions to truly understand the answer like you need to know these things before you start to make decisions and so they do and they bring that to work. Sometimes people are offended by that, but that's what we've evolved into and if you're doing your job right, you should be able to answer those questions and if you don't have the answer or if you don't have an answer that they like, they will still respect you more by giving them the transparent answer and communicating with them instead of trying. To belittle them by title or age or level and you know kind of discrediting the fact that you know they're negotiating whether or not they still want to show up for you. Yeah, very quick last question fire round for you both. What parts of the traditional workplace do you think are going to die either because of Gen Z or Gen Alpha's expectations or because of AI? Is it the 9 to 5? Is it 40 hour work weeks? Anything you think is not gonna be around in 10 to 15 years? The 9 to 5 shift for sure. Reid Hoffman's done a really good job of breaking that down of like what autonomous agents are gonna look like in the workplace. I think it's the death of that 40 hour 9 to 5 here very soon. I think that and it's very relevant to our field that uh growth for you know growth as an employee looks like a hierarchical move up as opposed to it'll it'll evolve more into the development and skill acquisition. Oh yeah, those are great ones. Well, thank you both so much for all your insights. Thank you so much. Thank you.

The competition for global talent has always been fierce, but navigating immigration policy has never demanded more attention from business leaders. Evolving rules and regulations are requiring HR and business leaders to think differently about how they access, hire, and retain the global talent their organizations depend on. Hear from experts in immigration law, policy, and talent strategy to explore how companies are adapting—and what leaders need to know to build and sustain a world-class workforce in a			changing environment.

Hiba Mona Anver, Partner, Erickson Immigration Group
David Bier, Director of Immigration Studies, Cato Institute
Moderator: Phil Wahba, Senior Writer, Fortune;, Co-Chair, Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit

Immigration and the Workplace: The New Rules of Global Hiring

Let's talk about one of my favorite topics as a Canadian-American who was on a bunch of visas before I finally made it. Um, so let's talk about this environment of restriction of work visas and the uncertainty, which is arguably even more, uh, inconvenient, um. Give us an assessment like what kind of where are we now and uh in in this whole debate of uh cutbacks on on work uh skilled and unskilled uh visas for for these people. Look, uh, thank you, thank you for the question and thank you all for being here. I'm David Beer with the Cato Institute. Uh, we're a public policy research organization in Washington DC. And look, I just want to back up first for a second and take the the the broader view here. The single most important economic fact that everyone should know is that without immigration, America's workforce would already, already be in decline. So what does that mean for the country in terms of economic growth and economic competitiveness? If you think about it, what drives economic growth, it's workers and the technology that they have available to them that make them productive. And demographic decline is really hitting both of those components of economic growth. Obviously fewer workers, but also it's not just fewer workers, it's the workforce that's getting older and older and older. And not to offend anyone in the room, but who is driving innovation, entrepreneurship, the risk takers in our society are the young people. And so over the last generation we've seen a continuous decline in the entrepreneurship rate. In the United States and immigration can address both sides of that economic growth equation. And so when I see it, immigration is really critical at this moment because it both provides the increase in the in the labor force, but it also provides the innovators. Uh, immigrants are 80% more likely to start businesses, 50% more likely to patent. If you look at. Billion dollar startups in the United States, 55% have an immigrant uh founder, co-founder. If you look one layer below, CEO, chief technology officer, a vice president. Of engineering these critical roles, 80% of these companies have an immigrant or an H-1B in one of these roles. So, so that's really why it's, it's so critical that at this time of restrictions we've got to think about the big picture. Why does this matter to the United States in a broader sense? And so, you know that's kind of my view on why this is such an important conversation that we're having right now. And, uh, one thing I, I wonder is with, um, rules and changes and extra fees that make everything much harder to manage. Is there a reason to worry that the US could stop being this enormous magnet that it always has been for talent and entrepreneurial fire and, um, you know, not just about getting the jobs you need, but uh is is the US's appeal um at risk here? For the best and the brightest around the world. I mean I I think the best way to answer that question is just to kind of take a look at the history of the United States in terms of how we've approached this topic, right? We have historically wanted to be welcoming to people from different countries, different backgrounds, but more. Importantly and further to piggyback off of what David said, companies are interested in remaining both innovative and competitive. They're basically looking to maintain their position in terms of the market, not just in the United States but on a global scale and companies based on my experience really just want to be able to hire the right candidate. That they've sourced for that position, and I think the folks in this room can probably attest to this. Recruitment, talent acquisition, these are very, very involved processes and when you finally go through all of the steps of finding the right candidate, if that individual happens to require some sort of sponsorship, the company is likely to be willing to do that, right? But what's changed now is that what used to be a relatively, I wouldn't even say straightforward process, it's always been a fairly complicated process, as I'm sure you've experienced, but even compared to before, the process now has become more challenging. And HR professionals folks in in-house legal departments are having to address issues that they've never historically had to address for example, there's more of an overlap in terms of immigration enforcement related topics that. They're now having to contend with um whereas historically that's really never been the case if they're simply sponsoring a straightforward H-1B visa application so the big picture result of this sort of a thing is if a company does identify the right candidate for a role, will that individual be less willing to accept a role in the United States because of a certain degree of anxiety, um, about what that experience in the United States will be. But also there have been a few policy related developments. For example, some of you may be familiar with this, the new $100,000 fee associated with filing H-1B visas. There are some companies for which that amount is a nonstarter. So the concern becomes, are they going to be able to as effectively implement their desired talent acquisition policy in order for them to maintain their market position. Yeah, I mean. It does feel though that a little bit of deja vu with all this, I mean, in the early 2000s there had also been um A backlash against H-1B visas and at one point Microsoft had decided to open a big facility in Vancouver instead of Seattle because it was just they were fed up of trying to get green cards and papers for engineers from India and China and then the Canadian government, which is now doing that with AI specialists, is like, no, come up, come up here. And so that's why, you know, it, it does feel like there are historical moments where it goes, uh, up and down, but how can our CHROs in this room plan for that? I guess that's the big question, right, with, with the uncertainty and, uh, fees that are unexpected and, you know, it's a little bit like the tariffs. We get a different policy, uh, every other day, it feels like so. Um, you know, what's your advice to the folks in this room on planning? Focus on your company policy and then focus on compliance. You are going to have to ensure that your existing company policy is refreshed to address the times and the various different issues that immigration cases are encountering now, which again you may not have historically had to deal with in the past. And ensure that you in your position or whoever the primary stakeholder is that manages immigration for your company is working with counsel to make sure that all of your compliance requirements are being met. And I think you know in, in, in a time where there's a lot more uncertainty, uh, and lack of predictability, you need to ensure that when you're assessing each individual employee's immigration related situation you have more of a Plan B and a Plan C and some sort of like a contingency in the event that what your plan strategy was doesn't actually play out the way that you wanted. So I, I do want to come back to, um, you know, as somebody who at one point was trying to get an H-1B, um, if you weren't a tech worker, forget it, and there's 65,000 at one point plus, you know, really a small amount. Is it not is there not a case that that these visa programs do need to be reformed in some way, you know, you, you keep hearing, uh, that most of the H-1Bs went to tech workers and it was like 3 or 4 companies and, and so what if you were, you know, uh, a small company somewhere uh that's not in tech and would like somebody. You know, is there not a case that there does need to be visa reform generally, but maybe not of the kind we're seeing? Well, absolutely. I mean, I think the H-1B visa program has been effectively broken by Congress. I mean, they imposes these incredibly low limits. Now we have a lottery. It used to be headline news when H-1B lottery sells out on the first day, you know, all the visas are gone. Now it's not even news because it's just guaranteed to happen every year. There's going to be far more demand than there are visas. You know, you have like 25% odds of winning the lottery. And so yes, if you're a smaller company, if you're a company that's that's trying to recruit a particular person. You're gonna lose out to to the people who are submitting so many applications have have big HR firms uh behind them so there does need to be reform. We need, we need to recalibrate the H-1B system to to more align with the market in my view we have. Haven't done that since the early 2000s like you're talking about. It also you talked about Microsoft moving to Canada. That was big news. Now it's not big news when you hear about branch offices opening up in India and China and around the world because it's happening every day. It's happening so frequently that. You know, IBM, a majority of its workforce is now outside of the United States. These facts are just built into the globalization of the 21st century, and that's a reality that every company needs to deal with, you know. You can't change the immigration policy from, you know, your, your HR. You have to deal with the reality which is. uncertainty about what is coming from this administration or the next administration and so you need to think about how do you make sure that you have a talent and recruitment pipeline that can adjust and be flexible based on whatever comes from the next administration and this administration. I want to pivot to what companies can do about it because When I was, uh, speaking to an immigration lawyer about what kind of work permits, uh, she said to me, just get an O visa, O for outstanding. I said, how do I get that? She said, Well, write a bestselling book and be a regular guest on TV, and I'm just like, I'm just starting out in journalism, you know. Anyway, uh, I figured it out. I got married anyway, and it's legit. We're still married. So how are your clients dealing with this, uh. I mean, I'm assuming we have not stopped seeing, uh, skilled workers coming into companies. So how are companies doing this? Or is, you know, are they, are they having to be creative with, you know, they have to also, the applications have to be, have to be, uh, correct and, and so what do you think companies doing? So I think that you know we have to kind of like take a look at this topic. Um, in the scope of the totality of the circumstances, I feel like stakeholders and companies are having to juggle a lot of different competing developments and topics right now. On the one hand, the immigration topic has gotten a bit more complicated, you could say. And on the other hand, they're having to, you know, adjust to what their company's AI policy is. You may not be getting as much head count. You may not necessarily be hiring as much. So I feel for the people in the room. Because I feel like you're having to navigate a lot right now, you know, in terms of individual immigration cases, it was the practice of pretty much every company to ensure that they were filing the case that the individual employee was actually eligible for, right? And they're obviously going to, you know, proceed with that. I, I, I think the issue now is, you know, whether or not there is the possibility that this individual will run into some sort of interruption in their ability to remain in the United States and continue working for the company that is sponsoring them, right? There have been instances where changes in policy have resulted in employees getting stuck in India and separated from their families for months, many of which have still not been able to make their way back to the United States, and this happened, you know, barely 6 months ago. And so what companies are really having to do again is ensure that they have. not just a Plan A but a Plan B and a Plan C, and I think the best way to achieve that is to have a solid policy that is both compliant but also very holistic so that in the event that you run into an issue you know exactly what to do in order to best support the company and the individual who's going through the issue. But that I'm guessing involves a lot of uh work and effort that might only be justified for people who have extremely rare skills, right? It to some degree that might be the whole point of uh of the complicated immigration rules we're seeing to to dissuade companies from just saying, OK, you know what, we'll try to find somebody here. Well, it's very important to understand that many of the people who are going through this process are already employed by your company. And so I mean talent retention is really the new recruitment. I mean you have to focus on making sure you keep these people in-house on the right side of the wall in status, going through this process, because if you lose them you might not ever get them back and there might not be another person behind them waiting in the wings to fill that role and so I think it's a little bit of a. You know, I think a distraction to focus on purely on people outside the United States that are coming in. No, many of them are already working for you. You don't even necessarily know their status fully in many instances. And so you need to think about really. Looking at who are your employees, what statuses are they in, how are they eligible to work, and what is the risk that you actually are incurring by continuing to employ them and what potential changes from the administration could affect, uh, your employees? I'll come to the audience if there are any questions, but. I mean, not every company is a tech company. Somebody yesterday said 2% of the US workforce is tech, um, and it feels like they get, um, a huge number of, of, uh, the visas. And, um, what about companies outside these industries? Are, are they, is it harder for them to, to get visas for their, to figure out ways to get, uh, work permits for their, uh, employees? Not necessarily. I mean, we work with companies from a wide variety of industries and the, the, the underlying issue is the same. Companies want to be able to hire, uh, the right candidate based on their again very kind of like multi-pronged process of identifying who that candidate is, and they want to be able to hire the best and the brightest for the role without feeling like they've been hamstrung. And so what we've seen is that policies, uh, that. Have created some challenges with respect to achieving that immigration goal have applied as much to other industries as they have to the tech industry, you know, there are some instances where if an individual is working, say for example in the medical profession or in the area of research, you know, scientific or otherwise, then there may be some alternative immigration paths available to that individual, but the scrutiny that's being applied by the government currently is pretty much the same consistently. OK. Do you have any questions on the floor? So, oh yeah, we have a question here. Um, Mike is coming to you and if you could just introduce yourself. Thank you, uh, Natalie Seano from FGF Brands. I too am a Canadian. Um, So and we have US, uh, workforce as well and um we're in the process of looking and they're not tech workers we have, uh, we're in food manufacturing so we have quality assurance and maintenance which are very sought after skills in in the areas we're in and we're in a 3% unemployment rate so. What advice do you have in terms of how to support in-house when you have to do these additional visas? Like what type of structure is really needed to support, um, being able to process all these people in a company that might not have all of that structure in place and, and setting up the to be able to set up an infrastructure and support immigration and visas. So the way that we normally go about doing it is we basically help companies create that infrastructure again, and I apologize for sounding like a broken record, but it really does start with policy. You have to understand first and foremost what you will support, what you won't support, and then you know you can build it from there. You have to also understand what it is that you're going to cover from a financial perspective, what you're not going to cover, and then what you're legally required to cover, right? And so once you're able to answer certain approach and policy questions, you basically build the process flow and infrastructure from there and then ensure that it's being reviewed to to to be as compliant as you need to be in order to actually provide immigration support to employees and also there are going to be times where the process in and of itself has a certain series of checks and balances. That may not even allow you to proceed with completing that immigration process because for example you've correctly identified that there's a qualified US worker right? and then you need to make sure that you're aware and all stakeholders are educated that in certain instances you're not going to be able to proceed with the with the with the immigration application because the role perhaps should be going to someone else. Well, on that note, thank you so much Heba and David for joining us. I'm talking about this very important topic and um, thank you.

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