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The manufacturer of ammunition and chemical products was founded in 1892.

Olin Corporation (OLN) Company Profile, News, Rankings | Fortune

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Lydia Bottegoni, Executive Vice President, Story and Franchise Development, Blizzard Entertainment Nicole LaPointe Jameson, Chief Executive Officer, Evil Geniuses Moderator: Polina Pompliano, FORTUNE

MPW Next Gen 2023 - Gaming's Next Frontier

Conferences

Lydia Bottegoni, Blizzard Entertainment 
Nicole LaPointe Jameson, Evil Geniuses 

Our next speakers are innovating and adapting to meet the ever changing needs of their consumers as technologies evolved. So has the gaming and e sports industry in the nineties PC gaming became increasingly more popular with the release of first person shooting games like Doom and Quake. In 1997 evil geniuses was founded by a clan of quake players who would compete against one another in cyber cafes. Wow. Remember cyber cafes as computers advanced throughout the two thousands. So did social and online gaming insider Intelligence reported that more than 532 million people watched sports in 2022 to talk about the future of E sports and gaming? Please welcome Lydia Bud Goni, senior vice president for story and franchise development at Blizzard Entertainment and Nicole Lapoint Jamison, chief executive officer at evil geniuses. Ok. Well, welcome. Thank you. So, Lydia uh big news, European regulators just cleared Microsoft 68.7 billion deal, billion dollar deal um to acquire Activision Blizzard. What does this mean for the company and the industry at large? Um Well, it means we just cleared a hurdle. That's because there's been a few that we haven't cleared yet either. So, um I'm not really sure where it goes next. I mean, it, it, you know, it hasn't finalized the deal. Um, we remain really hopeful that the deal closes. I'm personally really excited about the possibilities and what Microsoft will bring to our ability to scale and grow our franchises. So, fingers crossed. I'm, I'm staying positive. Awesome. And Nicole, um, you have a multi year agreement with Hewlett Packard enterprises to support evil geniuses, evil. Yeah, evil geniuses with industry leading A I services. How are you using A I to improve your talent pipeline and also generate these like winning strategies. Explain to us how that works, of course. So if you're completely unfamiliar sports is competitive video games and like pro athletes, all the information and data needed to not just recruit and manage but perform at the highest level, you have to be cutting edge. So we actually have partnered with HPE. It's a multi year partnership using their Green Lake Solution, their A I and M L platform to help create first in class insights around not just optimizing bioinformatics of our players, like muscle memory, fast twitch movement, eye tracking, but also natural language processing. How do they communicate in the game all the way to what are the markers of a good sports athlete to continue to create this entertainment platform for years to come? So interesting, we were talking earlier. What, what are some of the markers for a successful sports athlete range is by title. So as you can imagine a basketball player, what makes a great basketball player is not the same as a football player. And that finesse and nuance is also just as differentiated between a counter strike player and a league of legends player. So we look at seeing some variation by game but some similarities of the soft skills of what makes a great team athlete communication movement. But also those that carry themselves more with the physicality and mentality, hydration, sleep communication tend to be better pro players as well. So it's not just kids in basements who've never seen sunlight, those who show up and really care and do well on top of all of the more technical and mechanical skills very indicative of performance. And I found this fascinating Lydia. So I moderated a panel earlier on A I and it's been reported that Blizzard Entertainment wants to integrate AI into the art pipelines for games, which you know, that would allow companies to create art assets at a faster pace. But then there's also game developers that are worried about, you know, job security and what's going to happen there. Is that a real concern? And how do you see this A I powered future? Yeah, I mean, look, it's a, it's a huge topic. I think it's a topic that's been dominating some of the conversations today and some of your, some of your panels um I'm not an A I expert, I'm not the best person to really speak to that. Um But, you know, personally, I, I'm really excited about the opportunities it's gonna bring. Um, you know, I've made a career for 20 plus years in um managing and producing creative endeavors. And for me, it's just super exciting to think of like how much creativity it might unlock. Right? So what things that people do now that aren't always part of the creative process or that are redundant or things where we can um you know, uh speed up some of the the efforts might that be interesting? You know, it just seems like it's a really interesting opportunity clearly, we're at the infancy of it. Um I'm excited to see where it goes. We need it to happen carefully, we need it to be ethical, we need it to be lawful. A lot of those areas haven't really caught up, you know, the legal system hasn't really caught up with the technology yet. So, yeah, I'm just really excited to see where it goes next. Yeah. And I'm really fascinated and just digging into your background and work at Activision. Like, how do you encourage creativity and risk taking among the animators, the visual artists, these like game developers? Oh um How do we encourage risk taking? Well, creative people generally by nature don't have to be encouraged to think outside of the box. Um My experience has been usually you're kind of working in the office that there's a lot of big ideas and you're trying to pull them in and figure out what you can execute. Um Because, you know, we're always working against timelines and schedules and budgets at times as well. Um So, yeah, I, I think just really looking at ways to support artists and give them tools to do things faster, to make, you know, redundant processes, you know, more automated, allows a lot more free thinking. And in general, I think your question was about risk taking. I think creative ideas are all born out of some kind of, you know, what if we tried this or what if we approached it a little different. And as a company, you are very encouraging of that risk taking. Yeah. Well, for the team that I manage, I manage a trans team, so I don't manage game developers, I manage a team that makes cinematics and trailers and books and comics and statues. And again in that, in that circle, it's really exciting to see people try to do something a little bit different. Um We've had a campaign recently for a big game. We have coming out called Diablo Four. Um And we've done some really interesting new things. We had a new cinematic called by Three. They come, which was one of our most watched and best received and, you know, pretty groundbreaking visual experience. Um Our marketing team tried something new in um Europe, they did a collaboration with um during Milan Fashion Week with some fashion designers, we took over a cathedral and did a diablo version of, you know, cathedral going to hell kind of thing. I'm sure they love that. Yeah. Um but you know, just again, really different, interesting takes on things and so yeah, try trying to push that envelope. Um I'm gonna come to you guys for a question. So again, please raise your hand. Uh And we'll get a mic to you. Uh Nicole, you focus very heavily on data. Uh And you told me some really interesting lessons that you've learned. Um But can you share that with the audience and like what you've learned in building this out for the first time? So data is incredibly important, not just from competitive integrity and excellence, but also there's a huge tension in the gaming space where at least in the US, over 45% of women under the age of 35 are gamers. They play games on different platforms, but in my universe at pro play, less than 10% of pro players are female and that delta in between is confusing and also poses a business problem of we're not reaching the true breast of the competitors or the fans we should be. And so using data to be a accelerator to equity and an equalizer has led to some really interesting moments for us. I'll give one example, we led a blind combine through data scouting similar to what you saw and the symphonies back in the day and surprise, surprise with a blind combine, we were the first ever team to front a mixed gender roster in a non inherently gendered space because people knew some of the perceived cultural barriers would go away if it was about merit and skill and continuing to do things like that where we can show that results can come. And we cast Wide Nets has led to big wins for us. Most female head coaches in any e sports organization, over 60% of our staff on the gaming side are actually female coming from backgrounds, not just in gaming, but from the medical profession to Teslas and Googles and Data sciences. And without that data equity opportunity, I don't know if we would have had the the fast paced outcome that we've seen that's really helped us continue to lift trophies and my 14 year old daughters. Thank you for that. Who are gamers? They, you're, you're clearing the way for them. Thank you. It's really cool. Any questions so much? Alright, we'll come back. Um So going off of what you just said, uh Lydia there, there's, you know, still this perception that gaming is largely male dominated. Um But you said that whenever you talk to young female high school students, you remind them that if their passion is games, there are many other options beyond just being an engineer or a developer or something like that? What are some of the areas that you think present a massive opportunity for female or for women to get into the gaming industry that aren't as obvious? Yeah. Well, the, so the, the comment was really about wasn't really supposed to be gender specific. It was really about the notion that um working in games. It's a business, there's a broad array of ways to, to engage in that. I'm not a developer, I'm not an artist, but I was able to find a career in an area that I'm really passionate about. And so for me, I think it's just important that people realize we're so stem focused right now. Everything about math and science, math and science. Again, I have young daughters, they're not engineers, they're not interested in coding. And so they feel like they're locked out of so many opportunities by that. Um I just like to remind people, we have finance people, we have hr we have writers on my team, we have, we have writers, we have visual development artists. I have people who draw comics. Um I have a sculptor on my team. So really the point is, you know, there are a ton of opportunities in the gaming space and it doesn't just mean you have to be somebody coding and, and Nicole uh you are involved with some uh interesting organizations. How do you make sure you amplify these voices? Um So at the end. And I'll echo what Lydia just said. The like in game to board room representation of anyone, especially not just from the traditional gaming background is important because we need, we operate more like a traditional sports team. If you view or a collegiate athletics department where we need sales people, we need marketers and the innovation and thought that we bring to these areas to continue to grow is important. And that often oftentimes means you need disruptive mindset from different spaces. So we look to collaborate, not just with partners like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, but all the way from toy to LG to even we did a collaboration with the current Little Mermaid Hallie and Chloe to teach them how to play Rocket League actually. And so the more we can create exposure to the space, understanding, break down some of the stereotypes or connotations that exist, the better we're able to all move forward as a business. But also capitalize the facts that if even if you've never heard of sports, I evil geniuses, we reach over 300 million kids, boys and girls a month across social. We have active eyes and hearts and wallets and that's an impactful movement like fashion, like music. So how we embrace and shape emerging pop culture through gaming. Very valuable to pay attention to and what are, what are the age ranges of your target demographics? Well, uh who do you want or who do you have, I mean, uh Blizzard has quite a few legacy IP S games like World of Warcraft has been around for 20 years, the Warcraft franchise, almost 30 years. So you can imagine. And thankfully, I can say we have players that have been with us that entire time. Um We have a newer game in Overwatch, which is almost seven years old now, um which is almost aged out in the world of video games. Um But we've had new expansions on a great new content that that game is, you know, ex as exciting as ever. But it's at the um the other end of the spectrum for us, you know, you want the demographic that's gonna engage with your game, attach and stay with you. Again. My team is involved in bringing people into the ecosystem, not through gaming. So I don't work on the actual product of the game nor the sports, but kind of any other place that you touch the game. So comics or cinematics or episodes, we have novels and is the point of those other elements to attract a new audience in a different, yeah, we're trying to bring people into the franchise a lot we've seen in the gaming space. Finally, we're starting to get some really great content in linear media. We're seeing TV, shows like the last of us that it's phenomenal. Some, there have been some big movies recently as well that have done pretty good in the in the box office. Um And so, yeah, the idea is that we sort of meet our players where they are. And even if you don't play the game, the intent of my team is to find a way to connect with that audience. We want people who are going to come in and stay with us. So I don't know that there's always a target demographic coming from the film industry. You want the 18 to 25 year olds, but in gaming, you want them if they're going to stay with you too. And how valuable is it that it to retain that? I huge. I mean, it's what brought me to Blizzard. I had 20 plus years in the film industry working on a lot of really big franchises and titles. And when somebody reached out to me and talked to me about an opportunity to manage and oversee a small animation studio at a game company called Blizzard Entertainment. It was just, it was over the moon with excitement because the depth of the world and the universes and the amount of potential on those ips. I mean, I just literally saw it as an IP gold mine again in the film making business. That's what you live for. So, so I want to ask you both this question to kind of close up. But other than a I, what other emerging technologies do you see as having the biggest impact on the gaming industry in the next 5 to 10 years. What I love thinking about technology. So evil genius has been around since the late nineties. And if you think about what video games even looked like and how they were accessible from then now and the rate of technology and even medium development from PC to console to mobile, to handheld, the more we create accessibility, different price points and better bridge globally. Unlike Lydia and her team, we don't own the IP of the games. So we live in this in between space where our fans are very, very valuable because also unlike a sports team, you know, my parents went to BC. So by I was a Red Sox fan growing up. But like why are you a fan of an E sports organization that's digital and global? So how we create that brand identity and reach those fans is really our secret sauce and who we also have to keep sticky and loyal over years. And the more we create accessible gaming and accessible technology, we subsidiary receive the benefits of that. And so as things get faster, lighter cheaper, we get excited. It was just all thrown one additional thing. I know A I is the big topic and it's kind of the sexy subject. Interactive. I, even though I work at a game company, the work that I do and the history I come from 20 plus years of CGI and visual effects and computer graphics, the world of interactive game engines and the ability to render things in real time and the ability to do things today. At the touch of a of a mouse clicker keyboard button. That 20 years ago when I started my career in this industry, we couldn't even imagine how to solve those problems. Much less, make it instant the way it is today. So interactive technologies, game engines are so powerful, the tech stacks that are developed to run some of the big games like World of Warcraft, they're so powerful and finding the different ways to apply them for me is super exciting. Amazing. What a great note to end on. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Ami Gan, Chief Executive Officer, OnlyFans
Interviewer: Polina Pompliano, FORTUNE 

MPW Next Gen 2023 - Calling All Creators 

Ami Gan, Chief Executive Officer, OnlyFans
Interviewer: Polina Pompliano, FORTUNE 


After discussing the evolving creator ecosystem. Throughout the last two days, we would be remiss to not mention the subscription based platform, only fans. In just seven years, only fans have amassed more than 220 million users sentencing. And in 2021 it made nearly $1 billion in annual revenue. Amra Polian took the CEO position in late 2021. After being the organization's chief marketing and operations officer, she spent the last 18 months reverting from a short lived plan to ban adult content creators to focusing on broadening the public's perception of the platform here to discuss what's next for only fans. Please welcome only fan Coo Amra Polygon. So a quick show of hands. How many of you are users or creators on only fans? Oh, wow. OK. So not a single hand. I don't, I am. There we go. Um So I would love to this. This is perfect because uh we've talked a little bit about um in private about the delta between the current user that you have and the user that you want to attract. Can you discuss and the creator, can you discuss that? Absolutely. So to take a step back first, you have to understand what only fans is. It's a social media platform meant for creators 18 and over to monetize content that they normally would be sharing for free elsewhere, the platform launched in 2016. Um and it kind of came to fame in the cultural zeitgeist during 2020 and the pandemic. Um And that's when everyone started to associate what's going on there. They're seeing uh a lot of women sharing like, oh I'm, I'm on only fan, subscribe. My only fans link in bio and the platform became known um even before 2020 for having adult content creators, we do have a very inclusive content policy. And in all honesty, that segment of creator was the savviest when it came to understanding how to monetize their content before you know, the rest of the creator economy and influencers came on. So looking at our platform, yes, we are, you know, there's lots of spicy content, spicy creators, but we also have comedians, chefs, race car drivers. Um The types of creators you're seeing on only fans now is truly across the board. And that's continuing as the creator economy has been shifting and what's something practical you're doing to attract a different type of creator? Like should I be on only fans? I, I like as a writer, as a writer, there's an opportunity really, it's anyone who has a community or wants to create a community and also be able to engage with them without the distractions that you will find elsewhere. Um On only fans, there's no ads, algorithms, um things like that. It's truly about the creator and fan connections. Got it. So you said that 2020 is the year that the influencer became the creator. Can you explain the slight difference and nuance between what you consider an influencer and what you consider a creator? Absolutely. And you did your homework. So thinking about that in 2020 everyone was kind of at home, everyone had access to a cell phone and different apps to edit content. And then that's when the people's kind of passions or hobbies could transition to become a way for them to make money and thinking at it, looking at it, you know, you have the word influencer, you have the word creator when you break them down, an influencer is someone who has, you know, a large amount of followers um across different social media platforms. Um You know, they probably are doing brand deals, things like that, a creator, a creator is someone who, you know, may not be looking to have a big following. They could be in more of a niche category. Um You know, we have a range of creators and influencers on the platform and it's really up to anyone how they want to leverage social media and what their goals are with it. But there is a lot of overlap between influencer and creator and looking at our platform, we have over three million content creators. We're in over 100 countries. Um We've paid out over $10 billion in creator earnings. Since being founded in 2016. Our business model is very similar. Um It's an 80 20 split, meaning uh it's all in favor of the creator that 80%. And for every dollar we earn as a company creators earn four. So that's really where we are a true creator, first platform. Yeah. And you mentioned that you want to make only fans a place that's more inclusive of all sorts of um creators. And I think many of us here, maybe we have our own companies and there's a certain stigma or reputation that the company may have. Can you share the rep practical things that you, you and your team did to reframe the only fans brand? Absolutely. So thinking about the business, really something to always keep in mind is to just own what your business is like. You know, we are a platform for all kinds of content creators, which includes adult content creators. That's something I've been very firm to never shy away from. I'm very proud to be a content inclusive platform. And the reason to not shy away from it is because it's you want to embrace everyone that is using your site and thinking about um all the women here and businesses. There's probably a lot of people who come in and like, oh, have you thought about this? Are you doing this? It's like this is who you are and that kind of goes to the kind of second key learning of really just control your narrative and that's, you know, important for you to always own, you know, what you're about, what your company is about and being very clear and true to that, despite we live in a world where people like to mansplain things and share their own opinions, but you know, your business best and no one else can take that from you. Um And also really getting in touch with your kind of end user for myself, that's getting to know a lot of our creators having my finger on the pulse of the community. That's also why I have an only fans profile because that's where I'm sharing content. None of it's spicy, but I'm also messaging with our creators and a lot of times they send me really nice things, they send me things when they're like, oh, this isn't working or have you thought about this? And it's real feedback that I can then share immediately with the team. So I think that's something to keep in mind for everyone here in your, your company is like, OK, who is the end user? And how are we engaging with them to get feedback? There's, there's many times I've been approached by people at other companies, other executives, they're like, oh what do you think of this or this for my business? And I'm like, I don't know what you do and I don't, have you talked to the people that actually use your, your product or service? But that's really great advice. Basically as a CEO you're using the product and soliciting feedback from your users directly. Um We're gonna open it up for questions. I, I'm sure you have many. So please just raise your hand. We'll get the mic to you and I'll be back to you in a minute. So author Chris Brogan once said this quote and I love it. He said the difference between an audience and a community is which way the chairs are facing otherwise? Is it like, you know, direct audience, you know, interaction or is it more of a circle? How have you because only fans is very much known for its community, how have you helped creators build a community? And also is there an example you have of a really great creator who has cultivated that? So only fans is a community that's where we have those over three million creators who have all built their own communities on the platform. And it's really an opportunity for creators to continue to engage with their fans in a unique way. And you know, we're very proud that we've had over 1500 content creators have made over a million dollars through, through the platform thinking about community. And what that means it's really about connection and engagement and that's what's happening on the platform. Any questions? Yep. Hi, I'm Courtney Robinson. So you're talking about the expansion of the brand and how it's much more than just the spicy content, as you said. Um And the other things that you produced, I know my first awareness of only fans came up during the pandemic when Beyonce said hips tiktok fans on demon time, I might start my only fans. So uh with that being said, did that moment sort of resonate or create any sort of measurable that you could see brand recognition or acknowledgement of the fact that only fans is for creators and not just creators in a certain industry. Absolutely. Um I remember uh that song is still one of my favorites and it worked that that was a moment for the business when no one knew that there was gonna be a, a reference to the brand. It kind of just became this viral moment where it's like, oh people are talking about only fans, it's really the first time um in a major way, only fans was put in the cultural zeitgeist and you fast forward from that and we've continued to be referenced in Saturday Night Live and TV shows uh in different tongue in cheek ways. But in a way that there's been the real impact of people having this brand recognition of only fans and that's where I've come in. And uh really made an effort to be like, yes, we do have spicy content. We have a range of creators to kind of control that narrative better. Um Also, I was fortunate enough to see Megan Stallion at Coachella and when she played that song, um I it was just very exciting moment. Yeah. Um So only fans is obviously a giant platform. I mean, almost a billion dollars in annual revenue is insane. Um But a lot of times like when you've kind of made it to the top and you're in this groove, a lot of companies and founders and ceos tend to become complacent. So how do you continue to make sure that you're taking risks and like experimenting while being CEO and like, what's an example of a recent risk you took that may or may not work out? First of all, I never want to be complacent. I always want to be looking at what else is out there, looking at the platform to connect with our community. I think being complacent is not uh necessarily a good thing. It's, you know, it's good when you, you know, you know, like, oh you might not be in a bumpy period, but you wanna always be looking for towards the future and looking at at how things are evolving for myself. I've been really aggressive on OTV, that's our free to view streaming platform and app. I've been kind of doubling down on investments into content supporting different creators, helping them bring their ideas to fruition through OTV. And for those who aren't familiar with, it's all free to view, it's all safe for work content. Um Apple Android, Os dot TV, shameless plugs. But that's where you're seeing content from. People like Whitney Cummings who also has an only fans profile. Not a comedian. Yeah, she's a very popular US comedian. Um Nothing spicy on her page but she was having issues on other platforms or her content was getting kind of taken down or flagged and where his only fan, she's able to have real freedom of expression. And we've also given her um kind of the full rains over creating her own show for O F TV. So that's a really exciting synergy. Um and just one of the ways we're working with creators. Very cool. Well, thank you so much and we probably thank you.

Sarah Kunst, Founder and General Partner, Cleo Capital
Vanessa Pham, Co-founder and CEO, Omsom
Dayna Quanbeck, Chief Operating Officer and CFO, Rothy’s
Moderator: Polina Pompliano, Founder, The Profile; Deputy Director, Live Events, FORTUNE

MPW Next Gen 2023 - The Svb Fallout 

Sarah Kunst, Founder and General Partner, Cleo Capital
Vanessa Pham, Co-founder and CEO, Omsom
Dayna Quanbeck, Chief Operating Officer and CFO, Rothy’s

Friday, March 10th, 2023 will be a day that many in the tech industry will never forget. Silicon Valley Bank, one of the most prominent lenders for startups collapsed that day when it happened. Silicon Valley Bank was the second largest bank in US history to fail. And less than two months later on May 1st S V B's demise was eclipsed by that of First Republic Bank which is now the second largest bank failure after Washington Mutual take that in three of the four largest bank collapses in history have taken place in the last two months. This has left founders with many fears and concerns as they navigate the future of capital investing and the diversification of company funds. Our next panelists will share their experiences as they have navigated the last two months. Sarah Kunst is the managing director at Cleo Capital, an early stage venture capital fund that invests in pre seed and seed stage tech companies. Vanessa Pham is the co founder and CEO of Amum, an Asian soft starter kits company that was banking with Silicon Valley Bank during the crisis. And Dana Klom back a former banker who weathered the 20 the 2008 financial crisis and is now Chief Financial Officer at Roy's, the washable and sustainable shoe company. They will be interviewed by fortunes deputy editorial director and founder of the profile Polina Pompano. Hi, everyone. Uh Welcome. So I want to start by quickly going to each of you and asking if you had money locked into Silicon Valley Bank and what your first reaction was when you heard the news that Thursday morning. Um Yeah, so the funny thing is it was like sort of schrodinger's money because we used a sweep account. And so technically, it was all with Bny Melo except you could only get to it through SCB and SCB was like hiding under the desk because they didn't want anybody to take money out. And so I'm telling my LP S like, technically, unless B N Y Mellon goes down, we're fine. And meanwhile, I'm like laying on my kitchen floor thinking the world is over. So there's a little bit of both. Wow. Yes, we had all of our funds with S V V and, you know, as a woman of color run brand, I definitely felt, you know, who's gonna, who's gonna have our back during this and immediately, you know, how am I gonna make payroll on Monday was the biggest priority you had all of your money with all of our funds? Yeah, so I had diversified cash parked at SVB and that was a heartbreaking moment because you think you're doing the right thing by diversifying and parking cash to keep it safe. And I was at my daughter's preschool with lots of other venture, people, everybody on their phones saying, oh, my gosh, can you get to a branch? Can you get a cashier's check for $40 million? So, you know, I think it was a little bit different. My experience is a little different from Vanessa's in that I didn't have to, you know, worry about payroll. But um, you know, that nest egg thinking that that was at risk was disheartening. Yeah. And Vanessa given that all of your funding was locked into this account. What was the very first thing that you did when you found out it was in there? Yeah. So the first thing we did was talk to our investors and get their perspective and we heard and what was their perspective? Everything under the sun, depending on who you spoke to. And that just really spoke to the uncertainty of the situation is that, you know, folks whose full time jobs are really focusing on getting capital in the hands of the companies that they're supporting, didn't really know how to navigate it either. Um And so we had to take in a lot of opinions and ultimately decide what was best for us. And so we opened a new bank account, multiple new bank accounts as soon as we could to try to get the money out, but you essentially could not get it out until that next Monday, uh, until we could not get it out. So we, we opened a new bank account, we initiated a wire and then we found out on that Friday that the money did not make it out in time. And so over the course of the weekend, that's when we were really scrambling to figure out. Ok, how do we make payroll? How do we, you know, continue to invest in inventory? We're about to launch a whole new product line. How do we make sure that comes to life when the, you know, investment in that inventory is happening Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday this week. And, and practically speaking, because a lot of the people here may be founders or ceos, how did you communicate that to the employees? How did you say, hey, by the way, I don't know if I can make payroll, I mean, I can speak to that. So um the first thing I did was email my investors with kind of this is our action plan. The second thing I did was email our team and I basically let them know that with the money, we would be having come in from our recent sales that is going to go straight to their payroll. And so we would actually be making payroll, that's our first priority. And from there, we don't really know what's gonna happen. But like on Monday, you will see your paycheck and that was just very important to us. Clear communication. Sarah is an investor. There was so much confusion. I mean, I saw it with my founder friends and VC friends. Like, how did you? Because there was, there were two parties right? There was like, take all your money out, send it to us like we'll figure it out. And then there was the other camp that was like, leave it in. They were trying to quell the panic. How did you advise your founders? So, you know, when I started to hear, rumblings of sort of, you know, SCB had never been a bank that was on par with AJ or, you know, a huge bank. They were a small regional bank and that was fun if they were sponsoring your party. But you also kind of knew they were a small regional bank. And so when I started to hear rumblings that week, you know, I started with looking at one interesting thing different for C P G type companies, but for most startups is they don't actually have that much money at the precede, right? So you raise a million bucks, you immediately start paying out your lawyer, your payroll everything, 250 Ks, you know, BC insurance insured. So at any like kind of random moment you have, you know, call it probably like less than 500 K, maybe even a quarter million. So for those really early age companies, you know, ping them and most of them were like, some of them didn't use FCB, the ones that did, there wasn't a huge amount of risk. And so, you know, some of them were using sweep accounts, but very few people were using sweep accounts or money market accounts just given the situation with the interest rates where there had been very little yield to get. And so, you know, there was a range of things, the bigger companies that was sort of the scarier piece for them because a lot of them had, I mean, I think was it Roku that had like $300 million just sitting in an SUV bank account? Like not earning any interest, not at all protected and like via to that CFO but like Yike. Right. So like there was, there were companies that had a lot more exposure and even my companies that had, you know, mil millions and millions. And so, you know, with those companies, when I asked them, hey, how are you doing? Their immediate response was, oh, we've already started to move our money, our big investors want us to move it. You know, we are moving and, and you know, you don't, you owe loyalty to your team, you owe loyalty to your investors to your customers. You don't owe loyalty to a bank. That's only job is to keep your money safe when it turns out that like they were a little bit too busy vacation in Hawaii to keep your money safe. Dana. Um, as the CFO of what were the short term fires you were trying to put out? And how did you kind of try to maintain a sense of calm with the executives, with the employees? Well, it was mostly with my board. Right, because we had done a, a large primary round last year. And, um, how large was it? It was a $200 million primary round. And so, um, I think I'm in a little bit of a different situation from somebody that's very early stage and maybe had, you know, six months of runway. So I had, um, you know, I think for us it was like being patient knowing you had done the right thing. You had done nothing wrong, multiple calls with my board, you know, accounts were frozen, you couldn't move it. Um The irony is that we also had, uh, safe cash parked at First Republic. Uh, so, uh, what you should take away is that I, I picked the wrong safe bank. Um, but we had our concentration account at JP Morgan. And, um, you know, I, I, I think that Friday and Saturday, it was so, you know, there's so much anxiety because nobody knew. Is this done? Are we, are we done? Are we getting it back? We've worked so hard to raise the round, you know, and, and to lose it this way, I was like, at least let me blow it on, you know, whatever, uh, something else. Uh, this is not the way you want to lose money. But, you know, I think everybody sort of rallied around. There was a sense of calm, I think in Silicon Valley, or at least in San Francisco as people waited it out until we got the news on Sunday night. There was nothing else really you could do. Yeah. Huge lesson. and like, what can you control? I'm curious, are there any of you here who had money locked in E V? Oh, wow! Ok. Quite a few. Um So if you have any questions for our panel, please raise your hand and we'll get a mic to you and I'll come back to you uh in a minute. So uh Vanessa, you went a little viral with your post. Vanessa posted something on Instagram that was very, very frank. Um She showed screenshots of slack messages and text messages with her sister where she was like, what the is going on. Um But to me when I was looking on Twitter, there was a lot of um kind of villain organization of some of the founders. It was people almost cheering for the demise of some of these people. Like you should lose your money. You have so much money and it was like the the lack of understanding of what a start up or a venture backed company is. How, what is the reaction that you saw when you went viral with that. Yeah. Yeah. So for a little bit of context, um my sister and I are co founders, we run an Asian food brand and for years, we launched three years ago, we've been building a deeply intentional community where vulnerability Candor is at the heart of the brand. And so when this was all going on, like in the midst of it Friday night, we realized we weren't going to get the money. It didn't hit the new bank account. Saturday morning, we woke up and we said, you know what, we're, we're paying our employees, we need to get as much cash as possible. Let's just tell our community that we've built, we have over 150,000 people that are supporting us. Let's just tell them going on. Someone advised you against that, right? Yeah, we had multiple folks just saying like, hey, you don't know what's happening. Like, are you, do you want your company to be seen in this light? And ultimately, ultimately, we decided, like leaning into community is core to our values and is the only place we can really look to in a time of complete uncertainty and existential threat frankly. So we penned an open letter to our community about the collapse and what was going on and what we were concerned about what we were feeling. Um And we shared that on Saturday in the middle of the weekend and yeah, that post was just unbelievable in terms of the response it went viral, had over half a billion impressions. Um folks from all over were rearing it and I read that thousands of the re shares because I was very curious, what about this post really hit this, you know, struck this chord and a lot of it was to your point, this conversation of like, look, this is how it's impacting businesses. It's not just the businesses that you think. Um you know, like massive tech businesses that can't, that are untouchable in a sense. Um It's also small businesses, it's food businesses, it's women, color led businesses. Um And, and I think that's really what folks wanted to highlight and share. And did it help your bottom line? Were people ordering people? Certainly ordered. People certainly shared. It was, it was a massive kind of uh moment for us where we're like, oh, we kind of turned some lemons into lemonade. Any questions? Hi. Oh my God. Um Amanda is co-founder of sequel. I too had a lot of money in S C B actually all of it. Um And I ended up having some weird conversations with people. So for Vanessa, I'm curious about those close to you, your friends. How did you educate, I guess is the word, the people around you that really didn't understand what was happening to smaller businesses. I saw somebody post on my Instagram like a friend and was like, down with tech founders. I hate them all. Like, I hope they're poor and know what it feels like. And I was like, I guess you don't want innovation. That's cool. Um So I'm, I'm curious about how you open that communication with people that were close to you. Yeah. Ultimately, I just like, sent a post to people. It really laid it all out. It was multiple slides and walked, walked them through the whole experience of what we were coming up against like what this meant for our business. And I also did many, many interviews that I shared with folks as well where I told people that when these massive systems fail us, the people that feel it the most are the people that are otherwise already most marginalized. And so there are so many statistics about how hard is to raise as a woman, as a woman of color. And so when it's when it comes to asking V CS to, you know, write an additional check to help you weather the storm or be a bridge to whenever that F B B money hits, those are the businesses that are going to feel it the most. And so, yeah, I definitely try to use my platform um as best I could to speak on this had a chance to go on CNN prime time and NBC and do multiple interviews and, and yeah, I really just tried to highlight the realities of what happens when these systems fail us. Yeah. And I wouldn't piggy back on the, the other piece of it I think is that there is something real there to that frustration like we are not Jason Callaghan and I thank God for that every day. But the reality is that we do live in a society where, you know, there is massive inequality. We do live in a society where it feels like five rich dudes get to buy whatever toy they want and like ruin democracy or very least Twitter. And so, you know, there's this, this frustration that you are hearing because that who's platformed and that is who controls a lot of money. And then, you know, we were talking backstage like Pacwest, which is another regional bank and like dear God, I am not starting a bank run right now, but Pacwest, another regional bank, it's being treated as a meme stock. And so when you have actual banks and actual people's entire life savings being traded like a meme stock because the guys, you know, on Wall Street bets subreddit want to do what they think that the guys on Wall Street probably are doing like there are some like macro problems in our society that I think this helped lay bare. Um And you know, I think it's a moment for tech to be a little bit introspective about what perception are we putting out there that people are cheering for our downfall even though it means that the janitors and you know, the, like everybody who works at these companies doesn't get payroll gets laid off gets hurt. Like there's a problem in the tech world that has to be addressed. At some point around that you have a question there. Hi, I'm Nama Roberts. Um, many of us in the room are, are CEO S but also advisors to the C suite. And I'm curious when you all were dropping kids off at preschool, the moment was happening, your phone is blowing up. What's one pragmatic tool, resource person that you wish you would have had in that moment that you didn't call your lawyer. Always call your lawyer. They're a great place to start before you start to. Like, for example, you talked about moving your money and I had to end up moving a bunch of money to my lawyer's escrow account because you can't as a venture fund, move your money around any way you want as a founder, you can't just send me your money and I'll hold it like call your lawyer because a lot of the things that you do immediately to try to solve a problem turns out or may be sort of totally illegal and you could be in trouble for them later on, I have one person on my board and then I am that person on two other boards that I that I wanna advise on. And one that I sit on that is my go to gut check. Um, and this gentleman for happened to be in Singapore. I called him. I said, here's the situation, let's work through it. Called him probably 10 times. But I think finding that confidant, I had him. So I'm not answering your question but making sure you've got that one point person that you can be transparent with, that you can work through things that you can talk it out because sometimes there is not a clear answer and you've got a pro con pro you know, your path forward. I have two. Um I, although I did have them to some extent, uh two sides, emotional and practical on the emotional side, somebody to tell you, especially for first time founders, you did nothing wrong. Like even just hearing those words, I was like, oh I, you're right. I trusted a bank to store my funds like of course, um but somebody had to tell me that because I was writing these emails to my investors almost like apologizing um or feeling like I was doing something irresponsible. So that was the first one of my advisers and mentors just texted me that like, hey, just, no, you really did nothing wrong. Um And then the second piece is somebody who either is going to step up and provide bridge capital or help you get it and really be alongside you to say, hey, these are your options. Like if you're looking at short term loans. This is what I, you know, I'm helping you do research on them. I'm like, you know, reaching out to folks that I know, like someone who's really tactically working with you to solve the biggest problems. Perfect way to close this up. Thank you so much.

Artificial intelligence—including techniques from machine learning to deep learning and natural language processing—continues to disrupt the health sector with the goal of delivering more precise, effective and timely interventions for people. In this conversation hosted by Merative, we will explore how AI is evolving and where people are using it effectively in health industries today. How do we overcome the hurdles of making AI systems easy to work with and solving real problems to get wider industry uptake? We’ll hear from leaders across the health sector on AI’s evolution – from big promises to practical progress and real outcomes. 

The Evolution of A.I in Health: Where Humans Meet Machines

Leadership

We’ll hear from leaders across the health sector on AI’s evolution – from big promises to practical progress and real outcomes. 

Olin

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