The AR Show: Chen Zhang and Matt Udvari (Aquifer) on Using AR Tech to Create Instant Animation for Brands & Character IP

1:42AM Dec 13, 2022

Speakers:

Jason McDowall

Keywords:

aquifer

people

customers

ar

experience

vr

matt

character

chen

technology

product

story

game

brand

feature

fun

feel

consumer

project

questions

Welcome to the AR show where I dive deep into augmented reality with a focus on the technology, the use cases and the people behind them. I'm your host Jason McDowall. Today's conversation is with Chen Jiang and Matt vari. Today, Matt are cofounders of aquifer, a company that has developed a SaaS platform to enable creators and teams to create studio level animated video. Without the studios. Matt is a polymath who is persistently pursued education and work experiences across computer science, music and storytelling. His career has spanned video game design, Executive Creative Director of CTO at a mobile SAS startup and filmmaker. Most recently met started part time evil as a story based technology studio with leading expertise in VR AR video games and mobile. Chen spent the early part of her career in project management, marketing and user experience design and major brands including three years at Frog Design. She then joined Matt at part time evil as CEO before co founding aquifer as the CEO aquifer originated from Matt's efforts as a filmmaker and Chen's insight into customer needs. In this conversation, Chad and Matt describe how they're helping big and small brands leverage the characters they've created through high quality 3d animation, giving them new ways to tell stories across a variety of platforms, we get into some of the nuances of product management, namely balancing near and long term goals, as well as the differences in leading a consultancy versus a product oriented company. We also explore how to ask customers questions about what they really want and need.

Part of going to SIGGRAPH was like buying a booth at the very back the one that we could afford next to the bathrooms, and basically trying to catch as many people as possible, and tell them who we are, what we're building, help them try it. And ask questions like, tell me about your workflow, you know, how do you typically get your animations done? And so they'll describe it. And then I would say, one of my favorite questions is asking a potential customer or potential user, if you could wave a magic wand, like how would you want that process to look? And 99 times out of 100? The answer they'll give is a process that's very different than what they're going through. Currently.

As a reminder, you can find the show notes for this and other episodes at our website, V ar show.com. And please support the podcast@patreon.com slash the AR show. Let's dive in. Getting any new startup off the ground is a challenging and sometimes overwhelming experience. Have you guys ever had a particular moment precarious experience that felt like the world was about to end trying to overcome a particular problem?

Yes. And this was due to a natural disaster. So I'll set it up. And Matt can tell the rest of the story. So at the time, this was our biggest customer, and we were releasing to them that day. This is also the same time that coincided with a massive ice storm that happened in Texas where we saw, I think it was like six or seven inches of snow and sub zero temperatures, and a days long freeze, and we lost power and water throughout most of the city. So most of our team had no access to power, had no internet. And we're just trying to stay alive with blankets and you know, makeshift fires in their homes. And so Matt had an SUV that could actually drive on snow. So I'll let Matt take it from there. Our harrowing tale,

we could say in so many words, that aquifer had the initial success and maybe still exists because I had just by chance just traded in my disaster of a car for SUV that had all wheel drive. And we're at the bottom of a hill. And because it's Texas, there's no street cleaning, or plowing. And so it'd become like pure ice. So I went out like, like a good scientist and did a couple test runs. And I was like, Wow, this SUV is having no issues with ice at all. So being in the valley, we had no cellular reception, no power, so we couldn't even work off of hotspot so and there was a big actual event with this customer that was happening in California. So no cares about what was happening in Texas Do or die on Friday. So we managed to take the SUV and escape up the hill and drive up the totally ICE line highway to a location that had Wi Fi and finish the project there. Because of that event. I'm not endorsed by a Kia Motors but I actually sold a Kia to a friend telling them about how this little cheap Kia that I got had the best all wheel drive I'd ever seen even as somebody growing up in Pittsburgh. So that was our kind of like strange stroke of luck was it My other car happened to die a horrible death. And we had an all wheel drive to escape and finish our project.

If you didn't actually have an SUV, you guys had been stuck at the bottom of the hill. Customers desperately needs this thing deployed on that day in support of their whatever they're doing. And aquifer motion would not be here today. Awkward. But yeah,

we definitely would have lost that customer. I mean, maybe not lost, but it would definitely ruin that event for them because they needed our software. Yeah, it was also like a high profile, kind of like publicly streamed event that they absolutely, like needed the software for. And so we felt like, while we were freezing to death, and like, the fire was the only thing like keeping us alive. It was like, we also have to finish this deployment. And it has to be good. It has to be QA. But we we drove like, I think it took us like an hour and a half to drive just a couple of miles very slowly down this like postapocalyptic frozen highway to get to like a location that had Wi Fi and he and honestly it was like, let's not even worry about the fact that like Texas is under this terrible ice storm. And we don't have power. Let's just finish this deployment because it was like a do or die situation.

Yeah. And that's what we that's when I learned the difference between all wheel drive and four wheel drive. Because this was a traction issue. Not like a rock climbing or deep snow issue. And apparently, electronic all wheel drive saves companies. So that's the moral of the story.

I also want to mention that our customers had no idea that we were going through any of this. And we don't want to tell them the week, we were like, they have a big event, we're not going to mention anything. We were just like, hey, tiny delay, don't worry, like to play what's gonna happen. And then we pulled it off. And they had no idea but they felt really bad. The next week, we told them that we were like, in this like life or death situation, and they were very, like thankful that we pulled through for them.

Amazing. Maybe we can start with a little bit of an overview of what it is that aquifer does in why it was so important for this particular customer.

They were essentially like live streaming globally. They're like animated mascots who were essentially hosting a virtual event that was like during the pandemic. So they typically have these events in person, this was going to be a full virtual, kind of like hours long live stream. And the characters they're animating with aquifer were the hosts of the entire event. So it had to come together. Otherwise, no, no show was going to be had.

Amazing. Maybe we can go back a little bit. And Matt, I love to kind of hear but to hear both of your journeys of how you ended up here and in why aquifers this the combination of things that have come come before for both of you. But Matt, maybe we can start a little bit of on on your own journey in this passion that you have for, for stories in drama. And where did that passion originate?

Well, I've always been like that, like I actually remember in the 80s, when I would have like little action figures when I was like five years old. I would instead of like, you know, throwing them each other like a lot of people I would just like make up stories and scenarios. So I guess it was just like something that was in my DNA. So yeah, I was like always like that. And then I went to college for drama and computer science and music because I just didn't want to drop anything that I liked. And then the journey went from there. I mean, we could talk about what happened after that. But I basically never dropped any of those three things and just kept pushing all three of them forward throughout my whole career,

technology, drama and music. So if you were one of those kids who enjoyed everything, liked everything, and you just work through the pain, I guess of continuing to do them all at a high level throughout your, your schooling and career.

Yeah, I'm just one of those people that actually does better when I'm spread across a couple of different disciplines. I, I know some people like to just pick one. And people did say that at the time. But like, it served me well to say, Yeah, I am in school, essentially for musical theater. But I also want to get this CS degree. And no one else was doing that. But I thought why not? I didn't know what I was going to do with it at the time. And then I went to grad school at Carnegie Mellon and they had a new program called the etc, which is now pretty well known. It's a interdisciplinary program between drama and computer science, which was really smart for them. Because if you know Carnegie Mellon, they're, you know, top 10 in the nation for computer science and drama. That's like their two things. So they said, you know, the famous Randy Pausch said, why don't we start a program that has a mixture of those and today the funny thing is, there's actually a physical bridge between the drama, The p&l Center for drama and the computer science building, and it's called the Randy Pausch bridge or something like that. You'd have to Google it. Yeah. And I said, Oh, that's interesting. That's like what I do. And so I applied to that. And then what they were doing, there was totally what I was interested in, like CG films and VR storytelling, early research into AR, all sorts of stuff like that. And then I sort of horned my way into the Dramatic Writing Program and was like, Please let me stay. And the head of Dramatic Writing at CMU was like, he was a really tough theater guy. And he said, like, if you're late once, you're never allowed back. If you write something that I don't like, you're never allowed back. And I was like, oh, gosh, but I just did what he said and just kept coming. And he never kicked me out. So

did you become a better writer through that program?

Oh, my gosh, yeah. Because I didn't get a degree in that program, you I would have had to, if I wanted to complete that degree, I would have to go back apply for Dramatic Writing graduate degree, finish the rest of the classes, assuming I could even get in. And then I would have the other degree as well. But I learned so much. I mean, that was where my heart is in the storytelling stuff. And like, I worked so hard for him. And that's probably why he let me stay because I was improving because I just took everything he said to heart. And he was a famous playwright himself. His name was Mailand state. He's since passed away, but he wrote a Broadway play called The runner stumbles was a really good play. But yeah, he was tough. And that was good. Because I kind of wanted to be pushed

in what did you take that early in your career? How did you kind of employ the the combination of the storytelling and the technology?

So I'd say early in my career, I had a choice where I was like, should I go be a writer or an actor? Or should I do this video game thing? I didn't really know, like, where it could take me as far as film and playwriting. So I went and became a video game designer. And it wasn't quite as story heavy as I'd like it to be. But I did use a lot of that, like I told my first employer, I was like, you know, I'm the story, dude, this is what I want to do. And I wrote a lot of the scenarios for the game as far as like encounters and you know, as much writing as I could get in there, I wrote like, a lot of the scratch dialogue and did audio recording for for that, which, looking back as like a rookie, that was like, a lot for them to trust me with. So yeah, that's kind of how I used it in that first job. And then I also kept writing plays and submitting them to play writing contests. And again, I was just kind of pushing both the rock wall. So

But ultimately, the games industry wasn't satisfying enough as it relates to storytelling. Is that Is that fair? Is that what you found yourself?

Yeah, I think I mean, the game industry is really interesting. It's very multifaceted. In that way, there is amazing storytelling happening. I think, like the places where I was working for they made some great games. But those games were more based on the game mechanics, which I think is like a very valid art form in itself. And I enjoyed working on it, but it's not like the same as in films where you're like, I want to affect a certain emotion I want to choose the camera means something, the lighting, the dialogue, everything is channeled at this. In games, I would totally say like, as a professional game designer, I would say like for most games, the game mechanics 100% matter more. And that is what people will put your game down based on unless it's like, you know, a game like the old Telltale Games or something like that, where the whole point is to just walk through a story.

Your backgrounds a bit different. You've been focusing on design, designing experiences for users, whether it's users or customers or brands, you spent some time at Frog Design, as well, kind of through through those sorts of experiences. What motivated you to kind of focus on that in your career,

I think I'm, I've always been kind of like an artist's soul wrapped in like, like an operational person's body. And I think part of that spectrum and that combination is what's throughout my career, started my career in marketing, and really making like compelling marketing experiences. But even throughout some of those marketing experiences got very like technically complex. Like I remember one of the most technically complex projects ever launch where Samsung branded kiosks inside of airports where you could this was when NFC was a big deal. You could like tap them and if you were a Samsung customer and get free music and movies just by walking past these kiosks. Separately, we can talk about how difficult it is to install stuff instead of airports post 911. But that was a different story for a different time.

That's also another another chin driving story. because that involves zigzagging around Los Angeles for like a whole day, which is

to go to cool cities and make sure these kiosks are still functioning across the United States. But it was like it was there that you know, we develop the the software, the hardware, and all the way through to implementation. But it also had to be like a beautiful, compelling experience that would make people stop in the middle of their day, and go and do something that was going to be a net benefit for them at the end. And so like that experience made me realize I wanted to get closer to product, I wanted to get closer to tech, and move away from kind of like software experiences that were like, you can call them vaporware, you can call them something. But really, I wanted to develop real value and deliver real value to customers and consumers. And so that's where my frog design experience was so formative for me, I still carry a lot of the things I learned there my day to day, I worked on a project at Frog that's very different than the typical frog project. It was actually like, with the Department of Defense, with DARPA, working on the next generation of cyber operators, interfaces. So it was combining AI, machine learning, and also 3d data visualization to help cyber operators not only reduce training time and move from a command line interface to a visual interface, but also give them kind of like operational superpowers in terms of helping them make decisions, and allowing them to do something within you know, for example, six months of training instead of five years of training with the command line interface. And so it's like, really just this concept of building excellent products that give people superpowers they didn't have before, and kind of combining, you know, all the things I've learned in my career, which is like beautiful experiences, technology that functions well housed within those beautiful experiences, ultimately to like deliver something that is delightful and highly valuable to the end user. And so after that three year stint where I spent, you know, most of those three years in kind of like windowless rooms, in and around DC, it really felt like, Okay, I want to take, like, the challenges that I loved solving there. But maybe with something that's like a little more fun and light hearted. And that is how I started working with Matt, actually in the world of AR and VR. So kind of taking the elements of what I loved the most and kind of partially the hard science of building experiences, and combine that with like, you know, stunning visuals and kind of a beautiful and seamless user experience. And so have not left the 3d world since that point.

That was the introduction, as you kind of think back through all these experiences, including the frog design experience. And there's so many elements that go into creating, what I imagine is it's a great experience, you notice that the same someone in the airport kiosk, that it's certainly about the technology and software, everything has to be integrated in work well and deliver something to the user. But it has to be visually compelling and interesting enough for somebody who stopped by and actually want to engage with it. In the science to the extent that it is a science in the science of creating sort of successful experiences. Are there some common elements that are necessary ingredients for a really compelling experience?

For me, it's always like uncovering the insights that are not obvious that you wouldn't expect. So in the kiosk example, what we learned because the kiosk is such a large format, it's taller than the average human, and it's quite a large touchscreen, we learned that part of the thing that was actually deterring people from using it was that it felt like a public display of their preferences and choices. And they felt like they were kind of a spectacle to the people around them. And so we had to like strategically place these in places that were, you could it was like a little cove or, you know, it wasn't quite like in the next to the food court where like 100 people would be passing by and like looking at the choices you made for books and music. And so I think it's really like, there isn't like one design tenant that I'd say runs across like every single industry in every single experience. But I think it is spending time with users and asking, of course, like the baseline questions, but asking the right questions. So you can uncover these like surprising elements that frankly, in my opinion, can like make or break an experience and help you make it just go from kind of humdrum to something that's really magical.

Maybe we can spend just a moment on this. But there is there is an art to asking questions in the right way. Oh, yeah, of a user so that you're getting honest feedback about what they actually do, as opposed to what they think that what they say they want. Yeah, there's some some common tips that you have on how to ask questions of users when you're trying to gain this early product feedback.

Yeah, I would say like straightforward questions like, What do you think of x will never elicit the answers that you're really looking for? I think if especially for like consumer type research, asking them to kind of rank solution trends or elements of what you're proposing, along with other things in their life that they're also considering is really important. And it's a way to get out information that isn't just asking them a question. People are shy. People speculate a lot about themselves. That's why polling is like such a science, right? People will say things that they think the pollster wants to hear, but it doesn't really like get at the truth of the the kernel of truth behind what they're really feeling. We're just bad communicators, to ourselves and to the people around us. So if you are asking, like, for example, like a pricing question, like how much would you pay is a real tough question to answer because it's like, based on what like how they're feeling that day, whether they have breakfast, I think what's, what's better is if you make them, like, compare value with other things, or purchasing that might be like, in the same realm, or in the same context, or like thing I love, like ranking questions because it sort of forces them to bank their answers on something that's real and tangible for them. And then another one that I really like is like, anytime you're getting them, like physically moving stuff around, are telling you a story about how they go about their day, just to fill in some of that context of like, who they are and how they make decisions. I think it's all it's like all the stuff that's kind of hidden under the obvious, that really gets at the answers that you're looking for inexperienced design?

Yeah, definitely not from definitely its own skill set. Yeah, for sure, is you were coming out of some of those experiences. And you'd notice that you had an opportunity after working in product design and working with the DoD on reimagining sort of how to learn and engage with these sorts of types of data and things that they're doing in cyber. You noted that you get to you had an option to stay in 3d as you start to explore AR and VR sort of experiences. But what was happening in industry at that time, or what was happening in your lives at that time that motivated you to go out on your own and create an AR VR sort of consultancy.

Matt had created this consultancy, and I really just like, convinced him to like, let me be a part of it. I was like, please, I could add value, like let me join. But I do think like for me personally, it was like seeing kind of just the power of like immersive and 3d experiences and how they can change the way people view not just data but like, enter into experiences and a whole new way. And I think this was also at a time where it was a little bit of a hippie time when like, you know, basic apps such as, like, displayed something in AR It was like, a big deal. But I felt like I always could see that. Like, there is the initial height, but as like someone who really thinks about value a whole lot in products. I'm like, Okay, so there's a panda bear in my room like now now what like, does anyone really care after an initial like, wow moment? I might part of my career was always only an initial wow moment. So I know that was very well. But part of my desire was always to like move past that. And like how do you deliver real sustained value? And so I kind of saw AR VR, that same hype space, the initial like, wow, this is amazing. But that there weren't any like that I could see like true sustained value delivering experiences. And I really felt like there was a space men and opportunity to create that at this consultancy that Matt started

that you want to jump in there and add a little extra color. What were you doing? Were you decide to go off and do something on your own for AR VR.

I think this was like when I was a game developer. And I just felt like I think my two big interests are like in storytelling, and then new technologies and combining them and novel ways, which is kind of why aquifers like absolutely the combination of everything for me. So I think when I started the consultancy, it was more like how do we combine a lot of these these interesting technologies in ways that are fun and interesting. And maybe I can have a little bit more creative control. Where my game career was at the time was like, I was a lead developer, lead designer of several titles, but they weren't really titles that I was greenlighting or proposing to anyone. There were titles that I was hired to be part of. And I think while that was fun, I think I was just at a point where I was like, I want to be able to have a little more control over the type of projects I take on. So it was a hard business to start. I think there's a big difference between starting businesses when you have like some sort of cushion or fall back. But if you're somebody who does not come from economic wealth, it was pretty difficult because at the beginning it was just me in my apartment programming, designing project managing and being the founder all by myself. So it was very, very painful for a couple years.

And 10 How did you discover what was going on? Why did you think this was something you wanted to add value

to? Matt builds cool shit, like, like he was like working on this like integrated like golf thing that had like a physical swing and it would like, and it's like a pretty prominent company and I'm like, has awesome and they would show you your golf swing virtually based on like measured the metrics of your swing. So it's like taking a swing practice from like, big landscape, just something you could do in like your garage. And I was like, That is awesome. And you know, the the 3d visualization of it was like just very, very cool on the iPad. And so it was kind of like, I was also kind of sick of I won't mention this brand, but like we we wrapped up the DoD project. And then I was assigned to work like a, he'll just call them a dying retail brand that was like very old fashioned. And one of the like, last projects we did with them was like rethinking their, like, dressing room experience. And then this, this was a brand that was very, like old school, and I was like, this isn't going anywhere, like the dressing like the big innovation was like, oh, we should have a hook for what you want and hook for what you don't want. And I was like, I can't do this anymore. Like, I need to do something that's a little more interesting. So for me, it was like a no brainer to be able to like work with Matt and and collaboratively craft those experiences where, you know, we could work on experiences together and deliver real value, instead of kind of being forced into working on projects that I just frankly, like didn't have much conviction. And I'm like, Okay, so two hooks, like we could have come up with that like hundreds of 1000s of dollars ago, and way less time. So it was a no brainer. And we worked super well together. Like he adds kind of like that technical prowess that I don't have. It's not my background. But I'm also like really good with clients and sales and really good with kind of like strategy and experience. So it was kind of a natural fit.

Do you guys have a favorite experience that you've created favorite projects that you've done together at that time?

Yeah. Can we talk about the healthcare one, Matt, though? That one's my favorite.

Maybe without the name? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So this was like a very big like pharma company. And this like really ties into aquifer to is a pharma company that makes like an injection device for primarily like kids to use for like a certain type of therapy, drug therapy. And they were seeing a lot of mistakes with device usage. And it is injection and it is painful. And they wanted to create a tool and an app that not only taught them proper usage, but also made the experience feel fun and engaging. So they could, you know, maintain interest in continuing with this therapy, and keeping up with it every day. And so like, we created an AR app that was like, entertainment, it was because this is primarily facing, you know, kids younger than the age of 13. It had like a character that would like develop and grow that you could then dress up like, so there was like a gamification element as you use. But it also had these like awesome sort of AR based demonstrations of how to inject at the site, how to prep the site, and all kind of wrapped up in this really fun experience that unfolded, like new content and new experiences as you got further along in your journey. And we took this project, I mean, this is a global pharma company, when we started, it was like a proof of concept. But that product has like launched all over the world. So like country, by country, we nailed like nurse requirements, we nailed like user requirements, country requirements. And launching anything in healthcare is very, very difficult, because it's a highly regulated space, especially globally. So like, I feel like we super nailed it on the operational side. But that character, and that experience is something that sustains today and I for that brand, it has been a huge boon in terms of like changing the feedback they get on the overall experience from from their patients and customers. And so I'm super proud of that. And like, doing something like that, from from nothing, taking proof of concept all the way to kind of like global launch and delivering sustained value over a period of time is something that can really only happen when you kind of have like Matt's brain and my brain and an incredible team to pull that off.

Yeah, that's amazing. That's really amazing. Matt, let's come back into aquifer her in through this way. But now you've noted that you've never quite given up on pushing all of these rocks up the hill at the same time. Yeah. Including including the story writing side. Did you continue to work on creating your own stories?

Yeah, so I'm still a filmmaker. Now. Part of aquifer aquifer was definitely like a combination of a lot of things. And part of that was like one of the films I was working on at the time. I guess it was the fact that like in a lot of the work like 10 described I had been forced to become adept at like machine learning and computer vision, AR kit and game engines and all sorts of stuff. Like we had projects at part time evil back in the day where we were using, like open CV before, there was a AR kit and like essentially making AR kit like experiences from scratch, and I was the one coding those and for me, that's like pretty advanced stuff to be dealing with as a performing artist, hybrid person. So I was making this movie. And I realized that like, a lot of the technology people use to make animated movies is very, like, professional and very siloed. So it's like, this tool is for somebody who has an education in animation. This other tool is for somebody who is good with modeling characters. But there's not really anything that's just like, Are you a storyteller, you can now make an animated movie. And so I started writing like several different tools to allow me who I would define myself as a storyteller, who's not an animator by trade, like, I love animation. And I feel like I can animate decently. If I can understand the tools, I'm probably more of a animator from like, I know what I want, I just don't know how to get it sometimes. So I wrote a couple of tools to help with my own filmmaking. And that was like, sort of the start of aquifer as like a tech platform. So you know, you talked about the rocks. So it was like, I was trying to tell a story, which is obviously my like, screenwriting background, and my directing, and then all of these different weird tech platforms sort of combined to, to write the story or to make the story happen. And then so chin and I started thinking about like, maybe this could be a thing. And this is where Chan's product knowledge came in. And she was like, let's, let's find a way to package this as a product, because it seems to be like really powerful. And we took it to SIGGRAPH. And we got a little more interest than we thought we would actually a lot more interest. And we even had people that had worked for the company that are like we were using AR kit as part of the facial capture part of aquifer at the time. And we even had people I forget what company it was that was acquired to become AR kit face tracking, they actually came up to us and we're like we've, we were wishing somebody would use this in this way. And right now, it's not being used, it's mostly being used for, you know, device on lock or like, little emojis and stuff like that. And that was just really, for me that was really validating because I was like, these are like, really strong computer scientists who I really admire for what they've accomplished. And they're like, Oh, this is cool. And I was like, so there is power in being the person who uses the technology in a clever way, not just rights initially. So after that, like we, I don't want to get too far ahead. But Chen and I eventually decided it would be better off the whole, the whole like ethos of aquifer is like it needs to be vertical, like it was a tool that integrated with other tools at the time. And then we slowly came to the realization that it needed to be and it wanted to be a vertical storytelling tool that did everything where you wouldn't have to touch other tools.

So describe that everything. What is it exactly that aquifer does for its customers.

So most animation is made by using a suite of tools. So what aquifer does is we like to really simplify it down to something very pragmatic, which is like if you can tell the story, let's curate and give you a first pass. That might be enough. And you can adjust it if you want. So like, what it does now is you just read your dialogue. It that dialogue is for a character, that character has a voice, it will convert your voice to that character's voice. It will set up a good first pass of camera angles, body animations, lip sync, facial expressions, emotions, all of that stuff. And then it will say here's your movie. And then if you have like really particular tastes do you say I want this character's arm to move different or I want them to maybe have a little different emotion here. That stuff's all tweakable by somebody who is non technical. And if that looks good, then you push a button and it becomes a video. So the automation is like really all the way and it improves all the time. But it is all the way from like tell us what your story is and out we'll pop a video

So notionally, I just need a voice and a character. Yeah, I upload my voice and a character in out will come in animated movie that I can adjust.

Yeah, exactly. So the whole design principle of it is, you are a storyteller. But you are not a trained professional animator, or programmer, or technical artist, you just read that dialogue, it will give you a curated smart first step on everything. And a lot of the time, that is what people want. So it becomes a rendered video and high def. If you want to edit anything, then we also have like, really easy controls to edit.

Secretly, My desire is to work as a voiceover artist in Hollywood for some animated character. So I can fulfill this fantasy of mine through aquifer,

you have a great voice for that.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah,

thank you. And if you didn't, then you could convert your voice into the voice of the character through Okorafor as well, on the platform directly.

That's super amazing. So when you you talked about this process of engaging with users and really understanding from their perspective, what's good, or great, and where the value really is in something that you're creating or trying to create experience around. So with this product with aquifers, you've envisioned that you just need to bring a story, a storyteller and your digital character to bear it, and you can output this this animation. What was the customer discovery process that you went through? You had a great experience this great feedback you had at SIGGRAPH as you went through that process of refining and understanding who those customers are and how they wanted to use it. What was that process for you? And then how do you go about it,

it's a process that never ends, it is part of every feature, design every feature release, every you know, new version of the product. And I think that is just going to be a critical part of our DNA forever. But to start, so part of going to SIGGRAPH was like buying a booth at the very back the one that we could afford next to the bathrooms, and basically trying to catch as many people as possible, and tell them who we are, what we're building, have them try it and ask questions like, tell me about your workflow, you know, how do you typically get your animations done? And so they describe it. And then I would say, one of my favorite questions is asking a potential customer or potential user, if you could wave a magic wand, like how would you want that process to look? And 99 times out of 100? The answer they'll give is a process that's very different than what they're going through currently. And so we use the answer to that magic, one question as our Northstar. Because ultimately, what we want to deliver is something as magical as something they've conjured up in their imaginations for how they want to work. So you know, some of the some of the answers that informed aquifers design and feature set is like, I just want to like, read something in and have it like, make it for me, it's, you know, we think of animation as someone who wants to, like, meticulously control every movement, and there are instances and cases for that. But we find that most of our customers, you know, are creating like shorter form content, or creating high volumes of content. And they really just want to input the critical pieces of information, typically audio or part of a script, and have the rest of the work done for them. They're busy, they have got to move on with their day. They have many, many videos to make. And so that continues to be our North Star

is you have gone through that processing team to go through that process. What are the types of customers? Are there some buckets of the type of customers that are utilizing aquifer and how is it exactly that they're utilizing

it? Yeah, so I think unlike some easier accessible animation products, we are very focused on b2b. So we sell into brands and companies that are owners of well known IP, who want to scale content featuring that IP to platforms that require high volume, very fast rollout, like being on Tik Tok, making, you know, YouTube shorts, or YouTube episodic. So, our customers today are major brands. And we're onboarding like well known characters at their, their teams, whether it's like social media teams, content teams, or other types of teams that they're using to create that content. And we find that that, that pushes us to be better, you know, like it pushes the quality of what's possible. It pushes the experience, because we're literally working with like some of the The most well known brands, and so they demand a level of ease of use and a level of kind of creative quality that exceeds that of like, you know, consumer storytellers.

From this b2b sort of business perspective, what is the pricing model? What's the business model, ultimately, that drives the company? How do you charge for the value of creating for them?

Yeah, so we, we charge in two ways, depending on the department that we're working with. So one way is a typical SAS, so things like monthly or yearly contracts, to use the software platform. The second way is royalty revenue share. So if they are selling content that they're making, and typically, it's very different teams that would do one or the other. But if they're selling content that they're making Okorafor gets a percent of each video so far generated?

Yeah, that's awesome. Really awesome. So as you you noted that that the standards of your of these customers right now are so high, it's really pushing you to continue to make a better product and refine that product. Beyond what a consumer would typically demand for, for example, is you think about more broadly, the vision for the company? Is there a point in which you want to offer something like this to consumers more generally? Or how do you think about it? How do you articulate the vision for the company?

Absolutely. I think, you know, we're starting with brands today. But there's absolutely a vision in which we would eventually offer this to consumer creators, we just feel like, today, the world of like people becoming brands, you know, people becoming creators becoming brands, that that pipeline is very well established. So we absolutely want to be a part of the ecosystem of tools and platforms that allow consumers to become content creators, and become content creators that feel like professionals, who can then like build up their own brands and businesses through the stories they tell with their characters. So you know, I use the term brand quite, quite like broadly, sometimes the brand is a multinational company. And sometimes a brand is a very small team of, you know, three colleagues and collaborators who make incredible content that touches the lives of millions of people. And I think IP in both cases, is sometimes equally valuable because of how influential it is.

You kind of noted that the predecessor work that you've done together, at part time evil, was really this this emphasis on augmented and virtual reality in working in 3d? Is there a connection today? Or do you anticipate there being a connection between what you're doing that aquifer? And that world of AR and VR?

Oh, yeah, yeah, there's always a little bit of a connection, I think, AR and maybe not necessarily VR. In the case of aquifer, I say it's, I think it's more like AR and real world. positional tracking is kind of like, where we're at right now, I think it's become so native to a lot of applications that like, people wouldn't really describe aquifer as a, an AR app, though, it does contain a lot of those technologies. So there's obviously facial tracking in there. And then we also have virtual cameras, where you use your iPhone to capture camera position and the heading. And then there's a lot of like computer vision type technologies in the app, but they're all integrated in such a way where they're not really like, sticking out as, as a look at me an AR technology. I think like, as time goes on, there's a lot of technologies in the AR umbrella that we're looking at, as the product expands, like one for example, which is like sort of a no brainer, is like photogrammetry which I would consider that to be AR adjacent, you know, you're you're like scanning the 3d features of a real world object. Because it's really helpful to be able to get flat images, 3d objects, etc, of your own creation into the story. Right. So I think you mentioned to chin that, you know, potentially this will become a consumer application. Like I think that would happen in the future when it's so automated, and so smooth that it could work really well in that arena. And like part of that is allowing people to put custom scenery and elements and hero objects into their, into their stories.

From the consumer or user facing side. There's also like ographers, an AR app and that you could like animate your character, drop them into the world and make a video with Um, at the mall or at the movies or at some, some events, and that's a capability that is in the platform today. And for us, it wasn't like the intention wasn't to make an AR feature that is consumer facing, it was really like our customers saying, like, gosh, I love making content with, you know, with our brand mascot or with our character IP. But you know, we have an event coming up, we'd love to like bring them there and show audiences that this character is there, then that feature was sort of born out of that request, which is like, you know, truly helping this character be like, omnipresent across a variety of like platforms and places and giving them new ways to tell stories and new places to tell them from Yeah, I'd

say like the feature Chen's describing, the funny thing is that oh, the way our customers see it is, rather than placing an AR character in space, it is more in their minds. Green screening a character into space and being allowed to move the camera, if that makes sense. Obviously, like AR characters in space are just essentially like a overlaid image. And it's really just a composite, right? Even though our brains don't think of it that way. It's just really composited onto a 2d image. And a lot of our customers wanted green screens, and then they started wanting to be able to say, Oh, what if this character could appear at an event on that? And then we we realized, Okay, the other part of it is, can we offer a three dimensional camera movement. So I think that's like, that's part of something like we were talking earlier about serving users, our feature roadmap is always a combination of like, getting feedback from our customers, and then having like a really good educated idea of what they might need, but they don't know they need. And that's like a constant circle, I'd say, like, my side of that is like, I kind of just operate on emotion. And I have like a feeling that they are really going to want something and then we test it by asking them about it. Or we do like a prototype and test it with them.

I find that product teams that have both of those things in mind constantly, this ability to really understand what customers are saying and in terms of how they're using and how they're communicating about the product features that they they have in front of them, what do they want in front of them, combined, combined with this strong vision that you have about where it should go? Where do you think tomorrow's gonna go? The combination of those two things supremely powerful. So it's awesome, because we're bringing those both to bear?

Yeah, we definitely have both sides of that. And I think like, we want to meet our customers where they are today. But I think the definition of doing something that's essentially like a new category is there has to be some people that don't quite get what you're trying to describe right now. Or it's not the future it is what is already doable, right? So I think like, that's the line we walk. I mean, we are pretty small company that is quickly growing. So we have to be really smart about the decisions we make. But we also feel like we're creating this new category. And we have to be a little bit ahead of what people think is possible right now.

Yeah. As you look out over the next period of time, trying to work towards this vision that you have constantly trying to be at the edge of what they think is possible. What do you what are you experiencing? Or what do you anticipate are the biggest risks to achieving that vision?

I think I think part of it is that balance between, we have a really excited customer base right now. And what we're trying to do for them, requires a lot of I think Chen mentioned early like earlier, like, the delight of a customer and a well executed and design product is meaningful. And for even for me as a storyteller, it feels better than giving something to someone that has to be explained. So it's the challenge is the balance of how do we make those people delighted in the product and ready to stay on board for long term? And then how do we also roll out features and the rolling out of features, I think is the art form in itself. Because what what we do and this is part of that conversation we had earlier is like, you don't want to bet the farm on something that's that's going to be on your roadmap three years from now, but you do need to pursue that thing. And so how do you say, Okay, I have a great instinct that I believe in and I would bet money on that this thing is going to be on the three year roadmap and it will be huge. And how do I walk that backwards and say this is going to be a thing that I could do two weeks from now that will benefit my current customers but will serve that vision? And I think that's like from from my side. That is something I do every day. just tried to like, keep pointed at that direction, but also serve like what is what can be done in the next sprint to, to serve the longer term vision and make people happy right now.

Yeah, that's incredible. Do you have a formula that you mentally follow between how you split? Kind of the the sprint, the engineering efforts in any given sprint between the things that are now things versus the tomorrow things?

Well, I think right where we're at right now, because we have become so busy with all these amazing customers is like everything has to serve what they're doing right now. And the art form is saying, like, how can I sort of like, Trojan horse a future feature into that right now. And so like, there is probably like the the prototype, the pure prototype effort is probably me alone, where I said, this is not distracting any engineers. This is something I'm going to test in a really ugly way and use my experience in in digital storytelling to be able to fill in the blanks and say this is very kludgy. But it makes sense, it'll work and then use that to inform the roadmap, but like, all of them are on things that will benefit us in one, sprint two, I'd say like six Sprint's. So like in the two weeks to three months timeframe, all of the stuff they're doing has to pay off. And I think that's just a function of where we are, as a company, we're like, at a really exciting place with the current customers, and we want them to really be delighted. I think, as we get a little farther down the line, we'll be able to have people that are dedicated to more of those prototype, and future efforts.

Yeah, in the work that you're doing right now, because so much of what you're describing is this huge challenge of, of effectively automating away the heavy lift of having to use all these individual tools. How much ultimately, you know, after the user uploads the content, how much is a human in the loop necessary at this point, in order to deliver that, that first good first pass for them.

So the first pass doesn't really need anyone in the loop. So depending on the customer, the customers vary from more just like a pure request and give me a video and I'm less concerned with the actual nuances and more concerned with the story. They vary from that type of customer down to a customer that might be like, Oh, I'm actually like, we have customers who have filmmaking backgrounds who are like, Okay, I understand, there's going to be a slight limitation to what I can do, but I want to tune everything. So they don't have to be in the loop, but they can be. Got it. That's incredible. I would say like, for me as like a filmmaker, the biggest learning for me is people. Every time we think that they want to be specific, they actually want to be less specific. And that's been like a big design. Learning for I think, Jen can speak for herself. But I feel like her and I have worked through that together, which is like, for me, I want to tell very specific stories, and I would have full control over the camera for everything I do. But what our customers are telling us for the most part is I want you to curate what looks great. I want you to make it happen in an automated way. So I can get a good first pass. And for the most part, I'll be delighted with it if you have set it up in a way where the the software makes it look good. So I think that's one of those like genius and limitation things where like they a lot of the customers do want to be limited more than other customers. Because for them, they don't know how to set up the cameras, or they don't know how to do precise body animation, but they do know what good looks like, which I think is a big difference. Like Chen is a good example where she doesn't really have like, Her background was not really in like CG moviemaking. But she immediately knows what looks good. Even when she had like just started into the aquifer journey. She really knows what looks good and what doesn't look good. And so the customers are a lot like that where they have it taste and artistic background. But they they don't want to tune stuff on a low level, if that makes sense.

Yeah, so the almost looking to hire a director or director of photography. Not not a handful of animators looking for direct very specific direction in terms of using the tool.

I think in some ways it aquifer makes those people directors so I think like I've never thought of it as taking the human out of the loop as much as it's like. This is where the new category comes in. Because it's like these are people that you know like if you have if you're like for example a film studio and you're on the marketing team at a film studio. The animated movie itself is made by a For an animated group that's outside of your studio, and they're contracted for a specific piece of work, and that's budgeted a specific way. But say you want to do like a tick tock video every day with the main character and you want it to look really good. You as the marketer are now the director of that little piece of, of film. I think that's what it does is it's creating a place where there actually was no room for that person to be a creator before.

Yeah, yeah. Thinking about this entrepreneurial journey, the entrepreneurial side of it, how is aquifer as a product oriented company as SAS company, different in terms of challenges you face, then running a consultancy, as you were running before? What's that kind of transition for you between this consultancy to product company?

I'd say like on the just the Frank side of it, there's different things that are scary and different things that are fun about both. So like, on the consultancy side, the scary part is you're only as good as your last month's budget. And things can can change really fast. On the fun side, you don't really know what's going to be happening next month. And those things are really cool. Like we had in the consultancy world, we had the golf project that Chan was mentioning, then we had like, in the course of one month, we had Adidas come to us and say we need to make a this one was actually really fun. I should have mentioned this earlier, and AR experience for a convention. So it was almost like AR and VR mixed because you would go through an AR portal, and then it became like a magic window VR in your phone, stuff like that would just appear out of nowhere. So it's kind of fun in that way, on more of the venture back startup side, you know what your mission is? You know, what you're trying to do you sort of like, try to adjust it real time. It's like being in a boat where you're sort of like trying to keep the pope pointed at the sun. Right? But you don't have like, the fears are a little different. And the dangers are different. Because generally once you secure funding, you're okay for X amount of time, but then it's sort of like well, let's turn the sand over and turn the what do they call those things? The timer over the hourglass, the hourglass over and let's, let's start the timer again. And for me personally, I'm like very not risk averse. So I think it's, I think it's fun to do that. I think it's like, it's almost like video game, right? Let's turn the hourglass over. And let's let's take on a new challenge. And let's be the timer to achieve that challenge. 10 might have a little bit different answer to that.

No, it's pretty similar. For me, I think, you know, I worked in consultancies for a long time. And I think a lot of the key decision making comes down sometimes to like the one customer you're working with, and their biases and perspectives. And sometimes they will make decisions that I you know, we would feel like run counter to all of our research and expertise, but they're the customer and they're paying you for that scope of work. And you have to do what they said even though in your heart, you know, it's probably going to fail. Whereas I think in a venture backed startup, there isn't anyone you know, sitting down and telling you like, No, you must go with feature a or feature B, but you get to make those decisions. But always, you know, keeping in mind, like your your vision and what you feel like is best given what you know, by your customers, the market, and the various elements that are evolving, that accompany but ultimately, at the end of the day as co founders, it is your decision. And I think that is a different level of responsibility. It's a different stake, like and so it's just it's more fun. I think personally, it's like like Matt said, it's it is an opportunity to build something that where you you literally have to use every single skill you have, and put it into the mixer, and hope that it's enough and it pushes you every day to be better. And no phase in your company is ever the same. You know, from week to week, month to month, like everything is new all the time. And I think that is an immense, like opportunity and a privilege to be a part of.

Yeah, like the thing when we told the snow, the blizzard story at the beginning. That's a good example of what chan just said because if we had a blizzard this year, we wouldn't have that problem. Like we have enough automation in the product and enough team members. We could fulfill it so times have changed. And that's why it's kind of funny to look back on because we won't have that same problem again. So now it just becomes lore.

Surviving the apocalypse to satisfy early, important customer. Yeah, let's wrap up with a few in lightning round questions here. What commonly held belief about AR VR 3d content? Do you disagree with

that you can you can bucket it into one thing and just call it you know, like that, VR. And the metaverse and AR, that that all of these categories and buzzwords somehow can be viewed through, like one lens, or that it can be like you can predict how users are going to adopt or not adopt, at, like one level in one way. And I just think that is like so false. Like, even in the context of this conversation, we've talked about AR from like 1000 different angles. And I think consumers will choose to adopt things that makes sense for them and deliver them value in the context that they need it. And, you know, in my day, there is no one platform that I spend my entire day on, maybe with the exception of like, Apple, like I'm deep in that ecosystem. But like I think from an experience standpoint, there isn't like one experience that dominates my entire day, I pick and choose depending on my needs at a given moment. And I think AR and VR are very much going to be there isn't going to be like one solution for all. And I think it will continue to fragment and consumers will develop their tastes and their preferences. And we have to see how the value equation for them works out with their tastes and preferences. So it really irks me when people say like, oh, the next big thing is like the metaverse and I'm like, oh, gosh, like, there's so many different ways that humans are going to choose to spend their time and money. And there's never gonna be like one and all veal experience.

That's a great one. All right.

So I'll jump in before I don't want you to keep going because I feel like you're tiptoeing on the edge of mine. And I'm getting scared. So my mind is a little a little more related to the pop culture aspect of it. I personally, don't think that VR and AR are headed for like, what people today define as a metaverse. I don't think anybody's gonna go into like, what we think of as a VR goggle and just not come out for hours other than people who like to do that. And I know some people like that. But I don't think it's going to be like that simple. I think like the technology, in my experience with it has has started to meet us where we are rather than I think goggles are meeting the metaverse where it is right. So I think like, what seems more likely is we have less intrusive devices and technologies that make it seem like I think I would I would propose and we can bring up this podcast, if it's around in 10 years, I will propose that like there's not really going to be much usage of goggles other than specific reasons for that. And there'll be other interfaces that are so seamless that someone from today wouldn't really recognize it as being immersive that will meet people in the ways they like to interact with things. So I think mine's a little more simple, because I like thinking about that. And I really like as a filmmaker, I really liked some of those films like I really liked, like Ready Player One and some of the Neil Gaiman books, but I think like they're fun as fiction, but I don't think I personally would want to be in that place. But I wouldn't mind having a little bit more of a 3d spatial interface to what I'm trying to do every day. You anticipate

that this fully immersive VR alternative reality, it's going to be a relatively niche sort of experience that some people will choose to go into a subset of us will choose to go into and spend hours at a time. But for most of us, it's really about integrating the digital into the physical, tying it into the context of our other types of entertainment or, or productive endeavors.

I think the way you phrase it is kind of like a little bit there. Yeah. I don't think people will literally just go in there. But I think it is very possible that there'll be a digital world that exists alongside ours that has, for example, the same obstacles that we might have in our world, and analogous features to the things that are in the same room as us that we can sort of seamlessly blend in and out of so more of an analog curve rather than a binary switch, which is what we see it as now we see it as a switch of like, I'm either in the metaverse or I'm out of the metaverse. I think I see it as sort of more of like, I'm gliding in and out of 3d assisted living as I need it.

Like that, besides the one you're building, what tool or service do you wish existed in this, this world of AR VR 3d content,

high wet, and someone's gonna make a bajillion dollars on this. I wish there was an interoperable 3d asset store that was not filled with low quality, terrible assets. That is, that is my wish. Also, I'm getting again, I'm giving someone very good idea, organized by style, so that you could put together a cohesive scene without doing a million different things across a million different assets, tours and modeling your own. That's my wish, I wish someone who built that wish it could be us were busy on other things. But if someone could get on that, that'd be great.

Organize by style, that's an important one, because then you're trying to find this object here. And then you find another one doing a search for that object over there, and they don't even match like they can't.

Can we have like a standard naming convention for us that styles? Like, there's like people define things very differently. And it's, it's confusing and annoying.

I'm gonna I'm gonna go pop culture again and say, Whatever happened to smellivision? I mean, we're talking about AR and VR, but smells really bring up memories for you. And the only smellivision I ever used, was it Epcot Center, and it all just smelled like chemicals or smoke.

We haven't nailed that one yet.

No, we're working on it. That's actually my secret project. I'm just not telling anyone including Chen.

I forgot about that. The sixth dimension

smellivision. It is true. That olfactory sense that ties to memory better than anything else.

Yeah, it's like how do you make it without having literal little canisters inside your headset that every one so I'll just go. Everybody remembers alien encounter in Epcot Center, which terrified many children before they switched it to something more family friendly,

that traumatized me for like 12 years. And I still think about it from time to time. When I'm like sitting in a dark, dark movie theater still feel that hot breath on my neck

blows out of the back of the chair. Right?

Yeah, Jason, if you can wrangle the creator of Alien Encounter, then we can have aquifer podcast part two with you where we walk through the various immersive technologies available in Alien Encounter to terrify.

Amazing. If you could sit down and have coffee with your 25 year old cells, what advice would you share?

I think for me, I want to say something really clever. But I think the truth is, I would say just do the things that you want to do. I think I spent a lot of time amassing different skills and experience in different industries. And I think like there's, I would tell any 25 year old, just go ahead and just fail right now and just find a way to pay your bills while you're doing it. But do the crazy stuff in your own time. And don't really care about what anybody says. And it's never time, like you're never going to be ready. So just start early. Don't wait until you're ready. Just get started. Yeah, and you'll never be ready. And then like Chad said, We, especially on this aquifer journey, I feel like it's going great. But there's always something that makes you feel like you are not an expert at something. And that's the beauty of like, discovery and growing a business is like, you maybe get rid of a hat when you hire somebody who's better at that than you. And then you find a new hat that you have to wear. And then that process repeats. And that's a fun process. But it can be scary. And but you can for

me, I would tell my younger self, whatever you think is possible for your career, throw that in the trash. Because there's way more possibilities, then you're able to envision and you're your job as a young person is to go out there and, and poke at those possibilities and see which one excites you. I think a lot of young people put themselves into some artificial buckets, simply because they haven't come across some other options that might be more exciting. And so I think it's an important time for discovery. And like a precious time to figure out what really gets you excited.

Yeah, that's a great one. What book have you read recently that you found to be deeply insightful or profound?

So a book I read recently is called Why We sleep and it goes into the science of sleep and how it both benefits us but also how devastating the effects are. When we don't sleep enough meaning eight hours a day for for prolonged periods of time, and that was like such a mind blowing book for me, as someone who's always viewed sleep as kind of like, hid optional thing, but just kind of hearing the science behind what happens to our minds and bodies. And when we even sleep for six hours a night for long periods of time, is like pretty devastating and scary. So it's, I think, packaged the information in such a way that I absolutely ingested that and have now like, changed my daily habits to prioritize sleep. And my my mind and my work and my energy is all the better for

amazing. I've read that book before. And I found it to be phenomenal. One of the things that stuck out was how similarly deficient the mind is after poor sleep compared to Yeah, after several drinks of alcohol, it's basically

identity. Yes, yeah. And how you still think you're okay. Like, you know, a drunk person will be like, I'm sober. Just like a person who's like sleep deprived. It'll be like, I'm fine. And it's like, no, actually, you're suffering.

Yeah, it's crazy. And my mom was one of those who always thought sleep was optional, she would always go to bed and wake up every morning at 4am. And, like, go home, you know, ready to go. And, and I had her read that book as well. And she came away. similarly inspired to improve her sleep habits, which I am, I was delighted to find, yeah, that's amazing. That's an important one

life changing. I was one of those 4am people no longer,

no longer that Giovanni want to share.

Yeah, so mine is a little less self help ish, though. I do like the the sleep theory, and I'm trying to sleep more. So I read this book called the speed of sound, which is all about the introduction of sound into movies. And it was so mind blowing to me, because it a lot of it was about contemporary tales of people who are working in industry and people who were like movie exhibitors. And it was so much like when we introduce modern technologies, now, whether it's into games or into film, the initial impression was that sound was a gimmick, and that it wasn't going to stay. And most movie makers and actors thought that the true art of filmmaking is in the pantomime. And the visual and sound actually is makes it worse. And sound is more for like, it would be better for like documentary or news. But like, by introducing sound, you're actually making the product worse. So a lot of people had actually bet against sound succeeding, like, including a lot of the studios, like some of the studios, immediately built sound stages, and the other ones were betting against it. So then they almost like went out of business by having to then ramp up their technology, a lot of this is probably sounding familiar to you like, with a lot of the technologies we have now, like, you know, where people were like, mobile is not going to be a thing, touchscreens on mobile don't make sense, you know, et cetera, et cetera, down the line where a lot of us including some of the stuff I've said today, we're kind of like that with VR and AR, depending on the day, I think at aquifer, like a lot of people are like that with real time rendering versus offline rendering. So I just found it really it was just a really insightful because it was interesting to hear a tale of like, what is 100 years ago now, about some people being bullish on a technology and some people being sort of like dragging their heels. And to me, the lesson from that was like, how do you know how to be on the right side? Like, how can you really take yourself out of it, and just let yourself like, take in information and make good decisions about like new technologies, and new additions to your art form. And don't let your emotion say like, oh, this new technology scares me. So I'm going to be one of the people who drags their heels because I felt like a lot of those people did drag their heels because they liked the way it used to be. And they were kind of scared about change. So yeah, it was really interesting. I think in our industry, like a lot of a lot of the strength you can have and is saying, I'm not afraid of change. I'm gonna like, evaluate everything, embracing change, but some of the things that come out won't be worth pursuing. And I need to make a good decision about that.

Yeah. I love looking at humans explorations into technology and the lessons from the past, and trying to figure out how to apply them to the present. That's great. Yeah, I'll definitely check that one out.

Yeah, it's definitely a page turner. And it's a good audio book, too. That was actually how I experienced that one.

Very cool. Any closing thoughts you'd like to share? No, this

was really fun. Jason. I think like when you reflect back on what you've done, you're like, oh, done a lot. Yeah. But when you're in the like, the hectic kind of like day to day of just like meeting your microcells it's like, it's really refreshing to have a moment to reflect. So thank you for that. Yeah.

My pleasure. Where can people go to learn more about you and your efforts that are an aquifer,

they can visit our website, www dot aquifer motion.com. And they can follow Matt on Twitter. At Matt, you've already they can follow me on Twitter at Chen. You win. Like why are you w is

perfect. Thank you both so much. This conversations is awesome. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

Before you go, I want to let you know that the next episode will arrive in the new year. I'll be sharing my own thoughts about where we've been over the last year and we're anticipate we'll go over the next year in my 2023 kickoff episode. Thanks for listening and please consider contributing to this podcast@patreon.com slash the AR show. That's th e AR sh O W and happy holidays.