S10E4: Art Basel Miami Rewind: An Interview with Daniel Betts, CEO of Blue Frontier, and Tosh Ernest, Head of SVB Catalyst 2045 [LIVE]

SVB has been a critical part of the innovation ecosystem. They understand companies that are going through the entrepreneurial journey with disruptive technology and with visions of changing the world. And that's really critical because the things that you need from your bank are different than a traditional company.

Welcome back to Season 10 of The Room Podcast. Claudia, can you believe it's been 10 seasons?

Madison truly cannot believe it will be 4 years of The Room with you this year. I'm thrilled to be back behind the mic with you for Season 10. For all of our listeners since Season 1, you truly have been with us for some formative years.

If you're new here, Claudia and I started The Room Podcast with the mission of opening the door to the room where it happens, in turn sharing the stories from some of the world's most iconic founders and funders, all in an effort to inspire and educate the next generation of entrepreneurs. And thanks to you all, we were recently listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 media list for 2024.

So why us? We're two best friends who met as product managers in 2018, then realized as we were making career transitions into myself, founder, and Madison Funder wanted to talk to the entrepreneurs that had built great companies. Since starting the podcast, I founded Pryve, a commerce payment startup, raised venture capital, and have faced a ton of challenges. Madison became a partner at Defy VC, was the first investor in my startup, and is now at Harvard Business School and is a pair VC scout coming to the table with the fresh funder perspective.

Over the course of 9 seasons, we've had over 88 guests amassing over $50 billion in enterprise value. Ranging from conversations with the former founder and CEO of Zillow, Spencer Rascoff, to Michelle Zatlin, the founder of Cloudflare, Grammy Award-winning artist Ciara, and the creator of Next.js and CEO of Vercel, Guillermo Rauch.

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Welcome back to The Room Podcast for Season 10. This week's episode is a little bit different from our regular programming as we are excited to share a live podcast recording that happened at this past Art Basel in Miami. Last December, Madison and I took a trip down to Miami, and we were lucky to facilitate a conversation with Tosh Earnest, director of SVB's Catalyst 2045, and Daniel Betz, CEO and founder of Blue Frontier Inc., a startup rethinking air conditioning, having raised $38 million in funding to date and being listed as a top climate tech company to watch by MIT. Both Tosh and Daniel shared some incredible stories highlighting underrepresented individuals who inspired and paved the way to— who have inspired and paved the way forward in their careers. We also talk shop on finding product market fit, fundraising, and the importance of a good banking relationship. We dive into Daniel's founding story around Blue Frontier, and it was an electric conversation. This week was all about the intersection of tech, art, storytelling, representation, and we at The Room Podcast were thrilled to be a part of the room in Miami. We hope you enjoy this episode Rewind and Sit Down as much as we did. Let's open the door.

Welcome everyone, and thank you for being with us here on day 4 of the SVB retreat at Art Basel. My name is Tosh Ernst. I'm the head of SVB's Catalyst 2045, and you'll hear a little bit more about what that is later. But we are Silicon Valley Bank's commitment to supporting women, Black, and Latinx innovators and investors in the venture ecosystem. The SBB Retreat would not be possible without the thanks of 15 SBB partners hosting 18 sessions, taking care of over 1,300 guests over 5 days. And I'm incredibly excited to kick off day 4 live in the room with our partners Madison McIlwain and Claudie Laurie, co-hosts and founders of The Room Podcast, which shares stories of some of the world's most iconic entrepreneurs to encourage the next generation of founders and funders. The Room Podcast is going into its 10th season and boasts more than 80 guests, including Cloudflare founder Michelle Zeppelin, Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff, and Grammy Award-winning R&B vocalist Ciara. In 2022, Spotify named the podcast a top 5% most shared globally. Claudia Madison McIlwain recently also had the honor of being listed as Forbes 30 Under 30 in media for their work on The Room podcast. Welcome, ladies.

Thank you so much, Tash. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for your whole team at Catalyst 2045 and SVB. It's such a pleasure to be in the room with you all today, and we're grateful to get to have had the chance to amplify representative stories in technology since season 3 with SVB. And so it's really been a journey to bring more people into the room where it happens, which is our core mission. And we couldn't be doing it without our partnership with you all. So thank you. We're really excited to open the door together today with Daniel Betts' story of Blue Frontier. He is CEO and founder of Blue Frontier, which is a South Florida-based clean tech company helping to innovate at the heart of air conditioning systems. He has been named, and the company has been named, a climate tech company to watch just this year and a finalist for the 2045 AHR Innovation Award. Blue Frontier has received $20 million in a Series A from Bill Gates-led Breakthrough Energy Ventures, 2150 BC, and more. And you might be wondering, how is he qualified to do all of these incredible things in the forefront of clean tech? He has a PhD in mechanical engineering and thermal science from the University of Florida, as well as an MBA, and then studied mechanical engineering in undergrad at George Washington University too. He's been in the space since 1997, so we're so excited to be here today to open the door to The Room Where It Happens.

Thank you very much for that super warm introduction. Thank you. And it's a pleasure to be here.

Today I'm going to kick off our live podcast recording. And if you haven't subscribed to The Room podcast already, please do. This conversation will air as a part of season 10. Daniel, we'd love to jump into your founding story. Let's start from the beginning. You grew up in Panama before coming to the US. Tell us a little bit more about how your early childhood and early experiences really shaped your view of the world.

Absolutely. Yeah, I, I grew up in Panama. I was born in Panama and I grew up in Panama and, and that has colored who I am, and I feel very grateful and lucky to have been born there. One thing that occurs in places where not everything is perfect, where there's a— it's a country that's under development, is that people have to figure out solutions to their problems on a daily basis, right? So that is the basis of innovative thinking. You're always figuring out the way around, the way in what is the trick that would unlock new things. When I came to the United States, I carried that with me. My mentality has always been there must be a way to unlock the issues and create solutions to the problems that we see. That has helped me a lot in my career and in my entrepreneurial journey.

Problem solving is probably one of the core tenets of starting something from scratch and being a founder. So Daniel, I'm curious, Did you always think you were going to become a founder?

No, I'm an accidental founder. What happened for me was that I started in the world of energy, and because I was in the space, I could see that there were a lot of solutions to potential problems and problems that were occurring in terms of efficiency, improvement of sustainability, resiliency, etc. And air conditioning became one of those big problems that I realized were coming. And so once you start looking for something, you end up finding solutions and finding things and you become responsible for them. And for me, I carried the weight and the, of, of the responsibility of knowledge that required me to act to make it real. And so I had to become a founder. I had no choice. It was for the planet, for my kids. And if I didn't do it, who else? Wood.

Absolutely. Let's dive a little bit into your early career, which sort of paved the way for what is now Blue Frontier. You have a PhD in mechanical engineering and thermal sciences and an MBA from the University of Florida, as Madison mentioned in your introduction, which kickstarted a career in the energy space since 1997. Tell us what attracted you to this problem space and What sort of drew you to innovating on the frontier of energy?

We live in a world, a civilization that depends on our capacity to utilize energy that goes well beyond the energy that we are able to produce and that the animals around us are able to give us. We have transcended the biological boundaries of our energy systems, of the things that we can do to create everything that we have. Now, that world that we live in is under enormous pressure right now because it is unsustainable. That is the biggest problem that we have as a civilization, is how do we transcend from the energy systems that we have today to energy systems that are sustainable, efficient, and do not lead to climate change and catastrophic climate change. I love big problems and I love big solutions. So if I'm going to become a founder, I want to go and solve the biggest thing I can find. And it turned out that the energy space is full of it, right? I had my pick of the litter, sort of.

Let's talk about some of your early moments in innovation in the ecosystem. While you're a founder today, you previously had been CEO and CTO of B Power Tech, which was also in and around air conditioning specifically. Tell us a little bit about how that prior work experience leading a company that you hadn't founded really informed the wedge and the opportunity that we're going to talk about here with Blue Frontier.

So that early company was a result of my career's journey. So I started in power generation, advanced power generation, advanced fuels in the vehicle space, working on fuel cells and advanced fuels. And in that space, I was always finding myself having to provide electricity to things that are in buildings, in telecommunication towers, in cars. And the most annoying load, electrical consuming load in all of those spaces is air conditioning. So air conditioning is very high use of electricity and it does it at the wrong time. And so it's highly concentrated. And that drives the price and the cost of everything that you build. So I said, we need to solve that problem. But in that early company, I was thinking about it still in the power generation standpoint. I said, wouldn't it be great if I could create an air conditioner that produces electricity as a byproduct? And so I merged fuel cell technology with advanced liquid desiccant air conditioning technology which is a precursor of where I ended up in the advanced air conditioning space. But still I was thinking most of the importance is on power generation. That's a cardinal sin, by the way. I did two things, a cardinal sin here in start, in a startup. I needed to develop new fuel cell technology, which was early stage technology, and then I needed to invent a whole completely new air conditioner. And those two things depended deeply on each other for the success of the company, which meant You would require enormous amount of money and the risk profile of the company was very high. I still was able to obtain investment for it, but it was fragile. So the insight into the creation of Blue Frontier was realizing that the problem of air conditioning is one of time of usage and efficiency of the air conditioning itself. The renewable energy, the energy space is actually solving the problem of power generation. Right now, the levelized cost of electricity from photovoltaics and wind energy is the lowest cost of electricity, but it doesn't occur all the time, and air conditioning turns on at the wrong time. So we need batteries and we need new infrastructure for all of that. But if we can shift the load of air conditioning such that it matches renewable, that would be game-changing. And so that realization led to investigation together with the National Renewable Energy Labs into solving that specific problem, which led to Blue Frontier.

Thank you so much for explaining that to those of us who don't have a PhD in mechanical engineering so well. I feel like I actually understand what maybe are some of the laws that you're defying by the innovative tech you've built with Blue Frontier and kind of the aha moment that your prior roles helped to build on to actually get to this current juncture. Let's talk a little bit about the MVP. What was that initial product that you were able to build that challenged these assumptions?

We realized that we could make an ultra-efficient air conditioner, one that would be at least 3 times more efficient than a conventional one. And we were looking at that in terms of the relationship of the air conditioner to the building owner. So efficiency means that you're going to reduce the cost of running your unit, but it also means that the amount of electrical infrastructure that you need in order to run your air conditioner is reduced, which is really important to cross over into developing markets because they don't have all the infrastructure already built for power production. The second thing is we needed to make air conditioner have energy storage within it, make it a flexible electrical consumer. That has enormous impact on the electric utility. Ultimately, what we're trying to do is create a system that eliminates infrastructure costs to the electric utility and increases the margin at which they produce energy, which means aligning electricity production, consumption of the air conditioner to renewable energy, which is good for the planet. That has economic benefit and social benefit. We can charge the utility for that benefit. Which reduces the capital cost of acquiring air conditioner to the building owner. And then the building owner gets the benefit of recurring energy savings and also an overall better air conditioner in that we can control humidity and temperature independent of each other and other goodies that improve indoor air quality and the health of people inside buildings. So we were planning the MVP based on clear consideration of each one of the constituents that this thing would touch and making sure that it would align with our mission, which is to create sustainability. So global sustainability by improving people's lives in a way that is equitable. By having this complex value stream, it would allow us to create financial models that open up the acquisition of air conditioning to anybody that needs it.

You are unlocking a tangled web of stakeholders across municipalities, B2B consumers, real estate owners, and really the energy grid itself. And so having to have that complex of a network from day zero really does take a powerful engine behind you. We're curious who perhaps was the first investor to say yes to backing this big idea.

The first investment came from the Third Derivative, which was the Rocky Mountain Institute. And it came from telling them the entire story. A lot of times as founders, we have in our minds a cathedral, but we talk a lot about the trench, right? It is important to talk about the cathedral and how the trench gives you an edge to creating all of this. The Rocky Mountain Institute has this incubator called the Third Derivative, which actually provides investment. but it also allows for venture capital to put money into the company. So we got our first money through them, and then Volo Earth Ventures put also money together with them, creating that seed round. And we also opened it up to friends and family, which created that $1.75 million of initial capital into the company, allowed us to get out of working in our garages and, and actually start producing systems.

You need a place to put the $1.75 million. And so I think that's a great segue to talk about one of the key partners and stakeholders really in a company's journey, which is the bank. Tosh, I'd love your take. Silicon Valley Bank is known as one of the best banking partners for startups, investors, the technology ecosystem overall. I'd love to hear your take on how SVB is uniquely positioned to best service founders like Daniel as they tackle big problems and start their journey of building the next big thing?

For me, I always think of the ABCs of banking: availability, bankability, like what's your bank's ability to handle your billion-dollar idea, and C for me is culture. So let's start with availability. Some of you may be in the dating market, maybe some of you are off the market. But you remember those first dates, right? If it feels like you're constantly on a first date with your banker, what's your name? What's your business? What's your 5-year plan? Or if your banker is leaving you on read, you look on your phone and it's just a sea of blue bubbles. Or even worse, my worst nightmare is when every time you call it's a different girl or gal. So it's always a first date for me. Those are red flags. You want to think of this as a long-term relationship that you want to engage in. And for us at SVB, I like to think that we bring that Cheers-like quality to the banking relationship where everybody knows your name. We really do consider ourselves your relentless partners in possibilities. And so we go out of our way to really curate, drive, create guidance, and partner with visionaries. And we do this in a really specific and unique bespoke way to each client. To us, every client is a potential founder that's going to be building big ideas, and we treat you like the individual that you are. Then B for bankability. What is your bank's ability to bank your bold, brilliant billion-dollar idea? Now, any bank can bank a million-dollar idea, but we know that our founders want to change the world. So usually that means you're gonna scale to a billion-dollar idea. As the world's number one venture bank, We understand venture debt, revenue streams, valuations, product pricing, and other considerations that a regular retail bank would not consider when valuing your valuation of your business and understanding why your business is important. Like I said before, we are driven by a maniacal focus on client success, and so we really lead with empathy as we walk through your business plan. And honestly, we've been around for 40 years. We were purpose-built for startups. So we have certainly been there, done that, wore the t-shirt, and there's probably nothing that you're going to go through in your founder journey that this bank does not have the bankability to help you with. And then last but not least, culture. Is your bank culturally competent? Do they understand the power of your culture, your heritage, the passion behind your pursuits, what you saw happen growing up that made you want to think about energy costs and saving energy and allowing people to get access to critical things that they need? And do they have that sector knowledge to help you navigate your chosen sector? We all know that being a founder can be incredibly lonely. So if you ask around and you find that there's a cohort somewhere, that might be a great place for you to be as well, because what your bank should be doing for you as well is unlocking access to different solutions, to different founders, to different pools. I'm proud to say that we also are the world's largest banker of not just the founders, but the funders that fund them— LPs, VPs, VPs, PEs. And so we are able to help you find your tribe, not just to take the journey with you, but to help you to that end destination.

Thank you for orienting us around this really helpful ABC framework. A question for both you, Tosh, and Daniel, maybe we'll start with you, Tosh. The founder journey is often a lonely one. Tell us why it's important for founders like Daniel to have strong banking relationships with their banking partner?

If we think back to the pandemic, I know it feels like a long time ago, but back in 2020 with the PPP loans, a lot of people had challenges getting them because their banker didn't know their name, they were left on read. And I think it's really important to start those relationships early before you really need them. The people that got access to those loans were the ones that picked up the phone, And immediately they spoke to Louise, and Louise was like, of course, we've had this relationship for a really long time. I understand your business. I'm not asking you those first date questions. I understand exactly who you are and what kind of loan you need at this point. So I would say the first step when you really have a business that you want to build is to start dating around and choosing that long-term partner. So I would say as early as possible, the Best time to have a banking relationship is yesterday. The next best time is today. And so what do those relationships offer? First of all, they offer guidance and support in helping you navigate your startup finances effectively. It's the first time you are doing it. It's not the first time your bank's doing it. So they can really give you all of that advice from decades and decades of working with startups. Second, of course, money. They offer you access to loans, lines of credit, different funding options and access to potential investors. And last but not least, because they know you, they can customize solutions. There is usually a solution for every problem. The question is, is your bank able to customize their solution to fix your problem? And so we can customize and tailor solutions to really fit your business specifically.

Daniel, tell us a little bit about your experience with SVB and why your relationship with your banker at SVB has been so important as a part of the Blue Frontier journey.

Absolutely. SVB has been a critical part of the innovation ecosystem. They understand companies that are going through the entrepreneurial journey with disruptive technology and with visions of changing the world, and that's really critical. Because the things that you need from your bank are different than a traditional company. And that includes the culture that you're trying to establish, the relationships that you have with investors, what type of reporting that you must do, the level of processes and flexibility, the combination between the two things that you need to have in order to be nimble. All of those things are very well understood by a bank that caters directly to our community, and that gives SVB an edge. It's the first bank that we called when we first got funded. And so the relationship that I have with my banker is I can lift up the phone and talk about my problems, and they can be financial problems, but also there can be networking problems. You guys put things like this together, which enable us to talk to our network, understand from other founders their own journey and learn from that, but also having access to capital that we didn't think we, we could have. So all of that is quite enabling, and that's why we think you guys are really important and we're very lucky to have you.

Tosh, you mentioned that beginning a banking relationship should start as early as possible, and obviously the needs of your banking partner, Daniel, when you were a seed stage company is very different than after you raised $20 million. Tosh, maybe walk us through the lifecycle and sort of journey across stages of how SVB partners with companies from inception to IPO.

We're with you from seed stage through IPO. So a girl and her dog in a basement in New Jersey. I pick a different city each time, but yes, this time she's in New Jersey. What does she need? At this stage, it could look very similar at any bank. Your needs are quite small, it could just be credit solutions, typical banking services. But this is where it's important to know whether you're building— if you're just stacking bricks, whether you're building a house, or if you're building the Sixtine Chapel and it's going to become a World Heritage Site. We really hope that all of our bankers believe that they are building the next wonder of the world. Then you get to that next stage, which is where your banking services really need to be differentiated for that growth and expansion. One day you have $250, the next year you have $25 million in the bank. Does your bank know how to support that? Do they know how to look at the fact that you have $25 million in the bank, but you also don't have any revenue yet? That growth and expansion phase where you need more comprehensive services, including growth capital, treasury, cash management services, risk management, et cetera. That's where we really kick in and you'll start to see the difference. And then of course, that network and community building. We're still the world's number one bank. Do not believe the rumors of our death. They were greatly exaggerated. I like to say that we did not fail, we fell, and like all good founders, we got back up because that's what we do. And so typically I would say start working at the early stage if you can, but at various stages, depending on your needs, there is always an opportunity to engage with SVB to help us take you again to that Sixteenth Chapel moment.

Thank you so much for both diving into where we know Silicon Valley Bank can lean in and be a true partner to founders and other ecosystem stakeholders. Daniel, we left you off talking about getting that initial capital. You're ready to hit the ground running in 2018 to really build the Blue Frontier vision to life. Walk us through that go-to-market motion. Once you had built that MVP product, and how you approached tackling the web of stakeholders that you had, you knew you had to get in front of to sell this product.

Absolutely. The way that we approached the market was by communicating directly, laser-focused on the right stakeholders from the customer side, but also the ecosystem of people that determine the buying decision associated or the partnership decisions associated with that stakeholder network. One thing that we had as a benefit, and one of the reasons I, I like where we are in terms of the air conditioning industry, is that it's highly mature. So the pathways by which technology is vetted, it's pretty well understood. So we could just walk into those and start the process of vetting the technology and talking about the things in the context of what is important to the different stakeholders. It is not necessarily easy because there are conflicting things that people want. So we— I sometimes joke that the communications of Blue Frontier have to be a little bit of it's the same, but it's completely different, right? And different stakeholders want things to be the same, very common. I understand it. It matches standards and that have been created by the industry for the last 50 years. But why would I even engage with you if this doesn't move things to the next level? It's because I can solve all these problems that you guys are trying to figure out how to solve. We're very lucky also to have been in the industry for a while, so we have a lot of contacts in the space, and we are also in an industry that is thirsty and needing to find solutions in a very fast— that are very difficult to solve, and they have to do it in a very short timeframe. So we do have the wind, the wind in our backs, which is important. Victor Hugo used to say, there's nothing more powerful than an idea. The second part is really important, whose time has come. And I think that our time has come.

It's really powerful to hear the importance of storytelling alongside actually a product and innovation that really can back up the story that you're telling to your stakeholders. It's not an easy thing, though, to sell a hardware solution with a software component into a very complicated web, as you alluded to. Tell us advice you'd have to a founder here in the room or someone online who might be thinking about tackling this space or those kinds of companies where you are bringing digital and physical together in this way.

Definitely. It is really important that your company is creating a product that has a little bit of overlap or some overlap with things that people already buy. I've been in the industry of advanced energy technology in which I've been working for companies that develop technologies that we hope people will buy. It's amazing. It's great. Look at all these things that it can do. I, as a consumer, as a customer, I can see why that's important, but I don't understand why it's important because I've never written a check. Around it. So the reason we decided to do the energy revolution starting with an air conditioning system is because we know there's an established market. We know what people buy and we know why they're buying it. We know what the pain points are in the industry and we can talk specifically about that, giving us the competitive edge with conventional units. But you have to be careful not to stay there because there is a huge barrier to doing something new, especially with hardware. The market, even though it wants to be innovative, is highly conservative. You have to give someone enough of a value proposition that is coming associated with those other services that you unlock that makes it such that it must be tried. And so I talk about overwhelming benefits, not incremental benefits. We must be developing product It's very easy for us to say, let's just increase the efficiency by 30% and that's good enough. Like, that's better than everyone. No, that's not good enough. It has to be 3 times. We have to have energy storage. We need to be able to shift that load. We need to be able to create those value props that sound like science fiction but tied in with something that you already buy. And I think that's the trick, or I hope that's the trick.

I'm sure that resonates with you, Claudia, as a founder yourself and your journey of selling a product and having to go against competitors that do it fine. Air conditioning works just fine.

Absolutely. It's all about that 10x improvement, not so much the nuances of something that might make it a little bit better. It's not quite good enough to necessarily revolutionize and break into an already established sector.

It is important to realize also that there is potentially nothing more powerful in terms of changing people's perceptions and changing culture than technology. Technology shapes us in ways that they don't require politics. They don't care, right? It just happens. And now the impossible is possible. That includes new business models that weren't there before because they were impossible to occur. And so it is important we realize that as Blue Frontier, and we are chasing not just the technology, but the business models that technology enable that break down the perverse incentives in terms of the buying decision that make it such that other people have failed. My recommendation to, to founders in general is to sort of find a way to, how should I say this, like hapkido your way into the market by changing the rules of the game that you enable. Anyway, that's additional to this idea of game-changing innovation.

That's so helpful. And it's always important to understand what you're trying to solve for today versus what you're trying to solve for tomorrow as well. And sometimes those can be two different things, but ideally they're complementary. And I'm struck by how much we need this product. As climate change continues, it's going to get hotter. We're going to want more air conditioning. But that's not helping the problem. So there really is this diametrically opposed challenge with energy and what we're gonna have and need to face as a society. And we're thrilled that you've raised $20 million recently in a Series A to continue furthering this goal. We, we can clap. I think it's pretty, pretty awesome. And we can't wait to see where you continue to go with Blue Frontier. But taking a step back out of your business specifically, Could you just tell us a little bit about what you're excited around clean tech and how that space is going to continue to look in the next, say, 10, 20 years?

Think about this. Everything you have and everything that you do is based on technology that is unsustainable. Everything. The entire economy is based on technology that is unsustainable and is old and it's ripe for innovation. So innovation requires problems to be solved. There is an enormous problem. Everybody is living with things, processes, and products that need to be transformed for us to be able to live in a sustainable planet. And we're not talking about a, like, long, long period of time. We're talking about having made these changes in the next 50 years such that we can live as humans and in civilized worlds for the next 100 years. Many of us, I hope, are gonna be alive during this period of time, right? I will, my kids are. And I would say that should be extremely inspiring because it opens up the capacity to create a new world in which our products are better, The way we consume is better. The business models are better. The interactions that we have with companies are better. And all of this is happening at a time of explosive innovation in every single sector of science and technology, from quantum computing to AI to manufacturing processes to materials. We have never had such an explosion in capacity of ingenuity of the human race than we are now. So we have all the tools in our hands to transcend the civilization that we have into sustainable. And that's the incredible opportunity, because if you are investing in clean tech, you are investing in the companies that are going to be the founding companies that create the infrastructure of the world of tomorrow. And that's extremely exciting. Now, if you ever go to a clean tech conference, you will meet people that what they're doing is science fiction. It is amazing the things that can be done by thinking about the problem differently. And we have lived through it in our own lives. These lights are LED. You bring Thomas Alva Edison down and you show them this, he wouldn't understand how this is possible. So I say, you know, with air conditioning, if you were to bring Carrier, he would recognize the same machine. So it's ripe for the picking. There's a bunch of technology like that.

Thank you for giving us a glimpse into the future and really an inspiring call to action for innovating in this space. I'd love to look more towards the future of some other initiatives that SVB is leaning into that helps founders like yourself, Daniel. Tosh, tell us a little bit more about SVB Catalyst 2045 and how Catalyst gets involved with game-changing companies like Blue Frontier Labs.

SVB's Catalyst 2045 is the bank's mission, a company-wide effort to bring the benefits of SVB to Black, Latinx, and female Founders and funders, innovators and investors, as the bank that banks what's next, we recognize that the year 2045 is the year where America is on par to have what is currently considered the minority be the majority. And we already know that women are 51% of America, so it just makes sense. People say it's like a trite thing right now that a diversified portfolio performs better over the long term. But for some reason, when it comes to diversifying your portfolio, actually diversifying your portfolio, people forget some of these really known capital market theory assumptions. And so I actually have a thought experiment for everyone. Crowd participation. Did anyone this morning use a computer? Oh, look, it's everyone. Did anyone use a refrigerator? Okay, home security camera, stop at a traffic light. Okay, has anyone here had or known anybody that's had a heart transplant and now has a pacemaker? All of these things were created by women, Black and Latinx individuals right here in America. So imagine what our world would look like with rotting food, people who are no longer with us because of the heart transplants that weren't able to happen. Even simple things like being able to work virtually over COVID, all of these innovations were created by Black, Latinx, and female founders. And so we recognize that as the bank that banks, what's next is going to look increasingly different as these communities continue to develop solutions for their communities. Who would've thought that pantyhose in a slightly different tan color would be revolutionary? But this is the stuff that's making Rihanna a billionaire in 2023. The fact that there are so many untapped solutions that are not being funded is something that we are proud not just to take a look at and say, this is the way the world is going, but we're actually taking an active role in pioneering this change. We're taking an active role in being changemakers to make sure that we continue to be the bank's big ideas, influencers, innovators, the world's next most influential companies. Catalyst 2045 is actively looking for you. We're looking to bank you. We're looking to be your relentless partners in opportunities.

Thank you for sharing that with us, Tosh, and incredibly important, the mission that Catalyst has. There's so much goodness you guys are focused on. Tell us, what can we look forward to next year coming from Catalyst?

If you've been with us over these 5 days at Art Basel, uh, we will be back next year, so you can look forward to that. But we are here in Miami, and we've been here in Miami, by the way, in Florida for over 20 years because we recognize that it is the gateway to Latin America. Miami's 70% Hispanic, 50% Cubana. And so what we see is a lot of the innovations coming from Miami are solving not just for American problems, but for global problems. So you should expect to see us showing up a lot more in Miami next year. Additionally, because we are focused on Black innovators, we also want to see more of ourselves in Atlanta. We recognize that Atlanta is trying to build the Black Silicon Valley. On the East Coast, and we wanna be a part of that. Again, we wanna stay on the cutting edge of what's next and not be those Luddites who are trying to knock over the spinning jennies and hope that it never happens. We actually wanna be at the forefront of what's happening. And of course, we support female founders. And so we want to just shout out, I can just give you an example by our partners here this year. You should expect us to continue to work with Orais, Black VC, Somos VC, Rain Ventures, Concrete Rose, Afrotech, Emerj. You should expect to continue to see Silicon Valley leaning in, looking for business development opportunities to really bring access to capital, tools, resources, mentorship, and funding to founders in these emerging segments.

We'll be very happy to be back here next year. I thank you so much for that invite, Tosh, and I know we're standing between you all and lunch, so We're going to close here with our hero question that we ask on every podcast. We're going to ask it to you both, which is really, who is a woman in your life that has had a profound impact on you and your career? And Tosh, we'll go ahead and get started with you.

This is a great question, and it's so tough as a woman to find another woman professionally who has had a profound mark on your career, because we know that we're still fighting that battle in the C-suite. But for me, it would be my former CEO at Chase, who is now the CEO of TIAA-CREF, one of only two Black female CEOs in the Fortune 10, Thasunda Brown Duckett. And for me, she's an example of a visionary leader who has emerged as a pioneer and a beacon of inspiration for Black women everywhere. And one anecdote I have from back in 2020, and as a Black woman in corporate America, you don't know what it's going to do because Black hair has been policed for a number of years. Only just last year, New York City passed the Crown Act, which meant that I'm qualified if my hair looks like this, I'm qualified if my hair is an afro, I'm qualified if my hair is in braids. It does not take away my qualification or disqualify me the way I wear my hair. And one of the reasons I was actually able and felt comfortable doing that is because I saw Thasunda wear her hair in braids and still be one of the most powerful women in America. I believe she's number 3 on the most powerful women in finance. And I joined this quarterly business review for the team I used to run, Advancing Black Pathways at Chase, and she saw my hair in braids for the first time and she was like, "Who's your braider?" I was like, "I don't really know anyone in New York. I had this done in London. I just got back." She put me on a group text with the lady that braids her hair in Harlem. Never in my life, first of all, have I ever had a Black female CEO. Has anyone else? Yeah, that's what I thought. So I'm hoping that I can be the second, but I think that there's a handful of people in life that get to say they had a Black female CEO, but then to have one that puts you on a personal text with her hair braider and it's like, hey guys, we're gonna start in 2 minutes. I just gotta do something real quick. And I'm like, what's the something real quick? Madison McIlwain, then my phone dings and it's like, "This is my girl, take care of her." It really, really touched me. And like, it's no small thing to be one of only two Black female CEOs. And I feel like sometimes the people that pave the pathways don't necessarily get acknowledged by the people that walk those pathways shrub-free, bush-free, thorn-free after them. So I'm just gonna take this moment to give Tisander her flowers for taking on those thorny briars ahead of us and making it a little easier for the rest of us.

That absolutely deserves applause and really appreciate you sharing that personal story as well as teasing out the importance of representation both at a micro level and at a macro level in your own life. So thank you for that, Taj. All right, Daniel, bring us home. Who's a woman in your life?

So I have two, but I'll start with Dr. Jean Andino. She was a professor at the University of Florida. She's now at Arizona State University. She gave me a fellowship that allowed me to get my PhD. I remember being in that interview when she was interviewing me and asking me, and I was a kid, why I wanted to have a PhD and what would I do with it, etc. And I sounded naive at the time, but she saw something in me and believed in me and allowed me to continue studying with the backing that I needed in order to be able to complete those studies. So she believed in me and that was extraordinary. And she was, again, a Black woman. Sometimes you just need someone to say, yes, you can do it. And the second one, I must say, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, would be my grandmother, another Black woman in Panama who was an entrepreneur. She and her husband decided that they were not going to continue to work for someone, even though they were Black people in Panama at a time that being Black in Panama was not easy, right? Panama had the laws in the Canal Zone of Louisiana, so it was Jim Crow Panama, but they still decided they believed in themselves enough to build a business and then build multiple business, which change the, the destiny of my family. And they didn't have the right last name, they didn't have the right family, they didn't have the right race, they didn't come from the right background, and they were able to transcend every single one of those things. Once you see them do that as a part of your legacy of my family, you believe we can do it too, right?

It's so powerful to hear that generational story in your own family. I know you shared with me before we got on stage that you have 4 brothers total, or 3 for yourself, and 3 of the 4 are entrepreneurs. One of them is here in the room with us. And so just to see that importance of representation yet again, even within one's family. Thank you so much both for sharing those stories, because I'm pretty stoked for 2045. I feel like it's going to be a good year. I don't know about you, but seriously, this has been such a fun conversation. It's so such a pleasure for Claudia and myself to be up here with The Room Podcast sharing these stories. We will stream this episode as a part of our 10th season, so definitely check it out there and you can say in earnest you were in the room where it happened. Be sure to grab a hat, grab some lunch, and stick around for some other great programming here with the SVB Catalyst team. Thank you all. Thank you so much for joining us at The Room Podcast. If you want more from The Room every week, subscribe to our newsletter. At theroompodcast.com/newsletter. We'll be back next week with a new episode, an inspirational guest, Tuesday, 10:00 AM Eastern, 7:00 AM Pacific. See you in the room.

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